Beneath a lovely carving of grapes, outside in the hall, Aiah finally catches a few hours’ rest, sleeping on the carpet with her jacket for a pillow.
TWO
“Hello, little bird.”
Aiah looks up and sees Charduq the Hermit gazing down at her. He has been there all her life, on his pillar at the Barkazi Savings Institute, with rain and Shieldlight falling alike on his head, and the wind blowing his long beard up in his eyes.
“Hello, old crow,” says Aiah.
Charduq smooths his beard with a gnarled hand. “A little bird should have more respect for the older birds of this world,” Charduq says.
Aiah is only eleven years old, but she knows better than to let some mangy holy man get the better of her. “If the old crow wants more respect,” she says, “he should fly down off his perch and get some for himself.”
The hermit giggles. “The little bird’s claws are sharp,” he observes. “And she has got herself some new feathers. What is that uniform?”
“For my new school.” Aiah’s new skirt, vest, and blouse are all too large, to allow room for growth, and the long sleeves of the blouse are rolled up to her elbows. She is not proud of her appearance, swathed in acres of cloth, and wishes Charduq had not mentioned it.
“What new school? I haven’t seen that uniform.”
“Miss Turmak got me a scholarship. I have to take the trackline to Redstone District.” She holds up her plastic trackline pass.
“The little bird flies far.” Charduq raises his eyebrows. “Miss Turmak is a longnose, ne?” he says. “It’s a longnose education they’ll give you in Redstone.”
Aiah shrugs. “It’s a longnose education they have in the state school, too. It’s just not as
“But if you don’t go to school in Old Shorings, you’ll be away from the Children of Karlo.”
Aiah has heard this argument before, mostly from her own family. “You’ll forget who you are,” they tell her. “You’ll grow up a longnose and lose all your cunning.”
She looks around the bustle of Old Shorings—the crazy old buildings propped up by metal scaffolds, the street stalls and liquor stores, the jobless young men lounging on street corners and the Operation bagman making his collections—and wonders what is so great about this place that she should have to stay here for the rest of her life.
“I’ll still live here,” she tells Charduq. “How can I forget who I live with?”
Charduq smiles down at her benignly. “The little bird will not forget her nest.” He cocks his head. “You’re an Old Oel-phil family, aren’t you?”
Charduq, Aiah figures, is the sort who would care about this kind of silly superstition. The Old Oelphil families are supposed to be the guardians of the Barkazil people, reincarnating from generation to generation rather than continuing on to paradise.
They seem not to have done the Barkazil much good the last few generations, though, Aiah muses. Where were the Oelphil, she wonders, at the Battle of the Plastic Factory?
“I’m supposed to be Oelphil on my mother’s side,” Aiah says. “I don’t know about my dad.”
“I remember your father,” Charduq says. “He looked Oelphil to me.”
Charduq has been on his pillar so long that he knows practically everybody in Old Shorings. And he’s a relentless gossip as well, always happy to retail the latest scandals.
“When you’re in Redstone,” Charduq says, “you remember that you’re one of our people’s guardians. You learn that longnose education now, but remember that it’s for our benefit, so we can grow in our cunning.”
“I’ll remember,” Aiah promises, becoming restless. “I need to catch the trackline now.”
She opens her satchel and drops her lunch into Charduq’s plastic collection bucket—she knows that once she is in her new school she will be too excited to eat—and Charduq hauls the bucket to his perch with his rope. “You’re generous, little bird,” he says. “A blessing on you, and a curse on your enemies.”
“Thank you.” Politely.
Her thoughts are already on the trackline, away from Old Shorings, toward her new life.
Items 1 through 3 are the easy tasks, though they take almost until midbreak. Item 4 proves more difficult than she expected—she had been raised on the dole, in apartments provided by the Jaspeeri government in a shambles of a district called Old Shorings. Aiah’s grandparents were refugees from the war that had destroyed the Metropolis of Barkazi, and Aiah had been raised among a people that had lost almost everything: family, tradition, culture, security, hope.
The Plasm Control Authority had been a route out of Old Shorings and all that it represented. Despite its sloth and ineptitude and pointlessness, the civil service provided security, which was of prime importance to a Barkazil girl who had no stability in her young life.
Resigning from the Authority was saying farewell to all the security she had ever known. And in exchange for a job in what is perhaps the least secure civil service in the world—the last inhabitant of this office had probably been pitched out of his job at the point of a bayonet.
But of course it is foolish to think she can ever go back to the Scope of Jaspeer. Not with the police after her for what the statutes quaintly called “crimes against the public interest,” in this case stealing millions of dalders’ worth of plasm and giving it to a political adventurer who promptly used it to overthrow a friendly government.
She sends the wiregram and feels a moment of loss as a part of her former life falls away.
Two more parts of her former life. By now she doesn’t want to contemplate losing either.
Aiah looks at her watch. 11:41. Almost midbreak, and she suddenly realizes she’s very hungry.
She hasn’t eaten since yesterday’s sandwiches.
She stands, stretches, wonders where in this giant place she can get something to eat. Aiah walks through her empty receptionist’s office into the hallway, and her nerves give a little jump as she sees Constantine bearing down on her at his usual earth-devouring pace—elemental energy, balanced and directed and walking on two long legs.
His black velvet suit, trimmed with lace, makes him look like a pirate at a bankers’ convention. He carries a black leather briefcase with a combination lock.
A smile breaks across his face. “Miss Aiah,” he says. “Are you comfortable in your new quarters?”
Aiah’s answering smile freezes to her face. “As soon as they scrape the former occupant off the walls, yes.”
Constantine looks surprised.
“My apologies. No doubt a mistake was made in all the confusion.”
“No doubt.” Aiah’s tone is meant to indicate that there is a story here if Constantine wants to hear it.
There is an awkward pause. Apparently it is not the time for stories.
“Are you engaged?” he asks finally.
Aiah suppresses a bitter laugh. “Not until I have a budget and personnel, no.”
Tigerish pleasure glows in his eyes. “I am now in a position to give you both. I have just come from a meeting of the cabinet, and your department is approved. You will be pleased to know you are the Director of the Plasm Enforcement Division. Gentri, the Minister of Public Security, objected loudly to your endowment, because you’re in competition with the plasm squads of the police, and therefore in a position to make him look bad—but the
