The helmsman presses the ignition and the boat’s engines growl into life. He turns on the spotlights, and ahead Aiah sees the dolphin’s humped back as it breaks the surface in the channel ahead.
“Follow,” she says, and they keep the dolphin in the spotlights, through turns and twists and brief spurts across open water, until he has brought them safely to a berth in the Aerial Palace.
ELEVEN
The command center is alive with tension, as if there were an invisible thread of burning plasm connecting everyone in the room. Constantine stands before the map wearing one of the golden-and-ceramic headsets, but when he sees Aiah enter he speaks a few words into the mouthpiece, then strips off the headset and moves—swiftly, with that incredible certitude of movement—to fold her in his arms. Weariness falls on Aiah at that instant, and for a moment her knees threaten to give way.
Constantine absorbs the extra weight, and then she feels him stiffen with tension. The bristle on his chin scratches her cheek—he hasn’t shaved. “There’s blood on you,” he says. “Are you hurt?”
“No. We ran into police. One of my people was killed.” She swallows. “He was a hero. Davath.”
“Are you hurt at all?”
“Not really, no. Some scrapes.” And, of course, the knowledge that one of her people was gunned down while she did nothing but watch.
“Thank you for sending Arroy to get me out,” Aiah says. “I don’t know what became of Ethemark.”
Constantine flakes dried blood from her chin. “It wasn’t Ethemark’s fault,” he says. “We had to cut off plasm to all mages who weren’t actually fighting, and in our haste we didn’t realize that it would leave you vulnerable. The battle over Xurcal started before we were ready, there was already a fight going on over the aerodrome, and we were exhausting our plasm supplies. All nonessential plasm use had to be cut.” Constantine’s fingers idly stroke her hair, and Aiah wants to melt into him, fuse with his comforting warmth…
“Sir.” An aide. “Hilthi on the line for you.”
“The war will not wait,” Constantine says. He kisses her forehead. “Get a shower, some rest—there are showers in the room adjacent, and cots in the shelters.”
Aiah is sufficiently exhausted that she finds herself in her own apartment, in her own shower, before she realizes that she has put herself in danger in the event the building is shelled or rocketed again. The realization drifts through her mind like a cloud, light and without effect. She is too tired to care, and, wrapped in a towel, collapses onto her bed and is asleep the instant she closes her eyes.
Some hours later she comes screaming awake, every nerve jangling, certain there has been shooting or an explosion. Her eyes gaze into the darkened room in search of an enemy while her heart hammers in her throat. And then the communications array chirps again, and she realizes that it’s only the phone. She picks up the headset with shaking hands, and it takes a long time to settle the earpieces over her ears.
“Aiah?” It’s her grandmother’s voice.
“Nana?” The voice from her past is disorienting: for a moment she thinks she’s back in Jaspeer.
Old Galaiah’s voice is stern. “We’ve all left messages! We’re frightened to death!”
“I’m sorry,” Aiah says. She brushes tangled curls from her eyes and tries to remember if she saw the message light when she returned to her apartment. “I’ve been… out in the fighting. But I’m back, and I’m safe.”
“When you hear the all-clear,” Galaiah says, “I want you to go out and get food. Get it now, before there’s rationing, ne? Bulk food—rice is good, or dried noodles, because vat curd will spoil and you can’t trust that the refrigeration will stay on. Otherwise flour, any kind. Condensed or powdered milk—goat’s milk is best. And canned vegetables and fruit—don’t eat the fruit, you can trade it for other stuff later, because it willbecome very valuable. People will pay anything for the taste of a peach, you’d be surprised… Hey, are you listening?”
“Yes, Nana.” Overwhelmed by all the detail.
“Just rice, with a little extra protein from eggs or meat, will last you a month. You can live for months that way if you have to, ne?”
Galaiah’s instructions go on, explicit and detailed, and Aiah listens, first in confusion and then in growing understanding, because she remembers Galaiah has gone through this before, years of war, when the Metropolis of Barkazi was broken.
Her grandmother, Aiah realizes, is passing on useful skills. It’s what she’s always done.
“Nana,” she says. “This fighting won’t go on long. It’s not a war, it’s a coup, and—”
“That’s what we thought.”
The retort brings Aiah up short. “Yes, Nana,” she says.
Her handwriting is out of control—it’s like the Adrenaline Monster has her by the wrist—but she writes it all down anyway on the pad she keeps by her bed, then thanks the old lady and asks her to call everyone else in the family and tell them she’s all right.
“You do what I tell you,” Galaiah says.
“Yes, Nana.”
“Do you know about this hermit? He’s been saying things about you.”
“Nana, I have to go. I’ll call you when it’s over.”
“You do what I say!”
“Tell everyone I love them. Good-bye.”
Aiah presses the disconnect button and puts the headset on its hook. Waves of adrenaline keep shuddering through her. She listens carefully, but can detect no sound of fighting, no aircraft, no shells falling, no rockets.
Her brief rest has only made her aware of how tired she truly is. She brushes hair back from her face and depolarizes the windows, wincing away from bright Shieldlight. The low clouds have broken up to let pillars of light shine down—it’s like the gods are using searchlights—and one such light-pillar causes raindrops on the window to glow like diamonds. A short distance away a black cloud releases rain on the city.
Then, in an instant, an image forms across the sky, a huge face scowling down on the city, and Aiah recognizes the image as Parq in his Mask of Awe, even though it is canted at an angle in the sky and is obviously aimed at nearby Government Harbor. Letters surround the face, and Aiah cranes her neck to read them.
The Supreme One has declared the rebellion to be treason against Heaven. For confirmation call any temple or 089-3857-5937.
Smart, Aiah thinks. Any soldier near a telephone can confirm that the message isn’t just propaganda. Parq was making it hard for any Dalavan soldier to continue fighting for the rebellion.
There was something to be said for panic after all.
Aiah rises and goes into her front room, reaches for the t-grip she’s left plugged into her plasm source, and triggers it.
Nothing. Domestic plasm use has been switched off.
She might be needed, she thinks.
She finds clean clothes and heads for the command center.
THE BUILDING DOES NOT FALL TO THE FIRST BLOW OF THE WRECKING BALL.
A THOUGHT-MESSAGE FROM HIS PERFECTION, THE PROPHET OF AJAS
Uniformed staff mass quietly beneath the illuminated map, which now displays much more information: large areas of the city glow a friendly blue, and the angry pink areas held by the enemy are reduced to three—the aerodrome, Government Harbor, and Xurcal Station.
“The rebels are holding on there,” Ethemark says. “I don’t know why. All I know is what I’m overhearing.” His goggle eyes narrow. “The map is misleading as far as the aerodrome is concerned. I think we’ve recaptured it, mostly if not completely, but they haven’t changed the map.”