FIVE

Behind the desk, which seemed wide and glassy to Wang Li as a fusion bomb crater, General Chou Yuan reared upright in his chair. 'You did not even demand immediate transmission, of her computations?' he exclaimed.

Wang bent his head. 'No, Comrade General,' he said miserably. 'It… did not occur to me. She promised to send the material soon. But it is in her apartment, where she has her study, and ..". no doubt her superiors will keep her on base for a while… and journalists, considering what a sensation the news must be—'

'It is that.' Chou's tone was grim. His broad face seldom showed much expression, but he was scowling now, and he drummed on the desk-top. For Wang, those uniformed shoulders blocked out most of the window behind. Blue summer air of Earth, glimpse of utterly green trees and a soaring arc of temple roof on Prospect Hill, stood infinitely remote. A breeze wandering in had somehow lost freshness, carried nothing save the endless murmur of Peking's traffic.

Despite noise, the office held a stretched silence. And it was bare; except for the tenant—no, with the tenant—how bare and barren! On the right wall hung a portrait of Lenin, on the left one of Mao. Wang felt that their eyes, and the eyes of Chairman Sung's picture at his back, drilled into him, What am I afraid off I am a patriot, they know that,, they trust me.. .. Public humiliation? No, I must not think of confession and correction before my friends as 'humiliation'. Have I been too much in the West? Perhaps the Western virus has entered my blood and needs cleaning out— It came to Wang why he trembled. They might take him off the Sigman project, just when it was unfolding like a blossom in springtime.

'Catastrophic, this news babbled over the radio on Canter's way down,' Chou said. 'Could you not have advised discretion until the possibilities for good or ill have been considered?'

'I never dreamed it could be anything but occasion for delight, Comrade General.' Inspiration: 'Chairman Sung has repeatedly instructed us that an advanced society like our visitor's can only be anti-imperialistic and can only have correct thoughts to offer.'

'Yes. Yes.' Chou sat still for a moment. 'Well, when do you expect to receive Canter's material?'

'Not for days at best, I fear. She told me it was disorganized, considerable parts of it in her private abbreviations, and she would write a formal report.'

'More delay! And if and when the Americans let her transmit to us, publish to the world—will they allow a full and truthful account?'

'Why should they not?' Wang asked, startled half out of his worry.

'Comrade Professor, you have been abroad more than most, have correspondents in foreign countries, have free access to foreign publications and programmes.' Chou barked the remainder: 'You should not be naive. That spaceship is totally invulnerable to any weapon we know; it is immensely faster, completely manoeuvrable, altogether self-cpntained and self-supplying; by its photon drive, if nothing else, it can lay waste whatever areas the pilot chooses, with scalpel precision. Who controls those powers is master of the world. Do you imagine this has not occurred to. the imperialist governments?'

'But, but the Sigman—'

Chou regarded Wang stonily for another while. And then, greatest surprise yet, he leaned back, smiled, took out a cigarette and struck it. Smoke streamed forth to accompany words gone mild:

'You have given insufficient thought to the ramifications, Comrade Professor. However, I daresay a pure researcher like you cannot really be blamed. Your work has been valuable. Now perhaps you can render a supreme service, so that men a thousand years from today will bow to your name.'

Wang unclenched his fists. He felt abruptly weak. 'I listen, Comrade General,' he whispered. ¦ 'Chairman Sung and his advisers have analysed the political implications of the Sigman's arrival. These are manifold.

Before we can decide what to do, we need answers to any number of crucial questions. You, our most able and experienced investigator of the problem, are our present best hope for that.'

Chou drew breath before he went on: 'Some believe the Sigman will inevitably put itself at the disposal of the people's sacred cause, when communication has become good enough for it to realize what conditions are like on Earth. This is possible, of course, and pleasant to believe. But if theory stops at that point, the theorist reveals ignorance and laziness.' Chou tautened again. Renewed cold fury lashed, this time beyond the office, around the world. 'Can any educated person suppose the imperialists and revisionists have not considered the idea too? Have they no preparations against that contingency? Will they meekly surrender their profits and powers? You know better!'

'I, I do. How well I do,' Wang stammered.

The image of his father limped across memory, wounded by the Americans as a youth in Korea, slain by the Russians as an army officer in Siberia. And the Soviet aircraft afterward, terrible snarling whistle when they slanted through the heaven of a little boy who wept for his father and screamed for terror… I nourished my hopes. I thought the slow opening of gates, the Tokyo Accord, the arms control agreements, the famine relief effort— such things seemed to me the harbingers of a better day, when China will no longer be ringed in by demons. And they may have been; they may have been; I do not doubt that the vast majority of people everywhere are honest and of good will.

Yet Chou speaks rightly. Too sudden a dawn may alarm the demons of night to the point of madness.

Wang wet his lips. 'We must proceed with utmost care, yes, I understand,' he said.

'There are other possibilities,' Chou told him. 'Conceivably the Americans, for example, may find ways to lie to the Sigman, delude it into striking a mortal blow for them. Or, more likely, it will answer any technical questions put, never dreaming they are imperialists who ask. As Chairman Sung has declared, we cannot blindly assume that history on so different a planet followed an identical course with ours. For all we know, Sigmans have always been pure and peaceful Communists, or they may long since have transcended Communism itself.'

'I will follow every word of every discussion in the ship,'

Wang promised. 'Should we demand a general moratorium on requests for engineering data?'

'That will be decided.' Chou jabbed his cigarette forward like a bayonet. 'It is even conceivable that the Sigman has evil intentions, or can be persuaded to evil actions. Wait! The laws of Marx, Lenin, and Mao must be applied imaginatively, not dogmatically. Suppose the Sigman's race did not build that vessel.

Suppose the creature is a kind of pirate who stole the craft, after the trusting owners had provided instruction in its use. Have you never felt just a trifle suspicious of one who makes years-long voyages alone?'

'If it is alone.'

'If not, why have its companions never revealed themselves?'

'Who can gauge the motives of a mind absolutely non-human?' Wang frowned. 'I must admit, I have in fact often said, I am puzzled by its solitary travelling. Intelligence, sentience, by any reasonable definition we can make, must involve communication in the most fundamental way, might indeed well be said to be communication. For what is thought except the creation and manipulation of symbols? A primitive species with no instinctive drive towards communication—a drive actually stronger than sex, often stronger than self-preservation, as in a Communist who undergoes martyrdom to help spread the truth—a race without that kind of urge would, presumably, not evolve a human-level brain. It would remain merely animal.

Therefore the Sigman ought to want companionship, conversation, moral support, like you or me. I doubt we could stay sane, Comrade General, if we had to endure so prolonged a loneliness.'

'This is no time for lectures,' Chou said. 'You are directed for the nonce, first, to understand that your country may be in mortal danger; second, to lend your fullest efforts towards speedy guarding against any dangers

—and, naturally, speedy realizing of the bright opportunities we hope will prove to be the reality of this situation.'

Wang lifted his hand. 'For the people!' The traditional pledge came forth briskly, but failed to stir his spirit. He wondered why, and decided that the stark response he had got to his jubilant tidings had downcast him.

'Push forward with your whole energy towards mastering the language,' Chou said. 'If we can stay abreast of the Americans in that respect—if, better, we can surpass them—they will not be able to hoodwink us or the Sigman.'

'But the language is artificial,' Wang objected, 'and thus far is rudimentary.'

'Then you must take a leading role in its further development.'

'M-m-m… yes. As it grows, I suspect, in due modesty, I will become the most proficient in its actual use.

Dr Canter is brilliant, but her genius lies in theory; she lacks my practical experience with a variety of tongues. Serov, Duclos, and—'

'Indeed, indeed.' Chou registered ardour. 'At last you may become able to talk with the Sigman privately—if, for instance, no one else can follow the conversation—and explain the facts.' He checked himself. 'Let such decisions wait their proper time. The immediate requirement is to get full information.

Can you phone Canter and ask her to send her material at once, no matter how chaotic it looks?'

'I can try,' Wang said doubtfully. 'Her superiors may already have forbidden it. Or, if not, she is… a very vulnerable person, I think, hiding in a brittle shell. She may not wish to show anyone else something of hers that is scrawled and disorderly.' He paused. 'Besides, might a call not seem over eager?'

Chou dragged on his cigarette. Reluctant, he agreed, 'It might,' and smashed the stub into a crowded ashtray.

'Frankly, Comrade General,' Wang continued with more vigour—for reminded of the magnificent scientific, xomp ahead of him, he could forget about man's vicious lunacies —'I do not believe it matters.

She gave me the essential information. My own notes are copious; and my office has received printouts of the latest recordings, as per agreement. Dr Canter spoke freely to me^ often unnecessarily fulsomely.

We lack nothing except her precise mathematical analysis and the exact rules discovered by it.

'Do you not see, the insight itself is what counts? Now that we know what to look for, I feel sure we can duplicate her results in two or three weeks. Any competent analyst who has access to computers—'

'Excellent!' Chou actually beamed. 'You are in charge. Work space will be cleared for you in this very building. Sleeping quarters will adjoin it. Commandeer anything and anyone you please.'

'What?' Wang blinked. 'I can operate from my home. Or, if a large staff is required, my University department—*

'Comrade Wang,' Chou said, happily more than severely, 'I realize you are anxious to see your wife and children, but I fear the needs of the people come first. Security measures are essential; you know why.

As you have probably guessed, this interview was ordered on the highest level of government.

'Your wife will be informed that you are detained on business.' Chou paused. 'If you, ah, find that biological urges distract you from your studies—'

'No, no,' Wang said. There passed through him:

Not what he's thinking of, especially. In fact, let us be honest, here alone among ourselves, we several souls (for I do believe that many primitive tribes, and as subtle and powerful a folk as the ancient Egyptians, spoke a profound truth when they said that man has more than one soul)— my Yao, who was moonlight and mountain peaks, has become a dour fanatic whom I stay with largely be-cause her impeccable respectability guarantees me permission to travel, correspond, read, listen, savour this entire marvellous world. {Until we have a system which grants the same freedom to all men, security tragically requires that only a few can enjoy it) Oh, I have further reasons. Men always do. I sense that down underneath the shrill voice and the tight lips, she too remembers; she too wonders, hurt and bewildered, what happened.

And do you recall, O souls, that conference in England (calligraphic austerity of Oxford's spires against iron-grey clouds a-race on an enormous wet wind), and the book with which I read myself to sleep one night, what was the author's name, yes, Chesterton, cranky, wrong-headed, already archaic a hundred years ago … nevertheless he defined asceticism as the appetite for that which one does not like— ? We have an element of asceticism in us, do we not, my souls?

He had been looking forward" to his home simply as a place. He rated (the Americans would say) a house and garden well outside this city, built for a mandarin in Manchu days. The curve of branches across a full moon; the grand sweep of roof, paradoxical in the mellowness of old red tiles; shadows of breeze-blown flowers on a wall where hung a scroll of willows, bridge, mountain captured in a few swift lines eight hundred years ago by Ma Yuan himself; the books, yes, old Li Po, the poet who was more drunk on life, really, than on the wine he sang of—

Before everything else Wang missed his children. P'ing. Tai and Chen were good boys, one took pride in Tai's excellent marks at school and his earnestness among the Pioneers, one felt sure Chen would outgrow the hobbledehoy's loudness. But small, small P'ing (which sounds not unlike the word for crab-apple that blooms red and white across the quickening earth, but which really means peace) came running and laughing to meet him, holding out her arms, squealing delight when he tossed her in the air; she walked hand in hand with him through the garden and called him a great big bag of love.

Well, a week, two or three maybe. No more. To help make sure that incandescent horror will never bloom above P'ing, that her melted eyeballs will never run down her cooked chubby face, that she will, rather, inherit the stars.

Wang grew aware that Chou was regarding him in puzzlement. A whole minute had gone by. He laughed, hearing it himself as shrill and uneven. 'I beg your pardon, Comrade General. I was thinking and forgot—

Yes, I will get busy at once.'

'Good,' Chou said. 'We are fortunate to have you on our side. Tell me, do the Americans have anyone else to compare with this Canter?'

Surprised, Wang searched his mind. 'Difficult to judge. They have extremely competent men. Levinsohn, Hillman, Wonsberg… Still, talents, capabilities vary. For example, Hillman has a weak heart; they cannot send him to space. I daresay, in view of what she has accomplished, Dr Canter will remain their principal agent. Why do you ask?'

'However well-meaning herself,' Chou said, 'she reports to imperialists. We spoke of explaining the truth to the Sigman. Do you think the chance of doing this, uninterrupted, would be better in Canter's absence?'

'Why… perhaps… likewise hard to tell.' Wang felt a twisting in him. She had talked so gladly. 'It might be worthwhile trying to get her removed from the project. Suppose I— No, if I said, at this precise juncture, she was personally obnoxious to me, I would not be believed----

M-m-m… if we could prevail on someone else, a representative of some third country, to have a quarrel with her and— This is not my province, Comrade General.'

'I realize that. I only wanted your opinion as to the desirability of easing her out.'

The conversation went on a while longer, until Chou rang for a flunky to guide Wang to his new quarters.

Alone, the general called an extremely important man and reported. Having received his orders, he next punched a button on the phone which activated a satellite relay to America. Scrambled after enciphering, the beam would if intercepted be taken for a burst of ordinary radio noise. That particular facility was as secret and rarely used as anything owned by the People's Republic.

The man who styled himself Sam Jones leaned across the table. 'You know how a lot of us feel,' he said.

'We can't trust the Sigman monster. How can we dare? Next to it, the Chinks are like our brothers.

Christ, it drips shit out of its whole body!'

'Yeh, I've kind of wondered myself,' Nick Waller rumbled.

'And now this Canter woman. On the screen, in the papers, everywhere, you must have heard. She's found a way to talk to it.'

'I heard.'

The room was surrounded by night. Though the hour was late, a vibration went through, the huge noise of megalopolis. An overhead fluoro pocketed Jones' gaunt face with shadow. He shifted the briefcase on his lap.

'This has got to be stopped,' he said. 'You can see that. If we don't try to talk to "the thing, maybe it'll give up on us.. Whatever plans it has, it must need a way of talking first. Right? Otherwise it could simply flame our planet. It needs human dupes and tools.'

Waller drew on his cigar and let the smoke out slowly, veiling his eyes. 'Maybe,' he said. 'What you getting at?'

'I don't say the project will come to a halt without Mrs Canter,' Jones told him, 'but it'd be handicapped, and we've got to start somewhere.'

Waller stirred. 'Who are you, anyway? All I know is, Luigi said I'd be interested to talk with you. How do you connect to him?'

'Never mind how,' Jones said. 'Don't be afraid of Luigi. Everybody has a hundred different connections. I could have traced you, got this appointment, through, oh, your mother if need be. She'd know a serving maid, who'd also work for a banker, who'd be a friend of a cousin of mine. You see?'

Waller grunted.

"What I'm after is professional help,' Jones said. 'I have-a lot of information, but not much in the way of workers. The FBI— Never mind. I have a job for you which should be easy, if you want it, and the kind of money in this briefcase—more to come on completion of assignment— that I hope will make you want it.'

Waller settled back to listen. He was not perturbed and scarcely curious. He'd need to make sure this Jones, whatever the real name might be, was not a police agent; but that wasn't hard. Nor should it be hard to cover tracks so well that, if Jones blatted afterward, the heavies wouldn't be able to prove anything about Nick Waller's company..

Okay, Jones was off orbit. What matter, if he had the jingle to pay for his whims? As many skewbrains as there were around these days, probably a few were bound to be rich.

Of course, Waller wouldn't commit before checking with his astrologer. But the horoscope would have to be pretty bad to deter him, who carried an amulet made especially for him by the local One.

'Go ahead,' he invited. 'Mind you, I doubt if I can help you myself. But maybe I can give you a name or two.'

Standard operating procedure. The revolutionaries hadn't brought down the Ortho—it simply wore them out, in a generation of running guerrilla warfare—but they had brought a good many, ideas, like new weapons and protective gimmicks and organization by cells, to the attention of the Underworld. Nick Waller had been a high school rebel himself.