She frowned, then stood, moving back slightly. "About what?"
"The attack on the Dragonfly Club. We're bringing it forward." He stood, then went over to his pack and took out a hefty-looking folder, holding it out for her to take.
She looked down at the folder, then back at Mach. "What's this?"
"It's a full dossier on all those involved." He grimaced. "It's not pleasant reading, but then it's not meant to be. You have to understand why we need to do this. Why we have to kill these men."
"And the raid? When do we go in?"
"Tonight."
"Tonight? But I thought you said it would take at least a week to set this up."
"That's what I thought. But our man is on duty tonight. And there's a meeting on."
She shuddered, understanding. "Even so, we've not had time to rehearse things. We'd be going in blind."
Mach shook his head, then sat on the edge of the bed, indicating that she should sit next to him. "Let me explain. When I spoke to you the other day—when I gave you this assignment—I had already allocated a team leader. But after what happened I wanted to give you a chance. An opportunity to prove yourself."
She made to speak, but he silenced her.
"Hear me out. I know what happened the other day. I know you killed Vasska. But it doesn't matter. You were right. The other matter—his brother—that's unfortunate, but we'll deal with it. What was important was that you did the right thing. If you'd let him kill the guard . . . well, it would have done us great harm, neh?"
She hesitated, then nodded, but he could see she was unhappy with his oversimplification of events. Which was good. It showed that she hadn't acted callously. He took the folder from her lap and opened it up, turning one of the still photographs toward her.
"This is why we're going in tonight. To put an end to this kind of thing. But it has to be done carefully. That's why I've drafted you in to lead the team. Not to organize the raid—your team knows exactly what they have to do; they've rehearsed it a hundred times. No, your role is to keep it all damped down. To make sure the right people are punished. I don't want anyone getting overexcited. We have to get this right. If we get it wrong, we're fucked, understand me?"
She nodded, but her eyes stayed on the photo of the mutilated child. After a moment she looked up at him, the disgust in her eyes touched with a profound sadness. "What makes them do this, Jan? How in the gods' names could anyone do this to a little boy?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. It's how they are." He put his hand gently to her cheek. "AH I know is that all that anger you feel, all that disgust and indignation . . . well, it's a healthy thing. I want to harness that. To give it every opportunity to express itself."
He let hisliand fall away, then laughed softly. "You know, you remind me of an old friend. She was like you. Strong. Certain about what she did."
Ywe Hao shivered, then looked down again. "What about my cover?"
Mach smiled, impressed by her professionalism, then turned, pointing across at the pack beside the door. "It's all in there. All you need to do is read the file. Someone will come for you at eleven. You go in at second bell."
He sat back. "There's a lot there, but read it all. Especially the statements by the parents. As I said, you need to know why you're there. It'll make it easier to do what you have to do."
She nodded.
"Good. Now I must go. My shift begins in an hour and I've got to get back and change. Good luck, Ywe Hao. May Kuan Yin smile on you tonight."
IN THETORCH-LiTSiLENCEofthe Hall of Eternal Peace and Tranquillity, Li Yuan knelt on the cold stone tiles, facing the hologram of his father. Thin threads of smoke from the offering sticks drifted slowly upward, their rosewood scent merging with the chill dampness of the ancient room. Beyond the ghostly radiant figure of the dead T'ang, the red lacquer of the carved screen seemed to shimmer, as if it shared something of the old man's insubstantiality, the Yuie Lung at its center flickering, as if, at any moment, it might vanish, leaving a smoking circle of nothingness.
Li Shai Tung stood there as in life, the frailty of his latter days shrugged off, the certainty he had once professed shaping each ghostly gesture as he spoke.
"Your dreams have meaning, Yuan. As a boy I was told by my father to ignore my dreams, to focus only on what was real. But dreams have their own reality. They are like the most loyal of ministers. They tell us not what we would have them say, but that which is true. We can deny them, can banish them to the farthest reaches of our selves, but we cannot kill them, not without killing ourselves."
Li Yuan looked up, meeting his dead father's eyes. "And is that what we have done? Is that why things are so wrong?"
Li Shai Tung sniffed loudly, then leaned heavily on his cane, as if considering his son's words, but tonight Yuan was more than ever conscious of what lay behind the illusion. In the slender case beneath the image, logic circuits had instantly located and selected from a score of possible responses, preprogrammed guidelines determining their choice. It seemed spontaneous, yet the words were given—were as predetermined as the fall of a rock or the decay of atoms. And the delay? That, too, was deliberate; a machine-created mimicry of something that had once been real.
Even so, the sense of his father was strong. And though the eyes were blank, unseeing—were not eyes at all, but mere smoke and light—they seemed to see right through him; through to the tiny core of unrest that had robbed him of sleep and brought him here at this unearthly hour.
"Father?"
The old man lifted his head slightly, as if, momentarily, he had been lost in his thoughts. Then, unexpectedly, he gave a soft laugh.
"Dreams. Maybe that's all we have, Yuan. Dreams. The City itself, was that not a dream? The dream of our ancestors made tangible. And our long-held belief in peace, in order and stability, was that not also a dream? Was any of it ever real?"
Li Yuan frowned, disturbed by his father's words. For a moment his mind went • back to the evening of his father's death, recalling how sickly thin his body had \ been, how weak and vulnerable death had found him. He shuddered, realizing that | the seed of his father's illness had been sown long before the virus finished him. No. i He understood now. His father had been dead long before his heart had ceased I beating. Had died, perhaps, the day his brother, Han Ch'in, had perished. Or was| it before? Had something died in his father that night when he, Yuan, had forced his way prematurely from his mother's womb? Had all his father's life since then been but a waking dream, no more substantial than this shadow play?
The question hovered close to speech, then sank back into the darkness. He returned to the matter of his dream. The dream that had awakened him, fearful and sweating in the coolness of his room.
"But what does it mean, Father? How am I to read my dream?" The dead T'ang stared at his son, then gave a tiny shudder. "You say you dreamed of dragonflies?"
Li Yuan nodded. "Of great, emerald-green dragonflies, swarming on the riverbank. Thousands upon thousands of them. Beautiful creatures, their wings like glass, their bodies like burnished jade. The sun shone down on them and yet the wind blew cold. And as I watched, they began to fall, first one, and then another, until the river was choked with their struggling forms. And even as I watched they stiffened and the brilliant greenness was leached from their bodies, until they were a hideous gray, their flesh flaking from them like ash. And still the wind blew, carrying the ash away, covering the fields, clogging every pool and stream, until all was gray and ashen." • "And then?"
"And then I woke, afraid, my heart pounding."
"Ah . . ." The T'ang put one hand to his beard, his long fingers pulling distractedly at the tightly braided strands, then shook his head. "That is a strange and powerful dream, erh tzu. You ask me what it means, yet I fear you know already." He looked up, meeting his son's eyes. "Old glassy, he is the very symbol of summer, neh? And the color green symbolizes spring. Furthermore, it is said that when the color green figures in a dream, the dream will end happily. Yet in your dream the green turns to ash. Summer dies. The cold wind blows. How are you to read this but as an ill omen?"