"What went wrong?" he asked, turning, meeting Curval's eyes.
"We're not sure," Curval answered, looking past Lever at the eleven shaven-headed bodies. "It seems like some kind of virus, but we're not certain."
Lever licked dryly at his lips. "Why not?"
Curval shifted awkwardly. "Because it might not be that. All of the corpses show traces of the thing, but the virus itself doesn't seem harmful. My personal belief is that it's a long-term side effect of the drug treatment. But we'll know that for sure as soon as weVe tested a few of the living immortals."
Immortafs . . . Old Man Lever shuddered and turned back, staring down into the blank face of one of the dead. There had been deaths before, of course, mainly from accidents, but nothing on the scale of this. No. Once this got out...
"Does anybody know? I mean, apart from the staff here?"
Curval nodded. "I'm afraid so. The clause in the original contracts allowed us to bring all the bodies back here—for tests—but there's been trouble with some of the relatives. I got a team onto it at once, but it looks like a group of them are going to go public, tonight at ten."
Curval waited, tensed inside, for the Old Man to explode with anger, but there was nothing. Lever simply stood there, as if in shock, staring down at the nearest corpse.
"There's no choice, then," he said, after a moment. "We have to go public before they do."
"Is that wise? I mean, what will we say?"
"That the treatment is a failure. And that we're working on something new. Something better. Something that weVe just invested a further ten billion yuan into."
Curval blinked. "WeVe got new sponsors?"
Lever shook his head. "No. The money will come direct from ImmVac. At the same time we'll be making substantial payments to all those on the present program to ensure that they receive the best medical treatment possible in the coming days."
Curval bowed his head. "I see."
So the rumor was true: some of the major sponsors had pulled out. If news of that broke at the same time as this, then the Project was as good as dead. And even if it survived, it would be the object of wide-scale public derision. Faced with that possibility, Old Man Lever was willing to double the stakes and risk all on a further throw of the dice. To make a brave face of it and ride out the present storm, hoping to limit the damage.
And who knew?—it might even work.
Curval looked up again, meeting the Old Man's eyes. "So what do you want me to do?"
"I want some kind of research outline. Something that'll sound impressive. And I want some visuals of our best men at work in the labs. You know the kind of thing."
Curval nodded. "And the boy? Ward?"
Lever stared back at him, eyes narrowed. "Offer him what he wants. Whatever he wants. But get him."
WHEN CURVAL HAD GONE, Lever walked slowly up the line, then back, stopping beside the last of the corpses, that of a fifty-seven-year-old woman.
For a long time he stared down at her, at the cold, pale shape of her, unable to take in what had happened. Her name was Leena Spence and she had been one of the first of his "immortals." He had slept with her once or twice, before she'd had the treatment, but lately, tied up in the business of the Institute, he had seen little of her.
And now it was too late.
He shivered, the cold beginning to get to him at last. So this was death. This. He swallowed, then leaned closer, studying the fine blue tracery of lines that covered the pale, smooth flesh of her skull like the hand-drawn pictograms in an old Han notebook.
He reached out, running his fingers over the faint blue lines, as if to gauge the mystery of it, but it was like a map he could not read of a country he did not know. Queequeg's back, Curval had called it once, for some reason, and that came back to Lever now, making him frown, then shake his head, as if to deny what had happened here. But they were dead. His immortals were dead. Eight yesterday, a further five today, like machines being switched off one by one.
A virus, Curval had said. But what kind of virus? Something harmless. Harmless and yet deadly. If that was what had done this.
Old Man Lever drew his hand back, shuddering, then turned and walked swiftly away, rehearsing words and phrases in his head, beginning at once upon the task that lay ahead.
ROSS LAY on the narrow bed, reading, files scattered all about him. Nearby, at the table, Milne was hunched over his comset, working through the transcripts of the interviews they had done that morning. The stay-over was a small, spartanly furnished room that had cost them ten yuan for the week. Not that they planned to stay a week.
No. For with what they'd got that morning, they could probably wrap things up that evening.
They had tracked down more than thirty of the former inhabitants of Mary Jennings's "birth-deck," including a midwife who had worked there more than forty years. Not one of them had any knowledge of the girl. That, in itself, might not have been conclusive. There were between five and ten thousand people in an average deck, and it was possible—just possible—that their sample was insufficient. But the results of the facial identification check had confirmed what they had suspected all along. Mary Jennings was a fake. In reality she was Emily Ascher. A European.
"Listen to this," Ross said, sitting up, then turning to face his partner. "It seems that her father was involved in some kind of scandal. He was an official in the Hu Pu, the Finance Ministry. It looks like he made some kind of mistake on the interest rates. There was a Hearing and he was kicked out. The family fell. One hundred and twenty levels. Six months on, the father was dead. The mother had to cope with the child on her own."
Milne looked down. "How old was she?"
"Nine, I think."
"Then maybe that's why."
Ross frowned. "Why what? I don't follow you."
"Why she became a terrorist."
Ross laughed. "Are you serious, Mike? I mean, what evidence have we got?"
"Instinct," Milne said, glancing at him nervously. "I've been thinking about it. She's not your usual kind of sleeper. I mean, she's a woman for a start. And most industrial espionage is short-term. The sleeper gets in, does his job, and gets out—as quick as possible. They're in a year at most. I've not known one to be in there as long as her. And then there's the background. Maintenance and economics. The combination fits the profile. Remember that report we read about the makeup of the Ping Tioo. I reckon that's what she was. Ping Tioo. The timing fits too. She vanished only weeks after Bremen. And then here she is, over here, in the Levers' employ. There has to be a reason for that."
"Coincidence," Ross said, putting his feet down onto the floor. "For a start the Ping Tioo had no foothold over here. Besides, it would take real clout to destroy a deck and all its records."
Milne shook his head. "1 think the fire was genuine. An accident. But someone took advantage of it. Someone with Security training, perhaps. And a lot of influence."
Ross's eyes slowly widened. "DeVore? You mean DeVore, don't you?"
Milne nodded. "They say he was working with them at the end. So why not this? It's the kind of thing he was good at."
"But why? What's his motive?"
"I don't know. Just that it all fits. Her background. The timing. The nature of the deception. And it makes sense, too, of the spare ID of Rachel De Valerian. I think she was put in as a terrorist sleeper. Biding her time. Waiting to set up over here, when the time was right."
Ross was quiet a moment, considering things, then he nodded. "It would certainly make sense of why she left Old Man Lever to join up with the son. That was bothering me. But if DeVore put her in over here . . ." He laughed. "Hey. Maybe you're onto something."
"Then maybe we should get it all written up and get back to Richmond straight away."
Ross looked down. "You think we should take this to Lever, then?"
"Why, who were you thinking of?"
"Wu Shih, perhaps?"
Milne laughed uneasily, but before he could answer there was a faint rapping at the door.
Ross looked at Milne tensely, then stood. Drawing his gun he crossed to the door.
"Who is it?"
"Room service!"
Ross glanced at his partner. Did you order room service7, he mouthed.
Milne shook his head, then stood, drawing his own gun.
Ready7. Ross mouthed. Milne nodded. Moving to the side, Ross reached out and thumbed the door lock. As the door irised back, a tall Han stepped into the room, carrying a fully laden tray, covered in a cloth.
"Compliments of the management," he said, setting the tray down on the bedside table, then turned, a look of surprise and shock coming into his eyes as he saw the drawn guns. "Ch'un tzu?"
Ross looked to Milne then back at the Han. Only then did he lower his gun and, with a faint, embarrassed laugh, went across and lifted the cloth from the tray. There were six bowls of steaming food.
"I'm sorry," he said, turning back and meeting the Han's eyes. "You can't be too careful. I thought. . ."
The movement of the Han's arm was deceptively fast. Ross felt himself being lifted and turned, something hard and acid-hot slicing deep into his back. There was the sound of a gun's detonation, followed instantly, it seemed, by the searing pain of a bullet smashing into his collarbone. Then he was falling toward Milne, the darkness enfolding him like a tide.