She lay there quietly—so quiet that it frightened him. Then it was true. She had lost the child.
"When was this?" he asked, horrified. "A week ago."
"A week! Ai yal" He sat back, staring sightlessly into the shadows, thinking of her anguish, her suffering, and him not there. "But why wasn't I told? Why didn't Karr send word? I should have been here."
She put out a hand, touching his chest. "He wanted to. He begged me to, but I would not let him. Your job . . ."
He looked back at her. She was watching him now, her puffed and blood-red eyes filled with pity. The sight of her—of her concern for him—made his chest tighten with love. "Oh, Wang Ti, my little pigeon. . . what in the gods' names happened?"
She shuddered and looked away again. "No one came," she said quietly. "I waited, but no one came . . ."
He shook his head. "But the Surgeon ... we paid him specially to come." "There were complications," she said, afraid to meet his eyes. "I waited. Three hours I waited, but he never came. Jyan tried—"
"Never came?" Chen said, outraged. "He was notified and never came?" She gave a tight little nod. "I got Jyan to run up to the Medical Center, but no one was free." She met his eyes briefly, then looked away again, forcing the words out in a tiny frightened voice. "Or so they said. But Jyan says they were sitting there, in a room beyond the reception area, laughing—drinking ch'a and laughing—while my baby was dying."
Chen felt himself go cold again; but this time it was the coldness of anger. Of an intense, almost blinding anger. "And no one came?"
She shook her head, her face cracking again. He held her tightly, letting her cry in his arms, his own face wet with tears. "My poor love," he said. "My poor, poor love." But deep inside his anger had hardened into something else—into a cold, clear rage. He could picture them, sitting there, laughing and drinking ch'a while his baby daughter was dying. Could see their well-fed, laughing faces and wanted to smash them, to feel their cheekbones shatter beneath his fist.
And young Jyan . . . How had it been for him, knowing that his mother was in trouble, his baby sister dying, and he impotent to act? How had that felt? Chen groaned. They had had such hopes. Such plans. How could it all have gone so wrong?
He looked about him at the familiar room, the thought of the dead child an agony, burning in his chest. "No . . ." he said softly, shaking his head. "Nooooo!"
He stood, his fists bunched at his sides. "I will see Surgeon Fan."
Wang Ti looked up frightened. "No, Chen. Please. You will solve nothing that way."
He shook his head. "The bastard should have come. It is only two decks down. Three hours . . . Where could he have been for three hours?"
"Chen . . ." She put out a hand, trying to restrain him, but he moved back, away from her.
"No, Wang Ti. Not this time. This time I do it my way."
"You don't understand . . ." she began. "Karr knows everything. He has all the evidence. He was going to meet you . . ."
She fell silent, seeing that he was no longer listening. His face was set, like the face of a statue.
"He killed my daughter," he said softly. "He let her die. And you, Wang Ti. . . you might have died too."
She trembled. It was true. She had almost died, forcing the baby from her—no, would have died, had Jyan not thought to contact Karr and bring the big man to her aid.
She let her head fall back. So maybe Chen was right. Maybe, this once, it was right to act—to hit back at those who had harmed them, and damn the consequences. Better that, perhaps, than let it fester deep inside. Better that than have him shamed a second time before his son.
She closed her eyes, pained by the memory of all that had happened to her. It had been awful here without him. Awful beyond belief.
She felt his breath on her cheek, his lips pressed gently to her brow, and shivered.
"I must go," he said quietly, letting his hand rest softly on her flank. "You understand?"
She nodded, holding back the tears, wanting to be brave for him this once. But it was hard, and when he was gone she broke down again, sobbing loudly, uncontrollably, the memory of his touch glowing warmly in the darkness.
THE ROOM WAS COLD and brightly lit, white tiles on the walls and floor emphasizing the starkness of the place. In the center of the room was a dissecting table. Beside the table stood the three surgeons who had carried out the postmortem, their heads bowed, waiting.
The corpse on the table was badly burned, the limbs disfigured, the head and upper torso crushed; even so, the body could still be identified as GenSyn. In three separate places the flesh had been peeled back to the bone, revealing the distinctive GenSyn marking—the bright red G forming a not-quite-closed circle with a tiny blue S within.
They had cornered it finally in the caves to the north of the estate. There, Hung Mien-lo and a small group of elite guards had fought it for an hour before a well-aimed grenade had done the trick, silencing the creature's answering fire and bringing the roof of the cave down on top of it. Or so Hung's story went.
Wang Sau-leyan stood there, looking down at the corpse, his eyes taking in everything. Hope warred with cynicism in his face, but when he looked back at his Chancellor, it was with an expression of deep suspicion. "Are you sure this is it, Hung? The face . . ."
The face was almost formless. Was the merest suggestion of a face.
"1 am told this is how they make some models, Chieh Hsia. A certain number are kept for urgent orders, the facial features added at the last moment. I have checked with GenSyn records and discovered that this particular model was made eight years back. It was stolen from their West Asian organization—from their plant at Karaganda—nearly five years ago."
Wang looked back at it, then shook his head. "Even so . . ."
"Forgive me, Chieh Hsia, but we found some other things in the cave." Hung Mien-lo turned and took a small case from his secretary, then turned back, handing it, opened, to the T'ang. "This was among them."
Wang Sau-leyan stared down at the face and nodded. It was torn and dirtied and pitted with tiny holes, but it was recognizable all the same. It was his brother's face. Or at least, a perfect likeness. He set it down on the chest of the corpse.
"So this is how it did it, eh? With a false face and a cold body."
"Not cold, Chieh Hsia. Or not entirely. You see, this model was designed for work in subzero temperatures or in the heat of the mines. It has a particularly hard and durable skin that insulates the inner workings of the creature from extremes of heat and cold. That was why it did not register on our cameras. At night they are programmed to respond only to heat patterns, and as this thing did not give off any trace, the cameras were never activated."
Wang nodded, his mouth gone dry. Even so, he wasn't quite convinced. "And the traces of skin and blood that it left on the stone?"
Hung lowered his head slightly. "It is our belief, Chieh Hsia, that they were put there by the creature. Deliberately, to make us think it really was your brother."
Wang looked down, then gave a small, sour laugh. "I would dearly like to think so, Chancellor Hung, but that simply isn't possible. I have checked with GenSyn. They tell me it is impossible to duplicate individual DNA from scratch."
"From scratch, yes, Chieh Hsia. But why should that be the case? All that is needed to duplicate DNA is a single strand of the original. This can even, I am assured, be done from a corpse."
"And that is what you are suggesting? That someone broke into the tomb before this creature broke out from it again? That they took a piece of my brother's body and used it to duplicate his DNA?"