Ice and Fire: Chung Kuo Series by David Wingrove Read Free Book Online

looked down into the viewer. ‘There’s something of the satyr
     about it. Something elemental.’
    The T’ang turned his head and looked at him, not understanding the allusion.
    Shepherd laughed. ‘It was a Greek thing, Shai Tung. In their mythology satyrs were
     elementary spirits of the mountains and the forests. Part-goat, part-man. Cloven-hooved,
     thickly-haired,
     sensual and lascivious.’
    Li Shai Tung stared at the urbane, highly sophisticated man standing at his side and
     laughed briefly, bemused that Shepherd could see himself in that brutal portrait.
     ‘I can see a slight
     likeness. Something in the eyes, the shape of the head, but…’
    Shepherd shook his head slowly. He was staring at the hologram intently. ‘No. Look
     at it, Shai Tung. Look hard at it. He sees me clearly. My inner self
    Li Shai Tung shivered. ‘The gods help us that our sons should see us thus!’
    Shepherd turned and looked at him. ‘Why? Why should we fear that, old friend? We know
     what we are. Men. Part mind, part animal. Why should we be afraid of that?’
    The T’ang pointed to the image. ‘Men, yes. But men like that? You really see yourself
     in such an image, Hal?’
    Shepherd smiled. ‘It’s not the all of me, I know, but it’s a part. An important part.’
    Li Shai Tung shrugged – the slightest movement of his shoulders – then looked back
     at the image. ‘But why is the other as it is? Why aren’t both alike?’
    ‘Ben has a wicked sense of humour.’
    Again the T’ang did not understand, but this time Shepherd made no attempt to enlighten
     him.
    Li Shai Tung studied the hologram a moment longer then turned from it, looking all
     about him. ‘He gets such talent from you, Hal.’
    Shepherd shook his head. ‘I never had a tenth of his ability. Anyway, even the word
     “talent” is unsatisfactory. What he has is genius. In that he’s like his
     great-great-grandfather.’
    The T’ang smiled at that, remembering his father’s tales of Augustus Shepherd’s eccentricity.
     ‘Perhaps. But let us hope that that is all he has inherited.’
    He knew at once that he had said the wrong thing. Or, if not the wrong thing, then
     something that touched upon a sensitive area.
    ‘The resemblance is more than casual.’
    The T’ang lowered his head slightly, willing to drop the matter at once, but Shepherd
     seemed anxious to explain. ‘Ben’s schizophrenic too, you see. Oh, nothing as bad as
     Augustus. But it creates certain incongruities in his character.’
    Li Shai Tung looked back at the pictures above the bed with new understanding. ‘But
     from what you’ve said the boy is healthy enough.’
    ‘Even happy, I’d say. Most of the time. He has bouts of it, you understand. Then we
     either dose him up heavily or leave him alone.’
    Shepherd leaned across and switched off the viewer, then lifted the thin black sheet
     and slipped it back into the folder. ‘They used to think schizophrenia was a simple
     malfunction of the
     brain; an imbalance in certain chemicals – dopamine, glutamic acid and gamma-amino-butyric
     acid. Drugs like largactil, modecate, disipal, priadel and haloperidol were used,
     mainly as
     tranquillizers. But they simply kept the thing in check and had the side-effect of
     enlarging the dopamine system. Worst of all, at least as far as Ben is concerned,
     they damp down the creative
     faculty.’
    The T’ang frowned. Medicine, like all else, was based on traditional Han ways. The
     development of Western drugs, like Western ideas of progress, had been abandoned when
     Tsao Ch’un
     had built his City. Many such drugs were, in fact, illicit now. One heard of them,
     normally, only in the context of addiction – something that was rife in the lowest
     levels of the City.
     Nowadays all serious conditions were diagnosed before the child was born and steps
     taken either to correct them or to abort the foetus. It thus surprised him, first
     to hear that Ben’s illness
     had not