Too many, he thought. Far, far too many.
He looked across. There was someone in the doorway. Someone tall and straight and wholly out of place in this setting. Haavikko. He'd come at last.
He got up and went across, embracing his friend, then holding him off at arm's length, staring up into his face.
"Axel. . . how are you? It's been a long time since you came to us. Wang Ti and the boys . . . they've missed you. And I ... well, I was worried. I'd heard . . ." He paused, then shook his head, unable to say.
Haavikko looked aside momentarily, then met his friend's eyes. "I'm sorry, Chen, but it's been hard. Some days I've felt. . ." He shrugged, then formed his face into a sad little smile. "Well. . . I've got what you asked for. 1 had to cheat a little, and lie rather a lot, not to mention a little bit of burglary, but then it's hard being an honest man when all about you are thieves and liars. One must pretend to take on their coloring a little simply to survive, neh?" ;
Chen stared at him a moment, surprised by the hardness in his voice. His sister's death had changed him. Chen squeezed his shoulder gently, turning him toward his table.
"Come. Let's sit down. You can tell me what you've been up to while I go through the file."
Axel sat. "You remember Mu Chua's?" Chen took the seat across from him. "No. I don't think 1 do." "The House of the Ninth Ecstasy?" Chen laughed. "Ah ... Is that still going?"
Haavikko stared down at his hands. "Yes, it's still going. And guess what? Our friend Ebert is still frequenting it. It seems he visited there no more than a week ago."
Chen looked up, frowning. "Ebert? Here? Why would he bother?" Haavikko looked back at him, a bitter resentment in his eyes. "He had a meeting, it seems. With a Shih Reynolds." "How do you know this?"
"The Madam, Mu Chua, told me. It's funny ... I didn't even raise the matter of Ebert, she just seemed to want to talk about him. She was telling me about this girl she'd sold to Ebert—a thirteen-year-old named Golden Heart. I remember it, strangely enough. It was more than ten years ago, so the girl could well be dead now; but Mu Chua was anxious to find out about her, as if the girl were her daughter or something. Anyway, she told me about a dream this girl had had— about a tiger coming from the west and mating with her and about a pale-gray snake that died. It seems this was a powerful dream—something she couldn't get out of her mind—and she wanted me to find out what became of the girl. I said I would and in return she promised to let me know if Ebert or his friend returned. It could be useful, don't you think?"
"This Reynolds—do we know who he is or what he was meeting Ebert about?"
"Nothing, I'm afraid. But Mu Chua thinks he's been there before. She said there was something familiar about him." "Ping Tioo, perhaps?"
"Perhaps ..."
Chen looked down at the file, touching his wrist band to make it glow, illuminating the page beneath his fingers. For a while he was silent, reading, then he looked up, frowning. "Is this all?"
Haavikko looked back at him blankly a moment, his mind clearly elsewhere, then nodded. "That's it. Not much, is it?"
Chen considered a moment, then grunted. Hans Ebert had supposedly instigated an investigation into the disappearance of his friend Fest, but the investigation had never actually happened. No witnesses had been called, no leads followed up. All that existed was this slender file.
"And Fest? Is there any sign of him?"
Haavikko shook his head. "He's dead. That's what the file means. They did it. Ebert and Auden. Because we'd got to Fest, perhaps, or maybe for some other reason—I've heard since that Fest was getting a bit too talkative for Ebert's liking even before we approached him. But whatever, they did it. That file makes me certain of it."
Chen nodded. "So what now?"
Haavikko smiled tightly. "The girl, Golden Heart. I'm going to find out what happened to her."
"And then?"
Haavikko shrugged. "I'm not sure. Let's see where this leads."
"And Ebert?"
Haavikko looked away, the tightness in his face revealing the depth of what he felt.
"At first I thought of killing him. Of walking up to him in the Officers Club and putting a bullet through his brain. But it wouldn't have brought her back. Besides, I want everyone to know what he is. To see him as I see him."
Chen was quiet a moment, then reached out and touched Haavikko's arm, as if consoling a child. "Don't worry," he said softly. "We'll get him, Axel. I swear we will."
klaus EBERT stood on the steps of his mansion, his hands extended to the Marshal. Jelka watched as he embraced her father, then stood back, one hand resting on Tolonen's shoulder. She could see how deep their friendship ran, how close they were. More like brothers than friends.
Ebert turned, offering his hands to her, his eyes lighting at the sight of her.
He held her close, whispering at her ear. "You really are quite beautiful, Jelka. Hans is very lucky." But his smile only made her feel guilty. Was it really so hard to do this for them?
"Come. We've prepared a feast," Ebert said, turning, putting his arm about her shoulders. He led her through, into the vast high-ceilinged hallway.
She turned her head, looking back at her father and saw how he was smiling at her. A fierce, uncompromising smile of pride.
It all went well until she saw him. Until she looked across the room and met his eyes. Then it came back to her: her deep-rooted fear of him, something much greater than dislike. Dread, perhaps. Or the feeling she had in her dreams sometimes. That fear of drowning in darkness. Of a cold, sightless suffocation.
She looked down, afraid that her eyes would reveal what she was thinking. It was a gesture that, to a watching eye, seemed the very archetype of feminine modesty: the bride obedient, her husband's possession, to be done with as he willed. But it wasn't so.
Her thoughts disturbed her. They hung like a veil at the back of her eyes, darkening all she saw. Head bowed, she sat beside her future mother-in-law, a sense of horror growing in her by the moment.
"Jelka?"
The voice was soft, almost tender, but it was Hans Ebert who stood before her, straight-backed and cruelly handsome. She looked up, past the silvered buttons of his dark-blue dress uniform to his face. And met his eyes. Cold, selfish eyes, little different from how she had remembered them, but now alert to her. Alert and open to her womanhood. Surprised by what he saw.
She looked away, frightened by what she saw, by the sudden interest where before there had only been indifference. Like a curse, she thought. My mother's curse, handed down to me. Her dying gift. But her mouth said simply, "Hans,"
acknowledging his greeting.
"You're looking very nice," he said, his voice clear, resonant. She looked up, the strength of his voice, its utter conviction, surprising her. Her beauty had somehow pierced the shell of his self-regard. He was looking down at her with something close to awe. He had expected a child, not a woman. And not a beautiful woman, at that. Yes, he was surprised by her, but there was also something else—something more predatory in that look.
She had changed in his eyes. Had become something he wanted. His sisters stood behind him, no longer taller than her. They watched her enviously. She had eclipsed them overnight and now they hated her. Hated her beauty. "Come! Drinks everyone!" Klaus Ebert called, smiling at her as he passed, oblivious of the dark, unseen currents of feeling that swirled all about him in the room. And all the while his son watched her. Her future husband, his eyes dark with the knowledge of possession.
She looked away, studying the palatial vastness of the room. It was a hundred ch'i across, high-ceilinged and six-sided, each wall divided into five by tall, red-painted pillars. The walls were a dark, almost primal green; double doors were set into the center of each wall. Those doors filled the space between floor and ceiling, pillar and pillar. Vast doors that made her feel as though she had shrunk in size. GenSyn giants stood before the pillars to either side of each door, the dark-green uniforms of the half-men blending in with the studded leather of the door covering.