David Wingrove - Chung Kuo 1 - The Middle Kingdom

CHUNG KUO

by DAVID WINGROVE

BOOK 1:

THE MIDDLE KINGDOM

PROLOGUE WINTER 2I90

Yin/Yang

Who built the ten-storeyed tower of jade? Who foresaw it all in the beginning, when the first

signs appeared?

—T'lEN wen (Heavenly Questions) by Ch'u Yuan, from the ch'u tz'u (Songs of the South),

second century B.C.

Yin

IN THE DAYS before the world began, the first Ko Ming Emperor, Mao Tse-tung, stood on the hillside

at Wuch'ichen in Shensi Province and looked back at the way he had come. The Long March, that epic

journey of twenty-five thousand li over eighteen mountain ranges and through twelve provinces—each

larger than a European state— was over, and seeing the immensity of China stretched out before him,

Mao raised his arms and addressed those few of his companions who had survived the year-long trek.

"Since P'an Ku divided heaven from earth, and the Three Sovereigns and the Five Emperors reigned, has

there ever been in history a long march like ours?" he said. "In ten years all China'will be ours. We have

come this far—is there anything we cannot do?"

China. Chung Kuo, the Middle Kingdom. So it had been for more than three thousand years, since the

time of the Chou, long before the First Empire.

So it had been. But now Chung Kuo was more. Not just a kingdom, but the earth itself. A world.

In his winter palace, in geostationary orbit 160,000 li above the planet's surface, Li Shai Tung, T'ang,

Son of Heaven and Ruler of City Europe, stood on the wide viewing circle, looking down past his feet at

the blue-white globe of Chung Kuo, thinking.

In the two hundred and fifty-six years that had passed since Mao had stood on that hill in Shensi

Province, the world had changed greatly. Then, it was claimed, the only thing to be seen from space that

gave evidence of Man's existence on the planet was the Great Wall of China. Untrue as it was, it said

something of the Han ability to plan great projects—and not merely to plan them, but to carry them out.

Now, as the twenty-second century entered its final decade, the very look of the world had changed.

From space one saw the vast Cities—each almost a continent in itself; great sheets of glacial whiteness

masking the old, forgotten shapes of nation states; the world one vast, encircling city: City Earth.

Li Shai Tung stroked his long white beard thoughtfully, then turned from the portal, drawing his

embroidered silk pan. about him. It was warm in the viewing room, yet there was always the illusion of

cold, looking down through the darkness of space at the planet far below.

The City. It had been playing on his mind much more of late. Before, he had been too close to it—even

up here. He had taken it for granted. Made assumptions he should never have made. But now it was time

to face things: to see them in the long perspective.

Constructed more than a century before, the City had been meant to last ten thousand years. It was vast

and spacious and its materials needed only refurbishing, never replacing. It was a new world built on top

of the old; a giant stilt village perched over the dark, still lake of antiquity.

Thirty decks—three hundred levels—high, each of its hexagonal, hivelike stacks two li to a side, there

had seemed space enough to hold any number of people. Let mankind multiply, the Planners had said;

there is room enough for all. So it had seemed, back then. Yet in the century that followed, the

population of Chung Kuo had grown like never before.

Thirty-four billion people at last count, Han and European— Hung Mao—combined. And more each

year. So many more that in fifty years the City would be full, the storage houses emptied. Put simply, the

City was an ever-widening mouth, an ever-larger stomach. It was a thing that ate and shat and grew.

Li Shai Tung sighed, then made his way up the broad, shallow steps and into his private apartment.

Dismissing the two attendants, he went across and pulled the doors closed, then turned and looked back

into the room.

It was no good. He would have to bring the matter up in Council. The Seven would have to discuss

population controls, like it or no. Or else? Well, at best he saw things stabilized: the City going on into the

future; his sons and grandsons bom to rule in peace. And at worst?

Uncharacteristically, Li Shai Tung put his hands to his face. He had been having dreams. Dreams in which

he saw the Cities burning. Dreams in which old friends were dead—brutally murdered in their beds, their

children's bodies torn and bloodied on the nursery floor.

In his dreams he saw the darkness bubble up into the bright-lit levels. Saw the whole vast edifice slide

down into the mire of chaos. Saw it as clearly as he saw his hands, now, before his face.

Yet it was more than dreams. It was what would happen— unless they acted.

Li Shai Tung, T'ang, ruler of City Europe, one of the Seven, shuddered. Then, smoothing the front of his

pau, he sat down at his desk to compose his speech for Council. And as he wrote he was thinking.

We didn't simply change the past, as others tried to do, we built over it, as if to erase it for all time. We

tried to do what Mao, in his time, attempted with his Cultural Revolution. What the first Han Emperor,

Ch'in Shih Huang Ti, tried to do, two thousand four hundred years ago, when he burned the books and

built the Great Wall to keep the northern barbarians from the Middle Kingdom. We have not learned

from history. We have preferred to ignore its counsel. But now history is catching up with us. The years

ahead will show how wise a course we set. Or blame us for our folly.

He liked the shape of his thoughts and set them down. Then, when he was finished, he got up and went

back down the steps to the viewing circle. Darkness was slowly encroaching on City Europe, drawing a

stark, dividing line—-a terminator—across its hollowed geometric shape, north to south.

No, he thought. We haven't learned. We have been unwise. And now our own Long March is fast

approaching. The bright days of ease—of unopposed rule—lie in our past. Ahead lies only darkness.

The old man sighed again, then straightened, feeling the imaginary cold in his bones. Chung Kuo. Would

it survive the coming times? Would a son of his look down, as he looked now, and see a world at peace?

Or was Change to come again, like a serpent, blighting all?

Li Shai Tung turned, then stopped, listening. It came again. An urgent pounding on the outer doors. He

made his way through and stood before them.

"Who is it?"

"Chieh Hsia! Forgive me. It is 1, Chung Hu-Yan."

Coming so hard upon his thoughts, the tone of panic in his Chancellor's voice alarmed him. He threw the

doors open.

Chung Hu-Yan stood there, his head bowed low, his mauve sleeping gown pulled tightly about his tall,

thin frame. His hair was unbraided and uncombed. It was clear he had come straight from his bed, not

stopping to prepare himself.

"What is it, Chung?"

Chung fell to his knees. "It is Lin Yua, Chieh Hsia. It seems she has begun. ..."

"Begun?" Instinct made him control his voice, his face, his breathing, but, inside, his heart hammered and

his stomach dropped away. Lin Yua, his first wife, was only six months into her pregnancy. How could

she have begun? He took a sharp breath, willing himself to be calm.

"Quick, Chung. Take me to her at once."

The doctors looked up from the bedside as he entered, then bowed low and backed hastily away. But a

glance at the fear in their eyes told him at once more than he wanted to know.'

He looked beyond them, to her bed. "Lin Yua!"

He ran across the room to her, then stopped, his fear transformed into an icy certainty.

"Gods . , ." he said softly, his voice breaking. "Kuan Yin preserve us!"

She lay there, her face pale as the harvest moon, her eyes closed, a blue tinge to her lips and cheeks. The

sheets were rucked up beneath her naked legs, as if from some titanic strug-

gle, their whiteness stained almost black with her blood. Her arms lay limply at her sides.

He threw himself down beside her, cradling her to him, sobbing uncontrollably, all thought of sovereign

dignity gone from him. She was still warm. Horribly, deceptively warm. He turned her face and kissed it,

time and again, as if kissing would bring the life back to it, then began to talk to her, his voice pleading

with her.

"Lin Yua.. . Lin Yua.... My little peach. My darling little one. Where are you, Lin Yua? The gods help us,

where are you?"

He willed her eyes to open. To smile and say that this was all a game—a test to see how much he loved

her. But it was no game. Her eyes stayed closed, their lids impenetrably white; her mouth devoid of

breath. And then, at last, he knew.

Gently he laid her head against the pillow, then, with his fingers, combed her hair back lovingly from her

brow. Shivering, he sat back from her, looking up at his Chancellor, his voice hollow with disbelief.

"She's dead, Hu-Yan. My little peach is dead."

"ChiehHsia.. . ." The Chancellor's voice quivered with emotion. For once he did not know what to do,

what to say. She had been such a strong woman. So filled with life. For her to die ... No. It was an

impossibility. He stared back at the T'ang, his own eyes filled with tears, and mutely shook his head.

There was movement behind him. Chung turned and looked. It was a nurse.. She held a tiny bundle.

Something still and silent. He stared at her, appalled, and shook his head violently.

"No, Excellency," the woman began, bowing her head re-, spectfully. "You misunderstand. . . ."

Chung Hu-Yan glanced fearfully at the Tang. Li Shai Tung had turned away; was staring down at his

dead wife once again. Knowing he must do something, Chung turned and grabbed the woman's arm.

Only then did he see that the child was alive within the blankets.

"It lives?" His whisper held a trace of disbelief.

"He lives, Excellency. It's a boy."

Chung Hu-Yan gave a short laugh of surprise. "Lin Yua gave birth to a boy?"

"Yes, Excellency. Four catties he weighs. Big for one born so early."

Chung Hu-Yan stared at the tiny child, then turned and looked back at the T'ang. Li Shai Tung had not

noted the woman's entrance. Chung licked his lips, considering things, then decided.

"Go," he told the nurse. "And make sure the child is safe. Your life is forfeit if he dies. Understand me,

woman?"

The woman swallowed fearfully, then bowed her head low. "I understand, Excellency. I'll take good care

of him."

Chung turned back, then wentiand stood beside the T'ang.

"Cbieh Hsia?" he said, kneeling, bowing his head.

Li Shai Tung looked up, his eyes bleak, unfocused, his face almost unrecognizable in its grief.

"Chieh Hsia, I—"

Abruptly the Tang stood and pushed roughly past his Chancellor, ignoring him, confronting instead the

group of five doctors who were still waiting on the far side of the room.

"Why was I not summoned earlier?"

The most senior of them stepped forward, bowing. "It was felt, Chieh Hsia—"

"Fefe?" The T'ang's bark of anger took the old man by surprise. Pain and anger had transformed Li Shai

Tung. His face glowered. Then he leaned forward and took the man forcibly by the shoulder, throwing

him backward.

He stood over him threateningly. "How did she die?"

The old man glanced up fearfully from where he lay, then scrambled to his knees again, lowering his head

abjectly. "It was her age, Chieh Hsia," he gasped. "Forty-two is late to have a child. And then there are

the conditions here. They make it dangerous even for a normal labor. Back on Chung Kuo—"

"You incompetent butchers! You murderers! You . . ."

Li Shai Tung's voice failed. He turned and looked back helplessly at his dead wife, his hands trembling,

his lips parted in surprise. For a moment longer he stood there, lost in his pain; then, with a shudder, he

turned back, his face suddenly set, controlled.

"Take them away from here, Chung Hu-Yan," he said coldly,

his eyes filled with loathing. "Take them away and have them killed."

"Chieh Hsia?" The Chancellor stared at him, astonished. Grief had transformed his master.

The T'ang's voice rose in a roar. "You heard me, Master Chung! Take them away!"

The man at his feet began to plead. "Chieh Hsia.' Surely we might be permitted—"

He glared at the old man, silencing him, then looked up again. Across from him the others, graybeards all,

had fallen to their knees in supplication. Now, unexpectedly, Chung Hu-Yan joined them.

"Chieh Hsia, I beg you to listen. If you have these men killed, the lives of all their kin will be forfeit too.

Let them choose an honorable death. Blame them for Lin Yua's death, yes, but let their families live."

Li Shai Tung gave a visible shudder. His voice was soft now, laced with pain. "But they killed my wife,

Chung. They let Lin Yuadie."

Chung touched his head to the floor. "I know, Chieh Hsia. And for that they will be only too glad to die.

But spare their families, I beg you, Chieh Hsia. You owe them that much. After all, they saved your son."

"My son?" The T'ang looked up, surprised.

"Yes, Chieh Hsia. You have a son. A second son. A strong, healthy child."

Li Shai Tung stood there, frowning fiercely, trying hard to take in this latest, unexpected piece of news.

Then, very slowly, his face changed yet again, the pain pushing through his mask of control until it

cracked and fell away and he stood there, sobbing bitterly, his teeth clenched in anguish, tears running

down his face.

"Go," he said finally in a small voice, turning away from them in a gesture of dismissal. "Order it as you

will, Chung. But go. I must be alone with her now."

Yang

IT WAS DARK where they sat, at the edge of the terrace overlooking the park. Behind them the other

tables were empty now. Inside.^at the back of the restaurant, a single lamp shone dimly. Nearby four

waiters stood in shadow against the wall, silent, in attendance. It was early morning. From the far side of

the green came the sounds of youthful laughter; unforced, spontaneous. Above them the night sky

seemed filled with stars; a million sharp-etched points of brilliance against the velvet blackness.

"It's beautiful," said Wyatt, looking down, then turning back to face the others. "You know, sometimes

just the sight of it makes me want to cry. Don't you ever feel that?"

Lehmann laughed softly, almost sadly, and reached out to touch his friend's arm. "I know. ..."

Wyatt let his head tilt back again. He was drunk. They were all drunk, or they wouldn't be speaking like

this. It was a kind of treason. The sort of thing a man whispered, or kept to himself. Yet it had to be said.

Now. Tonight. Before they broke this intimacy and went their own directions once again.

He leaned forward, his right hand resting on the table, the fist clenched tightly. "And sometimes I feel

stifled. Boxed in. There's an ache in me. Something unfulfilled. A need. And when I look up at the stars I

get angry. I think of the waste, the stupidity of it. Trying to keep it all bottled up. What do they think we

are? Machines?" He laughed; a painful laugh, surprised by it all. "Can't they see what they're doing to us?

Do you think they're blind to it?"

There was a murmur, of sympathy and agreement.

"They can see," said Berdichev matter-of-factly, stubbing out his cigar, his glasses reflecting the distant

image of the stars.

Wyatt looked at him. "Maybe. But sometimes I wonder. You see, it seems to me there's a whole

dimension missing. From my life. From yours, Soren, and yours, Pietn» From everyone's life. Perhaps

the very thing that makes us fully human." He leaned forward dangerously on his chair. "There's no place

for growth anymore—no more white spaces on the map."

Lehmann answered him dryly. "Quite the contrary, Edmund. There's nothing but white."

There was laughter; then, for a short time, silence. The ceiling of the great dome moved imperceptibly,

turning about the illusory axis of the north star.

It had been a good night. They had just returned from the Clay, the primitive, unlit region beneath the

City's floor. Eight days they had been together in that ancient netherworld of rotting brick andsavage

half-men. Days that had marked each of them in his own way. Returning they had felt good, but now their

mood had changed. When Wyatt next spoke there was real bitterness in his voice.

"TheyVe killing us all. Slowly. Irreversibly. From the center out. Their stasis is a kind of poison. It

hollows the bones."

Lehmann shifted uneasily in his chair. Wyatt turned, then saw and fell silent. The Han waiter came out

from the shadows close by them, holding a tray out before him.

"More ch'o, sirs?"

Berdichev turned sharply, his face dark with anger. "Have you been listening?"

"Sir?" The Han's face froze into a rictus of politeness, but Wyatt, watching, saw the fear in his eyes.

Berdichev climbed to his feet and faced him, leaning over him threateningly, almost a head taller than the

Han.

"You heard me clearly, old hundred names. You were listening to our conversation, weren't you?"

The waiter lowered his head, stung by the bitterness in Berdichev's voice. "No, honored sir. I heard

nothing." His face remained as before, but now his hands trembled, making the bowls rattle on the tray.

Wyatt stood and took his friend's arm gently. "Soren, please, ..."

Berdichev stood there, a moment longer, scowling at the man, his resentment like something palpable,

flowing out across the space between them, then h| turned away, glancing briefly at Wyatt.

Wyatt looked across at the waiter and nodded. "Fill the bowls. Then leave us. Put it all on my bill."

The Han bowed, his eyes flashing gratitude at Wyatt, then quickly filled the bowls.

"Fucking chinks!" Berdichev muttered, once the Han was out of earshot. He leaned forward and picked

up his bowl. "You have to watch what you say these days, Edmund. Even small Han have big ears."

Wyatt watched him a moment, then shrugged. "I don't know. They're not so bad."

Berdichev laughed scornfully. "Devious little shit-eaters they are." He stared out across the green, pulling

his silk pau tighter about his neck. "I'd rather hand all my companies over to my bitterest rival than have a

single one of them in a senior management position."

Lehmann sighed and reached out for his bowl. "I find them useful enough. In their own way."

"As servants, yes. . . ." Berdichev laughed sourly, then finished his ch'a and set the bowl down heavily.

He looked from one to the other of them as he spoke. "You know what they call us behind our backs?

Big noses! The cheek of it! Big noses!"

Wyatt looked to Lehmann and both men laughed. He reached out and touched Berdichev's nose

playfully. "Well, it's true in your case, Soren, isn't it?"

Berdichev drew his head back, then smiled, relenting. "Maybe." He sniffed and laughed, then grew

serious again. "Maybe so. But I'll be damned if I'll have the little fuckers taking the piss out of me while

they're drawing from my pocket!"

"But isn't that true of all men?" Wyatt insisted, feeling suddenly less drunk. "I mean . . . it's not just the

Han. Our race—the Hung Moo—aren't most of us like that?"

"Speak for yourself," said Lehmann, leaning back, his whole manner poised, indifferent. "However, the

Han rule this world of ours. And that changes things. It makes even the most vulgar little Han think he's a

T'ang."

"Fucking true!" said Berdichev, wiping at his mouth. "They're arrogant bastards, one and all!"

Wyatt shrugged, unconvinced, then looked from one of his friends to the other. They were harder,

stronger men than he. He recognized that. Yet there was something flawed in each of them—^some lack

of sympathy that marred their natures, fine as they were. He had noted it, down there in the Clay: had

seen how they took for granted what he had found horrifying.

Imagination, he thought. It has to do with imagination. With putting yourself in someone else's place. Like

the waiter, just then. Or like the woman I met, down there, in the awful squalor of the Clay.

He shivered and looked down at his untouched ch'a. He could still see her. Could see the room where

they had kept her. Mary, her name had been. Mary.

The thought of it chilled his blood. She was still there. There, in the room where he had left her. And who

knew which callous bastard would use her next; would choose to beat her senseless, as she had been

beaten so often before.

He saw himself again. Watched as he lifted her face to the light and traced the bruise about her eye with

his fingers. Gently, aware of how afraid she was of him. He had slept with her finally, more out of pity

than from any sense of lust. Or was that fair? Wasn't curiosity part of what he'd felt? So small she'd been,

her arms so thin, her breasts almost nonexistent. And yet pretty, strangely pretty, for all that. Her eyes,

particularly, had held some special quality — the memory, perhaps, of something better than this she had

fallen into.

He had been wrong to leave her there. And yet, what choice had he had? That was her place, this his. So

it was fated in this world. And yet there must be something he could do.

"What are you thinking, Edmund?"

He looked up, meeting Lehmann's eyes. "I was thinking about the woman."

"The woman?" Berdichev glanced across at him, then laughed. "Which one? There were hundreds of the

scrawny things!"

"Andboys. ..."

"We won't forget the boys. ..."

He looked away, unable to join their laughter; angry with himself for feeling as he did. Then his anger

took a sudden shape and he turned back, leaning aciro4 the table toward them.

"Tell me, Soren. If you could have one thing—just one single thing—what would it be?"

Berdichev stared across the darkened green a while, then turned and looked back at him, hi% eyes

hidden behind the lenses of his glasses. "No more Han."

Lehmann laughed. "That's quite some wish, Soren."

Wyatt turned to him. "And you, Pietr? The truth this time. No flippancy."

Lehmann leaned back, staring up at the dome's vast curve above them. "That there," he said, lifting his

arm slowly and pointing. "That false image of the sky above us. I'd like to make that real. Just that. To

have an open sky above our heads. That and the sight of the stars. Not a grand illusion, manufactured for

the few, but the reality of it—for everyone."

Berdichev looked up solemnly, nodding. "And you, Edmund? What's the one thing you'd have?"

Wyatt looked across at Berdichev, then at Lehmann. "What would I want?"

He lifted his untouched bowl and held it cupped between his hands. Then, slowly, deliberately, he turned

it upside down, letting the contents spill out across the tabletop.

"Hey!" said Berdichev, moving backward sharply. Both he and Lehmann stared at Wyatt, astonished by

the sudden hardness in his face, the uncharacteristic violence of the gesture.

"Change," Wyatt said defiantly. "That's what I want. Change. That above everything. Even life."

PART I SPRING 2196

A Spring Day at the Edge of the World

A spring day at the edge of the world. On the edge of the world once more the day slants. The oriole cries, as though it were its own tears

Which damp even the topmost blossoms on the tree.

—LI SHANO-YIN, Exile, ninth century A. D.

CHAPTER. ONE

Fire and Ice

FLAMES DANCED in a glass. Beyond, in the glow of the naked fire, a man's face smiled tightly.

"Not long now," he said, coming closer to the fierce, wavering light. He had delicate Oriental features that

were almost feminine; a small, well-shaped nose and wide, dark eyes that caught and held the fire's light.

His jet-black hair was fastened in a pigtail, then coiled in a tight bun at the back of his head. He wore

white, the color of mourning—a simple one-piece that fitted his small frame loosely.

A warm night wind blew across the mountainside, making the fire flare up. The coals at its center glowed

intensely. Ash and embers whirled off. Then the wind died and the shadows settled.

"They've taken great pains, Kao Jyan."

The second man walked back from the darkness where he'd been standing and faced the other across

the flames, his hands open, empty. He was a much bigger man, round shouldered and heavily muscled.

His large, bony head was freshly shaven and his whites fitted him tightly. His name was Chen and he had

the blunt, nondescript face of a thousand generations of Han peasants.

Jyan studied his partner momentarily. "They're powerful men," he said. "They've invested much in us.

They expect much in return."

"I understand," Chen answered, looking down the moonlit valley toward the City. Then, unexpectedly, he

laughed. "What is it?" Jyan nan-owed his eyes. "See!" Chen pointed off to his right. "There! Up there

where the mountains almost touch the clouds."

Jyan looked. Thin strands of wispy cloud lay across the moorfs full circle, silvered by its intense light.

Beyond, the sky was a rich blue-black. "So?" »

Chen turned back to him, his eyes shining in the firelight. "It's beautiful, don't you think? How the

moonlight has painted the mountaintops white."

Jyan shivered, then stared past the big man toward the distant peaks. "It's ice."

"What? Plastic, you mean?"

Jyan shook his head. "No. Not the stuff the City's made of.

Real ice. Frozen water. Like the ch'un tzu put in their drinks."

Chen turned and looked again, his;broad face wrinkling.

Then he looked away sharply, as if the very thought disturbed him.

As it should, thought Jyan, aware of his own discomfort. The drugs he'd been given made all of this seem

familiar—gave him false memories of such things as cold and clouds and moonlight—yet, beneath the

surface calm of his mind, his body was still afraid.

There was a faint movement against his cheek, a sudden ruffling of his hair. At his feet the fire flared up

again, fanned by the sudden gust. Wind, thought Jyan, finding it strange even to think the word. He bent

down and lifted a log from the pile, turning it in his hand and feeling its weight. Then he turned it on its end

and stared at the curious whorl of its grain. Strange. Everything so strange out here, outside the City. So

unpredictable. All of it so crudely thrown together. So unexpected, for all that it seemed familiar.

Chen came and stood by him. "How long now?" Jyan glanced at the dragon timer inset into the back of

his wrist. "Four minutes."

He watched Chen turn and—for what seemed like the hundredth time—look back at the City, his eyes

widening, trying to take it in.

The City. It filled the great northern plain of Europe. From where they stood, on the foothills of the Alps,

it stretched away northward a thousand five hundred 1i to meet the chill waters of the Baltic, while to the

west the great wall of its outer edge towered over the Atlantic for the full three-thousand-li length of its

coastline, from Cape St. Vincent in the south to Kristiansund in the rugged north. To the south, beyond

the huge mountain ranges of the Swiss Wilds, its march continued, ringing the Mediterranean like a giant

bowl of porcelain. Only to the east had its growth been checked unnaturally, in a jagged line that ran from

Danzig in the north to Odessa in the south. There the plantations began; a vast sea of greenness that

swept into the heart of Asia.

"It's strange, isn't it? Being outside. It doesn't seem real."

Chen did not answer. Looking past him, Jyan saw how the dark, steep slopes of the valley framed a

giant, flat-topped arrowhead of whiteness. It was like a vast wall—a dam two ii in height—plugging the

end of the valley. Its surface was a faintly opalescent pearl, lit from within. Ch'eng, it was. City and wall.

David Wingrove - Chung Kuo 1 - The Middle Kingdom

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