SUPERVISOR NUNG sat himself behind his desk and cleared a pile of documents onto the floor before addressing Kim.
"Chan Shui is not here today," he explained, giving Kim the briefest glance. "His father has been ill and the boy is taking some time off to look after him. In the circumstances I have asked Tung Lian to look after you until Chan Shui is back with us."
The office was far more untidy than Kim remembered it. Crates, paper, even clothes, were heaped against one wall, while a pile of boxes had been left in front of the bank of screens.
"Excuse me, Supervisor Nung, but who is Tung Lian?"
Nung looked up again distractedly, then nodded. "He'll be here any moment." Then, realizing his tone had been a little too sharp, he smiled at Kim before looking down again.
A moment later there was a knock and a young Han entered. He was a slightly built, slope-shouldered boy a good two or three years younger than Chan Shui. Seeing Kim he looked down shyly, avoiding his eyes, then moved closer to the desk.
"Ah, Tung Lian. You know what to do."
Tung Lian gave a jerky bow. Then, making a gesture for Kim to follow him, he turned away.
Walking back through the Casting Shop, Kim looked about him, feeling a slight sense of unease, but there was no sign of Janko. Good. Perhaps he would be lucky. But even if Janko did turn up, he'd be all right. He would simply avoid the older boy: use guile and quickness to keep out of his way.
The machine was much the same as the one he had operated with Chan Shui, and seeing that the boy did not wish to talk to him, Kim simply got on with things.
He was sitting in the refectory at the midmorning break when he heard a familiar voice call out to him from the far side of the big room. It was Janko.
He finished his ctia and set the bowl down, then calmly got up from the table.
Janko was standing in the doorway to the Casting Shop, a group of younger boys gathered about him. He was showing them something, but seeing Kim approach, he wrapped it quickly in a cloth.
Kim had glimpsed something small and white in Janko's hand. Now, as Janko faced him, his pocked face split by an ugly smile, he realized what it had been. A tooth. Janko had lost a tooth in his fight with Chan Shui yesterday.
He smiled and saw Janko's face darken.
"What are you smiling at, rat's ass?"
He almost laughed. He had heard the words in his head a moment before Janko had uttered them. Predictable, Kim thought; that's what you are, Janko. Even so, he remembered what Chan Shui had said about not pushing him too far.
"I'm sorry, Janko. I was just so pleased to see you."
That was not the right thing, either, but it had come unbidden, as if in challenge, from his darker self.
Janko sneered. "We'll see how pleased you are. . . ." But as he moved forward, Kim ducked under and round him and was through the doorway before he could turn. "Come back here!" Janko bellowed, but the bell was sounding and the boys were already filing out to get back to their machines.
For the rest of the morning Janko kept up a constant stream of foul-mouthed taunts and insults, his voice carrying above the hum of the machines to where Kim was at work. But Kim blocked it all out, looking inward, setting himself the task of connecting two of the sections of his star-web—something he had never attempted before. The problems were of a new order of difficulty and absorbed him totally, but finally he did it and, delighted, turned, smiling, to find himself facing Janko again.
"Are you taking the piss, rat's ass?"
Kim's smile faded slowly.
"Didn't you hear the bell?" Janko continued, and the group of boys behind him laughed, as if it were the funniest thing anyone had ever said.
Dull-wits, thought Kim, surprised that he had missed the bell. He glanced across at Tung Lian and saw at once how uneasy he was. Strangely, he found himself trying to reassure the young Han. "It's okay," he said. "I'm all right, Tung Lian. Really I am."
Janko echoed back his words, high pitched, in what he must have thought was a good imitation of Kim's voice, and the ghouls behind him brayed once more.
He felt a slight twinge of fear at the pit of his stomach, but nothing that cowed him or made him feel daunted in any way by the boy in front of him.
"I don't want to fight with you, Janko," he said quietly.
"Fight?" Janko laughed, surprised, then leaned toward Kim menacingly. "Who said anything about fighting? I just want to beat the shit out of you, rat's ass!"
Kim looked about him. Boys blocked both his way back and his route to the entrance doorway. He looked up. Yes, he had thought as much. The two overhead cameras were covered over with jackets. He had been set up. They had planned this. Perhaps since they'd heard Chan Shui was absent.
So Janko wasn't alone in hating him. Far from it. Kim shivered. He hadn't realized.
"Please, Janko. .." Tung Lian began feebly, but Janko barked at him to be quiet and he did so at once, moving back out of die way.
So I'm alone, Kim thought. Just as Anton said I'd be. Them and us. Or, in this case, them and me. The humor of it pleased him. Made him laugh.
"What's so funny, rat's ass?"
"You," said Kim, no longer caring what he said. "You big strutting bag of bird shit."
But Janko merely smiled. He moved a pace closer, knowing there was nowhere for Kim to run this time.
But run Kim did, not toward the door or back away from Janko, but directly at Janko—up, onto his chest and over the top of him as he fell backward, his mouth open wide in surprise, then away toward the toilets.
"Stop him!" yelled Janko, clambering to his feet again. "Block the little bastard off!"
Kim ran, dodging past anyone who tried to stop him. He would lock himself in. Hold out until Nung came out to investigate, or T'ai Cho came up to see why he'd not returned.
But they had preempted him. Someone had sealed all the locks to the toilet doors with an ice-based glue. He checked diem all quickly, just in case he had been mistaken, then turned. Janko was standing there, as he knew he would be, watching him.
Kim looked up. Of course. They had covered the camera here too. Very thorough, Kim thought, and knew from its thoroughness that Janko had not been involved in planning this. This was all far too clever for him. Janko was only the front man, the gullible dupe who would carry out the plan. No, he wasn't its architect: he had been manipulated to this point by someone else.
The realization made Kim go cold. There was only one of diem in the whole Casting Shop capable of planning this. And he was not here.. . .
Janko laughed and began to come at him. Kim could feel the hatred emanating from the boy, like something real, something palpable. And this time his hands weren't empty. This time he held a knife in his left hand.
"Tai Cho! T'ai Cho!"
Tai Cho stopped and turned. Director Andersen's secretary was running down the corridor after him.
"What is it, woman?" he said, conscious of his colleagues' stares and annoyed by her lack of decorum. But a moment later, when he had been told what had happened, he took her arm, oblivious of "proper conduct," and hurried her back down the corridor.
"Where is he, for the gods' sake?"
A slight color came to her cheek, and he understood at once, but he hadn't meant Andersen. He pulled her around, facing him.
"The boy, I mean! Where's the boy?"
She was flustered and close to tears. It was the first crisis that had come up in her office and Director Andersen had not been there to deal with it.
"I don't know!" she wailed. "Supervisor Nung's note was only brief. He gave no details other than what IVe told you."
"Gods!" T'ai Cho beat his brow with the palm of his left hand and looked this way and that, then began to hurry her back toward Director Andersen's offices again.
Outside Andersen's door he pulled her around again and spoke to her slowly, making sure she understood what she had to do.
"I know it's embarrassing, but it'll be more embarrassing for the Director if he doesn't get to hear about this fast. Whatever singsong house he's in, get a message to him fast and get him back here. Here! Understand me, woman?"