Ian resented Cheng"s tone, but knew it was deserved. "I"m sorry. It"s just..."
"Barbara is your woman. I understand."
"Ha!" the Doctor exclaimed, attracting Ian"s attention.
He looked from his sheet of calculations to a map from Kei-Ying"s study, "I should estimate the focal point will be there,"
he stabbed a finger on to the map, "somewhere in Shaanxi province." His lips thinned. "Very near to Xianyang."
"Focal point?" Ian asked.
"I"ll show you," the Doctor said.
Qin Shi Huangdi was the only name he knew himself by. The face that stared back at him from the mirror had undoubtedly had a different name, but he had no idea what it might be.
In the mirror he saw Zhao step into the room behind him and kneel.
"My Lord." Zhao lowered his eyes to the floor, respectfully.
The muscle-bound frame that knelt no doubt also had a different name, as had the lean body of Gao. Qin wondered whether either of them had any inkling of what those names were.
"Yes, General," Qin acknowledged.
"The caravan to Xianyang is in operation, my Lord."
"Good. We can return there shortly."
"What about the gwailo gwailo women?" women?"
"Bring the tall, dark-haired one with us."
Zhao hesitated, and Qin could feel his indecision. "My Lord, she is a historian and teacher. Your orders are to leave none such alive."
Qin looked down at his hands and studied them, trying to remember whether they were similar to, or different from, the hands he used to have. "And she will die when I have extracted from her all that I wish to know. She comes with us."
"And the girl?"
"Who?" The image of a younger gwailo gwailo girl came belatedly into his mind. Another...traveller? As if it mattered whether she was living in China or just visiting. She was nothing. girl came belatedly into his mind. Another...traveller? As if it mattered whether she was living in China or just visiting. She was nothing.
"Zhao may kill her at his leisure."
"It shall be done," the abbot knew this as certainly as if Zhao had made the promise aloud. When he turned, Zhao was already gone.
The Doctor led his little group through to a small hall in the eastern wing. The ceiling was high enough for climbing ropes to dangle from the beams. Shafts of sunlight came through what would have been upstairs windows if the hall had an upper floor.
Picking a grapefruit from a bowl in one hand, the Doctor took a delicate pen in the other and began to draw lightly on the skin of the fruit.
"What on Earth are you doing?" Ian asked, intrigued despite himself.
"Arranging a little demonstration. Actions speak louder than words, eh?"
Ian couldn"t deny this. He looked over the Doctor"s shoulder and saw that he was drawing a rough outline of the Earth"s continents on the dimpled skin.
The Doctor put the grapefruit on to a low stool and positioned it near one wall. Then he pulled a couple of spare pince-nez from his pockets and popped the lenses out of their frames. He called to four young students and handed each of them a lens before sending them up the climbing ropes.
Ian watched, puzzled, as the Doctor directed the students to go up or down a little, and then to hold out the lenses in their hands. All was explained when the first lens caught the sunlight from the high window and beamed it to the other lenses and onwards. A narrow pinpoint of light glowed on the grapefruit, in the heart of the outline of China. In seconds, the skin of the fruit began to smoulder, then blacken, and a thin column of smoke rose from it.
"A magnifying gla.s.s a few inches away would have done the same thing," Ian said.
"It would, but what if you are much further away and still want to transmit focused energy to an exact spot? You require a sequence of elements between you and your target.
If you are relying on nature, the motions of the stars, to provide this sequence of elements then you are constrained by the rhythms of the universe."
"You mean orbital cycles?"
"Yes, and every now and again several orbits coincide and you have a conjunction. A sequence of elements between the Earth and a most dangerous region of the cosmos."
"And then people there can use that sequence to transmit something to Earth?"
"Not people, young man. Intelligences. Sentient influences.
Beings quite beyond our kind of imagination."
"And what would they be sending to Earth?"
"That I don"t know, and cannot until it happens. Perhaps energy, or their discrete sentiences in person, or memes and programs. It could be anything, but whatever it is will not be a good thing for the people of your Earth."
Kei-Ying and Iron Bridge both stabbed their fingers at the same point on the map, in central China. Chesterton, who had been about to do the same, was astonished. These men hadn"t been trained by the British army, yet they had as good a grasp of strategy as he had himself.
"Somewhere in this vicinity, I should think," Iron Bridge was saying. "Shaanxi province."
Kei-Ying nodded in agreement.
"Very odd," Chesterton said.
Both Tigers looked at him expectantly.
"What makes you say that?" Kei-Ying asked.
"If they"re some sort of rebels, why not head east, for Peking, Nanking and Shanghai? It"s a shorter journey and the juiciest targets are there."
"Perhaps the Doctor will know."
That afternoon Kei-Ying returned to Po Chi Lam. He paused for a moment, feeling as if he were sinking into the arms of his beloved wife. Then he walked on to tell the Doctor his news.
"Doctor," he said as he entered the main hall. "We"ve calculated the abbot"s region of origin. If Chesterton and I are correct, it"s -"
"In Shaanxi province," the Doctor said. "Yes, do try to keep up, will you?" He handed Kei-Ying his calculations and pointed to the map. "Xianyang."
Kei-Ying"s eyebrows rose. "I have never heard of such a place."
"It isn"t called that any more, but that was its name the last time there was a conjunction like this one. No, today it is called Xi"an, I believe."
"Xi"an."
Ian chuckled at the Doctor"s trumping of Kei-Ying. He had long since ceased to be amazed by anything the Doctor did.
At least, he told himself he had, but it was a pleasant lie, like believing in Santa Claus, and the truth was just as rea.s.suring.
A child came up to him. "Mr Chesterton?"
"Yes?"
"There is a messenger for you, at the gate."
"Thanks"
Ian went outside and crossed the courtyard to the gateway.
One gate was closed, the other was in a woodworking room for repairs. A man stood on the other side of the s.p.a.ce the missing gate would have occupied. He lowered his hood as Ian approached, revealing an angular yet handsome face, and a topknot of black hair. Ian could make out the edge of armour below his collar.
"Ian Chesterton?"
"I am. Who wants to know?"
"I am General Gao. I have a message for you."
"I see."
Ian stretched out his hand, expecting to be given paper or a scroll. Instead, Gao held up a wrist.w.a.tch. Ian recognised it immediately; there were few enough of these in 1865. "Where did you get that?"
"From its owner. The woman Barbara and the girl Vicki are in the custody of my master. If you wish them released, you will kill your brother by sundown tomorrow."
"My brother?" Ian realised immediately that the man must mean Major Chesterton. Well, there was enough of a similarity between them, and Ian supposed it was a logical a.s.sumption for someone not acquainted with the idea of time travel to make. "You mean Major Chesterton."
"If he still lives by dark tomorrow..." Gao left the words hanging. He flexed his lingers around the watch and, with a sharp crack like the splitting of a bone, his hand balled into a fist. When he opened it splinters of metal, and tiny cogs and springs, trickled to the floor.
"You understand?"
The abbot"s face didn"t smile, though Qin felt it should. The male time traveller understood perfectly what Gao meant.
Qin didn"t understand how he knew this and nor did he care.
All that mattered was that his resurrection was going according to plan, just as the sorcerer had foreseen, and his generals were doing their jobs as well as if they were a part of his own mind.
CHAPTER FIVE.
The Prodigal Son