Shadrach in the Furnace

23

In Peking, ensconced at the Hundred Gates Hotel in the old legation quarter adjoining the Forbidden City district, where Kublai Khan and Ch’ien-lung once held court, Shadrach begins once more to detect emanations from Genghis Mao. He is still some twelve hundred or thirteen hundred kilometers from Ulan Bator, he calculates — beyond the optimum telemetering range, and so the incoming impulses are blurred and faint. Then, too, after these weeks of separation Shadrach is no longer as much in concord with the broadcast from Genghis Mao’s body as he had been. But when he sits very still, when he tunes his attention perfectly to the task, he finds himself able to read the old warlord’s biodata with gradually sharpening clarity.

The gross functions come in best, of course: heartbeat, blood pressure, respiration, body temperature. The Khan’s major systems all seem to be thundering along at their usual level of irrepressible vitality. Liver and kidney action register in their normal range. Basal metabolic expenditure normal. Neuromus-cular responses normal. It never ceases to amaze Shadrach how healthy, how strong, the old man is. He takes a certain vicarious pride in Genghis Mao’s heroic durability and resilience. Some unexpected puzzles begin to develop, though, as Shadrach extends his reach and starts to bring in the subtler, more refined data. These tend to contradict some of the gross indications. The muscle-firing responses do not seem quite right — phosphate breakdown appears weak, enzyme activity off. Blood viscosity is lower than normal and blood pH is nudging slightly toward the alkaline. Intestinal absorption is minutely down, cholesterol accumulation up, perspiration a trifle above normal. None of these things is cause for real alarm in a man of the Chairman’s age who has recently undergone so much radical surgery — it is hardly reasonable to expect htm to be in perfect health — but the combination of factors is peculiar. Shadrach wonders how much of what he is reading is simply an artifact of distance and noise on the line: he is straining for some of these inputs, and he may not be getting them accurately. Still, the distortions, if distortions they are, are remarkably consistent. He gets the same reading whenever he returns to any sensor.

And a hypothesis is starling to take shape.

Diagnosis at more than a thousand kilometers’ range is tricky. Shadrach misses his medical library and his computers. But he has an idea of what the problem may be, and he knows what data he needs to confirm his theory. What he does not know is whether Buckmaster’s implant system is good enough to transmit analogues of such small-scale phenomena across so great a distance.

If blood viscosity is down and blood pH is alkaline, plasma protein levels are probably subnormal, and osmotic pressure, which draws fluids from the tissues to the capillaries, is going to be low. If the hydrostatic blood pressure is normal, as the gross function modulator is telling him, and the osmotic blood pressure is off, Genghis Mao’s tissues may be building up an accumulation of excess fluids — not serious, not dangerous, not yet, but such fluid accumulations may be leading toward the development of edemas, of watery swellings, and edemas can be symptomatic of impending failure in the kidneys, the liver, perhaps the cardiac system. Bearing down in intense concentration, Shadrach roves Genghis Mao’s body in search of signs of excess fluid. The lymphatic-system checkpoints give him nothing but normal levels, though. The reports from the pericardial, pleural, and peritoneal outposts are positive. Renal and hepatic functions, as before, are fine. Nothing seems to be wrong. Shadrach begins to abandon his hypothesis. Perhaps the Khan is not in difficulties. Those few negative indications were probably just noise on the line, and therefore—

But then Shadrach notices that something is not quite right in Genghis Mao’s skull. Intracranial pressure is unusually high.

The implant monitors in the Chairman’s cranium are not as comprehensive as they are elsewhere. Genghis Mao has no history of stroke or other cerebrovascular events, and surgeons have never had reason to invade the imperial skull. Since most of the telemetering equipment in Genghis Mao has been installed during the course of routine corrective surgery, Shadrach must make do with relatively skimpy coverage of the state of the Chairman’s brain. But he does have a sensor that reports to him on intracranial pressure, and, as he makes his total scan of Genghis Mao’s body, the rise in that pressure catches his attention. Is that where the fluid buildup is taking place?

Struggling, stretching for the data, Shadrach pulls in whatever correlative information he can grab. Osmotic pressure of the cranial capillaries? Low. Hydrostatic pressure? Normal. Meningeal distension? High. Condition of the cerebral ventricles? Congested. Something is awry, very marginally awry, in the system that drains cerebrospinal fluid from the interior of Genghis Mao’s brain to the subarachnoid space, next to the skull wall, whereit normally passes into the blood.

What this means, at the moment, is that Genghis Mao probably has been having bad headaches for a few days, that he will have worse ones if Shadrach Mordecai does not return to Ulan Bator at once, and that he may suffer brain damage — possibly fatal — if prompt corrective action is not taken. It means, also, that Shadrach’s holiday is at its end. He will not do the sightseeing tour of Peking. Not for him the visit to the Forbidden City, the historical museum, the Ming tombs, the Great Wall, the temple of Confucius, the Working People’s Palace of Culture. Those things are unimportant to him now: this is the moment for which he was waiting during his wanderings from continent to continent. The unstable system that is Genghis II Mao IV Khan has, in the absence of the devoted physician, begun to break down. Shadrach’s indispensability has been made manifest. He is needed. He must go to his patient immediately. He must take the appropriate actions. He has his Hippocratic obligations to fulfill. He has his own survival to think about, besides.

Shadrach descends to the hotel lobby to arrange for a seat aboard the next flight to Ulan Bator — there is one that evening, he learns, leaving in two and a half hours — and to check out of the room he so recently checked into. The clerk, a gaunt young Chinese who is unable to contain his fascination with the color of Shadrach’s skin, staring and staring with surreptitious sideways glances, comments on the brevity of his stay in Peking.

“Change of plan,” Shadrach declares resonantly. “Urgent business. Must return at once.”

He glances down the length of the lobby — a dim, fragrant space, like the vestibule of some enormous Chinese restaurant, cluttered with mahogany screens and porcelain urns and huge lacquer bowls on rosewood pedestals — and sees, towering above a pair of porters, the husky, hulking figure of Avogadro. Their eyes meet and Avogadro smiles, nods bis head in salute, waves a hand. He has just arrived at the hotel, it seems. Shadrach is not at all surprised to discover the security chief here. It was inevitable, he decides, that Avogadro would show up to make the arrest in person.

Neither of them remarks on the coincidence of their presence in this exotic place. Avogadro asks amiably, “How have you been enjoying your travels, Doctor?”

“I’ve seen a great deal of the world. Most interesting.”

“That’s the best word you can choose? Interesting? Not overwhelming, illuminating, transcendental?”

“Interesting,” Shadrach repeats deliberately. “A very interesting trip. And how is Genghis Mao bearing up in my absence?”

“Not too badly.”

“He’s well looked after. He likes to think I’m indispensable, but the relief staff is quite capable of handling most of what’s likely to come up.”

“Probably so.”

“But he’s been having headaches, hasn’t he?”

Avogadro looks mildly startled. “You know that, do you?”

“I’m just at the edge of the telemetering range here.”

“And you can detect his headaches?”

“I can pick up certain causal factors,” Shadrach says, “and deduce a headache from them.”

“How clever that system is. You and the Khan are practically one person, wouldn’t that be so? Connected the way you are. He aches and you feel it.”

“Well put,” Shadrach says. “Actually, Nikki was the first one to make that point to me. Genghis Mao and I are one person, yes, one united information-processing unit. Comparable to the sculptor and the marble and the chisel.”

The analogy does not appear to register with Avogadro. He continues to smile the fixed, determinedly affable smile that he has been smiling since they first approached one another in the lobby.

“But not united closely enough,” Shadrach goes on. “The system could be linked even more tightly. I plan to talk to the engineers about building some modifications into it, when I get back to Ulan Bator.”

“Which will be when?”

“Tonight,” Shadrach tells him. “I’m booked on the next flight out.”

Avogadro’s eyebrows rise. “You are? How convenient Saves me the trouble of—”

“Asking me to return?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you might have had something like that in mind.”

“The truth is that Genghis Mao misses you. He sent me down here to talk to you.”

“Of course.”

“To ask you to come back.”

“He sent you to ask me that. Not to bring me, but to ask me. If I would return. Of my own free will.”

“To ask, yes.”

Shadrach thinks of the Citpols keeping tabs on him all around the world, huddling, conferring, passing bulletins on to their colleagues in distant cities. He knows, and he is sure that Avogadro knows that he knows, that the real situation is not as casual as Avogadro would have him believe. By buying that ticket on this evening’s flight, he has spared Avogadro the embarrassment of having to take him into custody and return him to Ulan Bator under duress. He hopes Avogadro is properly grateful for that.

He says, “How bad are the Khan’s headaches?”

“Pretty bad, I’m told.”

“You haven’t seen him?”

Avogadro shakes his head. “Only on the telephone. He looked drawn. Tired.”

“How long ago was this?” “The night before last. But there’s been talk in the tower all week about the Chairman’s headaches.”

“I see,” Shadrach says. “I thought it might be like that. That’s why I’ve decided to go back ahead of schedule.” His eyes rest squarely on Avogadro’s. “You understand that, don’t you? That I bought my return ticket as soon as I realized the Khan was in discomfort? Because it was my responsibility to my patient. My responsibility to my patient is always the controlling factor in my actions. Always. Always. You’re aware of that, aren’t you?”

“Naturally,” Avogadro says.

June 23, 2012

What if I had died before my work was done? Not an idle question at all. I am important to history. I am one of the great reconstituters of society. Subtract me from the scene in 1995, in 1998, even as late as 2001, and everything tumbles into chaos. I am to this society as Augustus was to the Roman world, as Ch’in Shih Huang Ti was to China. What kind of world would exist today if I had perished ten years ago? A thousand warring principalities, no doubt, each with its own pathetic army, its own legislature, currency, passports, border guards, customs levies. A host of petty aristocracies, feudal overlords, secret cabals of malcontents, constant little revolutions — chaos, chaos, chaos. New outbreaks of virus warfare, very likely. And ultimately the extinction of mankind. All this if you subtract Genghis Mao at the critical moment in history. I am the world-savior.

It sounds obscenely boastful. World-savior! Culture-hero, myth-figure, I, Hrishna, I, Quetzalcoatl, I, Arthur, I, Genghis Mao. And yet it is true, truer for me than for any of them, for without me all of mankind might be dead today, and that is new in the history of the savior-myth. To end the strife, to seal away the virus, to sponsor Roncevic’s work — yes, no doubt of it, this could have been a dead planet by now if I had gone into the tomb ten years ago. As history will recognize. And yet, and yet, what does it matter? I will not be forgotten when I die — I will never be forgotten — but I will die. Sooner, later, my subterfuges will exhaust themselves. Neither Talos nor Phoenix nor Avatar can sustain me indefinitely. Something will fail, or boredom will conquer me and I will terminate my own systems, and I will die, and then what will it have meant to have saved the world? What I have done is ultimately meaningless to me. The power I have attained is ultimately empty. Not immediately empty — here I sit, do I not, among splendor and comfort? — but ultimately empty. I pretend that there is meaning in empire, but there is none, no meaning anywhere. This is a philosophy common among the very young, and, I suppose, among the very old. I must pretend that power is important to me. I must pretend that the reckoning of history is the all-consoling consolation. But I am too old to care. I have forgotten why it mattered to me to do what I have done. I am playing out a foolish game, unwilling to let it reach its end, but unsure of the nature of the winning gambit. And so I go on and on and on. I, Genghis II Mao IV Khan, savior of the world, taking care to conceal from those around me the profound and paralyzing vacancy that lies beneath the subcellars of my spirit. I think I have lost the thread of my own argument. I am tired. I am bored. My head hurts. My head hurts.

“Shadrach!” Genghis Mao roars. “This filthy headache! Fix me, Shadrach!”

The old buccaneer forces a grin. He sits propped up against triple pillows, looking weary and frayed. His jaws are set in a rigid grimace; his ryes have a harsh glare and they waver frantically as though he is struggling to keep them in focus. At this close range Shadrach can easily detect a dozen different symptoms of the pressure building up in the recesses of the Chairman’s brain. Already there are many tiny signs of deterioration in Genghis Mao’s cerebral functions. No doubt of the diagnosis now. No doubt of it.

“You were away too long,” the Khan mutters. “Enjoying yourself? Yes. But the headache, Shadrach, the miserable hideous headache — I shouldn’t have let you go. Your place is here. Beside me. Watching me. Healing me. It was like sending my right hand on a voyage around the world. You won’t go away again, will you, Shadrach? And you’ll fix my head? It frightens me. The throbbing. Like something trying to escape in there.”

“There’s no reason to worry, sir. We’ll fix you soon enough.”

Genghis Mao rolls his eyes in torment. “How? Chop a hole in my skull? Let the demon escape like a whiff of foul gas?”

“This isn’t the Neolithic,” Shadrach says. “The trephine is obsolete. We have better methods.” He touches the tips of his fingers to the Khan’s cheeks, probing for the sharp, upthrusting bones. “Relax, sir. Let the muscles go slack.” It is late at night, and Shadrach is exhausted, having flown this day from San Francisco to Peking, from Peking to Ulan Bator, having gone at once to Genghis Mao’s bedside without pausing even for fresh clothing. His mind is a muddle of time zones and he is not sure whether he is in Saturday, Sunday, or Friday. But there is a sphere of utter crystalline clarity at the core of his spirit. “Relax,” he croons. “Relax. Let the tension flow out of your neck, out of your shoulders, out of your back. Easy, now, easy—”

Genghis Mao scoffs. “You aren’t going to cure this with massages and soothing talk.”

“But we can ease the symptoms this way. We can palliate, sir.”

“And then?”

“If necessary, there are surgical remedies.”

“You see? You will chop open my skull!”

“We’ll be neat about it, I promise.” Shadrach moves around behind Genghis Mao, so he will not be distracted by the need to maintain eye contact with the fierce old man, and concentrates on diagnostic perceptions. Hydrostatic imbalance, yes; roeningeal congestion, yes; some accumulation of metabolic wastes about the brain, yes. The situation is far from critical — action could be deferred for weeks, perhaps for many months, without great risk — but Shadrach intends to deal swiftly with the problem. And not only for Genghis Mao’s sake.

Genghis Mao says, “It’s good to have you back.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You should have been here for the funeral. You would have had a front-row seat. It was magnificent, Shadrach. Did you watch the funeral on television?”

“Of course,” Shadrach lies. “In — ah — in Jerusalem. I think I was in Jerusalem then. Yes. Magnificent. Yes.”

“Magnificent,” says Genghis Mao, dwelling lovingly on the word. “It will never be forgotten. One of history’s great spectacles. I was proud of it. The Assyrians couldn’t have done better for old Sardanapalus.” The Khan laughs. “If one can’t attend one’s own funeral, Shadrach, one can at least satisfy the urge by staging a splendid funeral for someone else. Eh? Eh?”

“I wish I could have been there, sir.”

“But you were in Jerusalem. Or was it Istanbul?”

“Jerusalem, I think, sir.” He touches Genghis Mao’s temples, pressing lightly but firmly. The Chairman winces. When Shadrach presses the sides of Genghis Mao’s neck, just below and behind the ears, the Chairman grunts. “Tender there,” Genghis Mao says.

“Yes.”

“How bad is it, really?”

“It’s not good. No immediate danger, but there’s definitely a problem in there.”

“Explain it to me.”

Shadrach moves out where Genghis Mao can see him. “The brain and spinal cord,” he says, “float, literally float, in a liquid we call cerebrospinal fluid, which is manufactured in hollow chambers within the brain known as ventricles. It protects and nourishes the brain and, when it drains into the spaces surrounding the brain, it carries off the metabolic wastes resulting from the brain’s activity. Under certain circumstances the passageways from the ventricles to these meningeal spaces become blocked, and cerebrospinal fluid accumulates in the ventricles.”

“Is that what’s happening to my head?”

“So it seems.”

“Why?”

Shrugging, Shadrach replies, “It’s usually caused by infection or by a tumor at the base of the brain. Occasionally it comes on spontaneously, without observable lesion. A function of aging, maybe.”

“And what are the effects?”

“In children, the skull enlarges as the ventricles swell. That’s the condition known as hydrocephalus, water on the brain. The adult cranium isn’t capable of expansion, of course, so the brain must bear all the pressure. Severe headaches are the first symptom, naturally. Followed by failure of physical coordination, vertigo, facial paralysis, gradual loss of eyesight, periods of coma, general impairments of cerebral functions, epileptic seizures—”

“And death?”

“Death, yes. Eventually.”

“How long from first to last?”

“It depends on the degree of the blockage, the vigor of the patient, and a lot of other factors. Some people live for years with mild or incipient hydrocephalic conditions and aren’t even aware of it. Even acute cases can drag on for years, with long periods of remission. On the other hand, it’s possible to go from first congestion to mortality in a matter of months, and sometimes much more quickly even than that, if something like a medullary edema develops, an intracranial swelling that disrupts the autonomic systems.”

These recitals of symptomatology and prognosis have always fascinated Genghis Mao, and intense interest is evident in his eyes now. But there is something else, a haunted look, a flashing look of dismay verging on terror, that Shadrach has never observed in him before.

The Chairman says, “And in my case?”

“We’ll have to run a full series of tests, of course. But on the basis of what the implants are telling me, I’m inclined toward quick corrective surgery.”

“I’ve never had brain surgery.”

“I know that, sir.”

“I don’t like the whole idea. A kidney or a lung is trivial. I don’t want Warhaftig’s lasers inside my head. I don’t want pieces of my mind cut away.”

“There’s no question of our doing that.”

“What will you do, then?”

“It’s strictly a decompressive therapy. We’ll install valved tubes to shunt the excess fluid directly into the jugular system. The operation is relatively simple and much less risky than an organ transplant.”

Genghis Mao smiles icily. “I’m accustomed to organ transplants, though. I think I like organ transplants. Brain surgery is something new for me.”

Shadrach, as he prepares a sedative for the Chairman, says cheerfully, “Perhaps you’ll come to like brain surgery as well, sir.”

In the morning he seeks out Frank Ficifolia at the main communications nexus deep in the service core of the tower. “I heard you’d returned,” Ficifolia says. “I heard it, but I didn’t believe it. For Christ’s sake, why’d you come back?”

Shadrach eyes the banks of screens and monitors warily. “Is it safe to talk here?”

“Jesus, do you think I’d bug my own office?”

“Someone might have done it without telling you about it.”

“Talk,” Ficifolia says. “It’s safe here.”

“If you say so.”

“I say so. Why didn’t you stay where you were?”

“The Citpols knew where I was, every minute. Avogadro himself dropped in on me in Peking.”

“What did you expect? Taking commercial transport all around the world. There are ways of hiding, but — did Avogadro make you come back here, then?”

“I had already bought my ticket.”

“Jesus, why?”

“I came back because I saw a way of saving myself.”

“The way to save yourself is to go underground.”

“No,” Shadrach says emphatically. “The way to save yourself is to return and continue to carry out my functions as the Chairman’s doctor. You know that the Chairman is ill?”

“Bad headaches, they tell me.”

“Dangerous headaches. We’ll need to operate.”

“Brain surgery?”

“That’s right.”

Ficifolia compresses his lips and studies Shadrach’s face as though examining a map of El Dorado. “I once told you that you weren’t crazy enough to survive in this city. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you’re plenty crazy. You have to be crazy if you think you can intentionally bungle an operation on Genghis Mao and get away with it. Don’t you think Warhaftig will notice what you’re doing and stop you? Or turn you in, if you actually do pull it off? What good is killing the Khan if you end up in the organ farms yourself? How—”

“Doctors don’t kill their patients, Frank.”

“But—”

“You’re jumping to conclusions. Projecting your own fantasies, perhaps. I’m simply going to operate. And cure the Chairman’s headaches. And see to it that he stays in good health.” Shadrach smiles. “Don’t ask questions. Just help me.”

“Help you how?”

“I want you to find Buckmaster for me. There’s a special piece of equipment I’ll need, and he’s the right man to build it. Then I’ll want you to help me rig the telemetering circuits to run it.”

“Buckmaster? Why Buckmaster? There are plenty of capable microengineering people right here on the staff.”

“Buckmaster’s the one I want for this job. He’s the best in his field, and he happens to be the one who built my implant system. He’s the one who ought to build any additions to that system.” Shadrach’s gaze is uncompromising. “Will you get me Buckmaster?”

Ficifolia, after a moment, blinks and brusquely nods. “I’ll take you to him,” be says. “When do you want to go?”

“Now.”

“Right now? Right this literal minute?”

“Now,” Shadrach says. “Is he very far from here?”

“Not really.”

“Where is he?”

“Karakorum,” Ficifolia replies. “We hid him among the transtemporalists.”

January 2, 2009

I insisted, and they allowed me to sample the transtemporal experience. Much talk of risks, of side effects, of my responsibilities to the commonwealth. I overruled them. It is not often that I have to insist. It is rare that I can speak of being allowed. But this was a struggle. Which of course I won, but it was work. Visited Karakorum after midnight, light snow falling. The tent was cleared. Guards posted. Teixeira had given me a full checkup first. Because of the drugs they use. Clean bill of health: I can handle their most potent potions. And so, into the tent. Dark place, foul smell. I remember that smell from my childhood-burning cow-chips, uncured goathides. Little slump-backed lama comes forth, very unimpressed with me, no awe at all — why be awed by Genghis Mao, I guess, when you can gulp a drug and visit Caesar, the Buddha, Genghis Khan? — and mixes his brews for me. Oils, powders. Gives me the cup to drink. Sweet, gummy, not a good taste. Takes my hands, whispers things to me, and I am dizzy and then the tent becomes a cloud and is gone and I find myself in another tent, wide and low, white flags and brocaded hangings, and there he is before me, thick-bodied, short, a man of middle years or more long dark mustache, small eyes, strong mouth, stink of sweat coming from him as if he hasn’t bathed in years, and for the first time in my life I want to sink to my knees before another human being, for this is surely Temujin, this is the Great Khan, this is he, the founder, the conqueror.

I do not kneel, except within myself. Within myself I fall at his feet. I offer him my hand. I bow my head.

“Father Genghis,” I say. “Across nine hundred years I come to do you homage.”

He regards me without great interest. After a moment he hands me a bowl. “Drink some airag, old man.”

We shared the bowl, I first, then the Great Khan. He is dressed simply, no scarlet robes, no ermine trim, no crown, just a warrior’s leather costume. The top of his head is shaven and in back his hair reaches his shoulders. He could kill me with a slap of his left hand.

“What do you want?” he asks.

“To see you.”

“You see me. What else?”

“To tell you that you will live forever.”

“I will die like any man, old one.”

“Your body will die, Father Genghis. Your name will live in the ages.”

He considers that. “And my empire? What of that? Will my sons rule after me?”

“Your sons will rule over half the world.”

“Half the world,” Genghis Khan says softly. “Only half? Is this the truth, old man?”

“Cathay will be theirs—”

“Cathay is already mine.”

“Yes, but they will have it all, down to the hot jungles. And they will rule the high mountains, and the Russian land, and Turkestan, Afghanistan, Persia, everything as far as the gates of Europe. Half the world. Father Genghis!”

The Khan of Khan grunts.

“And I tell you this, also. Nine hundred years from now a khan named Genghis will rule everything from sea to sea, from shore to shore, all souls upon this world naming him master.”

“A khan of my blood?”

“A true Tatar,” I assure him.

Genghis Khan is silent a long while. It is impossible to read his eyes. He is shorter than I would have thought, and his smell is bad, but he is a man of such strength and purpose that I am humbled, for I thought I was of his kind, and in a way I am, and yet he is more than I could ever have been. There is no calculation about him; he is altogether solid, unhesitating, a man who lives in the moment, a man who must never have paused for a second thought and whose first thought must always have been right. He is only a barbarian prince, a mere wild horseman of the Gobi, to whom every aspect of my ordinary daily life would seem the most dazzling magic: yet put him down in Ulan Bator and he would understand the workings of Surveillance Vector One in three hours. A barbarian he is, yes, but not a mere barbarian, not a mere anything, and though I am his superior in some ways, though my life and my power are beyond his comprehension, I am second to him in all the ways that matter. He awes me. As I expected him to do. And, seeing him, I come close to a willingness to yield up all my authority over men, for, next to him, I am not worthy. I am not worthy.

“Nine hundred years,” he says at last, and the shadow of a smile crosses his face. “Good. Good.” He claps for a servant. “More airag,” he calls. We share another drink. Then he says he must depart; it is time to ride out from Karakorum to the camp of his son Chagadai, where the royal family is to hold a tourney today. He does not invite me to join him. He has no interest in me, though I come from out of the realm of distant time, though I bring him bright tales of Mongol empires to come. I am unimportant to him. I have told him all he cares to know; now I am forgotten. Only the tourney matters now. He leaps to his mare; he rides away, followed by the warriors of his court, and only the servant and I remain.