She was still speaking, and Castor glanced around the room. Surprisingly, no one seemed to take offense. No one seemed to agree, either; even the young faces seemed placid as the cattle they tended.
She was reciting ancient history now. Much of it was true. When the nuclear war was over there were a couple of hundred million Chinese still alive, and a couple of hundred million Indians. They inherited the world. There wasn't anybody else still around big enough to challenge them. So they chopped up the world—Western Europe and the Near East for India, most of the rest for China. Nobody was in any position to challenge them effectively. Nobody even tried. The big power centers didn't have anything left to try with, not even much population.
But what this woman didn't seem to realize, Castor thought, was that the Chinese weren't conquerors. Han China never tried to conquer anything outside of Han China. Han China didn't want to add non-Han races to its empire. Han China was willing to own whatever was valuable in the demolished lands—but they didn't want the people in those areas to be Chinese; and the Chinese born and raised in those areas certainly didn't regard themselves as natives, either.
Except for the oddballs like Feng Miranda.
It did not do one good to be too close to oddballs, and so while Miranda was still speaking, Castor edged, slowly and as though abstracted, to the back of the room, where the River of Pearl director was standing, as impassive as the rest. "Sir?" whispered Castor, meaning to ask if the man saw anything strange in the funeral oration. But when the director's eyes met his, Castor changed his question. "Sir," he said, "have you found me a bed for the night?"
The director's expression remained placid. "Of course, Pettyman Castor. I think the Renmin policewoman intends to have you share hers." He nodded toward the side of the hall—and there, in a seat in the last row, inconspicuous apart from her sardonic expression, was Tsoong Delilah.
He did not ask her what she was doing in the cattle collective. She did not volunteer, only took him by the hand and led him firmly toward the guesthouse. He suspected that he knew the answer anyway. He suspected that the Renmin police kept hotbeds of insanity like this under surveillance—that was logic—and maybe that Delilah had arranged for her to do that and for him to be ordered to bring up the old man's ashes, for obvious purposes. Perhaps because she did not want to invite him to her own bed while her son was there. (That was vanity, but at least that part was right enough.)
When they reached the guesthouse and the door on the crude, small room was closed, he stammered, "Will you arrest her?"
She laughed. "Don't be foolish," she said, hanging up her civilian trousers and pulling a nightgown out of her bag. "We watch these silly kids, but we don't make any arrests—unless some wiser person murders one of them. Come to bed."
Part II
I
TSOONG DELILAH not only astonished herself but displeased herself very much. It was degrading to the dignity of an inspector of Renmin police to allow herself to be sexually attracted to a man younger than her own son! And a Yankee at that!
Even in her self-criticism, the term she was careful to use to herself was "sexually attracted." Not even in those morning periods of reproach, while she squatted over the toilet and balefully gazed into her own hostile eyes in the mirror on the bathroom door, did she admit the term "love." Such a word was simply out of the question.
Delilah, she reminded herself, was a woman with a fine career and considerable power. They were what her life was organized around, not "love." If Castor ever interfered with either (she told herself) she would discard him instantly. More than that. Kill him, if necessary. She knew that that was true; and, therefore, the word "love" was wholly inapplicable. All she cared about, really, was his strong, lean, lanky body that covered hers from toes to temples and made the entire inside of her torso tingle and convulse when he entered her. Sexual power, of course. Love? Not in the least!
So when, next morning, Castor dared to ask her, grinning, "Is that why you had me bring the ashes up here? So we could get it on, even though your son's home now?"—Delilah responded, quietly and firmly,
"My son's presence is an inconvenience, yes. So I preferred that we meet here, yes. Do not attach any special importance to those facts."
"Oh, very well," he said, still grinning. The words were satisfactory if the grin was not, so Delilah elected only to notice the words. He went on: "I suppose I'd better get the bike back to Heavenly Grain—"
"The peasants can pick it up themselves, Castor."
"Well, I suppose so, but then I've got to get the bus back to New Orleans, and it doesn't stop here."
"Bus!" she scoffed. "How foolish it would be for you to take the bus when I must drive the same route today! Almost the same route," she qualified. "I must stop at the observatory to pick up some material—but you won't mind that?"
"Oh, no," Castor said, obviously pleased; and that annoyed Delilah. Why was she trying to please this boy? Why ask him what he minded? Why, for that matter, offer him the car ride when the bus was available? "Get in the car," she ordered and was silent until she turned off on the sea road that passed the observatory. The thoughts she was thinking were dark. It was true that one tried to be considerate to one's lovers, but all the same—
All the same, simple "sexual attraction" was running thin as an explanation. At the observatory she braked peremptorily. "You will wait here, Castor. It will be best to stay in the car. If I need you to help carry anything I will call you."
"Right, Delilah," he said cheerfully, looking around the parking lot. It was the first time he had been inside the observatory's perimeter fence, Delilah knew. That no doubt accounted for his happiness, but what accounted for the light way he addressed her? "Delilah," forsooth! It was all very well to call her so in bed, where one could not reasonably demand "Renmin Inspector Tsoong," but here the guards were watching and listening. No. It was impudence, or very nearly. As she presented her ID to the guards, Delilah thought that the boy needed a lesson.
"You may enter, Inspector Tsoong," said the NCO of the guards. She nodded and passed through the heavy doors. She sat in an anteroom and waited for the director of the observatory to bring her what she had come all this way to receive. That cassette would be very important. But in her thoughts it was taking second place.
Delilah was thinking about her lovers. In the eight years since her elderly husband had gone Home to die, she had had—how many? One a week?—several hundred bed companions, at least. They had been of varying ages, and all available ethnicities. They had each one been different from the others, too. Some had been nasty or inept or— worst of all—seeking mastery over her. Quickly gone, all of those! Not one had ever taken her as lightly as Pettyman Castor. That was annoying. It could not be overlooked, because it might cause a scandal. It was also unworthy of her position and, of course, wholly inappropriate to the gravity of her errand here at the observatory.
The boy was going too far, she decided sternly. He should be corrected, she thought, and wondered if the sun was going to be too hot for him out there in the car.