City on Fire (Metropolitan 2)

by Walter Jon Williams

  She introduces Alfeg to Galagas, then walks briskly across the windswept landing area. “How are things here?” Aiah asks.

  “Lanbola is quiet,” Ceison judges. “People go to work, do their jobs, get paid. Money still circulates. The stock market is down, but not disastrously so. The army is disarmed but still in its barracks.” He shrugs his gangly shoulders. “The Popular Democrats were so authoritarian that once we swept their top echelon off the board, they were easy to replace.”

  Plasm lights the sky, red-gold words tracking: Pneuma Scandal Widens: Fanger’s Name Linked. Details on The Wire.

  The same tactics, Aiah recognizes, Constantine used in Caraqui. The former rulers would be discredited, along with their chief supporters— “Usually,” as Constantine told her, “all that is necessary is to publish the truth.” The top people— those few who had been caught— would be hauled back to Caraqui, stuck in prison, and put on trial whenever the political situation demanded it. Any Lanbolans raised into positions of power would be dependent on the new regime, with no local support, and therefore inclined to be loyal. In the meantime, any actual changes introduced would be very gradual. as sudden shifts in law or tax structures would make the Lanbolans less inclined to accept the new regime— and rules against plundering and assault against civilians would be strictly enforced.

  Galagas sprints ahead to open a battered metal rooftop door, and Aiah enters the military headquarters for the occupation forces, formerly the chief office complex for the Popular Democratic Party, with its bright white stone, gilt ornament, and sense of comfortable permanence, one of the grander buildings in Lanbola’s government district.

  They move down a stair, then along a corridor flanked by plush offices and into a room with a long cantilever table of glass and polished brass. The paintings on the walls are bright abstracts, splashes of color intended to furnish a tasteful background to the dance of power, but to offer no disturbing comment on its meaning, its intricacies.

  Aiah tosses her briefcase down on the desk. “Open your collars, people, and take a seat,” she says.

  She opens her briefcase, takes out a pair of folders, slides one to Galagas and one to Ceison. “These are copies of the contracts that have been sent to your agents,” she says. “Five years, with an option for a lateral move into the Caraqui military at the end of that time. Pension options as discussed. You’ll note the signing bonuses are higher than we had previously agreed.”

  Loyalty is most painlessly bought with someone else’s money, as Constantine had remarked when she’d negotiated this point. Occupation of the Lanbolan treasury had liberated a flood of cash from its bunkers. The Lanbolans’ cash reserves were paying for their own occupation.

  “Thank you,” Galagas murmurs, his attention already lost in the maze of print.

  Aiah waits for them to finish reading, then turns to Galagas. “The ministry has formally approved your promotion to brigadier and command of the Escaliers.” It was mostly an internal matter— mercenaries chose their own leaders— but the contract gave the government right of consultation.

  “Thank you, miss,” Galagas says.

  “I am happy also to announce the formation of the two units into a formal Barkazil Division, to be headed by General Ceison.”

  Ceison nods, awkwardly pleased, and brushes his mustache with a knuckle.

  “Miss Aiah,” Galagas says, “I’d like to raise the matter of replacing our losses. That last battle cost us almost half our men, killed or wounded, with particularly heavy losses among junior officers and NCOs. Not all the wounded will be able to return to the ranks. Since we are staying here rather than returning to the Timocracy to recruit, I’d like to send a recruiting party home... while the Timocracy will still permit it.”

  The Timocratic government had announced an investigation of Landro’s Escaliers to discover whether deliberate treachery on their part had provoked the Provisionals into attacking them. Galagas, after consulting with Aiah, had decided the simplest option was to deny everything— there were no meetings in Aground, or if there were, then Holson, conveniently dead, had been there on his own. Aiah would keep silent— the Timocracy had no way of compelling her testimony— and the recordings of the meetings had been destroyed. Eventually, it was hoped, the investigation would die.

  But the Escaliers’ contacts in the Timocracy were keeping a close eye on the investigation. The investigation might at some point reveal just who had betrayed them.

  And Aiah wanted very much to know who that was.

  “Send your party back, by all means,” she says, “and let me know what you hear.”

  “I’d like to address the problem of recruiting, if I may,” Alfeg says. “I have contacts in the Barkazil community both in Jaspeer and in the Barkazi Sectors. Thanks to the Mystery chromoplay, there is great interest in Miss Aiah and Caraqui. I think, General Galagas, I could fill your ranks for you, but I need your permission, ne?”

  Galagas raises a brow in surprise. “Do you think you could find so many?”

  “Oh, certainly. And if you sent recruiting parties to Jaspeer and wherever in Barkazi they were permitted, the job could be done all that much sooner.”

  Galagas seems skeptical, but is willing to consider it.

  “Your mention of recruiting in the Barkazi Sectors reminds me,” Ceison said. “I just heard— The Mystery of Aiah has been banned in the Jabzi Sector. And in the rest of Jabzi, for that matter.”

  Aiah looks at him. “Banned? Me? In Jabzi?”

  “Jabzi is particularly insistent that the Barkazil Sectors will never unite again,” Ceison says. “They seemed to find the chromo a threat. As a result, thousands of people who never heard of you are now clamoring for bootleg copies of the video.”

  Amusement tugs at the corners of Aiah’s lips. “They aren’t very intelligent in Jabzi, are they?”

  “No one is likely to mistake them for Cunning People, no.”

  Aiah glances at her notes and finds the most urgent item on her agenda. The reason she is here, now, instead of paying this visit another time.

  “I want to let you know,” Aiah says, “that there may be some disorder in the near future. I want you to be ready for it, and I want you ready to move.”

  Sudden alertness crackles in the soldiers’ eyes. Their attention is firmly on her.

  “Here?” Ceison asks. “In Lanbola?”

  Aiah shakes her head. “In Caraqui.”

  “Another coup attempt?” Aratha suggests.

  “No. I don’t think so, though I suppose it may come to that if the government does not... react sensibly.”

  Because if Parq isn’t stopped... somehow, by someone... he may find himself in power by default.

  There is a moment of silence. Ceison gives an uncertain look. “May I have a clarification, please?” he asks. “Does this warning come from you or from the ministry?”

  “It didn’t come from either one. In fact, you didn’t hear it.”

  Ceison slowly nods, then rubs his long jaw. “I believe I understand,” he says.

  The notion of a military force in peacetime, Aiah considers, is no longer quite so absurd.

  PEACE AND PROGRESS FOREVER

  A HOPEFUL WISH FROM SNAP! THE WORLD DRINK

  It is a party. Impudent music from Barkazi rocks the dignified walls of the Popular Democrats’ former headquarters. A buffet spices the air, a piquant mix of cilantro, garlic, and fierce little Barkazi chiles. White-jacketed military stewards offer chilled glasses of kill-the-baby on silver trays embossed with the symbol of the Popular Democrats, and Aiah finds that the liquor’s ferocity grows more agreeable from the second drink onward.

  Ceison proves, to Aiah’s surprise, a fine dancer. His lean body is unexpectedly adaptable to slippery Barkazil rhythms, the koola and the veitrento. And he pays attention to her, which is nice; she does not have the impression that she and Ceison are a pair of solo acts, but that they are actually dancing together, achieving some level of communication. No
t that she dances with Ceison alone. The room is full of soldiers, most of them fit and healthy and happy to find a woman in their arms. The men outnumber the women, and Aiah finds herself pleasantly in demand. Breathless, she sits out for a moment, touches a handkerchief to the sweat on her brow. The dance is a joyous alternative to her activities during the previous shift, first the meeting with the Barkazil Division command and then, because of her insistent, dreaded sense of duty, her visit to its field hospitals. The Escaliers’ thousands of casualties were piled up in two hospitals in Lanbola, since the hospitals in Caraqui had long ago been filled, and the medical staffs, though doing their best, were clearly overtaxed. There hadn’t even been enough beds, not until thousands were liberated from nearby hotels.

  Aiah hated hospitals, and she’d blanched at the scents of disinfectant, polish, old blood, and sickness. She hadn’t known what to say to these total strangers whose bodies had been torn apart on her behalf (your fault, an inner voice insisted), and entering the first ward, she’d hesitated.

  Fortunately Galagas and Aratha talked her through it— they had been through this many times. “Ask their names and where they’re from,” Aratha said. “Ask what unit they’re in. Ask if there’s anything you can do for them.”

  After the first few halting questions, Aiah relaxed, and it went well enough. Many of the wounded were well into their recovery, were lively and full of complaint against their condition. They were robust young people for the most part, they had volunteered for this unit, and they were not inclined to self-pity. Half of them were lying on big soft hotel beds, mingling absurdity with the tragedy of their wounds.

  Her people. It was far less an ordeal than she’d anticipated. She admired the fashion in which, with such limited aid available, they helped each other, changing dressings and administering medication. She understood the tough faces they displayed, their lack of sentimentality, their denial of the pain that so often glittered in their eyes. It was sad, but in its odd way it was home....

  For the people in Aground, she thought, there is none of this— no ambulances, no care, no medicine, no homes to receive them at recovery’s end. (Your fault.) She wondered what she could do for them, and concluded there was nothing. Aground had vanished, its survivors scattered into the darkness beneath the city....

  There is a pause as the music fades. A polite warrant officer asks Aiah to dance, and she assents; he takes her hand and leads her onto the dance floor as the music booms out again. Aiah sees newcomers at the door, stiffens, whispers to her escort, “I’m sorry, I will have to postpone our dance, forgive me,” and slips away from his hand.

  Sorya is dressed in silks, green and orange, and her chin bobs in time to the music. Her guards, attired more soberly, bulk large behind her: two huge twisted men with glittering, suspicious eyes. When she sees Aiah walking toward her, Sorya smiles brightly and advances to meet her. She embraces Aiah, kisses her on both cheeks. Aiah smiles in return, kisses in return— she is a politician now, after all— but wariness tingles up her spine at this unexpected display of sorority.

  Sorya takes her arm and begins an unhurried stroll around the perimeter of the room. She gestures with her free hand at the party. “Your young men have done well for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And you have done well for yourself.” Sorya’s green eyes regard Aiah with frank interest. “I had not expected that. I may, after all, have to take notice of you.”

  Aiah tilts her head graciously while, behind her mask of pleasantry, a shiver runs through her soul. “Ought I to fear such notice?” she asks.

  Sorya’s throat flutters with her lilting laugh, and she speaks into Aiah’s ear over the throb of music. “Miss Aiah, our goals are similar: the elevation of Constantine. You, I expect, view him as an alternative to the wretched pettiness and persecutions of other factions; whereas I want his greatness to flourish, and mine with it.”

  Sorya favors a nearby cluster of officers with a gracious smile, then speaks into Aiah’s ear again. “No— I meant that I must take note of your power, which though growing is hardly a threat to mine, and your method, which is unique. The religion racket, for instance....” She gives a bemused shake of her head, while annoyance shivers through Aiah’s mind. Religion racket, indeed.

  “I wish I had thought of that,” Sorya continues, “harnessing such a powerful, arcane force as belief. It is a superstitious world, after all.” Her laugh lilts again in Aiah’s ear. “People need to believe in something, or someone. I shall find a hermit myself, I think, to proclaim me the savior of, oh, something or other, and see how I fare.”

  “Be careful,” Aiah says. “Hermits are inconvenient people.”

  “My hermit won’t be,” cynically. “And I gather one is expected to enact the odd mystery or perform the occasional miracle, neither of which is beyond possibility, given human credulity and plasm....” She regards the soldiers with a thoughtful expression. “I must say, you have backed yourself into a corner regarding Barkazi. They’ll want you to do something over there, and what, realistically, can you accomplish?” She gives the matter thought. “Well, the soldiers are still a good idea,” she judges. “Look at history. A prophet without an army is bound to fail, whereas prophets with an efficient military can do well. Look at Dalavos, for heaven’s sake.”

  “And look how well Parq is doing,” Aiah probes, “with just his rabble militia.”

  Calculation glimmers in Sorya’s eyes. “This is Parq’s chance,” she says. “Either he must seize all power now, or watch it slip away.”

  “Which do you think he will do?” Aiah asks.

  “He will be Parq,” Sorya says. She pauses, takes a slim cigaret out of a platinum case, strikes flame from a matching lighter. She takes a breath of smoke and lets it out with a toss of her head. She smiles.

  “I would like to stay, Miss Aiah,” Sorya says. “It has been a long time since I danced.”

  “I hope you have a pleasant time,” Aiah says. She pauses, observes her warrant officer waiting discreetly a few paces away, and joins him.

  Sorya stays for hours, well into first shift.

  She dances, Aiah observes, very well.

  JABZI BANS RELIGIOUS “CULTS”

  “SUBVERSIVE IDEOLOGY MASQUERADING AS PIETY” NO LONGER TOLERATED

  GROUPS WATCH BANNED VIDEO, CONDUCT SERVICES

  Aiah returns to Caraqui, bathes, has a few hours’ sleep, and reports for work an hour late. As she walks to work through the maze of the Palace, kill-the-baby pokes at the backs of her eyeballs with a sharp pencil.

  The Excellent Togthan sits, not in the waiting room, but in her office, and Aiah pauses in the doorway and takes a breath, knowing that the moment has come.

  He stands, bows formally, holds out a sealed note. Aiah observes that he is wearing red leather pumps. “From the Holy, Parq,” Togthan says. “A change is being made throughout government. The polluted flesh are forbidden to hold a position higher than F-3.”

  Restricted, then, to manual labor, making repairs, and chauffeuring their betters. Aiah takes the note, breaks the seal, reads it. Effective immediately, it says.

  If you are given an order, follow it. A memory of Constantine’s voice.

  “Not only the government will be purified,” Togthan says, “but Caraqui at large. The Dalavan Militia will be given a free hand to enforce public order and the sumptuary laws, and to drive the defiled from the sight of the good people of the nation.”

  Aiah walks around her desk, touches the glass top with her fingertips, and does not sit down.

  “There are ninety-eight of the polluted in the department,” Togthan continues, and hands her another paper. “Here is a list. I will remain while you call them one by one into the room and dismiss them.”

  Aiah looks at him, straightens her spine. “I do not think that will be possible,” she says. “I will make my own arrangements as regards compliance with this order.”

  Togthan’s chin jerks up. Anger glitters i
n his eyes. “Miss Aiah,” he says, “this is a direct order from—”

  “The order,” Aiah says, “makes no mention of you whatever, Mr. Togthan. It does not specify that you need to be present anywhere, for any reason. I will comply with the triumvir’s wishes, but I see no reason why I need take up your valuable time.” Still contemplating the order, she sits down, gazes up at Togthan, and then, dismissively, looks down at the paper again.

  “You may leave, Mr. Togthan,” she says.

  Togthan stands for a moment in silence— Aiah, calmly viewing the paper as her heart hammers in her ears, contemplates calling in some of her guards and having them shatter his knees with heavy sledges— and then Togthan turns and makes his exit.

  Aiah looks at the list, opens a drawer for her department directory.

  She calls all the victims to a meeting in the conference room at 11:00.

  Get it all over with by lunch, she tells herself.

  DALAVAN MILITIA CALLED TO TEMPLES

  RUMORS CLAIM PURGE OF GOVERNMENT

  They know, obviously: Aiah can see it in their eyes as she walks into the room. Goggle-eyed little embryos, massive stoneface slabs, other twisted of a more ambiguous nature, oddly proportioned, odd-eyed. Ethemark sits in front, dwarfed by his high-backed chair, elbow propped on the table as he smokes a cigaret.

  Aiah stands at the head of the table, plants her feet apart, clasps her hands behind her back. It is as strong a stance as she can manage, though behind her back the nails of her right hand are digging into the wrist of the left.

  “I’m sure you’ve heard the news,” Aiah says. “The Triumvir Parq has signed an order that dismisses genetically altered from the civil service. I have been given this order this prebreak, and told to enforce it.”

  She pauses, considers her audience. They are waiting, Senko only knows why. If she were one of them, Aiah thinks, she’d want to explode, go mad right here in the Palace, storm through the place destroying everything in her path.