“Quite the contrary, Shang Mu. You will begin at once. There are names there—Kennedy and his close friend Lever, for instance— whose deaths would not inconvenience anyone. But choose carefully, Shang Mu. The last thing we want is to draw attention to ourselves.” Shang Mu smiled, noting the tone of irony in his Master’s voice. If there was one thing the Thousand Eyes had perfected over the years, it was the art of not drawing attention to themselves. Even so, he felt a profound unease at this latest development. He had not imagined . . . He drew back from the edge and met his Master’s eyes once more, nodding.
“It shall be as you say, I Lung.”
“Good,” the old man said, closing his eyes. “Then leave me. And get some sleep, Shang Mu. It may be some while before any of us sleeps soundly again.”
“Where is your husband?”
“My husband? He’s . . . gone. Looking for work.”
“Gone? Where has he gone?”
The woman looked down, avoiding Chen’s eyes. “I don’t know, I—I haven’t seen him for a while. Two, three days . . .” Chen stared at her, trying not to lose his temper, then turned away. Like the other wives he had interviewed, she clearly knew where her husband was, but she was frightened. She knew what her man had been up to and what the penalty for that was, and she was keeping quiet. Well, he’d have done the same in her place, but that made it no less frustrating. He needed to talk to one of the men, to find out what they wanted. And to try to do something before things got out of hand. Because these were decent, hardworking people. Their only crime was to have been thrown out of work by the Company and replaced by machines.
And who wouldn’t be angry at that?
Chen looked about him at the room. It was like all the others he had seen:
a clean, immaculately tidy room, its boxlike simplicity augmented by tiny touches of luxury, like the colorful holoprint on the wall opposite. He went across and studied it, ignoring the woman a moment, losing himself in his appreciation of Ku Hung-chung’s masterful work. Reaching up he activated the holo, then stepped back, nodding. It was good the way the picture seemed suddenly to come to life, the computer adding depth to Ku’s beautifully painted figures. He put his palm up, feeling the warmth generated by the field, then switched it off. Chen looked down. Against the wall beneath the holo, unnoticed until then, was a tiny, boxlike cupboard on legs. Chen crouched down and opened the tiny doors, then looked across, meeting the woman’s eyes. “You know this is illegal?”
She said nothing, simply watched him, like a trapped animal, unable to answer.
He looked back, studying the tiny figures within the red-and-gold-painted box. It was a miniature temple, not unlike those you’d find in many households, but whereas most temples were to the Family Ancestors, this one was different. He had not seen such figures often, but he knew enough to recognize that these were of the ancient gods. Possession of even one of these figures was enough to get the family demoted, and here were a dozen, fifteen, of the things.
He took one out and held it up so that she could see.
“I take it these are yours?”
She was about to answer when the curtain in the doorway twitched and an old man came into the room.
Chen stood, facing the ancient, and bowed respectfully. “Lao jen. . .” The ancient came toward him a pace or two, then stopped, waving away his daughter-in-law. He was a tall, refined-looking old man, with a face like carved ivory. There was a sense of repose about him, of deep stillness, but just now his eyes seemed troubled.
“What do you want?”
Chen almost smiled, surprised by the directness of the old man’s words.
Yet it showed that he understood. More than his daughter-in-law, anyway.
“Forgive me, laojen, but I was looking for Song Wei, the sweeper.” The old man’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you ask? Who are you, and what do you want of my son?”
Chen smiled. Word would have gone out, like ripples from a dropped stone, that a man was going from apartment to apartment, asking questions. But who he was, that no one knew. Not yet, anyway. He looked down at the figure in his palm, then closed his fingers over it, meeting the old man’s eyes once more.
“My name is Tong Chou, and I am a friend. I wish only to talk with Song Wei.”
“A friend?” The old man shook his head, his eyes suddenly hard. “I am sorry, Shih Tong, but I know all my son’s friends, and you I have never met. Besides, my son is not here. Nor do I know when he will be back. He has gone looking for a job. You know how things are. . . .” Chen lowered his head slightly. “I know and sympathize, Master Song. Things are bad. And you are right. Your son does not know me. Yet I am still his friend and wish to help him. If he returns in the next few hours, tell him he will find me at Wu Mao’s rice stall on Main. After that I cannot say. I am a busy man.”
He saw how the old man’s eyes took in his words, assessing them, trying to guess just what Chen’s purpose was and whether he was genuine. And there was hope there, too, just the tiniest glimmer. Enough, perhaps, to tempt Song Wei to contact him.
And if he did? Well, he had no job for Song Wei, no hope. Only a warning for him to stop before it was too late.
“Wu Mao’s,” he said, moving close and handing the old man the figure. “Oh, and a word of advice. Destroy the temple. Or the figures, anyway. It will not help Song Wei if his wife and children have been taken from him.” Old Song gazed at the figure fondly a moment, then looked up into Chen’s face again.
“We live in bad times. The people need their comforts.” “I don’t deny it. But then, I don’t make the laws. Do as you will, (ao jen, but think of your son, neh? How best to help him.” Chen stepped back, bowed, then moved past the old man and out through the curtained doorway, surprising the daughter-in-law who was getting up from where she’d been eavesdropping. With a nod to her he went out into the public corridor, a crowd of women and children making way before him, a murmur of speculation passing among them. At the entrance to Main he stopped, looking about him, taking it all in. Ten years ago this would have been a good place to live, well lit and orderly, its people affluent, industrious, and law-abiding. But things had broken down. Change had washed across these levels like a great wave of corrosive acid, eating away at the certainties upon which these people had built for so long.
Even so, there was still coherence of a kind, as if those years of different expectations had conditioned the people here, forging in them a passivity, an acceptance of their fate. The future might seem bleak, yet they were Han—they would endure and chi ku, “eat bitter.” At least, so long as they had the capacity to endure.
He sighed, knowing how they felt. There was a time when he, too, had burned with the bright ideal of betterment, with the dream of a wife, a child, and of seeking his fortune up-level. But the dream had died in him, had proved a kind of ghost vision, no more substantial than a flickering hologram. Yes, that brilliant, blinding light that had led him on had guttered, and now the darkness summoned him again, like a hungry mouth, sucking him down into the depths. Down, as if he’d never climbed at all. He stirred himself, making his way across to Wu Mao’s stall, trying to lift his spirits—to think of something that was positive amid the darkness that threatened to overwhelm him. But there was nothing. It was as if it had pursued him, year by year, level by level. As if, to escape it, he would have to climb to the very top and burst through the thin yet impermeable skin of the City’s roof. And even then he would not be free of it, for the City was inside him, like a sickness, thickening his blood, darkening his vision.