"While this was happening, the crumbling Western nation states were looking elsewhere, obsessed with their own seemingly insuperable problems. Chung Kuo alone of all the Earth's nations remained stable, and, as the years passed, grew quickly at the expense of others.
"The eradication of Japan taught Tsao Ch'un many lessons, yet only one other time was he to use similar methods. In future he sought, in his famous phrase, 'not to destroy but to exclude'—though his definition of exclusion often made it a synonym for destruction. As he built his great City—the huge machines moving slowly outward from Pei Ching, building the living sections—so he peopled it, choosing carefully who was to live within its walls. His criteria, like his methods, were not merely crude but idiosyncratic, reflecting not merely his wish to make his great City free of all those human troubles that had plagued previous social experiments, but also his deeply held hatred of the black and aboriginal races."
Noting Li Yuan's surprise, Ssu Lu Shan nodded soberly. "Yes, Prince Yuan, there were once whole races of black men. Men no more different from ourselves than the Hung Mao. Billions of them."
He lowered his eyes, then continued. "Well, as^the City grew so his men went out, questioning, searching among the Hung Moo for those who were free from physical disability, political dissidence, religious bigotry, and intellectual pride. And where he encountered organized opposition he enlisted the aid of groups sympathetic to his aims. In southern Africa and North America, in Europe and in the People's Democracy of Russia, huge popular movements grew up among the Hung Mao supporting Tsao Ch'un and welcoming his stability after decades of bitter suffering. Many of them were only too pleased to share in his crusade of intolerance—his 'Policy of Purity.' In the so-called 'civilized' West, particularly, Tsao Ch'un often found that his work had been done for him long before his officials arrived.
"Only the Middle East proved problematic. There a great jihad was launched against the Han, Moslem and Jew casting off millennia of enmity to fight against a common threat. Tsao Ch'un answered them harshly, as he had answered Japan. The Middle East and large parts of the Indian subcontinent were swiftly reduced to the wilderness they remain to this day. But it was in Africa that Tsao Ch'un's policies were most nakedly displayed. There the native peoples were moved on before the encroaching City, and, like cattle in a desert, they starved or died from exhaustion, driven on relentlessly by a brutal Han army.
"Tsao Ch'un's ideal was, he believed, a high one. He sought to eradicate the root causes of human dissidence and fulfill all material needs. Yet in terms of human suffering, his pacification of the Earth was unprecedented. It was a grotesquely flawed ideal, and more than three billion people died as a direct result of his policies."
Ssu Lu Shan met the young Prince's eyes again, a strange resignation in his own. "Tsao Ch'un killed the old world. He buried it deep beneath his glacial City. But eventually his brutality and tyranny proved too much even for those who had helped him carry out his scheme. In 2087 his Council of Seven Ministers rose up against him, using North European mercenaries, and overthrew him, setting up a new government. They divided the world—Chung Kuo—among themselves, each calling himself T'ang. The rest you know. The rest, since then, is true."
In the silence that followed, Li Yuan sat there perfectly still, staring blankly at the air in front of him. He could see the stern faces of his father and his father's Chancellor, and understood them now. They had known this moment lay before him. Had known how he would feel.
He shuddered and looked down at his hands where they clasped each other in his lap—so far away from him, they seemed. A million li from the dark, thinking center of himself. Yes. But what did he feel?
A nothingness. A kind of numbness at the core of him. Almost an absence of feeling. He felt hollow, his limbs brittle like the finest porcelain. He turned his head, facing Ssu Lu Shan again, and even the simple movement of his neck muscles seemed suddenly false, unreal. He shivered and focused on the waiting man.
"Did my brother know of this?"
Ssu Lu Shan shook his head. It was as if he had done with words.
"I see." He looked down. "Then why has my father chosen to tell me now? Why should I, at my age, know what Han Ch'in at his did not?"
When Ssu Lu Shan did not answer him, Li Yuan looked up again. He frowned. It was as if the Han were in some kind of trance.
"Ssu Lu Shan?"
The man's eyes focused on him, but still he said nothing.
"Have you done?"
Ssu Lu Shan's sad smile was extraordinary: as if all he was, all he knew, were gathered up into that small, ironic smile. "Almost," he answered softly. "There's one last thing."
Li Yuan raised a hand, commanding him to be silent. "A question first. My father sent you, I know. But how do I know that what you've told me today is true? What proof have you?"
Ssu Lu Shan looked down a moment and Li Yuan's eyes followed their movement, then widened as he saw the knife he had drawn from the secret fold in his scholar's pau.
"Ssu Lu Shan!" he cried out, jumping up, suddenly alert to the danger he was in, alone in a locked room with an armed stranger.
But Ssu Lu Shan paid him no attention. He lowered himself onto his knees and laid the knife on the floor in front of him. While Li Yuan watched he untied the fastenings of his robe and pulled it up over his head, then bundled it together between his legs. Except for a loincloth he was naked now.
Li Yuan swallowed. "What is this?" he said softly, beginning to understand.
Ssu Lu Shan looked up at him. "You ask what proof I have. This now is my proof." His eyes were smiling strangely, as if with relief at the shedding of a great and heavy burden carried too long. "This, today, was the purpose of my life. Well, now I have fulfilled my purpose, and the laws of Chung Kuo deem my life forfeit for the secrets I have uttered in this room. So it is. So it must be. For they are great, grave secrets."
Li Yuan shivered. "I understand, Ssu Lu Shan. But surely there is another way than this?"
Ssu Lu Shan did not answer him. Instead he looked down, taking a long breath that seemed to restore his inner calm. Then, picking up the knife again, he readied himself, breathing deeply, slowly, the whole of him concentrated on the point of the knife where it rested, perfectly still, only a hand's length from his stomach.
Li Yuan wanted to cry out; to step forward and stop Ssu Lu Shan, but he knew this, too, was part of it. Part of the lesson. To engrave it in his memory. For they are great, grave secrets. He shivered violently. Yes, he understood. Even this.
"May your spirit soul rise up to Heaven," he said, blessing Ssu Lu Shan. He knelt and bowed deeply to him, honoring him for what he was about to do. " "Thank you, Prince Yuan," Ssu Lu Shan said softly, almost in a whisper, pride at the honor the young Prince did him making his smile widen momentarily. Then, with a sharp intake of breath, he thrust the knife deep into his flesh.
IT WAS NOT until halfway through the fourth game that DeVore raised the matter.
"Well, Tong Chou? Have you dealt with our thief?"
Chen met the Overseer's eyes and gave the briefest nod. It had been a dreadful job and it was not pleasant to be reminded of it. He had been made to feel unclean; a brother to the Tengs of the world.