“I. . .” He shrugged, then, quietly, “I’d better go.”
“A second. . . .” Mary said, then got up and crossed the room.
Kennedy watched her, not understanding.
“A parting gift,” she said, coming back.
Kennedy took the long tube from her, surprised. It was very light, the container wrapped in the blue and gold of Hythe-Mackay. He made to open it, but she shook her head.
“Not now. Later, when you get home.”
He hesitated, looking from one to the other, his eyes—his whole manner—regretful, apologetic. Then, abruptly, he turned and left the room. Mary turned and looked at Michael, meaning to thank him for what he’d done, but Michael was staring down at the empty desk, his clenched fists pressed hard against the desk’s edge, his face crumpled in a grimace of pain, like a bewildered little boy’s.
She shivered, understanding. Dreams die.
Then, knowing what she had to do, she went across and sat on the desk beside him, drawing him into her arms and cradling his head against her breasts until the sobbing stopped.
CHAPTER TEN
Darkness
Chen stood in the kitchen doorway, looking in. The children had gone to stay with friends and the apartment was strangely silent. Wang Ti, dressed in her new clothes, was sitting in a straight-backed chair, her hands resting passively on her knees where they’d been placed. Behind her stood the new maid, Tian Ching.
The girl, unaware of Chen standing there watching, sang softly to herself as she brushed Wang Ti’s hair and braided it. Her pretty face frowned intently, her lips forming a pout as her fingers moved nimbly, separating and twisting the thick dark threads of hair. And Wang Ti? Chen sighed, pained by the sight of her. Wang Ti looked like an old woman, hunched into herself, her memory gone, her eyes dull. It hadn’t always been so, he reminded himself. Once she had shone like the sun itself, lighting his days, her body burning in the night beneath his, yet each day that passed—each day he saw her thus—made it harder for him to remember how it had been.
Eclipse, he thought. My life is in eclipse. Again he sighed, louder this time, and Tian Ching, hearing him, turned, the song forgotten, surprised to find him there. She looked away, a faint flush appearing at her neck, her fingers faltering briefly before finding their practiced rhythm again.
He watched her, remembering how difficult it had been to sleep, how fierce his need had been, how, eventually, he had gone out to the washroom and, pouring cold water into the bowl, had washed himself until the need had gone. But even then he had not slept. No, for it was not mere physical need that tormented him, it was the thought of being alone—emotionally and spiritually alone. And not just now, not just this one night, but every night, until the end of his days. Could he bear that? He watched her, fascinated by the shape of her—the youthful roundedness of her—beneath her clothes, and wondered if he would go to her that night. If, in his pain and loneliness, he might not find a little comfort in her arms. Then, angry with himself, with the betraying need he felt, he turned away.
Back in his room he pulled on the tunic of his uniform, then paused, staring at himself in the full-length mirror. Who are you? he wondered, trying to see himself beyond the uniform, beyond the lined and careworn face that was Major Kao Chen. Who arejyou? Once, long ago and beneath the Net, he had been kwai, a knife, and had lived a life of rigorous self-denial. Drugs, women, alcohol, those things had had no power over him, for there had been no weakness in him, no softness. He had been tempered, like the blade after which he was named; honed by a master craftsman, a pure thing in an impure landscape. But now? He shivered, his face muscles tightening. The years had made him soft, impure, and those other days—those days of certainty, of steel—seemed like a dream, or like something another had told him of.
He looked down, releasing himself, then turned, taking his case from the dressing table. These days work seemed the only answer. Like many men he knew, he worked to escape all this—the sheer messiness of his homelife. And yet his work no longer satisfied him. It was mired, all of it. He went to the outer door, meaning to go directly out, then stopped and came back. The maid had finished, but Wang Ti still sat there, alone in the middle of the kitchen, like a huge doll that has been dressed and then forgotten. Setting down his case he went across and knelt beside her and embraced her briefly, kissing her brow. Yet as he moved back, releasing her, there was nothing, not even the vaguest flicker of recognition, in her eyes. It was like she was dead, the warmth of her skin a hideous illusion.
“Wang Ti...” he said softly, tenderly, his heart torn from him a second time. When would it end? When would it ever end? Or was that his fate now? Was that the price the gods had exacted for his good fortune? To be bound forever to this living corpse, remembering her always for what she’d been and never, never being able to accept what she had become?
He hesitated, staring into the awful, empty mask of her face, then stood and, picking up his case again, went out. Out into the anodyne chaos of the world.
security headquarters at Bremen was like a busy nest, a black basalt ziggurat reaching up into the heavens. Officers came and went like worker ants on errands for their unseen queen, hurrying across the broad arch of the approach bridge. Making his way up the steps and through the great dragon arch, Chen felt how strange it was that he should be a part of it, how odd that the guards at the front gate should salute him, their shaven heads bowed low, then pass him through the barrier. Another day he might have smiled at the thought, but today he was distracted. As he rode the lift up the sixty levels to his offices, he found himself thinking not of Wang Ti, nor even of the maid, but of the officials daughter, Hannah. There was no reason to see her again. In fact there was every reason not to. Were Shang Mu to hear that Chen had been meeting his daughter, there would be all hell to pay. Best, then, to forget it—to conclude the investigation and close the file. Yet even as he decided on it, he found himself curious to know what she wanted from him. He had done her a favor, certainly—maybe even a great favor—and yet he had made it clear that there was no obligation. So why had she contacted him? What was it she wanted to show him?
The lift’s bell pinged, the doors hissed back. It was his level. Chen stepped out, acknowledging the liftman’s salute, then stopped dead, staring in amazement. The entrance hall to his suite of offices was almost blocked by a sedan which rested like a discarded throne in the center of the floor. It was a huge thing, clearly a luxury item, its black-and-mauve drapes made of velvet and silk, its poles a good imitation of wood, the shafts finely carved with figures from Chinese myth. To the left, against the wall, eight pole men squatted silently, their livery matching that of the sedan. He eyed them, understanding dawning on him. They were Company. Chen drew one of the drapes aside and looked in. The chair—a huge thing, heavily reinforced—looked big enough to seat three, yet there was a single imprint in the cushions. He sniffed, taking in the smell of leather and perfume. He knew that perfume. If the imprint hadn’t told him, the smell would have. It was Cornwell. The fat man. The AutoMek executive who had been riding him over the matter of the broken sweeping machines. Anger rising in him, Chen walked through, past the two guards, who—busy chattering, their view of the outer doors obscured by the sedan—only rose to salute him after he had swept past.
As Chen came into his room, the big man got up from Chen’s chair and, thrusting his ample stomach out across the desk, waved the notification at him, launching straight into the attack.