Rohder shrugs. “You’re the boss. But allow me to point out that if this phenomenon continues, and if you can postpone your offensive for a few months, I’ll be able to keep it going for a lot longer. Perhaps as much as a week.”
Constantine gives a minute shake of his head. “Not possible. There are time-dependent considerations.”
Aiah looks at the screen and feels a fist gently tighten on her throat. Those considerations have to do with the six days left on the Escaliers’ contract.
But Constantine is absorbed by another thought entirely. “After the war, I want to dedicate the Plasm Reserve to work with Havilak’s Freestanding Hermetic Transformations… and possibly even more.”
“Atmospheric generation?” Rohder’s watery blue eyes gaze thoughtfully at Constantine.
“Yes.”
“You’ll need some highly trained people.” “You’re talking about building things out of air?” Aiah asks.
Constantine nods. “Hermetics transforms one thing into another, base matter into food, say, or plastic. Why not a freestanding, plasm-generating structure assembled—reassembled really—out of thin air?” He shrugs. “It’s not a new idea… There are mages who specialize in such transformations, in places inaccessible or dangerous for people. Reactor cores, say.”
Rohder puffs as he muses on the notion. “Those mages are too specialized for what you have in mind. You’ll need to create teams of specialists from scratch.”
Constantine gives a shrug. “One thing a war leaves is rubble, and rubble would seem to be the perfect experimental medium. If things go wrong in training, we create only more rubble. It seems a safe enough experiment, well worth the risk.”
“If you say so,” Aiah says. “But it seems horribly complex.”
“Mathematics is complex,” Constantine says, “but it begins with one plus one.”
Aiah turns to the golden figures shimmering in Rohder’s computer display, and feels unease roll through her mind. “Some unanticipated results are to be expected,” she says, quoting Rohder; and the others nod. Constantine’s eyes are agleam.
“One plus one,” he says, “and then you keep going,” and he laughs, happy in the world of the unanticipated.
PROVISIONALS ACCUSE GOVERNMENT OF BREAKING TRUCE
“SIMPLE REDEPLOYMENTS,” SAYS GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN
After the meeting, as they walk toward Aiah’s office, Constantine observes, “I understand you have paid two visits to Karlo’s Brigade and General Ceison.”
“Yes.” She glances up at him. “They are my army—my power base, as you would call it—and I want to know them better.”
“How well have you succeeded?”
“Somewhat. I have asked a great many naive questions and, one Cunning Person to another, General Ceison and Mage-Major Aratha have answered them without condescending too very much.”
He looks down at her, and the calculation in his glance belies the humor in his tone. “I hope you will let the government borrow your army for this offensive.”
Aiah answers the glance and not the voice. “Perhaps I will, if they are not simply to be thrown away. Ceison told me of your plans for the Dalavan Guard, hurled in a diversionary attack against the Island.”
“May we not speak so loudly when it comes to these matters?” Constantine cautions. He lifts one brow in thought. “I wonder where your friends heard that story. Surely not from any official briefing.”
Aiah smiles and keeps her voice low. “We private armies keep track of one another. I understand that Parq is very happy with his army’s prominent role in the offensive, but then Parq is very vain and not a general.”
“Whereas you are.”
“Whereas,” she corrects, “I hope to be, and I listen to those who are. My first lesson concerned the difference between an offensive and a suicide.”
Constantine sighs. “Assaulting Lorkhin Island is a job best suited to fanatics who do not measure the odds. And Parq has raised a unit of fanatics who will be very useful as long as the war lasts, and very inconvenient afterward. If they join their faith’s long line of martyrs, both they and I will have reason to be satisfied.”
Aiah tries to view this slaughter from the point of view of one of the Cunning People. A true daughter of Karlo and Chonah would have no qualms at two enemies massacring each other.
Looking through the twin organic lenses of a human being, however, Aiah finds the idea of the carnage more than a little horrifying.
But ultimately the Dalavan Guard is Parq’s worry, not hers. “As long as my army is not added to the martyrs’ list,” she says, “there will be plenty of satisfaction to go around.”
“Your army consists of motorized troops who will be used to exploit any breakthrough. They will capitalize on any victory won at the cost of others.” Sharply. “I hope that will satisfy you.”
“Yes, r think so.”
She wonders about another private army, Sorya’s Force of the Interior, a more nebulous organization than the Dalavan Guard, and far less inclined to self-immolation.
“I hope you will enjoy your army for the time being,” Constantine says. “You may not have it for long.”
She looks at him. “Yes? And this means?”
“Your mission to the occupied zone may be canceled.” He looks petulant. “We can’t seem to find a safe place for the meeting. For security’s sake it has to be within the area the Escaliers control. It can’t be in any of the buildings they actually occupy, because we can’t trust every single member of their brigade—it only takes one to inform. We had a safe apartment set up, but then Great-Uncle Rathmen moved a detachment of his tax collectors into the building—the Silver Hand is collecting the Provisionals’ taxes for them!” He shakes his head in disbelief, then mutters, “At least that means the Provisionals will never have any money.”
Relief dances along Aiah’s veins. She will not have to enter enemy territory after all—she can quietly vacate her unearned position as Queen of Barkazi and go back to chasing gangsters down Caraqui’s brackish back alleys.
But Aiah finds that the initial sensation of relief is followed by an unanticipated sense of loss. She had been, in some way, ready for the thing—for the negotiations, the tense bargaining under threat of capture and death, ultimate barter for ultimate stakes… Aiah the Cunning had almost been looking forward to it.
“We’re checking out other places for the meeting,” Constantine continues, “but the buildings not occupied by soldiers are filled with refugees, and that’s not a secure situation, either.”
They have reached Aiah’s office. She puts her hand on the doorjamb, sees Ethemark quietly waiting to see her, a file in his hand. “And the Sorya option?” she asks. The end run through Lanbola.
“Still undecided.”
Her eyes stray to Ethemark. “Have you considered the half-worlds for the meeting?” she asks, and in the hesitation that precedes Constantine’s reply, she knows the answer.
Aiah the Cunning, deep in Aiah’s mind, gives a cry of triumph.
“May I intrude on your meeting with Ethemark?” Constantine asks. “Strange how, under the pressure of duty, I seem to have forgotten one of my significant constituencies.”
PEACE TALKS DEADLOCK
ENVOY LICINIAS TO “MAKE FINAL EFFORT”
The envoy Licinias moves through his final meeting with grace, concealing any disappointment he may feel. Perhaps he is not disappointed after all, Aiah thinks; perhaps he is too wise ever to have expected results. He has been through all this before.