There was a pause, then Andersen's voice came back to him. "What is it, T'ai Cho?"
"I think this will interest you, sir. I'm with the boy. I think you should see this for yourself."
Andersen hesitated, then agreed. He cut the connection.
T'ai Cho sat back in his chair, watching.
The boy's gaze went between the camera and the tray, then settled on the tray. Slowly, almost timidly, he moved closer. He looked up, his brow deeply furrowed, his big round eyes filled with suspicion. Then, with a quick, sudden movement, he flicked the cloth aside.
It was a standard test a'nd T'ai Cho had witnessed this moment fifty, maybe a hundred times. He had seen boys sniff and paw and try to taste the objects, then ignore them or play with them in a totally uncomprehending manner, but this time it was different. Yes, totally different from anything he had seen before. He watched in silence, aware all the while of the Director watching at his side.
"This is wrong, surely? This is supposed to be a memory game, isn't it?"
The Director reached out to switch on the intercom, but T'ai Cho put his hand in the way, turning to look up at him,
"Please. Not yet. Watch what he does."
The Director hesitated, then nodded. "But what exactly is he doing?"
T'ai Cho turned back to the screen and smiled to himself. "He's doing what he does all the time. He's changing the rules."
At first the boy did not lift any of the objects but moved them about on the tray as if to get a better idea of what they were. Then, working with what seemed like purpose, he began to combine several of the objects. A small hand mirror, a length of plastic tubing, and a twine of string. His hands moved quickly, cleverly, and in a moment he had what looked like a child's toy. He took it to the wall beneath the window and raised it to his eye, trying to see outward. Failing, he sat down with the thing he had made and patiently took it apart.
The two men watched the screen, fascinated, seeing how the boy positioned his hand before the mirror and tilted it slowly, studying what effect it had on the image. Then, as if satisfied, he returned to the tray and took a heavier object in one hand. He hefted it a moment, thoughtfully, then reached for a second object and placed them at his side.
Scurrying across the floor, he retrieved the discarded cloth and laid it out on the floor of the cell. Then he placed the mirror facedown on top of it. He laid the carved block halfway across the mirror, taking care with its positioning, then struck the back of the block firmly with the torch.
He picked the two halves of the hand mirror up carefully, checking the sharpness of their edges with his thumb. T'ai Cho, watching, moved his hand instinctively toward the touchpad, ready to fill the cell with gas should the boy do anything rash. But Kim was not out to harm himself. Using the edge of the mirror he cut the twine into four pieces, then began to reconstruct his toy, placing a piece of glass at each end of the tube. He tested the angles of the glass five times before he was satisfied, then tightened the twine and went to the window again. This time he should be able to see out.
Andersen leaned forward. "Do you think he's seen this done before?"
"Where? In the Clay?" T'ai Cho laughed, then turned to look up at Andersen. "No. This is all first time for him. An experiment. Just think of how we learn things. How, as children, we watch others and copy them. How we have to be taught even the most basic of skills. But Kim's not like that. He has no one to copy. He's never had anyone to copy. It's all had to come from within his own mind. That's why it's so astonishing, what he does. Can't you see it? He treats the world like something new. Something yet to be put together."
The boy took the makeshift periscope from his eyes and sat down slowly, clearly disappointed by what he had seen. Then he tilted back his head and spoke into the darkness overhead.
"Pandra vyth gwres?" Where am I?
He waited, but when no answer came he threw the viewing tube away from him and let his head fall onto his chest, as if exhausted.
T'ai Cho turned and looked up at the Director. "Well?"
Andersen stood there a moment longer, staring down into the screen, then looked back at T'ai Cho. "All right. I'll get a six-month contract drawn up this afternoon."
Beneath his white gauze mask T'ai Cho smiled. "Then I'll start at once?"
The Director hesitated, then nodded curtly. His eyes, usually so lifeless, seemed thoughtful, even, perhaps, surprised.
"Yes," he said finally. "Begin at once. But let me know immediately if anything of interest happens."
AN HOUR LATER Andersen was at his desk. The directive he had been warned was on its way had now arrived. It lay there on the desk before him. Two months he had. Two months to turn things around. And the new financial targets they had given him were four times the size of the old ones.
He laughed bitterly. It would need a miracle. He hadn't a chance of meeting the old targets, let alone these new figures. No—someone higher up had decided to pull the plug on the Project, he was certain of it. This was political.
Andersen leaned forward and spoke into his intercom. "Send through a standard contract. Six-month term. For the new boy, Kim."
He sat back again. A miracle. . . . Well, maybe T'ai Cho was right. Maybe the boy was special. But would his specialty translate into cash? Anyway, he didn't pin his hopes too greatly on it. Six months? If the Project folded Kim would be dead in two. He and a hundred others like him.
"Politics!" he muttered, wondering who was behind this latest directive and what he could do to get the deadline extended— who he could contact to get things changed. Then, as the contract slid from the desktop printer he leaned forward and took his brush from the ink block, signing the Mandarin form of his name with a flourish at the bottom of the page.
THE VIEWING TUBE lay where Kim had thrown it, the lower mirror dislodged from the shaft, the twine hanging loose. Kim sat there, perfectly still, his arms wrapped about his knees, his head tucked down between his legs, waiting.
He heard it first. Sensed a vague movement in the air. He scuttled back, then crouched beneath the wall, wide eyed, the hair rising on the back of his neck. Then, as the facing wall began to peel back from the center, he cried out.
What had been the wall was now an open space. Beyond the opening was a room the same as the one in which he sat. Inside, behind a narrow barrier of wood, sat a giant. A giant with a face of bone-white glass.
The giant stood, then began to come around the wall. Kim cried out again and tried to back away, but there was nowhere to run. He looked about him desperately, yelping, urine streaming down his legs.
And then the giant spoke.
"Ow hanow bos T'ai Cho. My bos an den kewsel yn why." My name be T'ai Cho. I be the man talk to you.
The giant fell silent, then came into the room and stood there, his hands out at his sides, empty. It was a gesture designed to say, Look, 1 am no threat to you, but the man was almost twice as tall as the tallest man Kim had ever seen. He was like the gods Kim had seen in the Clay that time, yet his limbs and body were as black as the earth, his eyes like dark jewels in the pure, glassy whiteness of his face.
It was a cruel face. A face that seemed curiously at odds with the soft reassurance of the voice.
Kim drew back his teeth and snarled.
And then the giant did something unexpected. It knelt down. It was still taller than Kim, but it was less threatening now. Keeping its arms out at its sides, it spoke again.
"My golyas why, Kim." I watch you, Kim. "My gweles pandra why canna obery." I see what you can do. "Why a-vyn bewa a-ughof?" Do you want to live up above?
Slowly the darkness deep within him ebbed away. He took a breath, then answered. "My a-vyn." I want to.