Berdichev stared at Blake a moment, wondering whether he should dismiss him on the spot. But something cautioned him. Blake had never stepped out of line before—had never dared to contradict him in this manner. There must be good reason. He looked down at the pile of papers that awaited his signature, barely seeing them; calming himself, trying to see the thing clearly. Then he looked up again.
"You think he's worth it, then? Twenty million yuan! But what if he gets some childhood illness and dies? What if he has an accident? What if he proves to be one of these child prodigies who burns up before he's out of his adolescence? Twenty million yuan. It's a huge sum, even by our thinking."
Blake bowed his head, all humility now that he had got Berdichev to listen. "I agree, sir. But I've provisionally agreed to a six-stage payment. Twenty percent on signature, four two-yearly payments of ten percent, and forty percent on delivery of the boy to us at sixteen. There would also be provisions for claw-back in the case of death or accident. Our risk would be reduced substantially."
Berdichev considered a moment. This'was more like the Blake he knew and valued.
"Would you take a gamble, Blake?"
"How do you mean, sir?"
"Would you back up your hunch? Would you stake your job on me being impressed by the boy?"
Blake looked down, a smile slowly spreading across his face. "I think I already have."
"Kim! What in hell's name are you doing?"
Kim turned from the half-deconstructed trivee and smiled. T'ai Cho, horrified, rushed across the room and pulled him away from the machine.
"Kuan Yin! Don't you realize that that could kill you? There's enough power in that thing to fry you to a cinder!"
Kim shook his head. "Not now there isn't." He took T'ai Cho's hand, prized open the palm, and dropped something into it. T'ai Cho stared at the small, matt black rectangular tube for a ,moment, then, realizing what it was, dropped it as if it were red hot. It was the power core.
He knelt down and took Kim's upper arms in his hands, glaring at him, for the first time genuinely angry at the boy. "I forbid you to tinker with things this way! These machines can be lethal if mishandled. You're lucky to be alive!"
Again Kim shook his head. "No," he answered softly, clearly shaken by T'ai Cho's anger. "Not if you know what you are doing."
"And you know what you are doing, eh?"
"Yes. . . ." The small boy shivered and looked away.
T'ai Cho, whose anger had been fueled by his fear for Kim, found himself relenting, yet it was important to keep the boy from harming himself. He kept his voice stern, unyielding. "How did you know?"
Kim looked back at him, his wide, dark eyes piercing him with their strange intensity. "I asked the man—the maintenance engineer. He explained it all to me. He showed me how to take it all apart and put it back together. How it all functioned. What the principles were behind it."
T'ai Cho was silent for a moment. "When was this?"
Kim looked down. "This morning. Before the call."
T'ai Cho laughed. "Before the call?" The call was at six bells. Before then Kim's cell, like all the others, had been locked. "He came and saw you, then, this man? And had a trivee with him, conveniently?"
Kim shook his head, but said nothing.
"Tell me the truth, Kim. You were just tinkering, weren't you? Experimenting."
"Experimenting, yes. But not tinkering. I knew what I was doing. And I was telling you the truth, T'ai Cho. I'd never lie to you."
T'ai Cho sat back on his heels. "Then I don't understand you, Kim."
"I . . ." Kim looked up. The snow-pale flesh of his neck was strangely flushed. "I let myself out of the cell and came down here. The man was working here—servicing the machine."
T'ai Cho was quiet. He stared at Kim for a long while, then stood up. "You know that isn't possible, Kim. The locks are all electronically coded."
"I know," said Kim simply. "And a random factor generator changes the combination every day."
"Then you realize why I can't believe you."
"Yes. But I took the lock out."
T'ai Cho shook his head, exasperated now. "But you can't have, Kim! It would have registered as a malfunction. The alarm would have gone off over the door."
Kim was shaking his head. "No. That's not what I mean. I took the Jock out. The electronics are still there. I rigged them so that it would still register as locked when the door was pulled closed."
Still T'ai Cho was not convinced. "And what did you do all this with? The locking mechanism is delicate. Anyway, there's a maintenance plate covering the whole thing."
"Yes," said Kim, the color gone now from his neck. "That was the hardest part. Getting hold of these." He took a slender packet from his tunic pocket and handed it to T'ai Cho. It was a set of scalpel-fine tools.
"They're duplicates," said Kim. "The service engineer probably hasn't even missed them yet."
T'ai Cho stared at the tools a moment longer then looked back at Kim. "Heavens. . . ." he said softly. "So it's true?"
Kim nodded, the smile returned to his face. "It's as I said, T'ai Cho. I'd never lie to you."
DIRECTOR ANDERSEN bowed deeply as Berdichev came into his office. He had spent the morning reading the file on SimFic's owner and had been impressed by what he'd read. Here was a man who had taken his company from nowhere to the number eighteen slot on the Hang Seng Index in the short space of ten years. Now he was worth a reputed eighteen billion yuan. It was not a T'ang's ransom by any means, but it was enough to have satisfied any emperor of old.
"Your presence here honors us," he said, offering his chair.
Berdichev ignored his offer. "Where's the boy?" he said impatiently. "I'd like to see him. At once."
"Of course," said Andersen, looking to T'ai Cho, who was stan'ding just outside the doorway next to Blake. T'ai Cho bowed then turned away to prepare things.
Berdichev stared coldly at the director. "You'll ensure he doesn't know he's being watched?"
"Of course. It's how we always work here. There's a viewing room. My assistants will bring you refreshments—"
Berdichev cut him off sharply, the light glinting on his spectacles. "We'll not be taking refreshments. Just show me the boy, Director Andersen. I want to see why you feel you can insult me."
Andersen blanched. "I"—he bowed again, fear making his mouth dry—"I'll—I'll take you there at once."
THE TWO MACHINES had been left on the worktop, as the boy had asked. One was the MedFac trivee he had been working on earlier, the other a standard SimFic ArtMold IV. Between them lay a full technician's kit.
"What's this?" Berdichev asked, taking his seat at the observation window only an arm's length from the worktop's edge.
"They're what the boy asked for."
Andersen swallowed, praying that T'ai Cho was right about this. He alone knew just how much depended on it. "I—I understand he wants to try something out."
Berdichev half turned in his seat and looked coldly up at Andersen. "I don't understand you, Director. Try what out?"
Andersen began to shake his head, then stopped and smiled, knowing he had to make the best of things. "That's just it. We're never quite certain what Kim's about to do. That's why he's so valuable. He's so unpredictable. So inventive."
Berdichev stared through Andersen a moment, then turned back. He seemed totally unconvinced. It seemed as if the only reason he was there at all was the ridiculously high sum he had been asked to pay for the boy's contract. Andersen leaned against the back of the empty chair next to Berdichev's, feeling weak. The boy was going to ruin it all. He just knew he was. Things would go wrong and he would be humiliated, in front of Ber-
dichev. Worse than that, it would be the end of things: the closure of the Project and early retirement for himself. He shuddered, then took the fan from his belt and flicked it open, fanning himself.