City on Fire (Metropolitan 2)

by Walter Jon Williams

  He sips his wine again. “It is a powerful notion, and it was necessary that such a notion be discredited. And so Parq was given what he wished— power over the state, power to persecute and confiscate— and everyone in Caraqui got a taste of what it is like to live in a theocracy... and now, as a result, the concept of theocracy is discredited beyond saving. As long as there is a living memory of Parq’s abuses, the notion of rule by the godly will not raise its head in Caraqui, not for three generations at least, and by then I hope other institutions will be so firmly in place that theocracy will never be chosen but by a discontented few.”

  “All the chaos was necessary?” Aiah asks. “The violence, the terror?”

  Constantine gives her an indulgent look. “It got the matter over with in ten days. If theocracy had gained lodgment by another means— coming to power through an election, say, or by coup against a regime deemed insufficiently devout— there would have been years of terror.”

  “If, you say, they had come to power. It might never have happened.”

  Constantine frowns, sips at his wine. “If,” he repeats. “I thought we could not take the chance, Parq being Parq, and Caraqui being Caraqui.”

  “And elections,” Aiah observes, “being within a few weeks.”

  Constantine smiles to himself. “Even so.” He chuckles deep in his throat. “I can predict Parq’s next move. He will begin to intrigue with the Provisionals, and that will be the end of him. Because— count on it— I will monitor this conspiracy, and document it well, and then under threat of exposing it will make Parq my instrument forever.”

  “Still,” Aiah says, “you should have trusted me, and made my part plain. I was forced to improvise, and I put myself in a dangerous situation.”

  Constantine permits a look of irritation to cross his face. “I trusted no one. I told no one at all, not directly, not till the last moment, when I had to give the army its orders. It was not a thing to be spread about— and though I could trust you with a secret, I could not trust your reactions. I wanted you to be outraged about Togthan’s moves in your department, I wanted that emotion to be genuine. I didn’t want you turning smug and implying that you knew something Parq and Togthan didn’t.”

  “I would not have done such a thing, Triumvir,” Aiah says.

  “It was not a necessary thing for you to know,” Constantine insists. “I only do that which is necessary.”

  Aiah is not willing, for her part, to let the matter go.

  “You should also have consulted me about the movement of Karlo’s Brigade,” she says.

  Grudgingly he looks at her sidelong. “Perhaps,” he allows.

  Aiah presses in. “I think, in order to avoid these difficult situations in the future, the informal arrangement we have reached concerning the Barkazil Division should be put on a more formal basis. I suggest I become an employee of the War Ministry. I will not require a salary, but I want a place in the hierarchy. Vice-Minister for Barkazil Affairs. Something like that, but you may choose the exact wording.”

  “It is not necessary.”

  “Do you recall, a few days ago, when you said you would grant me anything in your power?”

  Constantine puffs out a breath. “It is absurd for you to hold positions in two different ministries.”

  “Surely it is not beyond the combined powers of the War Minister, the Resources Minister, and a triumvir to grant me an exception.”

  Constantine gazes stolidly forward for a moment, then tilts his head back and laughs, the sound booming in the car. Wine dances in his glass.

  “Very well,” he says. “If the Ministerial Assistant for Barkazil Liaison will cease to plague me about matters long past and done with, I believe I may satisfy her on this matter.”

  Aiah smiles sweetly. “Thank you, Triumvir.”

  Constantine booms another laugh. “You’re welcome, Miss Aiah.” He leans forward, snatches a grape from a waiting basket of fruit, pops it in his mouth, and chews with pleasure.

  Beyond the windows a desert looms. The vehicle convoy is approaching the Martyr’s Canal, where a great battle had been fought, not in the war with the Provisionals, but in the original coup that had brought Constantine to Caraqui. The Burning Man had appeared here, in the midst of a quiet residential neighborhood, and set the entire district alight, a whirlwind of fiery horror that had killed at least twenty thousand people. Now the buildings are rubble or roofless shells, some mere steel skeletons, some with traces of fine stonework, graceful plaster accents, noble arches, fluted pillars that now support... nothing. Occasionally a forlorn Dalavan hermit is seen, hanging in a sack from a scorched wall, and election graffiti is splashed over anything left standing. The clouds float undisturbed overhead: no advertising flashes in the sky here, because there is no one to buy.

  Many of the destroyed buildings were torn down to make way for new construction, but the Provisionals’ countercoup interrupted the work, and dozens of the dangerous, roofless ruins still stand open to the weather. The promised new construction hasn’t materialized, either, funds dried up by the war, and the entire district stands bereft of life except for the campsites of refugees with nowhere else to go.

  A perfect workshop, Constantine considers it; a laboratory for experimentation.

  Rohder is planning to perform a miracle here within the next hour.

  Constantine’s convoy pulls off the road into an area bulldozed free of rubble. The song of the car’s flywheels decreases in volume. Constantine’s guards pour out of their vehicles and set up a watchful perimeter. A tugboat’s whistle shrieks on the nearby canal.

  Constantine remains in the vehicle. After what happened at Rohder’s last outdoor demonstration, Constantine has decided to play it safe.

  Rohder, already on the site with some of his assistants and a battery of complex instruments, approaches the car. He is wearing a red hard hat and heavy work boots.

  Constantine presses a button and electric motors sing the window into the car’s armor. Aiah sees the guards grow more alert at the sign of this chink in their defenses. Rohder peers into the car, removes the inevitable cigaret from his lips, and says, “We are making some last-minute preparations. It’s very complex, and—”

  “Take all the time you need, Mr. Rohder.”

  Rohder nods and rejoins his assistants. Constantine smiles, sends the window up, settles back into the soft leather seat just as the telephone, set on the built-up area behind the driver, gives an urgent buzz. Constantine makes a face and moves forward into the seat opposite Aiah, picks up the headset, answers. A lengthy conversation follows, which from its diplomatic context Aiah concludes is with Belckon, the Minister of State. Constantine gives detailed instructions concerning something he calls “compensated demobilization,” then returns the headset to its cradle.

  “Lanbola,” he sighs. “We will surrender it, now that Parq is gone and we have clear policy, but the details are complex. We do not want the Popular Democrats back, and we want some compensation for the expenses of the war, but our neighbors want us out— they do not like the precedent we have set.”

  “Their protests have not been very loud,” Aiah says. “I was surprised.”

  “They take note of the size of our army,” Constantine says, “and how swiftly Lanbola fell. It occurs to the wise among them not to protest too loudly, and it occurs especially to Nesca and Charna, who supported the Provisionals from the beginning... and it has occurred to some to hire mercenaries, and look to their own defense, but on hearing of their inquiries in Sayven, we told them these hires would not be considered friendly, and they have again chosen to act with caution. So even Adabil, which does not have a border in common with us, will not offer sanctuary to the surviving Provisionals or to Lanbola’s Popular Democrats, and Kerehorn and Great-Uncle Rathmen and their cohorts have been forced to Garshab, which is content to play host to the refugees so long as they bring their money with them.”

  “‘Compensated demobilization’?” Aiah asks. />
  Constantine makes an amused sound deep in his throat. “Our vast army is destabilizing to the region, and very expensive. Armies are expensive even to demobilize, and there are secondary effects, such as the economic consequences of releasing so many soldiers into the civilian economy at once. So we hope to acquire Polar League funds, both to rebuild our damaged homes and industry and to demobilize the army.” Merriment glitters in his eyes. “Our neighbors will pay us not to threaten them anymore. It will be cheaper for them than to raise armies of their own, and less dangerous.... It is a fine sort of blackmail, one for which we need do nothing— not even threaten, for the mere presence of our army is enough— and I think I can bring it off.” He glances out the window, sees Rohder still talking to his staff, and then turns back to Aiah.

  “Adabil, considering itself safe on account of our not having a border in common, will be against giving us aid, but unfortunately when we took Lanbola we discovered a store of documents detailing just who among them created the Provisionals, and why, and for how much. Does Adabil’s parliament know, I wonder, that its government drew twenty-two billions from the Secret Fund to support Kerehorn and his soldiers? Twenty-two billions!” He smiles grimly. “I will bring down their government with this, I think. It is just a matter of timing, and deciding how, and to whom, the discoveries will be leaked.”

  Leaks, Aiah thinks; maneuverings, blinds, diplomacy, concessions, extortion. Behind it all, the threat of raw military power. All things that she must learn if the Ministerial Assistant for Barkazil Liaison is ever to prosper.

  “We may thank the war for rationalizing much of the state,” Constantine muses. “Under pressure of the emergency, the tax laws were reformed at a single stroke. The government cut loose the various enterprises that were hampering its real work. Government departments could be relieved of their excess personnel, with the army to absorb the unemployed. Whole classes of criminals were swept away by the PED and the militia, and now the militia are swept away. Theocracy reduced, the Keremaths discredited beyond redemption, and our neighbors anxious to be our friends. Good laws, good armies— the foundation of a strong state. Such did the blood of our martyrs buy us.”

  The phone buzzes again. Constantine gives an impatient look, answers, then hands the headset to Aiah. “For you,” he says.

  It is Alfeg. “The interviewer from Third Shift wanted to change his appointment to 14:00 tomorrow. I checked with Anstine and your schedule is clear; shall I say yes?”

  “I suppose. Why not?”

  The Golden Lady was very much in demand these days.

  “And the Wire called again.”

  Aiah sighs. The news service was doing a long piece on Aiah— she had been getting calls from her relatives about reporters turning up— and it seems it was doing some serious digging into Aiah’s life. Aiah dreaded a thorough investigation into the plasm she’d stolen in Jaspeer, dreaded what Charduq the Hermit might say in an interview, dreaded what her mother might be persuaded to say.

  Dreaded, perhaps more than anything, a reporter talking to her former lover Gil.

  And the results available over the Wire, in Jaspeer and half the world.

  She sighs again. “We’ll use the Third Shift interview as a rehearsal,” she says. “Schedule the Wire for three or four days— that will give me time to prepare.”

  “Very good. I’ll call Anstine and check your appointment schedule for a time, then call back and clear it with you.”

  “Do that.”

  She returns the headset to its box. Constantine gives her a skeptical look.

  “You are discovering the perils of celebrity.”

  “I am. Yes.”

  “Use it, Miss Aiah. It is not always up to you whether or not you are famous, but the use you make of it is yours.”

  “Yes,” she says. “I’ll try to do that.”

  There is a shadow at the window, a knock. It is one of Rohder’s assistants. Constantine lowers the window by a few inches.

  “Mr. Rohder says we may begin now.”

  “Tell him to proceed,” Constantine says, and reaches for another grape.

  Constantine and Aiah shift to seats on the port side of the limousine, nearer Rohder’s group. Rohder himself stands stiffly, his head thrown back— for Rohder this is an unusual posture, and Aiah concludes it is because he is in contact with one of his mages.

  A broken wall stands before them, once part of a block of middle-class flats that had occupied the surface of this huge pontoon. The wall is broken now, cracked, fire-blackened, ragged-edged, its original peak gone. Tenuous plant life is taking root in its various niches. It is barely a wall at all.

  There is a pause. Constantine fidgets as he looks out the window. And then a strange effect begins to take place around the wall, light shifted into a different spectrum, or a shade raised between the wall and the Shield. Constantine narrows his eyes, absorbed in the magework. The wall shimmers in the light and seems to expand, as if it has grown liquid and is filling an invisible mold. An apex forms, ready to support a roof, and the wall sheds its blackened color, shaking the soot from its skin.

  Atmospheric generation. From out of nothing, something.

  Difficult, or it would be more common. Hermetic plasm transformations are most often used in making or alloying metal, creating chemicals and materials for plastics, and sometimes for generating food substances.... All that is relatively simple, one reaction at a time. But creating matter, and doing it in the open air, outside a factory or other controlled environment, is exacting, exhausting, and potentially dangerous.

  The effects fade, and there is a wall there, intact, solid, real. Rohder’s crew grin, chatter, make excited gestures. Rohder scans the instruments on the table, nods, gropes in the pocket of his jacket for a cigaret. Puffing, he approaches the vehicle.

  “Congratulations, Mr. Rohder,” Constantine says. “And congratulations as well to your mages.”

  An uncharacteristic pleasure glows in Rohder’s blue eyes. “The transformation was very well controlled,” Rohder says. “So little radiation that my instruments barely detected it, and we kept heat within limits. The wall should be a bit warm to the touch, but the heat will dissipate. And our engineers will examine the wall in the next few minutes— take measurings and core samples and so on— and we shall see if it is structurally sound.”

  “I have no doubt that the experiment was a complete success,” Constantine says. “I hope you will accelerate the project.”

  Rohder gives him a judicious look. “It is difficult to train people to this work,” he says. “Even if things go better than expected, our progress will be slow.”

  “Amplify your sense of scale, Mr. Rohder,” Constantine says. “Caraqui needs housing, and needs it cheaply, and soon. You may call upon every government resource.”

  “We’ll take the samples,” Rohder says, “and see.”

  Rohder’s caution does not dampen Constantine’s enthusiasm— all the way back to the Palace he speaks of hermetics, of the creation of living space for the city’s tens of thousands of refugees, for those now confined to the half-worlds. “And now that Rohder’s FIT theory is demonstrated, we can make use of that in construction— make certain that building skeletons are placed in the proper ratios, or even, through freestanding transformation, create retroactively a new structure within the old. Multiply plasm generation, and then use the new plasm to generate even more....”

  Aiah watches him, smiling at his enthusiasm— this is a glimpse into a younger Constantine, one just formulating his ideas, a man subsequently eclipsed by disappointment, tragedy, his own cold irony. Constantine pauses, and gives her a sudden, sharp look.

  “I have been meaning to ask,” he says, “and it has slipped my mind— I am addressing a New City Party election rally at Alaphen Plaza tomorrow. May I hope that my new ministerial assistant will persuade the Golden Lady to appear?” He smiles. “I think it will give greater impact to my harangue, and may guarantee a wider coverage
on the video reports.”

  Aiah considers this and finds herself surprised. “You expect that I will be able to secure you greater coverage on video?” she says. “Is this something new? Is this the Constantine I know?”

  His look turns haughty, but there is self-mockery there as well. “I did not achieve my present station,” he says, “by overlooking a chance to secure myself a place on video screens.”

  “No,” Aiah agrees. “I’m sure you have not.”

  ELECTION ENTERS FINAL DAYS

  NEW CITY LEADS IN POLLS

  The Golden Lady appears on cue at the rally, flying over the heads of the assembled crowd while Constantine, in a large bulletproof enclosure shielded from mage attack, watches as the crowd goes wild, chanting Aiah’s name over and over again. It is exhilarating, swooping over this endless expanse of waving arms and upturned faces, a human sea teeming with life.

  Not bad, Aiah thinks, for a ministerial assistant.

  And then she swoops over the speakers’ platform and sees Constantine, a little sullen twist on his lips, a considered calculation in his eyes. His own reception from the crowd had been somewhat less rapturous than this.

  Perhaps, she thinks, he is beginning to view the Golden Lady as a rival.

  The Third Shift interview goes well. The Wire interview is tougher— they have built an interesting, though circumstantial, plasm theft case against her.

  But she denies everything, and they have no evidence.

  Her heart gives a little lurch as Gil’s name comes up. Apparently they have interviewed him, but he declined to say much, and wisely did not mention the ten thousand dalders she had wired him.

  The elections are held with a certain amount of confusion, but with no violence, no suggestion of large-scale tampering.

  The New City Party wins 40 percent of the popular vote. Parq’s Spiritual Renewal Party comes in second with 12 percent, and Adaveth’s Altered People’s Party takes slightly under 10 percent.