—Vida the Compassionate. Her mercy on us.
—Can you get a plasm surgeon here? Aiah asks. We might be able to—
—We don’t have enough of them, Aiah. They’re all busy and—
—I already have. But I couldn’t weld the rotator closed; I don’t know how.
—It’s only important that you cut it. The rebels won’t have a chance for repairs anytime soon.
—See if you can find us a plasm doctor. And check if you can find the boat.
—Which first?
—The doctor, I think.
—I’ll try. I’ll have to go for a while.
—Then
Ethemark vanishes from Aiah’s mind as abruptly as if someone had thrown a switch. The rattle in Davath’s throat seems to fill the darkness, crowding out the sound of battle overhead.
The boat finds Aiah before Ethemark returns, but by then Davath has stopped breathing and lies cold in Aiah’s arms. She, Prestley, and the boat’s crew pick up the huge corpse and wrestle it into the boat. Only then does Aiah notice the boat is damaged, windscreen starred with bullets and gouges scarring the gunwale.
“We can’t go back the way we came,” the helmsman says. “Police there, and they shot at us.”
“Pull out into midchannel,” Aiah says. “We’ll wait for Ethemark.”
But Ethemark does not return. Artillery continues to hammer overhead. Eventually the crew grows too nervous remaining around the plasm junction and try to find a way around the roadblock, moving into mazes of dark watery corridors, barnacle-encrusted steel and concrete, tangles of forgotten barges and half-sunken boats. Every way out seems guarded by police. Eventually they give up and just drift in the darkness, alone with the boat, the body, and their own weariness. Heavy guns continue to pound overhead.
Aiah is drowsing, leaning in despair against the gunwale, when there is a sudden splashing astern. She snaps upright, fumbling for the gun in her lap.
“Is this the magnificent watercraft containing the illumi-nous Aiah, princess of plasm and all humanity?” A bright, burbling voice.
“Aranax?” Aiah gasps. She lunges out of her seat and looks over the stern, sees the dolphin grinning at her from below.
The dolphin splashes in the water with spatulate fingers. “I do not have the honor of being the magnificent Prince Aranax, sublime and wise, who even now is engaged in combat against the forces of darkness and ignorance. This insignificant being is Arroy Pasha, and the glorious, all-knowing Constantine has sent me to find you and bring your exalted self to safe harbor.”
Aiah wants to throw off her hard hat and dance, but she composes herself to reply to the dolphin in his own strain.
“Arroy Pasha,” she says, “your wisdom and compassion exceeds that of the immortals. If your sublimity is ready, I humbly beg you to lead our trivial selves away from this battlefield.”
“It is my exceptional joy and delight to take some insignificant part in the preservation of your illuminous self,” the dolphin says, and then tosses his head and submerges, out-curved feet kicking high as he dives.
The helmsman presses the ignition and the boat’s engines growl into life. He turns on the spotlights, and ahead Aiah sees the dolphin’s humped back as it breaks the surface in the channel ahead.
“Follow,” she says, and they keep the dolphin in the spotlights, through turns and twists and brief spurts across open water, until he has brought them safely to a berth in the Aerial Palace.
ELEVEN
The command center is alive with tension, as if there were an invisible thread of burning plasm connecting everyone in the room. Constantine stands before the map wearing one of the golden-and-ceramic headsets, but when he sees Aiah enter he speaks a few words into the mouthpiece, then strips off the headset and moves— swiftly, with that incredible certitude of movement—to fold her in his arms. Weariness falls on Aiah at that instant, and for a moment her knees threaten to give way.
Constantine absorbs the extra weight, and then she feels him stiffen with tension. The bristle on his chin scratches her cheek—he hasn’t shaved. “There’s blood on you,” he says. “Are you hurt?”
“No. We ran into police. One of my people was killed.” She swallows. “He was a hero. Davath.”
“Are you hurt at all?”
“Not really, no. Some scrapes.” And, of course, the knowledge that one of her people was gunned down while she did nothing but watch.
“Thank you for sending Arroy to get me out,” Aiah says. “I don’t know what became of Ethemark.”
Constantine flakes dried blood from her chin. “It wasn’t Ethemark’s fault,” he says. “We had to cut off plasm to all mages who weren’t actually fighting, and in our haste we didn’t realize that it would leave you vulnerable. The battle over Xurcal started before we were ready, there was already a fight going on over the aerodrome, and we were exhausting our plasm supplies. All nonessential plasm use had to be cut.” Constantine’s fingers idly stroke her hair, and Aiah wants to melt into him, fuse with his comforting warmth…
“Sir.” An aide. “Hilthi on the line for you.”
“The war will not wait,” Constantine says. He kisses her forehead. “Get a shower, some rest—there are showers in the room adjacent, and cots in the shelters.”
Aiah is sufficiently exhausted that she finds herself in her own apartment, in her own shower, before she realizes that she has put herself in danger in the event the building is shelled or rocketed again. The realization drifts through her mind like a cloud, light and without effect. She is too tired to care, and, wrapped in a towel, collapses onto her bed and is asleep the instant she closes her eyes.
Some hours later she comes screaming awake, every nerve jangling, certain there has been shooting or an explosion. Her eyes gaze into the darkened room in search of an enemy while her heart hammers in her throat. And then the communications array chirps again, and she realizes that it’s only the phone. She picks up the headset with shaking hands, and it takes a long time to settle the earpieces over her ears.
“Aiah?” It’s her grandmother’s voice.
“Nana?” The voice from her past is disorienting: for a moment she thinks she’s back in Jaspeer.
Old Galaiah’s voice is stern. “We’ve all left messages! We’re frightened to death!”
“I’m sorry,” Aiah says. She brushes tangled curls from her eyes and tries to remember if she saw the message light when she returned to her apartment. “I’ve been… out in the fighting. But I’m back, and I’m safe.”
“When you hear the all-clear,” Galaiah says, “I want you to go out and get food. Get it now, before there’s rationing, ne? Bulk food—rice is good, or dried noodles, because vat curd will spoil and you can’t trust that the refrigeration will stay on. Otherwise flour, any kind. Condensed or powdered milk—goat’s milk is best. And canned vegetables and fruit—don’t eat the fruit, you can trade it for other stuff later, because it willbecome very valuable. People will pay anything for the taste of a peach, you’d be surprised… Hey, are you
“Yes, Nana.” Overwhelmed by all the detail.
“Just rice, with a little extra protein from eggs or meat, will last you a month. You can live for months that way if you have to, ne?”
Galaiah’s instructions go on, explicit and detailed, and Aiah listens, first in confusion and then in growing understanding, because she remembers Galaiah has gone through this before,
Her grandmother, Aiah realizes, is passing on useful skills. It’s what she’s always done.
“Nana,” she says. “This fighting won’t go on long. It’s not a war, it’s a coup, and—”
“That’s what
The retort brings Aiah up short. “Yes, Nana,” she says.
