City on Fire

rest understand the necessity.” He bows, absurdly formal, and holds out the briefcase. “Your commission, madame. And some documents for your files. The lock combination is on a plastic flimsy inside. Read, memorize, destroy.”

“Sounds serious.” She takes the briefcase and finds it heavy.

“Names, biographies, public information, informers’ reports pulled out of the Specials’ files by Sorya. The Plasm Enforcement Division’s first cases.”

Aiah’s nerves tingle as she feels the weight of the briefcase on the end of her arm.

My commission, she thinks. I have just joined an army, and these are my marching orders.

“Do you have time for a meeting?” Constantine asks.

“I seem to have little else on my schedule.” Except a meal, her stomach reminds her.

Constantine cocks his head and looks at her, intent eyes narrowing. “You lack your usual energy, Miss Aiah. Have you eaten? Shall we have our meeting in the dining suite?”

Aiah rocks back on her heels with relief. “Yes. Absolutely.”

“You skip too many meals.”

“If I knew where to get a meal around here, that might change.”

A smile dances across his face, and he makes another elaborate stage bow. “I shall direct you. If you would follow me?”

Aiah returns the courtesy. “I would be pleased to do so.” “This way, then. The Kestrel Room has a lovely view, and a private room where we may talk.”

CENSORS SENT HOME

CENSORSHIP OF NEWS ENDS IN CARAQUI

210 MILLION DINARS SAVED BY GOVERNMENT ACTION

Toying with a salad and sipping at a glass of wine, Constantine watches with amusement as Aiah eats. The Keremaths’ kitchen staff are undergoing a screening—no one wants some legitimist partisan poisoning half the new government in one swoop—so the cooking is being done by military personnel, Constantine’s mercenaries. What the food lacks in subtlety and flavor is made up for in quantity, and the vat shrimp with vegetables served on noodles is more than acceptable.

The Kestrel Room—rooms, in truth—is another example of Keremath extravagance. Wood is everywhere— parquetry floors, parquetry walls, carved, beamed ceilings. And the huge outcurving windows of transparent plastic offer a spectacular view of the city.

“I obtained for you a personal plasm allowance,” Constantine says.

Aiah looks up sharply from her plate, suddenly greedy for more than food. “How much?” she asks.

Amusement kindles in Constantine’s eyes. “A quarter of a kilomehr.”

Aiah is impressed. “Per year? That’s good.”

“Per month. Commencing immediately.”

She stares at him. His smile broadens, turns a little predatory, sharp teeth flashing. “Being a part of the power structure has its benefits, does it not?”

“I am beginning to see that it does.” She gives the matter some thought. “Is the cabinet so obliging to every department head?”

“Our job, yours and mine, is the management of plasm. Other departments will not require these allocations.” Constantine shrugs his big shoulders back into his chair and gives a catlike smile. “Oh, it was a splendid meeting, on the whole. Drumbeth backed all my proposals, including your department, and Drumbeth has the loyalty of the army, so the others in the triumvirate have to tread warily when he makes his wishes known.” He toys with his fork, twirling it on the linen tablecloth. “There were some conditions. Allies that want their rewards.”

“Who, in this case?”

“Adaveth. You remember him?”

Distaste tingles its way along Aiah’s nerves. “The twisted man.”

“The Minister of Waterways,” Constantine says. “He will appoint your second-in-command, though I will have a veto if the individual is entirely inappropriate.”

Ten percent of humanity, Aiah knew, had twisted genes. Most genetic alterations were for small things, hardly noticeable—boosted immune systems or outright immunity to certain diseases, cosmetic changes, genetic tweaks relating to the strength of the body or the power of the intellect. But Adaveth and his kindred were different: small, hairless, goggle-eyed. Probably intended to be semiaquatic. It gave Aiah the shivers just being around anyone that inhuman.

“Will he be twisted?” she asks.

Constantine gives her a sharp glance. “I would not be surprised. That is Adaveth’s constituency.” He pauses, toying again with his fork. “Many of the twisted here were created, by the old Avian oligarchy, for certain tasks. Positions in the civil service are traditionally reserved for them, and many of these have to do with servicing and maintaining plasm connections. Possibly because the workers are twisted, the jobs are low-status, low-pay. But I think they know more about how Caraqui is wired together than anyone, and if Adaveth chooses well your assistant should be invaluable.”

“I understand the rationale,” Aiah says. But, she thinks, she reserves the right not to like it.

“I desire to make use of every opportunity,” Constantine says. “Every untapped resource, every talent, all the ability that has been wasted or suppressed.” His intent eyes burn Aiah’s nerves. “That is why I make use of you, Miss Aiah. Your gifts were unappreciated in your previous life.”

Aiah holds his glance by an act of will. “I would like to think so, Metropolitan.”

Constantine smiles, his gaze shifting to the window. “You should learn to call me Minister. I haven’t been a Metropolitan in a very long time.”

“I’ll try to remember.”

“It’s an overrated title.” He scowls, and suddenly his chair is too small to contain him—he rises and paces the room. “When I was Metropolitan of Cheloki I felt little better than a slave,” he says. “Flung this way and that by circumstance, forced to respond to every shift in the situation. All responsibility was mine, but there was precious little I could do to alter anything—even to aid my own cause.”

Aiah puts down her fork. “My impression,” she says, “is that you were magnificent.”

He makes a growling sound deep in his throat. “Well.” Dismissively. “I’m a good actor. I played a Metropolitan well, and that’s what people saw. But it was far different from what I’d expected when I first set my mind on power.”

He marches back and forth across the room and flings out phrases with tossing motions of his arms. Passion burns behind his eyes, a world-eating force that Aiah can feel in the tingle of her nerves, the prickle of her nape hair.

We are not small people. Sorya had told her that once, and she was right.

“I knew precisely what I wished to do with Cheloki,” Constantine says. “I knew that my ideas would prove correct. I thought that once I achieved position I could snap my fingers and cause miracles to happen, that I could change everything… But no, that did not happen.”

She sees frustration in his glance, thwarted rage. His shoulders have slumped, drawn inward, less in defeat than as if he were sheltering from an attack.

“You had a civil war to cope with,” she says.

“If I’d been wise enough,” bitterly, “there would have been no civil war. If I’d managed it all a bit better…” Constantine’s big hands throw the notion behind him as he makes a contemptuous growl. “//, //… The truth is, I was helpless. Every reform in Cheloki was perceived as a threat by our neighbors. But…” He looks through the outcurved window, hands propped on his hips, and scowls at the world. “In Caraqui we are safer, I think. I can manage things better now, and all the knowledge cost me was the destruction of the Metropolis of Cheloki, the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and the knowledge that all the responsibility was mine…”