The Middle Kingdom by David Wingrove Read Free Book Online Page A

Excellency?"
    Lwo Kang smiled.
"Of course. Come in, Jen."
    Lao Jen had been
with him longest and was his most trusted advisor. He was also a man
with connections, hearing much that would otherwise have passed the
Minister by. His sister had married into one of the more important of
the Minor Families and fed him juicy tidbits of Above gossip. These
he passed on to Lwo Kang privately.
    Lao Jen threw
off his pou and came down the steps into the water. For a
moment the two of them floated there, facing each other. Then Lwo
Kang smiled.
    "What news,
Jen? You surely have some."
    "Well,"
he began, speaking softly so that only the Minister could hear. "It
seems that today's business with Lehmann is only a small part of
things. Our friends the Dispersionists are hatching bigger, broader
schemes. It seems they have formed a faction—a pressure
group—in the House. It's said they have more than two hundred
representatives in their pocket."
    Lwo Kang nodded.
He had heard something similar. "Go on."
    "More than
that, Excellency. It seems they're going to push to reopen the
starflight program."
    Lwo Kang
laughed. Then he lowered his voice. "You're serious? The
starflight program?" He shook his head, surprised. "Why,
that's been dead a century and more! What's the thinking behind
that?"
    Lao Jen ducked
his head, then surfaced again, drawing his hand back through his
hair. "It's the logical outcome of their policies. They are,
after all, Dispersionists. They want breathing space. Want to be free
of the City and its controls. Their policies make no sense unless
there is somewhere to disperse to."
    "I've
always seen them otherwise, Jen. I've always thought their talk of
breathing space was a political mask. A bargaining counter. And all
this nonsense about opening up the colony planets too. No one in
their right mind would want to live out there. Why, it would take ten
thousand years to colonize the stars!" He grunted, then shook
his head. "No, Jen, it's all a blind. Something to distract us
from the real purpose of their movement."
    "Which is
what, Excellency?"
    Lwo Kang smiled
faintly, knowing Lao Jen was sounding him. "They are Hung Mao and they want to rule. They feel we Han have usurped their
natural right to control the destiny of Chung Kuo, and they want to
see us under. That's all there is to it. All this business of stars
and planetary conquest is pure nonsense—the sort of puerile
idiocy their minds ran to before we purged them of it."
    Lao Jen laughed.
"Your Excellency sees it clearly. Nevertheless, I—"
    He stopped. Both
men turned, standing up in the water. It came again. A loud hammering
at the inner door of the solarium. Then there were raised voices.
    Lwo Kang climbed
up out of the water and without stopping to dry himself, took his pau from the attendant and pulled it on, tying the sash at the waist.
He had taken only two steps forward when a security guard came down
the steps toward him.
    "Minister!"
he said breathlessly, bowing low. "The alarm has been sounded.
We must evacuate the dome!"
    two Kang turned,
dumbstruck, and looked back at Lao Jen.
    Lao Jen was
standing on the second step, the water up to his shins. He was
looking up. Above him the songbirds were screeching madly and
fluttering about their cage.
    Lwo Kang took a
step back toward Lao Jen, then stopped. There was a small plop and a
fizzing sound. Then another. He frowned, then looked up past the
cageat the ceiling of the dome. There, directly above the pool, the
smooth white skin of the dome was impossibly charred. There, only an
arm's length from where the wire that held the cage was attached, was
a small, expanding halo of darkness. Even as he watched, small
gobbets of melted ice dropped from that dark circle and fell hissing
into the water.
    "Gods!"
he said softly, astonished. "What in heaven's name...?"
    Then he
understood. Understood, at the same moment, that it was already too
late. "Yang Lai," he said almost inaudibly, straightening
up, seeing in his