The figure shifted slightly, relaxing, lowering the riding crop. "Make no mistake, Shai Tung. We did as we had to. We cannot allow ourselves the empty luxury of doubt."
"Ah . . ." Li Shai Tung stared back at the hologram a moment longer, then, sighing, he plucked the scented sticks from the offering bowl and threw them aside. At once the image shrank, diminishing to its former size. He leaned back, a sharp sense of anger overwhelming him. Anger at himself for the doubts that ate at him and at his ancestor for giving him nothing more than a string of empty platitudes. We did as we had to ... He shook his head, bitterly disappointed. Was there to be no certainty for him, then? No clear answer to what he had asked?
No. And maybe that was what had kept him from visiting this place these last five years: the knowledge that he could no longer share their unquestioning certainty. That and the awful, erosive consciousness of his own inner emptiness. He shuddered. Sometimes it felt as if he had less substance than the images in this room. As if, in the blink of an eye, his being would turn to breath as the gods drew the scent sticks from the offering bowl.
He rubbed at his eyes, then yawned, his tiredness returned to him like ashes in the blood. It was late. Much too late. Not only that, but it was suddenly quite hot in here. He felt flushed and there was a prickling sensation in his legs and hands. He hauled his tired bones upright, then stood there, swaying slightly, feeling breathless, a sudden cold washing through his limbs, making him tremble.
It's nothing, he thought. Only my age. Yet for a moment he found his mind clouding. Had he imagined it, or had Chung Hu-yan come to him only an hour ago with news of another attack?
He put his hand up to his face, as if to clear the cobwebs from his thoughts, then shrugged. No. An hour past he had been with his Ministers. Even so, the image of Chung Hu-yan waking him with awful news persisted, until he realized what it was. "Lin Yua . . ." he said softly, his voice broken by the sudden pain he felt. "Lin Yua, my little peach . . . Why did you have to die? Why did you have to leave me all alone down here?"
He shivered, suddenly cold again, his teeth chattering. Yes, he would send for Surgeon Hua. But later—in the morning—when he could put up with the old boy's fussing.
Sleep, he heard a voice say, close by his ear. Skep now, Li Shai Tung. The day is done.
He turned, his eyes resting momentarily upon the dim gray shape of the funerary couch. Then, turning back, he made a final bow to the row of tiny images. Like breath, he thought. Or flames, dancing in a glass.
IT WAS DARK in the room. Li Yuan lay on his back in the huge bed, staring up into the shadows; the woman beside him was sleeping, her leg against his own warm and strangely comforting.
It was a moment of thoughtlessness, of utter repose. He lay there, aware of the weight of his body pressing down into the softness of the bed, of the rise and fall of his chest with each breath, the flow of his blood. He felt at rest, the dark weight of tension lifted from him by the woman.
In the darkness he reached out to touch the woman's flank, then lay back, closing his eyes.
For a time he slept. Then, in the depths of sleep he heard the summons and pulled himself up, hand over hand, back to the surface of consciousness.
Nan Ho stood in the doorway, his eyes averted. Li Yuan rose, knowing it was important, letting Master Nan wrap the cloak about his nakedness.
He took the call in his study, beneath the portrait of his grandfather, Li Ch'ing, knowing at once what it was. The face of his father's surgeon, Hua, filled the screen, the old man's features more expressive than a thousand words.
"He's dead," Li Yuan said simply.
"Yes, Chieh Hsia," the old man answered, bowing his head.
Chieh Hsia ... He shivered.
"How did it happen?"
"In his sleep. There was no pain."
Li Yuan nodded, but something nagged at him. "Touch nothing, Surgeon Hua. I want the room sealed until I get there. And Hua, tell no one else. I must make calls first. Arrange things."
"Chieh Hsia."
Li Yuan sat there, looking up at the image of his father's father, wondering why he felt so little. He closed his eyes, thinking of his father as he'd last seen him. Of his strength, masked by the surface frailness.
For a moment longer he sat there, trying to feel the sorrow he knew he owed his father, but it was kept from him. It was not yet real. Touch—touch alone—would make it real. Momentarily his mind strayed and he thought of Fei Yen and the child in her belly. Of Tsu Ma and of his dead brother, Han Ch'in. All of it confused, sleep-muddled in his brain. Then it cleared and the old man's face came into focus.
"And so it comes to me," he said quietly, as if to the painting. But the burden of it, the reality of what he had become while he slept, had not yet touched him. He thought of the calls he must make to tell the other T'ang, but for the moment he felt no impulse toward action. Time seemed suspended. He looked down at his hands, at the Prince's ring of power, and frowned. Then, as a concession, he made the call to summon the transporter.
He went back to his room, then out onto the verandah beyond. The woman woke and came to him, naked, her soft warmth pressed against his back in the cool, predawn air.
He turned to her, smiling sadly. "No. Go back inside."
Alone again, he turned and stared out across the shadowed lands of his estate toward the distant mountains. The moon was a low, pale crescent above one of the smaller peaks, far to his right. He stared at it a while, feeling hollow, emptied of all feeling, then looked away sharply, bitter with himself.
Somehow the moment had no meaning. It should have meant so much, but it was empty. The moon, the mountains, the man—himself—standing there in the darkness: none of it made sense to him. They were fragments, broken pieces of some nonsense puzzle, adding up to nothing. He turned away, his feeling of anguish at the nothingness of it all overwhelming him. It wasn't death, it was life that frightened him. The senselessness of life.
He stood there a long time, letting the feeling ebb. Then, when it was gone, he returned to his study, preparing himself to make his calls.
TOLONEN STOOD in the center of the chaos, looking about him. The floor was cluttered underfoot, the walls black with soot. A pile of dark plastic sacks was piled up against the wall to one side. They were all that remained of the men who had worked here on the Project.
"There were no survivors, Captain?"
The young officer stepped forward and bowed. "Only the tutor, sir. We found him thirty levels down, bound and drugged."
Tolonen frowned. "And the others?"
"Apart from T'ai Cho there were eighteen men on the Project, excluding guards. We've identified seventeen separate corpses. Add to that the other one— Hammond—and it accounts for everyone."
"I see. And the records?"
"All gone, sir. The main files were destroyed in the explosion, but they also managed to get to the backups and destroy them."
Tolonen stared at him, astonished. "All of them? Even those held by Prince Yuan?"
"It appears so. Of course, the Prince himself has not yet been spoken to, but his secretary, Chang Shih-sen, advises me that the copies he was given on his last visit are gone."
"Gone?" Tblonen swallowed dryly. He was still too shocked to take it in. How could it have happened? They had taken the strictest measures to ensure that the Project remained not merely "invisible" in terms of its security profile, but that in the unlikely event of sabotage, there would be copies of everything. But somehow all their endeavors had come to nothing. The assassins had walked in here as if they owned the place and destroyed everything, erasing every last trace of the Project.