Li Yuan huffed impatiently. "Impossible? Nothing is impossible! I've just come from Hal Shepherd's funeral. They killed him, remember? With a cancer. Something that, according to you, was quite impossible. So what have they come up with now?"
The old man glanced sideways at his colleagues, then spoke again. "It seems, from our first tests, that what the victims are suffering from is what we term yang mei ping, willow-plum sickness."
Li Yuan laughed. "A fancy name, Surgeon Yu, but what does it mean?"
Nan Ho answered for the old man. "It is syphilis, Chieh Hsia. A sexually transmitted disease that affects the brain and drives its victims insane. This strain, apparently, is a particularly virulent and fast-working one. Besides side-stepping the natural immunity of its victims, it has a remarkably short incubation period. Many of its victims are dead within thirty hours of getting the dose."
Surgeon Yu looked at Nan Ho gratefully, then nodded. "That is so, Chieh Hsia. However, it seems that this particular strain affects only those of Han origin. As far as we can make out, no Hung Moo are affected."
Li Yuan turned away, recognizing at once the implications of the thing. Willow-plum sickness ... He had a vague recollection of reading about the disease. It was one of those many sicknesses the Hung Moo had brought with them when they had first opened China up, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But this was worse, far worse than anything those ancient sea-traders had spread among the port women, because this time his kind had no natural immunity to it. None at all.
He turned back. "Are you certain, Surgeon Yu?"
"As certain as we can be, Chieh Hsia."
"Good. Then I want you to isolate each victim and question them as to who they have slept with in the past thirty days. Then I want all contacts traced and isolated. Understand?"
He looked past Yu at his Chancellor. "Nan Ho, I want you to contact all the Heads of the Minor Families and have them come here, at once. By my express order."
Nan Ho bowed. "Chieh Hsia."
And meanwhile he would call his fellow T'ang. For action must be taken. Immediate action, before the thing got out of hand.
KARR WAS buttoning his tunic when Chen came into the room, barely stopping to knock. He turned from the mirror, then stopped, seeing the look of delight on Chen's face.
"What is it?"
Chen handed Karr a file. "It's our friend. There's no doubt about it. These are stills taken from a Security surveillance film thirty-two hours ago at Nantes spaceport."
Karr flipped the folder open and flicked through the stills a moment, then looked back at Chen, his face lit up. "Then we've got him, neh?"
Chen's face fell. He shook his head.
"What?"
"I'm afraid not. It seems his man Lehmann just picked him up and carried him out of there."
"And no one intercepted him? Where was Security?"
"Waiting for orders."
Karr started to speak, then understood. "Gods . . . Again?"
Chen nodded.
"And the Security Captain. He committed suicide, neh?"
Chen sighed. "That's right. It fits the pattern. I checked back in their surveillance records. The computer registers that a man matching DeVore's description passed through Nantes spaceport four times in the past month."
"And there was no Security alert?"
"No. Nor would there have been. The machine was reprogrammed to ignore the instruction from Bremen. As he was wearing false retina, the only way they could have got him was by direct facial recognition, and because they rely so heavily on computer-generated alerts, the chance of that was minimal."
"So how did we get these?"
Chen laughed. "It seems there was a fairly high-ranking junior minister on the same flight as DeVore. He complained about the incident direct to Bremen, and when they discovered they had no record of the event they instigated an immediate inquiry. This resulted."
Karr sat down heavily, setting the file to one side, and began to pull on his boots. For a moment he was quiet, thoughtful, then he looked up again.
"Do we know where he'd been?"
"Boston. But who he saw there or what he was doing we don't know yet. Our friends in North American Security are looking into it right now."
"And the assassins?" Karr asked, pulling on the other boot. "Do we know who they were?"
Chen shrugged. "The two Han look like Triad assassins, but the third—well, we have him on record as a probable Ping Tiao sympathizer."
Karr looked up, raising his eyebrows. "Ping Tiao? But they don't exist any longer. At least, that's what our contacts down below tell us. Our friend Ebert is supposed to have wiped them out."
Chen nodded. "You don't think . . . ?"
Karr laughed. "Even Ebert wouldn't be stupid enough to try to work with the Ping Tiao. DeVore wouldn't let him."
"So what do you think?"
Karr shook his head. "We don't know enough, that's clear. Who besides ourselves would want DeVore dead?"
"Someone he's crossed?"
Karr laughed. "Yes. But that could be anyone, neh? Anyone at all."
LI YUAN LOOKED out across the marbled expanse of the Hall of the Seven Ancestors and nodded to himself, satisfied. The space between the dragon pillars was packed. More than two thousand men—all the adult males of the Twenty-Nine—were gathered here this afternoon. All, that was, but those who had already succumbed to the sickness.
He sat on the High Throne, dressed in the dragon robe of imperial yellow edged with blue. In one hand he held the Special Edict, in the other the bamboo cane with the silver cap that had been his brother's present to his father.
There was the faintest murmur from below, but when he stood, the hall fell silent, followed a moment later by a loud rustling of expensive silks as in a single movement, the great crowd knelt, touching their heads to the floor three times in the ritual Uu k'ou. Li Yuan smiled bleakly, remembering another day, nine years ago—the day his father had summoned the leaders of the Dispersionists before him, here in this very hall, and humbled them, making their leader, Lehmann, give up his friend Wyatt. Much had changed since then, but once again the will of the T'ang had to be imposed. By agreement it was hoped; but by force, if necessary.
Li Yuan came down, stopping three steps from the bottom, facing the five elderly men who stood at the front of the crowd. His Chancellor, Nan Ho, stood to the right, the list scrolled tightly in one hand. Behind him, just beyond the nearest of the dragon pillars, a troop of elite guards waited, their shaved heads bowed low.
He looked past the five Family Heads at the great press of men behind them. All had their heads lowered, their eyes averted, acknowledging his supremacy. Right now they were obedient, but would they remain so when they knew his purpose? Would they understand the need for this, or would they defy him? He shivered, then looked back at the five who stood closest.
He saw how the hands of nephews and cousins reached from behind Chun Wu-chi, supporting him, keeping him from falling; saw how frail his once-father-in-law, Yin Tsu had become; how the first signs of senility had crept into the eighty-three-year-old face of Pei Ro-hen. Only An Sheng and Hsiang Shao-erh, both men in their fifties, seemed robust. Even so, the Minor Families had thrived—a dozen, fifteen, sons not uncommon among them—while the Seven had diminished. Why was that? he wondered for the first time. Was it merely the pressures of rule, the depredations of war and politics, or was it symptomatic of some much deeper malaise?
There was silence in the hall, but underneath it he could feel the invisible pressure of their expectations. Many of them had heard rumors of the sickness; even so, most were wondering why he had summoned them. Why they were standing here, in this unprecedented manner, in the Great Hall at Tongjiang, waiting for him to speak.