She was looking at him strangely. "This is very important, then?"
Karr narrowed his eyes. "You want to be paid for your help?"
"Did I say that?"
He winced slightly at the sharpness in her voice, then bowed his head. "I'm sorry. It's just. . ."
"It's all right, Major Karr. I understand. You must deal with some unsavory types in the work you do."
He smiled. "Yes, But to answer you—I have the T'ang's own personal authority to find the boy. If I wanted to I could tear this place apart to find him. But that's not my way. Besides, I want the boy unharmed. Who knows what he might do if he felt threatened."
"I see." She looked down, suddenly very still.
"Look," he said, "why don't we simplify this? Why don't you act as intermediary? It might be best if you and not one of us were to deal with the boy. He might find it easier to trust you."
She looked back at him, grateful.
Karr smiled. "Then you know where he is."
She caught her breath, a strange little movement in her face betraying the fact that she thought she had been tricked by him. Then she nodded, looking up at him.
"Yes. At least, I think so."
She watched him a moment longer, a lingering uncertainty in her face, then gave a small laugh. "You mean it, then? You'll let me handle it?"
He nodded. "I gave my word to you, didn't I? But take this." He handed her a necklace. "When you're ready, just press the stud on the neck. We'll trace it and come."
Again the uncertainty returned to her face.
He smiled reassuringly. "Trust me, Marie Enge. Please. We will do nothing until you call for us. I shall not even have you followed when you leave this room. But I'm relying on you; so don't let me down. Much depends on this."
"All right." She stood, slipping the necklace over her head. "But what if he's afraid? What if he doesn't want to go back?"
Karr nodded, then reached into his tunic pocket again. "Give this to him. He'll understand."
It was a pendant. A beautiful silver pendant. And inside, in the tiny circular locket, was the picture of a woman. A beautiful dark-haired woman. She snapped it closed, then held it up, watching it turn, flashing, in the light.
She slipped the pendant into her apron pocket and turned to leave, but he called her back. "By the way," he said. "How good are you at wei chi?"
She turned in the doorway and looked back at him, smiling. "How good? Well, maybe I'll play you sometime and let you find out for yourself, eh, Major Karr?"
Karr grinned. "I'd like that, Marie Enge. I'd like that very much."
SHE WAS STANDING there when the door opened. It was just after two in the morning and the corridors were empty. Tuan Ti Fo took one step into the hall, then stopped, seeing her there in the shadows.
"Marie . . ."
"I know," she said quickly, seeing how he was dressed, how he was carrying his bedroll on his back. Behind him the boy looked out, wide-eyed, wondering what was going on.
He took a breath. "Then you will understand why we must go. The boy is in great danger here."
She nodded. "I know that too. There are men trying to kill him. They killed his friends."
He narrowed his eyes, his voice a whisper. "How do you know all this, Marie?"
"Inside," she said, moving closer. "Please, Tuan Ti Fo. I must talk with you." When he hesitated, she reached out and touched his arm. "Please, Master Tuan. For the boy's sake."
They went inside. The boy had backed away. He was crouched against the back wall, his eyes going from Tuan Ti Fo to the newcomer, his body tensed.
"It's all right, Kim," Tuan Ti Fo said, going across and kneeling next to him. "She's a friend." He half turned, looking back at Marie. "This is Kim. Kim, this is Marie."
She came across and stood there, shaking her head. "You're the boy, all right, but it doesn't make sense." She looked from him to Tuan Ti Fo. "I was told he was a scientist, a genius, but. . ." She turned back. "Well, he's just a boy. A frightened little boy."
Tuan Ti Fo's eyes had widened at her words. Now he laughed. "A boy he may be, but just a boy he's certainly not. Do you know something, Marie? He beat me. In only his third game."
"I don't understand you, Master Tuan. Beat you at what?"
"At the game. At wei chi. He's a natural."
She stared at Tuan Ti Fo, then looked back at the boy, a new respect entering her expression. "He beat you?" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Gods . . ."
"Yes." Tuan Ti Fo chuckled. "And by five stones, no less. Not just beaten, but humiliated." He looked back at Kim and gave him a small bow. "Which makes our friend here unofficial First Hand Supreme of all Chung Kuo, neh?"
She laughed, a small laugh of astonishment. "No wonder they want him back."
Tuan Ti Fo stiffened, his face hardening. "They?"
Marie nodded, suddenly more sober. "Li Yuan. The new T'ang. Kim was working for him."
She explained.
Tuan Ti Fo sighed. "I see. And you're certain of this?"
"I. . ." She hesitated, remembering her meeting with Karr, then nodded. "Yes. But there's something I have to give the boy. They said it would mean something to him."
She took the pendant from her pocket and crouched down, holding it out to the boy.
For a moment he seemed almost not to see the bright silver circle that lay in her palm. Then, a growing wonder filling his eyes, he reached out and touched the hanging chain.
She placed it in his hand, then moved back slightly, watching him.
Slowly the wonder faded, shading into puzzlement. Then, like cracks appearing in the wall of a dam, his face dissolved, a great flood of pain and hurt overwhelming him.
He cried out—a raw, gut-wrenching sound in that tiny room—then pressed the pendant to his cheek, his fingers trembling, his whole face ghastly now with loss.
"T'ai Cho," he moaned, his voice broken, wavering. "T'ai Cho . . . they killed T'ai Cho!"
CHAPTER SEVEN
New Blood
THE statues stood at the center of the Hall of Celestial Destinies in Nantes spaceport, the huge, bronze figures raised high above the executive-class travelers who bustled like ants about its base. Three times life-size and magnificently detailed, the vast human figures seemed like giants from some golden age, captured in the holo-camera's triple eye and cast in bronze.
"Kan Ying bows to Pan Chao after the Battle of Kazatin," read the description, the huge letters cut deep into the two-ch'i thick base, the Mandarin translation given smaller underneath, as though to emphasize the point that the message was aimed at those who had been conquered in that great battle—the Hung Mao.
Michael Lever stopped and stared up at it. Kazatin was where the dream of Rome, of the great Ta Ts'in emperors, had failed. The defeat of Kan Ying— Domitian as he was known by his own people—had let the Han into Europe. The rest was history.
"What do you make of it?" Kustow said into his ear. "It looks like more of their crowing to me."
Like Lever, Kustow was in his late twenties, a tall man with close-cropped blond hair. He wore the same somber clothes as Lever, wine-red pan. that made them seem more like clerks than the heirs to great Companies. Facially the two men were very different, Kustow's face blunt, Lever's hawkish; but the similarity of dress and the starkness of their haircuts made them seem like brothers or members of some strange cult. So, too, the third of them, Stevens, who stood to one side, looking back at the wall-length window and its view of the great circle of the spaceport's landing apron.
They were strangers here. Americans. Young men on their fathers' business. Or so their papers claimed. But there were other reasons for coming to City Europe.
This was where things were happening just now. The pulsing heart of things. And they had come to feel that pulse. To find out if there was something they could learn from looking around.