“And what is on the itinerary for tonight, Captain?”
“A banquet, Chay Sha,” Zelic answered, bowing his head respectfully.
“A banquet Of course.”
Yes, and more inedible Hung Mao food, he thought. Never any attempt to prepare something Han. Barbarians they were, even his son-in-law, though without Egan they would have been nothing in this land. Simply a few more Chinks. And everyone knew what had happened to the “Chinks” after the collapse. They had been eradicated, down to the last man, woman and child. To purify the land. And so the Great Wheel turns.
Li Yuan sighed, then went out past Zelic, pleased by the young Captain’s show of respect Though young, he was a fine soldier and ran his elite squad of thirty men like an old hand.
“You would have made a good Han, Captain Zelic,” he said, liking the young man.
“I beg pardon, Chay Sha?”
“Oh, nothing. Let us go. I am curious to see this city of yours.” That much, at least, was true; for San Angelo was a fortress city - one of nine that spanned the thousand mile frontier with old Mexico - and he had heard much about them these past few years. Up until ten years ago there had been nothing here. Nothing, that was, but desert and bleached bones. And so it would be once more unless the war with the eighteen states of the Southern Alliance was won. Not that heBLOOD AND IRON had any doubt that it would be won. It was merely a matter of time. Unless, of course, those other wars - with California, and its ally Oregon, and with DeVore in Europe - bled America dry first He followed Zelic along a narrow corridor. Like the other three carriages that comprised his mobile “Court”, it had been decorated in the Han style and smelled of incense. Past that, they came out into the part of the train that was not reserved for his entourage. The blinds were up and all was gleaming bright and thoroughly high-tech, the surfaces of shining polished steel and moulded plastics in a style reminiscent of an earlier age when the great American Empire - the 69 States as it had been known - had policed an ailing world. He winced as his eyes adjusted to the late afternoon sunlight pouring in through the windows, then gazed about him at these signs of the new technological age. And stiH the lesson isn’t learned, he thought wryly. Or were empires themselves a necessity? A gathering-in of the human masses in a single moment of conformity before new growth, new dispersion? He smiled. Once he would have been unable to answer that, but now that his own empire had fallen, he had begun to see things with a clearer eye.
Guards snapped to attention as they passed through into a second carriage then mounted the set of twisting steps that led up into the great blister of the viewing gallery.
Here all was pure light and space. It was like being inside a giant lens, travelling fast above the ochre landscape. In the distance strange rock formations thrust up out of the desert floor, as if they were on Mars and not Chung Kuo.
Earth, he reminded himself. They call it Earth these days. Yes, and how strange that was, to name a planet after its most common aspect Like calling a country Rain because it was wet and miserable.
He walked over to the front edge of the oval blister and rested a hand against the thick plastic wall. The sun was low and to his right, a great flattened ball of gold. Like an eye, he thought And there, some ten or twenty li distant, was whatlooked like a great glass bowl, upended on the earth, a cluster of needle-fine glass pinnacles jutting up from it. The stanchions of the monorail - each one like a huge version of the pictogram, Jen, meaning “man” - swept in a great arc toward that glimmering, distant sight, while the rail itself was a thick, dark brush-stroke bisecting the landscape horizontally. “Is that it?” he asked, sensing the young Captain just behind him. “Thafs it, Chay Sha. Fortress San Angelo. Population four hundred and fifty eight thousand, including the garrison.”
“Impressive,” Li Yuan said, watching it slowly grow as the seconds passed. “But what do they do for water?”
“There’s a massive lake on the other side of it and a huge desalination plant.”
“And food?”
Zelic laughed softly. “Thafs the beauty of it Ifs all self-contained.” Li Yuan turned, looking to him. “Self-contained?” “You’ll see, Chay Sha. But look ...” he pointed out to either side of the city itself. “You see those things that look like studs coming out of the ground?” Li Yuan turned, narrowing his eyes, then nodded. “Ah, yes. Now what are those?” “Guard towers. Every half-mile. They stretch from Odessa in the west to San Antonio in the south-east” “I see. And they’re meant to keep your friends from the Southern Alliance out, neh?” “Thafs right, Chay Sha ...”
“In case they steal some of the sand you seem to have so much of, I presume.” Zelic laughed. “There are plans, Chay Sha. Once funds are available, all of these lands will be opened up again for farming. Until then...” “Until then you put up guard towers to protect the sand from your neighbours, right?” “It is not quite so simple, Chay Sha.” “No,” Li Yuan said, relenting, deciding to bait the young man no more. “Nothing ever is.”
BLOOD AND IRON
Li Yuan looked back. The fortress had grown considerably in the past two minutes and he could now discern its details. It had to be five K wide at least and three, maybe four, li high. Twice as high as his own City had once been. But compact And surrounding it was desert. Mile after mile of empty desert Self-contained indeed. But he still could not see how it could possibly sustain a population of close-on half a million. The other cities he had seen had had vast growing areas surrounding them, tended by robot farming machinery, but this had nothing.
He frowned, then smoothed his beard thoughtfully. “How goes the war, Captain Zelic? Are you still winning?”
Zelic smiled. It had been a standing joke between them these last six weeks, ever since Zelic had joined their party at Wichita. Every evening there was news of some great victory or other on the media, and yet the war never ended, the enemy was never finally defeated.
“You know how it is, Chay Sha,” Zelic answered, conscious that his every word was monitored. “We are one against three. Our enemies seek to grind us down.” “But you are resilient,” Li Yuan finished for him. “My cousin Wu Shih often remarked upon it when he was still alive.”
Zelic bowed his head, embarrassed by that explicit reference to the past, when the Han were Masters and the Americans their humble subjects. It was not often their conversation touched upon such matters, but when it did, as now, an area of awkwardness opened up between them.
Li Yuan turned back. The fortress-city was now directly ahead of them, dominating the landscape, the dark rail running directly into it. To their left the chain of guard towers was now less than a It away, a line of massive concrete toadstools, their heavy armaments visible even from this distance.
And beyond them a thousand li of desert
“Are there many encroachments?”
“Encroachments?” Zelic stepped across, then, seeing where Li Yuan was pointing, said, “Ah, raids, you mean?” He shrugged. “To be honest with you, Chay Sha, I don’t know. But I shall ask, if you wish.”’It would be interesting to know.” “Then I shall find out for you. Incidentally, the Governor’s name is ...”
“Rogers. Cal Rogers, neh?”
Zelic smiled again. Fine teeth he had. Regular and white, like a well-bred horse. “You are well-briefed, Chay Sha.”
“There is little else to do, Captain. Unless one actually likes the sight of sand and sky.”