Walter Jon Williams - City on Fire

City on Fire (Sequel to Metropolitan)

Walter Jon Williams

ONE

The car shoots through the InterMet tunnel, flying beneath the world-city as

if propelled by the breath of a god. Drowsing on the car as it flies beneath

the world, Aiah dreams of the Burning Man.

He stands tall above the neighboring buildings, a figure of fire. A whirlwind

surrounds him, a spiral blur of tortured air, flying debris, swirling ash.

Holocausts leap into being at his approach; buildings explode into flame

merely at his passage. A torrent of fire flies from his fingertips, turning

to cinders everything it touches.

Unwilling, unable to help herself, knowing somehow it is a duty, Aiah

approaches the Burning Man. A scream comes from the hollow throat, a cry

mixed of terror and rage, and Aiah realizes that the giant figure is a woman.

As she comes a little closer, Aiah looks full into the face of the raging

figure and sees that the Burning Woman is herself.

She wakes with a start and finds herself in motion, in the pneuma car that

hisses along beneath the world. Sweat plasters her collar to her neck. She

swabs her throat with a handkerchief and again closes her eyes. Fire pulses

on the insides of her eyelids.

The arrow-straight tunnel of the pneuma is surrounded by the eternal weight

of the city . . . brick and stone, steel and iron and alloy, concrete and

glass, rising from bedrock and stretching toward the Shield far above. The

mass of it all is beyond comprehension. So is the power it creates.

All that is human is a generator—every building, every foundation, every

conduit or sewer or elevated trackline. All the world-city, every frame and

stone of it, produces and stores plasm, the foundation of geomantic power.

Power which, for a moment or two of brilliant comprehension, Aiah had held in

her mind. She had possessed its possibilities, its glories. Felt it change

her. Felt herself change the world. Felt its fires scorch her nerves.

Those certainties are gone now, replaced by confusion, hesitation, danger. If

she can get the power back, she thinks, even for a moment, all will become

clear.

If.

If she can somehow get the power back.

MARTIAL LAW STILL IN FORCESURVIVING KEREMATHS DENOUNCE COUP FROM EXILEBy the

time she gets to Caraqui, Aiah has almost talked herself out of it. Foolish,

she's decided, to leave her place in Jaspeer, foolish to run, foolish to think

that the new government in Caraqui would give her a place. No Barkazils here—

she will be even more a foreigner here than in Jaspeer. And Constantine will

not give her anything—he did not love her—he had only used her for what she

could give him, the keys to power, and could not possibly have any further

interest in her.

But the police had been after her, the Plasm Authority creepers, and sooner or

later they would have found something that would put her in prison. It was

time to leave Jaspeer. In her mind she had already leaped a hundred

borders—crossing them physically was almost an afterthought.

And once exiled, once that leap has been taken, where else is there to

go?Caraqui. Where the New City, consigned to ashes years ago, might undergo

an unscheduled rebirth.

Caraqui. Where her future waits.

Assuming, of course, it waits anywhere.

LORDS OF THE NEW CITY BREAKS RECORDS THIRD SMASH WEEKEND FOR BIO-CHROMOGravity

tugs at Aiah's inner ear as the InterMet brakes, drops out of the system,

comes with a hum of electromagnets to a stop at the platform. A banner

splashed with red letters hangs against a bright mosaic on the back of the

platform.

Welcome to Free Caraq . . . The last letters are obscured by the banner's

dangling upper corner, come loose and fallen across the message.

And that's it. There is no one on the platform, just the message on the

banner.

Somehow Aiah had expected more.

Pneumatics hiss as the car's doors swing open. The other two occupants

disembark. Aiah rises, takes her bag from the overhead rack, and carries it

out onto the platform. The bag is light—she had left all her belongings

behind as she fled, and only bought a few things in Gunalaht on her way.

There is only one heavy thing in her bag, a book, red plastic leatherette

binding with gilt letters. Her legacy to her new home.

As she walks past the mosaic she realizes that it's political, a noble-looking

man wearing a kind of uniform and gazing off into the far distance. My father

made the political revolution, it promises. / will make the economic

revolution.

Covered now by the banner of the real revolution.

She doesn't know precisely who the figure on the mosaic is supposed to be, but

she knows it has to be one of the Kere-maths, the family that had ruled

Caraqui for generations. The promise of economic revolution had been a

lie—during their years of power the Keremaths ruled by kleptocracy, a

government by gangsters bent on looting their own economy, their own people.

They were mostly dead now, the Keremaths. Constantine's revolution had killed

them, and it had been Aiah who had, against every law, given Constantine the

plasm necessary to accomplish their destruction.

It is a matter of more than casual interest to discover how grateful

Constantine will prove. Especially as she now has nothing to offer him, and

gratitude is all she can expect.

The book in Aiah's bag bangs against her hip as she walks down a short

corridor lined with adverts—familiar posters for the new Lynxoid Brothers

chromoplay, the Inter-Metropolitan Lottery, Gulman Shoes ("Meet for the

Street"), all alongside more exotic promotions for Sea Mage Motor Craft and

the New Theory Hydrogen Company. Then suddenly she's out of the tunnel and

into the main body of the station, and her heart leaps as she sees armored

soldiers with their guns out, sets of goggled eyes gazing at her.

Mercenaries, she thinks, because half of them have the black skins of the

veteran Cheloki exiles who have been following Constantine for years.

The masked eyes pass over Aiah without pause. They're not interested in

arrivals. They're clustered around the departure platforms.

They're interested in people trying to escape.

There are counters for customs officials to interview arriving passengers, but

no one is there: perhaps they haven't shown up for work. Outside Aiah finds

herself on a promenade overlooking a canal. A pair of ascetics, bearded and

grimy, sit on beds of nails before their begging bowls. One of them

brandishes a handmade poster about the "Uniting of the Altogether." The canal

water is bright green with algae. There is salt in the air and bobbing

rubbish in the water. Caraqui, except for a strip of mainland here and there

and some islands, is built across its sea on huge, ancient concrete pontoons,

all linked together by bridges, cables, and anchors.

From atop the worn promenade rail allegorical bronze statues, weathered,

pitted, and green, gaze down at Aiah from ruined, pop-eyed faces. She is

uncomfortable under their gaze, but isn't certain where to go from here.

She looks up as shining silver-blue letters track across the gray sky: There

is no need for alarm. All fighting is over. The curfew has ended. The

revolutionary government encourages citizens to go about their normal

business.

An elderly female lottery seller, going about her normal business, shuffles

toward Aiah on bare, swollen feet. She was probably selling tickets at the

height of the fighting. Aiah buys one.

For luck, she thinks.

There's a sign pointing down some steps, with the legend Water Taxis. She

follows it.

The taxi is a small outboard with a tattered red plastic awning, driven by a

weathered man of middle years. The hand that reaches for her bag is missing

the first two fingers. A handwritten sign next to the meter says, We take

foreign currency.

Aiah has read a guide to Caraqui on the Wire, and knows the name of a hotel

near the government center. She had tried to call to make reservations but

the lines were down.

"Hotel Ladaq," she says.

He helps her into the boat with his clawed hand. "Can't do that, miss," the

driver says. "Hotel Ladaq's full of soldiers.”

"Do you know another hotel in the area?”

"All full of soldiers, miss.”

"Get me as close to Government Harbor as you can.”

He starts the meter. "Right away, miss.”

But it doesn't happen right away. The driver casts off, but then he can't

start the outboard, and as the wind pushes the water taxi broadside down the

canal he has to take the cover off the motor and tinker with it, and then try

to start it again, then tinker some more. Several taxis leave from the

station in the meantime, and Aiah's taxi rocks in their wake.

The meter, Aiah notices, is still running. She points this out to the driver,

but he affects to be too busy with the engine to notice.

He tries to start the engine and fails. Aiah points out the meter is still

running, but the driver starts kicking the motor and screaming.

It's a chonah, Aiah thinks. The driver's a confidence rigger and there

probably isn't anything really wrong with the engine.

If she were home she'd know what to do. But the fact she's a stranger in this

place makes her hesitate.

Finally Aiah steps forward and turns off the cab's meter. The driver is

stern.

"Can't do that, lady. It's government regulation. Only the driver can touch

the meter.”

He steps forward to turn it on again. She keeps her hand over the button.

"Start the engine first," she says. "Then you can start the meter.”

The driver shrugs. With showy, large gestures, he tinkers with the engine

again. Puts the cover on. Starts it without so much as a cough.

Aiah is entertained. She's a Barkazil, one of the Cunning People. Her

ancestors have rigged chonahs for thousands of years. This sort of thing is

in her blood.

The pontoons and barges are old in this district, layered with barnacles

beneath the waterline. The buildings on the pontoons are old as well, and as

layered, new structures barnacled atop the old, until the form and shape and

function of the original building has been completely obscured.

When she arrives at her hotel, she tries to calculate exchange rates, and

gives the driver what she thinks is the correct amount in Gunalaht dalders.

She knows, from the driver's sudden bright grin, that she's overpaid.

Suddenly he's pressing a plastic business card into her hand.

"My name is Callaq, miss! Please call at any time! I will show you the sights,

the Aerial Palace, the place where all the battles were fought, anything!”

"Maybe.”

"Please call! I'll take you anywhere!”

"Thank you, Callaq.”

She carries her bag up corroded marble steps slippery with sea slime. Beggars

hold out cupped hands on the stairs. From the top she turns to look back at

this strange metropolis, sees the taxi churning away, an old moored tugboat

that probably hasn't moved in years and is flying a string of laundry, a

flock of scabrous waterfowl staring at her with agate eyes.

And then, in the air above the canal, there forms a pattern, lines and colors

interlinking, the pattern flowing like water. ... It bursts so swiftly in

the sky, like a flower opening in time-lapse photography, that she can only

catch a fragment of the wholeness, a curve, a maze, a wonderment. Aiah stares

openmouthed.

"The Dreaming Sisters," says a strange male voice.

The colors fade, leaving an imprint on Aiah's vision, which glows for a few

seconds like the afterburn of a photographer's flash.

She turns to see who was speaking, her tongue poised to ask more questions;

but it's a businessman, sallow and sleek, and from the glint of his eye she

can tell he'd like nothing more than a frolic with a strange woman, so she

merely nods, then takes her bag indoors.

NEW GOVERNMENT CALLS FOR EXILES TO RETURN"WE NEED YOUR SKILLS TO REBUILD

CARAQUI," SAYS TRIUMVIR DRUMBETHThe hotel is an ancient place that has seen

better days. Prostitutes cruise the lobby, either shockingly young or

shockingly aged. Ribbed plastic sheeting protects old, broken tiles that were

once bright with abstract designs dating from the old Geoform movement.

Aiah's room has a lovely plastered ceiling with a life-size figure of the

immortal Khomak brandishing his assault rifle overhead and riding that

fabulous animal, the sea horse . . . but from the sea horse hangs a wire,

and on the end of the wire is a naked bulb. The bed has a cheap steel frame

and the bedsprings squeak. There is no other furniture. Over the sink hangs

a sign: Hot Water Available 05:00-07:00.

It's 10:31, according to Aiah's watch. She guesses she's missed her bath for

the day.

There is a communications jack but no telephone. Aiah finds she can rent

one by the hour and does so. It's an unusual piece, with a pair of heavy

brass earphones and a trumpet-shaped mouthpiece braced up in front of her face

by a butter-smooth brass prop in the shape of a human arm.

Constantine, she knows, is Minister of Resources in the new government. She

calls the ministry in Government Harbor, but all they will do is take a

message, so she phones the Aerial Palace and asks to be connected to his

suite. She can't even get anyone who will promise to take a message to him.

"Not unless you're on the list," she's told.

"Can I speak to Mr. Khoriak, then?”

"Who's he?”

"He's a member of Constantine's suite." One of his guards.

"I'll see.”

Aiah waits for ten minutes, hoping that Khoriak wasn't killed in the fighting.

"This is Khoriak.”

Relief pours through Aiah, relieving tension she hadn't realized she'd

possessed.

"Khoriak, this is Aiah. Aiah from Jaspeer. You remember?”

"Of course.”

Of course. Idiot. It had only been a few days since she'd seen him.

"I'm in Caraqui. Hotel Oceanic. I would like to see the Metropolitan

Constantine, but I can't seem to reach him.”

"I'll tell him.”

Half an hour later, she's on Constantine's private launch.

Fast work. She's been in Caraqui less than two hours.

TRIUMVIR PARQ CALLS FOR DAY OF PRAYERDALAVANS TO FAST ON FRIDAYThe launch

seems to have been liberated from the Kere-maths or their supporters: the hull

is a shiny black polymer composite with silver trim—not chrome but actual

silver, kept bright by the endless polishing of the crew, or perhaps through

some hermetic process.

There is a deep whine as the boat accelerates, hydrogen burning through its

turbines. It clearly has a lot of power to spare.

The captain is a black-skinned Cheloki, a newcomer. He drives the boat well

but doesn't know the territory: he constantly refers to the map pinned to the

chart table next to the wheel. There is a soldier who places a fine white

wine and a basket of sandwiches atop the table on the fantail. He is clearly

uncomfortable in the role of servant—less than a week ago he was probably in

combat—but he's gracious enough, all things considered. Aiah realizes she

hasn't eaten since second shift yesterday, and she tries not to bolt the

sandwiches.

The sleek motorcraft arrows neatly through the green water. The pontoons that

loom on either side are painted with fading slogans and the images of dead

Keremaths. Our family is your family—the slogan arches above dead, flaking

faces. Aiah finds herself looking for dolphins—she had met one once, and

spoken with him, and she knows they inhabit these waters. But no pale

dolphins break the surface of the water.

Aiah is startled to see a large tram car float overhead along a set of cables.

The green car, with its rounded, aerodynamic corners, is big as a bus, and

obviously serves the same purpose.

Practical, Aiah thinks. It avoids congestion on the bridges, or building

expensive tunnels underwater for pneuma and trackline transport.

Images of the Blue Titan and the Lynxoid Brothers brighten the sky, a plasm

advert for the new chromoplay. .. .

The buildings grow nicer as the boat approaches the Aerial Palace: expensive

apartments, tinted glass and jutting balconies with fancy gingerbread

scrollwork on the rails, and broad-shouldered office buildings crouching on

their pontoons like animals ready to spring. Buildings don't reach as high

here as in Jaspeer, because it would make the pontoons top-heavy.

And then the boat passes through a battlefield, and the contrast is shocking:

a series of squat blackened buildings, roofs fallen in, piles of rubble

spilled in the street. Barges rock silently at the quayside, filled with

slick plastic body bags. Priests with surgical gauze over their lower faces

process the dead as they are brought from the rubble.

Come to mourn! a sound truck cries. Come to mourn the dead!The Burning Man

had appeared here, a firestorm of plasm in human shape. He had been fighting

for Constantine, trying to stop a government counterattack; but the mage had

been inexperienced and everything had gone out of control.

Twenty-five thousand dead. Including the mage. Several thousand soldiers.

The rest civilians.

Aiah, in the coup's headquarters, had watched it happen, had tried to stop

it.. . too late.

Her fault. She had provided the plasm.

Come to mourn the dead!There are people hanging, she sees, from the ruined

buildings. Hanging in what look like sacks, feet sticking out the bottom, the

sacks swinging free on lines secured to broken rooftops. They are not dead

people, not casualties—they have hung themselves there since the burning.

Mad people? Mourners? Aiah cannot tell—they are all too far away.

Blowing soot brings tears to Aiah's eyes. She dabs at them with her sleeve.

Then fantastic architecture of the Aerial Palace appears on the horizon, all

swoops and spirals like the path of a falcon traced through the air.

Shieldlight shimmers off the arabesques of the building's collection web,

bronze patterns set into the building's exterior and designed to absorb and

defuse any plasm attack, defense and ornament in one. The burnished bronze

adds lovely bright accents to the building's design, but its defense aspect

failed drastically—the building is scarred, pocked by machine guns and

punctured by rockets. Plastic sheeting is tacked up over shattered windows.

The Keremaths lived here, and they died here, too. When the assault teams

fought their way up the stairways they found only corpses.

Jewels appear in the air behind the Palace. An advertisement for diamonds.

Surprise moves through Aiah as she sees people hanging here as well,

dangling from sacks set into niches in the building. When she comes close,

however, she sees they are not real people, but statues.

A mystery. When she finds an opportunity she will ask.

The colossal structure is built on a raft made of several pontoons, and the

motor launch drives between two pontoons into a narrow, watery alley lit with

bright sodium floods both above and below the water. Aiah looks down into the

milky water for dolphins and finds none.

The motor launch pulls into a slip alongside other, equally flamboyant craft.

The soldier/steward jumps onto the floating pier and holds out a hand.

"This way, miss.”

There are soldiers patrolling up and down the quay in dark gray uniforms and

helmets—Constantine's Cheloki again. Constantine isn't trusting the local

troops that had actually captured the place: they'd changed sides once, and

could again.

There are probably telepresent mages scoping the place as well. It would be

the safe thing to do.

The door leading into the pontoon, Aiah sees, is an airlock, but it doesn't

look as if the heavy steel portal has been shut in a long time. Inside is a

gold-rimmed desk where Aiah is checked in and given a badge.

"Someone is coming down to escort you," Aiah is told.

The someone appears a moment later, and she recognizes him and smiles. He

doesn't smile back: he looks as if she's a problem he doesn't want.

"Mr. Martinus," she says.

"Miss Aiah.”

He is a huge man, one of Constantine's bodyguards, not only trained for war

but bred for it. His genes are twisted to produce a massive, muscled body and

catlike reflexes. His face looks like a helmet, eyes sunk beneath protective

plates of bone. Heavy slabs of callus ridge his knuckles.

"Welcome to Caraqui," he says.

"Thank you, sir.”

Martinus escorts Aiah into the elevator and presses the lever. There is a

smell of burning that lodges in the back of Aiah's throat, a souvenir of the

fighting. The elevator doesn't go straight up, but swoops as it rises to

match the building's architecture: the Aerial Palace, for all its

extravagance, is a generator of plasm, built to distill the essence of

mage-power. Its alloy structure is a maze of careful, intricate alignments,

intended to take advantage of geomantic relationships that increase plasm

generation.

The elevator doors open. The deep wine-red carpet is plush and the walls are

paneled with dark wood—genuine wood!—broken with diagonal stripes of brightly

patterned tile and solid gold wall fixtures in the shape of birds in flight.

A percentage of the latter seem to have been torn from the walls by looters.

The corridor is blocked at regular intervals by sliding glass doors set into

polished bronze frames. The doors open automatically on approach, though Aiah

sees that they can be locked if necessary. Crosshatched bronze wire winks

from inside the glass. It is part of the building's defense system: the huge

Palace is divided into sealed compartments to prevent a single attacking mage

from raging through the whole building.

Martinus opens a paneled door and ushers her in.

"Wait here, please.”

Aiah steps into the room. "How long will I have to wait?”

"I don't know.”

Martinus closes the door. Aiah looks about her. More wood paneling,

gold-framed mirrors, two huge oval windows miraculously undamaged by war. The

room is intended for meetings: there's a huge kidney-shaped table—more

wood!—and metal-and-leather chairs, gold frames with luxurious brown calfskin

cushions. Even the ashtrays, laid out two-by-two down the length of the

table, are solid gold.

The burning scent is here as well, like embers smouldering in the back of the

throat, and it won't go away.

Outside, a peregrine dives past the windows, a swift dark streak against the

opalescence of the Shield. Aiah steps to one of the windows and looks out,

hoping to find the falcon against the backdrop of the city. She doesn't see

it—perhaps it's already sitting on a ledge somewhere, eating the pigeon it's

just caught.

The room projects out from the Palace and gives Aiah an exemplary view of

the world-city, the buildings and towers and water-lanes that go on forever,

unbroken to the flat ocean horizon. One of the green aerial tramcars floats

in midair between two distant towers. I am on the water, she thinks, having

to remind herself of the fact....

The sky blossoms with a giant plasm-image, the stern face of the actor

Kherzaki hovering over the Caraqui, his expression commanding. An

advertisement for the chromoplay Lords of the New City, based on Constantine's

early life and career. Fire-petals unfold beside the image, become words

burning in air.

See it now.. ., the sky commands.

An advert, Aiah wonders, or a command from the ruling triumvirate? Should it

be See it now... or else?The door opens behind her, and she gives a start and

spins, a brief giddy disorientation eddying through her inner ear . . . and

as the whirling stops the false, burning mage in the sky is replaced with the

real Constantine, a far more dangerous commodity. He looks almost respectable

in modest white lace, black pipestem pants, and a black velvet jacket, and

Aiah knows right away that her having come here is a mistake. Her heart

sinks.

He doesn't love her. They had been lovers, yes, but that was an accident, the

chance result of a combination of unre-producible circumstances, a particular

time, a particular place, a particular urgency. ... If he gives her anything

it will be because of some horrid sense of obligation, not because he wants

her here, or has any real use for her.

"Miss Aiah," he says, and approaches. The voice is baritone, a rumble that

vibrates to her toes. Aiah remembers— remembers in her nerves, remembers deep

in her bones—the way he moves, the sense of power held barely but firmly,

consciously, in check, strength mixed oddly with delicacy.

"We find ourselves in the Owl Wing," Constantine says. Irony glints in his

voice as he steps around the big table. "Those windows"—gesturing—"are

supposed to be the eyes of an owl.”

Aiah is tall, but Constantine is taller, broad-shouldered, with powerful arms

and a barrel chest. His skin is blue- black, and his hair is oiled and

braided and worn over the left shoulder, tipped with the silver ornament of

the School of Radritha. He is over sixty years of age, but plasm rejuvenation

treatments have kept his body young and at the peak of health. His face is a

bit fleshy, a suggestion of indulgence that serves to make him more

interesting than otherwise, and his booted feet glide over the thick carpet

without a sound.

The deep voice rolls on, imitating the clipped delivery of a tour guide. "We

also have the Raptor Wing," he says, "the Swan Wing, with its luxury

apartments, and the Crane Wing. . . ." His eyes never leave hers, his

intent mind almost visible behind them, clearly considering subjects more

vital than a verbal tour of the palace.

The voice trails off as he comes within arm's reach. There is a touch of

caution in his fierce glance, a sense again of something withheld. A

decision, perhaps. Or judgment. Or both.

"May I ask why you are here?" he says.

Aiah's heart is a trip-hammer in her throat. Mistake, she thinks, mistake.

"To work, I suppose," she says.

He smiles, and Aiah concludes it's the right answer. A sudden wave of relief

makes her dizzy.

He opens his arms and folds her in them. His scent swirls through her senses,

and she realizes how much she's missed it.

Absurd to care so much, she thinks. Constantine is a great figure, a part of

something huge, much bigger than even he—he does not belong even to himself,

let alone to her.

Aiah tells herself this, and sternly.

But her lecture has nothing to do with her longings. Her longings are

self-contained, and happy within themselves.

Through the embrace Aiah can feel Constantine's weight shifting slightly, a

sign of restlessness. He is not a notably patient man. She releases him,

steps back.

Still he watches her, fierce intelligence afire within the gold-flecked brown

eyes. "The police?" he says. "Were they after you?”

"Yes," she says, then, "No. Maybe." She shrugs. "They knew I was a part of

it somehow, but I don't know if they could prove it. They had me under

surveillance.”

"You got away without trouble?”

"I got away." She hesitates. "I had some help. I think. It was easier than

I expected.”

"What of your young man? Gil?”

She straightens her shoulders, steels herself against the threat of sorrow.

"Over," she says.

"And your job at the Plasm Authority?”

"I wired them and told them I was taking time off." She shrugs. "I don't know

why I didn't resign outright.”

There is amusement in his glance. "You are cautious, Miss Aiah. Wise of you,

not to quit until you discover if you have a new job waiting.”

She looks at him. "And do I?”

"I think I have one that will suit your talents." He puts his hands in his

jacket pockets and begins to prowl around the table, his restless movement an

accompaniment to the uneasy movement of his thought.

"You know that the last government was worse than bad," he says. "They were

corrupt beyond . . . beyond reason." He waves a big hand. "Even granted

that they were thieves, that they wanted only enrichment and perquisites . .

. the scope of larceny that they permitted, against their own metropolis, was

irrational. The amount of plasm stolen is staggering. It constituted a vast

plundering of their own power, a threat to the security of their own state of

which they seemed unaware. Well." He plants a fist on the table and looks at

Aiah with a defiant glare. "Well, / am not so blind, not so unaware. The

theft of this most singular public resource must stop. But what force do I

have to enforce any new edicts—or even the old ones?”

He shrugs, adjusts the position of one of the gold ashtrays, begins to pace

again. "My soldiers are not suitable to police work. The local authorities

are as corrupt as their former masters, and it is hopeless to expect anything

from them until years of reform have done their work. For this purpose I must

build my own police force, my own power base. But the New City movement here

is limited to a few intellectuals, a few discussion groups—I have no cadre, no

organized group of followers ready to step into place. And . . ." He looks

up at Aiah, eyes challenging hers, and she feels ice water flood her spine.

"You," he says. "You will build this force for me. You have found plasm

thieves in the past, and in my service you were a plasm thief. I wish you to

find these thieves and return their power to the service of the state.”

Aiah blinks at him across the table. She doesn't know whether to laugh or

simply to be appalled by the suggestion.

"Metropolitan?" she asks. "Are you sure it's me you want?”

Cold amusement enters his glance. "Of course," he says. "Why not?”

"I'm a foreigner, for one thing.”

"That's an advantage. It means you're not part of the corrupt structure here

in Caraqui.”

"I've never done police work.”

"You will have people, qualified people, to do the work for you. But I want

you in charge. I need someone I can trust heading the department.”

"I'm twenty-five years old!" she says. "I've never run anything like this in

my life.”

He gives her a sharp look. "You have worked within a government department

concerned with plasm regulation. You know where it went right, went wrong.

You studied administration at university." He assesses her with his

gold-flecked eyes, then nods. "And I have faith in your abilities, even if

you do not. You have never disappointed me, Miss Aiah.”

"I wouldn't know where to start looking for plasm thieves.”

Constantine bares his teeth. "Start looking in my office. My waiting room is

full of people offering me bribes." He smiles. "I will give you a list.”

"And the Specials—the old political police—their records should be valuable.

The instant the fighting was over, Sorya led a flying squad to their

headquarters to seize their files. The records belong to us now, and . .."

Constantine gives a feral smile. "They're very useful.”

Aiah's spirit sinks at the thought of Sorya, Constantine's lover—or rather,

his official lover.

"Would I have to work with Sorya?" she says. "Because..." Words fail her.

"Well, I don't think she likes me.”

A touch of cold disdain twists Constantine's mouth. "It is in both your

interests," he says, "to cooperate on this project.”

"Yes," patiently, "I'm sure.”

Constantine's restless prowling has brought him around the table again,

standing next to Aiah. He picks up one of the gold ashtrays, holds it in both

hands. "The government will announce an amnesty for plasm thieves,"

Constantine says. "A month or so. It will take at least that long for you

and your team to set up operations, consolidate your files, make a few

preliminary investigations. And after that—" He smiles down at her, suddenly

warm. "You have always exceeded my expectations, Miss Aiah. I have no reason

to believe this will be different.”

Aiah sighs. "Yes," she says. "If that's what you want.”

"Gangsters, Miss Aiah," Constantine reminds. "What in Jaspeer you called the

Operation. Here they are the Silver Hand, and they are a threat to us and to

the New City, and they must be destroyed. Destroyed completely. And it is

best to do it as soon as possible, before the Handmen make ..." He frowns.

"Inroads. Inroads into the new structure.”

Aiah thinks of the Operation, the street captains with their stony, inhuman

eyes and their utter, perfectly human greed. Their dominance was difficult to

avoid; they had injured her family, and her hatred for them had burned long.

Damn Constantine for reminding her.

"I'll do it, if that's what you want," Aiah says, "but only if you want it

really done.”

His brown eyes challenge hers. "I said destroyed. Did I not?”

She nods. Fists clench at her sides, nails digging into palms. "Yes," she

says. "I can do that.”

He looks down at the gold ashtray in his hands, and her gaze follows his. His

massive hands and powerful wrists have twisted the ashtray, turned it into a

half-spiral of yellow metal, all without visible effort. He holds it up and

smiles.

"Too malleable," he comments. "I find myself disliking the useless

ostentation in this place more and more.”

Aiah looks at him. "I will bear that in mind, Metropolitan.”

A knowing smile dances about his lips. His arm flies out, and the ashtray

gives a little metallic keen as it skids across the tabletop. It strikes

another ashtray with a clang and knocks it to the carpet before coming to a

halt, spinning lazily on the polished wood.

"I will find you an office," Constantine says. He takes her arm, guides her

to the door. "We can postpone discussions of salary, and so forth, for the

moment. Budgets," he smiles, "are in flux. But I will assign you an

apartment here in the Palace. I want you close by.”

His hand is very warm on her arm. Close by, she thinks, yes.

"Congratulations on your revolution, Metropolitan," she says.

Constantine opens the door. "We have had only a change in administration," he

says. "The revolution is yet to come.”

"Congratulations, anyway.”

"Thank you," he says, and smiles as she passes through the door.

LIFE EXTENSION WHAT'S WRONG WITH LIVING FOREVER? REASONABLE TERMS—PRIVACY

ASSUREDConstantine leaves Aiah to underlings who don't quite know what to do

with her. But by the end of first shift Aiah has an office in Owl Wing. It

has a receptionist's office (sans receptionist), a rather nicely finished

metal desk complete with bullet holes, and a communications array that doesn't

work. An Evo-Matic computer sits in the corner, brass with fins, but it

requires a three-prong commo socket and the office isn't wired for them. The

plastic sheeting tacked up over the window booms with every gust of wind.

The carpet is nice, though. Gray, with black patterns that look like

geomantic foci.

From this office she will direct a team that as yet does not exist, that has

no history, no personnel, no records, no budget; but which nevertheless is

charged with a task of awesome complexity and importance.

Gathering plasm. The most important element of power, because it can do

anything.

Mass transformed is energy—the most fundamental difference is not one of

matter, but of perspective. And mass, in the right configurations, can create

energy.

That's plasm.

And the science of configuring mass so as to produce plasm is geomancy.

And because plasm exists in a kind of resonance with the human will, it can be

used to create realities—create almost anything the human mind can conceive.

Cure disease, alter genes, destroy life, halt or reverse aging, creep into the

human mind to burn every neuron or, more subtly, to turn one emotion into

another, to create love or hate where neither existed before. Plasm can knock

tall buildings down, move objects from one place to another, build precious

metals from base matter. Or create base matter from nothing at all.

In Constantine's system of thought, plasm is the most real thing in the world.

Because it can make anything else real, or it can take something that exists

and uncreate it.

Making something real from nothing would now seem to be Aiah's job.

Create a police force.

What kind of magecraft is necessary for that? Absurd.

Aiah tries, sketching idly on paper, to make plans. It's usually easy enough

to find out who the big thieves are, but discovering where they keep the goods

is another matter.

You have always exceeded my expectations.

After a few hours, she wants to spit the words back in Constantine's face.

She throws down her pen, stands, paces the carpet while the plastic rattles in

the wind.

Welcome to Free Caraq—she thinks. Why is it up to her to fill in the missing

letters?And then Sorya is standing in the door, and Aiah's heart leaps.

"Hello, missy." Sorya walks into the room and holds out Aiah's bag. "This

was brought from your hotel.”

"Thank you." Aiah takes the offering. The cinders in the back of her throat

make her cough.

Deliberately, Sorya's green eyes rove the room. There is a languid smile on

her lips. She is balanced like a dancer, hips cocked forward, blond-streaked

hair framing her face. She usually clothes her panther body in brilliant

colors, apricot or green silk, the coiled muscle and curve of breast and hip

garbed brightly as a flower . . . but at the moment she wears a green

uniform with no insignia, a faded military greatcoat with brass buttons thrown

over her shoulders, a peaked cap set with deliberate nonchalance on the side

of her head. Not a flower, but something else.

A mage, a potent one. A warrior, a general. Powerful and intent on growing

more so.

"We paid you well for your services in Jaspeer," she says. "I was under the

impression we had said good-bye.”

"The cops were after me.”

"That was careless of you." She arches an eyebrow.

Sorya turns, walks to the door, pauses deliberately, and looks at Aiah over

her shoulder. "Let me take you to your suite in the Crane Wing.”

Aiah clears her throat, finds her voice. "Don't you have a more important job

to do?”

Walter Jon Williams - City on Fire

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