He turned, blowing her a kiss, then went out. A moment later she heard him unbolt the door and throw it open. There were voices, the door slammed shut, and then he returned, carrying a large, flat, rectangular parcel.
"A delivery!" he said, laughing. "You weren't expecting anything, ^were you?"
She sat up, pulling her hair back from her eyes, then reached out.
He gave her the parcel. Reading the label, she frowned. "No, Gregor, this is for you. Look!"
He took it back, shrugging as he began to open it. As the wrapping fell away, she gave a tiny gasp of surprise.
"Why that's . . ."
"Lehmann's," he said, turning the painting to study it properly. He sat on the edge of the bed, letting her rest against him to look at it.
"This was his?"
Karr nodded. "It used to hang in his office."
"And that word, Kampfer. Is that the artist's name?"
Karr laughed. "I said something very similar first time I saw it. But no. Kampfer is an old dialect word for 'fighter.' "
They both stared at the painting for a while. There was something clean and muscular about the line of it—something you never found in Han art.
He turned the canvas over. On the back, in a tiny, spiderish hand, something was written. Karr held it closer and read.
To a worthy enemy. A fighter's fighter. Best regards. Li Min.
He turned it back. Again they studied it.
"It's beautiful," she said. "But you can't keep it. You know that, don't you?"
"I know. I also know that it's helped me to a decision." He met her eyes. "I'm going to resign. When one's enemy gives one gifts and one's Master only blames . . ."
"It isn't that simple."
"No?" The look in his eyes—of anger and bitterness and a deep-rooted frustration—was like nothing she had ever seen there before. Seeing it, she knew that this was a decision not lightly reached, however much this "gift" had triggered it.
"So what will we do?"
He took a long breath, stretching his jaw in the characteristic way he had, then smiled at her. "First, we'll visit Kao Chen and Wang Ti."
She laughed, delighted, and wrapped her arms about him. "And afterward?"
He set the painting aside, then pushed her down onto her back, pinning her arms above her head and leaning over her. "Afterward we'll do what we always do. We'll practice making more copies of ourselves."
KIM TOOK THE infodisc from the slot in his neck and slipped it back into its protective sheath, then sat back, thinking.
The old man was due to arrive within the hour, and once he was -here he would get little else done, so it was imperative to make a decision now. There was a team of men at Bremen awaiting instructions, and if he did not provide them they would spend another day idle.
Of the seventeen "possibles" Karr had identified, only one had been human. The others had been proved by Surgeon Hu to be very good fakes. Human enough to fool the eye.
Puppets, Kim thought, wondering how, in a City of eight and a half billion people, he was going to discover just how many of these things existed.
There was, of course, only one answer. To be sure he would have to test everyone. All eight and a half billion. But would Li Yuan agree to that? The expense of it alone would be phenomenal, not to think of the logistical problems of ensuring everyone was tested.
Maybe they could hold a census. After all, it had been over a decade now since the last.
He sighed. No. It was no good. After the devastating setbacks of the last few days Li Yuan would never agree to blanket testing. Which left them fishing with a net full of holes.
So clever, he thought. So clever to make the things so ordinary.
And when the puppets danced? What would happen then?
He sighed, then, leaning forward, tapped out Karr's private contact code. There was a delay then UNAVAILABLE came up on the screen.
"Odd . . ." He tapped in Hu's code. A moment later the Surgeon's face was on the screen.
"Shih Ward. What can I do for you?"
"I was trying to get hold of the General. He isn't there with you, is he? His private line registers unavailable."
"Haven't you heard?" Hu stared at him in surprise. "Karr is no longer General. The news came through an hour back."
"No!" Kim laughed with disbelief. "Has he been relieved of his command?"
"No. He resigned. This place is humming with the news. There's a lot of speculation as to who will replace him."
Resigned? Kim could hardly believe it. Karr had given no indication of it yesterday. So what had happened?
"Listen," he said, dragging himself back to the purpose of his call. "We need to start moving on the copies. The best thing would be blanket testing, but Li Yuan won't go for that. So what we need is to find a way of random testing. It would have to be done secretly, so my suggestion is that we rig up some kind of apparatus in the transits. Something that can scan at a distance for the differences we're looking for."
"No problem," Hu said. "The transits have camera surveillance, anyway, so we could rig something up at the back of that. You're talking of random testing in the Mids, I assume?"
"That's where we've found the majority of the copies, isn't it?"
"Thirteen out of seventeen."
"Then let's do that. If it proves successful, we can spread the net. I'll get a budget from Nan Ho. Meanwhile, you get to work on the scanner. If there are any problems, contact me. Otherwise, I'll be in touch later this evening. Any questions?"
Hu smiled. "Only one. What are these things for?"
"If we knew that . . ."
Kim cut contact and sat back, looking about him at his study. This had once been Jelka's father's room, and the walls were lined with books—real leather books, the smell of them filling the air.
And now the old man was returning.
As if the thought were father to the act, there was the noise of a cruiser's engine, the distinctive whine of its decelerating turbos growing louder by the moment.
He went out into the hallway.
"Where's Sampsa?" he shouted, seeing Jelka in the kitchen, wiping her hands hurriedly on a towel. "He mustn't miss this."
"I'm here!" Sampsa answered, coming down the stairs just behind him. He was dressed in the clothes his mother had left out for him, his dark hair neatly combed back. For once he looked less like a wood imp, more like a young boy.
"Quick, now!" Kim said, beckoning him across. "The cruiser's setting down. I want you to be there when they carry him down the ramp."
Sampsa nodded, then reached out, taking his father's hand. Together they went out, Jelka hurrying after, as the craft set down.
They waited, huddled together just beyond the stubby wing tip as the door hissed open and the ramp unfolded. Kim turned, looking up at Jelka, seeing the anxiety in her face. He had warned her what to expect, but the reality would be something else.
For the briefest moment he was beset by doubts. Maybe he should have left the old man there. This . . . this could only upset the hard-won balance of their lives. Yet to leave him there, to waste away in that darkened room, had been impossible. He would not have counted himself a decent man, had he allowed that to happen. Besides, this was Tolonen's place. If he was to die anywhere, it should be here, with his daughter, in the place he had been born.
Kim looked back, at the house and the surrounding island, and wondered how Tolonen could have borne to leave it, even for a moment, let alone relinquish it to serve. But serve he had, for almost sixty years. Now his days of service were past and other actors—younger, stronger men—had stepped onto the stage he'd once frequented.
"There," Sampsa said, seeing movement inside before either of them. And sure enough, a moment later, two bearers began to edge out backward from the craft, guiding a hover unit down the ramp.