Walter Williams - City on Fire

Constantine seems to fall asleep almost at once. Sheltering in the curve of one of his arms, Aiah rests her head on his shoulder and tries to sleep.

With little success. She is still perfectly awake when Constantine’s steward wakes them at the beginning of the new shift.

FALCONS OF FREEDOM ALDEMAR’S EXCITING NEW CHROMOPLAY OPENING SOON!!!

Aiah floats through the reception in Chemra, nodding graciously to one world-famous person after another, as if she were Meldurne playing host to high society in one of her chro-moplays. Wrapped in a sheath of gold moire silk, Aiah plays the Golden Lady, knowing what will attract the attention of these people and what will not. The gold silk contrasts favorably with the room’s decor, which leans to polished brass rails and pale green glass and is dominated by man-sized standing lamps with green glass petals that unfold like tulips.

The background buzz of conversation brightens with applause as Aldemar enters. The reception celebrates the premiere of Falcons of Freedom, her new chromoplay, which Aiah and the others have just seen. It isn’t precisely an inspired piece of work, Aiah judges, but neither was it as bad as Aldemar had made out. She has overheard the conversation of some relieved distribution executives who seem to think it will make a decent profit.

Aldemar passes through the room with a glittering professional smile on her face. Aiah busses her on both cheeks as she passes, hears the actress’s low voice say, “Let’s talk later,” and nods in answer as Aldemar passes on to chat with the distributors Aiah had overheard earlier.

“You’re the Golden Lady, aren’t you?”

Metallic silver irises glitter strangely at Aiah in the green-tinged light. It’s Phaesa, who’d had her irises altered for a chromoplay decades ago, and who subsequently made them her trademark.

Aiah’s mother was a huge Phaesa fan. She will be thrilled to hear of this encounter.

Aiah takes the extended hand. “Aiah,” she says.

“Of course.” The silver irises flicker over the room. “Are you without an escort?”

“I’m with Olli, but he needed to speak with someone—a banker, I believe.”

“How discourteous of him. But that’s Olli for you—obsessed with the business.” Phaesa’s hands close firmly about Aiah’s arm. “And I’m sure you don’t know anyone here. Do you need that drink freshened?”

Aiah allows herself to be towed into Phaesa’s wake. Another green tulip glass of white wine is pressed into Aiah’s hands. She sips, sees her reflection in the intent, glittering irises.

“Everyone in our business is talking about the Golden Lady,” Phaesa says. “It’s a part every actress is salivating over.”

Olli, her producer, had told Aiah there would be moments like this, and had provided her with ammunition in the form of the appropriate response, which Aiah promptly chambers and fires.

“Unfortunately,” she says, “I have no power over who gets the part.”

“I’m sure Olli would consider your wishes.”

“I will mention your name, if you like.”

A smile touches Phaesa’s lips. “Yes. Thank you.”

Aiah gazes into the unearthly silver eyes and finds herself wondering out loud, “I wonder if the Golden Lady can have silver eyes?”

“I can change them,” Phaesa says.

/ can change them, Aiah thinks.

Of course.

It is one of those moments in which Chemra, and perhaps the whole world, seems to snap into perfect focus.

/ can change them, Aiah’s mind chatters. / can be younger. I can be thinner. I can be smarter…

“I wonder,” Phaesa continues, “if we might have luncheon at some point.”

“I’m not in Chemra for long, unfortunately.” Aiah says. “I have a whole government department to run, and it’s more than a full-time job.”

“But still—”

“Miss Aiah?” One of the waiters rescues her. “A call for you, from Caraqui. A gentleman named Ethemark, who says it is urgent.”

Aiah looks sidelong at Phaesa. “My apologies. I’d better take this.”

Phaesa puts a hand on her arm. “I’ll talk to you later, then.”

“Certainly.”

Aiah follows the waiter to a phone booth with sides of stained-glass green shoots and yellow flowers. “We’ve switched the call here,” he says, and bows as he hands her the headset of brass wire and green ceramic.

“Thank you.” Aiah shuts the door and carefully puts the headset on over her ringlets.

“Yes? This is Aiah.”

Ethemark’s deep voice rumbles in her ears. “Miss Aiah? We have a situation here. I thought you should be informed.”

“Yes?” The connection is bad, with an electric snarl fading in and out, and the conversation outside is loud. Aiah cups her hands over the earpieces to smother the sounds of the reception.

“There has been a coup in Charna,” Ethemark says, “one group of soldiers overthrowing another. The new government has declared its allegiance to the New City, and everyone seems to think it’s our fault. Koroneia and Barchab are making threats, and Nesca’s parliament has gone into executive session. The chairman of the Polar League has called the Emergency Committee into session.”

“Great Senko.” Aiah closes her eyes while a long throb of sorrow rolls through her. Everything was finally going well—an architecture for peace being hammered into place, the new regime safely established at last, principles for demobilization created. And now the whole fragile structure was in danger of being kicked over.

Ethemark continues. “I’ve been ordered to present a report on our plasm reserves to the triumvirate in just a few hours—23:30.”

Aiah rubs her forehead and looks at her watch. Almost 22:00. “I’ll try to get there,” she says, “though I don’t think I’ll make it by 23:30. Can you have someone on duty charter an aerocar here, and leave a message at my hotel concerning how to meet it?”

“What’s your hotel? Does it have a landing pad?”

“The Plum. And I don’t know.”

“I will find out and leave a message there.”

Aiah peers through the stained glass, sees the crowd outside through shifting pastel colors. Her bodyguards and driver are outside the banquet room, and she’s going to need to say good-bye to Olli and Aldemar on her way out. Perhaps from the hotel she can call Constantine and find out what really happened, and who was behind the coup.

But Aiah suspects she already knows.

“Well, honestly,” Sorya says, “what was I to do?” She shrugs her slim shoulders inside her uniform jacket. “Charna supported the Provisionals against us, and so, logically enough, we contacted people inside Charna who were opposed to the government—idealistic officers, as it happens, disgusted with their leaders’ corruption—and we encouraged them to, ah, do their utmost to alter the policy of their superiors. We provided them with a certain amount of cash and logistical support—they already had guns, being soldiers—but their plans took longer than anticipated to mature. Our war was over by the time they were ready.”

She takes a breath, folds her manicured hands in her lap. “They’d risked their lives for us, and we encouraged them. Could I tell them, ‘Stop, we don’t need you anymore’? Or even worse, betray the people who trusted us, sell their names to their government?” She shrugs again. “So we limited our contacts and tried to keep informed. Any assistance we gave to them is deniable, and we now have a friendly government on our northern border. I can’t do other than consider this a positive development.”

Faltheg gives Constantine a cynical look. “The fact that their junta is proclaiming the birth of a New City regime tends to cast something of a shadow on our claims of deniability,” says the late candidate of the Liberal Coalition.