This time he would do it right. Would ensure that the right men were appointed, that it was adequately funded and properly protected. No, there would be no mistakes this time.
Mistakes. He shook his head. He had misjudged things badly. He ought to have trusted to his instinct about the boy, but he had been off-balance. That whole business with Fei Yen had thrown him. He had been unable to see things clearly. But now he could put things right. Could reward the boy. Indeed, what better way was there of making Ward loyal to him than through the ties of gratitude? And he needed the boy to be loyal. He saw that now. Saw what he had almost lost through his inadvertence.
Such talent as Kim possessed appeared but rarely in the world. It was a priceless gift. And whoever had the use of it could only benefit. Change was coming to Chung Kuo, like it or not, and they must find a way to harness it. Ward's skills—his genius—might prove effective, not in preventing change—for who could turn back the incoming tide—but in giving it a shape better suited to the wishes of the Seven.
For now, however, Li Yuan would use him in a different role. As an eye, peering into the darkness of his enemies' hearts. As an ear, listening to the rhythms of their thought. And then, when he was done with that, he would fly him on a long leash, like a young hawk, giving him the illusion of freedom, letting him stretch his wings even as he restrained and directed him.
There was a faint knock. "Come," he said.
"You sent for me, Chieh Hsial"
He picked up the package and offered it to his Chancellor. "Have this sent to Shih Ward at once. I want it to be in his room when he returns tonight."
"Of course, Chieh Hsia." Nan Ho hesitated. "Is that all?"
As ever, he had read Li Yuan's mood. Had understood without the need for words.
"One thing, Nan Ho. You will carry a note for me. Personally. To Fei Yen. To wish her well."
Nan Ho bowed his head. "Forgive me, Chieh Hsia, but is that wise? There are those who might construe such a note to mean—"
Li Yuan cut him off. "Nan Ho! Just do it. Wise or not, I feel it must be done. So please, take my message to her and wish her well. I would not be bitter about the past, understand me? I would be strong. And how can I be strong unless I face the past clear-eyed, understanding my mistakes?"
Nan Ho bowed, impressed by his master's words. "I will go at once, Chieh Hsia."
"Good. And when you return you will find me a new Master of the Inner Chambers. A man who will serve me as well as you have served me."
Nan Ho smiled. "Of course, Chieh Hsia. I have the very man in mind."
IT WAS AFTER midnight and Archimedes' Kitchen was packed. The club was dimly lit, like the bottom of the ocean, the air heavy with exotic scents. As one stepped inside, under the great arch, the deep growl of a primitive bass rhythm obliterated all other sound, like a slow, all-pervasive heartbeat, resonating in everything it touched.
The architecture of the club was eccentric but deliberate. All things Han were absent here. Its fashions looked backward, to the last years of the American Empire, before the Great Collapse.
From its position at the top edge of the City, the Kitchen overlooked the dark-green, island-strewn waters of Buzzards Bay. Through the vast, clear windows of the upper tiers you could, on a clear day, see the southwestern tip of Martha's Vineyard, distant and green, unspoiled by any structure. Few were so inclined. For most of the time the magnificent view windows were opaqued, arabesques of vivid color swirling across their blinded surfaces.
Inside, the place was cavernous. Tier after tier spiraled up about the central circle of the dance floor, a single, broad ramp ascending smoothly into the darkened heights. Along the slowly winding length of this elegantly carpeted avenue, tables were set. Ornate, impressive tables, in Empire style, the old insignia of the sixty-nine States carved into the wooden surfaces, bronzed eagles stretching their wings across the back of each chair. Gold-and-black-suited waiters hovered—literally hovered—by the rail to take orders. Their small backpack jets, a memory of the achievements of their technological past, flaunted the Edict. Like bees, they tended the needs of the crowded tiers, fetching and carrying, issuing from the darkness high above their patrons' heads.
In the center of all was a huge light sculpture, a twisting double band of gold stretching from floor to ceiling. It was a complex double helix, detailed and flowing, pulsing with the underlying bass rhythm, by turns frail and intense, ghostly thin and then broad, sharply delineated, like a solid thing. This, too, bordered on the illicit; it was a challenge of sorts to those who ruled.
Membership of the Kitchen was exclusive. Five, almost six thousand members crowded the place on a good night—which this was—but five times that number were members and twenty times that were on the club's waiting list. More significantly, membership was confined to just one section of the populace. No Han were allowed here, nor their employees. In this, as in so many other ways, the club was in violation of statutes passed in the House some years before, though the fact that most of the North American Representatives were also members of the Kitchen had escaped no one's notice.
It was a place of excess. Here, much more was permitted than elsewhere. Eccentricity seemed the norm, and nakedness, or a partial nakedness that concealed little of importance, was much in evidence. Men wore their genitalia dressed in silver, small fins sprouting from the sides of their drug-aroused shafts. The women were no less overt in their symbolism; many wore elaborate rings of polished metal about their sex—space gates, similar in form to the docking apertures on spacecraft. It was a game, but there was a meaning behind its playfulness.
Of those who were dressed—the majority, it must be said—few demonstrated a willingness to depart from what was the prevalent style: a style that might best be described as Techno-Barbarian, a mixture of space suits and ancient chain mail. Much could be made of the curious opposition of the fine—in some cases beautiful—aristocratic faces and the brutish, primitive dress. It seemed a telling contrast, illustrative of some elusive quality in the society itself, of the unstated yet ever-present conflict in their souls. Almost a confession.
It was almost two in the morning when Kim arrived at the "gateway" and presented his invitation. The sobriety of his dress marked him as a visitor, just as much as his diminutive status. People stared at him shamelessly as he was ushered through the crowded tunnel and out into the central space.
He boarded a small vehicle to be taken to his table—a replica of the four-wheeled, battery-powered jeep that had first been used on the moon two hundred and thirty-eight years before. At a point halfway up the spiral it stopped. There was an empty table with spaces set. Nearby two waiters floated, beyond the brass-and-crystal rail.
Kim sat beside the rail, looking down at the dance floor more than a hundred ch'i below. The noise was not so deafening up here. Down there, however, people were thickly pressed, moving slowly, sensuously, to the stimulus of a Mood Enhancer. Small firefly clouds of hallucinogens moved erratically among the dancers, sparking soundlessly as they made contact with the moist warmth of naked flesh.
Kim looked up. His hosts had arrived. They stood on the far side of the table— two big men, built like athletes, dressed casually in short business pau, as if to make him more at ease.