An Liang-chou, on the other hand, was a tiny, ratlike man, stringily built and astonishingly ugly even by the standard of some of the clients Mu Chua had entertained over the years. Flat-faced and beady-eyed, he was as nervous as Hsiang was languid; his movements jerky, awkward. Meeting his eyes, Mu Chua smiled tightly, trying to keep the aversion she felt from showing. Rumor had it that he fucked all six of his daughters—even the youngest, who was only six. Looking at him, it was not hard to imagine. She had seen at once how his eyes had lit up at the sight of her girls. How a dark, lascivious light had come to them: the kind of look a predatory insect gives its victim before it pounces.
Unlike Hsiang, An Liang-chou seemed to have no taste at all when it came to dress. His gaudily colored pau hung loosely on him, as if he had stolen it from another. Like Hsiang he was heavily perfumed, but it was an unpleasantly sickly scent, more sour than sweet, as if mixed with his own sweat. She saw how his hand—the fingers thickly crusted with jeweled rings—went to his short ceremonial dagger; how his lips moved wetly as he considered which girl he would have first.
"My lords . . . you are welcome to my humble House," she said, lowering her head again. "Would you care for something to drink?"
Hsiang seemed about to answer, but before he could do so, An Liang-chou moved past her and after pawing two of the girls, chose the third. Gripping her upper arm tightly he dragged her roughly after him, through the beaded curtain and into the rooms beyond.
Mu Chua watched him go, then turned back to Hsiang, smiling, all politeness.
"Would the Lord Hsiang like refreshments?"
Hsiang smiled graciously and let himself be led into the next room. But in the doorway to the Room of Heaven he stopped and turned to look at her.
"Why, this is excellent, Mu Chua. The General was not wrong when he said you were a woman of taste. I would not have thought such a place could have existed outside First Level."
She bowed low, immensely pleased by his praise. "Ours is but a humble House, Excellency."
"However," he said, moving on, into the room, "I had hoped for—well, let us not prevaricate, eh?—for special pleasures."
She saw how he looked at her and knew at once that she had misjudged him totally. His silken manners masked a nature far more repugnant than An Liang-chou's.
"Special pleasures, Excellency?"
He turned, then sat in the huge silk-cushioned chair she had bought specially to accommodate his bulk, the fan moving slowly, languidly in his hand.
He looked back at her, his tiny eyes cold and calculating amid the flesh of his face. "Yes," he said smoothly. "They say you can buy anything in the Net. Anything at all."
She felt herself go cold. Ebert had said nothing about this. From what he'd said, Hsiang's pleasures were no more unnatural than the next man's. But this . . .
She waved the girls away, then slid the door across and turned to face him, reminding herself that this was her passage out, the last time she would have to deal with his kind.
"What is it you would like?" she asked, keeping her voice steady. "We cater for all tastes here, my Lord."
He smiled, a broad gap opening in the flesh of his lower face, showing teeth that seemed somehow too small to fill the space. His voice was silken, like the voice of a young woman.
"My needs are simple, Mu Chua. Very simple. And the General promised me that you would meet them."
She knelt, bowing her head. "Of course, Excellency. But tell me, what exactly is it that you want?"
He clicked the fan shut, then leaned forward slightly, beckoning her across.
She rose, moving closer, then knelt, her face only a hand's width from his knees. He leaned close, whispering, a hint of aniseed on his breath.
"I have been told that there is a close connection between sex and death, that the finest pleasure of all is to fuck a woman at the moment of her death. I have been told that the death throes of a woman bring on an orgasm so intense . . ."
She looked up at him, horrified, but he was looking past her, his eyes lit with an intense pleasure, as if he could see the thing he was describing. She let him spell it out, barely listening to him now, then sat back on her heels, a small shiver passing through her.
"You want to kill one of my girls, is that it, Lord Hsiang? You wish to slit her throat while you are making love to her?"
He looked back at her, nodding. "I will pay well."
"Pay well . . ." She looked down. It was not the first time she had had such a request. Even in the old days there had been some like Hsiang who linked their pleasure to the pain of others, but even under Whiskers Lu there had been limits to what she would allow. She had never had one of her girls die while with a client, intentionally or otherwise; and it was on her tongue to tell this bastard, Prince or no, to go fuck himself. But. . .
She shuddered, then looked up at him again, seeing how eagerly he awaited her answer. To say no was to condemn herself at best to staying here, at worst to incurring the anger of Hans Ebert. And who knew what he would do to her if she spoiled things now for him? But to say yes was to comply with the murder of one of her girls. It would be as if she herself had held the knife and drawn it across the flesh.
"What you ask . . ." she began, then hesitated. "Yes?"
She stood, then turned away, moving toward the door before turning back to face him again. "You must let me think, Lord Hsiang. My girls . . ." "Of course," he said, as if he understood. "It must be a special girl." His laughter chilled her blood. It was as if what he was discussing were commonplace. As for the girl herself... In all her years she had tried to keep it in her mind that what her clients bought was not the girl, but the services of the girl, as one bought the services of an accountant or a broker. But men like Hsiang made no such distinction. To them the girl was but a thing to be used and discarded as they wished. But how to say no? What possible excuse could she give that would placate Hsiang K'ai Fan? Her mind raced, turning back upon itself time and again, trying to find a way out, some way of resolving this impossible dilemma. Then she relaxed, knowing, at last, what to do.
She smiled and moved closer, taking Hsiang's hands gently and raising him from his chair.
"Come," she said, kissing his swollen neck, her right hand moving down his bloated flank, caressing him. "You wanted special pleasures, Hsiang K'ai Fan, and special pleasures you will have. Good wine, fine music, the very best of foods . . ."
"And after?" He stared at her expectantly.
Mu Chua smiled, letting her hand rest briefly on the hard shape at his groin, caressing it through the silk. "After, we shall do as you wish."
charles lever's son Michael sat at his desk, facing Kim across the vastness of his office.
"Well? Have you seen enough?"
Kim looked about him. Huge tapestries filled the walls to the left and right of him, broad panoramas of the Rockies and the great American plains; while on the end wall, beyond Lever's big oak desk and the leather-backed swivel chair, was a bank of screens eight deep and twenty wide. In the center of the plushly carpeted room, on a big low table, under glass, was a 3-D map of the east coast of City North America, ImmVac's installations marked in blue. Kim moved closer, peering down through the glass.