"Walter Jon Williams - Metropolitan - 02 - City On Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter John)

"There will be conflict. I cannot say what form it will take." She cocks her head, her look going abstract with thought. "Consider: Constantine knows what he wants, but this new government does notЧnot surprising, with all the factions it representsЧthe triumvirate is divided and does not speak with one voice, or act with one will. There is a Keremath party still, though there are precious few Kere-maths left to lead it. The Caraqui army is being supplemented by mercenaries long loyal to Constantine. That is opportunity... for someone.Ф
"You think Constantine will take power himself?Ф
"Only if he must. Only if the triumvirate fails. Constantine is a foreigner and cannot hope to seize a metropolis that is not his own, not unless. . ." Sorya shows white teeth in a smile. "Unless the metropolis asks, from lack of any other palatable alternative." Her eyes flicker to Aiah. "So build your department, find your plasm. It will increase Constan-tine's power . . . and opportunity.Ф
Thoughts scurry from place to place in Aiah's mind, alarmed but with no place to run. Sorya seems amused. With an unconcerned roll of her shoulders, she pushes herself from her leaning posture against the elevator wall and steps into the hall outside. Aiah follows. The wood paneling here is beautifully, intricately carved with patterns of fruit and flowers. They pass through two sets of the bronze-strapped airlock doors, which open automatically at their approach and close behind them.
"We're in Crane Wing now," Sorya says. "Some of the junior Keremaths lived here, with their dependents and loyalists. All chucked out now, or sent to the Shield." Her hand dips into one of the greatcoat pockets, comes out with a key on a silver chain. She puts it in a door, pushes the door open.
"Your suite," she says. "Have a pleasant sleep shift.Ф
"Thank you," Aiah says. Sorya drops the key in her hand, tips her cap mockingly, as if in imitation of a uniformed doorman, and strides away.
Aiah stands for a moment looking into the dark room, then reaches in to find a light switch. Her fingers touch cool metal. She turns the knob and the lights come on.
The room glows, all polished woods and gleaming metal and soft, sumptuous fabric. Aiah steps in and her feet sink into deep carpet. The room is three times the size of the apartment in Jaspeer she shared with Gil. Wonderment tingles in her nerves. This place is hers? Hers alone?She puts her bag down and closes the door behind her: it moves in silence on brass hinges, with a push of the finger. Aiah explores the suite in wonderЧthe gleaming kitchen, the luxurious lounge, the bar with its shining crystal decanters. There is food in the refrigerator, stores in the cabinets, fruit trees blossoming on the terrace. Her fingertips brush over the smooth, polished surface of wood tables, and she wonders if she will ever get used to so much wood around her.
There had been a revolution, a complete readjustment of power; but it had not touched this room.
There are plasm connections everywhere, as available as electric power outlets. Aiah checks the communications array, the headset with its priceless ivory earpieces and gleaming silver keys, and finds it doesn't work.
Not everything, she reflects, can be perfect. She opens the door into the bedroomЧЧand smothers a scream with her fist.
She slams the door and staggers away on a wave of nausea. The room swims around her, and she sinks into a chair. Soft leather receives her.
The suite's previous occupant had died in bed, and he had not died well.
Clearly magecraft had killed him. The sheets and mattress were crusted in dried blood, and there were sprays of red on the walls, floor, even the ceiling. The body had been removed, but the mess had not.
Sorya, Aiah thinks. Sorya chose this room for her.
All truces are temporary. The words echo in her mind.
Aiah jumps up from the chair, walks to the door, puts her hand on its bronze handle. And then wonders where she's going to go.
Beneath a lovely carving of grapes, outside in the hall, Aiah finally catches a few hours' rest, sleeping on the carpet with her jacket for a pillow.
TWO
"Hello, little bird.Ф
Aiah looks up and sees Charduq the Hermit gazing down at her. He has been there all her life, on his pillar at the Barkazi Savings Institute, with rain and Shieldlight falling alike on his head, and the wind blowing his long beard up in his eyes.
"Hello, old crow," says Aiah.
Charduq smooths his beard with a gnarled hand. "A little bird should have more respect for the older birds of this world," Charduq says.
Aiah is only eleven years old, but she knows better than to let some mangy holy man get the better of her. "If the old crow wants more respect," she says, "he should fly down off his perch and get some for himself.Ф
The hermit giggles. "The little bird's claws are sharp," he observes. "And she has got herself some new feathers. What is that uniform?Ф
"For my new school." Aiah's new skirt, vest, and blouse are all too large, to allow room for growth, and the long sleeves of the blouse are rolled up to her elbows. She is not proud of her appearance, swathed in acres of cloth, and wishes Charduq had not mentioned it.
"What new school? I haven't seen that uniform.Ф
"Miss Turmak got me a scholarship. I have to take the trackline to Redstone District." She holds up her plastic trackline pass.
"The little bird flies far." Charduq raises his eyebrows. "Miss Turmak is a longnose, ne?" he says. "It's a longnose education they'll give you in Redstone.Ф
Aiah shrugs. "It's a longnose education they have in the state school, too. It's just not as good an education.Ф
"But if you don't go to school in Old Shorings, you'll be away from the Children of Karlo.Ф
Aiah has heard this argument before, mostly from her own family. "You'll forget who you are," they tell her. "You'll grow up a longnose and lose all your cunning.Ф
She looks around the bustle of Old ShoringsЧthe crazy old buildings propped up by metal scaffolds, the street stalls and liquor stores, the jobless young men lounging on street corners and the Operation bagman making his collectionsЧ and wonders what is so great about this place that she should have to stay here for the rest of her life.
"I'll still live here," she tells Charduq. "How can I forget who I live with?Ф
Charduq smiles down at her benignly. "The little bird will not forget her nest." He cocks his head. "You're an Old Oel-phil family, aren't you?Ф
Charduq, Aiah figures, is the sort who would care about this kind of silly superstition. The Old Oelphil families are supposed to be the guardians of the Barkazil people, reincarnating from generation to generation rather than continuing on to paradise.
They seem not to have done the Barkazil much good the last few generations, though, Aiah muses. Where were the Oelphil, she wonders, at the Battle of the Plastic Factory?"I'm supposed to be Oelphil on my mother's side," Aiah says. "I don't know about my dad.Ф
"I remember your father," Charduq says. "He looked Oelphil to me.Ф
Charduq has been on his pillar so long that he knows practically everybody in Old Shorings. And he's a relentless gossip as well, always happy to retail the latest scandals.
"When you're in Redstone," Charduq says, "you remember that you're one of our people's guardians. You learn that longnose education now, but remember that it's for our benefit, so we can grow in our cunning.Ф
"I'll remember," Aiah promises, becoming restless. "I need to catch the trackline now.Ф
She opens her satchel and drops her lunch into Charduq's plastic collection bucketЧshe knows that once she is in her new school she will be too excited to eatЧand Charduq hauls the bucket to his perch with his rope. "You're generous, little bird," he says. "A blessing on you, and a curse on your enemies.Ф
"Thank you." Politely.
Her thoughts are already on the trackline, away from Old Shorings, toward her new life.
Item #1: Get commo array fixed.
Item #2: Arrange for cleaning re living quarters.
New mattresses, new linen. Item #3: New office furniture. Item #4: Resign from Plasm Authority. Item #5: Gil? Item #6: Family?Items 1 through 3 are the easy tasks, though they take almost until midbreak. Item 4 proves more difficult than she expectedЧshe had been raised on the dole, in apartments provided by the Jaspeeri government in a shambles of a district called Old Shorings. Aiah's grandparents were refugees from the war that had destroyed the Metropolis of Barkazi, and Aiah had been raised among a people that had lost almost everything: family, tradition, culture, security, hope.
The Plasm Control Authority had been a route out of Old Shorings and all that it represented. Despite its sloth and ineptitude and pointlessness, the civil service provided security, which was of prime importance to a Barkazil girl who had no stability in her young life.
Resigning from the Authority was saying farewell to all the security she had ever known. And in exchange for a job in what is perhaps the least secure civil service in the worldЧthe last inhabitant of this office had probably been pitched out of his job at the point of a bayonet.