The Middle Kingdom Read Free Page B

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.
    "They’re
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'a, 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,