"Forgive me, Major Ebert. . ." she began, taking a step toward him.
He stopped and turned. "Yes, Mother Chua?"
"I was wondering . . . about the girl."
Ebert frowned. "The girl?"
Mu Chua averted her eyes. "Golden Heart. You remember, surely? The thirteen-year-old you bought here. That time you came with the other soldiers."
He laughed; a strangely cold laugh. "Ah, yes ... I'd forgotten that I got her here."
"Well?"
He looked at her, then turned away, impatient now. "Look, I'm busy, Mu Chua. I'm Major now, I have my duties."
She looked at him desperately, then bowed her head again, her lips formed into a smile. "Of course. Forgive me, Major." But inwardly she seethed. Busy! Not too busy, it seemed, to spend more than two hours fucking her girls!
As the door closed behind him she spat at the space where he had been standing, then stood there, tucking her breasts back inside her robe, watching her spittle dribble slowly down the red lacquered surface of the door.
"You bastard," she said softly. "I only wanted a word. Just to know how she is—
whether she's still alive."
She looked down at the credit chip in her hand. It was for a thousand yuan— more than four times what she had billed him—but he had treated it as nothing.
Perhaps that's why, she thought, closing her hand tightly over it. You have no values because you don't know what anything is really worth. You think you can buy anything.
Well, maybe he could. Even so, there was something lost in being as he was. He lacked decency.
She went to the drawer of her desk and pulled out the strongbox, opening it with the old-fashioned key that hung about her neck. Rummaging about among the credit chips she found two for two hundred and fifty yuan and removed them, replacing them with Ebert's thousand. Then, smiling to herself, she felt among her underclothes and after wetting herself with her finger, placed the two chips firmly up her clout.
She had almost saved enough now. Almost. Another month—two at the most—and she could get out of here. Away from Whiskers Lu and bastards like Ebert. And maybe she would go into business on her own again. For, after all, men were always men. They might talk and dress differently up there, but beneath it all they were the same creatures.
She laughed, wondering suddenly how many li of First Level cock she'd had up her in the fifty years she had been in the business. No. In that respect, nothing ever changed. They might talk of purity, but their acts always betrayed them. It was why she had thrived over the years—because of that darkness they all carried about in them. Men. They might all say they were above it, but try as they would, it was the one thing they could not climb the levels to escape.
FEI YEN STOOD before him, her silk robes held open, revealing her nakedness.
"Please, Yuan ... It won't hurt me."
His eyes went to her breasts, traced the swollen curve of her belly, then returned to her face. He wanted her so much that it hurt, but there was the child to think of.
"Please . . ."
The tone in her voice, the need expressed in it, made him shiver, then reach out to touch her. "The doctors. . ." he began, but she was shaking her head, her eyes— those beautiful, liquid-dark eyes of hers—pleading with him.
"What do they know? Can they feel what I feel? No. So come, Yuan. Make love to me. Don't you know how much I've missed you?"
He shuddered, feeling her fingers on his neck, then nodded, letting her undress him; but he still felt wrong about it.
Lying beside her afterward, his hand caressing her stomach tenderly, he said, "I could have hurt you."
She took his hand and held it still. "Don't be silly. I'd have told you if it hurt." She gave a little shudder, then looked down, smiling. "Besides, I want our child to be lusty, don't you? I want him to know that his mother is loved."
Her eyes met his provocatively, then looked away.
TOLONEN bowed deeply, then stepped forward, handing Li Shai Tung the report Hans Ebert had prepared on the planned attack on the plantations.
"It's all here?" the T'ang asked, his eyes meeting Tolonen's briefly before they returned to the opening page of the report.
"Everything we discussed, Chieh Hsia."
"And copies have gone to all the Generals?"
"And to their T'ang, no doubt."
Li Shai Tung smiled bleakly. "Good." He had been closeted with his ministers since first light and had had no time to refresh his mind about the details. Now, in the few minutes that remained to him before the Council of the Seven met, he took the time to look through the file.
Halfway through he looked up. "You know, Knut, sometimes I wish I could direct-input all this. It would make things so much easier."
Tolonen smiled, tracing the tiny slot behind his ear with his right index finger, then shook his head. "It would not be right to break with tradition, Chieh Hsia. Besides, you have servants and ministers to assist you in such matters."
Yes, thought the T'ang, and as you've so often said, it would only be another way in which my enemies could get to me. I've heard they can do it now. Programs that destroy the mind's ability to reason. Like the food I eat, it would need to be "tasted." No, perhaps you're right, Knut Tolonen. It would only build more walls between Chung Kuo and me, and the gods know there are enough already.
He finished the document quickly, then closed it, looking back at Tolonen. "Is there anything else?"
Tolonen paused, then lowered his voice slightly. "One thing, Chieh Hsia. In view of how things are developing, shouldn't we inform Prince Yuan?"
Li Shai Tung considered a moment, then shook his head. "No, Knut. Yuan has worked hard these last few weeks. He needs time with that wife of his." He smiled, his own tiredness showing at the comers of his mouth. "You know how Yuan is. If he knew, he would be back here instantly, and there's nothing he can really do to help. So let it be. If I need him, I'll instruct Master Nan to brief him fully. Until then, let him rest." "Chieh Hsia."
Li Shai Tung watched his old friend stride away, then turned, pulling at his beard thoughtfully. The session ahead was certain to be difficult and it might have helped to have Yuan at his side, but he remembered the last time, when Wang Sau-leyan had insisted on the Prince's leaving. Well, he would give him no opportunity to pull such strokes this time. It was too important. For what he was about to suggest. . . He shuddered. Twenty years too late, it was. He knew that now. Knew how vulnerable they had become in that time. But it had to be said, even if it split the Council. Because unless it was faced—and faced immediately—there could be no future for them.
He looked about him at the cold grandeur of the marble hallway, his eyes coming to rest on the great wheel of the Ywe Lung carved into the huge double doors, then shook his head. This was the turning point. Whatever they decided today, there was no turning back from this, no further chance to right things. The cusp was upon them. And beyond?
Li Shai Tung felt a small ripple of fear pass down his spine, then turned and went across to the great doorway, the four shaven-headed guards bowing low before they turned and pushed back the heavy doors.
WEI FENG, T'ang of East Asia, sat forward in his chair and looked about him at the informal circle of his fellow T'ang, his face stem, his whole manner immensely dignified. It was he who had called this emergency meeting of the Council; he who, as the most senior of the Seven, hosted it now, at his palace of Chung Ning in Ning Hsia Province. Seeing him lean forward, the other T'ang fell silent, waiting for him to speak.
"Well, cousins, we have all read the reports, and I think we would all agree that a major disaster was only narrowly averted, thanks to the quick action of Li Shai Tung's Security forces. A disaster that, while its immediate consequences would have befallen one of our number alone, would have damaged every one of us. For are not the seven One and the one Seven?"