City on Fire

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—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, and 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.Not 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