But then Shadrach notices that something is not quite right in Genghis Mao’s skull. Intracranial pressure is unusually high.
The implant monitors in the Chairman’s cranium are not as comprehensive as they are elsewhere. Genghis Mao has no history of stroke or other cerebrovascular events, and surgeons have never had reason to invade the imperial skull. Since most of the telemetering equipment in Genghis Mao has been installed during the course of routine corrective surgery, Shadrach must make do with relatively skimpy coverage of the state of the Chairman’s brain. But he does have a sensor that reports to him on intracranial pressure, and, as he makes his total scan of Genghis Mao’s body, the rise in that pressure catches his attention. Is that where the fluid buildup is taking place?
Struggling, stretching for the data, Shadrach pulls in whatever correlative information he can grab. Osmotic pressure of the cranial capillaries? Low. Hydrostatic pressure? Normal. Meningeal distension? High. Condition of the cerebral ventricles? Congested. Something is awry, very marginally awry, in the system that drains cerebrospinal fluid from the interior of Genghis Mao’s brain to the subarachnoid space, next to the skull wall, whereit normally passes into the blood.
What this means, at the moment, is that Genghis Mao probably has been having bad headaches for a few days, that he will have worse ones if Shadrach Mordecai does not return to Ulan Bator at once, and that he may suffer brain damage — possibly fatal — if prompt corrective action is not taken. It means, also, that Shadrach’s holiday is at its end. He will not do the sightseeing tour of Peking. Not for him the visit to the Forbidden City, the historical museum, the Ming tombs, the Great Wall, the temple of Confucius, the Working People’s Palace of Culture. Those things are unimportant to him now: this is the moment for which he was waiting during his wanderings from continent to continent. The unstable system that is Genghis II Mao IV Khan has, in the absence of the devoted physician, begun to break down. Shadrach’s indispensability has been made manifest. He is needed. He must go to his patient immediately. He must take the appropriate actions. He has his Hippocratic obligations to fulfill. He has his own survival to think about, besides.
Shadrach descends to the hotel lobby to arrange for a seat aboard the next flight to Ulan Bator — there is one that evening, he learns, leaving in two and a half hours — and to check out of the room he so recently checked into. The clerk, a gaunt young Chinese who is unable to contain his fascination with the color of Shadrach’s skin, staring and staring with surreptitious sideways glances, comments on the brevity of his stay in Peking.
“Change of plan,” Shadrach declares resonantly. “Urgent business. Must return at once.”
He glances down the length of the lobby — a dim, fragrant space, like the vestibule of some enormous Chinese restaurant, cluttered with mahogany screens and porcelain urns and huge lacquer bowls on rosewood pedestals — and sees, towering above a pair of porters, the husky, hulking figure of Avogadro. Their eyes meet and Avogadro smiles, nods bis head in salute, waves a hand. He has just arrived at the hotel, it seems. Shadrach is not at all surprised to discover the security chief here. It was inevitable, he decides, that Avogadro would show up to make the arrest in person.
Neither of them remarks on the coincidence of their presence in this exotic place. Avogadro asks amiably, “How have you been enjoying your travels, Doctor?”
“I’ve seen a great deal of the world. Most interesting.”
“That’s the best word you can choose? Interesting? Not overwhelming, illuminating, transcendental?”
“Interesting,” Shadrach repeats deliberately. “A very interesting trip. And how is Genghis Mao bearing up in my absence?”
“Not too badly.”
“He’s well looked after. He likes to think I’m indispensable, but the relief staff is quite capable of handling most of what’s likely to come up.”
“Probably so.”
“But he’s been having headaches, hasn’t he?”
Avogadro looks mildly startled. “You know that, do you?”
“I’m just at the edge of the telemetering range here.”
“And you can detect his headaches?”
“I can pick up certain causal factors,” Shadrach says, “and deduce a headache from them.”
“How clever that system is. You and the Khan are practically one person, wouldn’t that be so? Connected the way you are. He aches and you feel it.”
“Well put,” Shadrach says. “Actually, Nikki was the first one to make that point to me. Genghis Mao and I are one person, yes, one united information-processing unit. Comparable to the sculptor and the marble and the chisel.”
The analogy does not appear to register with Avogadro. He continues to smile the fixed, determinedly affable smile that he has been smiling since they first approached one another in the lobby.
“But not united closely enough,” Shadrach goes on. “The system could be linked even more tightly. I plan to talk to the engineers about building some modifications into it, when I get back to Ulan Bator.”
“Which will be when?”
“Tonight,” Shadrach tells him. “I’m booked on the next flight out.”
Avogadro’s eyebrows rise. “You are? How convenient Saves me the trouble of—”
“Asking me to return?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you might have had something like that in mind.”
“The truth is that Genghis Mao misses you. He sent me down here to talk to you.”
“Of course.”
“To ask you to come back.”
“He sent you to ask me that. Not to bring me, but to ask me. If I would return. Of my own free will.”
“To ask, yes.”
Shadrach thinks of the Citpols keeping tabs on him all around the world, huddling, conferring, passing bulletins on to their colleagues in distant cities. He knows, and he is sure that Avogadro knows that he knows, that the real situation is not as casual as Avogadro would have him believe. By buying that ticket on this evening’s flight, he has spared Avogadro the embarrassment of having to take him into custody and return him to Ulan Bator under duress. He hopes Avogadro is properly grateful for that.
He says, “How bad are the Khan’s headaches?”
“Pretty bad, I’m told.”
“You haven’t seen him?”
Avogadro shakes his head. “Only on the telephone. He looked drawn. Tired.”
“How long ago was this?” “The night before last. But there’s been talk in the tower all week about the Chairman’s headaches.”
“I see,” Shadrach says. “I thought it might be like that. That’s why I’ve decided to go back ahead of schedule.” His eyes rest squarely on Avogadro’s. “You understand that, don’t you? That I bought my return ticket as soon as I realized the Khan was in discomfort? Because it was my responsibility to my patient. My responsibility to my patient is always the controlling factor in my actions. Always. Always. You’re aware of that, aren’t you?”
“Naturally,” Avogadro says.
June 23, 2012
What if I had died before my work was done? Not an idle question at all. I am important to history. I am one of the great reconstituters of society. Subtract me from the scene in 1995, in 1998, even as late as 2001, and everything tumbles into chaos. I am to this society as Augustus was to the Roman world, as Ch’in Shih Huang Ti was to China. What kind of world would exist today if I had perished ten years ago? A thousand warring principalities, no doubt, each with its own pathetic army, its own legislature, currency, passports, border guards, customs levies. A host of petty aristocracies, feudal overlords, secret cabals of malcontents, constant little revolutions — chaos, chaos, chaos. New outbreaks of virus warfare, very likely. And ultimately the extinction of mankind. All this if you subtract Genghis Mao at the critical moment in history. I am the world-savior.