Li Yuan nodded, sobered by the thought. Before today it would have been unthinkable that an imperial cruiser would have been attacked by security forces, but today the unthinkable was finally happening.
"We lost two ships, Chieh Hsia, but none of the transporters was harmed. Not in any serious way, that is."
"And the attackers?"
"We destroyed them, Chieh Hsia."
"Good. You will be rewarded for your actions, Captain. You and all your men."
Li Yuan turned, looking around him, seeing at once the face of his son, Kuei Jen, staring down at him through the portal of one of the other cruisers. He went across, greeting the boy at the bottom of the ramp, picking him up and hugging him, relieved that he was safe. In the hatchway beyond the boy stood his wife, Pei K'ung. He stared at her, then nodded, strangely pleased that she had survived.
"What is the news from Tongjiang?" he asked, setting his son down and facing her.
"Tongjiang has fallen. A thousand dead, so they say. The news was full of it as we flew across. Another half hour and we ourselves would not have escaped."
"Ah . . ." He felt a heaviness descend on him. A thousand dead. And Tongjiang itself . . . gone. He felt like weeping at the thought. But at least his family had survived.
Cling on to that, Li Yuan, he told himself. For many men this day have emerged from this with far less than you. Millions are dying even as you stand here with your son, your wife. So give thanks to all the gods you know.
He shivered, then stretched out a hand to her. She hesitated, then came down, taking his hand, surprised, for it was the first gesture of kindness he had shown her since that night weeks ago when she had shared his bed.
"Forgive me, Pei K'ung," he whispered, drawing her close. "I have not been myself."
She drew back slightly, meeting his eyes. "There is nothing to forgive, my husband."
"And my cousin, Wei ... is there any news of him? The rumors . . ."
"Wei Tseng-li is dead," she said, the solemnity of the words filling him with dread. "We taped all of the newscasts as we flew over. The pictures . . ." She shuddered physically. "They are most disturbing. They strung him up, like an animal. That lovely man . . ."
He grimaced and closed his eyes, then reached out, holding the two of them to him—his wife, his son. After a moment he looked up again, meeting her eyes. There were tears there, as in his own. "Then there are just the two of us now. Tsu Tao Chu and I. Two T'ang and but a single City. That is, if my own City survives the night." "And if it falls?"
Li Yuan looked away, his left hand gripping his son's shoulder fiercely, a muscle in his cheek twitching. "Then we must leave Chung Kuo and go elsewhere."
HE HAD SEEN the demonstrations. One moment the ice was a solid thing, the next . . .
Karr shuddered. They were hovering above the City's roof, the hold of the cruiser packed with cylinders of the stuff. Two hundred and forty cruisers in all—more than half their remaining strength—had been loaded up and flown into position along a line from Le Havre in the west through Nurnberg and Dresden to Stettin in the northeast. Now he had only to give the order and the spraying would begin.
There was no time to evacuate. No time to give the people down below any chance to escape, for to do so would be to tip off Lehmann. And if he knew . . .
"Okay," he said, leaning toward the cockpit's control panel. "Let's get this over with. Begin spraying."
Karr turned, then clambered up, going to the left-hand portal to look out as the chemicals began to fall like a mist of fine rain onto the City's pure white roof. And where it touched . . .
He caught his breath, then groaned. It was unbearable to watch. He could see them far below him, jumping as the levels slowly melted. As in a dream . . . the ice melting beneath the fine spray that fell from the heavens, the levels vanishing just as if they'd never been.
He sat down heavily, closing his eyes, trying not to imagine it, but it was no use. He could see them still. All of those people . . . thousands, hundred of thousands of them, falling through a dissolving mist of ice, falling like stones, downward to the earth.
He groaned. He had done many foul things in the service of his T'ang. He had killed and lied and sold his soul a hundred times, but this—this was the nadir.
He stood, forcing himself to look once more, to bear witness. Behind them a great space had opened up, like a canyon between two smooth plateaus of ice, a cross section of the levels exposed by the acidlike mist. And where the mist still fell, the City seemed to sink into the earth as layer after layer shimmered into nothingness.
Like earth in a sieve, he thought, trying to find the words to describe what he was seeing—trying not to go crazy at the thought that those tiny black shapes were human beings.
I gave the order, he thought, stunned by the enormity of it. Yes, it was I who gave the order.
For a moment longer he watched, then, swallowing down the bile that had risen in his throat, he went back through and sat, staring out at the whiteness that stretched ahead of him, trying hard not to think of all those down below who, in a blink of the eye, were about to learn what their Master, the great T'ang, had decided for them.
THE cruiser DESCENDED slowly, sinking into the space between the Cities. Below, a vast army waited in the late evening gloom, rank after rank, their bright red uniforms standing out against the forlorn silver shapes of what had once been the City's supporting columns. The mass of men stretched into the distance, their number filling the two-li gap between the massive walls. Ten thousand brightly colored banners fluttered in the wind that blew down that vast artificial canyon. Torches flickered in the twilight, then, at a signal, drums rolled and trumpets blew. As one the masses came to attention.
Looking out through the cockpit of the cruiser, Lehmann studied the host below. Eight hundred thousand men there were. To the west, in the shadow of Rouen, a further million waited, while to the east, at Eberswalde, an army of four hundred thousand were gathered.
In an hour it would begin. As darkness fell he would make the final push; would hammer the final nail into the great T'ang's coffin. He nodded, then turned to Soucek, who stood in the doorway behind him.
"So here we are, Jiri. A few hours more and all is ours."
Soucek, recalled only an hour past from his labors at Bremen, bowed respectfully.
"I never doubted it, Master. From that first moment until this. We have walked an iron path."
The albino's face was like a waxwork, devoid of all emotion. Yet men followed him in their millions, bled for him, laid down their lives for him.
"That was a bold stroke of Li Yuan's," he said, a grudging respect in his voice, "but it will not save him. Drawing a line is one thing, defending it another."
The engine noise changed, intensifying as they dropped below the last level of the City and into the semidarkness beneath. Soucek looked out and shuddered. The ice-eaters had done their work mercilessly. They had stripped the levels bare.
The craft touched down on the Clay.
As the door hissed open, a great cheer went up from all sides. For a moment the hatch was silent, empty, then Lehmann stepped out, dressed from head to toe in white, his left hand raised in a triumphal salute. At once the cheer became a roar. Helmets were thrown in the air, guns thrust toward the heavens.
Lehmann half turned, his face a blank, his eyes cold like glass. "You see, Jiri? They have a need of kings."
He walked down the ramp to a tumultuous reception. It was like the roar of a great storm. Soucek stood at the head of the ramp a moment, watching him descend, then looked out across that sea of eager, exultant faces, seeing no sign of doubt—only an ecstatic adulation.