Read The Middle Kingdom for Free Online Page B

"Oh,
gods! You didn't let him get away, did you?"
    Chen reached
down and pulled the man up by the hair. "He's dead," he
said tonelessly, letting the corpse fall back. "There was no
other way. He was trying to open a Security panel when I came on him.
Now we'll have to find somewhere to hide him."
    Jyan shuddered,
filled with relief. "Thank the gods." He turned and glanced
back at the dome. "Let's go, then. Before it blows."
    "Yes,"
said Chen, a faintly ironic smile lighting his big, blunt face. "The
rest should be easy. Like the bamboo before the blade."
     
    THE MAID had
gone. Pi Ch'ien sat alone in the room, his ch'a long finished,
contemplating the fifteen-hundred-year-old painting of Hsiao Wen Ti
that hung on the wall above the door. It was Yen Li-pen's famous
painting from the Portraits of theEmperors, with the Han
emperor attended by his ministers.
    Every schoolboy
knew the storywrf Wen Ti, first of the great emperors. It was he who,
more than twenty-three centuries before, had created the concept of
Chung Kuo; who, through his thorough adoption of the Confucian
virtues, had made of his vast but ragtag land of warring nations a
single state, governed by stern but just principles. Wen Ti it was
who had first brought commoners into his government. He who had
changed the harsh laws and customs of his predecessors so that no one
in the Middle Kingdom would starve or suffer cruel injustice. Famine
relief, pensions, and the abolition of punishment by mutilation—all
these were Wen Ti's doing. He had lowered taxes and done away with
the vast expense of Imperial display. He had sought the just
criticism of his ministers and acted to better the lot of the Han.
Under his rule Chung Kuo had thrived and its population grown.
    Eighteen hundred
years later the Manchu emperor K'ang Hsi had established his great
empire on Wen Ti's principles, and, later still, when the Seven had
thrown off the yoke of the tyrant Tsao Ch'un, they too had adopted
the principles of Wen Ti's reign, making him the First Ancestor of
Chung Kuo. Now Wen Ti's painting hung everywhere in the City, in a
thousand shapes and forms. This, however, was a particularly fine
painting—a perfect reproduction of Yen Li-pen's original.
    Pi Ch'ien got up
and went over to the painting, remembering the time when his father
had stood there with him beneath another copy of the portrait and
told him the story of the finding of the hand scroll.
    For centuries
the Portraits of the Emperors roll had been housed in a museum
in the ancient town of Boston, along with much more that had rightly
belonged to the Han. When the American Empire had finally collapsed
much had been lost. Most of the old Han treasures had been destroyed
out of spite, but some had been hidden away. Years had passed. Then,
in the years when the Han were building their City over the old land
of America, skilled teams had been sent across that continent to
search for the old treasures. Little was found of real value until,
in an old, crumbling building on the shoreline of what had once been
called California, they had found a simple cardboard box containing
the scroll. The hand scroll was remarkably preserved considering its
ill use, but even so, four of the original thirteen portraits had
been lost. Fortunately, the painting of Hsiao Wen Ti was one of those
which had emerged unscathed.
    He turned away
and went back to his seat. For a second or two longer he contemplated
the painting, delighted by the profound simplicity of its brushwork,
then leaned across and picked up the handbell. He was about to lift
the tiny wooden hammer to ring for more ch'a when the door
swung open and Yang Lai came hurriedly into the room.
    Pi Ch'ien
scrambled to his feet and bowed low.
    "Well, Pi
Ch'ien?" Yang Lai barked impatiently. "What is it?"
    His expression
showed he was far from pleased by his Third Secretary's intrusion.
    Pi Ch'ien
remained bowed, the card held out before him. "I have an urgent
message for you, Excellency. I