DeVore smiled and sat back. He took a pack of mint drops from his top pocket and offered one to his companion. Mach looked at the packet a moment, then took one. For a while both men were quiet, contemplating the scene, then Mach spoke.
"What now?"
DeVore met Mach's eyes. "Now we melt away. Like ghosts."
Mach smiled. "And then?" .
"Then nothing. Not for a long time. You go underground. Recruit. Build your movement up again. I'll provide whatever financing you need. But you must do nothing. Not until we're ready."
"And the Seven?"
DeVore looked down. "The Seven will look to strengthen their defenses. But they will have to spread themselves thin. Too thin, perhaps. Besides, they've got their own problems. There's a split in Council."
Mach stared at the other man a moment, wide-eyed, wondering, as he had so often lately, how DeVore came to know so much. And why it was that such a man should want to fight against the Seven.
"Why do you hate them so much?" he asked.
DeVore looked back at him. "Why do you?"
"Because the world they've made is a prison. For everyone. But especially for those lower down."
"And you care about that?"
Mach nodded. "Out here . . . this is real, don't you think? But that inside . . ."
He shuddered and looked away, his eyes going off to the horizon. "Well, it's never made sense to me, why human beings should have to live like that. Penned in like meat-animals. Hemmed in by rules. Sorted by money into their levels. I always hated it. Even when I was a child of five or six. And I used to feel so impotent about it."
"But not now?"
"No. Not now. Now I've got a direction for my anger."
They were silent again, then Mach turned his head, looking at DeVore. "What of Ascher?"
DeVore shook his head. "She's vanished. I thought we had her, but she slipped through our fingers. She's good, you know."
Mach smiled. "Yes. She was always the best of us. Even Gesell realized that. But she was inflexible. She was always letting her idealism get in the way of practicalities. It was inevitable that she'd break with us."
"So what will you do?"
"Do? Nothing. Oh, I'll cover my back, don't worry. But if I know our Emily, she'll have found some way of getting out of City Europe. She was always talking of setting up somewhere else—of spreading our influence. She's a good organizer. I'd wager good money we'll hear from her again."
DeVore smiled, thinking of her—at that very moment—on the jet to America, and of her left index finger, frozen in its medical case, heading out for Mars. "Yes," he said. "We shall. I'm sure we shall."
THEY STOOD on the high stone balcony, the seven great Lords of Chung Kuo, the sky a perfect blue overhead, the early morning sunlight glistening from the imperial yellow of their silks. Below them the great garden stretched away, flanked by the two great rivers, the whole enclosed within a single, unbroken wall, its lakes and pagodas, its tiny woods and flower beds, its bridges and shaded walkways a pleasure to behold. A curl of red-stone steps, shaped like a dragon's tail, led down. Slowly, their talk a low murmur barely discernible above the call of the caged birds in the trees, they made their way down, Wu Shih, their host, leading the way.
At the foot of the steps he turned, looking back. Beyond the gathered T'ang his palace sat atop its artificial mound, firmly embedded, as if it had always been there, its pure white walls topped with steep roofs of red tile, the whole great structure capped by a slender six-story pagoda that stood out, silhouetted against the sky. He nodded, satisfied, then put out his arm, inviting his cousins into his garden.
There was the soft tinkling of pagoda bells in the wind, the scent of jasmine and forsythia, of gardenia and chrysanthemum, wafting to them through the great moon-door in the wall. They stepped through, into another world—a world of ancient delights, of strict order made to seem like casual occurrence, of a thousand shades of green contrasted against the gray of stone, the white of walls, the red of tile. It was, though Wu Shih himself made no such claim, the greatest garden in Chung Kuo—the Garden of Supreme Excellence—formed of a dozen separate gardens, each modeled on a famous original.
Their business was done, agreement reached as to the way ahead. Now it was time to relax, to unburden themselves, and where better than here where symmetry and disorder, artistry and chance, met in such perfect balance?
Wu Shih looked about him, immensely pleased. The garden had been built by his great-great-grandfather, but like his father and his father's father, he had made his own small changes to the original scheme, extending the garden to the north so that it now filled the whole of the ancient island of Manhattan.
"It is a beautiful garden, Cousin," Wang Sau-leyan said, turning to him and smiling pleasantly. "There are few pleasures as sweet in life as that derived from a harmoniously created garden."
Wu Shih smiled, surprised for the second time that morning by Wang Sau-leyan. It was as if he were a changed man, all rudeness, all abrasiveness, gone from his manner. Earlier, in Council, he had gone out of his way to assure Li Shai Tung of his support, even preempting Wei Feng's offer of help by giving Li Shai Tung a substantial amount of grain from his own reserves. The generosity of the offer had surprised them all and had prompted a whole spate of spontaneous offers. The session had ended with the seven of them grinning broadly, their earlier mood of despondency cast aside, their sense of unity rebuilt. They were Seven again. Seven.
Wu Shih reached out and touched the young T'ang's arm. "If there is heaven on earth it is here, in the garden."
Wang Sau-leyan gave the slightest bow of his head, as if in deference to Wu Shih's greater age and experience. Again Wu Shih found himself pleased by the gesture. Perhaps they had been mistaken about Wang Sau-leyan. Perhaps it was only youth and the shock of his father's murder, his brother's suicide, that had made him so. That and the uncertainty of things.
Wang Sau-leyan turned, indicating the ancient, rusted sign bolted high up on the trunk of a nearby juniper.
"Tell me, Wu Shih. What is the meaning of that sign? All else here is Han. But that. . ."
"That?" Wu Shih laughed softly, drawing the attention of the other T'ang. "That is a joke of my great-great-grandfather's, Cousin Wang. You see, before he built this garden, part of the greatest city of the Americans sat upon this site. It was from here that they effectively ran their great Republic of sixty-nine states. And here, where we are walking right now, was the very heart of their financial empire. The story goes that my great-great-grandfather came to see with his own eyes the destruction of their great city and that seeing the sign, he smiled, appreciating the play on words. After all, what is more Han than a wall? Hence he ordered the sign kept. And so this path is know, even now, by its original name. Wall Street."
The watching T'ang smiled, appreciating the story.
"We would do well to learn from them," Wei Feng said, reaching up to pick a leaf from the branch. He put it to his mouth and tasted it, then looked back at Wang Sau-leyan, his ancient face creased into a smile. "They tried too hard. Their ambition always exceeded their grasp. Like their ridiculous scheme to colonize the stars."
Again Wang Sau-leyan gave the slightest bow. "I agree, Cousin. And yet we still use the craft they designed and built. Like much else they made."
"True," Wei Feng answered him. "I did not say that all they did was bad. Yet they had no sense of Tightness. Of balance. What they did, they did carelessly, without thought. In that respect we would do well not to be like them. It was thoughtlessness that brought their Empire low."
"And arrogance," added Wu Shih, looking about him. "But come. Let us move on. I have arranged for ch'a to be served in the pavilion beside the lake. There will be entertainments too."