Ethemark’s bitter tobacco stings Aiah’s sinus. Sadness floods through her, and she finds herself sagging. She leans forward and props her weight on her outstretched arms.
“I advise none of you to travel alone when you leave the building,” Aiah says. “And when you go out on the streets, be careful. The Dalavan Militia is going to be out there, and…” Sheer futility drags at her words; she has been unable to protect these people, their kindred in Aground, anybody. She straightens, raises a hand, and sketches the Sign of Karlo in the air. “Bless you,” she says. “Take good care, and go.”
She lowers herself into her chair, trying not to collapse.
The twisted people, murmuring, begin to leave. Ethemark, still in his chair, gazes at her without sympathy.
“Now that you see what it is like,” he asks, “are you going to resign over this?”
Aiah looks at him. “I don’t know. Would you really prefer that Togthan be in charge of this unit?”
There is a contemptuous curl to Ethemark’s lip. He stubs out his cigaret, drops it to the floor, and makes his way out without a word.
Ethemark aside, Aiah finds a surprising degree of sympathy in the twisted as they file past her. Some touch her arm or squeeze her shoulder. “We know it isn’t your fault,” one says, and the sentiment is echoed by others as they leave.
Aiah finds herself wishing she could agree.
THE PARTY SICKNESS
IS IT REAL? CAN YOU CATCH IT?
FIND OUT THE FACTS AT 18:30 TODAY ON CHANNEL 14
Aiah doesn’t want to be alone after work shift, so she invites Khorsa over for dinner. This involves shopping, something she hasn’t done in months, but there’s a luxuriously stocked food store in the Palace, and at the moment she finds it comforting to walk the aisles with a cart and examine vegetables.
She makes a Barkazil salad with cucumber and cilantro, cellophane noodles, bits of grilled pork and a mild chile sauce, then prepares crisp beans in butter and garlic and a rice dish with vegetables, chicken, and bits of smoked ham. She chills some beer and wine and brews coffee.
When Khorsa arrives she brings bowls of her own: “roof-chicken”—squab—simmered in spices, coriander, and chiles, and a vinegary salad of sweet onion and assorted legumes.
Aiah calls herself an idiot as she views all the food. She has been living among the longnoses too long: she should know that a Barkazil never visits empty-handed.
“Maybe we should invite some more people,” she says.
Khorsa shrugs. “What’s wrong with eating leftovers for a week?”
The meal is splendid, but afterward Aiah makes the mistake of turning on the video, and it is full of Parq’s triumph, now called the Campaign of Purification. Adaveth and Myhorn have been dismissed from their cabinet posts. There are pictures of twisted people being turned out of their jobs and the Dalavan Militia driving the twisted off the sidewalks and tearing expensive jewelry off people who violate the never-before-enforced sumptuary laws. There is no indication the jewelry is ever returned. Automobiles deemed too expensive or flashy are scarred or heaved into canals unless their owners are on hand to pay “fines.” Organized bands of militia have attacked several half-worlds, driving out their inhabitants, sinking or towing off their dwellings.
They can’t live in the half-worlds, Aiah thinks, and they’re not allowed on the streets. Where are they to live?
Nowhere, of course. They are not to exist.
Aiah thanks Senko that Constantine had disbanded the censorship board, the News Council. The news organizations are at liberty to present alternate points of view, and they do so.
Adaveth and Myhorn speak with anger and regret. Hilthi is prominently featured, eyes burning with a conviction he never seemed to display in meetings of the cabinet. He denounces the purification campaign as inhumane, a betrayal of the revolution, a vile piece of political jobbery and gangsterism. He calls on the people to resist, and his denunciation of the triumvirate is particularly eloquent.
Constantine, Aiah notes, does not comment. He is visiting the army in Lanbola, and has nothing to say about anything happening in Caraqui.
Anger wars with sickness in Aiah’s heart. She presses the solid gold button on her media console that turns off the video, and looks dumbly at Khorsa.
“What can we do?” Khorsa says.
“Nothing. We don’t have enough power, not really. The Barkazil Division is only a small fraction of the army, and I don’t think they’ll go against the government even if I ask them to.”
“What of Constantine? He can’t approve of this. Can’t you talk to him?”
Aiah shakes her head. “He’s partly responsible, I think. He’s made some kind of deal with Parq. He gets to keep the army and Resources, and Parq gets his purification campaign.”
“And you and he—?” Khorsa asks. “Between you all is well?”
“I don’t know.” Aiah rubs her forehead. “He uses me for… for his projects. And he gives me things—the department, power, even an army. But he is… elusive. And he won’t return my calls, won’t tell me what he has planned with Parq or… or anyone else.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know what to think.”
Concern lights Khorsa’s eyes. “I have heard a story about him.” She hesitates. “I don’t know whether it’s true.” “Yes?”
Khorsa licks her lips, looks away. “There is a story that once each week he goes to the prison and interviews prisoners. And he orders some of the prisoners released. And then the prisoners die of the Party Disease.”
Despair gnaws at Aiah’s heart. She wants to deny the story, but it is so close to the truth that she doubts she’d be able to lie, at least convincingly. All she can say is, “Constantine isn’t in charge of the prisons. He doesn’t interview prisoners; he can’t order releases.”
She remembers Drumbeth giving the order. Unless, she thinks, Faltheg and Parq subsequently reversed Drumbeth’s policy.
“He’s triumvir,” Khorsa says. “Can’t a triumvir do that?”
“He’s only been triumvir for a matter of days. For that story to be true it would have to happen over months.” Has he, Aiah wonders, been visiting the prisons?
“He’s just been triumvir long enough,” Aiah says, as sorrow closes a soft hand about her throat, “to set Parq on Caraqui.”
She rises from the sofa, crosses to the terrace door. She looks out at the city, the sky alive with plasm fire, the distant volcanoes of Barchab. Silver cumulus clouds float beneath the opalescent Shield. Aiah crosses her arms and shivers.
“They cut us off, the Ascended,” she says. “They put the Shield between us, and denied us the sky. And now Parq wants to build a Shield below us, cutting off the twisted people. And it’s a tragedy both ways.”
“Everything recurs,” Khorsa says, her soft voice sounding from over Aiah’s shoulder. “That’s why the Shield is such a dreadful thing. Because it’s cut us off here, and all we can do is dance the same dance over and over.”
“I believed in him,” Aiah says. Tears burn hot in her eyes. “I thought he could change it all—change the dance forever. But now—” She gasps for breath. “I don’t even know why I’m here anymore. I don’t know—” The words die in her throat.
Khorsa approaches silently from behind, puts her arms around Aiah, rests her head on Aiah’s shoulder. “If you are staying only to protect me and the other Barkazils,” she says, “you should know that… well, we’ll get along without the PED. But I think you need to talk to Constantine before you do anything.”