The White Mountain (19 page)

A warm, throaty laughter greeted Vasska's comment. ‘Don't we just know it,' said Erika, her knees rubbing against Ywe Hao's in the cramped space.

‘They fool themselves,' Vasska continued, warming to his theme. ‘But it isn't a real living space, it's a bloody machine. Switch it off and they'd die, they're so cut off from things.'

‘And we're so different?'

Ywe Hao's comment was sharp, her irritation with Vasska mixed up with a fear that they might be overheard. They were high up here, at the very top of the stack, under the roof itself, but who knew what tricks acoustics played in the ventilation system? She glanced at the faintly glowing figure at her wrist and gritted her teeth.

‘Yes, we're different,' said Vasska, leaning closer, so that she could feel his breath on her cheek. ‘We're different because we want to tear it down. To level it all and get back to the earth.'

It was close to an insult. As if she had forgotten – she, who had been in the movement a good five years longer than this… this boy! Neither was it what she had really meant. They too were cut off. They too had lived their lives inside the machine. So what if they only
thought
they were different?

She was about to respond, but Erika leaned forward, touching her arm. ‘How much longer, Chi Li? I'm stifling.'

It was true. The small space at the hub hadn't been designed for three.

‘Another five at least,' she said, covering Erika's hand with her own. She liked the woman, for all her faults, whereas Vasska… Vasska was a pain. She had met his sort before. Zealots. Bigots. They used the
Yu
ideology as a substitute for thinking. The rest was common talk. Shit and water. Narrow pipes. These were the catch-phrases of the old
Ping Tiao
intelligentsia. As if
she
needed such reminders.

She closed her eyes a moment, thinking. The three of them had been together as a team for only six weeks now – the first three of those in training and in what they termed ‘assimilation'. Vasska, Erika – those weren't their real names, any more than her own was Chi Li, the name on her ID badge. Those were the names of dead men and women in the Maintenance Service; men and women whose identities the
Yu
had stolen for their use. Neither would she ever learn their real names. They were strangers, brought in from other
Yu
cells for this mission. Once they were finished here she would never see them again.

It was a necessary system, and it worked, but it had its drawbacks. From the start Vasska had challenged her. He had never said as much, but it was clear that he resented her leadership. Even though there was supposed equality between men and women in the movement, the men still expected to be the leaders – the doers and the thinkers, the formulators of policy and the agents of what had been decided. Vasska was one such. He stopped short of open dissent, but not far. He was surly, sullen, argumentative. Time and again she had been forced to give him explicit orders. And he, in return, had questioned her loyalty to the cause and to the underlying dogma of the
Yu
ideology; questioned it until she, in her quiet moments, had begun to ask herself, Do I believe in what I'm doing? Do I believe in Mach's vision of the new order that is to come once the City has been levelled? And though she did, it had grown harder than ever to say as much – as though such lip-service might make her like Vasska.

For a while there was only the sound of their breathing and the faint, ever-present hum of the life systems. Then, prefacing his remark with an unpleasantly insinuating laugh, Vasska spoke again. ‘So how's your boyfriend, Chi Li? How's… Wolf-gang?' And he made the older man's name sound petty and ridiculous.

‘Shut up, Vasska,' said Erika, defusing the sudden tension. Then, leaning closer to Ywe Hao, she whispered, ‘Open the vent. Let's look. It's almost time.'

In the dark Ywe Hao smiled, grateful for Erika's intervention, then turned and slipped the catch. Light spilled into the cramped, dark space, revealing the huddle of their limbs.

‘What can you see?'

For a moment it was too bright. Then, when her eyes had focused, she found she was looking down into Main from a place some fifty or sixty
ch
'
i
overhead. It was late and the day's crowds had gone from Main, leaving only a handful of revellers and one or two workers, making their way to their night-shift occupations. Ywe Hao looked beyond these to a small doorway to her left at the far end of Main. It was barely visible from where she was, yet even as her eyes went to it, a figure stepped out, raising a hand in parting.

‘That's him!' she said in an urgent whisper. ‘Vasska, get going. I want that lift secured.' Dismissing him, she turned, looking into the strong, feminine face close to her own. ‘Well? What do you think?'

Erika considered, then nodded, a tight, tense smile lighting her features. ‘If it's like last time we've thirty minutes, forty at the outside. Time enough to secure the place and get things ready.'

‘Good. Then let's get moving. There won't be another opportunity as good as this.'

Ywe Hao looked about her, then nodded, satisfied. The rooms looked normal, no sign of the earlier struggle visible. Four of the servants were locked away in the pantry, bound hand and foot and sedated. In another room she had placed the women and children of the household, taking care to administer the exact dosage to the boys. Now she turned, facing the fifth member of the household staff, the Chief Steward, the number
yi
– one
– emblazoned in red on the green chest patch he wore on his pure white
pau
. He stared back at her, his eyes wide with fear, his head slightly lowered, wondering what she would do next. Earlier she had taped a sticky-bomb to the back of his neck, promising him that at the slightest sign or word of warning, she would set it off.

‘Remember,' she said reassuringly, ‘it's not you we want, Steward Wong. Do as I say and you'll live. But Shou Chen-hai must suspect nothing. He'll be back from seeing the girl soon, so run his bath and tend to him as normal. But remember, we shall be watching your every movement.'

The Steward bowed his head.

‘Good.' She turned, double-checking the room, then patted the pocket of her tunic. The papers were inside – the pamphlet explaining their reasons for the execution and the official death warrant, signed by all five members of the High Council of the Yu. These would be left on Shou's body for Security to find. Meanwhile, friends sympathetic to the cause would be distributing copies of the pamphlet throughout the Lowers. More than fifty million in all, paid for from the coffers of the long-defunct
Ping Tiao
. Money that Mach had sifted away after Helmstadt and before the débâcle at Bremen that had brought about the
Ping Tiao
's demise.

‘Okay. You know what to say? Good. Then get to work. I want things prepared for when he returns.'

She joined Erika at the desk in the tiny surveillance room. At once she picked up the figure of the Chief Steward as he made his way down the corridor to the main bathroom. Keeping an eye on what he did, she glanced at the other screens, once more appalled by the luxury, by the sheer waste of what she saw. Shou Chen-hai's family was no bigger than many in the Mids and Lowers, and yet he had all this: twenty-four rooms, including no less than two kitchens and three private bathrooms. It was disgraceful. An insult to those he was meant to serve. But that was not why she was here, for there were many who lived as Shou Chen-hai lived, unaware of the suffering their greed relied upon. No, there were specific reasons for singling out Shou Chen-hai.

She shuddered, indignation fuelling her anger. Shou Chen-hai was a cheat. And not just any cheat. His cheating was on a grand scale and would result in untold suffering: in children not receiving treatment for debilitating diseases; in good men bleeding to death in overcrowded Accident
Clinics; in mothers dying in childbirth because the facilities promised by the T'ang had not been built. She laughed coldly. That ceremony earlier had been a sham. The T'ang's Chancellor had been shown around the new wards and operating theatres as if they were typical of what existed in the rest of the facility. But she had seen with her own eyes the empty wards, the unbuilt theatres, the empty spaces where real and solid things ought to have been. Only a fifth of the promised facility had been built. The rest did not exist – would
never
exist – because Shou Chen-hai and his friends had taken the allocated funds and spent them on their own personal schemes. She shook her head slowly, still astonished by the scale of the deception. It was not unheard of for officials to take ten, even fifteen per cent of any project. It was even, in this crazy world of theirs,
expected
. But eighty per cent! Four
billion
yuan! Ywe Hao gritted her teeth. It could not be tolerated. Shou Chen-hai had to be made an example of, else countless more would suffer while such as Shou grew bloated on their suffering.

She turned, looking at Erika. ‘Who is Shou seeing?'

Erika smiled, her eyes never leaving the screen. ‘One of his underling's daughters. A young thing of thirteen. The mother knows but condones it. And who can blame her?'

‘No…' Yet Ywe Hao felt sick at the thought. It was another instance of Shou's rottenness; of his corrupt use of the power given him. Power… that was what was at fault here. Power, given over into the hands of petty, unscrupulous men. Men who were not fit to run a brothel, let alone a
Hsien
.

She drew her knife and stared at it, wondering what it would feel like to thrust it into Shou Chen-hai, and whether that would be enough to assuage the anger she felt. No. She could kill a million Shous and it would not be enough. Yet it was a start. A sign, to be read by High and Low alike.

She turned the knife in her hand, tested the sharpness of the edge, then sheathed it again. ‘Are you ready?'

Erika laughed. ‘Don't worry about me. Just worry whether Vasska's done his job and covered the lifts.'

‘Yes…' she said, then tensed, seeing the unmistakable figure of Shou Chen-hai at the far end of the approach corridor. ‘But first our man…'

The ceremony was far advanced. In the small and crowded room there was an expectant silence as the New Confucian official turned back, facing the couple.

Karr was dressed in his ceremonial uniform, the close-fitting azurite-blue tunic emphasizing his massive frame. His close-cropped head was bare, but about his neck hung the huge golden dragon pendant of the
chia ch'eng
. It had been awarded to him by the T'ang himself at a private ceremony only two months earlier and Karr wore it now with pride, knowing it was the highest honour a commoner could attain outside government, making him Honorary Assistant to the Royal Household.

Beside Karr, soon to be his wife, stood the woman he had met at the Dragon Cloud teahouse six months before, Marie Enge. In contrast to Karr she wore bright scarlet silks, a simple one-piece, tied at the waist. The effect, though simple, was stunning. She looked the perfect mate for the big man.

Karr turned, meeting her eyes briefly, smiling, then turned back to face the official, listening attentively as the wizen-faced old man spelt out the marriage duties.

‘I must remind you that in public it is neither seemly nor appropriate to show your love. Your remarks must be restrained and considerate to the feelings of those about you. Love must be kept in bounds. It must not be allowed to interfere with the husband's work or with his duties to the family. As for you, Marie Enge, you must perform your household duties as a good wife, without reproach or complaint. In social gatherings you should not sit with your husband but should remain aloof. As a wife, all ties of blood are broken. You will become part of your husband's household.'

The old man paused, becoming, for a moment, less formal.

‘I am told that among the young it has become unfashionable to view things in this light, but there is much to be said for our traditions. They bring stability and peace, and peace breeds contentment and happiness. In your particular cases, Gregor Karr and Marie Enge, I realize that there are no families to consider. For you the great chain of family was broken, from no fault of your own. And yet these traditions are still relevant, for in time you will have children. You will be family. And so the chain will be re-forged, the ties re-made. By this ceremony you re-enter the great tidal flow of life in Chung Kuo. By taking part in these most ancient of rituals, you reaffirm their strength and purpose.'

Chen, looking on from Karr's left, felt a tiny shiver ripple down his spine at the words. So it had been for him when he had married Wang Ti. It had been like being re-born. No longer simply Chen, but
Kao
Chen, Head of the Kao family, linked to the future by the sons he would have. Sons who would sweep his grave and enact the rituals. In marrying he had become an ancestor. He smiled, feeling deeply for Karr at that moment, enjoying the way the big man looked at his bride, knowing that this was a marriage made in heaven.