City on Fire (Metropolitan 2) (11 page)

“Have you seen the news? How one scandal after another is being revealed?”

“I have been a little busy, and haven’t watched the news.”

“It is the function of a new government to discredit the old, and fortunately in our case we have but to tell the truth.” He tilts his head back, savoring the wine. “Within a few months the scandals will multiply, and the Keremaths will be so discredited that no one will want them back.”

Constantine returns to the kitchen, and gives a cynical smile. “Last shift the cabinet reacted to these continuing scandalous revelations, and have annexed the Keremaths’ companies, personal property, and bank accounts.”

“And thus the state acquires that many more civil servants. Was that one of the triumphs you mentioned?”

Constantine smiles coldly. His bright steel knife slices onions as if they were Keremath livers. “No. Acquiring the companies was not a difficult decision— we could hardly leave them under the Keremaths’ ownership, after all. It was in deciding the companies’ ultimate fate wherein my brilliant political talents were fully deployed.”

“You wanted to sell the companies,” Aiah says. “And others wished to keep them.”

Constantine gives an impatient smile. “It is a source of astonishment to me that such things are even matters for debate,” he says. “The state should be an instrument of evolution, not a bank, a stock exchange, or a nursery for inefficient enterprises. But—” He shrugs. “Not all the cabinet members are soldiers or idealists. Some have political instincts that are quite sound, in their fashion. And the possibility of employing the New Theory Hydrogen Company and the other concerns as a source for patronage was, I suspect, a temptation to more than one.”

“And the triumvirate?”

“Parq was anxious to stuff the companies with his retainers. Colonel Drumbeth was of a mind with me. And Hilthi— an interesting man, Hilthi— seemed to have no interest whatever in the economic issues, but rather a care for the companies’ moral health.” He laughs. Chopped onions fly from his fingers and fall hissing into the pan. “An unusual attitude for a journalist, don’t you think?”

“I know nothing of Hilthi.”

“A noble man, truly. The greatest enemy the Keremaths had—” His eyes turn to Aiah, glittering. “Until myself,” he adds. Steam rises as he throws noodles into the boiling water and stirs things in the pan. His voice turns reflective. “In a tyranny, a single dissenter can sometimes engage in a dialogue with the entire government. Hilthi was raised in Caraqui and found the Keremaths repulsive and denounced them. Was sent to prison, came out, and denounced them again, after having sensibly put a border or two between himself and the Specials. He made it his life’s work to expose the Keremaths for what they were. He meticulously gathered facts, published them, made brilliant propaganda. It is a monument to his skill that the Keremaths referred to dissidents as ‘Hilthists.’”

He laughs, a low rumble. “He was invited into the triumvirate to offer a certain moral tone to what otherwise might have been seen only as a tawdry adventure in military government.” He gives Aiah another sly, sideways glance. “Certainly he provides a tone that
I
lack.” He sighs. “But the fellow knows nothing about government. He desires only that we practice virtue. He doesn’t care whether the companies are sold or not, only that any Keremath loyalists in their hierarchy be punished.”

“Is that so bad?”

“The crime of which most stand accused is making the money for the Keremaths. There are far worse crimes in Caraqui for us to concern ourselves with. I was able to edge him along to the position that any serious crimes on the part of any of the managers would be dealt with, but that running a company was not necessarily a crime.”

“Very good.”

“So Hilthi was brought around. Parq was outnumbered. The army was bought off— it will be doubled in size to two divisions, an unnecessary expense, but it gives the officer class new commands and new promotions and may serve to keep them quiet. And, after a little political magic”— he sprinkles things into the saucepan “—decisions were made. The companies will be sold. We anticipate no difficulty with that— they were all remarkably profitable, after all. The profits will help to finance reorganization in various other state enterprises, which will also be sold as soon as they can be made efficient. I convinced them, you see, that it had to be done now, while martial law was still in force, because a popular government would not be able to shrink in size with the proper ruthlessness. So the enlarged army will hold the metropolis together while structural changes take place, and then— we hope— they will march back to the barracks before they are all possessed of the delusion that they can actually run a modern state.”

The smoky wine murmurs in Aiah’s veins. “But they run Caraqui now, don’t they?

“They have some notion they might be in charge, yes. But running a metropolis requires the ability to count above a hundred, which generally speaking the officer class of Caraqui does not possess. Here.” He passes her a plate.

Noodles, and on them onions, smoked pigeon, and shredded black olives in a light sauce. Tossed salad. The amber wine.

Surprisingly delicious. The onions, pigeon, and olives are three stark flavors that should not blend, but somehow they do, and the wine goes beautifully with it all.

“I’m very impressed, Metro— Minister,” Aiah says.

Constantine gives his rumbling laugh. “
Metro-minister
is a title in which I could rejoice.” He brings his own plate to the table. “You may consider this dish a metaphor for politics.” He points to his plate with the tip of a knife. “Onions, olives, smoked fowl. Drumbeth, Parq, Hilthi. Diverse people, diverse interests, diverse tastes. Brought into union with a little skill on the part of your deponent.”

She raises her glass, offers him a salute. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” He tastes his creation, raises his eyebrows in pleasant surprise.

“Better than I thought, in truth.”

“Let’s hope it’s an omen.”

“Let’s.” He sips the wine, takes a few more bites. Looks up from his plate. “And how are you getting on with Ethemark?”

“It was—” She takes a breath. “An interesting day.”

“Tell me.”

She tells him. They finish their meal and take the wine bottle to the couch.

“So what have I done?” she asks. “Have I sold the department to some little gangster in return for a handful of names?”

He considers this. “You judge yourself overharshly,” he says. “You have made no promises to this man, none at all. What you have done is make a policy decision— the first of a great many— to the effect that you will concentrate your efforts on one area of your mandate and not another.” His frown changes to a catlike smile. “It is a decision I support fully, by the way. The half-worlds are potentially a great resource. We should not waste them, or their people.”

Relief eases the tension that clings between Aiah’s shoulder blades. “But what about Ethemark? His loyalties are clearly with the half-worlds, and not with us.”

“That will require tactful handling, if and when the difference becomes important. But you need not worry over the loyalties of most of your people— I’ve decided that everyone will require deep plasm scans, to discover where their loyalties really lie.”

Aiah looks at him in surprise. “Who’s going to do the scanning?”

“The Force of the Interior. Sorya’s department. It’s the sort of thing they’re good at.”

Alarm jangles along Aiah’s nerves. “I don’t want Sorya in my brain!” she cries. Involuntarily she lifts a hand protectively to guard her head.

Constantine reaches out, takes her hand in his, gently lowers it to her lap. “Not you,” he says. “Nor Ethemark, nor any other political appointee I am forced to accept. But everyone else, yes. You need an absolutely straight department, even if we have to hire every single one of them from outside Caraqui, and plasm scans are the only way to make certain.”

She clasps Constantine’s big hand in her smaller ones, looks at him. A shiver of memory raises the hairs on her nape. “I saw Taikoen yesterday, Metropolitan.”

He looks startled, then masters himself and nods. “Yes. He is ... making use ... of an officer of the Specials. A killer, a torturer. He broke hundreds in his dungeons, and murdered many.” His lip curls in disdain. “Such people are best disposed of with the trash. If anyone deserves Taikoen, it is he.”

Aiah finds her lower lip shivering and wills it to stop. “Who knows about him? It.”

Constantine’s eyes gaze somberly into hers. “You. Martinus, my bodyguard. Myself. Sorya may suspect, though I have not told her. And lastly that torturer, who though his body lives is already dead.”

A shudder runs through her. “He recognized me. I was terrified.”

“He will not harm you." Constantine puts his arms around her, cradles her against his massive chest. “Making use of Taikoen is the worst thing I have ever done. It is the worst thing I can ever conceive.” His hand caresses her jaw-line, turns her face up to his. There is a smoldering anger in his eyes, in the twisting muscles of his jaw. “Taikoen weighs on me,” Constantine says. “He is necessary, but...” There is a flicker in his pensive eyes, echo of a chill thought that passes through his mind. “I hope I judged this aright. The balance of rights and wrongs, the hope of a better outcome.”

Aiah smiles wanly. “It isn’t all as easy as cooking, is it?”

He nods in answer. There is a kind of painful hopelessness in his eyes. “Taikoen is a trap, I know. He is too powerful a weapon to ignore, but the very knowledge of him is ... corrupting. I hope that someday I may be strong enough to do without him.” He takes a deep breath. “And he is, sometimes, still the Taikoen who fought the Slaver Mages. Even in his current form he is not without his share of greatness. And he is...” Constantine searches for a word. “He is
impaired
, and, for all his power, diminished ... He has lost his humanity, and he wants it again, and he can’t find it.”

He straightens, visibly summons himself, and gives Aiah a sharp glance. “You know that I worshiped Taikoen once, as part of a...” He licks his lips. “A cult. My cousin Herome was priest.”

“You told me this,” Aiah says.

“
It isn’t a part of my life that fills me with pride. I was debased and desperate, and I sought company as debased as I. . . and there was Herome, in charge of my grandfather’s prisons, feeding prisoners to this
thing
, and playing at worshiping it. But strangely, it was seeing Taikoen so degraded that brought back my own pride— I had no great opinion of myself, princeling of a bandit regime, but I knew that I was better than
this
. And when I came to know him, I managed to remind him of his own greatness, and managed to instill in him a memory of his own pride...” An image of that pride broods in Constantine’s eyes, along with bright defiance.

“And that,” he says, “was the end of Herome and his worshipers— Taikoen engulfed them all. It was my first strike against my family, for all they never knew it.” He looks down at Aiah, his glance uneasy. “And Taikoen has followed me ever since. And I have made use of him from time to time, and paid the price.”

She reaches up a hand, touches his cheek. He looks down at her, a kind of need plain on his face. “I hope I may have your understanding in this,” he says. “And better, your compassion.”

Aiah kisses him, driving her lips up into his. The only comfort she can offer, she thinks, is the comfort of her body. For a moment Constantine absorbs the kiss, inhales it as if it’s a consolation, an absolution, and then the kiss awakens in him a tigerish spirit, a fierceness, and his answering kiss is like a kiss of fire.

He carries her bodily to the bedroom, then lays her on the bed and takes off his clothes. She presses the button that polarizes the windows, and in the resulting shadow she looks at the half-light gleaming off his huge shoulders, his massive arms, the powerful muscles of his thighs and buttocks...

Either he is your passu, or you are his.
Her grandmother’s voice floats through her mind, and she puts the treacherous thought away.

Aiah welcomes Constantine into the circle of her arms, the circle of her legs. Outside the circle all is dubious, in flux, but the weight of Constantine’s body on hers assures her of her own certainty in the world, of her own consequence, at least until all identity, all thought, is obliterated by climatic fire.

They lie together only a short while before Constantine has to leave. “A meeting,” he sighs, “
cocktails
. Would you believe it? But he is the Polar League’s ambassador, and we need League funds if we are to accomplish anything at all.”

She touches his shoulder, her fingers following the sheen of light on his black skin. "I wish you would stay.”

He bends over her, kisses her gravely on the forehead. “I cannot treat you as you deserve,” he says. “And for that, as much as anything else, I require your understanding.”

“Sorya—,” she begins, then cuts short at his frown.

“Don’t ask me to choose between you,” he says. “It is not simple. Sorya is what she is, and for a variety of reasons, I need her— her mind and skills more than anything.”

“I was not asking for a choice,” Aiah says. “I was wondering if she would kill me. She and I had ... a side-agreement ... concerning you. I may have violated it by coming here. And she has already sent me a message.”

All truces are temporary,
Sorya said.

Constantine’s brows knit. Aiah can see muscles working on the side of his neck, as if he is chewing the news over before he makes his calm answer. "If she harms you," he says (his eyes are stone, cold as the breath of Taikoen), “then it will be the end of her.”

“
I hope you will tell
her
that.”

“I will see that she knows.”

He kisses her forehead again, sealing the promise, then rises and begins to dress.