“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 revisu-alization 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.