He looked back at Ben, seeing how tense he was, crouched over the big square-paged book, and felt a ripple of unease pass through him. It did not seem right, somehow, to be working on the day of his father's funeral. Li Yuan moved closer, looking over Ben's shoulder at the diagram he was working on—seeing only a disorganized mess of lines and shapes and coded instructions set down in a dozen brilliant colors on the underlying grid, like the scribblings of a child.
"What is that?"
Ben finished what he was doing, then turned, looking up at the young T'ang.
"It's a rough."
"A rough?" Li Yuan laughed. "A rough of what?"
"No. . . that's what I call it. All of these are instructions. The dark lines—those in brown, orange, and red, mainly—are instructions to the muscles. The small circles in blue, black, and mauve are chemical input instructions; the nature of the chemical and the dosage marked within the circle. The rectangular blocks are just that—blocks. They indicate when no input of any kind is passing through the particular node."
"Nodes?" Li Yuan was thoroughly confused by this time.
Ben smiled. "Pai pi. You know, the old artificial reality experiments. I've been working on them for the last fifteen months. I call them 'shells.' This is an input instruction diagram. As I said, a rough. These eighty-one horizontal lines represent the input points, and these forty vertical lines represent the dimension of time— twenty to a second."
Li Yuan frowned. "I still don't understand. Inputs into what?"
"Into the recipient's body. Come. I'll show you. Downstairs."
They went down, into the basement workrooms. There, at one end of the long, low-ceilinged room, almost hidden by the clutter of other machinery, was the shell. It was a big, elaborately decorated casket; like something one might use for an imperial lying-in-state, the lid lacquered a midnight black.
Ben stood beside it, looking back at Li Yuan. "The recipient climbs in here and is wired up—the wires being attached to eighty-one special input points both in the brain and at important nerve centers throughout the body. That done, the casket is sealed, effectively cutting the recipient off from all external stimuli. That absence of stimuli is an unnatural state for the human body: if denied sensory input for too long the mind begins to hallucinate. Using this well-documented receptivity of the sensory apparatus to false stimuli, we can provide the mind with a complete alternative experience."
Li Yuan stared at the apparatus a moment longer, then looked back at the Shepherd boy. "Complete? How complete?"
Ben was watching him, as a hawk watches a rabbit. An intense, predatory stare.
"As complete as the real thing. If the art is good enough."
"The art... I see." Li Yuan frowned. It seemed such a strange thing to want to do. To create an art that mimicked life so closely. An art that supplanted life. He reached out and touched the skeletal frame that hung to one side of the shell, noting the studded inputs about the head and chest and groin. Eighty-one inputs in all. "But why?"
Ben stared at him as if he didn't understand the question, then handed him a book similar to the one he had been working on in his room. "These, as I said, are the roughs. They form the diagrammatic outline of an event-sequence—a story. Eventually those lines and squiggles and dots will become events. Sensory actualities. Not real, yet indistinguishable from the real."
Li Yuan stared at the open page and nodded, but it still didn't explain. Why this need for fictions? For taking away what was and filling it with something different? Wasn't life itself enough?
Ben was leaning close now, looking into his face, his eyes filled with an almost insane intensity, his voice a low whisper.
"It's like being a god. You can do whatever you want. Create whatever you want to create. Things that never happened. That never could happen."
Li Yuan laughed uncomfortably. "Something that never happened? But why should you want to do that? Isn't there enough diversity in the world as it is?"
Ben looked at him curiously, then looked away, as if disappointed. "No. You miss my point."
It was said quietly, almost as if it didn't matter. As if in that brief instant between the look and the words, he had made his mind up about something.
"Then what is the point?" Li Yuan insisted, setting the book down on the padded innards of the casket.
Ben looked down, his hand reaching out to touch the apparatus. For the first time Li Yuan noticed that the hand was artificial. It seemed real, but the deeply etched ridge of skin gave it away. Once revealed, other signs added to the impression. There was an added subtlety of touch, a deftness of movement just beyond the human range.
"Your question is larger than you think, Li Yuan. It questions not merely what I do, but all art, all fiction, all dreams of other states. It asserts that 'what is' is enough. My argument is that 'what is' is insufficient. We need more than 'what is.' Much more."
Li Yuan shrugged. "Maybe. But this takes it too far, surely? It seems a kind of mockery. Life is good. Why seek this false perfection?"
"Do you really believe that, Li Yuan? Are you sure there's nothing my art could give you that life couldn't?"
Li Yuan turned away, as if stung. He was silent for some time; then he looked back, a grim expression of defiance changing his features. "Only illusions, my friend. Nothing real. Nothing solid and substantial."
Ben shook his head. "You're wrong. I could give you something so real, so solid and substantial that you could hold it in your arms—could taste it and smell it and never for a moment know that you were only dreaming."
Li Yuan stared at him, aghast, then looked down. "I don't believe you," he said finally. "It could never be that good."
"Ah, but it will."
Li Yuan lifted his head angrily. "Can it give you back your father? Can it do that?"
The boy did not flinch. His eyes caught Li Yuan's and held them. "Yes. Even that, if I wanted it."
li YUAN ARRIVED at Tongjiang two hours later to find things in chaos, the audience hall packed with his ministers and advisors. While the T'ang changed his clothes, Nan Ho went among the men to find out what had been happening in their brief absence.
When Li Yuan returned to his study, Nan Ho was waiting for him, his face flushed, his whole manner extremely agitated.
"What is it, Nan Ho? What has got my ministers in such a state?"
Nan Ho bowed low. "It is not just your ministers, Chieh Hsia. The whole of the Above is in uproar. They say that more than two hundred people are ill already, and that more than a dozen have died."
Li Yuan sat forward. "111? Died7. What do you mean?"
Nan Ho looked up at him. "There is an epidemic, Chieh Hsia, sweeping through the Minor Families. No one knows quite what it is."
Li Yuan stood angrily and came around his desk. "No one knows? Am I to believe this? Where are the Royal Surgeons? Have them come to me at once."
Nan Ho lowered his head. "They are outside, Chieh Hsia, but—"
"No buts, Master Nan. Get them in here now. If there is an epidemic, we must act fast."
Nan Ho brought them in, then stood back, letting his T'ang question the men directly.
The eight old men stood there, their ancient bodies bent forward awkwardly.
"Well?" he said, facing the most senior of them. "What has been happening, Surgeon Yu? Why have you not been able to trace the source of this disease?"
"Chieh Hsia . . ." the old man began, his voice quavering. "Forgive me, but the facts contradict themselves."
"Nonsense!" Li Yuan barked, clearly angry. "Do you know the cause of the disease or not?"
The old man shook his head, distressed. "Forgive me, Chieh Hsia, but it is not possible. The Families are bred immune. For more than one hundred and fifty years—"