The word was unfortunately chosen, but still Li Yuan was patient. He would not, at this last moment, be drawn by her.
"You misunderstand me, Fei Yen," he said, leaning close, letting his voice carry only to her. "I know all about your lovers. But that is not why I am doing this. We live in troubled times. The guards are there for one reason only—to keep Han safe. As for you, my once-wife, I have no wish to meddle in your life. And you are quite wrong if you think I want you to suffer. No. I wish you only happiness."
For a moment she stood there, her dark eyes watching him. Then, with the faintest rustle of her silks, she turned away, walking quickly across the hangar and out into the early afternoon sunlight.
And Li Yuan, watching her go, felt a part of him drawn out after her, as if on a fine, invisible line, and knew, as he had not really known before, that he was not quite over her.
THE captain sat at a table, a bottle of Wang Sau-leyan's best wine open before him. A serving girl stood behind him, her fingers gently massaging his shoulder muscles while he watched the men at work on the far side of the hangar. The two craft looked identical from where he sat and, not for the first time, he found his thoughts turn uneasily to the question of why the T'ang of Africa should want a perfect copy of Chi Hsing's craft.
While servants set out the meal, the Captain turned his head, looking across to where Wang Sau-leyan was deep in conversation with a tall, odd-looking Han. The Han seemed central to all of this somehow. It was to him that the technicians came with their queries, and it was to him alone that they would defer, as if the great T'ang were invisible to them. That intrigued him—that absence of any mark of respect for Wang Sau-leyan. When he'd first seen it, he had been shocked, for it went against all instinct. But now he thought he understood.
He returned his eyes to the men, busy at work inside the right-hand craft, Chi Hsing's original. They had been at work now for over three hours, and in that time they had been most thorough. A team of six technicians had taken the control panels apart and painstakingly rebuilt them. Meanwhile, two of their colleagues had broken down the access codes to the craft's computer records and stripped them bare, making copies of everything—of security keycodes, pilot transmissions, field distortion patterns, and all. He had listened to their excited chatter and felt his unease grow. The copy craft would not simply look like Chi Hsing's, to all intents and purpose it would be Chi Hsing's. And Chi Hsing himself would know nothing of its existence.
Unless. . .
He felt the tension return to his muscles and tried to relax, to let the young girl's fingers work their magic spell, but it was difficult. Too much was going on inside. He looked at the bowls of delicacies that had been set before him, conscious of how, at any other time, he would have fallen upon such rare culinary delights, but just now he had no appetite. When Wang's agent had brought him, he had not expected any of this; had not really asked himself why Wang Sau-leyan should wish to delay his cousin's craft, accepting the man's reassurances. But this...
He shivered, then reached out to take some of the duck in ginger, forcing himself to eat; to act as if nothing were wrong. But beneath the outward mask of calm, he felt a sense of panic, knowing he had got himself in out of his depth. Why should Wang Sau-leyan go to such lengths to copy his cousin's craft unless he wished to use it? And why should he do that?
Moreover, the presence of these men—political terrorists, he was certain, if only from the way they pointedly refused to bow to the great T'ang—added a whole new dimension to things. To find such men here, at the heart of the T'ang's palace, what did that mean?
Across from the Captain, Wang Sau-leyan leaned back, nodding his satisfaction, then turned and came across. The Captain rose at once and bowed low, keeping his eyes averted.
"You have everything you need, Captain Gustavsson?"
He kept his voice calm, clear of the fear he felt deep down. "All is well, Chieh Hsia. I am honored to be of service to you."
It was not what he had meant to say, but it would do. Moreover, it reflected something true about the situation. He had not understood before, but, in taking Wang Sau-leyan's money, he had become Wang's man. There was no turning back from this. No way of excusing himself. Inadvertently he had committed himself to whatever was being done here.
If I had known . . .
But it was too late now for such thoughts. And when Wang put out his hand, he took and kissed the great ring of power, knowing that it was this or death, and there was his family to think of—his sons and baby daughter, his wife Ute, and his invalid mother. Wang knew that. He was sure to know it. It was why they had chosen him. Why it was even possible that Wang's agents had been in some way responsible for his money troubles. Certainly, he had never had so bad a night at Chou as that session six weeks back when he had lost eight thousand yuan at a single sitting. Even so, it had been his decision, and now he must live with it.
"If there is any further service I might offer, Chieh Hsia."
Wang smiled, his plump, moonlike face taking on an air of great benevolence. "Maybe there is something. For now, however, you have my gratitude, Captain. And my protection."
The Captain looked up, surprised, then quickly lowered his head once more. "I am deeply honored, Chieh Hsia."
"Well... let me keep you no more. Enjoy your meal while it is hot, Captain. Such pleasures are rare in life, neh?"
Rare indeed, he thought, looking through his lashes at the back of the retreating T'ang. He sat, his skin strangely cold, a new tightness at the pit of his stomach. Eat, he told himself. Enjoy the feast that's spread before you. But though there were dishes there he had never dreamed he would taste, things that only a T'ang might afford, he found himself picking at them dispiritedly, chewing the richly flavored foods listlessly, as if they were but tasteless copies of the things they purported to be.
He looked about him, as if waking, seeing the men working on the craft, the odd-looking Han standing nearby, supervising them, and nodded to himself, understanding. Lifting one hand, he put the fingers gently to his mouth, feeling once more the cold, hard pressure of the Yu>e Lung—the Wheel of Dragons—against the warm softness of his lips, then drew them back, as if the flesh were bruised.
WANG SAU -LEYAN stood at the rail, the dark stillness of the Nile beneath him, and looked up at the full and shining circle of the moon. For so long now he had held himself in check, containing his natural impulse to oppose and destroy. But now—finally—his patience would be rewarded.
He smoothed his hands over his ample stomach, then smiled broadly. It was strange how far he had come these past few years. Stranger still that he had not seen this in himself from the first. But it had always been there, since his first conscious moments.
They had never understood him. Not one of them. His father had disliked him from the start, repulsed by the pudgy little creature he had sired. His mother had persevered for a time, but had thought him a stubborn, willful child. Dismayed by his behavior and unable to control him except by the strictest measures, she had cast him from her side before he was three, having nothing further to do with him. Her sudden death, when he was seven, had left him curiously unaffected, unable to share in the general grief, but it had given him a strange, unchildlike understanding of his nature. From that moment on he had known it was his fate to stand outside that bright circle of human connectedness; to be an onlooker, cut off from kith and kin. A Han, a son, but really neither; more some alien creature born into a fleshy form. And from that moment's realization had come the urge to oppose, the impulse to destroy all that he touched.