City on Fire

copper-skinned young men; Constantine’s boat vaults up the other boat’s wake, finds itself airborne for a moment as the sound of the turbines climbs to a shriek, then slaps to a landing in a fine burst of spray. Constantine laughs as wipers scrape saltwater from the windscreen.

Aiah looks at Constantine’s joy and wonders how it is possible for him to experience such pleasure, surrounded as he is by guards and constant care. It is astonishing, she muses, how he is able to live so thoroughly in the moment, as vital as the plasm that keeps him young.

Office buildings loom up on either side, granite and steel and glass reflecting the scowling clouds overhead, tall as anyone dares to build atop the Sea of Caraqui. One of them has a tower constructed as a giant golden glass lotus, and in it a beacon that gives the glass a fine amber glow. Rohder is conducting his experiments in a business district because, manipulating these giant buildings in accordance with his theories of geomancy, he expects to gain results more conclusive than if he uses less mass.

“The Lotus District,” Constantine remarks.

The launch passes beneath a glittering gold bridge, all white enamel and gilt gingerbread, each upright topped with the brushy golden image of a lotus; and then the dark cranes are seen ahead, with hawsers drooping low over the canal.

Weathered Keremaths smile from the side of one of the pontoons: Our family is your family. Constantine slows, cuts the power, and the launch settles onto its bow wave as it drifts up to a rusty floating jetty. Crewmen throw hawsers, which are made fast; Constantine leaps from the boat to the jetty, then helps Aiah out of the boat and onto the mesh-steel surface. The jetty rocks under their weight.

The guard boat doesn’t come to a mooring, just waits in the canal with its engines idling, and in the relative silence Aiah can hear the ominous throb of helicopters echoing off the tall buildings, and looks up to find them, with no success—all she can find is a shaggy hermit hanging in a canvas sling fifteen stories up. He sways in the wind. Aiah glances at Constantine to see him gazing up as well, a thoughtful frown on his upturned face.

“Army on maneuvers,” he says. “Civilians wouldn’t fly that many copters at once.” He looks down, shrugs. “Readiness is best, I suppose. Though Radeen has complained of insufficient funds for fuel.”

They climb the battered steel stair to the road surface above. A woman with a video camera records their arrival: a ministry employee, Aiah notes, not media. A man stands next to her with a boxy microphone on a telescoping stick. It’s for history, then, not for broadcast—if the experiment doesn’t work, then no embarrassed explanations will have to be offered, and the recordings will probably be quietly tossed down some Palace oubliette.

Rohder, in a red windbreaker and an orange hard hat, stands near another of the gilt-lotus bridges, conferring with a group of helmeted engineers. Others call obscure orders into boxy handheld radios made of heavy black plastic. Constantine is content to let them do their business uninterrupted. He raises his collar against the blustery wind, then turns to Aiah.

“How do we fare with the amnesty?”

“Enough people have turned themselves in to keep ministry teams busy for the next three weeks, repairing and installing meters,” Aiah says. “It is difficult to say how much plasm reserves will be increased, but I suspect the amount will be considerable.”

Constantine is amused. “That will be a nice tidbit to drop at the next cabinet meeting.” He sidles closer, gives her a covert look. “I have not seen any information on our friend Gentri.”

Exasperation plucks at her nerves. “Nothing, Minister,” she says. “He works long hours, he seems to be faithful to his wife, his record is clean. His name has not come up in any interrogation. And I have little time to pursue any investigation, not when I have a department to run and the investigation is so private I can have no help.”

“There have been complaints lodged. That where the Silver Hand is absent or ineffective, the police have been filling the vacuum. Extortion, strong-arm work for loan sharks or local bosses… Perhaps only fear of the Hand was keeping the police out of the crime business.”

Aiah shrugs. “Gentri may not be a part of it—probably is not, unless we can find money going to him. Unless it’s got to do with plasm, it’s not our mandate anyway.”

“Perhaps you could find someone close to Gentri who, for a consideration, might be persuaded to make reports…”

She looks at him, annoyance tautening her vocal cords. “I’m not a spy!” she says. “I’m not suited for this, and I have other work!”

He frowns, draws a little away from her. “As you wish,” in tones both cold and silky.

Anxiety hums through Aiah. She wants to follow him, offer him further explanations, further excuses, an apology. But then her moment of distress is followed by another of stubborn anger, and she decides, The hell with it. What else could I tell him?

Constantine, eyes narrowed, seems to detect her defiance, and he walks off to confer with Rohder, leaving Aiah alone. The helicopter throbbings seem a little farther off and disappear into the background noise of traffic. Wind sluices between the tall buildings, and Aiah shivers in her wool jacket.

The group of engineers around Rohder breaks up. Curved antennas bob as people shout commands into their radios. Police stop traffic on the bridges and police boats move into position to block the canal, because if one of the cables breaks it could whip into a boat and kill somebody. Aiah moves back, stands at the entrance of the tower- topped building, a cool alcove of polished copper engraved with the district’s lotus design.

What else could I have told him? Aiah demands of herself.

A fine spray dots the walkway in front of her alcove. The hermit pissing into the wind.

Hydrogen engines cough into life, and their barking roar echoes off the buildings. Winches roll; the huge cables straighten, then grow taut. Engineers peer at the bridges as the structures begin to creak—they are built to expand and contract as needed, at least within limits, but nothing has moved these structures in the centuries since the buildings were erected, and though everything has been cleaned and greased there is nevertheless anxiety that the bridges may not behave. Other engineers peer into bulky brass viewfinders set atop portable tripods: they are determining the distance between the buildings.

The wind moans around the cables, a baritone hum that rises occasionally to a shriek. Nothing anchors these buildings on their pontoons, nothing but the hugeness of their own inert mass and the mass of the other structures to which they are moored. Although the winches are slowly drawing in cable, it’s impossible to estimate by eye whether the buildings are moving closer or not. Elsewhere, out of sight, other cables are being slacked as these are drawn in.

The men at the viewfinders shout into their radios, and the winches grind to a stop; there is the sound of banging from the bridges, and then Rohder is waving his arms and the engines rumble to a stop. The sound of helicopters beats surprisingly loud in the sky.

Aiah walks out of the alcove and looks up—no copters, but letters flaming red against the dull gray clouds: The Provisional Government orders the public to behave in an orderly manner.

Provisional? Ridiculous. And what has there been but calm? Who is wasting government plasm on this?

Above, the hermit twists in the wind. Below, Constantine is amid a clump of engineers, but he’s clearly visible, a head taller than any of them. His presence seems expanded by a wide grin. In the crowd, Rohder is distinguished only by the puffs of his cigaret smoke that are whipped away by the wind. The camera circles the group of men, patiently waiting for a revelation. Aiah approaches, reaches the fringes of the group, then hesitates. She really isn’t a part of this.

Rohder is shouting into a handheld radio, pink face flushing. “What did you say? Say again!” Its curved antenna dances with every word. Constantine, grin broadening, reaches for the radio, takes it, turns a little plastic knob, and hands it back. “That should work,” he says.

Rohder shouts again. When he gets his answer, he looks up at Constantine and speaks in a soft voice. “Six percent.” Aiah can barely hear him.

Constantine tilts his head back, and his laugh booms out above the sound of helicopters. He is playing, Aiah knows, to the camera, but his joy must be genuine enough. “Congratulations,” he says.

Rohder frowns. “We’ll do better next time. These buildings are two or three hundred years old, and the plans are lost. Our mass estimates were approximations.”