City on Fire (Metropolitan 2)

by Walter Jon Williams

  In the corridor, Aiah asks, “Do you have the rest of the list?”

  “Part of it.”

  As her police step wonderingly into the corridor, Aiah takes the pages in her ectomorphic hands and leafs through them. Many of the names and faces are familiar.

  “The whole thing’s going to be available on Interfact in the next day or so,” the militiaman says. “Anyone can get a copy.”

  This list is hers, she realizes. It was the list of Handmen she gave to Constantine weeks ago, after the first series of bombings.

  Five thousand dinars for each name. Dead or alive.

  Her list.

  CRIME BOSS APPOINTED MINISTER OF PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT

  RATHMEN TAKES TREASURY POST

  “Shield above,” Constantine says, eyes aflame, “would you have this Silver Terror continue?”

  “I gave you this list,” Aiah says. “Now Parq is using it to kill people.”

  Constantine gives a snarl. “Then Parq will take the blame, won’t he?”

  “This list—” Aiah protests. “It’s not error-free. We acquired it in the first place from the police, and we know how efficient they were. We haven’t had a chance to check more than a fraction of it. Much of it is out of date, and people with similar names can be victimized. And the Dalavan Militia look like they were recruited out of the slums— they’ve all got guns and they’re enjoying themselves far too much.”

  Constantine gives an uneasy glance toward the polarized windows— he is in another suite today, with his files and papers, and moves to a new one each day, carrying his portable ministry, his papers and boxes, with him from place to place.

  His leather chair creaks as he leans forward over his desk. “It was not my decision,” Constantine says. “Parq is triumvir— I work for him.”

  “Couldn’t you point out—”

  “Aiah.” His rumbling voice is cold, and there is a dangerous glint in his eye. “I supported the decision.”

  “I—” Aiah’s voice fails. Despair rains down her spine.

  “We cannot afford to fight a war against an army and a war against the terrorists simultaneously,” Constantine says. “Five thousand dinars for each Handman— that’s cheap, cheaper than hiring mercenaries and mages.” He glances to the window again, his face uneasy. “If I had won the Battle of the Corridor...” he growls. “If I had won ... things would be different.”

  “Then why—” Aiah’s head whirls, and she wants to lean on something for support. “Why are you bothering with my department at all? If you can just offer a bounty for anyone you suspect, why bother with me, with the forms of legality...”

  He gazes at her, smouldering resentment in his eyes. “Emergency measures are for times of emergency only. After the war, there must be a structure we can build on. The Dalavan Militia are amateurs— they will do well enough for keeping a rude sort of order, but they aren’t investigators, and if they’re not kept on a short leash they’ll turn as bad as the Silver Hand. So after the war is over, I will be able to argue that the Militia are no longer needed, because the PED is sufficient for peacetime.”

  Aiah glowers at him. “And will you win that fight?”

  “It’s too early to say. I have a war to win first.” His eyes soften, and he leans forward across his desk. “If you want to keep some of these Handmen from being abused by the Militia, you will have every opportunity simply by arresting them through your department.”

  Aiah takes a breath. “Yes," she says. “Yes. Very well.”

  “And then the reward will belong to your people.”

  Anger simmers in her veins. “Keep the money,” she says. “I don’t want my people working for rewards.”

  Constantine looks at her. “I remind you that your military police are mercenaries,” he says. “Rewards will keep them loyal. And you can use part of the reward to fund your own department, perhaps give your people a bonus or two.”

  Aiah reconsiders, backpedals a bit, shifts her ground. “I don’t want my people taking heads.”

  Constantine is curt. “See that they don’t, then.”

  Everything has become my responsibility again, she thinks. Even whether or not the Handmen receive decent treatment.

  How does he do it? she wonders.

  There is a whir and thump as an artillery shell lands nearby, and then the sound is repeated. Aiah finds herself counting the rounds: there are six guns in an enemy battery, and once six shells have landed, there is a little respite.

  Four, five, six. Silence.

  Constantine looks up at her. He, too, has been counting. "Is that all?" he asks.

  Aiah supposes that it is.

  PARQ PROCLAIMS MILITIA “A SUCCESS”

  THOUSANDS OF HANDMEN ARRESTED

  CRIMES OF TERROR REDUCED!

  The amateurs of the Dalavan Militia are as bad as Aiah expects. Lists of the proscribed in hand, they knock down doors, or simply shoot through them; they arrest the wrong people, and sometimes kill them; and it’s only a matter of days before the first complaints of extortion are heard.

  Enthusiastic citizens make the situation worse. The rewards are available to anyone who brings in one of the proscribed, and Caraqui is full of desperate people, many of them left homeless and rash by the war, willing to risk their own lives by finding a Handman or two and dragging them before a magistrate. Cases of misidentification are legion, and though it’s bad enough when the wrong man gets hauled before a magistrate, it’s far worse when the victim is dead before he— or anyway his head— appears in court.

  And since these enthusiasts charge into the fray without proper intelligence, without support, and usually without mages to cover their backs, the hardened criminals of the Silver Hand are not inclined to go quietly, and they do not always prove to be the victims. By now their plasm houses are shielded and fortified: sometimes plasm attacks leave the attackers dead or injured, and sometimes there are gun battles that put a dozen people in the morgue or in hospital.

  Aiah directs her department’s efforts toward the most hardened targets she can find, hoping by the efforts of her own professionals to keep the casualties to a minimum. She divides the rewards between her mercenaries and her department’s own treasury, with occasional handouts to informants.

  And the Silver Terror fades. Scores of Handmen are captured trying to leave Caraqui, and thousands of others join Great-Uncle Rathmen in exile. The number of bomb and plasm attacks declines remarkably.

  Progress, Aiah concedes, of a sort.

  She does not see Constantine in person, but only as a presence in video or memoranda or news reports. He floats in a circle far above hers: his fight is in the clouds, and hers in the bog below.

  She tries not to think of him, not to judge him. The endless worry and activity make it easier.

  Her department grows. For once she has her pick of candidates— the war has disrupted enough lives that plenty of qualified people are willing to take a secure government job, even an underpaid one, and even a job in a building that is regularly the subject of enemy attack. Because many of the Handmen are now in hiding, Aiah hires squads of detectives, many former police, people familiar with Caraqui and the ways of the Hand, investigators who can interview witnesses properly and track down the Handmen in their hiding places. She is surprised to discover that many of the ex-police pass their plasm scans: apparently there were honest cops out there, trying to do their best but compromised by the corrupt system in which they worked.

  She is interviewing a candidate for a clerical position when her receptionist tells her that Constantine is on the line. She finishes making an appointment for the young man’s plasm scan, sees him out of the office, then picks up the headset.

  “Yes, Minister.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says at once.

  “For what?”

  “For handing you a thousand impossible tasks. For showing you the worst of my character. For neglecting you for weeks in an unforgivable fashion.”

  Th
ere is a moment’s silence.

  “Miss Aiah?” Constantine prompts. “What are you thinking?”

  Aiah feels a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "I’m thinking it’s a start.”

  “I am willing to apologize at greater length, midbreak third shift, if you can clear your schedule.”

  “I’m supposed to be plasm angel for my troops.”

  “Get someone else.”

  She sighs. “I’ll try.”

  “20:00.1 will give you dinner. And, if I can beg a favor of you, may I ask you not to dress as you would at the office? I see nothing but suits and uniforms all day, and something soft would be a pleasure.”

  “I’ll make an effort.”

  “And I will try to make your effort worth your while.”

  Aiah puts the headset on its hook and scrubs her fingers through her hair. Constantine clearly has a romantic interlude on his mind, and she is not certain if she has any romance left in her.

  Not without a month’s vacation in some resort, anyway.

  She throws the switch on her communications array and tells her receptionist to send in the next candidate.

  When he walks in there is a flash of recognition, and Aiah’s heart lifts. Perhaps one of her family...? But no: the new candidate is a stranger.

  And, she thinks, she knows much about him, even if she’s never met him before.

  He is Barkazil, almost certainly. Smooth brown skin, brown eyes, curly black hair, a home-district smile. He’s dressed Jaspeeri-fashion— shiny gray polymer suit and big swatches of lace dripping from wrists and throat— and he carries himself with a self-confidence almost impudent in someone this young.

  He shakes her hand. “Alfeg,” he says, then adds, “of the Cunning People,” before she can ask.

  “Aiah,” she says. “The same.”

  “I know.” His white, confiding smile suggests that he and Aiah share a great many secrets.

  Guns thunder outside, and Aiah’s window, divided for safety’s sake into diamonds by a crosshatching of masking tape, gives a sympathetic rattle.

  She sits behind her desk and pulls his file off the stack. Citizen of the Scope of Jaspeer, sure enough. Degrees in chemistry and plasm use from Margai University. Age: twenty-three. Single. Current employer: United Polymer, Arsenide City Complex, Jaspeer. Current salary: 38,000 dalders per annum.

  He wants to become one of her mages. Aiah looks up.

  “I don’t think we can afford you,” she says.

  “Money isn’t of the first importance,” Alfeg says. “Do you know the Gar-Chavan Bakeries in Old Shorings?”

  “Yes. I grew up in Old Shorings.”

  “My father is Mr. Chavan. Money is not so much a necessity as a way of keeping score.”

  “Ah.” A rich boy: so that’s where he got his self-confidence. “Well, if it’s your only way of keeping score, you’re not going to get a lot of points in Caraqui.”

  He looks at her with a composed, sincere expression, though there is still a degree of amusement dancing behind his eyes. “I want to do something meaningful before I die,” he says. “If that’s not a foolish thing to admit.”

  Perhaps it is, Aiah thinks, in the circles he’s used to.

  The guns boom again, and again the windows rattle.

  “Your search for meaning could get you killed,” Aiah points out. “We’re fighting a war.”

  “That makes it more interesting, from my point of view.”

  “You’re not experienced in police work, I take it?”

  No.”

  “And though you work with plasm, your experience is in chemistry, which would not seem to be of great relevance.”

  He nods. “But I have considerable experience in telepresence. Dangerous hermetics are always initiated at a distance.”

  “I see. You haven’t ever created or worked with a plasm hound?”

  “I’m afraid not.” He smiles apologetically. “I never had a reason to track anything.”

  She frowns, looks at the file again while the guns boom out. Young, rich person seeks meaning. And once he’s had his little adventure in relevance, he can always return to his social niche.

  An option, Aiah reminds herself, not available to herself.

  But even so, she finds herself aching to hire him. He is of the Cunning People, and possibly the only Barkazil in all the Metropolis of Caraqui other than herself. The only thing she finds herself missing about Jaspeer is the ability to bathe in her Barkazil identity.

  In fact, she thinks, being a Barkazil here might have its advantages. In Old Shorings, she’d have to cope with her family. Here, she does not.

  “When can you start work?” she asks.

  “Right away. Within the hour, if you like. I can wire my resignation back to United Polymer before they know I’m gone from my desk.”

  The ease with which he proposes to dispose of an extremely lucrative job seems improbable. And, to someone brought up on legends of Chonah, the immortal so successful at confidence games that she had given her name to a whole species of dubious endeavor, it seems more than a little suspicious.

  She puts down the file and regards him. “You’re not an agent of the Jaspeeri government, by any chance?”

  The question seems to startle him. His eyebrows lift. “No,” Alfeg says. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “Or any other government? Or institution? Or criminal enterprise?”

  “Immortal Karlo, no!”

  There is a bang, a lurch, a rumble. The other side of the Palace, facing Lorkhin Island, has taken a hit from something big.

  “You will have to undergo a plasm scan to verify you’re telling the truth,” Aiah says. “It will be very thorough, and is certain to discover any secret allegiances. Do you have a problem with this?”

  He looks uncomfortable for a moment. “I suppose not," he says.

  “We look for absolute commitment,” Aiah says, “absolute honesty, and absolute discretion.”

  “I suppose my romantic, futile attachment to the lost cause of the Holy League of Karlo will prove no impediment?” Alfeg says. “My grandfather fought for them.”

  The Holy League was one of the many factions that finished off the Metropolis of Barkazi, one of a disheartening, endless list of lost causes from the Barkazi Wars.

  Aiah finds a smile tugging at her lips. “My granddad fought for the Holy League as well,” she says. “I don’t imagine there will be a problem unless you try to resurrect the Holy League here.”

  Alfeg nods graciously, and playfully sketches the Sign of Karlo in the air. “I was rather hoping you would, actually,” he says.

  A peculiar sensation hums along Aiah’s nerves. She looks at him sharply to see if he’s joking or not, but she can’t be certain.

  “I’m here to build the New City,” she says, “not to bring back the Metropolis of Barkazi. Which in any case is thousands of radii away.”

  “Of course.”

  “If you still want the job, I can slot you into a plasm scan early tomorrow. Second shift, first quarterbreak.”

  “Yes. I can manage that, though I’ll have to wire United Polymer and tell them I need another day off.”

  “That’s up to you. You can make an appointment with my secretary.”

  He seems a bit puzzled for a moment, as if he had been expecting something more, and then rises and takes Aiah’s hand.

  “Thank you, Miss Aiah,” he says.

  “Thank you for applying. I appreciate your coming all this distance.” Even, she thinks, if it was in the Rande aerocar your daddy bought you.

  ADAVETH ELECTED HEAD OF ALTERED PEOPLE’S PARTY

  TWISTED UNITE TO SEEK RIGHTS, ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY

  Buoyed perhaps by the meeting with Alfeg, perhaps by the thought of having Constantine to herself for at least a few hours, Aiah almost overdoes it. She arranges for someone to cover her shift, makes an appointment with one of the Palace hairdressers, gets a manicure while her ringlets are attended to, and the
n turns up at Constantine’s door promptly at 20:00, wearing heels and a very short dress of blazing scarlet that she’d bought during her first day’s shopping in Caraqui and never found an occasion to wear. She also wears the priceless ivory necklace, with its dangling Trigram, that Constantine had given her.

  Judging from their smiles and glowing eyes, Constantine’s guards, at least, appreciate her efforts.

  She is taken through the layers of security that surround Constantine’s apartment-for-a-day, and finds him lounging casually on the couch, hands clasped behind his head. He wears a soft gray chambray shirt with ruffles on the front and wide sleeves, and his long legs, propped up before him, are clad in pleated slacks of a darker gray.

  Aiah is surprised to find Aldemar here. The petite actress sits at a desk, eyes closed, with a copper t-grip in her hand, a little frown on her perfect face.

  Constantine bounds to his feet on Aiah’s entrance, smile spreading over his face. “Welcome!” he cries. Takes her hands, kisses her cheek. “You look lovely!”

  “Thank you.”

  “Did you buy the dress just for me?”

  She gives him a sidelong look. “Perhaps," she says, and then looks toward the actress.

  “Aldemar has offered to give us a gift,” Constantine says. “I must say it is an inspired one.”

  Aiah considers Aldemar’s intent concentration on her magework. “Shall I thank her now,” she says, “or is she busy?”

  “Perhaps tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow? Aiah wonders. Is Aldemar going to be with them for the rest of the shift?

  But then Aldemar’s eyes flutter open and after a moment’s vague search focus on Aiah and Constantine. “I’ve established the sourceline,” she says. “Are the two of you ready?”

  Constantine steps close to Aiah, puts an arm around her waist. “At your convenience," he says.

  Aldemar gives a knowing smile, then closes her eyes again. She reaches out, her free hand unfolding as if offering something on her palm, and Aiah’s skin warms to the touch of plasm, and she opens her mouth in surprise at the sheer power she feels surging toward her...