Ethemark looks at her. “Do you know what Togthan is up to?”
Alfeg still shares an office with the Excellent Togthan, but has had little to report.
“Togthan is spending a lot of time with personnel files,” Aiah says.
“Not surprising,” says Adaveth.
Ethemark’s eyes narrow as he gazes at Aiah. “If we are dismissed,” he asks, “you will resign?”
Aiah hesitates. “Perhaps not,” she says.
Adaveth and Ethemark exchange another look, and in it Aiah reads their scorn. “Resignation is your only weapon in matters of principle,” Adaveth says.
“We had assumed,” says Ethemark, “you would resign. The people of Aground died for you, and you will not give up your job for them?”
Aiah feels her insides twist. “I have thought about it,” she says. “And who would my resignation help? Not you or your people. Not the people in Aground. Who would my resignation harm? Only the department, because Parq would have a hand in the appointment of my successor. Would you like a captain in the Dalavan Militia to have my post?”
They exchange another look, and Aiah knows, heart sinking, that she’s lost them. She’s become one of those they can no longer trust, another bureaucrat who will not risk her precious position to help them.
How to win them back? she wonders.
And then she wonders whether it is necessary. They are not her natural constituency, nor necessarily Constantine’s: they are their own. In the future she should not depend on them—because she is sympathetic to them, it does not follow automatically that they will wholeheartedly endorse her…
It is the thought, she realizes, of a politician.
HIGHWAY SCANDAL UNCOVERED IN LANBOLA! MINISTER POCKETED MILLIONS, SOURCE REPORTS
Aiah watches as her driver—pilot, rather—jacks wires in and out of sockets to reconfigure the aerocar’s computer. He glances at his checklist, gimbals the turbines, works the control surfaces. Then, after adjusting his headset, he puts a hand on the yoke and rolls up the throttles. Plasm snarls in the air. The turbines shriek, the nose pitches up, and the aerocar leaps for the Shield, punches Aiah back in her seat.
Aiah turns her head and watches Caraqui, flat on its sea, as it falls away. She has had much the same view while traveling telepresent on a thread of plasm, but the sensation here has a greater solidity than plasm’s hyperreality, a weightiness that places the journey into the realm of sensation: the tug of gravity, the scent of fuel, of lubricant and leather seats, and the cry of the turbines.
The aerocar pitches forward until its flight is level. The sensation of plasm fades—magic is used only during take-offs. Yellow dials glow on the car’s computer.
Alfeg, in one of the seats behind with Aiah’s guards, clears his throat.
Below, jagged buildings reach high for the aerocar like taloned fingers, but they fall far short: the car has left flat Caraqui and its low buildings and entered Lanbolan airspace. The aerocar glides lower, losing altitude: Aiah watches needles spin on instrument dials. The turbines sing at a more urgent pitch: tremors run through the car’s frame. Aiah feels webbing bite her flesh as whining hydraulics shove dive brakes into place. The aerocar slows, hovers, descends. For a moment all is fire as the car drops through a plasm display. The tall buildings rise on either side, and the car finds a rooftop nest between them.
The turbines cycle down and the aerocar taxies to a stop. Aiah sees her reception committee awaiting her: Ceison and Aratha in the deep blue uniforms of Karlo’s Brigade, Galagas in the gray of Landro’s Escaliers. Galagas commands the Escaliers these days: Holson was killed in the fighting.
The cockpit rolls open to the right, and the passengers exit to the left. Guards fan out over the landing zone, and Aiah descends more leisurely: General Ceison hands her down the last step.
“Welcome to Lanbola,” Ceison says, and gives a salute.
Aiah returns it. She has no military rank, but these troops are hers—in some as-yet-unclarified fashion—and so she might as well perform the appropriate rituals.
As she returns the salute, however, Aiah feels a faint sense of absurdity. She does not quite understand what one does with an army in peacetime. A peacetime army seems something of a contradiction in terms.
She introduces Alfeg to Galagas, then walks briskly across the windswept landing area. “How are things here?” Aiah asks.
“Lanbola is quiet,” Ceison judges. “People go to work, do their jobs, get paid. Money still circulates. The stock market is down, but not disastrously so. The army is disarmed but still in its barracks.” He shrugs his gangly shoulders. “The Popular Democrats were so authoritarian that once we swept their top echelon off the board, they were easy to replace.”
Plasm lights the sky, red-gold words tracking: Pneuma Scandal Widens: Fanger’s Name Linked. Details on The Wire.
The same tactics, Aiah recognizes, Constantine used in Caraqui. The former rulers would be discredited, along with their chief supporters—“Usually,” as Constantine told her, “all that is necessary is to publish the truth.” The top people—those few who had been caught—would be hauled back to Caraqui, stuck in prison, and put on trial whenever the political situation demanded it. Any Lanbolans raised into positions of power would be dependent on the new regime, with no local support, and therefore inclined to be loyal. In the meantime, any actual changes introduced would be very gradual—sudden shifts in law or tax structures would make the Lanbolans less inclined to accept the new regime—and rules against plundering and assault against civilians would be strictly enforced.
Galagas sprints ahead to open a battered metal rooftop door, and Aiah enters the military headquarters for the occupation forces, formerly the chief office complex for the Popular Democratic Party, with its bright white stone, gilt ornament, and sense of comfortable permanence, one of the grander buildings in Lanbola’s government district.
They move down a stair, then along a corridor flanked by plush offices and into a room with a long cantilever table of glass and polished brass. The paintings on the walls are bright abstracts, splashes of color intended to furnish a tasteful background to the dance of power, but to offer no disturbing comment on its meaning, its intricacies.
Aiah tosses her briefcase down on the desk. “Open your collars, people, and take a seat,” she says.
She opens her briefcase, takes out a pair of folders, slides one to Galagas and one to Ceison. “These are copies of the contracts that have been sent to your agents,” she says. “Five years, with an option for a lateral move into the Caraqui military at the end of that time. Pension options as discussed. You’ll note the signing bonuses are higher than we had previously agreed.”
Loyalty is most painlessly bought with someone else’s money, as Constantine had remarked when she’d negotiated this point. Occupation of the Lanbolan treasury had liberated a flood of cash from its bunkers. The Lanbolans’ cash reserves were paying for their own occupation.
“Thank you,” Galagas murmurs, his attention already lost in the maze of print.
Aiah waits for them to finish reading, then turns to Galagas. “The ministry has formally approved your promotion to brigadier and command of the Escaliers.” It was mostly an internal matter—mercenaries chose their own leaders—but the contract gave the government right of consultation.
“Thank you, miss,” Galagas says.
“I am happy also to announce the formation of the two units into a formal Barkazil Division, to be headed by General Ceison.”