“We shall find out in time,” Constantine says. “But until then we need to deal with the soldiers themselves. Sorya, I think we need to make their landing considerably less pleasant.”
Pleasure glitters in Sorya’s green eyes. “May I have free use of the available mages?”
“So long as security here is not imperiled, yes. At the very least, try to crater the runways.”
Sorya gives an elaborate, ironic bow. “Your servant, sir.”
As Sorya glides away, Constantine turns to Delruss. “How much plasm can we call on? Can we afford to go on the offensive?”
“We’ve ordered all the plasm stations in the city to cease non-emergency use and to prepare to send us any stored plasm beyond that required for station defense, but three have not responded. We have thrown emergency switches to take them off the well, but these did not answer properly and have probably been sabotaged. Four other plasm stations reported that police tried to talk their way past security, but were turned away by the military police guards without violence.”
“So the other stations probably made the mistake of letting the police inside?”
“Very possibly.” Delruss looks apologetic. “There was no alert, of course. No reason to suspect them.”
Constantine’s eyes light with calculation. “Three stations,” he muses. “And of course the Second Brigade’s own headquarters plasm. That isn’t enough to breach our defenses, but it can raise a lot of mischief and will probably be supplemented with plasm purchased abroad. If our enemies can afford foreign troops, they can certainly afford foreign plasm. But—” He smiles. “They tried to take seven plasm stations and got only three. They attempted to bring all the army with them and got only a single brigade of infantry and the Aerial Brigade, which seems to be somewhat less than enthusiastic. At least one of the triumvirs is still at large, and their attempt to murder me was foiled by Sorya.” He puts a large, warm hand on Aiah’s shoulder. “And they have not had Miss Aiah to provide a well of plasm vast beyond reckoning, as we did in our own strike. And that is where they are at a disadvantage.” At his words, Aiah feels a welling of pleasure that wars with the despair in her heart.
“Minister,” she says. “My department has mages in the building. Not trained for military work, but—”
“How many?” Constantine’s response is immediate.
“A dozen or so. I should be getting a report very soon.”
He nods briskly. “We will see if we can put them to use.”
He leans closer to Aiah and speaks in a low rumble. “In the meantime, I need you to organize some ministry employees—form teams—and get out into the city. Find the plasm connections to those three stations, and cut them. Destroy them, so that they cannot be repaired with any ease.”
Aiah’s heart gives a lurch. “I—” She hesitates. She will need maps, she thinks, equipment for manipulating plasm connections. Boats. How many teams? And Constantine wanted the plasm connections destroyed—how? Demolitions? No—not unless Constantine can give her people who know how to use them.
Acetylene torches, she thinks. Close the switches and weld them shut.
Constantine’s eyes, cold and commanding, glitter down at her.
“Yes, Minister,” she says.
He nods. “Very good. You may draw what you need from our ministry supplies here in the Palace. Take food from the cafeterias—you may be gone for some time.”
Aiah’s head whirls. “Yes.”
He looks at her gravely, and to her immense surprise sketches the Sign of Karlo over her forehead with his thumb.
“At once, Miss Aiah,” he says, his voice surprisingly gentle, and turns away.
CHELOKI RECOGNIZES CARAQUI REBELS
DENOUNCES “CONSTANTINE’S ILLEGITIMIST METHODS”
Marine engines rumble in the darkness beneath the city. The combined reek of floating garbage and floating humanity is clenched in the back of Aiah’s throat like a fist.
The boat’s spotlights carve a misty tunnel in the darkness. Rusting hulls, strange scaffoldwork, misshapen bodies, and dully glittering eyes loom on either side. The boat is passing through one of the uncharted half-worlds, a far more primitive place than Aground, a randomly assembled collection of human and nautical rubbish. Edged by the spotlights, perceived only in fragments, the rusting barges and silent, unresponsive people have a nightmarish jigsaw quality, eerie fragments assembled at random in some huge, unguessable formation.
It had taken several hours for Aiah to assemble her teams—to find them in the shelters, to persuade them to volunteer, to locate the necessary equipment, and to plan the operation on ministry maps laid out over the tables in the Operations Room. And all the while the situation outside was changing, the balance of power shifting as more elements entered the volatile situation……
Sorya’s team of mages failed to significantly damage the mercenary units landing at the aerodrome—they were well guarded by their own mages—but she succeeded in cratering the runways to prevent further reinforcements. The incoming mercenaries were forced to divert their flights to neighboring Lanbola, where it is presumed they will be interned. Hilthi was plucked from his hideout by Geymard’s troops and delivered to Caraqui’s broadcast center, where radio and video began to air his appeals to the population. And to everyone’s surprise the third member of the triumvirate, Parq, phoned in from his office in the Grand Temple. He had survived a brawl between his guards and police sent to arrest him, and several people had been killed. He had thought the plot aimed against himself alone—perhaps initiated by a band of religious dissidents—and had only belatedly discovered the extent of the countercoup.
He was declaring for the government, he said, and was mobilizing his Dalavan Guard and would soon be making a broadcast on his own Temple-owned communications channels.
Constantine seemed pleasantly surprised by this. In view of Parq’s history of treachery, he clearly had anticipated a great deal of bargaining before the triumvir chose one side or another; but apparently the assassination attempt had frightened him—“He cannot be encouraged by the thought that our opponents find him dispensable,” as Constantine remarked—and Parq was now firmly in the government camp, even if his Dalavan Guard was a lightly armed joke.
Following this news came another strike by the Aerial Brigade—much more timid this time: the helicopters darted from the aerodrome, fired their rockets at extreme range in the general direction of the Palace, then raced back to safety. The rockets rained down everywhere but the Palace, setting fires in the surrounding district* and Geymard’s military mages and antiaircraft weapons managed to bring two of the helicopters down in spite of their caution.
Aiah had packed her teams into their four official ministry powerboats and waited for the all-clear. It was all, she suspected, her fault. Now she had a chance to repair some of the damage, and the only way to be certain of success was to do the job personally. A mage’s place, she realized, is probably in the Palace, but unless she was in the field with her teams, she could not make sure the job would be done right.
But it was an ominous sight, as the day eased into its third shift, that greeted Aiah as her motorboat slid from the government marina—low gray clouds obscuring the Shield, a cold wind shouldering its way between the buildings, columns of black smoke rising from the city on fire. The sky was empty of plasm adverts—all plasm had been diverted to other purposes—and there were no people to be seen other than soldiers huddling behind barricades. There was a strange silence in the air—none of the usual noises, the hiss of motor traffic or the roar of boats. Even the sound of helicopters, so prominent earlier in the day, was gone. There was a sense of wariness, of hidden eyes looking down at Aiah’s boats from darkened windows. It is as if her little flotilla is the only thing moving in the whole city, the only thing alive, the only target…