City on Fire (Metropolitan 2) (72 page)

Refiq, Tollan, Brandrag
.

“I need the two of you to set up a rotating surveillance on these three,” she says. “This surveillance involves the highest possible security. Only the three of us know about this assignment. I want the surveillance to be run with extreme caution, from a distance. Configure your sensorium so that you can perceive plasm. Assume that the subjects are wired to plasm at all times, and are aware they might be surveilled. No one else must be permitted to know what the two of you are up to.”

Alfeg picks up a file, looks through it, then glances up at Aiah.

“This is a copy of the original file,” he says.

Aiah nods. “Yes.”

“These files aren’t supposed to be copied.”

Aiah looks coldly into Alfeg’s eyes. “Yes,” she says.

Alfeg glances nervously down at the file. “Ah,” he says.

Khorsa pages through another file. “I don’t see anything unusual about this Mr. Brandrag,” she says. “A typical cousin, so far as I can see. Why does the surveillance have to be so secret?”

Aiah looks at them both. “Because,” she says, “one of these three men is scheduled to come down with the Party Sickness.”

COLONELS’ COUNCIL DEMANDS EXTRADITION, MOBILIZES FORCES

NESCA “WILL NOT BOW TO INTIMIDATION”

Aiah arrives breathless in Constantine’s anteroom, briefcase full of the latest plasm figures, and finds others waiting outside the office door: the other triumvirs clustered with Belckon, Sorya smoking a cigaret in the corner, Geymard and Arviro, both in undress uniform, and Personal Secretary Drusus pretending to look busy behind his desk....

Martinus, the bodyguard, stands quietly in front of Constantine’s door, his callused hands folded quietly. His attitude is polite, but clearly nothing is getting past him right now.

Aiah pauses at the door, catches her breath. The message had said,
Come at once
.

Come yesterday
is what its tone had implied.

And now Constantine is keeping even the other triumvirs waiting outside his door. Aiah can tell from their expressions that they aren’t happy about it.

Aiah walks up to the guard, lifts her brows in a silent query, receives in return a minute shake of Martinus’s armored head. She turns back toward the room and drifts toward Drusus’s desk.

“Mr. Drusus? Is the president—?”

“The triumvir is on the phone,” softly. “It’s urgent.”

Aiah glances down at Drusus’s communications array and sees that no lights shine to mark that any of the phone lines are being used. She bends down and whispers into his ear.

“If the triumvir were on the phone,” she says, “there would be something lit, ne?”

A look of horror crosses Drusus’s face. He picks up a headset from the cradle and presses buttons. Lights begin to flash. Aiah straightens, moves away from the desk, and wonders if anyone else has observed this discrepancy.

Plasm buzzes in her nerves. Before the panic started, she’d given herself a dose to clear her head and burn off the fatigue toxins. Now she finds plasm-energy twitching at her, making her want to do anything rather than sit in a waiting room.

“I fear this will end any funds for compensated demobilization,” Belckon says in a low voice to the two triumvirs. “And we may lose other Polar League funds as well, for rebuilding and refugee work.”

“These military upstarts are jeopardizing everything,” Faltheg murmurs. “They don’t have the slightest idea how to behave.”

“Or to run a country,” says Adaveth. “If our policy is shackled to them, they’ll bring us down.”

“But they’re New City. Constantine can’t disavow them, and....”

Faltheg falls silent, then gives a sharp look over his shoulder at Aiah. Aiah feels herself flush— she had not meant to overhear— she gives him an apologetic smile and backs away, toward Martinus and the door.

Without warning ice water floods Aiah’s spine, and she manages to bottle up her cry of terror at the last instant. Blood hammers at her ears.

Now she knows why Constantine is keeping his own administration locked out.

Taikoen is inside. Making demands, refusing to be sent away, forcing Constantine to deal with him
now
. Aiah’s plasm-charged nerves are just sensitive enough to detect his presence.

Aiah whirls, gives an alarmed look to Martinus. The man’s face is expressionless, but Aiah sees a knowing look in his deep-set eyes.

And then it occurs to Aiah that if she can detect Taikoen, Taikoen might be able to detect
her
. The thought sends a pulse of terror through her heart. She wills herself not to flee and, hoping she is not too conspicuous in her haste, backs away from the door.

Aiah gives a start as Sorya’s voice comes low in her ear. “I have received some intriguing news. A religious leader in Charna— a wandering priestess I believe, has just proclaimed that I am an emanation of a god.” A lazy, amused tone enters her voice. “I hope I may have your congratulations, one celestial sister to another.”

Aiah clenches her teeth, tries to control her flailing nerves. The presence of Taikoen doesn’t seem so strong here, and perhaps wouldn’t be detectable at all if Aiah didn’t already know he was just beyond the door.

“Congratulations,” she tells Sorya. “I remember when you predicted the appearance of this, ah, priestess.”

Sorya’s laugh tinkles out. “Superhuman prescience, of course.” A touch of ice enters her tone. “I wish my foreknowledge extended to the point of predicting a fat chromo-play contract like yours.”

Aiah turns to face her. “You don’t need the money.”

“
No, not really, though money of course is always useful.” Sorya tilts her head, considers. “But I could use the publicity. That’s the problem with being in the secret service— no one ever knows how splendidly you do your job.” She shows her delicate, pearly teeth. “Constantine restarted his career with
Lords of the New City
. You may do well with your
Golden Lady
chromo— you may even ascend in Barkazi, who can tell?”

“Who can tell?” Aiah echoes.

Sorya touches her tongue to her teeth in languid amusement, and then gives a meaningful look in the direction of Constantine’s door. “And with both of us being goddesses— well, practically goddesses— I wonder what that makes our mutual lover.”

“He was a god before we were, according to some.”

“But did he make use of those people?” Scorn narrows her green eyes. “They were a resource— admittedly a mind-impoverished one— and he threw them away. Something could have been made of them, with proper direction. In contrast,” nodding as if awarding Aiah a point, “you’ve done very well with your moldy old hermit.”

“I work with the material I’m given,” Aiah says, deadpan.

Sorya seems immune to Aiah’s irony. “
My
prophet has the advantage of mobility— she can travel about, make converts, acquire donations. I expect the faith to be in the black within two or three years.”

“Well done.” One goddess to another.

Sorya glances across the room at Adaveth, Belckon, and Faltheg, and scorn glitters in her green eyes. “I do not understand why Constantine allows himself to be fettered to those... people.” Some residual caution has clearly replaced one description with another. “I would sweep away the lot,” she says, “and both I and the metropolis would be the better. But rather than taking control, Constantine prefers to let events narrow his choices and impel him in the direction he would have taken all along. He rules with one eye toward the history books, and concerns himself with what they will say when he is dead. He wants them to credit him with good intentions.” She shrugs.

“Ah well,” she says, “that way his hand is not seen in events, though it makes for more confusion than one would desire....” She smiles, pinches out her cigaret with finger and thumb. “He will go where he wishes, but he lets others choose the time. He sacrifices initiative for deniability. I prefer to shape things directly, and will take the responsibility for success and failure both.”

She turns to find an ashtray for her cigaret, and Aiah wonders how much to trust Sorya’s judgment in this: that Constantine has somehow desired the constant crises since his arrival in Caraqui, and has preferred to let others create them... and, Aiah now adds, has put others in a position to solve these crises for him. Taikoen has solved certain problems, it occurs to her, and now— a shiver goes up her spine— perhaps she is to solve the problem of Taikoen.

And take the blame if anything goes wrong.

Sorya drops her cigaret into the ashtray and turns back to Aiah, a delicate smile on her lips. Aiah’s mind is still cautiously palpating this new vision of Constantine. She doesn’t wish to accept Sorya’s views of Constantine, but on the other hand she knows it is a logical enough view and that it fits with the facts, if also with Sorya’s prejudices....

But the proof will be before her today. If Constantine supports Sorya’s provocations in Charna, it will demonstrate he has desired such a thing all along.

Suddenly the door opens and Constantine appears, all smiles and apologies. “I am truly sorry,” he says. “There was a matter of some urgency having to do with....” He waves a hand. “But what does it matter? We must deal with Charna.”

As the others file into Constantine’s office, Aiah wonders if only she notices the t-grip sitting plainly on a side table, its cable still plugged into the socket— the t-grip that Constantine had undoubtedly used to project himself to Taikoen’s next victim and to put the hanged man in control.

But perhaps Aiah is the only one who notices, because the others are concerned solely with Charna. Sitting around Constantine’s spacious ebony desk, the other triumvirs insist that they have no reason to support Charna’s new government, let alone back a demented invasion threat. Belckon also speaks out strongly on the intermetropolitan repercussions of being associated with Charna’s junta and its reckless behavior.

Despite the tension and disagreement, Constantine seems perfectly at ease, almost lounging in his chair, a contrast to the others, who have to edge their chairs up to his desk to make their points. Despite the air of informality, Constantine is clearly controlling the meeting, indicating with a glance or a word who should speak next. Aiah can see Sorya’s face harden as one person after another speaks against her policy.

“I beg to disagree,” Sorya says when Constantine finally allows her to speak. “These people, however inept, are among our few friends in the region. They must be supported— yes, and guided. A communique must be issued promising action on our part if Charna is attacked. As for this foolish invasion threat— well, the invasion will not happen. President Constantine can see to that with a single phone call.”

Adaveth’s nictitating membranes slide partway over his eyes. “I beg to disagree with Madam Sorya’s premise. Charna is not our friend. Perhaps this Council of Colonels is the ideological ally of certain members of our government, but not all of us, and not our metropolis.” He leans forward, jabs the desk with a delicate hand. “I will utterly oppose any statement of support for Charna.”

“And I,” says Faltheg. “These people are out of control.”

Sorya’s lips press into a thin, white line. “What matters,” she says, “is power, and who has it, and who is willing to use it. If we do not support our friends, it will not matter how large our army may be, our word and our counsels will be ignored by everyone, and we will be seen as ripe for overthrow. For I remind everyone here,” tossing her head, “that we took power through force, and maintained ourselves through force, and if we do not show our willingness to use force to support our friends, compel neutrals, and punish our enemies, we will be seen as vulnerable by every pathetic little interventionist in the region; that
this
misapprehension is far more dangerous for us than any impression that we are
dangerous
, as our recent history has proved.”

In the quiet chill that follows, Adaveth and Faltheg gaze at Sorya with the same cold expression on their dissimilar faces. Belckon polishes his spectacles. Constantine breaks the silence. “I will make the phone call that Madam Sorya proposes,” he says. “The best support we can give for anyone in our region is to help them extricate themselves from their difficulties. If Charna backs down, the crisis is over. And we will avoid making any official statements until the phone call is made.”

“
Never
back down,” Sorya murmurs, scorn on her face, but she turns away, backing down herself.

There is another long silence. Aiah looks at Geymard and Arviro, who are holding sheafs of documents about readiness levels and ammunition and fuel availability, and then down at the briefcase in her lap, with its latest statistics on the availability of plasm in case of military conflict... and feels a wave of thankfulness that the statistics will probably not be required.

Constantine steeples his fingers, gazes frowningly over them at the members of his government. “I have also considered ways in which we may suppress the reckless behavior of our Charni friends— or
my
Charni friends, if you will it so. They are clearly unfamiliar with the proper mechanisms and conventions of government, and I would help them if I can— make them
our
friends, then, and responsible friends, too. So perhaps a delegation from our government to their government, a diplomatic and economic mission— clearly
not
military— to help Charna’s new government control their metropolis.”

Adaveth suspiciously unveils a single eye. “A New City mission?” he asks.

“
I would rather it represented
all
our metropolis,” Constantine says. He smiles pleasantly over his fingertips, then looks at Sorya. “I thought Madam Sorya would serve as its head, remaining of course under Minister Belckon’s direction.” Alarm flashes into the others’ eyes, and Constantine speaks quickly. “This will unfortunately require her resignation from the Force of the Interior, where she has done such excellent work... but I know she desires a more public role, and head of this special mission would, of course, be a promotion.”