"Oh, Tolonen is appointed temporarily. As caretaker General. He agreed an hour ago. But it is you I want to stand behind me at my coronation three days from now. You who will receive the ceremonial dagger that morning."
Ebert stared at him, open-mouthed, then fell to his knees, bowing his head low. "Chieh Hsia, you do me a great honor. My life is yours to command."
He had rehearsed the words earlier, yet his surprise at Li Yuan's sudden reversal gave them force. When he glanced up, he could see the pleasure in the young T'ang's face.
"Stand up, Hans. Please."
Ebert got to his feet slowly, keeping his head bowed.
Li Yuan came closer. "It might surprise you, Hans, but I have been watching you for some time now. Seeing how well you dealt with your new responsibilities. It did not escape my notice how loyal your officers were to you. As for your courage . . ." He reached out and touched the metal plate on the back of Ebert's head, then moved back again. "Most important of all, though, you have considerable influence among the elite of First Level. An important quality in a General."
Li Yuan smiled broadly. "Your appointment will be posted throughout the levels, tonight at twelfth bell. But before then I want you to prepare a plan of action for me."
"A plan, Chieh Hsia?"
Li Yuan nodded. "A plan to eradicate the Ping Tioo. To finish off what my father began. I want every last one of them dead, a month from now. Dead and their bodies laid before me."
Ebert's mouth fell open again. Then he bowed his head. But for a moment he had almost laughed. Eradicate the Ping Tioo? Little did Li Yuan know. It was done already! And done by Li Yuan's chief enemy, DeVore!
Li Yuan touched his shoulder. "Well... go now, Hans. Go and tell your father. I know he will be proud. It was what he always wanted."
Ebert smiled, then bowed his head again, surprised by the pride he felt. To be this man's servant—what was there to be proud of in that? And yet, strangely enough, he was. He turned to leave, but Li Yuan called him back.
"Oh, and Hans ... we found the boy."
Ebert turned back, his stomach tightening. "That's excellent, Chieh Hsia. How was he?"
Li Yuan smiled. "It could not have been better, Hans. He remembered everything. Everything . . ."
DEVORE TOOK his eye from the lens of the electron-microscope and looked across at the geneticist, smiling, impressed by what he'd seen.
"It's clever, Shih Curval. Very clever indeed. And does it always behave like that, no matter what the host?"
Curval hesitated a moment, then reached across DeVore to take the sealed slide from the microscope, handling it with extreme delicacy. As indeed he should, for the virus it contained was deadly. He looked back at DeVore.
"If the host has had the normal course of immunization, then, yes, it should follow near enough the same evolutionary pattern. There will be slight statistical variations, naturally, but such 'sports' will be small in number. For all intents and purposes you could guarantee a one hundred percent success rate."
DeVore nodded thoughtfully. "Interesting. So, in effect, what we have here is a bug that evolves—that's harmless when it's first passed on, but which, in only a hundred generations, evolves into a deadly virus. A brain-killer." He laughed. "And what's a hundred generations in the life of a bug?"
For the first time, Curval laughed. "Exactly . . ."
DeVore moved back, letting the scientist pass, his mind reeling with an almost aesthetic delight at the beauty of the thing. "Moreover, the very thing that triggers this evolutionary pattern is that which is normally guaranteed to defend the body against disease—the immunization program!"
"Exactly. The very thing that all First Level children have pumped into their systems as six-month fetuses."
DeVore watched him place the sealed slide back into the padded, shock-safe case and draw another out.
"Come . . . here's another. Slightly different this time. Same principal, but more specific."
DeVore leaned forward, fascinated. "What do you mean, more specific?"
Curval slipped the slide into the slot, then stood back. "Just watch. I'll trigger it when you're ready."
DeVore put his eye to the lens. Again he saw the thing divide and grow and change, like the ever-evolving pattern in a kaleidoscope, but this thing was real, alive—as alive as only a thing whose sole purpose was to kill could be.
DeVore looked up. "It looks the same."
Curval looked at him closely. "You noticed no difference then?"
DeVore smiled. "Well, there were one or two small things midway through. There was a brief stage when the thing seemed a lot bigger than before. And afterward, there was a slight color change. Then it normalized. Was the same as before."
Curval laughed. "Good. So you did see."
"Yes, but what did I see?"
Curval took out the slide—not as carefully as before, it seemed—and put it down on the table beside him.
"This . . ." he tapped it almost carelessly, "is as harmless to you or I as spring water. We could take in a huge dose of it and it wouldn't harm us one tiny little bit. But to a Han . . ."
DeVore's eyes widened.
Curval nodded. "That's right. What you saw was the virus priming itself genetically, like a tiny bacteriological time bomb, making itself racially specific."
DeVore laughed, then reached across to pick it up. The slide seemed empty, yet its contents could do untold damage. Not to him or his kind, but to the Han. He smiled broadly. "Wonderful! That's wonderful!"
Curval laughed. "I thought you'd like it. You know, I had you in mind constantly while I was making it. I would sit there late nights and laugh, imagining your reaction."
DeVore looked at him a moment, then nodded. The two had known each other more than twenty years, ever since their first fateful meeting at one of Old Man Ebert's parties. Curval had been restless even then—wanting to break out on his own, burdened by the remaining years of his contract. It had been DeVore who had befriended him. DeVore who had found him his first important contacts in City America. DeVore who had shown him the top-security files detailing the deals Klaus Ebert had struck with various companies to destroy CurvaPs own enterprise. DeVore who had arranged the deal whereby he worked for the Levers and yet had his own private laboratories.
And now Curval was returning the favor. With only one string attached. A minor thing. DeVore could have the virus, but first he must promise to kill Old Man Ebert. He had agreed.
"Does Michael know about this?"
Curval smiled. "What do you think? Michael Lever is a nice young man for all his revolutionary fervor. He wants to change things—but fairly. He'll fight if he must, but he won't cheat. He'd kill me if he knew I'd made something like this."
DeVore considered that a while, then nodded. "You're sure of that?" Curval laughed sourly. "I know that young man too well. He seems different, but underneath it all he's the same as the rest of them. They've had it too easy, all of them. What fires them isn't ambition but a sense of bitterness. Bitterness that their fathers still treat them as children. For all they were saying back there in the screen room, they don't want change. Not real change like you and I want. When they talk of change what they mean is a change of leadership. They'd as soon relinquish their privileges as the Seven."
"Maybe," DeVore said, watching Curval pack up the microscope. "By the way, has the virus a name?"
Curval clicked the case shut and turned, looking back at DeVore. "Yes, as a matter of fact it does. I've named it after the viral strain I developed it from. That, too, was a killer, though not as lethal or efficient as mine. And it was around for centuries before people managed to find a cure for it. Syphilis, they called it. What the Han call yang mei ping, 'willow-plum sickness.' "
DeVore laughed, surprised. "So it's sexually transmitted?"