City on Fire (Metropolitan 2)

by Walter Jon Williams

  She hasn’t eaten since yesterday’s sandwiches.

  She stands, stretches, wonders where in this giant place she can get something to eat. Aiah walks through her empty receptionist’s office into the hallway, and her nerves give a little jump as she sees Constantine bearing down on her at his usual earth-devouring pace— elemental energy, balanced and directed and walking on two long legs.

  His black velvet suit, trimmed with lace, makes him look like a pirate at a bankers’ convention. He carries a black leather briefcase with a combination lock.

  A smile breaks across his face. “Miss Aiah,” he says. "Are you comfortable in your new quarters?”

  Aiah’s answering smile freezes to her face. “As soon as they scrape the former occupant off the walls, yes.”

  Constantine looks surprised.

  “My apologies. No doubt a mistake was made in all the confusion.”

  “No doubt.” Aiah’s tone is meant to indicate that there is a story here if Constantine wants to hear it.

  There is an awkward pause. Apparently it is not the time for stories.

  “Are you engaged?” he asks finally.

  Aiah suppresses a bitter laugh. “Not until I have a budget and personnel, no.”

  Tigerish pleasure glows in his eyes. “I am now in a position to give you both. I have just come from a meeting of the cabinet, and your department is approved. You will be pleased to know you are the Director of the Plasm Enforcement Division. Gentri, the Minister of Public Security, objected loudly to your endowment, because you’re in competition with the plasm squads of the police, and therefore in a position to make him look bad— but the rest understand the necessity.” He bows, absurdly formal, and holds out the briefcase. “Your commission, madame. And some documents for your files. The lock combination is on a plastic flimsy inside. Read, memorize, destroy.”

  “Sounds serious.” She takes the briefcase and finds it heavy.

  “Names, biographies, public information, informers’ reports pulled out of the Specials’ files by Sorya. The Plasm Enforcement Division’s first cases.”

  Aiah’s nerves tingle as she feels the weight of the briefcase on the end of her arm. My commission, she thinks. I have just joined an army, and these are my marching orders.

  “Do you have time for a meeting?” Constantine asks.

  “I seem to have little else on my schedule.” Except a meal, her stomach reminds her.

  Constantine cocks his head and looks at her, intent eyes narrowing. “You lack your usual energy, Miss Aiah. Have you eaten? Shall we have our meeting in the dining suite?”

  Aiah rocks back on her heels with relief. “Yes. Absolutely.”

  “You skip too many meals.”

  “If I knew where to get a meal around here, that might change.”

  A smile dances across his face, and he makes another elaborate stage bow. “I shall direct you. If you would follow me?”

  Aiah returns the courtesy. “I would be pleased to do so.”

  “This way, then. The Kestrel Room has a lovely view, and a private room where we may talk.”

  CENSORS SENT HOME

  CENSORSHIP OF NEWS ENDS IN CARAQUI

  210 MILLION DINARS SAVED BY GOVERNMENT ACTION

  Toying with a salad and sipping at a glass of wine, Constantine watches with amusement as Aiah eats. The Keremaths’ kitchen staff are undergoing a screening— no one wants some legitimist partisan poisoning half the new government in one swoop— so the cooking is being done by military personnel, Constantine’s mercenaries. What the food lacks in subtlety and flavor is made up for in quantity, and the vat shrimp with vegetables served on noodles is more than acceptable.

  The Kestrel Room—rooms, in truth— is another example of Keremath extravagance. Wood is everywhere— parquetry floors, parquetry walls, carved, beamed ceilings. And the huge outcurving windows of transparent plastic offer a spectacular view of the city.

  “I have obtained for you a personal plasm allowance,” Constantine says.

  Aiah looks up sharply from her plate, suddenly greedy for more than food.

  “How much?” she asks.

  Amusement kindles in Constantine’s eyes. “A quarter of a kilomehr.”

  Aiah is impressed. “Per year? That’s good.”

  “Per month. Commencing immediately.”

  She stares at him. His smile broadens, turns a little predatory, sharp teeth flashing. “Being a part of the power structure has its benefits, does it not?”

  “I am beginning to see that it does.” She gives the matter some thought. “Is the cabinet so obliging to every department head?”

  “Our job, yours and mine, is the management of plasm. Other departments will not require these allocations.” Constantine shrugs his big shoulders back into his chair and gives a catlike smile. “Oh, it was a splendid meeting, on the whole. Drumbeth backed all my proposals, including your department, and Drumbeth has the loyalty of the army, so the others in the triumvirate have to tread warily when he makes his wishes known.” He toys with his fork, twirling it on the linen tablecloth. “There were some conditions. Allies that want their rewards.”

  “Who, in this case?”

  “Adaveth. You remember him?”

  Distaste tingles its way along Aiah’s nerves. “The twisted man.”

  “The Minister of Waterways,” Constantine says. “He will appoint your second-in-command, though I will have a veto if the individual is entirely inappropriate.”

  Ten percent of humanity, Aiah knew, had twisted genes. Most genetic alterations were for small things, hardly noticeable—boosted immune systems or outright immunity to certain diseases, cosmetic changes, genetic tweaks relating to the strength of the body or the power of the intellect. But Adaveth and his kindred were different: small, hairless, goggle-eyed. Probably intended to be semiaquatic. It gave Aiah the shivers just being around anyone that inhuman.

  “Will he be twisted?” she asks.

  Constantine gives her a sharp glance. “I would not be surprised. That is Adaveth’s constituency.” He pauses, toying again with his fork. “Many of the twisted here were created, by the old Avian oligarchy, for certain tasks. Positions in the civil service are traditionally reserved for them, and many of these have to do with servicing and maintaining plasm connections. Possibly because the workers are twisted, the jobs are low-status, low-pay. But I think they know more about how Caraqui is wired together than anyone, and if Adaveth chooses well your assistant should be invaluable.”

  “I understand the rationale,” Aiah says. But, she thinks, she reserves the right not to like it.

  “I desire to make use of every opportunity,” Constantine says. “Every untapped resource, every talent, all the ability that has been wasted or suppressed.” His intent eyes burn Aiah’s nerves. “That is why I make use of you, Miss Aiah. Your gifts were unappreciated in your previous life.”

  Aiah holds his glance by an act of will. “I would like to think so, Metropolitan.”

  Constantine smiles, his gaze shifting to the window. “You should learn to call me Minister. I haven’t been a Metropolitan in a very long time.”

  “I’ll try to remember.”

  “It’s an overrated title.” He scowls, and suddenly his chair is too small to contain him— he rises and paces the room. “When I was Metropolitan of Cheloki I felt little better than a slave,” he says. “Flung this way and that by circumstance, forced to respond to every shift in the situation. All responsibility was mine, but there was precious little I could do to alter anything— even to aid my own cause.”

  Aiah puts down her fork. “My impression,” she says, “is that you were magnificent.”

  He makes a growling sound deep in his throat. “Well.” Dismissively. “I’m a good actor. I played a Metropolitan well, and that’s what people saw. But it was far different from what I’d expected when I first set my mind on power.”

  He marches back and forth across the room and flings out phrases with tossing
motions of his arms. Passion burns behind his eyes, a world-eating force that Aiah can feel in the tingle of her nerves, the prickle of her nape hair.

  We are not small people. Sorya had told her that once, and she was right.

  “I knew precisely what I wished to do with Cheloki,” Constantine says. “I knew that my ideas would prove correct. I thought that once I achieved position I could snap my fingers and cause miracles to happen, that I could change everything ... But no, that did not happen.”

  She sees frustration in his glance, thwarted rage. His shoulders have slumped, drawn inward, less in defeat than as if he were sheltering from an attack.

  “You had a civil war to cope with,” she says.

  “If I’d been wise enough,” bitterly, “there would have been no civil war. If I’d managed it all a bit better . . .” Constantine’s big hands throw the notion behind him as he makes a contemptuous growl. “If, if . . . The truth is, I was helpless. Every reform in Cheloki was perceived as a threat by our neighbors. But...” He looks through the outcurved window, hands propped on his hips, and scowls at the world. “In Caraqui we are safer, I think. I can manage things better now, and all the knowledge cost me was the destruction of the Metropolis of Cheloki, the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and the knowledge that all the responsibility was mine...”

  Aiah pushes away her cooling noodles, stands, approaches Constantine from behind. She puts her arms around him, presses her cheek to his shoulder. “It wasn’t all your fault,” she says. “You had to fight gangsters and your own family and Cheloki’s neighbors. Even so you did well. You lasted for years against all of them, and you inspired millions.” Her tone softens. “You inspired me.”

  “You weren’t there,” he grudges, but his tone is softer.

  Constantine’s warmth steals into her frame. She can feel his anger soften.

  “Much better to be a mere government minister,” he says. “I will be responsible only for my own department, and even if I have my way in larger issues, success or failure will be up to someone else.”

  For all that he finds this thought comforting, Aiah cannot quite believe that Constantine will find himself this detached when anything important is at stake.

  “Everything must be in place as soon as possible,” Constantine says. His voice is low, thoughtful, and perhaps he is talking as much to himself as to Aiah. “We have a new government, and many more actions are possible under martial law than otherwise . . . but they must be the right actions, not abuses or pointless pursuit of revenge, and martial law must soon enough be lifted, and by then, we must all be ready.”

  He turns, puts his arms around her waist, and looks at her levelly. “You must have your department prepared by then. I can guarantee you independence as long as I am minister; but no appointment lasts forever, and after I’m gone— well, you must be in place, with an independent, efficient, and incorruptible force. Once you have that, once you have proved your worth, they will have a much harder time dislodging you.”

  Aiah’s head swims. “I understand.”

  “Do you need anything right now? Anything at all?”

  “I need to see as much of the apparatus as possible. Control stations, broadcast antennae, receivers, connections, capacitors.”

  “I will arrange to give you a tour.”

  “Of course.”

  He kisses her— a moment’s softness brushing her lips— and then Constantine is already in motion, his body moving toward the door, mind focused on another item of his agenda. He reaches the door and turns.

  “I will send you an engineer, Miss Aiah. Within the hour.” He reaches for the door, then hesitates and breaks into a smile. “Apologies for my haste,” he says. “By all means finish your luncheon, and order as many desserts as you like.”

  “Thank you,” Aiah says, his taste still tingling on her lips, and then he is gone.

  She returns to her meal, and wonders how dangerous it is that, after all this, she is still so very hungry.

  TRAM SCANDAL REVEALED!

  KEREMATHS RAKED IN MILLIONS!

  CONTRACTOR HELD FOR QUESTIONING

  Constantine sends a Captain Delruss, who is plainly annoyed at having been drawn away from his other duty. Delruss is stocky and gray-haired, a native of the Timocracy of Garshab, where the military profession is an honored and highly profitable tradition among its fierce mountaineers. He is a military engineer with a specialty in plasm control systems— and probably a mage of sorts— and though he has had only a few days to acquaint himself with the systems of the Aerial Palace, he has learned them well indeed. If Delruss performs his new assignment grudgingly he performs it efficiently enough, and becomes visibly happier when he finds out that Aiah knows her business.

  The tour starts in the heart of the Palace, deep underwater in the largest of the giant barges that support the extravagant structure overhead. This is clearly the center of Caraqui’s power: the concrete pontoon is armored with slabs of steel, segmented into watertight compartments, laced with a defensive bronze web intended to absorb plasm attack.

  There is one compartment after another filled with giant plasm accumulators and capacitors— each four times Aiah’s height, layers of gleaming black ceramic and polished brass and copper that tower into the darkness overhead. Above them are the huge contact arms poised to drop and connect the accumulators to Caraqui’s plasm network, the all-embracing web that can draw all the power of the city into this one place.

  The control room is as vast as everything else, one bank after another of controls, levers, switches, glowing dials. In one corner is an icon to Tangid, the two-faced god of power, with a few candles burning in front of it, and in another corner is another icon to a figure Aiah doesn’t recognize, with no candles at all. Looming overhead, video monitors show unblinking views of the outside of the building, of the entrance areas, of Government Harbor several radii away, and of other points deemed important to Caraqui’s security.

  Mages, some civilian and some not, sit before consoles, eyes closed, bodies swaying as power pours through them. Captain Delruss’s comrades, the uniformed personnel operating the system, seem dwarfed by the enormity of it all.

  “During the fighting all this could have given us a lot of trouble,” Delruss says, “but afterward we discovered there were very few calls for plasm made during the coup.”

  “Why was that?” Aiah asks, gazing up at glowing monitor screens. She can’t imagine anyone forgetting to use the colossal power of this place.

  “There was sabotage of the communications system and of the plasm delivery network,” Delruss says. “But nothing that couldn’t have been overcome by competent people in the control room. What really won the coup for our side was that the enemy leadership was completely decapitated. There was no one left alive with the authority to make big plasm calls.”

  Aiah’s mouth goes dry as she remembers the splashes of red-brown on her bedroom walls. “Do you know how our side managed it?” she asks.

  Delruss has clearly been giving this issue a lot of thought. “Very good intelligence, for one thing. It looked as if we knew where almost every last one of the enemy leaders were, and were able to target them. And there were probably holes in the security screen here that our side had discovered, so mages could slip an attack through. . . .” Delruss frowns, shakes his head. “But what sort of attack was used, miss, I can’t say. There are a large number of possibilities. But it was done very well, however it was done.”

  Aiah remembers a moment of choking terror in a deep underground tunnel, the appearance of a thing that seemed made of purest black and silver, the chill waves of ice that flooded her nerves. . . .

  Ice man. Hanged man. The damned . . . an evil thing, whatever label you chose to give it. Its personal name was Taikoen, for that was its name when it was a man— a hero, Taikoen the Great, the leader who saved Atavir from the Slaver Mages. Now debased, beyond humanity, a creature that Constantine could summon out of the depths of the plasm well, a th
ing deadly to everything that lived. . . .

  The enemy leadership was completely decapitated. Perhaps literally. And Aiah has the feeling she knows how it was done. A large part of it, anyway.

  From the deep underwater plasma fortress, Delruss takes Aiah to the highest point of the Aerial Palace, where the huge bronze transmission horns are set in clusters like the outgrowths of a strange, intricate forest of gleaming metal. The horns are ornamented with ornate baroque swirls and scallops and, at each end, the sculptured figure of a hawk about to take flight. A cold wind buffets Aiah as she gazes out at the city— pontoons, buildings, roof gardens, long gray-green canals packed with ship and barge traffic— an endless procession stretching all the way to the distant volcanoes of the Metropolis of Barchab. Several of the aerial tramcars are visible in the distance, dancing on invisible wires. The volcanoes, Aiah realizes, are the only object in sight that, on account of altitude and danger of eruption, were not inhabited by the swarms of humanity that otherwise covered the globe.

  She looks in the other direction, toward the North Pole only three or four hundred radii away. She sees giant buildings looming up out of the sea, one group twenty or so radii away and another dimly visible in the distance behind a cluster of spires. The Shield glows on their gleaming windows and burnished metal. Jagged transmission horns top almost every building.

  “Lorkhin Island, and Little Lorkhin,” Delruss says. “Extinct volcanoes. They build tall here, when they can find bedrock.” He peers out into the distance. “The whole metropolis is ringed by tall buildings where the sea turns shallow. It’s called the Crown of Caraqui.”

  Here on the Palace roof, some of the transmission horns have been blown from their moorings, and others damaged. Engineers are rigging a big tripod of steel beams to hoist the damaged horns in place while repairs are made.

  “We tried to take these out at the start, miss,” Delruss says. “We used helicopters with special munitions, but we had only limited success. If these transmission horns had been able to broadcast power to where it was needed, we’d have had a much harder time.”