"There is one girl, Highness . . ." he said, remembering what K'ai Fan had said. "I have been told that she can manage the most extraordinary feats."
"Really?" Chun Wu-chi's eyes lit up.
Hsiang Wang smiled. "Let me bring her, Highness." He looked about him at the younger men. "In the meantime, if the ch'un tzu would like to entertain themselves?"
On cue the lights overhead dimmed, the music grew more lively. From vents overhead subtle, sweet-scented hallucinogens wafted into the air.
As he made his way down to the pool, he saw how quickly some of the men, eager not to waste a moment, had drawn girls down onto the couches next to them; one—a prince of the Pei Family—had one girl massaging his neck and shoulders while another knelt between his legs.
Hsiang Wang laughed softly. There would be more outrageous sights than that before the day was done. Many more. He slowed, looking about him, then saw the girl and lifted his hand, summoning her.
She came across and stopped, bowing before him. A dainty little thing, her hair cut in swallow bangs. She looked up at him, revealing her perfect features, her delicate rosebud lips. "Yes, Excellency?"
He reached in his pocket and took out the thousand-^uan chip he had stashed there earlier, handing it to her. "You know what to do?"
She nodded, a smile coming to her lips.
"Good. Then go and introduce yourself. I'll have the servants bring the beast."
He watched her go, glad that he had gone through all this with his brother two days before.
Sick. What a time for K'ai Fan to fall sick! Surely he knew how important this occasion was for the Family? Hsiang Wang shuddered, then threw off his irritation. It could not be helped, he supposed. And if he could please Old Chun, who knew what advantages he might win for himself?
He hurried back in time to see the servants bring the beast. The ox-man stood there passively, its three-toed hands at its sides, looking about it nervously, its almost-human eyes filled with anxiety. Seeing it, some of the younger princes laughed among themselves and leaned close to exchange words. Hsiang Wang smiled and moved closer, standing at Chun's shoulder. At once another girl approached and knelt at Chun's side, her flank against his leg, one hand resting gently on his knee.
Chun looked down briefly, smiling, then looked back, studying the girl and the beast, one hand tugging at his beard, an expression of interest on his long, heavily lined face.
Hsiang raised his hand. At once the servants came forward, tearing the fine silks from the ox-man's back, tugging down its velvet trousers. Then they stood back. For a moment it stood there, bewildered, trembling, its big dark-haired body exposed. Then, with a low, cowlike moan, it turned its great head, as if looking to escape.
At once the girl moved closer, putting one hand up to its chest, calming it, whispering words of reassurance. Again it lowed, but now it was looking down, its eyes on the girl.
From the couches to either side of Chun Wu-chi came laughter. Laughter and low, excited whispers.
Slowly she began to stroke the beast, long, sensuous strokes that began high up in the beast's furred chest and ended low down, between its heavily muscled legs. It was not long before it was aroused, its huge member poking up stiffly into the air, glistening, long and wet and pink-red in the half-light—a lance of quivering, living matter.
As the girl slipped her gown from her shoulders, there was a low murmur of approval. Now she stood there, naked, holding the beast's huge phallus in one hand, while with the other she continued to stroke its chest.
Its lowing now had a strange, inhuman urgency to it. It turned its head from side to side, as if in pain, its whole body trembling, as if at any moment it might lose control. One hand lifted, moving toward the girl, then withdrew.
Then, with a small, teasing smile at Chun Wu-chi, the girl lowered her head and took the beast deep into her mouth.
There was a gasp from all around. Hsiang, watching, saw how the girl he had assigned to Chun was working the old man, burrowed beneath his skirts, doing to him exactly what the other was doing to the ox-man. He smiled. Judging from the look of pained pleasure on the old man's face, Chun Wu-chi would not forget this evening quickly.
IT WAS JUST after nine in the evening and in the great Hall of Celestial Destinies at Nantes spaceport a huge crowd milled about. The 8:20 rocket from Boston had come in ten minutes earlier and the final security clearances were being made before its passengers were passed through into the hall.
. Lehmann stood at the base of the statue in the center of the hall, waiting. DeVore had contacted him an hour and a half ago to say he would be on the 8:20. He had sounded angry and irritable, but when Lehmann had pressed him about the trip, he had seemed enthusiastic. It was something else, then, that had soured his mood—something that had happened back here, in his absence—and there was only one thing that could have done that: the failure of the assassination attempt on Tolonen.
Was that why DeVore had asked him to meet him here? To try again? It made sense, certainly, for despite all their "precautions" the last thing Security really expected was a new attempt so shortly after the last.
He turned, looking up at the giant bronze figures. He knew that the composition was a lie, part of the Great Lie the Han had built along with their City; even so there was an underlying truth to it, for the Han had triumphed over the Ta Ts'in. Kan Ying had bowed before Pan Chao. Or at least, their descendants had. But for how much longer would the dream of Rome be denied?
For himself, it was unimportant. Han or Hung Mao, it did not matter who ruled the great circle of Chung Kuo. Even so, in the great struggle that was to come, his ends would be served. Whoever triumphed, the world would be no longer as it was. Much that he hated would, of necessity, be destroyed, and in that process of destruction—of purification—a new spirit would be unleashed. New and yet quite ancient. Savage and yet pure, like an eagle circling in the cold clear air above the mountains.
He looked away. A new beginning, that was what the world needed. A new beginning, free of all this.
Lehmann looked about him, studying the people making their way past him, appalled by the emptiness he saw in every face. Here they were, all the half-men and half-women and all their little halflings, hurrying about their empty, meaningless lives. On their brief, sense-dulled journey to the Oven Man's door.
And then?
He shivered, oppressed suddenly by the crush, by the awful perfumed stench of those about him. This now—this brief moment of time before it began—was a kind of tiger's mouth; that moment before one surrounded one's opponent's stone, robbing it of breath. It was a time of closing options. Of fast and desperate plays.
There was a murmuring throughout the hall as the announcement boards at either end showed that the passengers from the 8:20 Boston rocket were coming through. Lehmann was about to go across to the gate when he noticed two men making their way through the crowd, their faces set, their whole manner subtly different.
Security? No. For a start they were Han. Moreover, there was something fluid, almost rounded about their movements; something one never found in the more rigorously and classically trained Security elite. No. These were more likely Triad men. Assassins. But who were they after? Who else was on DeVore's flight? Some Company Head? Or was this a gang matter?
He followed them surreptitiously, interested, wanting to observe their methods.
The gate at the far end of the hall was open now and passengers were spilling out. Looking past the men, he saw DeVore, his neat, tidy figure making its way swiftly but calmly through the press. The men were exactly halfway between him and DeVore, some ten or fifteen ch'i in front of him, when he realized his mistake.