Walter Williams - City on Fire

The building is tidy inside, one small, whitewashed room after another. The boss meets Aiah in a comfortable office that features a battered metal desk, gunmetal file cabinets, and the strong smell of cigar smoke. Brass-rimmed portholes look out into the darkness, and the interior lights are dim: the big-eyed twisted probably have no problem seeing, but Aiah finds herself squinting. There are no straight lines in the architecture, or angles, but rounded corners and a barrel ceiling. It’s not a feature of nautical design, but defense: the room’s been wrapped in bronze mesh in a crude attempt to defend against plasm attack, then plastered and painted. Bits of the plaster have flaked off to reveal the mesh beneath.

High on one wall, something coiled hangs from a projection. At first, in the dim light, Aiah thinks it’s a canvas fire hose, and then she realizes it’s alive. A huge snake, or a monster created by plasm, kept as a pet. She shivers.

“Miss Aiah,” Ethemark says, “this is my cousin, Sergeant Lamarath.”

“How do you do,” Aiah says, and offers her hand. Pleased to meet you, under the circumstances, would be a hopeless misrepresentation.

Lamarath takes her hand in his moist, nicotine-stained grip.

“The ‘Sergeant’ isn’t official,” he says. “It’s just something that goes with the job.” His voice is husky with smoking.

He’s one of the small, gray-skinned, large-eyed twisted—as of course he would be, being a cousin of Ethemark’s—and is dressed casually in high-clipped boots and a pair of tan overalls. His expression, like all expressions here, is unreadable. Aiah realizes that if she has very many of these people in her department, she’s going to have a hard time telling them apart.

Lamarath picks up a small cigar from an overflowing ashtray and props it in the corner of his mouth. “Please sit down.” “Thank you.”

The chairs are metal, with—incongruously bright—plastic-covered cushions. She sits.

“Congratulations on your appointment,” Lamarath says. “You must be very excited.”

“At the moment,” sitting, “I’m very overwhelmed.”

“Would you like something to eat? Drink?”

The journey has left her without an appetite. And gangster hospitality is something she could do without.

“No,” she says. “Thank you.”

He sits, inhales smoke, blows it out, then leans forward and props his elbows on his desk. “What do you think of our little community?”

“I think it could use some light,” Aiah says.

Nictitating membranes eclipse a third of the Sergeant’s eyes. “Has Ethemark told you of my proposition?”

Aiah looks at her deputy. “No. He hasn’t.”

“Simply this,” Lamarath says. “I want my people to be left alone until things change outside.”

So this visit is, perhaps inevitably, official. Aiah straightens her back, puts her feet flat on the floor, clasps her hands in her lap. The proper civil servant, ready to bargain.

“Change how?” she asks.

Lamarath jabs his cigar into the ashtray. “My people need a lot of things.”

“Housing, obviously. Medical care.”

Aiah looks at Ethemark, who shifts uneasily in his seat. “That isn’t our department,” she points out. “We’re strictly plasm hunters.”

“That plasm is all we’ve got,” Lamarath says. “That and the strength of our bodies. The plasm we steal doesn’t amount to much, and if we sometimes tap some electricity or fresh water, or steal some phone or video service, or even motor off with some equipment left lying around on the quays, well, that doesn’t add up to a great deal.”

“But the half-worlds are vulnerable,” Ethemark points out.

“Yes.” Lamarath’s husky voice grates with anger. “If your superiors demand some cheap victories, the half-worlds are where you can find them on short notice. The cops can bust up ten half-worlds per day for weeks, and it will all look very good on video— ’Dockyard thieves arrested. Underworld plasm theft ring broken up. Fifty suspects taken into custody. Vagrants dispersed from illegal, unsanitary settlement.’ —We know how this sort of thing works, you see.”

“It’s happened often enough,” Ethemark says. “The cops get enough complaints from their superiors, they’ll come after the easy targets instead of the real thieves. The real thieves can afford better payoffs.”

“If you disperse the people here,” Lamarath says, “there’s no housing for them, so they’ll have to find another half-world; and in the meantime you’ve taken everything they own and deprived them of protection. Our plasm is all that keeps the Silver Hand off our necks, not to mention the fact that we use it for doctoring and so on.” He turns and looks up at the huge snake hanging on the wall. “Right, Doc?”

The snake slowly raises its head. “Absolutely,” it says.

Cold terror floods Aiah’s veins. It isn’t a snake, it’s some kind of twisted human being—the thing’s bald head is that of an old man, with wizened features, deep brown skin, and glittering, yellow eyes. Writhing feathery tentacles circle the creature’s neck.

“This is Doctor Romus,” Lamarath adds. “He’s my advisor.”

“The title, like that of Sergeant, goes with the job,” Romus says, then adds, “Pleased to meet you.” His voice is high-pitched, with odd, reedlike overtones.

“Hello,” Aiah manages. Her nails dig into her thighs, a reminder not to run screaming from the room.

“I would have greeted you earlier,” Romus says, “but I was engaged in a little act of telepresence.” He turns to Lamarath. “The Mokhrath Canal house is still active.”

Lamarath nods. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“My pleasure.”

Dr. Romus isn’t hanging from a hook, Aiah realizes, it’s a plasm connection. He’s a mage, and he’s been on a mission.

Lamarath opens a drawer, pulls out a folder, and pushes it across the desk.

“The twisted get around, you know,” he says. “People make a point of not seeing us, or think we’re too stupid to understand; or they employ us for things that aren’t strictly legal.”

Aiah finds a reply bubbling from her lips. “My people, too,” she says. The Jaspeeris had never known quite what to do with the Barkazils. Her teachers at school, and her superiors at the Authority, had always been faintly surprised whenever she said something intelligent.

Lamarath gives her a curious look at this remark. He nudges the folder toward Aiah again. “This is for you. A list of twelve plasm houses in this district. Most of them Silver Hand, some not.”

Aiah restrains the impulse to take the folder, clasps her hands in her lap again. “Please understand,” she says. “I’m not in a position to really dictate policy.”

Lamarath frowns at her. “ Influence policy,” he says. “That’s all I ask.”

Aiah takes a breath. “All I can assure you,” she says carefully, “is that any minor—I do mean minor —plasm thefts in the half-worlds will not be given a high priority by my department.”

“I will speak to my… counterparts in other half-worlds,” Lamarath says. “I hope to be able to provide you with more information along these lines.”

She looks at him—her heart bangs in her throat, and it’s difficult to steady her gaze into the huge dark eyes—and she takes good care with her words. “I will be grateful for any information. But understand that I will make no bargains with anyone concerning any plasm thefts brought to my attention. I can’t set policy. All I can say is that, from the limited knowledge I have of the subject, the half-worlds will not be a high priority.”

Lamarath holds her eyes for a long moment—behind her own composed expression, Aiah thinks wildly of assassination, of how no one knows she is here and how she could so easily be disposed of—and then gives a brief nod and reaches for another cigar.