City on Fire m-2

by Walter Jon Williams

  Gentri looks at the head of the table. “Am I to understand that the half-worlds now possess the same sort of political immunity formerly enjoyed by the Silver Hand and various Keremath enterprises? What possible use could such protection be for us—what is gained?”

  Drumbeth frowns, thinks for a long moment. “I am concerned principally with returning plasm resources to the state. If there are plasm thieves, or other criminals, within the half-worlds, let them be arrested, by all means.”

  Hilthi looks up again from his notebooks. “But deporting whole populations…” he says.

  “I think not,” says Drumbeth. He looks at Gentri, and his voice turns commanding. “And we desire action against the Handmen. Names, charges, facts, totals of plasm and other stolen materials returned. All this, and soon.”

  Gentri visibly bites down his resentment, and nods. “Very well, sir,” he says. “Soon.”

  Soon. Aiah thinks she tastes an odd flavor in that word, as if Gentri is offering another promise entirely, something quite different from what Drumbeth has in mind.

  But no one else seems to hear what Aiah hears, and suddenly there is a blaze of light overhead. Several in the cabinet start, afraid this might be some kind of attack, but there is no danger, it is only a plasm display—an illegal plasm display, because no displays are permitted over the Palace in the event they might be used to disguise an assault. But all faces turn upward in any case… A dolphin spins through space; a cat wearing white gloves and a vest makes a commanding gesture with a stick; a woman in tall boots contemplates some kind of net she is holding in her hand, a window which allows a glimpse of an unnaturally green plain, as if someone had sown the surface of a large roof entirely in grass and placed on it a few black-and-white cows. Each image leaping into being, moving, dissolving into another, all too fast for the mind to follow.

  “What is that?” Constantine breathes in wonder.

  “The Dreaming Sisters,” Aiah says.

  “And who are they?” Constantine says.

  Aiah doesn’t have an answer, and it is Ethemark—gazing upward, the images reflected in his huge eyes—who supplies the reply.

  “They are a religious order,” he says.

  “They must be a rich religious order,” Constantine says, “to afford so much plasm.”

  “No doubt,” says Ethemark.

  And then the image fades, leaving in Aiah’s heart a burning droplet of wonder, even as the cabinet meeting drones on.

  CHARNA COMPLAINS TO CARAQUI GOVERNMENT

  “CARAQUI IS EXPORTING GANGSTERS TO ITS NEIGHBORS”

  CARAQUI OFFERS TO SHARE POLICE INTELLIGENCE, WELCOMES EXTRADITION

  COMPROMISE CALLED “INSUFFICIENT”

  “A division within our ranks,” Constantine observes, “and not the first. There are those who wish true change, a revisu-alization of our world, and those who simply want the same old Caraqui with a new set of faces at the top.” He shrugs lazily, massive shoulders straining the seams of his velvet jacket. “Perhaps it is not Gentri’s fault. He is a product of the system here, and his imagination simply may not be sufficiently flexible to see that there is another way.”

  The meeting is over, and Constantine’s air of satisfaction fills the mirror-and-gilt elevator as it swoops and slides its way down its curving shaft. He smiles; he gestures expansively.

  Tiny Ethemark, in his shadow, is not so pleased. “But what of the half-worlds?” he says. “Gentri’s still allowed to send his police in.”

  Constantine doesn’t look at him directly, but instead gazes at the twisted man’s distorted reflection in the polished-bronze door. “Those who steal plasm must take their chances, no?” he says. “And if the amounts the half-worlds are stealing are trivial, as you have always maintained, there will be little reason to go in at all. And in any case, the majority of the people will not be thrown out, and that is what we want most.”

  “What I want,” Ethemark says forcefully, “is for the half-worlds to be let alone.”

  Constantine gives Ethemark’s reflection a sharp look, a steely edge glinting through the velvet tone of his voice. “That was naive. I intend to let nothing alone—to allow nothing to remain unchanged at all.”

  Their reflections are sliced open as the polished doors part. “Miss Aiah,” Constantine says, “a word with you.”

  Ethemark makes his way down the corridor to his office, giving Aiah and Constantine a look over his shoulder as he retreats. The look on the smooth gray face, as always, is unreadable.

  Constantine leans close, puts a warm hand on Aiah’s shoulder. “I have heard from your Mr. Rohder,” he says. “He says he will leave his position in Jaspeer and join us.”

  Warm pleasure dances in Aiah’s veins. “I’m very happy.” She finds her lips twitching with the urge to kiss him, but it is a public corridor, and since he carried her away from the aerocar pad there have been no more demonstrations of affection in public.

  There is a hidden glow in Constantine’s eyes, and Aiah senses that the thought of a stolen kiss has not eluded him either. But then the glow turns cold, the expression grim.

  “Gentri,” he says, and before finishing lets the name hang for a moment in the air, “troubles me.”

  Aiah hears a confirmation humming through her nerves, a sense that her intuition was not entirely misplaced.

  “Yes,” she says. “There was something… not quite right there.”

  “His performance was a little too fervid, I think. As if he was not defending merely his plasm squads—which is understandable, and after all his job—but perhaps himself as well.”

  Aiah nods. “I see what you mean.”

  Constantine straightens, a contemplative frown touching his face. “He was a prosecuting judge before the coup, and reckoned honest, as such people go. There was no reason to think him connected to anyone… untoward.” He nods to himself as if reaching a decision, then looks down at her. “I wish you to start a file. A discreet little file that most eyes will never see—none but yours, mine, perhaps Ethemark’s.”

  Aiah considers this request. “Isn’t Sorya the person to ask for that sort of thing?”

  “I have seen her file. There is little of any interest in it.”

  “I’m not very qualified for this.”

  He shrugs. “Do what you can. There may, after all, be nothing to find.” He takes her arm. “Come. I would like to review the day’s projects.”

  She falls into step alongside him. “Three big arrests planned for first shift tomorrow. And a number of known associates for dessert.”

  “Ah.” He smiles. “Progress made, then. And more to tell the cabinet, when next they meet.”

  “Sir! Miss Aiah!”

  It’s Ethemark, coming back on the run. “Bombings, sir! Alaphen Plaza, by Government Harbor—and the Exchange! Hundreds of people hurt!”

  Constantine stops walking, his head held high, nostrils flared, as if to scent the wind. He nods. “Well,” he says, “someone makes a counterattack.”

  “Who?” Aiah feels panic thrashing in her chest. “The Hand?”

  “Someone… weak. Only the weak use terror.” He tilts his head, licks his lips as if to taste something. “Great-Uncle Rathmen, perhaps, letting us know he is displeased with the late assassination attempt. We shall see what news the investigation brings.”

  The two bombings kill a handful and injure many, though fortunately there are not so many casualties as first believed. Sorya’s service is using plasm hounds within the hour, and though the bombers have taken precautions to clean themselves of any trace, the procedure was flawed in one case, and one of the killers is tracked south to Barchab, and there positively identified: a Handman. Barchab is quietly asked to arrest the individual and hand him over, and video reports of the stunned survivors staggering among the overturned carts and blasted barrows of the open-air Alaphen market prompt the Barchab government, not known for its efficiency, to act quickly for once.

  Members of the government
begin to walk about with guards, and their families move into the Aerial Palace. Hilthi protests—he wants to live among the people—but though he will not leave his apartment, at least he is persuaded to keep a guard about him.

  Two days later, with the bomber still in Barchabi hands, a far worse catastrophe. Constantine and Aiah view it from his launch, the gleaming black-and-silver turbine-powered machine he had confiscated from the Keremaths.

  Cold rain drizzles down as Aiah looks at the overturned apartment building. One of its two support pontoons had been bashed in, and the entire building, with upward of four thousand people inside, had capsized in minutes. The huge concrete pontoons are built with watertight compartments below the waterline and had capsized in minutes. The pontoons are built with massive redundancy, and such sudden and catastrophic failure should not be possible.

  Not without help, anyway.

  The apartment building, brick on a steel frame, had collapsed when it was overturned, though its watery grave is shallow and the intact pontoon is still visible, barnacle-encrusted flank exposed to the air like some strange leviathan floating dead on the water. Boats sit on the slack green water around the structure, picking up debris and the dead, and barges with huge cranes stand ready. But most of the rescue work is invisible: telepresent mages at nearby plasm substations scouring the rubble for signs of anyone trapped in an air pocket, and other mages with the rare and difficult skill of teleportation stand by to pop any survivors to the nearest hospital.

  Constantine watches grimly, the collar of his windbreaker turned up as the rain falls in a soft mist on his bare head. Disposed about the boat are his guards, all twisted Cheloki with bony faces like armored black visors, and led by Martinus. They have followed Constantine all these years, from the Cheloki Wars on, and they have never failed him.

  Constantine had not used so many guards until recently. Aiah assumes that telepresent mages are on guard as well. This business, she reflects, has made Constantine wary.

  “It will be the Hand sending a message,” he says. Drops of rain course down his face, and he blinks them from his lashes as he speaks. “Who else has the plasm to waste? Sorya taught them not to use bombs.”

  Aiah huddles beneath her jacket hood as rain patters on it, a steady percussion near her ears. “What can we do?”

  Constantine tilts his head back, as if to consult with the low clouds. He opens his mouth and lets the rain refresh him. Then he looks at Aiah, and a dangerous light burns in his eyes.

  “I want you to give me a list,” Constantine says. “Ten Handmen we have not arrested. Not necessarily the highest-ranking, but the worst, and all married—with large families, preferably. I want their addresses and the names of their close kin. I want them by the beginning of work shift tomorrow.”

  Aiah’s mouth goes dry. Her hand, holding her rain hood closed beneath her chin, begins to tremble. “Yes, Metropolitan,” she says.

  He does not correct her use of his old title. Instead he looks at the rubble of the building. His tone turns meditative. “And another list, I think. Every Handman in your files. Names, pictures, current addresses.” He looks at her sharply. “But that for later. The list of ten, first of all. I would send Great-Uncle Rathmen an answer to his message.”

  INTERFACT PURCHASES WORLDWIDE NEWS, DATAFILES

  THE WIRE PROTESTS BIDDING PROTOCOLS

  There are three bombings in the next wave. Three Hand-men are killed, along with their families. Three Handmen from the list of ten that Aiah had prepared. The explosions are carefully controlled, and there are no other casualties.

  After this, the bombings cease entirely.

  Aiah concludes that Constantine’s message has been received.

  She does not watch the video for days, in order to avoid any pictures of dead children, but she finds, regardless, the dead haunting her dreams, a sad and silent procession, gazing at her with drowned, frozen, reproachful eyes.

  EIGHT

  Weeks pass.

  The Plasm Enforcement Division hones its moves, gathers more data, makes more arrests against increasingly powerless, increasingly desperate opposition. Mercenaries, now dressed in more politically acceptable Shield-gray uniforms instead of full combat gear, continue to storm the bastions of the Silver Hand.

  Even the police begin to do their bit, rounding up Hand-men on one charge or another. Not major figures, scarcely anyone ranked above brother, but every arrest helps.

  The firing squads continue in their work, though the executions are no longer publicized, and terse press releases—providing just names and the crimes of which the Handmen were convicted—are given out instead. It is not work of which anyone is particularly proud.

  Aiah hears more and more reports of Handmen and their associates who have decided to leave Caraqui and seek a life elsewhere. The knowledge gives her nothing but satisfaction.

  Other Handmen turn up with growing frequency in byways and canals, all dead by violence. Aiah follows these cases in hopes that they may turn out to be a sign that the Hand has turned on itself, is warring over the remains of its power in the absence of its leadership, but the available evidence suggests this is not so. The members of the Hand are too terrified of the government to spend time fighting each other. These bodies are the result of private vengeance, citizens no longer afraid of the Handmen and considering themselves free to act without fear.

  Aiah supposes that she can’t approve. But neither, she decides, can she much blame the citizens for turning on their persecutors.

  She spends a certain amount of time compiling a dossier on Gentri. There is little to discover beyond what is in the public record. She spends some time surveilling him through telepresence, but it’s impossible to monitor him when he’s at work in the heavily shielded Palace, and otherwise his life seems unexceptional—he works long hours, returns to his family on his off shifts, and if he spends time skulking with Handmen and Keremaths it’s when she’s not looking. She doesn’t feel comfortable peering in at him this way, and is wary of the consequences should she be discovered.

  This is Sorya’s sort of work, anyway.

  Rohder arrives in Caraqui, and there is a party to welcome him, but afterward Aiah sees him only rarely, at weekly meetings in which he reports to her and Constantine. He spends his time closeted with engineers and plasm theorists from the university.

  Eventually Aiah and her entire division hit the wall. Everyone is exhausted, arrests fall off, mistakes are made that result in the wrong doors being bashed in, the wrong people arrested, military police wandering down the wrong corridors, the wrong canals. Aiah prevails upon Constantine to declare a ten-day amnesty in which people are encouraged to report to the government any stolen plasm they may possess without fear of retaliation, and during which she and her department can catch up on their sleep.

  Unlike the first amnesty, this one produces results. Aiah has the impression that people are relieved to give their stolen plasm back. “Apparently the guilty knowledge of all that plasm has been weighing heavily upon the thieves’ consciences,” Constantine remarks. Then a devil’s smile dances along his lips, and he adds: “That or the weekly lists of the defunct.”

  It is the fifth day of the amnesty, and Aiah is beginning to regain an interest in things other than surveillance, arrests, and stolen moments with Constantine. Early second shift she’d actually phoned her mother—voluntarily!—and spent an hour talking with her.

  “There’s some dirty hermit saying things about you,” her mother reports.

  “I’m not interested,” Aiah says. “I want to talk about Henley.”

  Henley is Aiah’s sister, and Aiah has a plan for her. Ten years ago Henley had been crippled by an Operation street lieutenant who had broken her hands—just for the fun of it—and afterward arthritis set in, and Henley’s budding career as a graphic artist had come to an end.

  “I want to buy her some plasm treatments,” Aiah says. “Straighten the bones, erase the arthritis. I can afford it now.�
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  Arrangements are discussed, and Aiah hangs up with an unusual feeling of righteousness. Then the com unit chimes, with Constantine calling to invite her to a picnic of sorts.

  “Rohder has finished his calculations and has called in some engineers, and is going to be shifting some buildings about. Would you like to attend? Food and drink will be available on my launch should you desire refreshment.”

  Refreshment, Aiah suspects, means choice wines and ten or twelve courses: that is Constantine’s style.

  The day is blustery, with deep gray clouds scudding low and threatening possible rain, so Aiah wears a blue wool suit with red piping, a red scarf to add extra color, and boots with modest heels, and clips her hair back so it won’t blow in the wind. She takes a hooded windbreaker along in case it rains, and shieldglasses in the event the clouds clear.

  Constantine meets her at the water gate and smiles as he hands her into his boat. He is dressed casually, cords and a leather jacket—much more the rogue than the minister, and the more attractive for it.

  “You look lovely, Miss Aiah. Would you care for a glass?”

  The wine bottle is already uncorked and waits in a silver bucket. Constantine pours her a glass, hands it to her with a flourish, and then takes the helm of the launch himself. The turbines purr under his command as the black composite prow rises and cuts the water. His big hands handle the wheel with a fine delicacy, fingertips transmitting the boat’s vibration up his arms. He handles the boat with supreme skill: the liquid in Aiah’s wineglass trembles only slightly as he accelerates onto the Khola Canal and cuts a neat path through the traffic.

  Martinus the bodyguard is on board, his black, bone-plated face expressionless as he looks out for any possible attackers. Two other guards also keep a silent watch, and a guard boat follows, with a half-dozen others on board. Telepresent mages are probably on hand as well.

  Aiah looks at the guards and considers how one is never allowed to forget power, either its reality or its consequences.