City on Fire

“You have it if you want it. But what about the Wisdom Fortune Temple?”

“We have enough trained assistants to take my place, at least for a while.”

Despair wails in Aiah’s nerves. “You don’t believe Charduq, too, do you? I can assure you that I’m not an immortal.”

Khorsa considers this. “I don’t know if it’s necessary that you know,” she says.

Aiah turns away. “I don’t like this game,” she says.

“The Cunning People need something,” Khorsa says. “The heart went out of us when the Metropolis of Barkazi was destroyed. Even though that happened three generations ago, we still live like refugees. You’re a hero to our people—you can change things.”

“It’s a delusion,” Aiah says. “And when nothing comes of it, everyone’s going to be hurt.”

Khorsa looks at her fixedly. “Is what you—you and Constantine—is what you’re trying to accomplish in Caraqui delusional?”

“I hope not.” Aiah again turns away from the intent glimmer of expectation in Khorsa’s eyes. “If Caraqui fails, however, it won’t be my fault. But if every hope the Cunning People hold for me turns to ashes, whose fault will it be? Who will they blame?”

“Different questions,” Khorsa says, “with different answers.”

Aiah tastes bitterness on her tongue. “I somehow doubt they will hold Charduq responsible.”

Khorsa’s voice is soft. “They are coming. I cannot say how many. But they are coming, whether you want them or not.”

“Go back to Jaspeer. Tell Charduq to shut up.”

“He won’t.”

Aiah waves a hand. “Then tell him the time isn’t ripe! Tell him to wait!” She represses a snarl. “Damn it, if I’m an immortal, he ought to do what I tell him!”

A hint of a smile glimmers across Khorsa’s face. “I can tell him that, I think.”

She is half the world away from her large and troublesome family, Aiah thinks, and now they pursue her, larger and more troublesome than she ever imagined they could be.

She notices a new folder on her desk, and knows it contains the results of the security scans performed in the pre-break. She grabs the folder, opens it, pages savagely through it until she comes to Alfeg’s file.

Clean, she discovers; no police spy, no contacts with the government of Jaspeer. No one’s agent… save maybe, in some sense, Charduq’s.

Right, Aiah thinks. You’re a rich boy—it’s time to spend some of Daddy’s money.

NEW CITY NOW

“You’re hired,” Aiah says. “Congratulations.”

Alfeg looks at her with a questioning expression, eyebrows lifted. “You sound as if you resent the fact you’re hiring me,” he says.

“There are some services I wish you to perform,” Aiah continues, “in addition to those covered by the job.”

A frown crosses Alfeg’s bemused face. “I’m sorry? There are conditions to my getting the job?”

Aiah places her palms firmly atop Alfeg’s file on her desk. “Not officially,” she says.

“Ah.” He blinks at her for a moment, touches his chin-lace in a self-conscious way, then nods. “What do you wish me to do?”

“Do you know Charduq the Hermit?”

The knowing smile dances across Alfeg’s face, a smile that suggests he and Aiah share a secret.

“Yes,” he says. “I’m familiar with him.”

“He’s a lunatic,” Aiah says, and watches Alfeg’s self-satisfied little smile twitch away. “He’s telling stories about me that aren’t true, and he’s trying to persuade Barkazils to give up their lives and come to Caraqui.”

“Ah—he’s—,” Alfeg stumbles. Aiah holds out a hand.

“Let me finish, please,” Aiah says. “Since it seems I can’t stop him from talking, and since it would appear that some Barkazils, at least, are coming—and mostly those who have little to lose, I suspect—I want you to establish an organization for their reception. Help find them work, a place to live, that sort of thing.”

Alfeg takes a moment to process this. “Will I be receiving any funds for this project?” he asks.

“No,” Aiah says. “None but what you can raise yourself.”

“I—” He blinks.

“And you’ll have to do it in your spare time,” Aiah says, “because you’ll be starting here right away, and we’re all working shifts-and-a-half.”

Alfeg clears his throat. “Is this some kind of test?” he asks.

“No.”

He stares at Aiah, searching her expression for a clue which Aiah refuses to give. Then, after a long silence, he gives an uncomfortable tug to his collar and turns away. “I’ll do it,” he says.

“Thank you.” Briskly. She hands him a paper. “Your office will be Room 3224, which you’ll share with one or two others. You’ll be in Ethemark’s division—report to him tomorrow at 08:00, start of work shift, for orientation and assignment. Your badge will be waiting at the reception area, northwest gate.”

“Yes. Ah.” He licks his lips, stands. Aiah rises from behind her desk and shakes his hand.

“And if I hear from any indigent Barkazils,” Aiah says, “I’ll refer them to you.”

His head gives a little jerk.

“Yes,” he murmurs, “of course.”

WATCH THE LYNXOID BROTHERS… AS THEY FACE THEIR GREATEST MENACE… TYROS THE TERRIBLE

It’s an arrest, one like many others. The suspect is a midlevel plasm seller, probably not a Handman but one of their cousins, whose plasm tap is in a secret room in the back of his apartment. He has been having a party for several days, looks like: there are empty bottles and used glasses everywhere, and the acrid tang of cigar smoke fills every room. There are two girls here, obvious professionals despite their youth, and no sign of the plasm seller’s wife and children.

Aiah, playing plasm angel, hovers invisibly in the room, along with a pair of her colleagues. They seem redundant: there is no sign of traps or resistance, and the suspect is so drunk he can barely walk.

The military cops cuff his hands behind his back and prop him up while they pat him down. He’s wearing only underwear, and looks terrible: pale, unshaven, with deep circles beneath his eyes and patches of sweat on his undershirt, as if forty-eight hours of hangover had caught up with him all at once.

The girls stand naked in the corner, under guard. One modestly crosses her arms over her breasts, the other merely lets a cigaret hang from her lips, drinks from her little bottle of whisky, and watches the soldiers with contempt. They are both licensed prostitutes, each with her official yellow card, and though Aiah suspects at least one card misstates an age, suspicion is not quite enough given the department’s wartime urgency, and the two will be released as soon as the apartment is properly secure.

One of the military cops comes out of the bedroom carrying a pair of the suspect’s trousers. He and his colleagues try to maneuver the drunken suspect into them, a little comical dance… and then the suspect’s head explodes.

Aiah stares in shock. The police stagger back, swabbing blood and brains off their faceplates. Red spatters the breasts of the whisky-drinking whore. The suspect drops like a rag doll, leaving a wide streak of blood on the