City on Fire

He nods. “It’s Refiq.” He hesitates, then adds, “What was that thing? What happened to him? It was terrifying.”

Aiah looks at him. “Tell me what you saw.” She had never seen Taikoen in the act of capturing a human.

Alfeg hesitates. “I was telepresent, had my sensorium across the canal from Refiq’s apartment, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. I had configured my sensorium with farvision, to bring his apartment up close. I couldn’t have got into his apartment anyway, because he’d screened it very thoroughly, but I could peek through the windows. At 14:42 precisely I saw a plasm tether descend from the sky and pause outside the apartment as if it contained a sensorium that was doing some surveilling of its own. Whoever it was, he wasn’t trying to be subtle—I had the impression of haste, if anything.”

That would be Constantine, Aiah thinks, trying to locate Taikoen’s next victim while his government waited outside his office.

“And then something moved behind the kitchen window, something…” Alfeg swallows. “Something very disturbing. I only caught a glimpse of it, but it was menacing, as if someone had constructed an anima for a fright party. And then the window just blew out into the street, like an explosion, and the plasm tether shot in.” He licks his lips. “I wondered what to do. If I should try to break the plasm tether, or follow it to its point of origin, but in the end I decided just to keep watching.”

Taikoen, who could pass through plasm screens, had entered the apartment and opened the screen for Constantine to enter. Then, presumably, Constantine had subdued Refiq and performed whatever unholy midwifery was necessary.

“The plasm tether remained in the apartment for twenty minutes or so, and then it dissolved, as if the mage on the other end had simply broken the connection. A few minutes after that, I saw the subject, Refiq, examining the broken window from the inside. He was disheveled, like he had fallen, or maybe was drunk. He didn’t seem to be walking or moving very well. He brushed some broken glass off the win-dowsill, then went back into his apartment.”

“Where is he now?” Aiah asked.

“He put on some clothes—lace, studs; you know the way the cousins dress—and then he went to his bank. Withdrew some dinars, I guess, because next he went to a bar and ordered drinks for everybody. I turned over surveillance to Khorsa, and so far as I know, he’s still at the bar—he’s got himself quite an entourage by now, so I don’t think he’ll leave anytime soon.” “Good.”

A haunted look comes into Alfeg’s face. “Aiah,” he whispers. “What was that?”

Aiah hesitates. “I’ll go into more detail later,” she says. “But what you should know is that Refiq is dead now—he no longer exists. The creature has him. And the creature will take others until we put a stop to it.”

Aiah can see a little muscle jumping in Alfeg’s cheek.

“Tell no one,” Aiah reminds. “I’ll talk to you and Khorsa later.”

After Alfeg leaves, Aiah calls Aratha, the mage-major of Karlo’s Brigade, and sets an appointment for 06:00 next day. Then she heads for the offices of the PED, looks into Dr. Romus’s office, and sees only the man who shares his office.

“Is Doctor Romus in?” she asks. “Do you know if he’s in the Palace?”

“I’m here,” says Romus. His upper body snakes out from behind his desk, gliding with a lithe purposefulness toward Aiah’s ankles, and Aiah takes an involuntary step backward.

“I was sleeping,” Romus says. His body flows into the center of the room, and his face lifts level with hers. “I’m not on duty till second shift tomorrow.”

Aiah tries to calm her startled heart. “Will you join me in my office, please?” she asks.

“Certainly.”

Aiah leads him to her office, trying not to hear the slithering sounds of his body sawing to and fro on the carpet as he follows. She enters the office, holds the door until Romus joins her, and then closes it behind him. She takes her seat, then a breath.

“It is time,” she says, “to move against the creature you saw that first shift in the secure room.”

Romus’s eyes go wide in what looks like fear. His little tongue licks his lips. “I see,” he says.

“We know where it is,” Aiah says, “and we know it’s vulnerable now, for the next few days. I intend to establish a task force—a very secret one—to destroy the creature. My question is, Will you join it?”

Romus hesitates, his head swinging left and right on his long neck. “I have no experience in this,” he says.

“None of us do.”

“Is the triumvir a part of this scheme?”

Aiah hesitates. “He has given me to understand,” she says, “that this action will meet with his approval.”

Romus’s cilia give an uneasy, boneless shiver. “That is, forgive me, an evasive answer.”

It’s also a lie, of course. Aiah reminds herself that she should be more sparing with them.

“The triumvir does not know of this action,” Aiah says finally. “No one does. You do not, and I do not, and the creature does not exist.”

Romus is patient. “That is not quite an answer, either.”

Aiah runs her hands through her ringlets, throws her hair over her shoulders. “If you join this group,” she says finally, “it will be as a favor to me, and at some risk to yourself, and you will be doing immeasurable good to the community. If you choose not to join…” She sighs, shrugs. “Nothing more will be said. I only implore you to keep this a complete secret, both for your sake and mine.”

Romus sways back and forth while the silence builds. Aiah turns away, her nerves crawling with the unnatural motion. Finally, in Romus’s reedy tones, the answer comes.

“I have lived a long while,” he says, “and I am now, long after my first century is past, inclined to wonder for what. I spent years in the half-worlds, hardly ever seeing the Shield, scheming to advance my security, aiding people who have now all been murdered. Even my title of doctor is less than honorary, more a nickname than a real title. Now I have a job, and half an office, and a meal ticket… more than I’ve ever had, I suppose, but it hardly seems worth a century of effort.” Something uncertain flickers in his dark eyes. “If that thing, that demon, kills me now, what will I have lost? Half an office… so why does this half an office seem so precious?”

Having nothing to offer him, no more words of persuasion or consolation, Aiah waits. Eventually Romus pauses in his swaying, looks down at her.

“Very well,” he says. “I will join.” “Thank you, Doctor,” Aiah says.

NEGOTIATIONS COLLAPSE

FUND WITHDRAWAL IMMINENT

“COMPENSATED DEMOBILIZATION” CALLED “DEAD ISSUE”

Rohder blinks at Aiah with his pale blue eyes. “No,” he says.

She looks at him in surprise. Of all those she’d hoped to talk into destroying Taikoen, Rohder was the one she’d felt most sure of.

He lays his cigaret on the edge of the ashtray carefully, as if he were laying an artillery tube on an enemy objective, and gives a meditative frown.

“I have a number of objections,” he says. “What you propose is illegal, even under our current martial law. It is well outside our department’s authorization, and it violates the procedural and security standards which you yourself have established. And this action is highly dangerous for a group of untrained, inexperienced mages… What are you going to do if there are casualties? That creature—if it exists—could burn away the minds of half your people, and you still might not catch it.”

“If we work together,” Aiah says. “If we all know what we are doing…”

“You will not know what you are doing.” Rohder brushes cigaret ash from his shirtfront. “And I am far too old for this sort of thing,” he adds. “The last time I coped with a plasm emergency—the