Walter Williams - City on Fire

His hand speculatively strokes her back. “Officially,” he says, “you are still on leave for a few days. There is nothing in your office that immediately requires your presence. Why don’t you stay away from the PED for that time? I will endeavor”—amusement touches his lips—“to spend as much time as possible with you, except when crises call me away.”

She lifts her face to his, kisses him. “I accept,” she says, and he smiles.

But if she’s right about Sorya and her intentions, she muses, the next crisis will be soon.

COUNCIL OF COLONELS CONTROLS CHARNA FORMER GOVERNMENT FLEES TO NESCA

“I have done as you requested,” Rohder says. Though he sits at the dining table in her apartment, he speaks in a low voice, as if afraid he might be overheard. He opens the green plastic file cover on the table, glances down at the files.

“I discovered that there is a rather lively scientific literature in regard to hanged men, one that till the present had escaped my notice,” he says. “There is a great deal of arcana and speculation, very little of it reliable, but I have combed through it for articles written by people who might actually be qualified to discuss such matters, and…”

He looks down at his notes, shakes his head. “There was a hanged man operating in Injido about a century and a half ago, killing people at random, it seems, and I read the report from the head of the team that hunted it down and killed it—or thought they’d killed it; at any rate it did not reappear.” His faded blue eyes drift up from the page. “A number of bystanders were killed in the course of suppressing the creature. Several of the team were hospitalized after telepresent contact with the thing. Shock, mental disorders of a type associated with trauma. One remained institutionalized for the rest of her life.

“Another case,” looking down at the notes again, “concerned a kind of extortion ring in Qanibar about two centuries ago. A gang of criminals were working in league with a hanged man, somehow aiding the creature to possess the bodies of living people, wealthy victims. It would turn over the victims’ wealth to its human allies in exchange for a few days in a human body, after which the contact with the hanged man somehow caused the body to fail. But so many people died in this way that the authorities became suspicious, and managed to trace the money to the criminals’ bank accounts. One of the extortionists cracked under interrogation, and the police were able to ambush the hanged man when it turned up for a meeting.” “How did they… dispose of it?”

Rohder turns away, fumbles awkwardly for a cigaret, pats his pocket for a lighter. “Each team developed its own method,” Rohder said. “I do not find either of them entirely satisfactory from an operational point of view—both are based on theories that are in essence unproven, and the only way to prove either was to risk life and sanity.”

“Tell me.”

Rohder sighs, looks unhappy. “Both teams operated on the assumption that hanged men are a kind of living being that exists in the plasm well, a kind of modulation in plasm itself. They assumed that these creatures will die if deprived of plasm, or forced to live outside of the plasm well without a human host.

“In Injido the team managed to locate the hanged man within an office building—it had killed someone there—and then shut off the plasm supply to that building. They then attacked the creature with plasm drawn from outside—they tried to nullify the creature, overwhelm it with masses of destructive plasm. The mages were told to configure plasm using the focus of the Great Bull, which is supposed to aid offensive action. They also intended to compel it to use up all available plasm in the building in repelling their attacks, in effect to use up its life force in its own defense. Wear it out.”

He shrugs. “It was messy. The building was not empty—full of workers—and the hanged man rampaged through it. It killed over a dozen people. You don’t want to see the chromographs of that, and I didn’t bring them. The Great Bull aside, none of the mages really knew how to configure plasm so as to kill a hanged man, and it kept slipping away while they improvised their attacks. Reading the reports, I have the impression that there was a great deal of chaos within the mage team, perhaps some panic. Finally the target creature tried to merge with the plasm that was attacking it… tried to become the plasm, to seize control of it from the minds of the mages who were using it. The mages fought off the thing’s attacks, but several were so traumatized by mind-to-mind contact that they required hospital care, two for extended stays, and one, as I said, for good. Eventually they killed it, or so the team believed. In any case, if it got away, it did not return to Injido.”

A dozen people killed, several mages hospitalized. Hardly a satisfactory solution.

“And the Qanibar group?” Aiah asks.

“They had an advantage—the extortionist who cooperated with the authorities. He informed them of the body the creature was occupying, and agreed to lure the creature to a place where it was vulnerable. All plasm in the area was used before the creature turned up, and then the host body was attacked and destroyed. The creature was contained and then killed as it tried to escape to the nearest plasm source.”

“Were there any casualties?” Aiah asks.

“No. But the Qanibar police had advantages given them by good intelligence—knowing where the hanged man was going to be—and also by the fact that Qanibar was at the time a totalitarian state. They opened the action by killing the hanged man’s host, something the authorities certainly cannot do in any society that values the rights of humans beings and of victims.” He looks troubled. “Nor am I certain that the creature was, properly speaking, a hanged man or ice man. Perhaps it was a Slaver Mage who had convinced the extortionists he was a hanged man, or maybe it was a…, vampire…” His face twists uncomfortably at having to deal with yet another creature out of superstition. “Perhaps something that has not been categorized,” he continues, “or a delusion. I will continue searching for information, if you like.”

“I wish you would.”

“I also found this… curiosity.” He takes out a sheaf of plastic flimsies, pushes it across the table to Aiah. “It is mostly speculation, but I thought you might want to read it, for reasons of historical and personal interest.”

The plastic flimsies smell of developing fluid. “Toward a Psychology of the Ice Man,” Aiah reads, by Constantine of Cheloki.

Aiah’s mouth goes dry. “How old is this?” she asks.

“It was published thirty-seven years ago, in a journal of philosophy.” An analytical smile touches Rohder’s lips. “There is very little science in it.”

Constantine must have met Taikoen by then, Aiah thinks.

She tries for a moment to read the blue eyes, the ruddy skin, the network of fine lines in the old mage’s face, and wonders what it is he knows. She gives up, looks down at the article, then drops her hand over it.

“I’ll look at it later. Can I see the other reports?”

Rohder closes the folder and pushes it across the polished table surface. The soft plastic cover and the flimsies inside flutter in the brief breeze. Aiah picks up the article by Constantine and slips it into the folder. She feels the throb of her heart, its acceleration to a higher state of alertness, a touch of the Adrenaline Monster upon her nerves… It is as if she is responding to the notion that the file itself is a threat, and she wonders if she will ever have the courage to make use of this information, to somehow put an end to Taikoen, or even to read the article, of historic and personal interest, that Rohder has given her.