"I've seen them try to take that step," Lever continued. "And I've seen them flounder, unable to cope with the sheer size of the market. I've watched the big companies move in, like those sharks we were talking of, and gobble up the pieces. Because that's what it's really all about, Kim. Not ideas. Not potential. Not get-up-and-go. But money. Money and power."
He paused and sucked at his cigar. All around him the old men nodded, but their eyes never left Kim's face.
"So I was saying to my friends here, let's make things happen a little differently this time. Use some of our money, our power to help this young man. Because it's a shame to see potential go to waste. A damn shame, if you ask me."
He leaned back, drawing on the cigar, then puffed out a narrow stream of smoke. Kim waited, silent, not knowing what to say. He wanted nothing from these men. Neither money nor power. But that was not the point. It was what they wanted from him that mattered here.
"CosTech has offered for your contract. Right?"
Kim opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. Of course Lever would know. He had spies, hadn't he? They all had spies. It was how things worked at this level. You weren't in business unless you knew what the competition was up to.
"Yes. But I haven't decided yet." He lied, wanting to hear what they were going to offer. "I'm meeting them again in two weeks to talk terms."
Lever smiled, but it was a smile tinged with sourness. "Working for the competition, eh?" He laughed. "Rather you than me, boy."
There was laughter from the gathered circle. Only by the window was there silence.
"But why's this, Kim? Why would you want to waste a year of your life slaving for CosTech when you could be pushing Eureka on to bigger things?"
Make your offer, Kim thought. Spell it out. What you want. What you're offering. Make a deal, old man. Or would that embarrass you, being so direct?
"You know what they've offered?" he asked.
Lever nodded. "It's peanuts. An insult to your talent. And it ties you. Limits what you could do."
Ah, thought Kim, that's more to the point. Working for CosTech, he could not work for ImmVac. And they needed him. The old men needed him, because, after a certain age, it was not possible to stop the aging process. Not as things stood. They had to catch it before the molecular signal triggered it. Afterward was no good. What ImmVac had developed was no good for any of these men. The complex system of cell-replication began to break down, slowly at first, but exponentially, until the genetic damage was irreparable. And then senility.
And what good was money or power against senility and death?
"I'm a physicist," he said, looking at the old man directly. "What good am I to you? You want a biochemist. Someone working in the field of defective protein manufacture. In cell repair. Not an engineer."
Lever shook his head. "You're good. People say you're the best. And you're young. You could learn. Specialize in self-repair mechanisms." He stared at Kim fiercely. The cigar in his hand had gone out. "We'll pay what you ask. Provide whatever you need."
Kim rubbed at his eyes. The cigar smoke had made them sore. He wanted to say no and have an end to it, but knew these were not men he could readily say no to.
"Two weeks, Shih Lever. Give me two weeks, then I'll let you know."
Lever narrowed his eyes, suspicious of the young, childlike man. "Two weeks?"
"Yes. After all, you're asking me to change the direction of my life. And that's something I have to think about. I've got to consider what it means. What I might lose and what gain. I can't see it right now. Which is why I need to think it through."
But he had thought it through already and dismissed it. He knew what he wanted; had known from the first moment he had glimpsed the vision of the web. Death—what was death beside that vision?
Lever looked to the other men in the room, then nodded his agreement. "All right, Shih Ward. Two weeks it is."
IT was LATE. The crowd in the ballroom had thinned out, but the dancing went on. On the balcony overlooking the hall, a ten-man orchestra played a slow waltz, their bows rising and falling in the fragmented light. Kim stood at the back of the hall, beside Michael Lever, watching the couples move about the floor, realizing that this, too, was an illusion, a dream of agelessness. As if time could be restored, its flow reversed.
"I love their dresses," he said, looking up at the tall young man. "They're like jellyfish."
Lever roared, then turned to his friends and repeated Kim's comment. In a moment their laughter joined his own. Lever turned back to Kim, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.
"That's rich, Kim. Marvelous! Like jellyfish!" And again he burst into laughter.
Kim looked at him, surprised. What had he said? It was true, wasn't it? The bobbing movement of their many-layered dresses was like those of jellyfish in the ocean, even down to the frilled edges.
"I was only saying—" he began, but he never finished the sentence. At that moment the main lights came up. The orchestra played on for a moment or two, then ended in sudden disarray. The dancers stopped circling and stood looking toward the doorway at the far end of the ballroom. Suddenly it felt much colder in the hall. There was the sound of shouting from outside.
"What in hell's name?" Lever said, starting to make his way toward the doors. Then he stopped abruptly. Soldiers had come out onto the balcony above the dance floor. More came into the ballroom through the doorway. Security troops in powder-blue fatigues, black-helmeted, their visors down.
Kim felt his mouth go dry. Something was wrong.
The soldiers formed a line along the edge of the balcony and along the lower walls, covering the dancers with their weapons. Only a few of their number went among the dancers, their visors up, looking from face to face. Up above, on the balcony, a lieutenant began to read out a warrant for the arrest of fifteen men.
In the ballroom there was disbelief and anger. One young man jostled a Security guard and was brought down by a sharp blow with a rifle butt. When the soldiers left the hall they took more than a dozen young men, Lever and his friends among them.
Kim, watching, saw the anger in surrounding faces after the soldiers had gone. More anger than he'd ever seen. And different, very different from the anger of the Clay. This anger smoldered like red-hot ashes fanned by a breath. It was a deep-rooted, enduring anger.
Beside Kim a young man's face was distorted, black with rage. "He'll pay! The bastard will pay for this!" Others gathered about him, shouting, their fists clenched, the dance forgotten.
Kim stood a moment longer, then turned away, going quickly from the hall. Things had changed. Suddenly, dramatically, the rules had changed, and he was no longer safe here. He passed through, glancing from side to side, seeing only outrage on the faces of those he passed. Outside he walked past the waiting sedans and on, out across the darkness toward the transit.
In a sober moment they would remember. Old Man Lever would remember. And in his anger, who knew how he would act? It was a time for taking sides, and he was Li Yuan's man.
He. saw soldiers up ahead, guarding the transit entrance, and began to run, knowing his safety lay with them. But nearer the barrier he turned and looked back at the house, remembering the dresses bobbing to the music, the swish of lace in the air. And a circle of old men, offering him the earth.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
In the Open
TOLONEN STOOD at Haavikko's bedside, looking down at him, a faint smile on his lips. It had been only two days since his own operation and he was still feeling weak, but he had had to come.