Khorsa smiles. “The Dharku was lovely. The smoothest, most comfortable trip imaginable. And the views! We spent half our time in the observation lounge.”
“I’m glad. Would you like some coffee before you sit down?”
Khorsa, just back from her honeymoon, helps herself to some. Alfeg is already present, his notebook ready.
“By the way,” he says, “you have a request from the Sector Gazette for an interview.”
Sector was a euphemism for Barkazi, as the latter did not, officially, exist. The evasion permitted the magazine’s distribution in Jabzi, where the word Barkazi did not officially exist either.
“When?” Aiah asks. She is sick of interviews.
“Deadline’s in three days.” Alfeg offers a modest smile. “They must have noticed how much that profile in Corona boosted circulation.”
“I’ll think about it. Next time they should give more warning.”
Khorsa stirs sugar in her coffee and drops into a chair. Aiah pushes files toward them. Refiq, Tollan, Brandrag.
“I need the two of you to set up a rotating surveillance on these three,” she says. “This surveillance involves the highest possible security. Only the three of us know about this assignment. I want the surveillance to be run with extreme caution, from a distance. Configure your sensorium so that you can perceive plasm. Assume that the subjects are wired to plasm at all times, and are aware they might be surveilled. No one else must be permitted to know what the two of you are up to.”
Alfeg picks up a file, looks through it, then glances up at Aiah.
“This is a copy of the original file,” he says. Aiah nods. “Yes.”
“These files aren’t supposed to be copied.”
Aiah looks coldly into Alfeg’s eyes. “Yes,” she says.
Alfeg glances nervously down at the file. “Ah,” he says.
Khorsa pages through another file. “I don’t see anything unusual about this Mr. Brandrag,” she says. “A typical cousin, so far as I can see. Why does the surveillance have to be so secret?”
Aiah looks at them both. “Because,” she says, “one of these three men is scheduled to come down with the Party Sickness.”
COLONELS’ COUNCIL DEMANDS EXTRADITION, MOBILIZES FORCES
NESCA “WILL NOT BOW TO INTIMIDATION”
Aiah arrives breathless in Constantine’s anteroom, briefcase full of the latest plasm figures, and finds others waiting outside the office door: the other triumvirs clustered with Belckon, Sorya smoking a cigaret in the corner, Geymard and Arviro, both in undress uniform, and Personal Secretary Drusus pretending to look busy behind his desk…
Martinus, the bodyguard, stands quietly in front of Constantine’s door, his callused hands folded quietly. His attitude is polite, but clearly nothing is getting past him right now.
Aiah pauses at the door, catches her breath. The message had said, Come at once.
Come yesterday is what its tone had implied.
And now Constantine is keeping even the other triumvirs waiting outside his door. Aiah can tell from their expressions that they aren’t happy about it.
Aiah walks up to the guard, lifts her brows in a silent query, receives in return a minute shake of Martinus’s armored head. She turns back toward the room and drifts toward Drusus’s desk.
“Mr. Drusus? Is the president—?”
“The triumvir is on the phone,” softly. “It’s urgent.”
Aiah glances down at Drusus’s communications array and sees that no lights shine to mark that any of the phone lines are being used. She bends down and whispers into his ear.
“If the triumvir were on the phone,” she says, “there would be something lit, ne?”
A look of horror crosses Drusus’s face. He picks up a headset from the cradle and presses buttons. Lights begin to flash. Aiah straightens, moves away from the desk, and wonders if anyone else has observed this discrepancy.
Plasm buzzes in her nerves. Before the panic started, she’d given herself a dose to clear her head and burn off the fatigue toxins. Now she finds plasm-energy twitching at her, making her want to do anything rather than sit in a waiting room.
“I fear this will end any funds for compensated demobilization,” Belckon says in a low voice to the two triumvirs. “And we may lose other Polar League funds as well, for rebuilding and refugee work.”
“These military upstarts are jeopardizing everything,” Faltheg murmurs. “They don’t have the slightest idea how to behave.”
“Or to run a country,” says Adaveth. “If our policy is shackled to them, they’ll bring us down.”
“But they’re New City. Constantine can’t disavow them, and…”
Faltheg falls silent, then gives a sharp look over his shoulder at Aiah. Aiah feels herself flush—she had not meant to overhear—she gives him an apologetic smile and backs away, toward Martinus and the door.
Without warning ice water floods Aiah’s spine, and she manages to bottle up her cry of terror at the last instant. Blood hammers at her ears.
Now she knows why Constantine is keeping his own administration locked out.
Taikoen is inside. Making demands, refusing to be sent away, forcing Constantine to deal with him now. Aiah’s plasm-charged nerves are just sensitive enough to detect his presence.
Aiah whirls, gives an alarmed look to Martinus. The man’s face is expressionless, but Aiah sees a knowing look in his deep-set eyes.
And then it occurs to Aiah that if she can detect Taikoen, Taikoen might be able to detect her. The thought sends a pulse of terror through her heart. She wills herself not to flee and, hoping she is not too conspicuous in her haste, backs away from the door.
Aiah gives a start as Sorya’s voice comes low in her ear. “I have received some intriguing news. A religious leader in Charna—a wandering priestess I believe, has just proclaimed that I am an emanation of a god.” A lazy, amused tone enters her voice. “I hope I may have your congratulations, one celestial sister to another.”
Aiah clenches her teeth, tries to control her flailing nerves. The presence of Taikoen doesn’t seem so strong here, and perhaps wouldn’t be detectable at all if Aiah didn’t already know he was just beyond the door.
“Congratulations,” she tells Sorya. “I remember when you predicted the appearance of this, ah, priestess.”
Sorya’s laugh tinkles out. “Superhuman prescience, of course.” A touch of ice enters her tone. “I wish my foreknowledge extended to the point of predicting a fat chromoplay contract like yours.”
Aiah turns to face her. “You don’t need the money.”
“No, not really, though money of course is always useful.” Sorya tilts her head, considers. “But I could use the publicity. That’s the problem with being in the secret service—no one ever knows how splendidly you do your job.” She shows her delicate, pearly teeth in a smile. “Constantine restarted his career with Lords of the New City. You may do well with your Golden Lady chromo—you may even ascend in Barkazi, who can tell?”
“Who can tell?” Aiah echoes.
Sorya touches her tongue to her teeth in languid amusement, and then gives a meaningful look in the direction of Constantine’s door. “And with both of us being goddesses—well, practically goddesses—I wonder what that makes our mutual lover.”
“He was a god before we were, according to some.”
“But did he make use of those people?” Scorn narrows her green eyes. “They were a resource—admittedly a mind-impoverished one—and he threw them away. Something could have been made of them, with proper direction. In contrast,” nodding as if awarding Aiah a point, “you’ve done very well with your moldy old hermit.”