He shivered, then looked down, noting the pale lilac silks she wore, the fine layers of material specked with tiny phoenixes in a delicate dark blue lace. He studied her tiny, perfect hands and noticed how she held the ceremonial fan, her fingers gently curled about the red jade handle, each one so fine and white and delicate. Again he shivered, overcome by her. She was magnificent. So small and fine and perfect. So unutterably beautiful.
The crowd's dull murmur rose again. Li Yuan felt a touch on his arm and turned to see who it was.
"Hal.
Hal Shepherd smiled and inclined his head slightly, as if amused by something. "Come, Yuan," he said, taking the boys hand. "Let's seek our entertainment over there."
Yuan looked, then mouthed the word. "Berdichev?"
Shepherd nodded, then leaned forward slightly, speaking in a whisper. "Your father wants me to sound the man. I think it could be fun."
Yuan smiled. Shepherd had been his father's chief advisor for almost twenty years, and though he was some years the T'ang's junior, Li Shai Tung would not act on any major issue without first consulting him. Shepherd's great-great-grandfather had been architect of City Earth and had been granted certain rights by the tyrant Tsao Ch'un, among them the freedom from bowing to his lord. When the Seven had deposed the tyrant they had honored those rights to the last generation of Shepherds. They alone could not be ordered. They alone could talk back to the T'ang as equal. "Only they, of all of them, are free," Li Shai Tung had once said to his sons. "The rest do not own the bones in their own skins."
Yuan glanced at Fei Yen momentarily, then looked back at Shepherd. "What does my father want?"
Shepherd smiled, his dark eyes twinkling. "Just listen," he said softly. "That's all. I'll say all that needs to be said."
Yuan nodded, understanding without needing to be told that this was what his father wanted. For the past four months he had worked hard, studying thousands of personal files, learning their details by heart until, now, he could put a name to every face in the Great Hall. A name and a history.
Berdichev was with his wife, Ylva, a tall, rather severe-looking woman some ten years younger than he. Beside them was one of the Eastern sector administrators, a covert Disper-sionist sympathizer named Duchek. Making up the group was Under Secretary Lehmann.
"Shepherd," said Berdichev, on his guard at once. "Li Yuan," he added quickly, noticing the Prince behind Shepherd and bowing deeply, a gesture that was copied immediately by all in the immediate circle.
"We're not interrupting anything, I hope?" said Shepherd lightly, disingenuously.
"Nothing but idle talk," Lehmann answered, smiling coldly, his manner matching Shepherd's.
"Idle talk? Oh, surely not, Under Secretary. I thought such important men as you rarely wasted a word."
"It was nothing," said Berdichev touchily. "But if it interests you so much, why not ask us? We have nothing to hide."
Shepherd laughed warmly. "Did I say you had? Why no, Soren, I meant nothing by my words. Nothing at all. This is a social occasion, after all. I meant merely to be sociable."
Yuan looked down, keeping the smile from his face. He had seen how Berdichev had bridled when Shepherd used his first name; how his eyes had lit with anger behind those tiny rounded glasses he so affectedly wore.
"We were talking of the world," said Lehmann, meeting Shepherd's eyes challengingly. "Of how much smaller it seems these days."
Shepherd hesitated as if considering the matter, then nodded. "I would have to agree with you, Under Secretary. In fact, I'd go further and argue that weVe actually lost touch with the world. Consider. What is City Earth, after all, but a giant box on stilts? A huge hive filled to the brim with humanity. Oh, it's comfortable enough, we'd all agree, but it's also quite unreal—a place where the vast majority of people have little or no contact with the earth, the elements."
Shepherd looked about the circle, half smiling, meeting each of their eyes in turn. "Isn't that how it is? Well, then, it's understandable, don't you think, that feeling of smallness? Of being contained? You see, there's nothing real in their lives. No heaven above, no earth below, just walls on every side. All they see—all they are—is an illusion."
Lehmann blinked, not certain he had heard Shepherd right. What had been said was unorthodox, to say the least. It was not what one expected to hear from someone who had the T'ang's ear. Lehmann looked across and saw how Berdichev was looking down, as if insulted. His company, SimFic—Simulation Fictions—provided many of the "illusions" Shepherd was clearly denigrating.
"Men have always had illusions," Berdichev said fiercely, looking up again, his eyes cold behind their glasses. "They have always made fictions. Always had a desire for stories. Illusion is necessary for good health. Without it—"
"Yes, yes, of course," Shepherd interrupted. "I'm sure I worry far too much. However, it does seem to me that this world of ours is nothing but illusion. One giant complex hologram." He smiled and looked away from Berdichev, focusing on Lehmann once again. "It's all yin and no yang. All male and no female. WeVe lost contact with the Mother, don't you agree, Under Secretary?"
It was Duchek who answered him, his eyes flaring with passionate indignation. "It's all right for you, Shi/i Shepherd. You have the Domain. You have your mother!"
For a moment there was a tense, almost shocked silence in their circle. It was a fact, and all of them knew it, but it was rarely mentioned in polite company. The Domain, where Shepherd lived, like the estates of the Seven, was an exception. Barring plantation workers, no one of any stature was allowed to live outside the City. There was, of course, good reason for this, for most of the land outside the City was under intense cultivation, organized into huge ten-thousand-mou fields planted with superhybrids, not a mou wasted. Even so, a great deal of jealousy existed in the Above. There were many, Berdichev and Lehmann among them, who would have given half their wealth to live outside, under the sun.
"Well, it's true!" said Duchek after a moment, embarrassed by his slip, but unapologetic. "It's easy for him to criticize. He can get out!"
Lehmann studied Duchek a moment, then turned back to Shepherd, still intrigued by what he had heard him say. "I'm surprised to hear you talk this way, Shih Shepherd. You sound"— he laughed—"almost dissatisfied."
Shepherd glanced briefly at Li Yuan, noting how intently the young boy was following things, then smiled and answered Lehmann. "Should I be satisfied? Should I, as a man, just accept what is without question?" He laughed softly. "Why, we would still be in the caves, or in the woods, if that were so. There would be no civilization. No Chung Kuo."
Yuan, whose eyes caught everything, saw how Lehmann made to answer, then checked himself, as if he had suddenly realized what was happening. Hal Shepherd's words, while passionately spoken, were suspiciously close to Dispersionist orthodoxy and their creed of "Change and Expand." Lehmann hesitated, then laughed casually and turned to take a fresh tumbler of wine from a passing servant.
"So you advocate change?"
Shepherd's face changed subtly; the smile, the patina of charm, remained, but behind it now lay something much harder and more ruthless. "You mistake me, Pietr. I do not like change, nor do I welcome it. But if I could change one thing, I would change that. I would give men back their contact with the earth." His smile hardened, and a trace of sadness and regret lingered momentarily in his eyes. "However, the world is as it is, not as it ought to be. There are too many of us now. The earth could not support us in the old way."