Ebert laughed, then leaned closer. "And my friend? Did you enjoy his company?"
Lever glanced at his companions, then laughed. "I can speak for us all in saying that it was a most interesting experience. I would never have guessed . . ."
Ebert smiled. "No. And let's keep it that way, neh?" He turned, looking about him, then took Lever's arm. "And his gift?"
Lever's eyes widened. "You knew about that?"
"Of course. But come. Let's go outside. It's cool in the garden. We can talk as we go. Of Chung Kuo and Ta Ts'in and dreams of empire."
Lever gave a soft laugh and bowed his head. "Lead on ..."
ITWASJUST after four when the last of the guests left the Ebert Mansion. Hans, watching from the balcony, stifled a yawn, then turned, and went back inside. He had not been drinking and yet he felt quite drunk—buoyed up on a vast and heady upsurge of well-being. Things had never been better. That very evening his father had given over a further sixteen companies to him, making it almost a quarter of the giant GenSyn empire that he now controlled. Life, at last, was beginning to open to him. Earlier he had taken Tolonen aside to suggest that his marriage to Jelka be brought forward. At first, the old man had seemed a little put out, but then when Hans had spoken of the sense of stability it would bring him, Tolonen had grown quite keen—almost as if the idea had been his own.
Ebert went down the stairs and out into the empty hall, standing there a moment, smiling, recollecting Tolonen's response.
"Let me speak to her," Tolonen had said, as he was leaving. "After the coronation, when things have settled a little. But I promise you, Hans, I'll do my best to persuade her. After all, it's in no one's interest to delay, is it?"
No, he thought. Especially not now. At least, not now that they had come to an arrangement with the Americans.
He went out and said good night to his father and mother, then came back, running across the hall and out through the back doors into the garden. The night seemed fresh and warm and for the briefest moment he imagined himself outside, beneath a real moon, under a real sky. Well, maybe that would happen soon. In a year, two years perhaps. When he was King of Europe.
On the ornamental bridge he slowed, looking about him. He felt a great restlessness in his blood; an urge to do something. He thought of the mui tsai, but for once his restlessness was pure, uncontaminated by a sense of sexual urgency. No, it was as if he needed to go somewhere, do something. All of this waiting—for his inheritance, his command, his wife—seemed suddenly a barrier to simple being. Tonight he wanted to be, to do. To break heads or ride a horse at breakneck speed.
He kicked out, sending gravel into the water below, watching the ripples spread. Then he moved on, jumping down the steps to the path and vaulting up onto the balcony above. He turned, looking back. A servant had stopped, watching him. Seeing Ebert turn, he moved on hurriedly, his head bowed, the huge bowl he held making slopping sounds in the silence.
Ebert laughed. There were no heads to break, no horses here to ride. So maybe he would fuck the mui tsai anyway. Maybe that would still his pulse and purge the restlessness from his system. He turned, making his way along to his suite of rooms. Inside he began to undress, unbuttoning his tunic. As he did so, he went over to the comset and touched in the code.
He turned away, throwing his tunic down on a chair, then tapped on the inner door. At once a servant popped his head around the door.
"Bring the mui tsai to my room; then go. I'll not need you any more tonight, Lo Wen."
The servant bowed and left. Ebert turned back, looking at the screen. There were a great number of messages for once, mainly from friends congratulating him on his appointment. But among them was one he had been expecting. DeVore's.
He read it through and laughed. So the meeting with the Americans had gone well. Good. The introduction was yet another thing DeVore owed him for. What's more, DeVore wanted him to do something else.
He smiled, then sat down, pulling off his boots. Slowly, by small degrees, DeVore was placing himself in his debt. More and more he had come to rely on him—for little things at first, but now for ever larger schemes. And that was good. For he would keep account of all.
There was a faint tapping at the inner door.
He turned in the chair, looking across. "Come in," he said softly.
The door slid back. For a moment she stood there, naked, looking in at him, the light behind her. She was so beautiful, so wonderfully made that his penis grew hard simply looking at her. Then she came across, fussing about him, helping him with the last few items of his clothing.
Finished, she looked up at him from where she knelt on the floor in front of him. "Was your evening good, Master?"
He pulled her up onto his lap, then began to stroke her neck and shoulders, looking up into her dark and liquid eyes, his blood inflamed now by the warmth of her flesh against his own. "Never better, Sweet Flute. Never in my whole life better."
DEVORt slipped the vial back into its carrying case, sealed the lid, and handed ii^to Lehmann.
"Don't drop it, Stefan, whatever else you do. And make sure that Hans knows what to do with it. He knows it's coming, but he doesn't properly know what it is. He'll be curious, so it's best if you tell him something, if only to damp down his curiosity."
The albino slipped the cigar-shaped case into his inner pocket, then fastened his tunic tight. "So what should I say?"
DeVore laughed. "Tell him the truth for once. Tell him it kills Han. He'll like that."
Lehmann nodded, then bowed and turned away.
He watched Lehmann go, then took his furs from the cupboard in the comer. It was too late now to sleep. He would go hunting instead. Yes, it would be good to greet the dawn on the open mountainside.
DeVore smiled, studying himself in the mirror as he pulled on his furs; then, taking his crossbow from the rack on the wall, he went out, making his way toward the old tunnels, taking the one that came out on the far side of the mountain beside the ruins of the ancient castle.
As he walked along he wondered, not for the first time, what Lever had made of the gift he'd given him.
The Aristotle File. A copy of Berdichev's original, in his own handwriting. The true history of Chung Kuo. Not the altered and sanitized version the Han peddled in their schools, but the truth, from the birth of Western thought in Aristotle's Yes/No logic, to the splendors of space travel, mass communications, and artificial intelligence systems. A history of the West systematically erased by the Han. Yes, and that was another kind of virus. One, in its own way, every bit as deadly for the Han.
DeVore laughed, his laughter echoing down the tunnel. All in all it had been a good day. And it was going to get better. Much better.
IT was EXACTLY ten minutes past five when the scouts moved into place on the mountainside, dropping the tiny gas pellets into the base's ventilation outlets. At the entrance to the hangar, four masked men sprayed ice-eating acids onto the snow-covered surface of the doors. Two minutes later, Karr, wearing a mask and carrying a lightweight air cannister, kicked his way inside.
He crossed the hangar at a quick march, then ran down the corridor linking it to the inner fortress, his automatic searching this way and that, looking for any sign of resistance; but the colorless, odorless gas had done its work. Guards lay slumped in several places. They would have had no chance to issue any kind of warning.
He glanced down at his wrist timer, then turned, looking back. Alreadythe first squad was busy, binding and gagging the unconscious defenders before the effects of the gas wore off. Behind them a second squad was coming through, their masked faces looking from side to side, double-checking as they came along.