He went through, his white boots smeared with ash. Soucek followed. Inside the mobile center eight men were crowded around the screen. As Lehmann entered, they made room for him.
"Play it back," Lehmann said curtly, recognizing Pasek's features. "Let's hear what the bastard has to say."
At once the image jumped. The screen went white. Music played. Music that was familiar only because Lehmann had heard it so often at Pasek's rallies for the faithful.
"Brothers," Pasek said, his face forming from the whiteness, his flesh glowing almost golden, "the day is here. The day of final judgment. Yes, it is time to prepare ourselves for the weighing of souls, for the great sifting of the worthy from the unworthy. And I, Earthly Son of the Most High Celestial Master of the Five Directions, am here to tell you what must be done to be among the worthy. . . ."
Lehmann leaned forward, killing the image. He turned, meeting Soucek's eyes. "Kill him," he said simply. "Find out where he is and kill him for me, Jiri. I want that bastard's head on my desk before nightfall, understand me? I want that fucker nailed!"
CATHERINE SAT ON THE SOFA, draped in her emerald-green night silk, her flame-red hair tied back, her head tilted to one side as she fed the baby from her breast. Ben, stepping into the room, stopped, staring across at her.
In the softly pearled lamplight her skin seemed almost transparent, like a sheen of ice over the bone. It had always been so, of course, but what had been pallid was now pellucid.
It was fifteen years since he'd last seen her. Then she had been little more than a girl. Nineteen and an arts student at Oxford. Now she was a woman of thirty-four and a mother.
Twice, he thought, remembering what she had said about the little girl she'd lost. That, too, has made her brittle.
She looked across at him and smiled, the child sucking healthily at her breast.
"Do you remember that time you took me down below the City?"
He went across and sat, facing her. "I remember."
"Of course," she laughed, at peace with herself. "You can't forget, can you? You're incapable."
"Do you remember the bird?"
"In the Cafe Burgundy?" She nodded, suddenly more thoughtful. "I never dreamed . . ."
That you'd be caged1. He looked about him at the opulence of the apartment. She was like a bird, a flame-haired hunting bird. But she'd let herself be trapped. Now, why was that?
She looked back down at the child and smiled, like the Virgin Mother herself, yet there was a tightness in her features that had not been there back in her youth. Even so, he could still see what had moved him in her. There was still beauty in that face.
He closed his eyes and saw her as she'd been; saw her clear, as if she sat before him in that time, her skin unblemished, all lines of age removed. When he opened them again, she was watching him, her green eyes curious.
"I was remembering."
She looked away, a small movement in her face which for once he could not read.
"Why did you marry him?"
"Because he asked me," she said, not looking at him; then, as if she realized it sounded insufficient, "And because I wanted to."
"He's been good to you, then?"
Her quiet laughter told him all he needed to know. That and the hardness in her face.
"And the baby? Was that your idea?"
This time she turned her head, meeting his eyes. "I thought it might bring us closer."
"And did it?"
She looked back down at the child. She was sleeping now, sucking only fitfully in her sleep. "No. And yet it's something."
He looked away, his eyes returning to the folder he had noticed, there beneath the table. Standing, he went across and picked it up.
"Can I?" he asked, turning to her.
"If you want."
He sat, the folder in his lap, studying each painting intensely before he moved on. At the sketch of himself and Meg he stopped and looked at her.
"This is good. The best you ever did. It has life."
She was staring at him; her intensity for once almost matching his. "I wanted to kill you. Did you know that? I wanted to take a knife and stab you through the heart for what you did. I—"
The baby stirred on the breast. She removed it gently from the nipple and covered herself.
He stared at her. "I'm sorry."
She stood, rocking the baby gently in her arms, making sure she was asleep, then carried her through into her room. A moment later she was back.
"Would you like a drink?"
«!_»
"We've done that," she said, almost sharply, as if angry with him. He closed the folder. "What is it?"
"You. Just coming back like this. For fifteen years nothing, and then . . . What am I supposed to do?" "Come with me? Back to the Domain?" She stared at him, then shook her head. "It doesn't work like that, Ben. You can't just click your fingers and everyone comes running. That's how a child thinks."
"I'm serious. Come back with me."
"And the baby?"
"Bring her with you."
Again she shook her head. He stood, setting the folder aside, then took her arms. "Look," he began, but he said no more. At that moment the wall screen behind him came alive. They both turned, surprised.
"Jesus . . ." he said softly.
"Who is it?" she asked, not recognizing the urbane, middle-aged Hung Moo who stared down at them.
"It's DeVore!" Ben said, as the man began to speak. "It's Howard fucking DeVore!"
KARR STOOD AT THE BACK of the huge room, watching while a hundred different experts and technicians sat at their screens, scrolling the taped speech back and forth, analyzing it in the minutest detail. Everywhere he looked he could see DeVore's face—or parts of it: his mouth, expanded to fill the screen, a single eye, the image of the pupil covered by a computer-generated grid.
"Well?" he asked after a moment, turning to Director Lung. "Have we any kind of consensus yet?"
The old Han turned to him and smiled apologetically. "It takes time, General Karr. Such precise analysis is a science. We are not Wu here."
"I understand," Karr said, keeping his impatience in check, "but time happens to be the one thing we don't have much of right now. That part in his speech about the sun and the stars . . . have we any trace on where that comes from?"
Lung turned and snapped his fingers. Behind him, one of his assistants sorted quickly through a file, then handed him a piece of paper. The old Han studied it a moment, then, smiling, answered Karr in a leisurely drawl.
"It appears that that part of DeVore's speech relates to proscribed writings. One of the banned poets."
"And?" The man's manner was infuriating to say the least. The very slowness of his speech lit a fuse in Karr's head.
The old man studied the paper again, then handed it to Karr.
Karr looked at it, then shrugged. "Coleridge . . . Ah, yes, that was it. ... The sun's rim dips, the stars rush out; at one stride comes the dark."
He shivered, hearing again how DeVore had said that. At one stride comes the dark. . . .
DeVore's ubiquitous appearance on every media channel had come as a real body-blow, just as they were beginning to get on top of events. It had been just the thing to set it all off again. Now there were riots throughout the levels. People were panicking—as if it were already over.
Which is, of course, DeVore's intention.
It was pure Sun Tzu. The great man had always argued that it was best never to fight a battle unless it was absolutely necessary. And what better way to prevent the necessity of conflict than to demoralize your enemy before a single blow had been struck? That was what DeVore was doing here. He was psyching them all out, trying to destroy their nerve. But he couldn't be allowed to win—not without a fight.
Karr turned to the Head of Department. "As soon as you have anything more, Master Lung, let me know."