The Diamond Age Part 10

At this point PhyrePhox should have erupted with a scream from deep down in his viscera, convulsed against the restraints, voided himself at both ends, then gone into shock (if he had a weak const.i.tution) or begged for mercy (if strong). Instead he closed his eyes, as if thinking hard about something, tensed every muscle in his body for a few moments, then gradually relaxed, breathing deeply and deliberately. He opened his eyes and looked at Judge Fang. "How's that?" the prisoner said. "Would you like another demonstration?"

"I think I have the general idea," Judge Fang said. "One of your high-level CryptNet tricks, I suppose. Nanosites embedded in your brain, mediating its interchanges with the peripheral nervous system. It would make sense for you to have advanced telaesthetic systems permanently installed. And a system that could trick your nerves into thinking that they were somewhere else could also trick them into thinking that they were not experiencing pain."

"What can be installed can be removed," Miss Pao observed.

"That won't be necessary," Judge Fang said, and nodded to Chang. Chang stepped toward the prisoner, drawing a short sword. "We'll start with fingers and proceed from there."

"You're forgetting something," the prisoner said. "I have already agreed to give you my answer."

"I'm standing here," the Judge said, "I'm not hearing an answer. Is there a reason for this delay?"

"The babies aren't being smuggled anywhere," PhyrePhox said. "They stay right here. The purpose of the operation is to save their lives."

"What is it, precisely, that endangers their lives?"

"Their own parents," PhyrePhox said. "Things are bad in the interior, Your Honor. The water table is gone. The practice of infanticide is at an all-time high."

"Your next goal in life," Judge Fang said, "will be to prove all of this to my satisfaction."

The door opened. One of Judge Fang's constables entered the room and bowed deeply to apologize for the interruption, then stepped forward and handed the magistrate a scroll. The Judge examined the seal; it bore the chop of Dr. X.

He carried it to his office and unrolled it on his desk. It was the real thing, written on rice paper in real ink, not the mediatronic stuff.

It occurred to the Judge, before he even read this doc.u.ment, that he could take it to an art dealer on Nanjing Road and sell it for a year's wages. Dr. X, a.s.suming it was really he who had brushed these characters, was the most impressive living calligrapher whose work Judge Fang had ever seen. His hand betrayed a rigorous Confucian grounding-many decades more study than Judge Fang could ever aspire to-but upon this foundation the Doctor had developed a distinctive style, highly expressive without being sloppy. It was the hand of an elder who understood the importance of gravity above all else, and who, having first established his dignity, conveyed most of his message through nuances. Beyond that, the structure of the inscription was exactly right, a perfect balance of large characters and small, hung on the page just so, as if inviting a.n.a.lysis by legions of future graduate students.

Judge Fang knew that Dr. X controlled legions of criminals ranging from spankable delinquents up to international crime lords; that half of the Coastal Republic officials in Shanghai were in his pocket; that within the limited boundaries of the Celestial Kingdom, he was a figure of considerable importance, probably a blue-b.u.t.ton Mandarin of the third or fourth rank; that his business connections ran to most of the continents and phyles of the wide world and that he had acc.u.mulated tremendous wealth. All of these things paled in comparison with the demonstration of power represented by this scroll. I can pick up a brush at any time, I can pick up a brush at any time, Dr. X was saying, Dr. X was saying, and toss off a work of art that can hang on the wall beside the finest calligraphy of the Ming Dynasty. and toss off a work of art that can hang on the wall beside the finest calligraphy of the Ming Dynasty.

By sending the Judge this scroll, Dr. X was laying claim to all of the heritage that Judge Fang most revered. It was like getting a letter from the Master himself. The Doctor was, in effect, pulling rank. And even though Dr. X nominally belonged to a different phyle-the Celestial Kingdom-and, here in the Coastal Republic, was nothing more than a criminal, Judge Fang could not disregard this message from him, written in this way, without abjuring everything he most respected-those principles on which he had rebuilt his own life after his career as a hoodlum in Lower Manhattan had brought him to a dead end. It was like a summons sent down through the ages from his own ancestors.

He spent a few minutes further admiring the calligraphy. Then he rolled the scroll up with great care, locked it in a drawer, and returned to the interrogation room.

"I have received an invitation to dine on Dr. X's boat," he said. "Take the prisoner back to the holding cell. We are finished for today."

A domestic scene; Nell's visit to the playroom; misbehavior of the other children; the Primer displays new capabilities; Dinosaur tells a story.

In the morning Mom would put on her maid uniform and go to work, and Tad would wake up sometime later and colonize the sofa in front of the big living-room mediatron. Harv would creep around the edges of the apartment, foraging for breakfast, some of which he'd bring back to Nell. Then Harv would usually leave the apartment and not come back until after Tad had departed, typically in late afternoon, to chill with his homeboys. Mom would come home with a little plastic bag of salad that she'd taken from work and a tiny injector; after picking at the salad, she'd put the injector against her arm for a moment and then spend the rest of the evening watching old pa.s.sives on the mediatron. Harv would drift in and out with some of his friends. Usually he wasn't there when Nell decided to go to sleep, but he was there when she woke up. Tad might come home at any time of the night, and he'd be angry if Mom wasn't awake.

One Sat.u.r.day, Mom and Tad were both home at the same time and they were on the couch together with their arms around each other and Tad was playing a silly game with Mom that made Mom squeal and wiggle. Nell kept asking Mom to read her a story from her magic book, and Tad kept shoving her away and threatening to give her a whipping, and finally Mom said, "Get out of my f.u.c.king hair, Nell!" and shoved Nell out the door, telling her to go to the playroom for a couple of hours.

Nell got lost in the hallways and started crying; but her book told her a story about Princess Nell getting lost in the endless corridors of the Dark Castle, and how she found her way out by using her wits, and this made Nell feel safe-as though she could never be really lost when she had her book with her. Eventually Nell found the playroom. It was on the first floor of the building. As usual, there were lots of kids there and no parents. There was a special s.p.a.ce off to the side of the playroom where babies could sit in strollers and crawl around on the floor. Some mommies were in there, but they told her she was too big to play in that room. Nell went back to the big playroom, which was full of kids who were much bigger than Nell.

She knew these kids; they knew how to push and hit and scratch. She went to one corner of the room and sat with her magic book on her lap, waiting for one kid to get off the swing. When he did, she put her book in the corner and climbed onto the swing and started trying to pump her legs like the big kids did, but she couldn't get the swing to go. Then a big kid came and told her that she was not allowed to use the swing because she was too little. When Nell didn't get off right away, the kid shoved her off. Nell tumbled into the sand, scratching her hands and knees, and ran back toward the corner crying.

But a couple of other kids had found her magic book and started kicking it around, making it slide back and forth across the floor like a hockey puck. Nell ran up and tried to pick the book off the floor, but it slid too fast for her to catch it. The two kids began kicking it back and forth between them and finally tossing it through the air. Nell ran back and forth trying to keep up with the book. Soon there were four kids playing keep-away and six others standing around watching and laughing at Nell. Nell couldn't see things though because her eyes were full of tears, snot was running out of her nose, and her ribcage only quivered when she tried to breathe.

Then one of the kids screamed and dropped the book. Quickly another darted in to grab it, and he screamed too. Then a third. Suddenly all the kids were silent and afraid. Nell rubbed the tears out of her eyes and ran over toward the book again, and this time the kids didn't throw it away from her; she picked it up and cradled it against her chest. The kids who'd been playing keep-away were all in the same pose: arms crossed over chests, hands wedged into armpits, jumping up and down like pogo sticks and screaming for their mothers.

Nell sat in the corner, opened the book, and started to read. She did not know all of the words, but she knew a lot of them, and when she got tired, the book would help her sound out the words or even read the whole story to her, or tell it to her with moving pictures just like a cine.

After the trolls had all been driven away, the castle yard was not a pretty sight to see. It had been unkempt and overgrown to begin with. Harv had had no choice except to chop down all the trees, and during Dinosaur's great battle against the trolls, many of the remaining plants had been torn up.

Dinosaur stood and surveyed it in the moonlight. "This place reminds me of the Extinction, when we had to wander for days just to find something to eat," he said.

DINOSAUR'S TALE.

There were four of us traveling through a landscape much like this one, except that instead of stumps, all the trees were burned. The particular part of the world had become dark and cold for a while after the comet struck, so that many of the plants and trees died; and after they died, they dried out, and then it was just a matter of time before lightning caused a great forest fire. The four of us were traveling across this great burned-out country looking for food, and you can guess we were very hungry. Never mind why we were doing it; back then, if things got bad where you were, you just got up and went until things got better.

Besides me there was Utahraptor, who was smaller than me, but very quick, with great curving claws on his feet; with one kick he could cut another dinosaur open like ripe fruit. Then there was Ankylosaurus, who was a slow plant-eater, but dangerous; he was protected all around by a bony sh.e.l.l like a turtle's, and on the end of his tail was a big lump of bone that could dash out the brains of any meat-eating dinosaur that came too close. Finally there was Pteranodon, who could fly. All of us traveled together in a little pack. To be perfectly honest, our band had formerly consisted of a couple of hundred dinosaurs, most of them duck-billed plant-eaters, but Utahraptor and I had been forced to eat most of these-just a few a day, of course, so that they didn't notice at first, as they were not very intelligent.

Finally their number had dwindled to one, a gaunt and gamy fellow named Everett, whom we tried to stretch out for as long as we could. During those last few days, Everett was constantly looking around for his companions. Like all plant-eaters, he had eyes in the side of his head and could see in almost all directions. Everett seemed to think that if he could just swivel his head around in the right direction, a big healthy pack of duck-bills would suddenly rotate into view. At the very end, I think that Everett may have put two and two together; I saw him blink in surprise once, as if the light had finally gone on in his head, and the rest of that day he was very quiet, as if all of his half-dozen or so neurons were busy working out the implications. After that, as we continued across this burned country where Everett had nothing to eat, he became more and more listless and whiny until finally Utahraptor lost his temper, lashed out with one leg, and there was Everett's viscera sitting there on the ground like a sack of groceries. Then there was simply nothing to do except eat him.

I got most of him as usual, though Utahraptor kept darting in around my ankles and s.n.a.t.c.hing up choice bits, and from time to time Pteranodon would swoop in and grab a whorl of intestine. Ankylosaurus stood off to the side and watched. For a long time we'd taken him for an idiot, because he would always just squat there watching us divide up those duck-bills, munching stupidly on the erratic horsetail, never saying much. In retrospect, maybe he was just a taciturn sort. He must have worked out that we would very much like to eat him, if only we could locate some c.h.i.n.k in his armor.

If only we had! For many days after Everett had become just another scat on our tracks, Utahraptor and Pteranodon and I trudged across that dead landscape eyeing Ankylosaurus, drooling down our chins as we imagined the unspeakably tender morsels that must lie nestled inside that armored sh.e.l.l. He must have been hungry too, and no doubt his morsels were getting less fat and tender by the day. From time to time we would encounter some sheltered hollow where unfamiliar green plants were poking their shoots through the black and gray debris, and we would encourage Ankylosaurus to stop, take his time, and eat all he wanted. "No, really! We don't mind waiting for you!" He would always fix his tiny little side-mounted eyes on us and look at us balefully as he grazed. "How was your dinner, Anky?" we'd say, and he'd grumble something like, "Tastes like iridium as usual," and then we'd go another couple of days without exchanging a word.

One day we reached the edge of the sea. The salt water lapped up onto a lifeless beach strewn with the bones of extinct sea creatures, from tiny trilobites all the way up to plesiosaurs. Behind us was the desert we'd just crossed. To the south was a range of mountains that would have been impa.s.sable even if half of them hadn't been erupting volcanoes. And north of us we could see snow dusting the tops of the hills, and we all knew what that meant: If we went in that direction, we'd soon freeze to death.

So we were stuck there, the four of us, and though we didn't have mediatrons and cine aerostats in those days, we all pretty much knew what was up: We were the last four dinosaurs on earth. Pretty soon we would be three, and then two, and then one, and then none at all, and the only question left to settle was in what order we'd go. You might think this would be awful and depressing, but it wasn't really that bad; being dinosaurs, we didn't spend a lot of time pondering the imponderables, if you know what I mean, and in a way it was kind of fun waiting to see how it would all work out. There was a general a.s.sumption on all hands, I think, that Ankylosaurus would be the first to go, but Utah and I would have killed each other in an instant.

So we all kind of faced off on the beach there, Utahraptor and Ankylosaurus and I in a neat triangle with Pteranodon hovering overhead.

After we had been facing off there for some hours, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the banks to the north and south seemed to be moving, as if they were alive.

Suddenly there was a thundering and rus.h.i.+ng sound in the air all around us, and I couldn't help looking up, though I kept one sharp eye on Utahraptor. The world had been such a quiet and dead place for so long that we were startled by any noise or movement, and now it seemed that the air and ground had come alive once more, just as in the old days before the comet.

The noise in the air was caused by a great flock of teensy-tiny Pteranodons, though instead of smooth reptilian skin their wings were covered with oversize scales, and they had toothless, bony beaks instead of proper mouths. These miserable things- these airborne crumbs-were swarming all around Pteranodon, getting in his eyes, pecking at his wings, and it was all he could do to keep airborne.

As I mentioned, I was keeping one eye on Utahraptor as always, and to my surprise he suddenly turned away and ran up onto the north slope, with an eagerness that could be explained only by the availability of food. I followed him, naturally, but pulled up short. Something was wrong. The ground on the north slope was covered with a moving carpet that swarmed around Utahraptor's feet. Focusing my eyes, which frankly were not very good, I saw that this carpet actually consisted of thousands of tiny dinosaurs whose scales had grown very long and slender and numerous-in short, they were furry. I had been seeing these quadrupedal hors d'oeuvres dodging around under logs and rocks for the last few million years and always taken them for an especially ill-conceived mutation. But suddenly there were thousands of them, and this at a time when there were only four dinosaurs left in the whole world. And they seemed to be working together. They were so tiny that Utahraptor had no way to get them into his mouth, and whenever he stopped moving for an instant, they swarmed onto his legs and tail and nipped at his flesh. A plague of shrews. I was so confounded that I stopped in my tracks.

That was a mistake, for soon I felt a sensation in my legs and tail like millions of pinp.r.i.c.ks. Turning around, I saw that the south slope was covered with ants, millions of them, and they had apparently decided to eat me. Meanwhile Ankylosaurus was bellowing and swinging his bony ball around without effect, for the ants were swarming on his body as well.

Well, before long the shrews and the ants and the birds started to run into each other and have skirmishes of their own, and so at that point they called a truce. The King of the Birds, the King of the Shrews, and the Queen of the Ants all got together on top of a rock to parley. In the meantime they left us dinosaurs alone, seeing that we were trapped in any case.

The situation struck me as unfair, so I approached the rock where these despicable micro-monarchs were chattering away, a mile a minute, and spoke: "Yo! Aren't you going to invite the King of the Reptiles?"

They looked at me like I was crazy.

"Reptiles are obsolete," said the King of the Shrews.

"Reptiles are just r.e.t.a.r.ded birds," said the King of the Birds, "and so I am your King, thank you very much."

"There's only zero of you," said the Queen of the Ants. In ant arithmetic, there are only two numbers: Zero, which means anything less than a million, and Some. "You can't cooperate, so even if you were King, the t.i.tle would be meaningless."

"Besides," said the King of the Shrews, "the purpose of this summit conference is to decide which of our kingdoms shall eat which dinosaur, and we do not suppose that the King of the Dinosaurs, even if there were such a thing, would be able to partic.i.p.ate constructively." Mammals always talked this way to show off their oversize brains-which were basically the same as ours, but burdened with a lot of useless extra business on top-useless, I should say, but darn tasty.

"But there are three kingdoms and four dinosaurs," I pointed out. Of course this was not true in ant arithmetic, so the Queen of the Ants immediately began to make a fuss. In the end I had to go over among the ants and crush them with my tail until I had killed a few million, which is the only way that you can get an ant to take you seriously.

"Surely three dinosaurs would be enough to give all of your subjects a square meal," I said. "May I suggest that the birds peck Pteranodon to the bone, the shrews tear Utahraptor limb from limb, and the ants feast on the corpse of Ankylosaurus?"

The three monarchs appeared to be considering this suggestion when Utahraptor sped up in a huff. "Excuse me, Your Royal Highnesses, but who appointed this fellow king? I am just as qualified to be king as he." In short order, Pteranodon and Ankylosaurus also laid claim to the throne.

The King of the Shrews, the King of the Birds, and the Queen of the Ants told us all to shut up, and then conferred amongst themselves for a few minutes. Finally the King of the Shrews stepped forward. "We have reached a decision," he said. "Three dinosaurs will be eaten, and one, the King of the Reptiles, will be spared; all that remains is for one of you to demonstrate that you are superior to the other three and deserve to wear the crown."

"Very well!" I said, and turned on Utahraptor, who began backing away from me, hissing and swiping the air with his giant claws. If I could dispatch Utahraptor with a frontal a.s.sault, Pteranodon would swoop down to steal some of the carrion, and I could ambush her then; having fortified myself by eating the other two, I might be strong enough to overcome Ankylosaurus.

"No, no, no!" screamed the King of the Shrews. "This is just the kind of thing I was talking about when I said you reptiles were obsolete. It's not about who is the biggest and baddest anymore."

"It's about cooperation, organization, regimentation," said the Queen of the Ants.

"It's about brains," said the King of the Shrews.

"It's about beauty, glory, dazzling flights of inspiration!" said the King of the Birds.

This precipitated another stridulent dispute among the two Kings and the Queen. Everyone got very short-tempered, and there probably would have been serious trouble if the tide had not come in and washed a few whale carca.s.ses and dead elasmosaurs onto the beach. As you can imagine, we fell upon these gifts with abandon, and while I was eating my fill, I also managed to swallow innumerable birds, shrews, and ants who were feasting on the same pieces of meat as I.

After everyone had filled their bellies and calmed down somewhat, the Kings and the Queen resumed their discussions. Finally the King of the Shrews, who seemed to be the designated spokesmonarch, stepped forward again. "We cannot come to an agreement as to which of you should be the King of the Reptiles, so each of our nations, Birds, Mammals, and Ants, will put each of you to a trial, and then we will gather again and put it to a vote. If the vote results in a tie, we will eat all four of you and bring the Kingdom of Reptiles to an end."

We drew lots, and I was chosen to go among the ants for the first round of trials. I followed the Queen into the midst of her army, picking my way slowly until the Queen said, "Step lively, lung-breather! Time is food! Don't worry about those ants beneath your feet-you can't possibly kill more than zero!" So from then on, I just walked normally, though my claws became slick with crushed ants.

We traveled south for a day or two and then stopped on a stream bank. "South of here is the territory of the King of the c.o.c.kroaches. Your first task is to bring me the head of the King."

Looking across the river, I could see that the entire countryside was swarming with an infinite number of c.o.c.kroaches, more than I could ever stomp; and even if I could stomp them all, there must be more below the ground, which was doubtless where the King lived.

I waded across the river and traveled through the Kingdom of the c.o.c.kroaches for three days until I crossed another river and entered into the Kingdom of the Bees. This place was greener than any I'd seen for a while, with many wildflowers, and bees swarmed everywhere taking nectar back to their nests, which were as big as houses.

This gave me an idea. I toppled several hollow trees filled with honey, dragged them back to the Kingdom of the c.o.c.kroaches, split them open, and made sticky honey trails leading down toward the ocean. The c.o.c.kroaches followed the trails down to the water's edge, where the waves broke over their heads and drowned them. For three days I kept watch over the beach as the number of c.o.c.kroaches dwindled, and finally on the third day the King of the Roaches emerged from his throne room to see where everyone had gone. I coaxed him onto a leaf and carried him back north across the river and into the Kingdom of the Ants, much to the amazement of the Queen.

Next I was put into the care of the King of the Birds. He and his chirping, chattering army led me up into the mountains, up above the snowline, and I was sure that I would freeze to death. But as we continued up, it suddenly became warmer, which I did not understand until I realized that we were approaching a live volcano. We finally stopped at the edge of a red-hot lava flow half a mile wide. In the center of the flow, a tall black rock stood out like an island in the middle of a river.

The King of the Birds plucked one golden feather from his tail and gave it to a soldier, who took it in his beak, flew over the lava, and left that feather on the very top of the black rock. By the time that soldier flew back, he was half roasted from the heat radiating from the lava-and don't think my mouth didn't water! "Your job," said the King, "is to bring me that feather."

Now, this was clearly unfair, and I protested that the birds were obviously trying to favor Pteranodon. This kind of argument might have worked with ants or even shrews; but the King of the Birds would hear none of it. For them, virtue consisted in being birdlike, and fairness didn't enter into it.

Well, I stood on the edge of that lava flow until my skin smoked, but I couldn't see how to reach that feather. Finally I decided to give up. I was walking away, cutting my feet on the sharp rock, when suddenly it hit me: The rock I'd been standing on, this whole time, was nothing other than lava that had gotten cold and solidified.

This was high in the mountains, where glaciers and snowfields soared above me like palace walls. I climbed up onto a particularly steep slope and began pounding the snow with my tail until I started an avalanche. Millions of tons of ice and snow thundered down onto the lava flow, throwing up a tremendous blast of steam. For three days and nights I could not see the claws in front of my face for all of the steam, but on the third day it finally cleared away, and I saw a bridge of hardened lava running straight to that black rock. I scampered across (to the extent that a dinosaur can scamper), s.n.a.t.c.hed that golden feather, ran back, and stood in the snow for a while cooling my feet off. Then I marched back to the King of the Birds, who was, of course, astonished.

Next I found myself in the care of the mammals, who were almost all shrews. They led me up into the foothills, to the mouth of a great cave. "Your job," said the King of the Shrews, "is to wait here for Dojo and then defeat him in single combat." Then all the shrews went away and left me there alone.

I waited in front of that cave for three days and three nights, which gave me plenty of time to scope the place out. At first I was rather c.o.c.ky about this challenge, for it seemed the easiest of the three; while I had no idea who or what Dojo was, I knew that in all the world I had never met my equal when it came to single combat. But on the first day, sitting there on my tail waiting for Dojo, I noticed a sprinkling of small glittering objects on the ground, and examining them carefully I realized that they were, in fact, scales. To be precise, they were dinosaur scales, which I recognized as belonging to Pteranodon, Ankylosaurus, and Utahraptor, and they appeared to have been jarred loose from their bodies by powerful impacts.

On the second day I prowled around the vicinity and found tremendous gashes in tree trunks, which had undoubtedly been made by Utahraptor as he slashed wildly at Dojo; other trees that had been snapped off entirely by the club at the end of the tail of Ankylosaurus; and long scratches in the earth made by the talons of Pteranodon as she dove again and again at some elusive opponent. At this point, I became concerned. It was clear that all three of my opponents had fought Dojo and lost, so if I lost also (which was inconceivable), I would be even with the others; but the rules of the contest stated that in the event of a tie, all four dinosaurs would be eaten, and the Kingdom of Reptiles would be no more. I spent the night fretting about who or what the terrible Dojo was.

On the third day nothing happened, and I began wondering whether I should go into the cave and look for Dojo. So far the only living thing I had seen around here was a black mouse that occasionally darted out from the rocks at the cave's entrance, foraging for a bit of food. The next time I saw that mouse, I said (speaking softly so as not to scare it), "Say, mouse! Is there anything back inside that cave?"

The black mouse sat up on its haunches, holding a huckleberry between its little hands and nibbling on it. "Nothing special," he said, "just my little dwelling. A fireplace, some tiny pots and pans, a few dried berries, and the rest is full of skeletons."

"Skeletons?" I said. "Of other mice?"

"There are a few mouse skeletons, but mostly they are dinosaurs of one kind or another, primarily meat-eaters."

"Who have become extinct because of the comet," I suggested.

"Oh, pardon me, sir, but I must respectfully inform you that the deaths of these dinosaurs are unrelated to the comet."

"How did they die, then?" I asked.

"I regret to say that I killed them all in self-defense."

"Ah," I said, not quite believing it, "then you must be ..."

"Dojo the Mouse," he said, "at your service."

"I am terribly sorry to have bothered you, sir," I said, using my best manners, for I could see that this Dojo was an unusually polite sort, "but your fame as a warrior has spread far and wide, and I have come here humbly to seek your advice on how I may become a better warrior myself; for it has not escaped my notice that in the postcomet environment, teeth like carving knives and six tons of muscle may be in some sense outmoded."

What follows is a rather long story, for Dojo had much to teach me and he taught it slowly. Sometime, Nell, I will teach you everything I learned from Dojo; all you need do is ask. But on the third day of my apprentices.h.i.+p, when I still had not learned anything except humility, good manners, and how to sweep out the cave, I asked Dojo if he would be interested in playing a game of tic-tac-toe. This was a common sport among dinosaurs. We would scratch it out in the mud. (Many paleontologists have been baffled to find tic-tac-toe games littering prehistoric excavations and have chalked it up to the local workers they hire to do their digging and hauling.) In any case, I explained the rules of the game to Dojo, and he agreed to give it a try. We went down to the nearest mud flat, and there, in plain view of many shrews, I played a game of tic-tac-toe with Dojo and vanquished him, although I will confess it was touch-and-go for a while. It was done; I had defeated Dojo in single combat.

The next morning I excused myself from Dojo's cave and went back down to the beach, where the other three dinosaurs had already gathered, looking much the worse for wear as you can imagine. The King of the Shrews, the King of the Birds, and the Queen of the Ants converged on us with all their armies and crowned me King of the Reptiles, or Tyrannosaurus Rex as we used to say. Then they ate the other three dinosaurs as agreed. Besides me, the only reptiles left were a few snakes, lizards, and turtles, who continue to be my obedient subjects.

I could have lived a luxurious life as King, but by now, Dojo had taught me humility, and so I went back to his cave immediately and spent the next few million years studying his ways. All you need do is ask, Nell, and I will pa.s.s his knowledge on to you.

Judge Fang goes for a dinner cruise with a Mandarin; they visit a mysterious s.h.i.+p; a startling discovery; a trap is sprung.

Dr. X's boat was not the traditional sort of wallowing pleasure barge that was fit only for the ca.n.a.ls and shallow lakes of the Yangtze's sodden delta; it was a real ocean-going yacht built on Western lines. Judging from the delicacies that began to make their way up to the foredeck shortly after Judge Fang came aboard, the vessel's galley had been retrofitted with all the accoutrements of a professional Chinese kitchen: umbrella-size woks, gas burners like howling turbojets, and extensive storage lockers for innumerable species of fungi as well as bird nests, shark fins, chicken feet, ftal rats, and odds and ends of many other species both rare and ubiquitous. The courses of the meal were small, numerous, and carefully timed, served up in an array of fine porcelain that could have filled several rooms of the Victoria and Albert Museum, delivered with the precision of surgical air strikes by a team of waiters.

Judge Fang got to eat this way only when someone really important was trying to taint him, and though he had never knowingly allowed his judicial judgment to be swayed, he did enjoy the chow.

They began with tea and some preliminary courses on the foredeck of the yacht, as it made its way down the Huang Pu, with the old European buildings of the Bund on the left, lit up eerily by the wash of colored light radiating from the developments of Pudong, which rose precipitously from the bank on the right. At one point, Dr. X had to excuse himself belowdecks for a few moments. Judge Fang strolled to the very bow of the yacht, nestled himself into the acute angle formed by the converging rails, let the wind tug at his beard, and enjoyed the view. The tallest buildings in Pudong were held up by huge aerostats-vacuum-filled ellipsoids hundreds of stories above street level, much wider than the buildings they supported, and usually covered with lights. Some of these extended out over the river itself. Judge Fang rested his elbows carefully on the rail to maintain his balance, then tilted his head back so that he was staring straight up at the underside of one such, pulsing with oversaturated colored light. The trompe l'oeil was enough to make him dizzy, and so he quickly looked down. Something thumped against the hull of the yacht, and he looked into the water to see a human corpse wrapped up in a white sheet, blundering along a foot or two beneath the surface, dimly luminescent in the light from the building overhead.

In time the yacht made its way out into the estuary of the Yangtze, only a few miles from the East China Sea at this point, miles wide, and much colder and rougher. Judge Fang and Dr. X repaired to a dining cabin belowdecks with panoramic windows that mostly just reflected back the light of the candles and lanterns around the table. Not long after they had taken their seats, the yacht accelerated powerfully, first shooting forward and then leaping up out of the water before resuming its steady, level motion. Judge Fang realized that the yacht was actually a hydrofoil, which had been merely idling along on her hull while they had enjoyed the city view but which had now climbed up out of the water.

The conversation so far had consisted almost entirely of formal courtesies. This had eventually led them into a discussion of Confucian philosophy and traditional culture, clearly a subject of interest to both of them. Judge Fang had complimented the Doctor on his sublime calligraphy, and they talked about that art for a while. Then, obligatorily returning the compliment, Dr. X told the Judge how superbly he was executing his duties as magistrate, particularly given the added difficulty of having to deal with barbarians.

"Your handling of the affair of the girl and the book was, in particular, a credit to your abilities," Dr. X said gravely.

Judge Fang found it interesting that the boy who had actually stolen the book was not mentioned. He supposed that Dr. X was referring not so much to the criminal case as to Judge Fang's subsequent efforts to protect the girl.

"This person is grateful, but all credit should go to the Master," Judge Fang said. "The prosecution of this case was founded entirely upon his principles, as you might have seen, had you been able to do us the honor of joining our discussion of the matter at the House of the Venerable and Inscrutable Colonel."

"Ah, it is indeed a misfortune that I could not attend," the Doctor said, "as it would, no doubt, have helped to improve my own, so imperfect understanding of the Master's principles."

"I meant no such insinuation-rather, that the Doctor might have guided me and my staff to a more nearly adequate resolution of the affair than we were, in fact, able to devise."

"Perhaps it would have been good fortune for both of us for me to have been present in the Colonel's house on that day," Dr. X said, returning neatly to equilibrium. There was silence for a few minutes as a new course was brought out, plum wine poured by the waiter. Then Dr. X continued, "One aspect of the case on which I would have been particularly eager to consult your wisdom would have been the disposition of the book."

So he was still stuck on that book. Though it had been weeks since Dr. X had released any more of those book-hunting mites into the airs.p.a.ce of the Leased Territories, Judge Fang knew that he was still offering a nice bounty to anyone who could tell him the whereabouts of the book in question. Judge Fang was beginning to wonder whether this obsession with the book might be a symptom of a general decline in the Doctor's mental powers.

"Your advice on the subject would have been of inestimable value to me," Judge Fang said, "as this aspect of the case was particularly troublesome for a Confucian judge. If the item of stolen property had been anything other than a book, it would have been confiscated. But a book is different-it is not just a material possession but the pathway to an enlightened mind, and thence to a well-ordered society, as the Master stated many times."