Plasm is like water, flowing through every available conduit until it reaches a kind of equivalence. But some structures are capable of containing more plasm than others: plasm accumulators, capacitors, and batteries are constructed so as to fill with plasm, and draw in even more from the surrounding grid. The mains carrying plasm from the structures where it is generated to the plasm stations are composed of woven bundles of cable made of an alloy designed to carry a perfect flood of plasm along its length.
There are four main cables going into the plasm station in Fresh Water Bay, one for each cardinal direction; and they must all be cut at once, for otherwise the plasm would reroute itself, like water pouring through a system of pipes, into the uncut cable. Probably the single cable would not be capable of carrying as much plasm as the four, but it is a supposition that Aiah would not care to test.
Aiah looks at Davath and Prestley. “Let’s get started.”
The cable is thick at this juncture, thick as three Davaths coiled together. The junction, where other cables from other structures merge with this one, features an electric-powered rotor that can take any of the cables off the line, including—because all cables must at times receive maintenance—the main cable that brings all the plasm in the district to the plasm station.
Prestley has stripped the cover from the electric junction box and disabled the communications line that allows the plasm station to control it. “Ready,” he says.
Aiah nods at him. “Go.”
A loud rattle hammers at Aiah’s ears as the rotator shifts to the neutral position. The plasm station is now cut off.—Mission accomplished, Aiah sends to Ethemark.—Good. Get out of there fast.—Fast. Right.
The truth is, they must stay around a while.
Davath strikes a light on an oxy-acetylene torch as Prestley uses both hands to draw by its handles the heavy black plastic-encased fuse from the junction box—“I’ll throw this in the canal later,” he says—and then takes a hammer to the manual controls. Bits of plastic and wire fly around the room as he batters the box into ruin. Aiah’s heart hammers—in Fresh Water Bay Station they’ve got to know what’s happened—but Davath calmly bends to apply his torch to the plasm junction, welding it into the neutral position.
If there are combat mages in the plasm station, Aiah thinks, we could be dead any second.
Sweat drips from her brow. The room, with its steel-and-concrete walls surrounding the welding torch, suddenly seems close and hot.
—Our mages have launched their attack, Ethemark says. The soldiers are accelerating and should be at the station soon.
Plasm stations are notoriously designed with insurrection or war in mind. They are heavily armored, and covered with a bronze collection web designed to absorb plasm attacks, disperse them over the web, and then draw the plasm into the station’s own stores. The chief way to attack such a station is to throw heavy things at it—usually armor-piercing shells, but in a pinch big rocks will do—until the defenses are breached and telepresent mages can enter on a raging wave of plasm to sweep away opposition.
Aiah counts the drops of sweat that fall from her chin onto the scarred steel floor. Thirty-one, thirty-two … At last Davath finishes his work. He stands, pulls his goggles down around his thick neck. “Done. Let’s go.”
They leave the tiny compartment on a run. “One last thing,” Prestley says. “Turn on your torches.” He goes to the generator room next door and throws a switch—the cage-enclosed lights die with a whimper.
Aiah leads the other two upward at a run, taking the grid-ded metal steps two at a time. Slamming and locking a steel door behind them, they emerge into a corridor filled with anxious civilians. Poor people live here, in lightless compartments below the waterline, with wealthier residents in the airy flats above.
“What’s going on?” people ask. “What’s happening?”
“Listen to Hilthi on the radio,” Aiah gasps, breath almost gone. “Do what he says.”
They jog up another stair, then turn onto a gangway that leads to an outside door. Plastic flooring booms under their feet. Shieldlight gleams through the door.
They burst out onto another gangway, this one webbed by chain-link. Their boat awaits, moored to a pier at the bottom, engines idling. As the crewmen see the party running, the engines roar into life.
There is a concussion, a flat slap that strikes painfully at the ears. An explosion at the plasm station.
Aiah leaps into the boat, throws herself gasping into a padded chair. “Go,” she says.
Another explosion shocks the air, and the boat throttles up, standing on its wake as it races away.
TRIUMVIR HILTHI CALLS FOR POPULAR UPRISING!
“DESTROY THE REBELS WHO WOULD ENSLAVE YOU!”
Aiah’s four teams rendezvous at a Dalavan temple—Constantine’s people had given them the address. The place is a strange blocky building, the facade a structure made up entirely of pillars, pillars built around and next to and on top of each other, like a double handful of pencils. They are bright red or yellow, and each is topped with a little bell-shaped dome. Gateways are cut through the pillars, their curving arches carved with a wild variety of threatening monsters, all painted in lifelike colors. Ascetics hang from the building in sacks, and some, it appears, have been dead for some time—dead in a holy cause, they are allowed to hang there until they rot, inspiration for the faithful.
The temple priests provide them with a hot meal and an office in which Aiah can spread out maps and plan the assault on Xurcal Station. On the wall, an oval screen shows Triumvir Parq speaking on the Dalavans’ video link. Parq has donned the ebony-and-gold Mask of Awe worn when speaking as the official head of the Dalavan faith, and his magnificent voice booms from the mask in a tireless call to strife and battle. Where formerly Aiah had heard only the silky tones of the politician and born seducer, now she hears the ringing voice of a commander calling on his troops. She is struck with admiration for his verbal skill at the same time as she is chilled by its effect.
“I declare the rebels to be the enemies of the Supreme One Dalavos and his people!” he cries. “Their secret purpose, a conspiracy plotted in the very pits of Hell, is to destroy both our state and our faith. The wickedness of the Avians was as nothing compared with the evil of these rebels, for the Avians were deformed in body and spirit while these appear as normal men, even if their souls are twisted.”
He takes a breath. Eyes glitter, red and silver, from the depths of the mask. “All those faithful to Dalavos and his teachings must resist them to the utmost of their power,” he proclaims. “Ambush their patrols! Shoot them down from hiding! Steal their plasm!” His fists clench, pounding the air like hammers as they beat time to his thoughts. “I declare, as the supreme leader of the faithful, that those who, having heard my word, continue the obstinate fight for the rebel cause are condemned as traitors to Heaven. Never shall they be accepted in our temples! Never shall they be seen among us! Never shall they share our food or taste our drink! Never shall they take the least shelter from us! I curse them!”
Aiah shivers, tries to focus on her map. Parq’s voice drops and he speaks rhythmically as he begins an incantation. The camera closes in on his face, on the eyes like embers lying in the mask, the lips of flesh writhing behind the frozen lips of ebony.
“Curst be their hearts, for their hearts are filled with evil. Curst be their minds, for their minds are the dwelling place of rebellion. Curst be their feet, for their feet bear them on the road to Hell. Curst be their throats, for the words in their throats are the wicked lies of demons and the undead…”