City on Fire

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.

Aiah jerks her chin high, takes a breath. “This is not what I fought for,” Aiah says. “This is not why I came here. This is not what any of us wanted from the struggle. But the struggle isn’t over.” She finds her voice rising. “And when it is over…” She looks at the roomful of people, tries to make eye contact with as many as possible. “When it is over,” she continues in a softer voice, “I will see that every single one of you has your job back. Because you have done this department credit, I have never had a complaint with a one of you, and you deserve to be here.”

Ethemark’s bitter tobacco stings Aiah’s sinus. Sadness floods through her, and she finds herself sagging. She leans forward and props her weight on her outstretched arms.

“I advise none of you to travel alone when you leave the building,” Aiah says. “And when you go out on the streets, be careful. The Dalavan Militia is going to be out there, and…” Sheer futility drags at her words; she has been unable to protect these people, their kindred in Aground, anybody. She straightens, raises a hand, and sketches the Sign of Karlo in the air. “Bless you,” she says. “Take good care, and go.”

She lowers herself into her chair, trying not to collapse.

The twisted people, murmuring, begin to leave. Ethemark, still in his chair, gazes at her without sympathy.

“Now that you see what it is like,” he asks, “are you going to resign over this?”

Aiah looks at him. “I don’t know. Would you really prefer that Togthan be in charge of this unit?”

There is a contemptuous curl to Ethemark’s lip. He stubs out his cigaret, drops it to the floor, and makes his way out without a word.

Ethemark aside, Aiah finds a surprising degree of sympathy in the twisted as they file past her. Some touch her arm or squeeze her shoulder. “We know it isn’t your fault,” one says, and the sentiment is echoed by others as they leave.

Aiah finds herself wishing she could agree.

THE PARTY SICKNESS

IS IT REAL? CAN YOU CATCH IT?

FIND OUT THE FACTS AT 18:30 TODAY ON CHANNEL 14

Aiah doesn’t want to be alone after work shift, so she invites Khorsa over for dinner. This involves shopping, something she hasn’t done in months, but there’s a luxuriously stocked food store in the Palace, and at the moment she finds it comforting to walk the aisles with a cart and examine vegetables.

She makes a Barkazil salad with cucumber and cilantro, cellophane noodles, bits of grilled pork and a mild chile sauce, then prepares crisp beans in butter and garlic and a rice dish with vegetables, chicken, and bits of smoked ham. She chills some beer and wine and brews coffee.

When Khorsa arrives she brings bowls of her own: “roof-chicken”—squab—simmered in spices, coriander, and chiles, and a vinegary salad of sweet onion and assorted legumes.

Aiah calls herself an idiot as she views all the food. She has been living among the longnoses too long: she should know that a Barkazil never visits empty-handed.

“Maybe we should invite some more people,” she says.

Khorsa shrugs. “What’s wrong with eating leftovers for a week?”

The meal is splendid, but afterward Aiah makes the mistake of turning on the video, and it is full of Parq’s triumph, now called the Campaign of Purification. Adaveth and Myhorn have been dismissed from their cabinet posts. There are pictures of twisted people being turned out of their jobs and the Dalavan Militia driving the twisted off the sidewalks and tearing expensive jewelry off people who violate the never-before-enforced sumptuary laws. There is no indication the jewelry is ever returned. Automobiles deemed too expensive or flashy are scarred or heaved into canals unless their owners are on hand to pay “fines.” Organized bands of militia have attacked several half-worlds, driving out their inhabitants, sinking or towing off their dwellings.

They can’t live in the half-worlds, Aiah thinks, and they’re not allowed on the streets. Where are they to live?

Nowhere, of course. They are not to exist.

Aiah thanks Senko that Constantine had disbanded the censorship board, the News Council. The news organizations are at liberty to present alternate points of view, and they do so.

Adaveth and Myhorn speak with anger and regret. Hilthi is prominently featured, eyes burning with a conviction he never seemed to display in meetings of the cabinet. He denounces the purification campaign as inhumane, a betrayal of the revolution, a vile piece of political jobbery and gangsterism. He calls on the people to resist, and his denunciation of the triumvirate is particularly eloquent.

Constantine, Aiah notes, does not comment. He is visiting the army in Lanbola, and has nothing to say about anything happening in Caraqui.

Anger wars with sickness in Aiah’s heart. She presses the solid gold button on her media console that turns off the video, and looks dumbly at Khorsa.

“What can we do?” Khorsa says.

“Nothing. We don’t have enough power, not really. The Barkazil Division is only a small fraction of the army, and I don’t think they’ll go against the government even if I ask them to.”

“What of Constantine? He can’t approve of this. Can’t you talk to him?”

Aiah shakes her head. “He’s partly responsible, I think. He’s made some kind of deal with Parq. He gets to keep the army and Resources, and Parq gets his purification campaign.”

“And you and he—?” Khorsa asks. “Between you all is well?”

“I don’t know.” Aiah rubs her forehead. “He uses me for… for his projects. And he gives me things—the department, power, even an army. But he is… elusive. And he won’t return my calls, won’t tell me what he has planned with Parq or… or anyone else.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know what to think.”

Concern lights Khorsa’s eyes. “I have heard a story about him.” She hesitates. “I don’t know whether it’s true.” “Yes?”

Khorsa licks her lips, looks away. “There is a story that once each week he goes to the prison and interviews prisoners. And he orders some of the prisoners released. And then the prisoners die of the Party Disease.”

Despair gnaws at Aiah’s heart. She wants to deny the story, but it is so close to the truth that she doubts she’d be able to lie, at least convincingly. All she can say is, “Constantine isn’t in charge of the prisons. He doesn’t interview prisoners; he can’t order releases.”

She remembers Drumbeth giving the order. Unless, she thinks, Faltheg and Parq subsequently reversed