"Come in, Tong Chou. Your appointment came as something of a surprise— we're usually given much more notice—but you're welcome all the same. So ... take a seat. What's your poison?"
"My. . . ?" Then he understood. "Just a beer, if you have one. Thanks." He crossed the room and sat in the chair nearest the desk, feeling suddenly disoriented, adrift from normality.
There was a window behind the desk, but like all the windows in the room it had a blind, and the blind was pulled down. The room was cool, almost chilly after the outside, the low hum of the air-conditioning the only background noise. The man leaned forward, motioning to Drake to bring the drink, then switched on the old-fashioned desk lamp.
"Let me introduce myself. My name is Laslo Debrenceni and I'm Acting Administrator of Kibwezi Station."
» The man half rose from his chair and extended his hand. Chen took it, bowing his head. ~~\^
Debrenceni was a tall, broad-shouldered Hung Mao in his late forties, a few strands of thin blond hair combed ineffectually across his sun-bronzed pate. He had a wide, pleasant mouth and soft green eyes above a straight nose.
Drake returned with the drinks, handing Chen a tall glass beaded with chilled drops of water. Chen raised his glass in a toast, then took a long sip, feeling refreshed.
"Good," said Debrenceni, as if he had said something. "The first thing to do is get you acclimatized. This place takes some getting used to. It's . . . different. Very different. You're used to the City. To corridors and levels and the regular patterning of each day. But here— Well, things are different here." He smiled enigmatically. "Very different."
THE WHITE MOUNTAIN filled the sky. As the skimmer came closer it seemed to rise from the very bowels of the earth and tower over them. Chen pressed forward, staring up through the cockpit's glass, looking for the summit, but the rock went up and up, climbing out of sight.
"How big is it?" he asked, whispering, awed by the great mass of rock.
Drake looked up from the controls and laughed. "About twelve It at the summit, but the plateau is less ... no more than ten. There are actually two craters—Kibo and Mawenzi. The whole thing is some five li across at the top, filled with glaciers and ice sheets."
"Glaciers?" Chen had never heard the term before.
"A river of ice—real ice, I mean, not plastic. It rests on top like the icing on some monstrous cake." He looked down at the controls again. "You can see it from up to four hundred li away. If you'd known it was here you could have seen it from Nairobi."
Chen looked out, watching the mountain grow. They were above its lower slopes now, the vast fists of rock below them like speckles on the flank of the sleeping mountain.
"How old is it?"
"Old," said Drake, softer than before, as if the sheer scale of the mountain was affecting him too. "It was formed long before mankind came along. Our distant ancestors probably looked at it from the plains and wondered what it was."
Chen narrowed his eyes.
"We'll need breathing apparatus when we're up there," Drake continued. "Thej air's thin and it's best to take no chances when you're used to air-conditioning and corridors."
Again there was that faint but good-natured mockery in Drakes voice that seemed to say, "You'll find out, boy, it's different out here."
MASKED, Chen stood in the crater of Kibo, looking across the dark throat of ti inner crater toward the crater wall, and beyond it, the high cliffs and terraces of tt northern glacier. No, he thought, looking out at it, not a river but a city. A vast, tiered city of ice, gleaming in the midday sun.
He had seen wonders enough already: perfect, delicate flowers of ice in the deeply shadowed caves beneath the shattered rocks at the crater's rim and the yellowed, steaming mouths of fumeroles, rank-smelling crystals of yellow sulphur clustered obscenely about each vent. In one place he had come upon fresh snow, formed by the action of wind and cold into strange fields of knee-high and razor-sharp fronds. Neige penitant, Drake had called it. Snow in prayer. He had stood on the inner crater's edge, staring down into its ashen mouth, four hundred ch'i deep, and tried to imagine the forces that had formed this vast, unnatural edifice. And failed. He had seen wonders, all right, but this, this overtowering wall of ice, impressed him most.
"Five more minutes and we'd best get back," Drake said, coming over and standing next to him. "There's more to show you, but it'll have to wait. There are some things back at Kibwezi you need to see first. This"—he raised an arm and turned full circle, indicating the vastness of the mountain—"it's an exercise in perspective, if you like. It makes the rest easier. Much easier."
Chen stared at him, not understanding. But there was a look in the other's masked face that suggested discomfort, maybe even pain.
"If you ever need to, come here. Sit a while and think. Then go back to things." Drake turned, staring off into the hazed distance. "It helps. I know. I've done it myself a few times now."
Chen was silent a while, watching him. Then, as if he had suddenly tired of the place, he reached out and touched Drake's arm. "Okay. Let's get back."
the GUARDS entered first. A moment later two servants entered the cell, carrying a tall-backed sedan chair and its occupant. Four others—young Han dressed in the blue of officialdom—followed, the strong, acridly sweet scent of their perfume filling the cell.
The sedan was set down on the far side of the room, a dozen paces from where Ywe Hao sat, her wrists and ankles bound.
She leaned forward slightly, tensed. From his dress—from the cut of his robes and the elaborate design on his chest patch—she could tell this was a high official. And from his manner—the brutal elegance of his deportment—she could guess which Ministry he represented. The T'ing Wei, the Superintendency of Trials.
"I am Yen T'ung," the official said, not looking-ather, "Third Secretary to the Minister, and I am here to give judgment on your case."
She caught her breath, surprised by the suddenness of his announcement, then gave the smallest nod, her head suddenly clear of all illusions. They had decided her fate already, in her absence. That was what Mach had warned her to expect. It was just that the business with Karr—his kindness and the show of respect he had made to her—had muddied the clear waters of her understanding. But now she knew. It was War. Them and us. And no possibility of compromise. She had known that since her brother's death. Since that day at the hearing when the overseer had been cleared of all blame, after all that had been said. After the sworn statements of six good men—eyewitnesses to the event.
She lifted her head, studying the official, noting how he held a silk before his nose, how his lips formed the faintest moue of distaste.
The Third Secretary snapped his fingers. At once one of the four young men produced a scroll. Yen T'ung took it and unfurled it with a flourish. Then, looking at her for the first time, he began to read.
"I, Ywe Hao, hereby confess that on the seventh day of June in the year two thousand two hundred and eight I did, with full knowledge of my actions, murder the honorable Shou Chen-hai, Hsien L'ing to his most high eminence, Li Yuan, Grand Counsellor and T'ang of City Europe. Further, I confess that on the ninth day of the same month I was responsible for the raid on the Dragonfly Club and the subsequent murder of the following innocent citizens. . . ."
She closed her eyes, listening to the list of names, seeing their faces vividly once more, the fear or resignation in their eyes as they stood before her, naked and trembling. And for the first time since that evening, she felt the smallest twinge of pity for them—of sympathy for their suffering in those final moments.
The list finished, Yen T'ung paused. She looked up and found his eyes were on her; eyes that were cruel and strangely hard in that soft face.