Even if death were the only payment for his pains.
LI YUAN was waiting for Nan Ho in his study when he arrived, the young T'ang dressed in the traditional clothes of mourning, as if it were his father who had just died. The great desk in front of him was unusually clear, only a small white envelope set to one side. Nan Ho glanced at it as he bowed, then looked again, surprised to find Wei Feng's distinctive seal set firmly in the bloodred wax.
"You have done well, Master Nan," Li Yuan said without preliminaries. "I have spoken to Wu Shih and Tsu Ma and they are pleased with the terms you have drawn up. I thought we might have had to give much more."
Nan Ho lowered his head again, but the mystery of the envelope distracted him. What message had the dead T'ang left? And was it to Li Yuan alone, or did all seven have similar envelopes?
"Now that the matter is settled, there is something else I would like you to take on, Master Nan."
Nan Ho met the young T'ang's eyes, for that brief moment bridging the great gulf in rank that lay between them. "Chieh Hsia?"
"I have had news from Tolonen in America. It seems he is on to something out there."
"Did he say what, Chieh Hsia?"
Li Yuan shook his head. "Don't you find it odd, Master Nan? I mean, it is most unlike the Marshal to keep things to himself. If he has a fault it is usually that he keeps us far too well informed."
Nan Ho laughed. "That is so, Chieh Hsia. But this is his old friend Klaus Ebert's business. Tolonen saw the man as a brother, and he goes about this business as a brother would."
"True enough," Li Yuan said thoughtfully. "I have noticed that already. He sees this as a debt of honor, neh?" t-
"That is so, Chieh Hsia. He did say one thing to me, however. At Nantes, before he left."
"Yes? And what was that?"
"He mentioned some anomalies in the GenSyn records for their North American operation. When I questioned him about it, he spoke of accounting irregularities, forged shipment details, missing documents, and the like. It was a bland, evasive answer. A safe answer. Yet when he met my eyes I knew he meant something else. Something is missing, Chieh Hsia, and Tolonen has gone to find it."
Li Yuan sighed. "I do not like it, Master Nan, but for once I shall have to put up with it. The Marshal is a stubborn old man, but an honest one. We shall find out when he is ready to tell us, I suppose. But in the meantime, I want you to find out what you can. I do not want us caught wholly unprepared."
Nan Ho bowed low. As ever he was already onto the matter. "As you wish, Chieh Hsia."
After the Chancellor had gone, Li Yuan leaned across, drawing the envelope toward him. In five hours Wei Chan Yin would be here.
He raised the letter to his nose and sniffed, then, setting it down again, shook his head. What had he expected? The smell of death? Of fear and darkness? Whatever, there was nothing. Nothing but the neutral scents of wax and ink and paper. Even so, he had felt a kind of fear—an almost primal dread—of what lay within that slender pocket of whiteness. It was fate, written in the dark, spidery hand of a dead man. Li Yuan shivered, thinking of it, and pushed it from him.
In five hours...
OLD MAN lever stood on the podium at the center of the crowd, a full whiskey tumbler held in one big, square-knuckled hand, a red, white, and blue silk folder in the other. Behind him, a huge stars and stripes banner was draped over the far end of the vestibule, concealing the entrance to the deck. Lever smiled and looked about him, lifting his glass in greeting. They were all gathered here today— all of the original investors—fifty of the most important men in the North American Above, multibillionaires every one of them. But it had been his idea and his drive which had brought this into being. And now, at the inauguration ceremony, it would be he, Charles Lever, who would take the lion's share of the praise.
"Gentlemen. . . Friends. . . Welcome." Lever combed a lock of steel-gray hair back from his eyes and beamed, showing strong, slightly yellowing teeth. "You all know why we're here and what we're here for, so let's skip the formalities and go right on in. I'm sure you're all as anxious as I am to see how the money has been spent. . ."
There was a roar of approval, and as Lever stepped down from the podium and made his way across, the small crowd followed, talking among themselves.
It was not often that they met, and to all it seemed particularly auspicious that it was on such a day, when news of Wei Feng's death and of the triumph at Weimar coincided. The normally placid old men fairly buzzed with the news. It was all linked in, they said; part of the new tide, turning in their favor. From the low ebb of their humiliation on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial they had rebuilt. And now their time was coming. The negotiations at Weimar had been the first step; the elections were the next. And each step would bring them closer to their aim—of a strong and independent America, free of the rule of the Seven, taking its rightful place in the world once more. Not an empire, maybe, but a nation. And who knew what might come of that? Maybe they would take up where they had left off and reach out for the stars, the eagle stretching its wings . . .
Beneath the huge stars and stripes banner Lever turned, facing them again. "I realize that you gentlemen have been champing at the bit, wanting to know what's been going on here, but when you see what has been achieved in the past ten months, I'm sure you'll agree that it was money well spent."
He lifted a hand. At the signal, the banner drew slowly to one side,
revealing a huge entrance tunnel, the walls and ceiling of which had been made to seem like marble. Over the entrance was a massive memorial stone, an inscription cut into the stone in a bold, classical face:
THE RICHARD CUTLER FOUNDATION FOR GENETIC RESEARCH
Opened this Seventh day of March, a.d. Two Thousand Two Hundred and Nine, by Charles Alexander Lever, Head of the ImmVeip Corporation of North America.
Through the archway could be glimpsed a bright space, landscaped like a great park, and in its midst something huge, like the plinth of a giant statue.
They went through, coming out into a wooded glade from which could be seen the full extent of the Foundation and its grounds.
Lever had had the top three decks "knocked into one" as he called it, so that the ceiling—a huge screen, programmed to seem like a summer sky—was a good two hundred ch'i overhead. But that was not what first caught the eye. In the center of the landscaped gardens was an immense building; a structure which was as familiar to the old men standing there as the stars and stripes of the Sixty-Nine States. The Empire State Building.
For a moment there was stunned silence and then an uproar as the old men clapped and yelped their approval.
"It's wonderful, Charles," his friend, the financier, James Fisher, said, slapping Levers shoulder enthusiastically. "The architect is to be congratulated. He's caught the spirit of the old building to perfection."
Lever beamed, conscious of congratulations from all sides. "Yes, he has, hasn't he. I gave him the basic idea and he came up with the rest. He had to modify, of course, but the general effect is just what I wanted. The labs and most of the research facilities are beneath this floor, of course—the whole thing stretches down another five decks— but this is the showpiece. The reception area, the main wards, and the lecture halls are all within the main building." He smiled and looked about him once more, "As you'll see."
In front of the huge studded entrance doors Lever turned and raised his hands. "Gentlemen! One last thing before we go in. I am proud to say that only yesterday I received delivery of the latest masterpiece by the greatest painter of our age, Ernst Heydemeier."