An Inch of Ashes (Chung Kuo)(27)

Her Aunt Helga looked up, a strange expression in her eyes, then looked down again, busying herself with the drinks.

Again her Uncle Jon looked to his brother uncertainly. ‘They're stories, Jelka. Old legends. Things from before the City.'

He was about to say more, but her father interrupted him. ‘There are things that belong here only. You must not take them back with you, understand me, child? You must not even mention them. Not to anyone.'

She looked down. ‘Why?'

‘Content yourself that they are.'

She looked across at him again. His voice had been harsh, almost angry, but his eyes seemed troubled. He looked away, then back at her, relenting. ‘While you're here you may look at them, if that's what you want. But remember, these things are forbidden back in the City. If anyone knew...'

She frowned. Forbidden? Why forbidden?

‘Jelka?'

She looked up, then quickly took the glass her Aunt Helga was holding out to her. ‘Thanks...'

She was silent a moment, then looked across at her uncle. ‘Daddy said this place had a name. Kalevala. Why is it called that?'

Jon laughed, then took a glass from his wife and came across, sitting in the chair nearest Jelka.

‘You want to know why this house is called Kalevala? Well'  –  he looked across at her father then back at Jelka  –  ‘it's like this...'

She listened, entranced, as her uncle talked of a distant mem ang hihis housepast and a land of heroes, and of a people  –  her people  –  who had lived in that land. Of a time before the Han and their great City, when vast forests filled the land and the people were few. Her mind opened up to the freedom of such a past  –  to a world so much bigger than the world she knew. A vast, limitless world, bounded by mist and built upon nothingness. Kalevala, the land of heroes.

When he was finished, she sat there, astonished, her drink untouched.

‘Well?' her father said over the crackle of the fire, his voice strangely heavy. ‘Do you understand now why we are forbidden this? Can't you see what restlessness there would be if this were known to all?'

She stared at him, not recognizing him for a moment, the vision filling her mind, consuming her. Then she lowered her eyes and nodded. ‘I think so. And yet...'

He smiled sadly. ‘I know. I feel it too, my love. It calls us strongly. But this is now, not then. We cannot go back. This is a new age and the heroes are dead. The land of Kalevala is gone. We cannot bring it back.'

She shivered. No, she wanted to say; it's still alive, inside us  –  in that part of us that dreams and seeks fulfilment. And yet he was right. There was only this left. This faint, sad echo of a greater, more heroic age. This only. And when it too was gone?

She closed her eyes, overwhelmed by a sudden sense of loss. The loss of something she had never known. And yet not so, for it was still a part of her. She could feel it  –  there in the sinew and bone and blood of her.

‘Jelka?'

She looked up. Her uncle was standing by the shelves, watching her, concerned, the pain in his eyes the reflection of her own.

‘The Kalevala... Would you like to read it?'

He stretched out his hand, offering one of the thick, leather-bound volumes. Jelka stared back at him a moment, then went across to him, taking the book. For a moment she simply stared at it, astonished, tracing the embossed lettering of the cover with her finger, then she turned, looking at her father.

‘Can I?'

‘Of course. But remember what I said. It belongs here. Nowhere else.'

Jelka nodded, then looked back at the book. She opened the cover and read the title page.

‘I didn't think...' she began, then laughed.

‘Didn't think what?' said her uncle, standing beside her.

‘This,' she said, looking up into his face. ‘I never dreamed there would be a book of it.'

‘It wasn't a book. Not at first. It was all songs, thousands of songs, sung by peasants in the homelands of Karelia. One man collected them and made them into a single tale. But now there's only this. This last copy. The rest of it has gone  –  singers and songs, the people and the land  –  as if it had never been.'

She looked back at him, then stared at the book in her hands, awed. The last copy. It frightened her somehow.

‘Then I'll take good care of it,' she said. ‘As if it were a sister to me.'


Chen raised himself uneasily in the bed, then pulled the cover up, getting comfortable again. His chest was strapped, his arm in bandages, but he had been lucky. The knife had glanced against a rib, missing anything vital. He had lost a lot of blood, but he would heal. As for the arm wound, that was superficial  –  the kind of thing one got in a hard training session.

Karr was sitting across from him, scowling, his huge frame far too big for the hospital chair. He leaned forward angrily, giving vent to what he'd had to .&rto aliartable ahold in earlier while the nurse had been in the room.

‘You were stupid, Chen. You should have waited for me.'

Chen gritted his teeth against a sudden wash of pain, then answered his friend.

‘I'm sorry, Gregor. There wasn't time.'

‘You could have contacted me. From Liu Chang's. You could have let me know what you planned. As it was I didn't even know you'd gone to see the pimp until half an hour back. I thought we were waiting for the Security report on Liu Chang.'

‘I got it back before I went in. It confirmed what we'd thought. He was an actor, in opera, before he became a pimp. And there was one unproven charge of murder against him. That was the reason he was demoted to the Net.'

Karr huffed impatiently. ‘Even so, you should have waited. You could have been killed.'

It was true. He should have waited. But he hadn't. Why? Perhaps because he had wanted to do it himself. It was mixed up with Pavel somehow  –  the boy on the Plantation who had been killed by DeVore's henchman. He still felt guilty about that. So perhaps he had put himself at risk to punish himself. Or maybe it was more complex than that. Maybe it had to do with the risks involved. He had enjoyed it, after all. Had liked the way the odds were stacked against him.

Five to one. And he had come out of it alive. Had fought them hand to hand and beaten them. Kwai he was. He knew it now, clearer than he had ever known it before. Kwai.

‘I'm sorry,' he said again. ‘It was wrong of me.'

Karr sat back a little, then laughed, meeting Chen's eyes, his anger dissipating. ‘Still, you're alive.'

There was a knock, then a head poked round the door.

‘Axel!' Chen tried to sit up, then eased back, groaning softly.

Haavikko came into the room. Giving a small nod of acknowledgment to Karr, he went across and took Chen's hand, concerned.

‘What happened? Gregor told me you'd been hurt, but not how.'

Chen took a painful breath, then grinned up at Haavikko, squeezing his hand. ‘It was only a scrape...'

Karr laughed. ‘Only a scrape! You know what our friend here has been doing, Axel?'

Haavikko looked, shaking his head.

‘Shall I tell him, Chen, or do you want to?'

‘Go ahead,' said Chen, the pain from his ribs momentarily robbing him of breath.

Karr pointed beyond Haavikko, indicating a chair in the corner. ‘Those are Chen's clothes. Look in the top pocket of the tunic. You'll find something there that will interest you.'

Haavikko turned and looked. The tunic was ripped and bloodstained, but the pocket was intact. He reached inside and drew out a thin piece of transparent card.

‘This?'

Karr nodded and watched as Haavikko studied it a moment then looked back at him, his expression blank. ‘So? What is it?'

Karr went across, taking the card. ‘I'll show you exactly how it works later on. For now take my word on it. This is what they call an implant. Or, at least, the record of one. On this card is stored all the information you'd need to make a special chemical. One that could create a false memory in someone's head.'

Haavikko looked up. ‘So?'

‘So the information on this particular card was designed for one specific person. You.'

‘Me?' Haavikko laughed. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Just this. Chen here did some digging into your friend Liu Chang's past. And then he paid the man a visit. From that he got confirmation of something he and I had suspected from the start. That and an address below the Net. At that address he found a man named Herrick who makes these things. And from Herrick he got this card  –  which is a copy of a false memory that was implanted in your head. The memory of killing a young sing-song girl.'

Haavikko had blanched. ‘No... It's not possible. I remember...' His voice faltered and he looked down, wetting his lips with his tongue. ‘It can't have been false. It was too real. Too...'

Karr reached out, touching his shoulder. ‘And yet it's true, Axel Haavikko. You didn't kill her. Someone else did. Probably Liu Chang. Your only mistake was to take the drug that was mixed in with your wine. It was that which made you think you'd killed her.'

‘No...'

‘It's true,' said Chen. ‘Wait until you see the copy. You never touched her. You couldn't have done, don't you see? You're not that kind of man.'

They watched him. Watched his chest rise and fall. Then saw how he looked at them again, disbelief warring with a new hope in him.