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'My luncheon seems to have run overlong,' Constantine says. He takes off his
jacket, throws it over a chair, rolls up his sleeves. 'Have some supper, if
you like,' he says.
'I ate in the car.' Her glance drifts across the buffet, sees a centerpiece
of extravagant flowers, and displayed before it a thin gunmetal box propped up
to exhibit its contents, a necklace of gold and platinum, its central orb
aglitter with diamonds. Constantine sees the direction of Aiah's gaze and
lazily prowls to the buffet, picks the necklace up with one finger and holds
it out.
'I gave this to Sorya just now,' he says, 'a Forlong piece, and then
curiously enough we began to fight. I wonder why.'
'Your disagreement didn't seem to be about jewelry.'
'The words concerned one thing, the passions another.' He holds the necklace
toward Aiah, dangling it at the end of a finger, it seems not to be to Sorya's
taste. You may have it, if you wish.'
Aiah's mouth goes dry. A little voice wails in her head, a plaintive whine of
greed that wails out numbers, dalder amounts in the tens of thousands, then
multiplied because it was crafted by Forlong. She looks at the glittering nest
of diamonds, looks at Constantine, sees a little cold smile on his lips, a
dangerous light in his eyes, and wonders if this is some kind of test, if he
means to discover her character, if there is a correct choice involved. Dare
she refuse his gift? And dare she take it, knowing it's Sorya's?
But then, as she looks at him an understanding slowly enfolds her, and Aiah
knows she can have it, that at this point Constantine truly does not care what
happens to the thing, and for some unknown reason that knowledge chills her, a
cold that floods her bones. She licks her lips.
'Metropolitan,' she says, i don't think I'd feel safe with it.'
He shrugs, looks for a trash receptacle, and throws the necklace in. There
is a liquid sound as it strikes uneaten food. Aiah has to suppress a part of
her that wants to run screaming to the trash and dig the necklace out.
'Sit here,' Constantine says, 'and we'll begin.'
'We're doing this here? Not at Terminal?'
'I don't feel like climbing about in a cave. The plasm from Terminal will
pay for any losses I incur.'
Perhaps, Aiah thinks, she ought to have held out for more money. She puts
her briefcase down and sits on the chromium-and-leather sofa, sinks deep into
soft calfskin. Constantine takes a copper transfer grip from his desk, then
sits next to Aiah and fixes the t-grip into a slot on the couch. Surprise
tingles through Aiah as she realizes she's sitting on a live well.
And then she looks up at the battery of video displays hanging overhead and
realizes she's in a kind of command center, that the video is for remote plasm
manipulation. It had all been discreet enough, or strange enough, that she
hadn't noticed what the room was really for.
She turns to Constantine, ready to begin, and realizes that all his height
is in his legs. Seated, she is the taller of the two.
An irrelevant datum, but there it is.
Know your passu. A Barkazil proverb.
Constantine looks at her. 'Sorya tells me that, in the old pneuma station, you
used a guideline when you created a plasm screen. To insulate yourself from
the source?'
'Yes,' Aiah says. 'Or I used batteries. I didn't want to end up like the
flamer.'
Constantine nods. 'That was wise of you. I'll act as your insulator, then.
I'll use the t-grip, and feed you such plasm as you can control. Agreed?'
Aiah nods. 'Should I use my focus?' she asks.
if you use one normally, yes.'
There are people who don't use one normally? she wonders. But she unbuttons
her collar, pushes the lace aside, and fetches out the little metal charm.
Constantine's expression doesn't change when he looks at the little trinket in
her pale palm no sign of condescension or pity and Aiah's heart warms
toward him.
i should point out,' he says, 'that in exchange for this education and use
of plasm, I will ask you to do me certain services. And these services will be
illegal.'
'Why start worrying about it now?' The answer is ready in her thoughts, and
it amuses him.
He takes her wrist in one powerful hand. His touch is clinical. Aiah isn't
certain if she likes that or not.
'You're skinny,' he says.
'So my mother tells me.'
His fingers close about her pulse. The other hand takes the transfer grip,
and suddenly Aiah senses the snarling presence of plasm, a vast electric beast
suddenly glowing in Constantine's mild eyes, and hairs lift on the back of her
neck.
'Do whatever it is you do to get yourself ready,' he says, 'and we will
begin.'
Aiah feels as if her mind is lit from within. Wherever she turns her
thoughts she seems to know things that weren't apparent before: connections
are perceived, facts tumble into place, and knowledge presents itself, neatly
displayed, as if on a silver salver. Throughout the lesson she's aware of
Constantine hovering in her mind, guiding her movements, making suggestions,
feeding her power. He approves of her choices, approves, and a spirit of
fierce liberty possesses her. It's as if she's never felt approval before -
and perhaps, on consideration, she never has.
An idea forms, and she wordlessly suggests it to Constantine. Again comes
the unaccustomed, glorious sensation of approval, of liberation - and without
quite realizing how, she jumps away, through the glass rooftop of the
arboretum, along the arcing transmission horns and up. Her mind free of her
physical location, as she'd experienced only once before, tentatively, when
she reached out to Gil in faraway Gerad.
There's a wild soaring sensation as she springs upward from the transmission
horn into the sky, bounds free of solid matter. Jaspeer's regular road grid
falls away beneath her, dropping far faster than it had in Martinus's aerocar.
The visual details fade as she climbs, but the awareness, the knowledge, of
what's below never seems to leave her mind: steel and stone, brick and
concrete, the ponderous matter that encloses and shelters and sustains all the
world's fragile life, that generates plasm and powers her ascent.
Scattered white cloud drops below, overlaid on the world like one of the
Authority's transparencies, and joyously Aiah continues her ascent. She can
see the world curve away on all sides, the implastic gray mass of the city
that wraps the globe, that stretches to every horizon. And then she looks up,
and her mind staggers ...
She hadn't intended coming this close to the Shield. But there it is,
seemingly just above her, at this distance not opalescent gray but burning
featureless white, the source of light and heat for the world. Aiah senses its
enmity, its roaring power, an energy not merely the opposite of plasm, but
plasm's destroyer, the raging enemy of all things earthly, power that will, if
she touches it, snuff her out in an instant and in the face of its fury she
falters, loses command of herself, and her spirits reel. The horizon tumbles
sickeningly about her. She can't tell her direction of motion is she falling
or still rising? And if so might she come in contact with the Shield, and be
obliterated?
Panic reaches for her throat with clawed fingers.
Ah. Constantine's presence speaks softly to her inner ear. Stabilize so. Now
down, and slowly.
The spinning stops. She and Constantine are drifting downward, away from the
Shield, safe as if he were holding her arm while descending a stair. In a
corner of her awareness, she knows that, far below, her heart throbs furiously
in her body, her breath rasps in her throat.
- It's requiring rather a lot of plasm to maintain our lifeline to my
apartment, Constantine tells her. Aiah can sense the amusement in his voice.
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