City on Fire m-2

by Walter Jon Williams

  Aiah bites her lip. “I’ve been underwater once or twice,” she says. And hadn’t enjoyed herself.

  “There’s a mask tied down there, a buoyancy harness, and a pair of fins,” Cornelius adds. “If you need to hide, you’ll have air enough for two hours if you don’t go any deeper and don’t expend any air swimming around.”

  “I’ll freeze,” Aiah says.

  “Well”—Cornelius shrugs—“it’s for emergencies only. If things really deteriorate, it’s better to risk hypothermia than to get shot.”

  “Hi, Miss Aiah!” says a cheerful voice. “Do you remember me?”

  Statius gives a little start, and curses under his breath: he hadn’t seen the boy sitting, a shadow in a deeper shadow, on the rusting deck plates.

  Aiah’s own nerves are in little better shape. “Hello, Craftig,” she manages.

  The boy stands, massive frame lurching upward, and Statius mutters something again and takes a step back. “The Sergeant said you were coming back,” Craftig says. “Are you going to be staying long?”

  Aiah considers this. “I’m just here to do some business,” she says. “When it’s over, I’ll go.”

  “If you get bored,” the boy says, “we can play checkers. I’m good at checkers.”

  “I’ll let you know if I have some time,” Aiah says, and then adds, remembering her last visit, “How’s the family?”

  Craftig tells her at length, not caring that she hasn’t met a single one of his kin. A few minutes into the narrative, Aiah hears Statius discreetly clear his throat.

  “Sorry about your uncle,” Aiah says, interrupting the chronology in midflow. “I’d like to stay and chat, but I have an important meeting coming up.”

  “With those Escalier guys?” Craftig says. “See you later, hey? Have a nice time while you’re here.”

  Aiah hears Cornelius sigh. “So much for security.”

  Aiah turns to him. “Better finish this in a hurry, then.”

  The delegation from the Escaliers are due in an hour or so. Aiah changes from the coveralls she’d worn during her tour into a gray wool suit, combs her hair, fluffs her lace. She puts on the priceless ivory necklace she’d received from Constantine, with its dangling Trigram. She wishes the room included a mirror so that she could make certain of the effect, then decides that a mirror would only make her insecure and she was better off without it.

  Instead of a mirror, she’d like a plasm connection. A jolt of artificial confidence is just what she needs right now.

  She steps into Lamarath’s office and reviews her files on Brigadier Holson and Colonel Galagas, the two officers she’ll be speaking with.

  Landro’s Escaliers were formed out of elements of the Fastani army when Barkazi fell. Now, fifty years later, they seem not to be as attached to the Fastani cause as Karlo’s Brigade are to the Holy League; otherwise, looking down the road, there might be trouble between the two. Landro, the original brigadier, was killed in fighting in Morveg thirty years ago, though the brigade retains his name, out of both sentiment and convention.

  Holson, the current commander, was actually born in Barkazi, in the Jabzi Sector, the part of Barkazi first invaded by a neighbor intent on restoring order and civilizing, or recivilizing, the natives. Aiah thinks it is probably significant that, though Holson received a military education in Jabzi, he hadn’t joined its army or those of any of the other occupying powers. He had wanted to serve in a Barkazil force, and that was what he did, traveling thousands of radii to do it.

  Galagas was the fifth generation of his family to follow the military life. Aiah’s dossier was uncertain as to whether his grandfather had fought with the Fastani out of conviction or because it was the Fastani who happened to command most of the Barkazi army at the start of the civil wars.

  But Galagas, also, had not joined any regular army, and had instead stayed with this band of Barkazil mercenaries.

  That, Aiah thought, was important. Holson and Galagas, both talented officers, preferred serving with ethnic Barkazil mercenaries than with a regular army that would probably pay better and offer better security. Both were married to ethnic Barkazil women. Being Barkazil was important to them.

  They thought of themselves as Barkazil before they thought of themselves as Jabzil or Garshabis or whatever. And that, Aiah thought, was the key.

  They were willing to follow Aiah the Queen of Barkazi, or at least to think about following her.

  It wasn’t just that they were exploring their options. If they wanted to involve themselves in a bidding war between the factions, they could do it openly, negotiate through their agents in Garshab.

  No, it was treachery they were meditating—the deliberate betrayal of their current employers. The mercenaries supposedly had a professional code that prevented such things. They were betraying not only their employers but their profession.

  They were meeting with her because they wanted to. They were already convinced they wanted to switch sides—otherwise they wouldn’t be here at all.

  What Aiah should strive to do was, in essence, passive—she should not change their minds, but rather allow their preconceptions to model her behavior. She had to be whatever they wanted her to be, whether it was the Sorceress-Queen of Barkazi or the Dreaming Sisters’ Apprentice or a superheroine out of one of Aldemar’s films.

  “I don’t suppose I will be allowed to remain,” says a voice in Aiah’s ear. She jumps, puts a hand to her heart.

  “Sorry I startled you,” apologizes Dr. Romus in his eerie, reedlike voice. His wizened brown face looks more amused than apologetic.

  “I forgot you were here.”

  “Yes,” more amusement, “that happens more often than you’d think. I thought I should remind you I was here before your guests arrive.”

  “Thank you.” Aiah tries to calm her flailing heart. “I suppose you shouldn’t stay. Thank you for understanding.”

  Dr. Romus uncoils his forebody—thick as Constantine’s leg—and drops a loop to the floor, followed by the rest of him. He keeps his head raised, at Aiah’s level, as he progresses toward the hatch. His feathery tentacles are busy around the lock for a moment, and then, smiling, he opens the door and makes his way out.

  “Bye now,” Romus says. “See you later.”

  Aiah tries to focus on the dossier, but her concentration fails. In a few minutes, Cornelius comes in to tell her the delegates’ boat has been sighted—two green and one white light, as agreed. “Do you want to wait here?” he asks.

  Aiah shakes her head. “I should meet them.” She closes the dossier, opens a drawer of Lamarath’s desk, sees a pair of large cockroaches scuttle from the light… She closes the door and decides she may as well leave the dossier on the desk.

  Outside, in the red glow of the strands of lights, Aiah waits on the rusting deck plates. There is a creak from the cables that support the swinging bridge that leads from the mooring. Aiah strains into the darkness, sees several shadows crossing the bridge, the first preceded by a tiny cherry-red glow. This proves to be a cigar clenched in the teeth of Sergeant Lamarath, who guides two men in uniform: Holson and Galagas.

  Aiah waits for the group to get off the bridge, then steps forward and holds out her hand. If they have come this far, taken this risk, she will at least walk across the deck to greet them.

  “General Holson. Colonel Galagas. Thank you for agreeing to meet me.”

  Holson is a big, broad man with a powerful neck and shoulders; his hair is cropped so severely that the rugged contours of his skull, reflecting red light, are plainly visible. His hand is large, his palm dry; as he clasps Aiah’s hand he looks at her with intent, unwinking eyes.

  Galagas is smaller, with a mustache. He is formally correct: he tucks his cap under one arm and bows slightly over Aiah’s hand as he takes it. Somehow he avoids clicking his heels.

  Formality covering nervousness? Aiah wonders. Perhaps he doesn’t even want to be here.

  “Would you follow me, gentlemen?”
Aiah says. “I’ll take us to a place where we can talk.”

  Holson nods. Aiah turns to Lamarath. “Thank you, Sergeant,” she says. Lamarath grins and waves his cigar.

  “No problem, miss.”

  Holson gazes uneasily over the floating half-world as he follows Aiah toward the hatch. “How many people live in these places?”

  “Millions, if you count them all.”

  Holson looks unhappy. “And here they are, in our security zone. I had no idea these places existed. These people are a danger.”

  Aiah pauses, one hand on the open hatch, and looks at Holson. She doesn’t want to inadvertently cause some kind of horrid persecution of those who live in the half-worlds.

  “These people are a danger only if you destroy their homes,” Aiah says. “Then they will be in your security zone, and you won’t want them there.”

  She lets Holson chew that over for a few seconds, then enters the hatch and leads the delegates to Lamarath’s office. She offers them drinks, coffee flask, and snacks from a table made ready for them.

  Galagas pours coffee for his superior. “Sorry I don’t have any Barkazi Black,” Aiah says. “I have a cousin who works at the factory, but his last shipment was delayed by the war.”

  This is not true—the cousin exists; the shipment does not—but Aiah wants through this genial lie to establish some kind of connection here, invoke the tribal longings of her audience…

  Galagas hands coffee to Holson. “What’s his name?” he asks.

  “Endreio. Endreio the Younger, actually.”

  Galagas pours coffee for himself. “I have a cousin there myself. Franko. And my grandfather was a director there, before the war.”

  The factory was a strong point for the Fastani during the fighting, Aiah knows. The Battle of the Coffee Factory was one of the early bloodbaths.

  Galagas sips his drink. “My grandfather said the coffee never tasted the same after they rebuilt the factory.”

  “My grandmother says the same thing.” Which, it happens, is true.

  Holson looks at her and runs a hand over his cropped head. “Is all your family from Old Oelph?” This being the district with the coffee factory, now part of the Metropolis of Garkhaz.

  “My maternal line is Oelphil. My father’s might be, it’s hard to say…” She looks at Holson. “Your name was originally Old Oelphil, ne? There was Holson the Praefect back in Karlo’s time…”

  “He is supposed to be an ancestor.” Holson looks a little skeptical as he says this, probably so that Aiah won’t think he’s boasting by claiming descent from one of the Old Oelphil families, those who, according to the legend, had agreed to be reincarnated over and over again as protectors of the Barkazil people.

  Of course, the records from the time of Senko and Karlo have not survived, and anyone can claim descent from anyone else.

  “Would you like to sit down?” Aiah invites.

  She sits behind Lamarath’s desk. Squares her shoulders, folds her hands on top of the desk.

  Holson and Galagas sit. Galagas sits bolt upright, plainly uncomfortable, but Holson’s bold gaze challenges Aiah.

  “And you look different than on video,” he says.

  “The light here,” she says, gesturing at the fluorescents, “is less flattering.”

  “You’re younger than I expected.”

  Aiah allows herself what she hopes is an enigmatic smile. “I’ve come a long way,” she says.

  “And where do you plan to go?”

  “Farther. Barkazi, if things work out.”

  Skepticism narrows Holson’s eyes. “And what will you do in Barkazi?”

  He is pushing, she thinks. She suspects he will not respect her unless she pushes back.

  “What I do,” she says, “depends on what kind of support I can acquire in the meantime. Right now there are only two Barkazil military units in the world, and they are fighting on opposite sides of a war that has nothing to do with Barkazi. I like to solve my problems one at a time, and that’s the problem I’d like to start with.”

  “You want Barkazil military units?” Holson says. “For what? Any attempt to liberate Barkazi with two brigades is naive.”

  Aiah looks at Holson and hopes the surprise she feels shows on her face. “Did I say I wanted to invade Barkazi? I’m not interested in bloodbaths. But see, now…”

  She leans forward, narrowing the distance between them. “If we can join forces,” she says, “then my government will be very grateful, both to me and you. Their gratitude has already extended to settling Barkazil refugees here, to establishing a Barkazil community. And if we wished to try to alter the situation in Barkazi, the government here would help us. Whereas…” Aiah looks at Holson for a moment, and then at Galagas. “Well, you know your employers best. What sort of gratitude would you expect from them? You’d be lucky if you got a bonus on your way back to the Timocracy.”

  Galagas nibbles at his mustache with white lower incisors. “If we switch sides in the middle of a campaign,” he says, “we can’t go back to the Timocracy. We have all sworn to obey the Timocratic Code. They wouldn’t have a unit that didn’t meet with their commitments.”

  Holson’s big forefinger jabs at Aiah. “Your government had better be damned grateful, is what we’re saying,” he says. “Because if we join you, we’re going to have to stay in Caraqui permanently, and bring our families here.”

  Aiah looks at Holson’s forefinger just long enough to make it clear she’s not intimidated by the gesture, and then she leans back in her chair.

  “I am confident my government’s gratitude will extend that far,” Aiah says.

  “You’re certain of this?”

  A doubt raises its hand, like an uncertain student in a classroom. Aiah ignores it. “I can confirm it very quickly if you wish.”

  “A bonus on signing?”

  “I am authorized to offer three thousand dinars per soldier, five thousand for each field grade officer, and for senior officers,” nodding at the two present, “ten thousand.”

  This is actually half of what she’s been authorized, but there’s no reason to tip her hand at this point.

  “Standard rates of pay afterward?”

  “Whatever you’re earning now.”

  “Moving bonuses for our families?”

  She hesitates. “Yes. I can get that. Say a thousand dinars per person?” She can take it out of the savings on the signing bonuses.

  “How long a contract?”

  “A year, extendable by mutual agreement.”

  There is a pause. The two men look at each other. Galagas gives a little shake of his head. Holson turns back to Aiah, a frown on his face.

  “We’re giving up our livelihoods,” Holson says, “and only for a year’s employment? We want more.”

  “Five years guaranteed,” Galagas says.

  “Five years, extendable. Or maybe…” Holson frowns at the floor for a moment. “Maybe commissions in the Caraqui army. It’s not entirely out of line—you’ve got a lot of mercenaries even in your regular army now, because native officers are so inexperienced.”

  “With a guarantee,” Galagas adds, “that our soldiers will be able to continue serving with one another for five years. We stay together as a unit, not to be broken up, for five years.”

  Aiah thinks for a moment, but she daren’t hesitate for too long. There’s momentum building here, and she doesn’t want to slow it down.

  “I can get you the five-year guarantee,” she says, and hopes it’s true. “For the regular army commissions I’d have to speak to the War Minister, but I think they’d be happy to have officers of your experience on board.”

  Might as well ladle on some flattery while she can.

  “And then?” Holson asks.

  Aiah smiles at him. “Sorry, General?”

  “Barkazi. What about Barkazi?”

  Aiah hesitates. “If this works, we’ll be united. We’ll have a power base in Caraqui, a government that will support
us.” She forces a smile. “The rest depends on how cunning the Cunning People actually are, don’t you think? Whatever excuse the occupying forces had for annexing the Barkazi Sectors, the reason is long gone. If we stand united, here and there, surely there isn’t anything we can’t accomplish.”

  Holson sits stone-faced, and Galagas gnaws his mustache again, but Aiah senses that she has somehow won. She’s said the right thing; she’s raised some strange, unreal hope in them.

  And oddly enough, she feels hope glowing within herself. Before this situation, she’d never given thought to Barkazi—she’d never been there, and her family’s stories, all of horror and war, never gave her the slightest inclination to visit. But now she finds herself wondering if Barkazi would feel different beneath her feet than any other metropolis, if she would, on arrival, somehow sense that Barkazi was home.

  She could hardly feel more displaced than she does now, sitting behind the desk of a minor, aquatic gangster, in a dark, foul-smelling watery cavern inhabited by twisted people with altered genes, negotiating with potential turncoats on behalf of a government that is not, when all is said and done, her own…

  “Those recruiting bonuses,” Galagas says, crossing one knee over the other, “they seem a bit low to me. Considering what we’d be expected to do.”

  Inwardly, Aiah smiles. Love of negotiation must be planted somewhere in Barkazil genetics.

  “I think they’re fair,” she says, “though I suppose there’s a little room for negotiation.”

  NEW CITY NOW!

  Constantine’s presence tingles around her. Aiah bathes in it for a moment, fantasizes that she can taste him on her tongue… She raises a hand to touch the ivory necklace he’d given her, a tactile remembrance.

  —I think it went well, she sends.

  —Any problems?

  —They want the sun and the moon, but I have made them settle only for the moon.

  She senses Constantine’s amusement. After she had agreed with Galagas and Holson to meet again tomorrow, and seen them back across the bridge to their boat, she had called the number in Gunalaht and told them that she would be available for contact every hour, on the hour.