He looked down. His wrist console was flashing.
DeVore smiled at his reflection. "At last," he said. Then, straightening his tunic, hfe turned to face the door.
JYAN came laughing into his room. "Chen. . ." he began, then stopped, his eyes widening, the color draining from his cheeks. "What the ... ?"
He turned and made to run, but the second man, following him in, blocked the doorway, knife in hand.
He turned back slowly, facing the stranger.
"Close the door," DeVore said, looking past Jyan at the other. Then he turned to face Jyan again. "Come in, Kao Jyan. Make yourself at home."
Jyan swallowed and backed away to the left, his eyes going to the figure sprawled facedown on the bed, the cover over its head. It was Chen. He could tell it from a dozen different signs—by the shape of the body, the clothes, by the black, studded straps about his wrists.
For a moment he said nothing, mesmerized by the sight of those two strong hands resting there, lifeless and pale, palm upward on the dark red sheet. Then he looked up again. The stranger was watching him; that same cruel half-smile on his lips.
"What do you want?" Jyan asked, his voice barely audible.
DeVore laughed, then turned to face the games machine, tapping in his next move. Jyan looked at the screen. The machine was set up for wei chi, the nineteen-by-nineteen grid densely cluttered with the small black and white stones. From the state of the game it looked as though the stranger had been waiting for some time.
DeVore turned back, giving Jyan a strangely intense look. Then he dropped his eyes and moved closer. "It's a fascinating game, don't you think, Kao Jyan? Black starts, and so the odds are in his favor—seven out of ten, they say—yet I, like you, prefer to play against the odds."
He stepped closer. Jyan backed against the wall, looking away.
"You have the envelope, Kao Jyan?"
Jyan turned his head, meeting the other's eyes. Only a hand's width separated them now. He could feel the other's breath upon his cheek. "The . . . envelope?"
"The offer we made you."
"Ah . . ." Jyan fumbled in the inside pocket of his one-piece, then drew out the crumpled envelope and handed it to him. The stranger didn't look at it, merely pocketed it, then handed back another.
"Go on. Open it. It's our new offer."
Jyan could see the body on the bed, the man waiting at the door, knife in hand, and wondered what it meant for him. Was he dead? He looked down at the sealed letter in his hand. It was identical to the one Cho Hsiang had given him.
His hands shaking, he opened the envelope and took out the folded sheet. This time there was nothing on it. The pure white sheet was empty.
DeVore smiled. "You understand, Kao Jyan?"
Jyan looked from one man to the other, trying to see a way out of this. "The tape . . ." he began, his voice trembling now. "What about the tape?"
The stranger turned away, ignoring his comment, as if it had no significance. "I'm sorry about your friend. It was unfortunate, but he was no part of this. The deal was with you, Kao Jyan."
Jyan found he was staring at the body again. The stranger saw where he was looking and smiled. "Go on. Look at him, if you want. He'll not mind you looking now." He went across to the bed and pulled the cover back. "Here. . . ."
The stranger's voice held a tone of command that made Jyan start forward, then hesitate, a wave of nausea passing through him.
DeVore looked up from the body. "He was a hard man to kill, your friend. It took both of us to deal with him. Chu Heng here had to hold him down while I dressed him."
Jyan shuddered. A cord had been looped about Chen's bull neck four or five times, then tightened until it had bitten into the flesh, drawing blood. But it was hard to judge whether that had been the cause of death or the heavy blows he'd suffered to the back of the head; blows that had broken his skull like a fragile piece of porcelain.
He swallowed dryly then looked up, meeting the stranger's eyes. "Am I dead?"
DeVore laughed; not cruelly, but as if the naivete of the remark had genuinely amused him. "What do you think?"
"The tape . . ." he said again.
"You don't understand, do you, Kao Jyan?"
The Han in the doorway laughed, but shut up abruptly when DeVore looked at him.
Jyan's voice was almost a breath now. "Understand what?"
"The game. Its rules. Its different levels. You see, you were out of your depth. You had ambitions above your level. That's a dangerous thing for a little man like you. You were greedy."
Jyan shivered. It was what Chen had said.
"You've . . . how should I say it... inconvenienced us."
"Forget the whole thing. Please. I—"
DeVore shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, looking at Jyan with what seemed almost regret. "It's not possible."
"I'll say nothing. I swear I'll say nothing."
"You give your word, eh?" DeVore turned and picked up the bag on the floor by the bed. "Here. This is what your word means."
DeVore threw the bag at him. Jyan caught it and looked inside, then threw the bag down, horrified. It was Cho Hsiang's head.
"You understand, then? Its necessity. We have to sacrifice some pieces. For the sake of the game."
"The game . . . ?"
But there were no more explanations. The Han's knife flashed and dug deep into his back. Kao Jyan was dead before he hit the floor.
IN MU chua's House of the Ninth Ecstasy it was the hour ofleisure and the girls were sprawled out on the couches in the Room of the Green Lamps, talking and laughing among themselves. Mu Chua's House was a good house, a clean house, even though it was below the Net, and catered only to those who came here from Above on business. Feng Chung, biggest of the local Triad bosses and Mu Chua's onetime lover, gave them his protection. His men guarded Mu Chua's doors and gave assistance when a customer grew troublesome. It was a good arrangement and Mu Chua had grown fat on it.
Mu—it meant mother in the old tongue, though she was no one's mother and had been sterilized at twelve—was in her fifties now; a strong, small woman with a fiery temper who had a genuine love for her trade and for the girls in her charge. Here men forget their cares was her motto and she had it written over the door in English and Mandarin, the pictograms sewn into every cushion, every curtain, every bedspread in the place. Even so, there were strict rules in her house. None of her girls could be hurt in any way. "If they want that," she had said to Feng Chung once, her eyes blazing with anger, "they can go down to the Clay. This is a good house. A loving house. How can my girls be loving if they are scared? How can they take the cares of men away unless they have no cares themselves?"
Mu Chua was still a most attractive woman and many who had come to sample younger flesh had found themselves ending the night in mother's arms. Thereafter there would be no other for them. They would return to her alone, remembering not only the warmth and enthusiasm of her embraces, but also those little tricks—special things she kept a secret, even from her girls— that only she could do.
Just now she stood in the arched doorway, looking in at her girls, pleased by what she saw. She had chosen well. There were real beauties here—like Crimson Lotus and Jade Melody—and girls of character, like Spring Willow and the tiny, delicate-looking Sweet Honey, known to all as "little Mimi," after the Mandarin for her adopted name. But there was more than that to her girls; she had trained them to be artisans, skilled at their craft of lovemaking. If such a thing were possible here in the Net, they had breeding. They were not common men hu—"the one standing in the door"—but shen nu—"god girls." To Mu Chua it was an important distinction. Her girls might well be prostitutes, but they were not mere smoke-flowers. Her house was a land of warmth and softness, a model for all other houses, and she felt a great pride in having made it so.