Metropolitan

by Walter Jon Williams

  “When is that gentleman of yours coming back?” the doorman asks.

  Aiah shrugs and calls an answer over her shoulder.

  “Who knows?”

  *

  Aiah takes a cab to Terminal. At the start of the weekend the streets are fairly full, with long lines outside the fashionable clubs and Shieldlight glittering bright on beads and jewelry. In the poorer areas like Terminal, whole blocks are barricaded off for street dances, with local bands playing atop flatbed trucks and vendors selling food, intoxicants and aphrodisiacs from shops set up in the outdoor scaffolding.

  Aiah tells the driver to take her past the building that holds Kremag and Associates, but the street is blocked off — not with a block party, she sees, but by police. Flashing lights throb against the walls of the buildings, and there’s a touch of pepper gas in the air that makes Aiah’s eyes smart. A line of complaining people, bystanders apparently, lie on the sidewalk with wet towels over their eyes, supervised by indifferent ambulance personnel.

  The police would never have used gas so freely in a rich neighborhood.

  Still, Aiah is pleased to be able to give Constantine good news. She tells the cab to head for the Landmark, and as it turns away from the barriers, and rolls past the huge bulk of the housing project, Aiah sees Khoriak’s blond head gleaming from a shop doorway.

  Her news won’t be news after all, Aiah thinks.

  Security is already in place at the Landmark, along with a meal of cold noodles, pate, fruit and a fine amber wine. She eats, bathes, banishes weariness with a dose of plasm, and finds a gift from Constantine on the bed: a negligee of golden silk, a matching robe, bottles of Cedralla perfume and body oil. Aiah adds the ivory necklace that Constantine gave her, the carved white Trigram hanging low between her breasts. For a luxurious moment, as Aiah anoints herself, the fantasy of the kept woman floats through her mind again, the limousine, the shopping binges, the pug dog . . .

  Pretty silly, she considers. She can’t see Constantine long keeping company with a woman so utterly useless.

  Constantine arrives, face and form concealed in a hooded sweatshirt that makes him look like a retired prizefighter. “I believe I’ve decoyed the reporters,” he says cheerfully. “A last-minute switch of aerocars, and Martinus dressed in my hat and coat with a little plasm-glamor on his face. He should have led them all back to Mage Towers.”

  Aiah congratulates him. He pulls the sweatshirt off over his head and tosses it on a chair. “Did you like the chromo-play?” he asks.

  “It was magnificent.”

  Constantine seems pleased with himself. “They will wonder, won’t they, if the chromo was made to promote the coup, or the other way around.”

  “So which was it?”

  He shrugs, “It was intended, quite frankly, as a showcase for my ideas. The Caraqui adventure came along quite by accident, and so did you, and these and the chromo jig-sawed together quite nicely.” His rumbling laugh rings out. “Millions more people will have seen the chromo than will ever have heard of the Cheloki wars. For a generation at least, historians will have to spend thousands of hours pointing out just where the chromo was different from history — and no one will really care. That magnificent creation of Sandvak and Kherzaki will be the me that people remember.” A mischievous smile crosses his face. “I’ll have to remember to live up to it, if I can.”

  Aiah considers this while Constantine pours himself a glass of wine. “You . . . arranged this chromo somehow? My impression from all I’ve heard was that it was all Sandvak’s idea.”

  “I’m sure that’s what Sandvak believes. Sandvak believes intently and passionately and sincerely about any idea that takes his fancy, at least till another idea seizes possession of him. He was perfect for the project: he possesses great talent, but has no real convictions save those he borrows, momentarily, for the purposes of his art. I chose him, though he doesn’t know it — I even partly financed the chromoplay — and it looks as if I’ll make my investment back a hundredfold.”

  Aiah is a bit dizzied by all this. Constantine laughs, and with one of his sudden movements sweeps Aiah up — the breath goes out of her in a surprised, delighted whoop. He carries her to the bed cradled against his broad chest. “So much for passive entertainments,” he says. “On to better things.”

  *

  Aiah has observed that, the more effective the lingerie, the less likely it is to remain on the body. This occasion is no exception.

  Constantine is buoyant and playful, for once without the overpowering intensity he’s displayed in the past. He seems utterly without care, more inclined to make jokes than sage comments on the world and its workings. It’s as if a weight has been lifted from his heart.

  “Are you so delighted with the chromo?” Aiah asks. “Or did something else happen to make you so carefree?”

  A warm laugh rumbles deep in his chest. They lie next to each other in bed, propped up on elbows.

  “I am lighthearted in part,” he says, “because the chromoplay was a masterpiece. But also because the business of Caraqui is now in train, and there is nothing I can do to alter it at this stage. The orders have been given, and it’s all in the hands of the gods. I may have a few hours of peace and pleasure before my part begins.”

  A trickle of alarm shivers up Aiah’s spine. She straightens, looks at Constantine in concern. “When?” she asks.

  “The soldiers will roll out of the barracks early Sunday, and should be in place by 05:00. That part is tricky — they all have to start at different times, so as to take their stations at the same moment. The actual attack will commence right at 05:00 whether everyone’s in place or not.” An expression of concern crosses his face as he looks at Aiah. “By this time tomorrow I will be in Barchab making final arrangements. Whatever the success of the strike, I daren’t return ever to Jaspeer — not once our secret of Terminal is connected with events in Caraqui.”

  A hopeless protest dies on Aiah’s lips. Constantine looks at her soberly, a touch of sadness in his voice. “This is our last time together, Miss Aiah. I hope you will leave this place with no regrets.”

  A knife of pure sadness slices into Aiah’s throat, stilling her voice. Unexpected tears sting her eyes. “I had hoped,” she manages finally, “to have more time.”

  “If the strike works out well,” he says, “and you come to Caraqui, then we may have time to spare.”

  Aiah throws herself back on the blue satin sheets. “But very possibly no time at all. You make no promises.”

  “I can’t. My promises are to — well, if it is not too immodest to say so, to the world.” He tilts his head and looks at her, and places one big hand gently over hers. “You have a full life. You have your young man — who seems a decent sort — and financial security, and a special assignment for the Authority —” there is an amused glint in his eye “rooting out wicked folk like myself.

  “More importantly,” he adds, “you know how to fly.” He kisses her cheek.

  Aiah wants only to cry. She throws both arms around his neck, buries her face in the juncture of throat and jaw.

  She hadn’t, she thinks with fierce astonishment, known she cared this much.

  Gently he strokes her back. If he is surprised by the tempest, it doesn’t show in his voice. “I’m sorry for this suddenness,” he says, “but you knew, at best, we had only days in any case.”

  “Of course I knew,” she says, voice muffled by his clavicle while she inwardly curses her foolishness. This is not a time to go to pieces. Not when a perfect chonah has come to its conclusion, the cash dropped safely and untraceably in a foreign bank, and all is well. Any other Barkazil would be dancing with joy.

  Aiah leans back, dabs at her eyes with the back of her wrist. “I’m being stupid,” she says. “As you say, it’s nothing I didn’t know.

  “I’m sorry for the upset.”

  “It’s passed. I — it was the surprise, I think.”

  He tilts his head again, considering
her from a new perspective. “You have a grand future, you know. You have intelligence, and a great natural talent, and a fine ingenuity. You have the funds now to get a formal degree, if that’s what you want, or to set up a business of your own.”

  “And how do I explain where the cash comes from?”

  Constantine shrugs. “A trust set up by a rich grandfather. A scholarship fund in Barkazi. It’s unlikely that anyone will even ask — and if you think someone might, you can always apply to a university in another metropolis.”

  That would mean leaving Gil behind, she thinks.

  But then, perhaps she already has.

  “It takes a while to get used to this kind of life,” she says. “Having so many things to hide.”

  Constantine smiles. “Shall I tell you the secret, then? Of how to survive when you have so much to hide?”

  “If you will.”

  He leans close, whispers in her ear. “Tell no one.” He leans back and smiles. “It’s very simple.”

  “Yes.”

  “Crimes are solved when people inform. You’ve said that yourself.”

  Aiah smiles, nods. Constantine appears to think she’s not taking him seriously, and continues, a little intense.

  “You tell your lover or your best friend. And then you have a fight, and they inform. Or they tell someone else, and that person has no loyalty to you, and is having tax problems or some other difficulty, and thinks cooperation may help, and so informs. The worst thing is to trust anyone in the criminal classes, as they inform as a matter of course. And therefore the secret, in brief...” He leans close to her ear again, warm breath touching her flesh. “Tell no one.”

  Since he’s there, Aiah takes the opportunity to kiss him. “I haven’t,” she says. “I won’t.” And adds, for his benefit, “I’m a Barkazil, you know.”

  “And, when confronted, admit nothing,” Constantine says. “Make them prove every point. Give them as little as possible, because the longer a story you give them, the more rope they have to trip you up and hang you.”

  “I absorbed all this with my mother’s milk,” Aiah says. “But thank you for the advice.”

  He gives her a half-amused, narrow-eyed look. “When it began to look as if it would matter,” he says, “I inquired into the relationship between Barkazils and Jaspeeris. Jaspeeris, I discovered, are inclined to the belief that Barkazils are a treacherous, conspiratorial, thieving lot.”

  “We’re only taking what already belongs to us.”

  Constantine looks skeptical.

  “It’s true. My grandma says so.” Aiah offers an assured smile. “Let me tell you a grandma story. Do you know about Karlo?”

  “Karlo’s Day is the big Barkazil festival, yes?”

  “He’s our immortal. We always take Karlo’s Day off work, and the longnoses are annoyed. But for the story of Karlo, we have to go all the way back, before the Malakas raised the Shield, and there was a Sun and Moon, to when Senko had invented weapons of iron and steel in the war against the Lord of the Trees.”

  “That far back, hey,” Constantine murmurs. His eyes half-close as he prepares to be bored.

  “The Barkazils says that it was Karlo who showed Senko the iron deposits, and also that he was Senko’s cleverest general, leading the Barkazil people in battle. There are all sorts of stories about him outsmarting the enemy. Now, I’ve heard Senkoists say that Karlo was an avatar of Senko, but that doesn’t make sense, because how can Senko have two avatars at once, even if he was an immortal?”

  “Good point. Theologically sound.”

  “Anyway, after Senko defeated the Trees and commanded them to stay in one place, he began preparing his war against the Malakas. Karlo didn’t think a war against the Ascended Ones was a very bright idea, so he approached the Malakas and offered to help them if they would permit the Barkazils to Ascend.”

  “Karlo informed on his friend, you mean.”

  Aiah slaps him lightly on the biceps. “Hush! We’re getting to the important part. The Malakas offered Karlo the Ascendancy, along with his family, but they refused to allow his people to accompany him, so he declined their offer and gave his armies to Senko instead. But it was too late, and the Ascended Ones destroyed Senko before Karlo could aid him. Still, the Malakas were sufficiently impressed with Karlo’s cleverness and his loyalty to the Barkazil people that, when they raised the Shield, they refrained from harming Karlo and gave him regency over the whole world.”

  “Metropolitan of the entire planet?” Constantine considers this. “I’ve not heard this version before.”

  “The other versions are wrong, and my grandma is right,” Aiah says simply. “According to her, Karlo created an age of greatness. When he became Metropolitan, he discovered how to use plasm, but he kept it a secret he shared only with the Barkazils — we’re a special, magical people, as I believe I’ve told you. Other people were jealous, so they conspired to steal the secret.”

  “Most histories name Mala of the Firebird as the person who discovered plasm.”

  “She stole it from Karlo. There’s a complicated story concerning how there were three attempts in all, but I won’t go into it. Anyway, after the secret got out there was a big war, with everybody against the Barkazils, and Karlo was killed and the Barkazils were defeated. Ever since then, the world has been divided up into thousands of independent cities instead of being ruled by the Barkazils as is proper, and anything that Barkazils take by way of compensation is only a way of retrieving our own.”

  A laugh begins rumbling deep in Constantine’s chest, then bursts from his throat to ring from the ceiling. “Brilliant!” he cries. “A license, confirmed in religion, to take whatever you can get your hands on!”

  Aiah looks at him. “I’d look out, if I were you.”

  Delight dances in his brown eyes, and he kisses her. “Dear one, you have already stolen my most perfect admiration.”

  Warmth rises in Aiah’s cheeks. “Thank you,” she says.

  He kisses her again. The kiss lingers. Aiah’s arms coil around him. “If there is anything you want of me,” he says, “take it now, while there’s time.”

  Her flesh prickles at the invitation. She clasps herself to him, feels the imprint of the ivory Trigram pressed between them. One of his large hands encompasses her hip. The kiss ends, and he looks at her smoky-eyed. “I have a notion,” he says, and leaves her arms briefly. When he returns he carries a t-grip in his hand, a wire trailing from his fist to the desk.

  When Constantine touches her again, the touch has the warmth, the warning prickle of plasm. Aiah closes her eyes and lets the plasm flow over her like the wavelets of a warm, shallow sea. Breath eases from her lungs. A thousand plasm tongues lick her nerves and she laughs softly at the sensation.

  The nerve-pleasure brightens, grows in urgency. Aiah bites her lip, gasps for breath. When Constantine enters her, she has to open her eyes to make certain this isn't some supplementary tactile illusion sprung to life between her legs. Constantine’s face is impassive, a little frown at the corners of his mouth, his mind flown elsewhere, in some concentrated part of him that’s reaching out to her with tendrils of plasm. Aiah presses her lips to his chest, tastes him, inhales his scent.

  The plasm flows over her — not a gentle warm lake any longer, but an urgent, turbulent swell, harbinger of a storm. Aiah clutches at Constantine’s triceps, nails digging in for dear life. She is vaguely aware of her body thrashing like a torn awning in a high wind, but the pleasure transcends any mere fact of the body, transcends everything but the pure fire of the plasm itself, a flaming mass of molten metal that sits on her chest and inexorably burns its relentless way to her heart...

  When the plasm ebbs she finds herself lying at an angle, her head lying partly off the bed at one of its lower corners. She has no recollection of how she came to be in this attitude. Constantine is propped up on one elbow near her, the t-grip still in one hand. Of his own pleasures, motions and climax she remembers nothing, though she deduce
s the latter’s existence from its sticky residue.

  “An interesting way to spend four or five thousand dalders, isn’t it?” Constantine observes. “The lives of the rich are full indeed.”

  Aiah reaches for breath and, somewhat to her surprise, finds it. “What. . . ?” she demands, and then begins again. “I have never ...”

  “I thought you should experience it once at least,” Constantine says. He leaps off the bed, coiling the wire around his fist as he prowls toward the desk. His movement is economical, balanced, somehow restless, as if the world depended on every step. The relaxed, joyful Constantine she had seen after the premiere has gone; the plasm, perhaps, has focused him, reminded him of the trial to come.

  Constantine puts the t-grip in a drawer. He pads back to the bed, sits on the edge of the mattress, and bends to kiss her. “That was the fifth of the Nine Levels of Harmonious and Refined Balance,” he says. “I imagine they felt it in the next ward.”

  Aiah looks at him in amazement. “What are the sixth through ninth levels like?” she demands.

  “I don’t know through personal experience.” He frowns. “The others seemed rather lonely. The philosophers who developed these techniques hold that only plasm and bodily fluids are divine, and that actual physical contact is inferior to the orgasm of the mind; and their conclusion therefore was that the finest and most refined sexual acts are performed solo. In the sixth and seventh level there’s someone else in the room, though one isn’t allowed to touch her. In the rest, one is supposed to be alone except, well, with the Godhead or something.”

  Aiah rolls onto her belly, draws fingers through her hair. “They have this sort of thing in — oh — romances and chromos. I never believed it.”

  “There are teachers,” Constantine says offhandedly, “though one should choose them well. There is some small possibility of nerve damage, and therefore a partner with some measure of maturity and training is desirable.”

  She looks up at him. “I could have been injured?”

  “Not with me, you couldn’t.”