"A day later, during a routine investigation of organized crime activity in the Leased Territories, we placed a surveillance device in an allegedly vacant apartment thought to be used for illegal activities and were startled to hear the sound of many small infants. Constables raided the place immediately and found twenty-four female infants, belonging to the Han racial group, being cared for by eight young peasant women, recently arrived from the countryside. Upon interrogation these women said that they had been recruited for this work by a Han gentleman whose identity has not been established, and who has not been found. The infants were examined. Five of them were on your boat, Mr. PhyrePhox– the biological records match perfectly."

"If there was a baby-smuggling operation associated with that boat," PhyrePhox said, "I had nothing to do with it."

"We have interrogated the boat's owner and captain," Judge Fang said, "and he asserts that this voyage was planned and paid for by you, from beginning to end."

"I had to get back to Shanghai somehow, so I hired the boat. These women wanted to go to Shanghai, so I was cool about letting them come along."

"Mr. PhyrePhox, before we start torturing you, let me explain to you my state of mind," Judge Fang said, coming close to the prisoner so that they could look each other in the eye. "We have examined these babies closely. It appears that they were well cared for– no malnourishment or signs of abuse. Why, then, should I take such an interest in this case?

"The answer has nothing to do, really, with my duties as a district magistrate. It doesn't even relate to Confucian philosophy per se. It is a racial thing, Mr. PhyrePhox. That a European man is smuggling Han babies to the Leased Territories– and thence, I would assume, out to the world beyond– triggers profound, I might even say primal emotions within me and many other Chinese persons.

"During the Boxer Rebellion, the rumor was spread that the orphanages run by European missionaries were in fact abattoirs where white doctors scooped the eyes out of the heads of Han babies to make medicine for European consumption. That many Han believed these rumors accounts for the extreme violence to which the Europeans were subjected during that rebellion. But it also reflects a regrettable predisposition to racial fear and hatred that is latent within the breasts of all human beings of all tribes.

"With your baby-smuggling operation you have stumbled into the same extremely dangerous territory. Perhaps these little girls are destined for comfortable and loving homes in non-Han phyles. That is the best possible outcome for you– you will be punished but you will live. But for all I know, they are being used for organ transplants– in other words, the baseless rumors that incited peasants to storm the orphanages during the Boxer Rebellion may in fact be literally true in your case. Does this help to clarify the purpose of this evening's little get-together?"

At the beginning of this oration, PhyrePhox had been wearing his baseline facial expression– an infuriatingly vacant half-grin, which Judge Fang had decided was not really a smirk, more a posture of detached bemusement. As soon as Judge Fang had mentioned the eyeballs, the prisoner had broken eye contact, lost the smile, and become more and more pensive until, by the end, he was actually nodding in agreement. He kept on nodding for a minute longer, staring fixedly at the floor. Then he brightened and looked up at the Judge. "Before I give you my answer," he said, "torture me."

Judge Fang, by a conscious effort, remained poker-faced. So PhyrePhox twisted his head around until Miss Pao was within his peripheral vision. "Go ahead," the prisoner said encouragingly, "give me a jolt."

Judge Fang shrugged and nodded to Miss Pao, who picked up her brush and swept a few quick characters across the mediatronic paper spread out on the writing table before her. As she neared the end of this inscription, she slowed and finally looked up at the Judge, then at PhyrePhox as she drew out the final stroke.

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 constitution) 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 highlevel 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 telæsthetic 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 document, that he could take it to an art dealer on Nanjing Road and sell it for a year's wages. Dr. X, assuming 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 analysis 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-button 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 accumulated 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, 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.