He looked back at Lehmann. "Are the trees real?" He pointed outward, indicating the stand of mulberries at the far end of the meadow.
Lehmann laughed. "Heavens, no. None of it's real."
DeVore nodded thoughtfully, then turned his face to look at Lehmann. "You're not afraid to use Wyatt?" His eyes, only a hand's length from Lehmann's, were stern, questioning. There was the faintest hint of peppermint on his breath.
"If we must. After all, some things are more important than friendship."
DeVore held his eyes a moment longer then looked back at the figure of Wyatt down below. "I don't like him. You know that. But even if I did—if it threatened what we're doing ... if for a moment. . . ."
Lehmann touched his arm. "I know."
DeVore turned fully, facing him. He smiled, then reached up and held his shoulders firmly. "Good. We understand each other, Pietr. WeVe always understood each other."
Releasing him, DeVore checked his wrist-timer then went to the middle of the room and stood there by the table, looking down at the box. "It's almost time to call the others back. But first, there's one last thing we need to talk about. Heng Yu."
Lehmann frowned. "What of him?"
"I have reason to believe he'll be Lwo Kang's replacement."
Lehmann laughed, astonished. "Then you know much more than any of us, Howard. How did you come by this news?"
"Oh, it isn't news. Not yet, anyway. But I think you'll find it reliable enough. Heng Chi-Po wants his nephew as the new minister, and what Heng Chi-Po wants he's almost certain to get."
Lehmann was quiet, considering. He had heard how high the Heng family currently rode. Even so, it would use all of Minister Heng's quite considerable influence to persuade Li Shai Tung to appoint his nephew, Heng Yu. And, as these things went, it would be a costly maneuver, with the paying off of rivals, the bribery of advisors and the cost of the post itself. They would surely have to borrow. In the short term it would weaken the Hengs quite severely. They would find themselves beholden to a dozen other families. Yet in the longer term . . .
Lehmann laughed, surprised. "I'd always thought Heng Chi-Po crude and unimaginative. Not the kind to plan ahead. But this. . ."
DeVore shook his head. "Don't be mistaken, Pietr. This has nothing to do with planning. Heng Chi-Po is a corrupt man, as we know to our profit. But he's also a proud one. At some point Lwo Kang snubbed him. Did something to him that he couldn't forgive. This maneuvering is his answer. His revenge, if you like."
"How do you know all this?"
DeVore looked across at him and smiled. "Who do you think bought Yang Lai? Who do you think told us where Lwo Kang would be?"
"But I thought it was because of Edmund. ..." Then Lehmann laughed. "But of course. Why didn't you tell me?"
DeVore shrugged. "It didn't matter until now. But now you need to know who we are dealing with. What kind of men they are."
"Then it's certain."
"Almost. But there is nothing—no one—we cannot either buy or destroy. If it is Heng Yu, then all well and good, it will prove easy. But whoever it is, he'll remember what happened to Lwo Kang and be wary of us." He laughed softly. "No, they'll not deal lightly with us in future."
"And Li Shai Tung?"
DeVore spread his open hands, then turned away. There, then, lay the sticking point. Beyond this they were guessing. Li Shai Tung, and the others of the Seven who ran the Earth, were subject to no laws, no controls, but their own. Ultimately it would be up to them whether change would come; whether Man would try once more for the stars. DeVote's words, true as they were for other men, did not apply to the Seven. They could not be bought—for they owned half of everything there was—nor, it seemed, could they be destroyed. For more than a century they had ruled unchallenged.
"The T'ang is a man, whatever some might think."
Lehmann looked at DeVore curiously but held his tongue.
"He can be influenced." DeVore added after a moment, "And when he sees how the tide of events flows . . ."
"He'll cut our throats."
DeVore shook his head. "No. Not if we have the full weight of the Above behind us. Markets and House and all. Not if his ministers are ours. He is but a single man, after all."
"He is Seven," said Lehmann, and for once he understood the full import of the term. Seven. It made for strength of government. Each a king, a T'ang, ruling a seventh of Chung Kuo, yet each an equal in Council, responsible to his fellow T'ang; in some important things unable to act without their firm and full agreement. "And the Seven is against change. It is a principle with them. The very cornerstone of their continued existence,"
"And yet change they must. Or go under."
Lehmann opened his mouth, surprised to find where their talk had led them. Then he shook his head. "You don't mean..."
"You'll see," said DeVore, more softly than before. "This here is just a beginning. A display of our potential. For the Above to see." He laughed, looking away into some inner distance. "You'll see, Pietr. They'll come to us. Every last one of them. They'll see how things are—we'll open their eyes to it—and then they'll come to us."
"And then?"'
"Then we'll see who's more powerful. The Seven, or the Above."
HENG CHI-PO leaned back in his chair and roared with laughter. He passed his jewel-ringed fingers across his shiny pate, then sniffed loudly, shifting his massive weight. "Excellent, Kou! Quite excellent! A good toast! Let's raise our glasses then." He paused, the smile on his face widening. "To Lwo Kang's successor!"
Six voices echoed the toast enthusiastically.
"Lwo Kang's successor!"
There were eight men in the spacious, top-level office. Four were brothers to the Minister, three his nephews. Heng Yu, the subject of the toast, a slender man in his mid-twenties with a pencil moustache and a long but pleasant face, smiled broadly and bowed to his uncle. Kou, fourth son of Heng Chi-Po's father Tao, clapped an arm about Yu's shoulders, then spoke again.
"This is a good day, first brother."
Heng Chi-Po nodded his huge rounded face, then laughed again. "Oh how sweet it was to learn of that weasel's death. How sweet! And to think the family will profit from it!"
There was laughter from all sides. Only the young man, Yu, seemed the least bit troubled. "He seemed a good man, uncle," he ventured. "Surely I would do well to be as he was."
The laughter died away. Chi-Po's brothers looked among themselves, but Heng Chi-Po was in too good a mood to let Yu's comments worry him. He looked at his nephew good-naturedly and shook his head in mock despair. Yet his voice, when he spoke, had an acid undertone. "Then you heard wrong, Yu. Lwo Kang was a worm. A liar and a hypocrite. He was a foolish, stubborn man with the manners of the Clayborn and the intelligence of a GenSyn whore. The world is a better place without him, I assure you. And you, dear nephew, will make twic6 the minister he was."
Heng Yu bowed deeply, but there was a faint color to his cheeks when he straightened, and his eyes did not meet his uncle's. Heng Chi-Po watched him closely, thinking, not for the first time, that it was unfortunate he could not promote one of his nearer relatives to the post. Yu, son of his long-dead younger brother, Fan, had been educated away from the family. He had picked up strange notions of life. Old-fashioned, Confucian ideals of goodness. Things that made a man weak when faced with the true nature of the world. Still, he was young. He could be reeducated. Shaped to serve the family better.
Kou, ever watchful, saw how things were, and began an anecdote about a high-level whore and a stranger from the Clay. Giving him a brief smile of thanks, Chi-Po pulled himself up out of his chair and turned away from the gathering, thoughtful, pulling at his beard. Under the big wall-length map of City Europe he stopped, barely aware of the fine honeycomb grid that overlaid the old, familiar shapes of countries, thinking instead of the past. Of that moment in the T'ang's antechamber when Lwo Kang had humiliated him.