Sorya takes her arm and begins an unhurried stroll around the perimeter of the room. She gestures with her free hand at the party. “Your young men have done well for you.”
“Thank you.”
“And you have done well for yourself.” Sorya’s green eyes regard Aiah with frank interest. “I had not expected that. I may, after all, have to take notice of you.”
Aiah tilts her head graciously while, behind her mask of pleasantry, a shiver runs through her soul. “Ought I to fear such notice?” she asks.
Sorya’s throat flutters with her lilting laugh, and she speaks into Aiah’s ear over the throb of music. “Miss Aiah, our goals are similar: the elevation of Constantine. You, I expect, view him as an alternative to the wretched pettiness and persecutions of other factions; whereas I want his greatness to flourish, and mine with it.”
Sorya favors a nearby cluster of officers with a gracious smile, then speaks into Aiah’s ear again. “No—I meant that I must take note of your power, which though growing is hardly a threat to mine, and your method, which is unique. The religion racket, for instance…” She gives a bemused shake of her head, while annoyance shivers through Aiah’s mind. Religion racket, indeed.
“I wish I had thought of that,” Sorya continues, “harnessing such a powerful, arcane force as belief. It is a superstitious world, after all.” Her laugh lilts again in Aiah’s ear. “People need to believe in something, or someone. I shall find a hermit myself, I think, to proclaim me the savior of, oh, something or other, and see how I fare.”
“Be careful,” Aiah says. “Hermits are inconvenient people.”
“My hermit won’t be,” cynically. “And I gather one is expected to enact the odd mystery or perform the occasional miracle, neither of which is beyond possibility, given human credulity and plasm…” She regards the soldiers with a thoughtful expression. “I must say, you have backed yourself into a corner regarding Barkazi. They’ll want you to do something over there, and what, realistically, can you accomplish?” She gives the matter thought. “Well, the soldiers are still a good idea,” she judges. “Look at history. A prophet without an army is bound to fail, whereas prophets with an efficient military can do well. Look at Dalavos, for heaven’s sake.”
“And look how well Parq is doing,” Aiah probes, “with just his rabble militia.”
Calculation glimmers in Sorya’s eyes. “This is Parq’s chance,” she says. “Either he must seize all power now, or watch it slip away.”
“Which do you think he will do?” Aiah asks.
“He will be Parq,” Sorya says. She pauses, takes a slim cigaret out of a platinum case, strikes flame from a matching lighter. She takes a breath of smoke and lets it out with a toss of her head. She smiles.
“I would like to stay, Miss Aiah,” Sorya says. “It has been a long time since I danced.”
“I hope you have a pleasant time,” Aiah says. She pauses, observes her warrant officer waiting discreetly a few paces away, and joins him.
Sorya stays for hours, well into first shift.
She dances, Aiah observes, very well.
JABZI BANS RELIGIOUS “CULTS”
“SUBVERSIVE IDEOLOGY MASQUERADING AS PIETY” NO LONGER TOLERATED
GROUPS WATCH BANNED VIDEO, CONDUCT SERVICES
Aiah returns to Caraqui, bathes, has a few hours’ sleep, and reports for work an hour late. As she walks to work through the maze of the Palace, kill-the-baby pokes at the backs of her eyeballs with a sharp pencil.
The Excellent Togthan sits, not in the waiting room, but in her office, and Aiah pauses in the doorway and takes a breath, knowing that the moment has come.
He stands, bows formally, holds out a sealed note. Aiah observes that he is wearing red leather pumps. “From the Holy, Parq,” Togthan says. “A change is being made throughout government. The polluted flesh are forbidden to hold a position higher than F-3.”
Restricted, then, to manual labor, making repairs, and chauffeuring their betters. Aiah takes the note, breaks the seal, reads it. Effective immediately, it says.
// you are given an order, follow it. A memory of Constantine’s voice.
“Not only the government will be purified,” Togthan says, “but Caraqui at large. The Dalavan Militia will be given a free hand to enforce public order and the sumptuary laws, and to drive the defiled from the sight of the good people of the nation.”
Aiah walks around her desk, touches the glass top with her fingertips, and does not sit down.
“There are ninety-eight of the polluted in the department,” Togthan continues, and hands her another paper. “Here is a list. I will remain while you call them one by one into the room and dismiss them.”
Aiah looks at him, straightens her spine. “I do not think that will be possible,” she says. “I will make my own arrangements as regards compliance with this order.”
Togthan’s chin jerks up. Anger glitters in his eyes. “Miss Aiah,” he says, “this is a direct order from—”
“The order,” Aiah says, “makes no mention of you whatever, Mr. Togthan. It does not specify that you need to be present anywhere, for any reason. I will comply with the triumvir’s wishes, but I see no reason why I need take up your valuable time.” Still contemplating the order, she sits down, gazes up at Togthan, and then, dismissively, looks down at the paper again.
“You may leave, Mr. Togthan,” she says.
Togthan stands for a moment in silence—Aiah, calmly viewing the paper as her heart hammers in her ears, contemplates calling in some of her guards and having them shatter his knees with heavy sledges—and then Togthan turns and makes his exit.
Aiah looks at the list, opens a drawer for her department directory.
She calls all the victims to a meeting in the conference room at 11:00.
Get it all over with by lunch, she tells herself.
DALAVAN MILITIA CALLED TO TEMPLES RUMORS CLAIM PURGE OF GOVERNMENT
They know, obviously: Aiah can see it in their eyes as she walks into the room. Goggle-eyed little embryos, massive stoneface slabs, other twisted of a more ambiguous nature, oddly proportioned, odd-eyed. Ethemark sits in front, dwarfed by his high-backed chair, elbow propped on the table as he smokes a cigaret.
Aiah stands at the head of the table, plants her feet apart, clasps her hands behind her back. It is as strong a stance as she can manage, though behind her back the nails of her right hand are digging into the wrist of the left.
“I’m sure you’ve heard the news,” Aiah says. “The Triumvir Parq has signed an order that dismisses genetically altered from the civil service. I have been given this order this prebreak, and told to enforce it.”
She pauses, considers her audience. They are waiting, Senko only knows why. If she were one of them, Aiah thinks, she’d want to explode, go mad right here in the Palace, storm through the place destroying everything in her path.
Aiah jerks her chin high, takes a breath. “This is not what I fought for,” Aiah says. “This is not why I came here. This is not what any of us wanted from the struggle. But the struggle isn’t over.” She finds her voice rising. “And when it is over…” She looks at the roomful of people, tries to make eye contact with as many as possible. “When it is over,” she continues in a softer voice, “I will see that every single one of you has your job back. Because you have done this department credit, I have never had a complaint with a one of you, and you deserve to be here.”