City on Fire

“As Constantine has said, they are hardly cost-effective.”

Hilthi, scribbling in his notebook, gives a sharp glance over his spectacles at Constantine. “What do you mean, colleague?” he asks.

Constantine makes an equivocal gesture with one big hand. “Most of the half-worlds steal small amounts of plasm, true. They also steal fresh water and electricity, once again in insignificant amounts. And other things.”

“But all together,” Gentri says, “the amount is far from insignificant.”

“No doubt.” Constantine brushes the objection aside. “Still, no one lives in the half-worlds from choice. These communities exist because there is nowhere else that will have them.”

“Or because the police are looking for them,” Gentri says.

“Conceded. But my colleague speaks of dispersing six thousand inhabitants. May I ask where he expects these people to go?”

Gentri’s tone clenches his teeth. “The settlements,” he says, “were illegal. Where the inhabitants go is not our concern, provided they find a legal residence.”

“Where do the inhabitants have to go but other half-worlds? And once those are cleaned out, they will have no place to go but the streets, where they cannot help but create disturbances, and even a riot or two.” He turns to Hilthi. “How will the video broadcasts regard that? It is one thing to turn military police loose on the likes of the Silver Hand—it is regrettable, but most viewers will concede its necessity, given their threat to the state and a certain… reluctance … on the part of the proper authorities—but to set swarms of police loose on the most defenseless of our citizens, those on whose behalf we hope to create the revolution, to deprive them of shelter and set them out on the streets—”

“I object to these provocative descriptions!” Gentri shouts. “Swarms of police! Defenseless citizens! Reluctant authorities! My colleague is attempting to turn a perfectly legal police action into some grotesque act of brutality!”

There is an amused glint in Constantine’s eye. “I did not turn it so.”

Gentri looks at the others around the table. “Colleagues! This is outrageous!”

Constantine holds up a hand, forefinger tucked away with the thumb, remaining three fingers extended. “Three arrests of Handmen. That is outrageous.”

The room buzzes with the sound of everyone talking at once. Voices are raised. Finally Drumbeth picks up the crystal hammer and brings it down. The Crystal Dome rings with harmony, and—for the moment anyway—the babble of discord dies away.

Drumbeth looks at Gentri. “I had hoped for better results against the Handmen,” he says.

“Mr. President,” Gentri says, “they are a large and difficult target.”

“Miss Aiah has not found them so difficult.” Drumbeth frowns. “After the Keremaths, the Hand is the chief target of our administration. They are the chief threat to the security of our metropolis. When may we expect you to move decisively against them?”

Gentri licks his lips. Plasm adverts, red, yellow, green, bloom behind his head like fireworks. “Intelligence must be gathered, targets chosen, plans made…”

The commanding light that glitters in Drumbeth’s eyes is like the hard gleam off a diamond facet. He sits erect and motionless in his chair, and his presence seems to inflate: despite Drumbeth’s small body he suddenly seems to mass far more than Gentri, and to tower over him like the stone-face Myhorn.

“My understanding,” Drumbeth says, “is that you have gathered intelligence, that the police have years of intelligence.”

Gentri shifts uncomfortably in his seat, rearranges his thinning locks with a distracted hand. “We are in a process of review. To determine its accuracy.”

“And when may we expect to have the review completed?”

Gentri raises his hands helplessly. “I—have no estimate. I did not understand that any of these issues would be raised at this meeting.”

Constantine leans forward and speaks. His speech has turned silky; he is generous now that he has made his point.

“I sympathize with my colleague’s dilemma. He is new to his position, and he is not responsible for the fact that he has inherited a police force renowned for its corruption. I have a few of the same problems with some of the organizations under my ministerial control. One understands the situation, but one doesn’t want to admit the system’s failures among one’s peers.”

Gentri is in no mood to be appeased, and scowls as he makes his reply. “Steps are being taken to rectify this situation. I have made full reports to my colleagues on my efforts.”

Constantine continues soothing, his deep voice evoking odd little harmonies from the crystal surroundings, individual panes and plates ringing with his voice. “May I offer my colleague the technique that has produced such admirable results in the Plasm Enforcement Division? That each employee be subjected to a plasm scan in order to determine that he is not beholden to the Silver Hand or any other extralegal agency?”

Gentri glares at Constantine. Behind him, plasm letters hang burning in the sky. “The effects on police morale would be incalculable.”

Constantine’s laughter rumbles out, and somewhere a crystal pane hums in sympathy. “I should hope so.”

Gentri looks at the head of the table. “Am I to understand that the half-worlds now possess the same sort of political immunity formerly enjoyed by the Silver Hand and various Keremath enterprises? What possible use could such protection be for us—what is gained?”

Drumbeth frowns, thinks for a long moment. “I am concerned principally with returning plasm resources to the state. If there are plasm thieves, or other criminals, within the half-worlds, let them be arrested, by all means.”

Hilthi looks up again from his notebooks. “But deporting whole populations…” he says.

“I think not,” says Drumbeth. He looks at Gentri, and his voice turns commanding. “And we desire action against the Handmen. Names, charges, facts, totals of plasm and other stolen materials returned. All this, and soon.”

Gentri visibly bites down his resentment, and nods. “Very well, sir,” he says. “Soon.”

Soon. Aiah thinks she tastes an odd flavor in that word, as if Gentri is offering another promise entirely, something quite different from what Drumbeth has in mind.

But no one else seems to hear what Aiah hears, and suddenly there is a blaze of light overhead. Several in the cabinet start, afraid this might be some kind of attack, but there is no danger, it is only a plasm display—an illegal plasm display, because no displays are permitted over the Palace in the event they might be used to disguise an assault. But all faces turn upward in any case… A dolphin spins through space; a cat wearing white gloves and a vest makes a commanding gesture with a stick; a woman in tall boots contemplates some kind of net she is holding in her hand, a window which allows a glimpse of an unnaturally green plain, as if someone had sown the surface of a large roof entirely in grass and placed on it a few black-and-white cows. Each image leaping into being, moving, dissolving into another, all too fast for the mind to follow.

“What is that?” Constantine breathes in wonder.

“The Dreaming Sisters,” Aiah says.

“And who are they?” Constantine says.

Aiah doesn’t have an answer, and it is Ethemark—gazing upward, the images reflected in his huge eyes—who supplies the reply.

“They are a religious order,” he says.

“They must be a rich religious order,” Constantine says, “to afford so much plasm.”

“No doubt,” says Ethemark.

And then the image fades, leaving in Aiah’s heart a burning droplet of wonder, even as the cabinet meeting drones on.

CHARNA COMPLAINS TO CARAQUI GOVERNMENT

“CARAQUI IS EXPORTING GANGSTERS TO ITS NEIGHBORS”