City on Fire (Metropolitan 2) (56 page)

—Five years does not seem so bad, when things are taken all together.

—Thank you, Minister.

Aiah might as well turn humble, she figures. She has pushed her luck as far as it will go.

Constantine’s reply is swift.

—
Is there any
good
news? he sends.

Laughter bubbles from Aiah’s throat.

—I have saved you money. The Escaliers are likely to accept a smaller signing bonus than we planned.

—Thank you, my child. Though the Treasury will not be pleased with the five-year contracts.

—Ending the war will save them money, and they will thank you.

Aiah can almost see Constantine’s rueful smile.

—
The Treasury
never
thanks me, he sends.

—Galagas and Holson will be back tomorrow, 08:00. Once they are presented with the terms, we can work out the details of exactly how they are to slip out of their agreement.

Traced in the air before Aiah’s eyes comes the reply, lines of gold flame that form the Sign of Karlo.

—Blessings upon you, Miss Aiah.

—Thank you, Minister.

Constantine’s presence fades, and Aiah is alone, listening only to the faint slap of water against the hull of Lamarath’s barge. She returns to her quarters. Lamarath and Dr. Romus are gone, and Statius and Cornelius, on guard and in any case unsettled by the strangeness of the half-world, are no company.

Aiah paces back and forth, fretting. She would like to rest, but she knows the Adrenaline Monster would snatch her from sleep if she closed her eyes.

“See if Craftig is outside,” she finally tells Cornelius. “We might as well play some checkers.”

“ELECTIONS WILL CONTINUE AS SCHEDULED,”

INSISTS GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN

The next day Holson and Galagas are forty minutes late. “Sorry,” Holson says after their arrival. “We couldn’t get away—” He looks uncharacteristically vague. “A meeting, with members of the Provisional command.”

Aiah wonders if Holson is rash enough to be involved in a bidding war with the Provisionals— but no, she thinks, that would be suicidal. It’s bad enough they’re contemplating treachery against one side; treachery against both would be fatal. She tells the officers that the War Ministry has given official approval to their agreement.

“Now all that is required,” Holson says, “is to honorably extract us from our commitments to the Provisionals.”

“Do you have a copy of the agreement? We do not.”

According to the agreement, Landro’s Escaliers are irrevocably committed to continue with the Provisionals for another three days, after which, if there is mutual agreement, the contract may be extended. If no agreement is reached, the Escaliers will continue in service for another ten days, time enough for them to be evacuated back to the Timocracy and replaced in the line by another unit.

“How are the Provisionals on the warranties clause?” Aiah asks. “They’ve paid you on time?”

“Yes.”

Aiah skims the contract. “Have they arranged for sufficient supply, food, fuel, medical support, and— ah— other classes of logistical support as specified in Attached Agreement C?”

“The brigade whorehouse,” Galagas clarifies.

In the last months Aiah has become used to the ways of mercenary units, and is not surprised. She looks at Galagas.

“Has logistical support been, ah, sufficient in terms of the contract?”

Aiah wonders if a mercenary contract has ever been broken because prostitutes were not provided in sufficient number.

“Given the exigencies of war,” Holson says, “the government’s support has been adequate.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Aiah says. “I asked if the Provisionals’ logistical support has been sufficient in terms of the contract. Anything ever delivered late? Or delivered to the wrong people? Or the wrong stuff delivered to the wrong people?”

Given what Aiah knows of the military life, she would be amazed if this were not the case.

Holson and Galagas look at each other. Holson fingers his chin and shifts his weight uncomfortably in his chair. “Arrangements have not been perfect,” he says, “but I mislike breaking an agreement on these conditions, all so common in war. It could set an unfortunate precedent— any unit, on any side, would be justified in breaking its contract if this clause were strictly invoked.”

“Well,” Aiah says, turning pages, “we will keep that option in reserve.”

Unfortunately the contract is very straightforward and plainspoken, with few ambiguous clauses worthy of exploitation, and most of these involving situations that do not apply here. Maybe, Aiah thinks, it will have to be the whores after all.

“
Can we arrange for the
Provisionals
to break the contract somehow?” Aiah asks.

They look at her. “In three days?” Holson asks. “How?”

“I keep coming back to the warranties clause,” Aiah says. “Can you arrange for some supplies to go astray? Suppose your food gets delivered to the wrong place....”

They consider this for a few minutes. Ideas are put forward, then rejected as too complex. Aiah scans the contract again.

“
The
signing bonus
!” Aiah says finally. “What if
that
doesn’t get to you?”

Galagas seems relieved. “Well,” he says, “
finally
.”

It takes them only a few minutes to work out a plan, Aiah collaborating with the other two as if they had known each other for years, so smoothly that she wonders if there’s something, after all, to this business of the Cunning People having a special gift for duplicity.

Holson, they decide, will drag out negotiations with the Provisionals till practically the last minute. In the meantime, he will establish a new bank account in Garshab in order to receive the money. But the account number to which the Provisionals will be told to wire the signing bonus will be subtly different from the real number, a digit or two off.

When the deadline for payment passes without the bonus, Landro’s Escaliers will be free, legally and (it is hoped) morally, to sign another contract with someone else.

“We should have the contract with you in place beforehand,” Holson says. “That way we can take immediate action— holding a bridgehead, say— in accordance with the wishes of our new commanders.”

Aiah is surprised. “You can sign a contract before the old one has expired?”

“
It will be provisional only. Full of thus-and-so’s, stipulating that in the event we are free of any other obligations before a certain date, we will consider ourselves yours to command. And we will give you an account number in Garshab”— he nods, with a significant smile— “a
real
account number, into which your government can place its good-faith deposit, perhaps one-tenth of the signing bonus?”

“I think this might be arranged.” He has anticipated, she notes, her objection to giving them their entire bonus, in case they re-sign with the Provisionals after all and dupe her government of all its dinars.

“We will return early third shift,” Holson says, “and bring the contracts with us. We can’t specify an exact hour— our other commitments are pressing.”

“I will wait, sir. I thank you both.”

Galagas— no longer so stiff and uncomfortable— reaches into a pocket and produces a silver flask. “I wonder, Miss Aiah, if you would join us in some kill-the-baby? It is from Barkazi.”

Aiah smiles. Kill-the-baby is a phrase her grandmother has used. “I would be honored, Colonel.”

Galagas raises the flask. “To success, and Barkazi.”

There is a strange light in his eyes. Aiah wonders at the man’s strange faith in her, in his belief that she is somehow destined to change the shape of things far away. It is beyond mere credulity, and well into some mystical realm of faith she can’t herself understand.

He drinks and passes the flask to Aiah, who echoes the toast and takes a swig. It is brandy, harsh and fiery and absent of refinement, without doubt the worst stuff she has ever tasted. This baby is
dead
, she thinks. Eyes streaming, she passes the flask to Holson.

If this is what the homeland tastes like, she thinks, I am not going.

She sees her guests out, and as they say farewell Holson surprises her by embracing her, kissing her on both cheeks.

“I know we will accomplish great things,” he says.

Aiah manages through her surprise to retain her air of confidence. “I have no doubt,” she says, and then accepts Galagas’s somewhat more reserved embrace.

As Aiah watches the two officers make their way across the swaying bridge, she feels a kind of wonder that it has all worked out exactly as Constantine had, weeks ago, anticipated. He has maneuvered all of them, somehow, into this position, and will doubtless get his victory.

But what
then
? Aiah wonders. Aiah and the Escaliers have been shifted into position, true, but the position is an artificial one. Aiah is not the redeemer of Barkazi— except on video, and in the mind of a deranged hermit back in Jaspeer— and the Escaliers are not an army of liberation. She doesn’t know how she can ever meet these people’s expectations.

We will accomplish great things
.

She fears she is going to be a terrible disappointment to everyone who believes in her.

Aiah returns to Lamarath’s office to organize her notes and finds Lamarath there, along with one of his hulking guards. One of the locked metal cabinets has been opened, and Aiah sees inside it a video camera, set to gaze at the room through a spyhole. Lamarath has opened the camera and is removing the video cartridge.

Aiah looks at the camera in shock. “The meetings were recorded?”

Lamarath looks at her over his shoulder. “You didn’t know?” He seems surprised.

“No. I didn’t.” Anger blazes up in her. “I should have been told!” she says.

“If they’d found out—” If they’d found out, Aiah thinks, she’d have been killed.

Lamarath opens a briefcase and drops the cartridge into it. “A dolphin will carry it beneath the front to our friends,” he says. He pats the case. “Insurance,” he adds, “to make sure our mercenary friends won’t betray us.”

And insurance, Aiah knows, in case they’d failed to make an agreement at all. If the negotiations had failed, Constantine could have threatened to release the video to the Provisionals, which Holson and Galagas would have realized meant the end of them.

Displaced anger and fear rattle in the hollow of Aiah’s chest. Constantine, she thinks, is willing to sacrifice her here, if it means a greater chance to win his war.

She feels a tremor in her knees.

One must keep one’s true end in view
. His end is victory, and Aiah herself— her life, her happiness— ranks somewhat lower on his scale of priorities.

Aiah walks unsteadily to Lamarath’s chair and lowers herself into it.

“Insurance,” she repeats, and thinks, Who is insuring me?

TIMES CHANGE, BUT OBEDIENCE IS ETERNAL.

A THOUGHT-MESSAGE FROM HIS PERFECTION,

THE PROPHET OF AJAS

—I am very pleased with this, Constantine sends. His tone, silky and satisfied, rolls through Aiah’s mind.

—I expect the Escaliers will keep their agreements, Aiah replies. Which means that those recordings made by Lamarath can be destroyed.... I would like, in fact, to see them destroyed personally.

Their mental contact is sufficient for Aiah to receive Constantine’s jolt of surprise, along with his reaction, chosen from an array of possible responses. He rejects a lie, first thing of all.

—It was to protect you, he ventures. If they had attempted treachery....

—The recordings could not have been produced until it was too late. You have put me in danger with this.

—Very little. It was all carefully calculated....

Wordless fury rages through Aiah’s mind. She can feel Constantine recoil.

—Apologies, he responds quickly. It was a bad decision, and shall not—

—
It will not have the
opportunity
to happen again. I shall guard my own back in future, and not let you do it.

For a moment she senses thoughts rolling in his mind, their exact nature beyond her reach, imponderable.

—That is wise, he judges.

In answer she just radiates anger at him. Constantine absorbs this, and she senses, strangely, his approval.

—You are growing, Miss Aiah, and that is good.

He breaks contact, and leaves her with a reluctant sense of surprise tingling in her bones.

WANTED HANDMAN FOUND DEAD

“CAROUSED TO DEATH” IN NEIGHBORHOOD BAR

Head down, arms folded over the dangling Trigram on her ivory necklace, Aiah paces along the deck, thoroughly in the grip of the Adrenaline Monster. It is third shift, the two officers could arrive at any time, and she is too nervous to wait in Lamarath’s stuffy office. It is dinnertime, and the twisted families are settling in for the sleep shift that will begin at 24:00. Cooking smells join the miasma over the dark half-world, mingled with the odor of sea, garbage, and feces. Video screens light the darkness here and there, blue video light glowing on twisted faces, reflecting off dark water. Judging by the laughter rolling up from barges here and there, most are tuned to the weekly episode of
Folks Next Door
. Aiah wonders what these people make of the video they watch, the constant display of goods, wealth, and security they have never possessed.

No one, she thinks, will ever make a weekly comedy about life in the half-worlds.

And then something blows up.

Right in the middle of the half-world, fifty paces away, a bright flash followed by a hot wind that presses on Aiah’s face, that blows her hair back and ruffles the lace at her throat and wrists. In the roofed space of the half-world the sound is deafening. Aiah claps her hands over her ears, but this does not shut out the screams and cries for help or the sudden startled pounding of her own stammering heart.