City on Fire (Metropolitan 2) (23 page)

Constantine makes an equivocal gesture with one big hand. “Most of the half-worlds steal small amounts of plasm, true. They also steal fresh water and electricity, once again in insignificant amounts. And other things.”

“But all together,” Gentri says, “the amount is far from insignificant.”

“No doubt.” Constantine brushes the objection aside. “Still, no one lives in the half-worlds from choice. These communities exist because there is nowhere else that will have them.”

“Or because the police are looking for them,” Gentri says.

“Conceded. But my colleague speaks of dispersing six thousand inhabitants. May I ask where he expects these people to go?”

Gentri’s tone clenches his teeth. “The settlements,” he says, “were
illegal
. Where the inhabitants go is not our concern, provided they find a legal residence.”

“
Where do the inhabitants have to go but other half-worlds? And once those are cleaned out, they will have no place to go but the streets, where they cannot help but create disturbances, and even a riot or two.” He turns to Hilthi. “How will the video broadcasts regard that? It is one thing to turn military police loose on the likes of the Silver Hand— it is regrettable, but most viewers will concede its necessity, given their threat to the state and a certain ...
reluctance
... on the part of the proper authorities— but to set swarms of police loose on the most defenseless of our citizens, those on whose behalf we hope to create the revolution, to deprive them of shelter and set them out on the streets—”

“
I object to these provocative descriptions!” Gentri shouts. “
Swarms
of police!
Defenseless
citizens!
Reluctant
authorities! My colleague is attempting to turn a perfectly legal police action into some grotesque act of brutality!”

There is an amused glint in Constantine’s eye. “
I
did not turn it so.”

Gentri looks at the others around the table. “Colleagues! This is outrageous!”

Constantine holds up a hand, forefinger tucked away with the thumb, remaining three fingers extended. “
Three
arrests of Handmen.
That
is outrageous.”

The room buzzes with the sound of everyone talking at once. Voices are raised. Finally Drumbeth picks up the crystal hammer and brings it down. The Crystal Dome rings with harmony, and— for the moment anyway— the babble of discord dies away.

Drumbeth looks at Gentri. “I had hoped for better results against the Handmen,” he says.

“Mr. President,” Gentri says, “they are a large and difficult target.”

“Miss Aiah has not found them so difficult.” Drumbeth frowns. “After the Keremaths, the Hand is the chief target of our administration. They are the chief threat to the security of our metropolis. When may we expect you to move decisively against them?”

Gentri licks his lips. Plasm adverts, red, yellow, green, bloom behind his head like fireworks. “Intelligence must be gathered, targets chosen, plans made....”

The commanding light that glitters in Drumbeth’s eyes is like the hard gleam off a diamond facet. He sits erect and motionless in his chair, and his presence seems to inflate: despite Drumbeth’s small body he suddenly seems to
mass
far more than Gentri, and to tower over him like the stone-face Myhorn.

“
My understanding,” Drumbeth says, “is that you
have
gathered intelligence, that the police have
years
of intelligence.”

Gentri shifts uncomfortably in his seat, rearranges his thinning locks with a distracted hand. “We are in a process of review. To determine its accuracy.”

“And when may we expect to have the review completed?”

Gentri raises his hands helplessly. “I— have no estimate. I did not understand that any of these issues would be raised at this meeting.”

Constantine leans forward and speaks. His speech has turned silky; he is generous now that he has made his point.

“I sympathize with my colleague’s dilemma. He is new to his position, and he is not responsible for the fact that he has inherited a police force renowned for its corruption. I have a few of the same problems with some of the organizations under my ministerial control. One understands the situation, but one doesn’t want to admit the system’s failures among one’s peers.”

Gentri is in no mood to be appeased, and scowls as he makes his reply. “Steps are being taken to rectify this situation. I have made full reports to my colleagues on my efforts.”

Constantine continues soothing, his deep voice evoking odd little harmonies from the crystal surroundings, individual panes and plates ringing with his voice. “May I offer my colleague the technique that has produced such admirable results in the Plasm Enforcement Division? That each employee be subjected to a plasm scan in order to determine that he is not beholden to the Silver Hand or any other extralegal agency?”

Gentri glares at Constantine. Behind him, plasm letters hang burning in the sky. “The effects on police morale would be incalculable.”

Constantine’s laughter rumbles out, and somewhere a crystal pane hums in sympathy. “I should
hope
so.”

Gentri looks at the head of the table. “Am I to understand that the half-worlds now possess the same sort of political immunity formerly enjoyed by the Silver Hand and various Keremath enterprises? What possible use could such protection be for us— what is gained?”

Drumbeth frowns, thinks for a long moment. “I am concerned principally with returning plasm resources to the state. If there are plasm thieves, or other criminals, within the half-worlds, let them be arrested, by all means.”

Hilthi looks up again from his notebooks. “But deporting whole populations . . .,” he says.

“I think not,” says Drumbeth. He looks at Gentri, and his voice turns commanding. “And we desire action against the Handmen. Names, charges, facts, totals of plasm and other stolen materials returned. All this, and soon.”

Gentri visibly bites down his resentment, and nods. “Very well, sir,” he says. “Soon.”

Soon
. Aiah thinks she tastes an odd flavor in that word, as if Gentri is offering another promise entirely, something quite different from what Drumbeth has in mind.

But no one else seems to hear what Aiah hears, and suddenly there is a blaze of light overhead. Several in the cabinet start, afraid this might be some kind of attack, but there is no danger, it is only a plasm display— an
illegal
plasm display, because no displays are permitted over the Palace in the event they might be used to disguise an assault. But all faces turn upward in any case ... A dolphin spins through space; a cat wearing white gloves and a vest makes a commanding gesture with a stick; a woman in tall boots contemplates some kind of net she is holding in her hand, a window which allows a glimpse of an unnaturally green plain, as if someone had sown the surface of a large roof entirely in grass and placed on it a few black-and-white cows. Each image leaping into being, moving, dissolving into another, all too fast for the mind to follow.

“
What is
that
?” Constantine breathes in wonder.

“The Dreaming Sisters,” Aiah says.

“
And who are
they
?” Constantine says.

Aiah doesn’t have an answer, and it is Ethemark— gazing upward, the images reflected in his huge eyes—who supplies the reply.

“They are a religious order,” he says.

“They must be a rich religious order,” Constantine says, “to afford so much plasm.”

“No doubt,” says Ethemark.

And then the image fades, leaving in Aiah’s heart a burning droplet of wonder, even as the cabinet meeting drones on.

CHARNA COMPLAINS TO CARAQUI GOVERNMENT

“CARAQUI IS EXPORTING GANGSTERS TO ITS NEIGHBORS”

CARAQUI OFFERS TO SHARE POLICE INTELLIGENCE, WELCOMES EXTRADITION

COMPROMISE CALLED "INSUFFICIENT”

“A division within our ranks,” Constantine observes, “and not the first. There are those who wish true change, a revisualization of our world, and those who simply want the same old Caraqui with a new set of faces at the top.” He shrugs lazily, massive shoulders straining the seams of his velvet jacket. “Perhaps it is not Gentri’s fault. He is a product of the system here, and his imagination simply may not be sufficiently flexible to see that there is another way.”

The meeting is over, and Constantine’s air of satisfaction fills the mirror-and-gilt elevator as it swoops and slides its way down its curving shaft. He smiles; he gestures expansively.

Tiny Ethemark, in his shadow, is not so pleased. “But what of the half-worlds?” he says. “Gentri’s still allowed to send his police in.”

Constantine doesn’t look at him directly, but instead gazes at the twisted man’s distorted reflection in the polished-bronze door. “Those who steal plasm must take their chances, no?” he says. “And if the amounts the half-worlds are stealing are trivial, as you have always maintained, there will be little reason to go in at all. And in any case, the majority of the people will not be thrown out, and that is what we want most.”

“
What I
want
,” Ethemark says forcefully, “is for the half-worlds to be let
alone
.”

Constantine gives Ethemark’s reflection a sharp look, a steely edge glinting through the velvet tone of his voice. “That was naive. I intend to let
nothing
alone— to allow nothing to remain unchanged at all.”

Their reflections are sliced open as the polished doors part. “Miss Aiah,” Constantine says, “a word with you.”

Ethemark makes his way down the corridor to his office, giving Aiah and Constantine a look over his shoulder as he retreats. The look on the smooth gray face, as always, is unreadable.

Constantine leans close, puts a warm hand on Aiah’s shoulder. “I have heard from your Mr. Rohder,” he says. “He says he will leave his position in Jaspeer and join us.”

Warm pleasure dances in Aiah’s veins. “I’m
very
happy.” She finds her lips twitching with the urge to kiss him, but it is a public corridor, and since he carried her away from the aerocar pad there have been no more demonstrations of affection in public.

There is a hidden glow in Constantine’s eyes, and Aiah senses that the thought of a stolen kiss has not eluded him either. But then the glow turns cold, the expression grim.

“Gentri,” he says, and before finishing lets the name hang for a moment in the air, “troubles me.”

Aiah hears a confirmation humming through her nerves, a sense that her intuition was not entirely misplaced.

“Yes,” she says. “There was something ... not quite right there.”

“His performance was a little too fervid, I think. As if he was not defending merely his plasm squads— which is understandable, and after all his job— but perhaps himself as well.”

Aiah nods. “I see what you mean.”

Constantine straightens, a contemplative frown touching his face. “He was a prosecuting judge before the coup, and reckoned honest, as such people go. There was no reason to think him connected to anyone ... untoward.” He nods to himself as if reaching a decision, then looks down at her. “I wish you to start a file. A discreet little file that most eyes will never see— none but yours, mine, perhaps Ethemark’s.”

Aiah considers this request. “Isn’t Sorya the person to ask for that sort of thing?”

“
I have seen
her
file. There is little of any interest in it.”

“I’m not very qualified for this.”

He shrugs. “Do what you can. There may, after all, be nothing to find.” He takes her arm. “Come. I would like to review the day’s projects.”

She falls into step alongside him. “Three big arrests planned for first shift tomorrow. And a number of known associates for dessert.”

“Ah.” He smiles. “Progress made, then. And more to tell the cabinet, when next they meet.”

“Sir! Miss Aiah!”

It’s Ethemark, coming back on the run. “Bombings, sir! Alaphen Plaza, by Government Harbor— and the Exchange! Hundreds of people hurt!”

Constantine stops walking, his head held high, nostrils flared, as if to scent the wind. He nods. “Well,” he says, “
someone
makes a counterattack.”

“Who?” Aiah feels panic thrashing in her chest. “The Hand?”

“
Someone ...
weak
. Only the weak use terror.” He tilts his head, licks his lips as if to taste something. “Great-Uncle Rathmen, perhaps, letting us know he is displeased with the late assassination attempt. We shall see what news the investigation brings.”

The two bombings kill a handful and injure many, though fortunately there are not so many casualties as first believed. Sorya’s service is using plasm hounds within the hour, and though the bombers have taken precautions to clean themselves of any trace, the procedure was flawed in one case, and one of the killers is tracked south to Barchab, and there positively identified: a Handman. Barchab is quietly asked to arrest the individual and hand him over, and video reports of the stunned survivors staggering among the overturned carts and blasted barrows of the open-air Alaphen market prompt the Barchab government, not known for its efficiency, to act quickly for once.

Members of the government begin to walk about with guards, and their families move into the Aerial Palace. Hilthi protests— he wants to live among the people— but though he will not leave his apartment, at least he is persuaded to keep a guard about him.

Two days later, with the bomber still in Barchabi hands, a far worse catastrophe. Constantine and Aiah view it from his launch, the gleaming black-and-silver turbine-powered machine he had confiscated from the Keremaths.