watching her face change slowly until it mirrored his own delight at the absurdity of things.
"If I can. . ." Tolonen murmured, echoing Kim's words, then laughed. But Kim didn't hear. He was still staring at the girl, seeing how she looked away from him, then back, something strange happening in her face even as he watched.
He looked down at the unopened file and nodded to himself. But the gesture had nothing to do with what was in the folder. Had nothing to do with physics, or projects, or Li Yuan's needs. It was the girl. In an instant he had decided something, irrevocably and without further doubt. He would not rest. Not until he had married her.
IN THE IMPERIAL SHOWER ROOM of Tongjiang, the maids of the inner household, Fragrant Lotus and Bright Moon, were preparing to wash the young T'ang's hair. Taking soft woolen towels from the big cupboards above the sinks, they laid them out beside the glazed bowls of unguents and shampoos, the silver combs and brushes, the trays of brightly colored beads and silken thread; then, returning to the sinks, they opened the great dragon mouths of the taps and sprinkled a fine, nut-brown, aromatic powder into the steaming crystal fall.
As they worked, Li Yuan watched them from his chair, at the center of the great tiled floor, enjoying the sight of the two young women, the sound of the ancient songs they hummed as they busied themselves about him, the sweet scent of their softly veiled bodies as they brushed past.
He sighed, for once not merely content but happy. For a long time he had denied himself such things as this, attempting to harden himself against the world, but now he understood. This too was part of it. Without these moments of soft luxury—of surrender to the senses—there was no balance to life, no joy. And without joy there could be no real understanding of the flow of things. No wisdom.
For a long time he had struggled to be what he was not. To be some purer, finer creature. But it was all in vain. From the day of his betrothal to Fei Yen, the balance of his life had been lost. Casting off his maids, he had cast off that part of him that needed warmth and comfort, a mother's touch. He had tried to shape himself, as a tailor cuts cloth to make a gown, but the gown he'd made had been too tight. It had stifled and disfigured him.
He looked down, remembering those times. To have one single, perfect love; that had been the dream. To have a woman who was all to him, just as he was all to her—like Yin and Yang, or night and day—that had been the dream. But the world was not a dream. The world was harsh and true to itself alone. In it there was falseness and betrayal, sickness and hatred, cruelty and loss. Loss beyond the strength of hearts to bear.
And yet there was this. This simple light of joy to set against the darkness of the times. The joy of a woman's touch, a child's embrace, the laughter of a loving friend. These simple things, weightless as they seemed in the great scale of things, were the equal of a hundred deaths, a thousand cruel blows. Feathers and iron. Joy and grief. Balanced.
Li Yuan laughed softly, then looked up, conscious suddenly that the maids had finished and were standing there before him, watching him.
"Chieh Hsia. . ." they said as one and bowed low, their smiles betraying how much they too enjoyed these moments alone with him.
"Here," he said, standing and putting out his arms to them. "Hsiang He. Ywe Hui. Come here, my little blossoms. Come here and tend to me."
TOLONEN WAS WAITING for him in his study, standing by the door to the eastern garden, his golden hand glinting in the sunlight as he turned to face his master.
"Chieh Hsia," the old man said, bowing low. "Forgive me if I came too early."
Li Yuan shook his head and laughed. "Not at all, old friend. The fault is mine. I spent too long in the shower this morning and now everything is running late."
"Then I will be brief, Chieh Hsia, and come directly to the point. You asked me to have my discovery checked out and analyzed. Well, I now have the preliminary findings and they are most disturbing. Most disturbing indeed."
Li Yuan looked across and saw the folder on the edge of his desk. "Is this it here, Knut?"
"That is it, Chieh Hsia.
Li Yuan stared at the Marshal a moment, then went around his desk and sat. Drawing the thickly padded folder toward him, he flipped it open. On top of the pile was a picture of the thing he had seen last time Tolonen had visited him. The thing he'd brought back with him from North America. In the picture it looked like a giant walnut, the size of a young child's hand. Just looking at it, Li Yuan could recall the scent of the original, the dry spicy mustiness of it.
A brain it was. An artificial brain. Smaller and less complex than a human brain, but a marvel all the same. In many ways it looked like the brains GenSyn produced for many of their top-range models, but this was different. GenSyn brains were limited things, grown from existent genetic material—painstakingly nurtured in baths of nutrients over a period of years. But this brain had been made. Designed and built, like a machine. A living machine.
When he had seen it first, a week ago, he had been unimpressed. The thing was long dead—the only one of five to have remained in its storage case. But the experimental notes—a small library of computer records—had been saved intact. Using them, Tolonen had spent the last week piecing together what had happened. Now, reading through his summary, Li Yuan felt himself go cold.
"Kuan Yin!" he said, looking up at Tolonen. "What put you onto this?"
The old man bowed stiffly. "Gaps in the record, Chieh Hsia. Things that didn't make sense. There was too much wastage of basic materials, for instance. The percentages were far higher than in previous years, so I did some digging, found out where the "waste" was being shipped, and followed the trail. As I suspected, it was being sold off cheaply, the funds being used to finance a small R and D establishment in the far south. That's where I found it all. Untouched. The room sealed up."
"A mistake, do you think?"
Tolonen shook his head. "I think we were just lucky. My guess is that whatever this was, it was almost ready to go. And the only reason it didn't is because we hit them first."
Li Yuan frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Look at the dates on the final research entries. They're all late autumn 2007. That's significant. That means this thing was coming to fruition at the same time that we dealt with Hans Ebert and DeVore. If I'm right, we settled with them before they could get this under way. Before they could use one of these things."
"I see. So you think this was Hans Ebert's doing?"
Tolonen sniffed deeply. "I'm certain of it. Not only are his initials on a number of the documents, but the whole thing has the twisted feel of one of his schemes. That said, I think he was making these things up for DeVore. Maybe even to DeVore's specifications. From the shipping documents we've found, they were going to be shipped to Mars."
"Mars?" Li Yuan stood, then walked slowly across to the window. "Why Mars?"
Tolonen turned, watching the young T'ang. "I'm not sure, Chieh Hsia, but I feel sure it has something to do with those copies that came in from Mars that time."
"But my father's investigations drew a blank."
"Maybe so. But perhaps we should look again. More thoroughly this time. Send Karr perhaps."
Li Yuan glanced at him, then looked back out at the sunlit garden. "Perhaps."