Lehmann stared back at him a moment, then climbed the narrow path to the tower. The doorway was empty. He went inside and stood looking about him. The tower was a shell, the whole thing open to the sky, but the floor was much newer. The big planks there looked old, but that was how they were meant to look. At most they were ten years old.
Reid came and stood there in the doorway, looking in at him. "What is this? Are we going to camp here until they've gone?"
Lehmann shook his head, then turned and came out, searching the nearby slope. Then, with a grunt of satisfaction, he crouched down, parting the spiky grasses with his gloved hands.
"Here," he said. "Give me a hand."
Reid went across. It was a hatch of some kind. An old-fashioned circular metal plate less than a ch'i in circumference. There were two handles set into either side of the plate. Lehmann took one, Reid the other. Together they heaved at the thing until it gave.
Beneath was a shallow shaft. Lehmann leaned inside, feeling blindly for something.
"What are you doing?" Reid asked, looking out past him, afraid that a passing Security craft would spot them.
Lehmann said nothing, simply carried on with his search. A moment later he sat back, holding something in his hand. It looked like a knife. A broad, flat knife with a circular handle. Or a spike of some kind.
Lehmann stood, then went back to the tower.
He went inside and crouched down, setting the spike down at his side. Groaning with the effort, he pushed one of the planks back tight against the far wall, revealing a small depression in the stonework below, its shape matching that of the spike perfectly. Lehmann hefted the spike a moment, then slotted it into the depression. Reid, watching from the open doorway, laughed. It was a key.
Lehmann stepped back into the doorway. As he did so there was a sharp click and the whole floor began to rise, pushing up into the shell of the tower, until it stopped two ch'i above their heads.
It was an elevator. Moreover, it was occupied. Reid made a small sound of surprise, then bowed his head hurriedly. It was DeVore.
"About time!" DeVore said, moving out past the two men, his face livid with anger. "Another hour and they'd have had me. I could hear them working on the seal at the far end of the tunnel."
"What happened?" Lehmann asked, following DeVore out into the open.
DeVore turned, facing him. "Someone's betrayed us! Sold us down the fucking river!"
Lehmann nodded. "They were Security," he said. "The craft I saw were Special Elite. That would mean orders from high up, wouldn't you say?"
There was an ugly movement in DeVore's face. His incarceration in the tunnel had done nothing for his humor. "Ebert! But what's the bastard up to? What game's the little fucker playing now?"
"Are you sure it's him?"
DeVore looked away. "No. I can't see what he'd gain from it. But who else could it be? Who else knows where we are? Who else could hit me without warning?"
"So what are you going to do?"
DeVore laughed sourly. "Nothing. Not until I've spoken to the little weasel. But if he hasn't got a bloody good explanation, then he's dead. Useful or not, he's dead, hear me?"
HAL SHEPHERD turned his head, looking up at the young T'ang, his eyes wet with gratitude.
"Li Yuan . . . I'm glad you came."
His voice was thin, almost transparently so, matching perfectly the face from which it issued; a thin-fleshed, ruined face that was barely distinguishable from a skull. It pained Li Yuan to see him like this. To see all the strength leeched from the man and death staring out from behind his eyes.
"Ben sent me a note," he said gently, almost tenderly. "But you should have sent for me before now. I would have spared the time. You know I would."
The ghost of a smile flickered on Shepherd's lips. "Yes. You're like Shai Tung in that. It was a quality I much admired in him."
It took so long for him to say the words—took such effort—that Li Yuan found himself longing for him to stop. To say nothing. Simply to lie there, perhaps. But that was not what Shepherd wanted. He knew his death lay but days ahead of him, and now that Li Yuan was here, he wanted his say. Nor was it in Li Yuan's heart to deny him.
"My father missed you greatly after you returned here. He often remarked how it was as if he had had a part of him removed." Li Yuan looked aside, giving a small laugh. "You know, Hal, I'm not even sure it was your advice he missed, or simply your voice."
He looked back, seeing how the tears had formed again in Shepherd's eyes, and found his own eyes growing moist. He looked away, closing his eyes briefly, remembering another time, in the long room at Tongjiang, when Hal had shown him how to juggle. How, with a laugh, he had told him that it was the one essential skill a ruler needed. So he always was—part playful and part serious, each game of his making a point, each utterance the distillation of a wealth of unspoken thought. He had been the very best of Counselors to his father. In that the Li family had always been fortunate, for who else among the Seven could draw from such a deep well as they did with the Shepherds? It was what gave them their edge. Was why the other Families always looked to Li for guidance.
But now that chain was broken. Unless he could convince Hal's son otherwise.
He looked back at Shepherd and saw how he was watching him, the eyes strangely familiar in that unrecognizably wasted face.
"I'm not a pretty sight, I realize, Yuan. But look at me. Please. I have something important to say to you."
Li Yuan inclined his head. "Of course, Hal. I was . . . remembering."
"I understand. I see it all the time. In Beth. You grow accustomed to such things."
Shepherd hesitated, a brief flicker of pain passing across his face; then he went on, his voice a light rasp.
"Well... let me say it simply. Change has come, Yuan, like it or not. Now you must harness it and ride it like a horse. I counseled your father differently, I know, but things were different then. Much has changed, even in this last year. You must be ruthless now. Uncompromising. Wang Sau-leyan is your enemy. I think you realize that. But do not think he is the only one who will oppose you. What you must do will upset friend as well as foe, but do not shrink from it merely because of that. No. You must steer a hard course, Yuan. If not, there is no hope. No hope at all."
Hal lay there afterward, quiet, very still, until Yuan realized that he was sleeping. He sat, watching him a while. There was nothing profound in what Hal had said; nothing he had not heard a thousand times before. No. What made it significant was that it was Hal who had said it. Hal, who had always counseled moderation, even during the long War with the Dispersionists. Even after they had seeded him with the cancer that now claimed him.
He sat there until Beth came in. She looked past him, seeing how things were, then went to the drawer and fetched another blanket, laying it over him. Then she turned, looking at Li Yuan.
"He's not. . . ?" Li Yuan began, suddenly concerned.
Beth shook her head. "No. He does this often now. Sometimes he falls asleep in mid-sentence. He's very weak now, you understand. The excitement of your coming will have tired him. But please, don't worry about that. We're all pleased that you came, Li Yuan."
Li Yuan looked down, moved by the simplicity of her words. "It was the least I could do. Hal has been like a father to me." He looked up again, meeting her eyes. "You don't know how greatly it pains me to see him like this."
She looked away, only a slight tightening of her cheek muscles revealing how much she was holding back. Then she looked back at him, smiling.
"Well. . . let's leave him to sleep, eh? I'll make some ch'a."
He smiled, then gave the smallest bow, understanding now why his father had talked so much about his visit here. Hal's pending death or no, there was contentment here. A balance.