"We're not certain, but we think he might have been involved in the assassination of Lwo Kang. He was on DeVore's staff at the time, and is known to have been in contact with DeVore in a private capacity while the latter was in charge of Security on Mars."
"I see."
The film ended. The next began. Lehmann's face filled the screen.
Something was wrong. That much was clear at once. Leh-mann seemed nervous, strangely agitated. He talked fluently but seemed distanced from what he was saying. He held his head stiffly, awkwardly, and his eyes made small, erratic movements in their sockets.
"He knows!" whispered Li Yuan, horrified, unable to tear his eyes away from the image on the screen. "Kuan Yin, sweet Goddess of Mercy, he knows!"
There, framed between Lehmann's head and the screen's top edge, he could see his brother standing with his bride, laughing with her, talking, exchanging loving glances . . .
No, he thought. No-o-o! Sheer dread welled up in him, making his hands tremble, his stomach clench with anguish. Lehmann's face was huge, almost choking the screen. Vast it was, its surface a deathly white, like the springtime moon, bleak and pitted, filling the sky. And beyond it stood his brother, Han, sweet Han, breathing, talking, laughing—alive!—yes, for that frozen, timeless moment still alive—and yet so small, so frail, so hideously vulnerable.
Lehmann turned and looked across to where Han was talking to the generals. For a moment he simply stared, his hostility unmasked, then he half turned to his right, as if in response to something someone had said, and laughed. That laughter—so in contrast with the coldness in his eyes—was chilling to observe. Li Yuan shivered. There was no doubting it now. Lehmann had known what was about to happen.
Slowly, almost unobtrusively, Lehmann moved back into the circle of his acquaintances, until, as the newlyweds stopped before Pei Chao Yang, he was directly facing them. Now there was nothing but his face staring down from the massive screen; a face that had been reconstructed from a dozen separate angles. All that lay between the lens and his face had been erased, the intruding images of murder cleared from the computer's memory.
"No. . . ." Li Yuan moaned softly, the pressure in his chest almost suffocating him, the pain growing with every moment.
Slowly, so slowly, the seconds passed, and then Lehmann's whole face seemed to stiffen.
"His eyes," said Tolonen softly, his voice filled with pain. "Look at his eyes. . . ."
Li Yuan groaned. Lehmann's features were shaped superficially into a mask of concern, but his eyes were laughing, the pupils wide, aroused. And there, in the dark center of each eye, was the image of Pei Chao Yang, struggling with Han Ch'in. There—doubled, inverted in the swollen darkness.
"No-o-o!" Li Yuan was on his feet, his fists clenched tightly, his face a rictus of pain and longing. "Han! . . . Sweet Han!"
WHEN EBERT came to, the woman was lying beside him, dead, most of her head shot away. His sergeant, Auden, was kneeling over him, firing the big automatic into the rafters overhead.
He lifted his head, then let it fall again, a sharp pain accompanying the momentary wave-of blackness. There was a soft wetness at the back of his head where the pain was most intense.
He touched it gingerly, then closed his eyes again. It could be worse, he thought. I could be dead.
Auden let off another burst into the overhead, then looked down at him. "Are you all right, sir?"
Ebert coughed, then gave a forced smile. "I'm fine. What's happening?"
Auden motioned overhead with his gun, his eyes returning to the weblike structure of beams and rafters that reached up into the darkness.
"There was some movement up there, but there's nothing much going on now."
Ebert tried to focus but found he couldn't. Again he closed his eyes, his head pounding, the pain engulfing him. Auden was still talking.
"It's like a rat's nest up there. But it's odd, sir. If I was them I'd drop gas canisters or grenades. I'd have set up a network of automatic weapons."
"Perhaps they have," said Ebert weakly. "Perhaps there's no one left to operate them."
Auden looked down at him again, concerned. "Are you sure you're all right, sir?"
Ebert opened his eyes. "My head. IVe done something to my head."
Auden set his gun down and lifted Ebert's head carefully with one hand and probed gently with the other.
Ebert winced. "Gods. . . ."
Auden knelt back, shocked by the extent of the damage. He thought for a moment, then took a small aerosol from his tunic pocket and sprayed the back of Ebert's head. Ebert gritted his teeth against the cold, fierce, burning pain of the spray but made no sound. Auden let the spray fall and took an emergency bandage, a hand-sized padded square, from another pocket and applied it to the wound. Then he laid Ebert down again, turning him on his side and loosening the collar of his tunic. "It's not too bad, sir. The cut's not deep. She was dead before she could do any real damage."
Ebert looked up into Auden's face. "I suppose I should thank you."
Auden had picked up his gun and was staring up into the overhead again. He glanced down quickly and shook his head. "No need, sir. It was my duty. Anyway, we'd none of us survive long if we didn't help each other out."
Ebert smiled, strangely warmed by the simplicity of Auden's statement. The pain was subsiding now, the darkness in his head receding. Looking past Auden he found he could see much more clearly. "Where's Spitz?"
"Dead, sir. We were attacked from behind as we crossed the intersection."
"So there's only the two of us now."
"Yes, sir." Auden scanned the overhead one last time, looked back and front, then put his gun down. "I'll have to carry you, sir. There's a stairwell at the end of this corridor. If we're lucky we'll find some of our own up top. I've heard voices up above. Male voices. I think they're some of ours."
Putting his hands under Ebert's armpits he pulled the wounded man up into a sitting position, then knelt and, putting all his strength into it, heaved his captain up onto his shoulder. For a moment he crouched there, getting his balance, then reached out with his right hand and picked up his gun.
LI YUAN found her in the eastern palace at Sichuan, seated amid her maids. It was a big, spacious room, opening on one side to a balcony, from which steps led down to a wide, green pool. Outside the day was bright, but in the room it was shadowed. Light, reflected from the pool, washed the ornate ceiling with ever-changing patterns of silver and black, while beneath all lay in darkness.
Fei Yen wore the ts'td and the shang, the coarse hemp cloth unhemmed, as was demanded by the first mourning grade of chan ts'ut. Three years of mourning lay before her now—twenty-seven months in reality. AH about her, her maids wore simple white, and in a white, rounded bowl beside the high-backed chair in which she sat was a dying spray of flowers, their crimson and golden glory faded.
She looked up at him through eyes made dark from days of weeping, and summoned him closer. She seemed far older than he remembered her. Old and bone tired. Yet it was only four days since the death of Han Ch'in.
He bowed low, then straightened, waiting for her to speak.
Fei Yen turned slowly and whispered something. At once her maids got up and began to leave, bowing to Li Yuan as they passed. Then he was alone with her.
"Why have you come?"
He was silent a moment, daunted by her; by the unexpected hostility in her voice.
"I—I came to see how you were. To see if you were recovering."
Fei Yen snorted and looked away, her face bitter. Then, relenting, she looked back at him.
"Forgive me, Li Yuan. I'm mending. The doctors say I suffered no real physical harm. Nothing's broken. . . ."
She shuddered and looked down again, a fresh tear forming in the corner of her eye. Li Yuan, watching her, felt his heart go out to her. She had loved his brother deeply. Even as much as he had loved him. Perhaps that was why he had come: to share with her both his grief and the awful denial of that love. But now that he was here with her, he found it impossible to say what he felt— impossible even to begin to speak of it.