City on Fire (Metropolitan 2)

by Walter Jon Williams

  “Perhaps you have a point, Miss Aiah,” he says.

  Aiah plunges ahead. “My boss, the Minister of Resources Constantine, has read your books. Proceedings, I mean. All fourteen volumes. And he thinks they, and you, are brilliant, and wants to meet you.”

  There is another silence, then, “He must be a fast reader.”

  “He would like to arrange a personal meeting to discuss your work. You would be picked up by aerocar, taken to Caraqui, lodged in the Aerial Palace for the duration of your stay, and returned by aerocar. Your fee would come to two thousand Jaspeeri dalders.”

  “That is remarkably attractive.”

  Aiah smiles. “Constantine makes attractive offers to those whose work impresses him. Is there a time when the visit will be most convenient?”

  There is a hint of humor in Rohder’s reply. “Well, I seem to have little occupying my attention at present. Though I suppose it would be best if I came to Caraqui on a weekend, just for appearances. And also for appearances’ sake I will decline the fee, lest someone conclude that I am being paid for ... well, past services rendered, and not a lecture.”

  “Perhaps I could arrange for the aerocar to fetch you this Friday? Service shift, after work hours?”

  Arrangements are made. A glow of triumph warms Aiah’s heart.

  Things are progressing.

  She hangs her headset on the hook, leans back on the pillows she’s propped up on her bed, and considers what to do next. Perhaps she could go down to the operations center and see how the shift’s activities are advancing. Several arrests have been scheduled for midway through sleep shift.

  But no. Ethemark is in charge this shift. Aiah would just be in the way.

  She wonders if there’s anything on video worth watching.

  The truth is, outside of her work and the few hours each week she spends with Constantine, she has no life in Caraqui. What she has seen of the metropolis does not attract her, and though she’s grown familiar with parts of the city through telepresent surveillance work, most of her physical knowledge of Caraqui is confined to the carpeted, paneled labyrinth of the Aerial Palace.

  It occurs to her that she could use a few friends. Perhaps she should try to recruit a few.

  There is an urgent knock on the door, and then the door chime, the soft tone repeating itself over and over again as Aiah’s visitor leans on it.

  There is no reason for anyone to behave this way. If there’s a situation in the department, someone can call. It’s certainly faster than running all the way over from the Owl Wing.

  Aiah puts her eye to the peephole. She doesn’t see anyone. Reflexes honed in her old neighborhood remind her not to open the door.

  “Who’s there?” she calls.

  “Ethemark.”

  Ethemark, too short to be visible through the peephole. Aiah opens the door, sees herself reflected in her deputy’s goggle eyes.

  A cold hand touches Aiah’s neck at the expression on Ethemark’s face.

  “What’s happened?”

  “Great-Uncle Rathmen. He’s gone.”

  “Gone? How?”

  “Teleported out of his cell, apparently. Right out of the secure unit.”

  Cold anger clenches Aiah’s fists. “Somebody’s been paid off.”

  “Very likely. I’ve got a boat waiting at the northwest water gate.”

  So that’s why he’d come in person: Aiah’s apartment was on his way to the northwest gate.

  “Let me get a jacket,” Aiah says.

  TRIUMVIR PARQ ADDRESSES THE FAITHFUL

  “DALAVOS, HIS PROPHECIES, AND YOU”

  THIRD SHIFT ON CHANNEL 17

  The prison dates from the period of the Avians, who liked their official buildings to aspire to a certain magnificence. Shieldlight gleams from its white stone walls and winks off the baroque bronze traceries, functional and ornamental at once, designed to ward off attack. It is as if the building were designed to deny the horrors that went on inside.

  As with the Palace, evidence of the Avians is all over the building, stylized reliefs of wings over every entrance, the wing tips curled outward into the third dimension, as if to embrace the prisoners as they approach. Transmission horns in the shape of hawks or eagles, statues of raptors in niches, and even the bronze collection web is an abstract design of interlocking wings.

  Aiah hasn’t had a reason to be here before. As the boat approaches the prison’s water gate, she looks up at the out-curving wings above her and shivers as the shadow comes between her and the light.

  Inside, the place is strangely hygienic and functional, like a hospital, or a modern abattoir. Unstained bright colors, polished metal, bright fluorescent light. The Keremaths had remained true to the Avians’ spirit and kept their dungeons tidy.

  The special secure wing is deep in the heart of the building and smells of disinfectant and despair. The triumvir Hilthi had paid for his journalistic dedication with a few years here, and so had many others released by the coup. Now the place was filled with Keremath supporters and gangsters.

  Great-Uncle Rathmen had been tried by a military court and condemned to death within a week of his capture. He had been kept alive only because his interrogations were producing valuable information. Because he knew so much, the plasm scanners wanted to be very thorough with him, and the interrogations were many and painstaking. His file in Aiah’s secure room was growing thicker every week, long lists of contacts, payoffs, funds hidden in banks or basements.

  To reach through the secure area, Aiah has to pass through two airlocks, sets of double doors screened with bronze mesh, intended to prevent even the smallest probe of plasm from slipping through. No expense or effort was spared to keep the prisoners out of the reach of any mage who might have wished to liberate them.

  No expense was spared, that is, except on the guards. They are paid poorly, as are all civil servants here, and Aiah finds that Rathmen has almost certainly been paying them commissions. His cell is filled with homey touches: a piece of colored paper taped over the recessed light to moderate the harsh electric bulb, a thick carpet with a Sycar design, Sycar wall hangings, photographs of Rathmen’s family propped on a little table, cigarette butts in an ashtray. Even a box of sweets and a half-eaten pigeon pie.

  Pillows— thick, soft, pleasant-looking pillows— are stuffed under the blanket to give the illusion of a sleeping prisoner.

  Anger steams through Aiah’s veins. She turns to the officer on watch, a big, balding man with a nervous gleam of sweat on his forehead.

  “Have any of the other prisoners been allowed personal items?”

  He shakes his head. “Not to my knowledge.”

  She decides to find out for herself and walks up to several cells at random.

  Just a few glimpses through peepholes show that a great many of them contain nonregulation items: colorful blankets, wall hangings, lamps, videos, even small refrigerators. Many are large enough to contain hidden plasm batteries.

  Aiah turns to Ethemark. “Kelban is off this shift. Call him— I want him to create a plasm hound here and see if he can trace where Rathmen went.”

  Little creases form at the inner edges of Ethemark’s eyes. His expressions are very subtle, but Aiah is slowly learning them. This is his uncertain look.

  “Miss, if Rathmen was teleported out of here, there won’t be a trail for a hound to follow.”

  “If he was teleported. He might have walked out, possibly with a bit of plasm-glamour to disguise him, and in that case I want to know where he went.”

  Understanding crosses Ethemark’s face. “Right away,” he says.

  The watch officer clears his throat. “Beg pardon, miss, but there’s a problem.”

  Aiah glares at him. “Yes?”

  “There are no plasm outlets down here— we don’t want the prisoners ever getting ahold of the goods. So if you want to create a hound here, you’ll have to bring plasm in on a wire, or open enough doors so that a plasm sourceline can be sent into the
area.” He adopts a pained expression. “I wouldn’t recommend that. Not if there’s a teleportation mage who’s already found a way in once.”

  Aiah sees his point. “Mr. Ethemark, did you hear that?” she calls.

  Ethemark turns on his way to the phone. “Yes, Miss Aiah.”

  “Have Kelban bring a long wire.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  Aiah turns back to the officer. “I want a list of everyone who’s been on watch within the last twenty-four hours. And the names of whoever carried out Rathmen’s interrogations.”

  “I—” The officer looks up, and his eyes go wide for a moment. Aiah turns, and there is Sorya walking through the door. She is dressed casually— baggy slacks and a rollneck sweater and scuffed suede boots, with her worn green military greatcoat thrown over her shoulders. On her, this unlikely ensemble looks superb.

  Two bodyguards are with her, Cheloki, big men with black skins and twisted genes, facial features sunk into bony armored plates, knuckles the size of walnuts.

  But Sorya doesn’t need bodyguards to make her dangerous. She carries the glamour of authority with her, and it is evident in every step she takes, in the cold fluorescent gleam of her eyes.

  She walks past Aiah to stand before the officer, hands propped on her hips, the greatcoat flared out behind her like a cloak. “I have put guards on the doors,” she says. “No one will leave till this is resolved. I will need the names of everyone who has been in this area within the last twenty-four hours, because the ones who aren’t here are all about to be got out of bed. I have other people on the way ... specialists.”

  The word specialist seems to make the officer even more nervous.

  “We are under the Ministry of Justice,” the officer ventures. “The ministry may wish to make its own investigation.”

  Aiah and Sorya ignore this. “The gentleman was already getting that information for me,” Aiah says.

  Sorya doesn’t spare Aiah a glance. “That is well,” she says. “You can leave now, Miss Aiah. I’ll assume responsibility for the investigation.”

  Aiah feels her mouth go dry. She stands erect at Sorya’s shoulder and wills the other woman to face her.

  “He was my prisoner,” she says. “My own investigation is far from complete. I would like to—” She stumbles, corrects herself. “I will stay.”

  Sorya turns her head, eyes Aiah for a long moment. Then she gives a shrug inside her greatcoat. “As you like,” she says. She stands close to Aiah, and lowers her voice. “Since you are here, I may as well tell you now: there are two Handmen whom I wish released. They have agreed to serve as informers. Can you contrive to lose the paperwork on them, or free them in some other plausible way?”

  Resentment stiffens Aiah’s spine. “I will ... consider it. If I may share the intelligence.”

  “I will pass it to you.” Her lips turn up in a cold smile. “A personal favor. In exchange for this little kindness to me.”

  The next hours are long indeed.

  GOVERNMENT TO SELL WORLDWIDE NEWS SERVICE

  INTERFACT AND THE WIRE CONSIDERED LIKELY BUYERS

  By work shift the next day Great-Uncle Rathmen has surfaced in Gunalaht— “perched like a vulture over his bank accounts,” as Constantine remarks. Constantine is on his way to a cabinet meeting and Aiah walks along beside him, moving fast to keep up with his long strides.

  “I’ve received Sorya’s report,” he says, “concerning the duty officer who sabotaged the airlock mechanism and propped the doors open to allow a thread of plasm to enter. And the other guards on watch obeyed his orders to keep the doors open, even though they must have known how dangerous it was.”

  “Timing was crucial,” Aiah says. “You can’t leave a plasm sourceline just sitting there in a prison for hours. This must have been prearranged, and in detail.”

  “By Rathmen’s lawyer, we presume, as well as the duty officer.” A wry smile touches Constantine’s lips. “The duty officer cannot be found, and is presumably either at the bottom of the Sea of Caraqui or sitting next to Rathmen atop a new bank account in Gunalaht. And the lawyer, we are told, is ‘unavailable’— a good idea, since under martial law we could confine him to Rathmen’s old cell and search his mind for evidence of guilt.” He gives a sigh. “And no one will believe this was not by prearrangement of the government. No one.”

  Aiah looks at him. “Was it?”

  He stops dead in the corridor, and a thoughtful frown creases his brow.

  “Who?” he wonders. “Who would do such a thing?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. Rathmen’s interrogations were almost complete. We have enough to blackmail him into cooperation fifty times over. Free, he could be of use passing information on to, say, one of our intelligence organizations.”

  She does not want to mention Sorya by name, but she found it odd that Sorya should personally want to control the investigation into what after all was merely a prison breakout.

  Constantine considers this for a moment, calculation visible behind his eyes. “I do not find your theory entirely persuasive,” he says, “but I will explore the possibilities. And I think ...” He pauses for a moment. “Rathmen is condemned to death,” he says finally. His expression turns hard. “Perhaps the sentence should be carried out regardless of his current location. It would do much to correct any erroneous impressions this escape may have created.”

  Aiah thinks about this. “Dangerous,” she says.

  “Taikoen,” Constantine says. The single word, spoken softly in Constantine’s resonant voice, seems to vibrate in the air for a long time. Aiah feels a palp of cold horror touch her neck.

  “No,” she says instantly; and then, because she has to justify this instinct, says “No” again. “Too dangerous,” she adds. “It would be remarked. We don’t want Taikoen known, or even rumored.”

  He gives her an equivocal look. “I would not in any case order such an extraordinary sanction on my own authority ... Drumbeth, at least, will have to concur, though I will not tell him the means.” He smiles. “I am a good minister,” he says, “a good subordinate.” The smile turns rueful. “A good dog. I will have my allotted biscuit, and nothing more.”

  Amusement tickles Aiah’s backbrain.

  Constantine probably repeats these words, like a prayer, every day.

  THIRD RECORD-BREAKING MONTH!

  LORDS OF THE NEW CITY

  TIME TO SEE IT AGAIN.

  “We in Caraqui are uniquely suited to test your theories,” Constantine says. “May I light your cigaret?”

  “Don’t bother,” Rohder says, and lights his new cigaret off the old.

  Constantine is all charm, all attention. His manner suggests that Rohder is the most important, most fascinating thing in the world.

  Rohder seems oblivious. A splendid meal has been laid on in the Kestrel Room, not a single thing grown in a vat, and Rohder eats a few bites and pushes it away. Fine wines and brandies are rolled out, and Rohder asks for coffee. By way of showing his familiarity with Rohder’s achievements, Constantine offers endless compliments on Proceedings and Rohder’s other work— a solid record of scholarship stretching back centuries— and Rohder shrugs it off.

  Constantine puts his lighter back in his pocket, calculation glowing in his eyes. He hasn’t given up yet.

  Aiah sits between them at the table, nibbling her food and watching this contest of champions. She knows Constantine’s charm— she has had this intensity turned on her, and knows how difficult it is to resist.

  Indeed, she reflects, she had not resisted it.

  Her onetime boss sits in his cloud of smoke, oblivious not only to Constantine’s attentions but to the glorious view from the outcurving windows. Rohder’s gray suit manages somehow to be both expensive and ill-fitting. His lace is dotted with ash and cigaret burns. His three-hundred-year-old skin, though crisscrossed with a network of fine lines, is pink and ruddy with health, and he peers vaguely at the world from watery blue eyes.


  “Caraqui’s infrastructure,” Constantine continues, “is suited to constant experimentation with plasm-generating distance relationships. Over eighty-five percent of the metropolis is built over water, on big barges or pontoons. This has formerly been considered a disadvantage as regards plasm generation, because we can’t build as tall as other districts. Less mass, less plasm.”

  “I noticed from the aerocar that the buildings seemed small,” Rohder says.

  “The barges are strung together with cables, or with bridges that, generally speaking, are to one extent or another engineered with a certain degree of flexibility in their spans.”

  A light snaps on in Rohder’s eyes as if someone has just thrown a switch. For the first time he seems aware, his mind focused on his environment.

  “You can alter the relationships between the barges?” he asks.

  Aiah recognizes the hint of a smile that touches, feather-light, the corner of Constantine’s mouth. The smile that says, at last, at last, he has found his way.

  “Yes,” Constantine purrs. “Absolutely. Imagine what you could do in Jaspeer if you could move entire city blocks around to find the proper geomantic relationships. Well,” and the smile rises full, white incisors gleaming, “well, here it is possible.”

  Rohder’s look is intent. “What is my part in all this? Can’t you do this yourself?”

  “I am Minister of Resources,” Constantine says, “which in our local political cant means plasm. Resources I have, but not all those I would wish, and my greatest need is for minds. Minds such as yours do not come along every day.”

  “I do not think,” Rohder says, “that quite answers my question.”

  “I will create a new department within Miss Aiah’s division,” Constantine says. “I think I have enough credit with the triumvirate to be able to do that, particularly when I explain how, and to what degree, our nation may be enriched by such an action. You will be the head of it, though unless you have some strange, unfulfilled desire to be involved with personnel matters, funding, and so on, I will make an effort to find some sympathetic deputy, agreeable to you, to take that business off your hands.” He leans forward and looks close into Rohder’s eyes, searching for understanding.