“Come war’s end,” he says, “we shall try to exceed your viewers’ most sybaritic fantasies.”
“And when will that be?” she says, half-rhetorically, but he considers the question and replies.
“The Polar League has sent a representative,” he says, “a man named Licinias—by repute a good man, but I don’t know what he can hope to accomplish here. There will be a cease-fire, and we will get some favorable propaganda out of it, but unless he can persuade the Provisionals to leave, or neighboring powers to stop supporting them, the war will go on. I will be using the cease-fire to prepare for a new offensive.”
She looks up at him. “Is a new offensive possible? Will it succeed?”
“Yes,” judiciously, “and very possibly. The new Caraqui army—built almost from scratch after the coup, and trained in the Timocracy—has completed its basic training. They are inexperienced, but perfectly capable of holding sections of the line. We will use the cease-fire to put these new units into the front line, then pull back our more experienced mercenaries into a reserve. It is they who will form spearheads for the actual offensive.”
Things are coming to a head, Aiah thinks. “When?” she asks.
“The cease-fire will begin in two days. Licinias will begin consultations with the Provisionals in Lanbola, and then he will fly to present their position to us. We will prolong the talks for at least a week, because it will take that long to put our new soldiers into the line.”
“And then?”
“Things will happen fast.”
“Has—” Aiah has difficulty forming the words. “Has Taikoen a part to play?”
She can feel a grim mood settle like a shroud on Constantine’s thoughts. “No,” he says. “We used him in our original coup, and in the battle for the Corridor. We cannot use him a third time, not without making it obvious that we have something of his nature working for us.” He sighs deeply. “Besides, the Provisionals have taken warning from what happened to their predecessors. Their headquarters and communications staffs have been dispersed to many different locations, to make a decapitation strike that much less likely.”
“But their government is still vulnerable. Kerehorn and Great-Uncle Rathmen.”
“We wish them both to stay alive,” Constantine says. “Kerehorn because he is ineffective, and puts the worst face possible on their movement—and Rathmen for much the same reason. Plus”—his tone darkens—“he is one of the people we could contact… if we need to end the war.”
// we need to surrender, Aiah thinks with a shiver. That’s what Constantine means.
There is a dull, resentful glimmer in Constantine’s eyes. “No, I will not use Taikoen again. His exactions have reached their limit—I will not give him more.”
“I am glad for that.”
There is silence for a moment as Constantine idly strokes Aiah’s hair.
“Will we invade Lanbola?” she asks. All neutralities are imaginary, she thinks, remembering Sorya’s words. “If nothing else works.” Simply.
Aiah closes her eyes, feels weariness and sadness steal into her, into her heart, into her very bones. “And one of the things that may work is The Mystery of Aiah.”
“It is proving a very popular video,” Constantine says. His voice is cheerful; he is pleased with the success of his idea. “The Provisional soldiers spend days cooped up in fortified buildings with nothing to do but polish their weapons—it is too dangerous to venture out—and so they watch video. And the only video available to them is that which we send them—the old Keremath video monopoly assures that they have nothing else to watch. And so the enemy are assured of a constant diet of our propaganda, some of which we know must be affecting them. We know that Landro’s Escaliers have seen you on video. And we have distributed the video in the Timocracy, so that the Escaliers’ families can see it. We hope they will be able to suggest to the Escaliers that they may be on the wrong side.”
Aiah sighs. “I want it to be worthwhile,” she says. “If I must donate my privacy to this war, and masquerade as the savior of Barkazi, I hope at least some of it comes to something.”
Constantine widens his eyes in mock surprise. “You haven’t been chosen by the gods to save Barkazi?”
She glares at him. “That isn’t funny. I wish I didn’t have to spend so much time thinking about religion. I’m supposed to be a cop, damn it.”
His look turns curious. “Have all the recent war deaths turned your mind to thoughts of the eternal?”
“Most of it’s politics. Khorsa and Dhival and that old madman Charduq want me to wave a magic wand and save Barkazi—and you’re supporting them, because you want to use this nonsense to corrupt Landro’s Escaliers. Parq and the Dalavans are building their own police force and army, and you don’t act to stop them; and Parq’s spy is conducting a religious persecution in my department, and you support that____________________”
Constantine is nettled by this accusation. “Parq is necessary. His acts are distasteful and so is he, but he is necessary.”
“So you assure me.”
“The war must be won,” Constantine insists. “Parq is the spiritual leader of two-fifths of the population. If he can inspire them to support the government, then it is good for everyone, including the people Parq aspires to persecute.” He pauses. “When one is a politician, one must deal with many unpleasant people, and sometimes one must hold one’s nose and do unpleasant things. But one must keep one’s true end in view. And my ultimate goal has nothing to do with Parq.”
“I’ve been ordered not to hire any more twisted. Togthan said he was speaking for Parq.”
Constantine’s glance is sharp. “Your feelings about the twisted would seem to have changed since I first met you.”
There is a moment’s pause. “I never knew any before.” Then she adds, “And I wouldn’t like Parq’s interference in my department even if I didn’t want the twisted in it.”
Constantine lets his head fall back against the pillow. “Bend with the wind,” he says. “It will not always blow from this particular quarter.”
“Well,” mumbling into his chest-curls, “the Dreaming Sisters tell me it all doesn’t matter anyway.”
“The Dreaming Sisters?” Constantine’s head rises from the pillow again; he looks at her over his cheekbones. “When have you met the Dreaming Sisters?”
“Last week.”
“And why?”
“Because I got curious about them, and when I looked into their records, I discovered that the plasm they must have expended in order to create those displays of theirs hadn’t been metered.”
“They’re plasm thieves?” The possibility seems to delight him. “Are they really?”
“They have to be, although we haven’t found proof. But I interviewed one of their members, who said she was four hundred years old, and who told me that the best course in life was acceptance, because there was nothing new and no improvement would last—that, and to stick a kind of plasm-pacifier in my mouth and experience fundamental reality without actually doing anything with it.”
“And accept their raids on the plasm supply as well.” Constantine grins and drops his head to the pillow again. “Philosophically, then, they are not unlike my former colleagues in the School of Radritha. They, too, urged withdrawal from the world—because they were afraid, I think. Afraid of power, afraid of what it would do to them when they acquired it.” He booms out a laugh. “What does it matter if there is nothing new beneath the Shield? There can be new combinations… surely their imagination will extend to that? And even if one’s accomplishments fade away, hey, it is something to have accomplished. What does one say—’I saw a chance of doing good, but I did not do it, because it has been done before, and because in any case in a thousand years it will not matter’? Ha! What a pathetic argument for inaction!”