Выбрать главу

In the Summer of 2208, Wu Shih, T'ang of North America, decided to draw the dragon's teeth, arresting the Sons and incarcerating them, refusing to give them up to their powerful fathers until a guarantee of good behaviour was signed and sealed. He got his way, but in doing so sealed his own fate, for it was now only a matter of time before his City would fall. In seeking to stem the Revolution, he had merely fed its flames. When the Sons emerged from their fifteen-month imprisonment they had been hardened by the experience. Under the leadership of Joseph Kennedy, the latest scion in that long and prestigious line, they formed the New Republican Party, determined to bring about a political sea-change and to wrest power from the hands of the Seven.

Within the Seven the internecine fighting had worsened, and when the T'ang of Africa, Wang Sau-leyan, attacked Li Yuan's floating palace and killed his wives, war between them seemed inevitable. But lack of proof and fear of even greater chaos stayed Li Yuan's hand. The Seven were divided as never before, yet still the Cities stood. Even so, the experience had once again scarred Li Yuan deeply and served to throw him ever closer to his fellow T'ang, Wu Shih and Tsu Ma. Between the three of them, perhaps, they might yet rule strongly and wisely. The unthinkable - the destruction of the age-old rule of Seven and its replacement by a strong triumvirate - was now openly discussed.

But Li Yuan's greater schemes had once again to be set aside in the face of trouble in his own City. The death of DeVore's earthbound copy - pursued and finally killed by the giant Karr - left a power vacuum in the lower levels, a vacuum soon to be filled by one of DeVore's erstwhile allies, the albino Stefan Lehmann.

Lehmann, estranged son of the one-time Dispersionist leader, fled to the icy Alpine wastes after the fall of DeVore's fortresses. It was from there he returned in the spring of 2209, hardened by the experience, and set about making a name for himself in the lowers of City Europe, infiltrating the cut-throat world of criminal activity and ruthlessly climbing the ranks of the Triad brotherhoods until, in a massive campaign in the summer of 2210, he defeated the combined forces of the five great Triad lords and became the White T'ang, Li Min -"Brave Carp" - sole ruler of the European underworld.

At that single instant Li Yuan might have acted to crush Lehmann, for the albino's power was weak after his efforts. But Li Yuan - emotionally shattered by the death of his wives and the depth of division that had been revealed among the Seven -failed to take advantage of the situation. Li Min, the "Brave Carp", survived and began to consolidate his dark and brutal empire in the lowest levels of Li Yuan's City.

On Mars the real DeVore, learning from the failures of his first "embassy" to Chung Kuo, was planning a new assault upon the Seven - preparing a new range of genetic copies, subtler and more deadly than the last. Even there, among the nineteen cities of the Martian Plains, unrest had reached fever pitch and needed only a single incident to trigger violent revolution. Yet when it came, it was from an unexpected direction.

Hans Ebert, much changed after his great fall from power, had found himself on Mars, in DeVore's employ as a humble sweeper in one of his huge genetic factories. Wearing a prosthetic mask to conceal his features, Ebert had slowly refashioned himself, motivated by a deep aversion for the creature he had once been. However, pushed beyond his limits, he killed a man, placing himself once more in DeVore's power. Fastening on the opportunity, DeVore planned to use him in a scheme to destroy Marshal Tolonen emotionally by kidnapping Tolonen's daughter, Jelka - on Mars on her way back to Chung Kuo - and marrying her to Ebert. But Ebert refused to take part in DeVore's schemes and, aided by a lost race of Africans, the Osu - descendants of the early settlers of Mars - he helped release Jelka even as the cities of Mars burned.

As the cities of the Martian Plain had fallen, so too might those of Earth - of Chung Kuo, the great Han Empire - for there too it needed but a single incident to trigger violent change. And of the seven great Cities of Chung Kuo, the most powerful - North America - was also the most vulnerable. Rumours of a lost American Empire - thrown over by the Han - were rife, and old and young alike had begun to clamour for a return to past glories. Wu Shih, Tang of North America, saw this and, much concerned, strove to control the leaders of the new movements - particularly Joseph Kennedy, who seemed to embody the spirit of the age. But for all his power, Wu Shih did not have it all his own way.

One of those facing him in North America, and standing in stark contrast, was Emily Ascher. Smuggled out of City Europe when the Ping Tiao movement disintegrated and given a new identity - as Mary Jennings - she met one of the Sons, Michael Lever, and became his wife. That marriage made her rich beyond all dreams, yet riches of themselves meant nothing to her. She was still driven by a vision of Change, and now began to pursue it by other means, playing Conscience to the great North American City and taking on the role of "Elder Sister", determined to alleviate the suffering in the lower levels of her adopted City. Ranged against her, however, were other forces with different agendas: the Old Men - Michael Lever's father Charles foremost among them -with their insane pursuit of Immortality; Wu Shih with his desire for stability at any cost; and Joseph Kennedy, whose crusading zeal had been effectively neutered by Wu Shih. All in all, it was a recipe for disaster, and disaster eventually overtook them in the winter of 2212 - though not from any of these sources.

Wu Shih might have survived Emily's "Elder Sister" campaign; he might even have survived Joseph Kennedy's on-air suicide; but when one of the orbital factories - its systems' refurbishments long overdue - fell from the sky into the midst of his City, he could not ride out the political storm that followed. Wu Shih died, attacked in his own imperial craft, while his great City burned.

Many got out - Michael and Emily among them - but billions perished when North America fell, and the dark shadow of that fall etched itself deep in the minds of those that remained. Tsao Ch'un's dream of stability - of a Utopia that would last ten thousand years - once so solid and unchallengeable, was coming to an end.

For some time, the actions of the young T'ang of Africa, Wang Sau-leyan had created divisions among the Seven, particularly in Council, where all important decisions were made. In the autumn of 2213, however, division tipped over into open warfare. Wang's direct assault on his fellow rulers at one of their ceremonial gatherings - an attempt that almost succeeded, with two of his cousins killed and another badly wounded - brought a swift reprisal. Li Yuan's dream of a ruling triumvirate finally came about - though in darker circumstances than he envisaged - when he, Tsu Ma and Wei Tseng-li, the new Tang of East Asia, sent their armies into Africa to destroy Wang Sau-leyan's power.

The death of the odious Wang closed one chapter of Chung Kuo's history, yet it could not stem the headlong tide of Change. In the seventeen years since Li Shai Tung's Minister, Lwo Kang, had been assassinated in the Imperial solarium, all respect for the Seven had drained away. Li Yuan sought to reverse this tendency by giving the people greater representation in government and - in the war against Wang Sau-leyan -by creating peoples' armies, but it was not enough. The great House of Representatives at Weimar spoke only for those with money and power and then only on a limited range of matters, for real power remained firmly in the hands of the Seven. And all the while, a number of other factors - the corruption of officials, the constant nepotism, the vast disparity in wealth between those at the top of the City (First Level) and those in the Lowers, the ever-increasing population - only served to stoke the great engine of popular discontent.

To be honest, these were not problems which had begun with the City - such things were millennia-old long before the first mile-high segment of Tsao Ch'un's world-spanning megalopolis was eased onto its supporting pillars - but conditions within the City exacerbated them, and while the rich continued to prosper, the poor grew daily poorer and more hungry. | Something had to give. r Indeed, something would give. Yet, behind the struggle for power - that age-old battle between the haves and have-nots -was another, far greater struggle for the imagination, and for the very soul of Mankind: the "War of the Two Directions", a war that would ultimately centre upon a pair of individuals who, in their work and lives, would embody entirely different approaches to existence.