language. “What kind of skills?”
“The department is hiring only two kinds of staff: mages and clerical. And a few supervisors who will
“Your brother Stonn needs a job.”
“Stonn has a criminal record,” Aiah says. “He’d never pass the security check.”
Galaiah is unperturbed. “You’re in charge, ne?
Galaiah is an optimist where Stonn’s character is concerned. He is a petty criminal, with a petty criminal’s mind: impulsive, feckless, unpredictable, short-tempered. He would be a disaster as a member of the PED.
“Nana,” Aiah says. “I can’t fix the security check. It’s not done in my department—we contract it out to the political police.”
Sorya’s Force of the Interior. The last thing Aiah wants is for Sorya to get access to the minds of her relatives.
“It’s a bad day when you won’t give your brother a job!” Galaiah says. “You got to help out your family!”
Aiah changes tack. “Let me tell you what the department pays,” Aiah says. “I’ve checked on Worldwide News and put the figures in Jaspeeri dalders.”
Galaiah listens to the figures, and when Aiah finishes there is a dubious silence on the other end of the line. “That’s not much,” she says. “Your niece Qismah is getting more on the dole.”
“That’s because she’s got kids,” Aiah says. Raised on the dole herself, she absorbed the intricacies of its regulations with her mother’s milk.
“But no,” she goes on, “we can’t pay much. If the department does a good job, I’ll get a bigger budget.”
“How about your longnose lover?” Galaiah asks. “Can he get one of your kin a job?”
“Constantine’s not a longnose, he’s a Cheloki.” Aiah can’t quite resist the correction.
The old lady is firm. “If he’s not one of the Cunning People, then he’s a longnose.”
“Clerks and mages,” Aiah says. “That’s what I can hire. Without criminal records, without knowledge of crime. Because anything shady would come out in the plasm scans, and then they’d use it against me, ne?”
“Got no mages in the family,” Galaiah says, thinking out loud. “Well, there’s Esmon’s Khorsa.”
“Khorsa I would hire.” She is a witch, engaged to Aiah’s cousin Esmon. She had also helped Aiah on her flight from Jaspeer.
“I think she probably makes more money at the Wisdom Fortune Temple.”
“Probably,” Aiah agrees.
“And clerks,” Galaiah says. “You need clerks.”
“Tell everyone,” Aiah says, “what I need. But I can’t promise I’ll hire anyone.”
“If someone wants to try for one of these jobs,” Galaiah says, “can you send them some money for the trip?”
Aiah sighs. “Yes,” she says. “I’ll do that.”
And hopes, as she ends the call, that she isn’t subsidizing her family’s vacations.
QERWAN ARMS TO RECEIVE NEW MANAGEMENT
POLITICAL APPOINTEES SACKED!
Anstine, Aiah’s newly hired receptionist, makes his way out of Aiah’s office, and then the door fills with Constantine. Observing office protocol, he very properly closes the door behind him before he folds her in his arms and kisses her.
“Can you stay long?” she asks.
His head gives a brief shake. “I came only to warn you,” he says. “Yes?”
“You are to receive a visit tomorrow, 13:00 or thereabouts. The triumvirate, plus any cabinet ministers who feel an interest. They want to see what you’ve accomplished.”
Alarm sings through Aiah’s veins. “But we’ve barely
He slips from her embrace, moves to stand by the window. “That’s as may be,” he says, “but they already have plans for you.”
“What plans?” Promptly. “And who?”
“Colonel Drumbeth is considering placing a military officer in your department to advise on matters that cross into his department. I suspect it’s to make certain that the military gets its share of what you find.”
Aiah bites back annoyance. She has no inclination to be the military’s personal plasm diver.
“Can’t you head him off?” she asks.
Constantine shrugs. Below, Shieldlight winks silver off glass, glows green off rooftop gardens. “I can argue against it, to be sure, but—as we have observed—I can’t stop Drumbeth from doing anything he really desires to do. He and the military are in
“Priest?” The notion seems too absurd for Aiah to even take alarm.
Constantine flashes his teeth as he speaks. “The Keremaths took power with the backing of the Dalavans, remember. The Keremaths gave the Dalavans special privileges afterward, and various sumptuary and moral laws were passed obliging the population to conform to rigorous Dala-van standards of conduct and morality.”
Pigeons bob about on the window ledge, red button eyes all without a hint of life. “I can’t say I’ve observed any stringent moral codes in force since I’ve been here,” Aiah observes.
“The laws, as with all Keremath laws, have been loosely enforced, or not enforced at all. But now that Parq is a third of the government, he wishes to enforce the laws that give his faith its special privileges. He wants to create a Dalavan police force to enforce the moral strictures, and he wishes to put an ombudsman in every department to make certain that department guidelines are not in conflict with the Dalavan faith.”
“Great Senko!”
He looks at her sidelong, irony curling his lips. “I would avoid any promiscuous mention of the immortals when Parq is around,” he says.
“Drumbeth and Hilthi won’t permit this, will they?”
“I assume not. Hilthi is a moralist, but he’s not a Dala-van moralist. And Drumbeth no more wants one of Parq’s spies in every office than we do.” He frowns, and his fingers tap lightly on the window glass in thought. “Parq may have brought up the issue only in hope of heading off the activist wing of his own party, which has denounced his personal version of the faith as halfhearted, indulgent, and temporizing—which is true—and which has denounced Parq himself as tyrannous, corrupt, and venal—which is also true.”
“Perhaps Parq has made the demand only to trade them for something else he really wants,” Aiah says.
Constantine looks at her, approving eyes gleaming in reflected Shieldlight. “I see you have learned somewhat of politics since you have been in Caraqui.”
“I have a good teacher.”
He gives a low, immodest laugh, then turns back to the window. An airship lies on the far horizon, Shieldlight flashing silver off its skin, off its propeller disks. Behind it, the sky suddenly flashes with the profile of Gargelius Enchuk, plasm hype for his new recording.
“We shall see what Parq truly wants in time,” Constantine says. “It may be that he has no true plan at all other than to seek advantage wherever he can find it. But we must give him a victory sooner or later, or he may realize that he is better off in opposition. And as he is the spiritual leader of rather more than a third of our population, we cannot afford to have him oppose us.”
Aiah’s thoughts churn uneasily. “What can you give such a man that will content him?”
“He is so corrupt that he may settle for money, or an hour of video time every week to preach to the citizens, or a beautiful woman. We shall see.”
Aiah turns, puts her arms around Constantine’s waist. “And what will content
