The War in the Waste

by Felicity Savage

  “I treated you like the worst sort of recruit scum at the same time as I made you my protégé and gave you every advantage! I want to apologize both for picking you out of the mud and for throwing it in your face! Do you forgive me?”

  Yes, Crispin wanted to say, yes! You are my commandant!

  “Well, honest forgiveness can never be got just for the asking. I am glad you did not lie.” Vichuisse shook his head and exhaled slowly.

  “Why—sir—why did you favor me? Was it for the same reason you favored Ash?”

  Vichuisse laughed, and evaded the question. “I always had a yearning for the exotic. You and Ash were as close as I was ever able to come to it. What I should really have liked to do was to travel to Cype, Lamaroon, Ea loria, the Americas... if there had not been a war... Oh, make no mistake, I am dedicated to this air force as I believe few are. But... well, it is too late now.”

  And Crispin remembered Butch standing in a moonlit alley in Cerelon, smiling and saying in the same self-deprecating, vaguely amused tone, Too late now. Been thinking a lot lately about what I’ve missed... but it’s too late now.

  Too late now. That night had put an untimely end to Crispin and Butch’s friendship. Too late—

  Jacithrew Humdroner, the mad Wraith, standing tippy-toe at the top of a dead pine, flapping his wooden wings and shouting delightedly, I will fly and fly and fly away from this dead place to a land where all is life, I will fly south to Izte Kchebuk’ara where the sun shines all day and there are beautiful red-skinned women, where there is wine to be drunk beside a sparkling sea—

  Too late!

  A dreadful flickering dimmed the room.

  There had to be some way to escape the parade of skulls, the ribbon show—

  But its too late now! Flames in the hollows, and either I’m mad or the world is going to end in Okimako, and I will be there, and I’ve visioned nothing beyond that night—

  Vichuisse was staring at him with amusement. “Was that a goose walking over your grave? You look positively pale.”

  Crispin forced his fists to unclench. “Have you ever loved anyone, sir? A girl, I mean? I mean, loved?”

  “Not as such... what does that matter?”

  “I did,” Crispin said, hearing his voice shake. “I did.”

  The familiar mocking smile leapt onto Vichuisse’s face. “And never once said a word! You are a dark horse and no mistake, Kateralbin! To think that all this time I believed you and Keynes... And that was the only reason I offered him a post in Salzeim!”

  Crispin shrugged. He was trying too hard not to see the pale flames coming out from under the skirting to take offense. “I had a girl, Rae her name was,” he said thickly. “They killed her in Chressamo.”

  The amusement vanished from Vichuisse’s face. “I am sorry!” He sounded as if he meant it. So had Burns, although neither of them knew Rae from the Queen. Everyone meant it, the first time; then the thrill of vicarious misery paled and they left you alone with your grief. Only this time the trouble was that Crispin could not locate his own grief. Despite having spoken the charm of her name, he still felt keyed up to the point of screaming, imprisoned in the coils of the plot into which he had thrown himself so recklessly, with no release in sight. Over the course of the last three years, the stirring of the red beast had continuously prompted him to seek refuge, consciously or unconsciously, in the old grief, which was immutable, certain, and above all, understandable both to himself and to others. But this time the ploy had failed. Rae had no power to free him from the enigma of Vichuisse. He tried to conjure an image of her face and saw Gorgonettes and KE-122s reeling in a blank sky. Words replaced coherent thoughts. “Black hair—Rae. I miss her. I don’t know why I’m talking like this! I—”

  “You mustn’t brood. It will take the edge off your brain,” Vichuisse reproved. “I want you to be more than I ever was. And I want you to succeed by the brilliance of your prowess alone, as I could not. You have the potential, you can be a commandant, maybe even lieutenant-marshal in time! If you let your career slip away over some girl, I will kill you!”

  It was said in jest, but in Crispin’s wretched state, every word resonated. “But I don’t miss her anymore!” he protested. “I don’t!”

  “Good, then! Good! The QAF must be your first love, as she has been mine, if you are to succeed. And right now, her only hope is for those few who truly love her to give her their all—”

  There was a knock outside. “Come in!” Vichuisse called—just as if it were his office, Crispin thought in a flash of renewed dislike—and Mickey entered, grinning, his cheeks flushed with altitude. When he saw Vichuisse his grin snapped off like a light. Watching the commandant as if he thought the unkempt little man would spring, he sidled inside and took a seat on the third half barrel. As if by magic, the flames died down. The air thinned and became breathable again as the tension surged, redirecting itself into new channels. Crispin’s pulse slackened. “Have some Beaudonne, Mick!” he said expansively. “It’s warm, but it’s perfect!”

  “What I need.” Mickey knocked down half a glass straight.

  Vichuisse’s eyes sparkled. “I came especially to see you, Ash!” He made a dramatic gesture, placing one hand on his heart. “How long it’s been!”

  “Commandant... ” Mickey had clearly noticed Vichuisse’s bedraggled drunkard’s appearance. He shook his head mutely.

  “I am ill,” Vichuisse said lightly. “You on the other hand, you’re looking well!”

  “The northern climate suits me. But I hate summer.”

  “Better alive in summer than dead in winter,” Crispin said with a wink. “How was patrol? Sightings? Encounters?”

  And in a few minutes he had managed to downshift the conversation smoothly into flight talk such as any three pilots, anywhere, might have shared. The topic held little interest for Vichuisse; it was obvious that he wanted to say certain things to Mickey which Crispin should not hear. As soon as Crispin saw the shape of things he made an excuse to leave, but Mickey kicked him in the ankle so hard that he stayed put. Vichuisse grinned knowingly, and proceeded to reminisce without a trace of embarrassment, as if he and Mickey were alone, although he did not fail to include Crispin in his repulsive innuendos. The Kirekuni deflected the stabs at his pride with astonishing grace. The only sign that the unraveling of his private life affected him at all was the rate at which his glass emptied. As Vichuisse chuckled on and on, Crispin was struck again by the strange impression that the commandant was fading: it was as if despite the lascivious anecdotes issuing from his lips, he possessed no more substance than a shadow in the corner twittering of the time when it had a body, and steadily dissolving as it poured out the memories that had given it an existence in this world.

  But Mickey, especially now that he was drunk, was there enough to make up for Vichuisse and five more besides. Tail switching, scalp bristling black, smoke puffing from his mouth, he was more corporeal than a materialized daemon. Watching him, Crispin thought it was a wonder how he pulled off his blending-in act all day, every day. Was this special corporeality the reason he and the flames could not exist in the same place? Or was it because he was Kirekuni? Crispin did not know: it was enough to have gained a reprieve. In the absence of his personal horror, liberated from grief, nothing could faze him, not even Vichuisse’s distressing indiscretions. Vichuisse was going to die two days from now anyway, so what did it matter? What did anything matter?

  Vichuisse finally took his leave as twilight was falling. The fire in the hearth had died to embers, and the smoke haze in the room glowed orange as the sunset slanted in between the blackout curtains. Crispin and Mickey saw the commandant off in his jeep. They exchanged a sigh of relief as they reentered the office. “Hind leg off a donkey,” Crispin said, and rolled his eyes.

  Mickey laughed. “I’ll leave you in peace, too, Captain.” He turned to go.

  Crispin stopped Mickey before the Kirekuni reached the door. “No. Stay. I have something I want to t
alk over with you.”

  Mickey’s smile vanished. He looked suspicious and tired.

  “I’ll have supper sent in. You are hungry, aren’t you?”

  “Ravenous,” Mickey said without a smile. He was rigid with tension. It showed in his shoulders, his stance. He must hate Vichuisse more than any other man in 130 Squadron. He would do.

  “That simply wasn’t on, was it?” Crispin said, sounding him out. “I would have left, but you—”

  Mickey whirled around twice and threw up his hands in one of his operatic foreign gestures. “I thought he wouldn’t bring it up with you there! The last thing I wanted was to be alone with him! And what the fuck was he thinking, anyway? What the fuck was he thinking?”

  His vehemence startled Crispin as much as if a songbird had cawed like a crow.

  “What does whatever happened in the Lovoshire Parallel between him and me have to do with the fact that I have a patrol to fly at dawn and I haven’t slept for days and he’s a bloody commandant and he should have more sense? Nothing! That’s what! He’s an insane inbred aristocrat worse than any of the rest of them! I always knew it, and now I’ve seen it! Mad! Mad! Mad! He’s mad!”

  “He’s just a drunkard, but it comes to the same thing,” Crispin said.

  “No fucking joke! He—”

  “He thinks he’s dying.”

  “Ho, does he? Hypochondriac! Dying my ass! He’s gonna live to be a hundred after he’s killed us all with his fucking incompetence or bored us all to death with his slimy anecdotes!”

  A breath of wind crept in through the open door. The slit between the curtains glowed red. The windows faced west, toward the sunset. Toward Kirekune. Crispin had never once asked Mickey about his native country. Although their acquaintance was as close as the gap of rank permitted, they had never spoken of anything personal. Not, at any rate, since the night at Fostercy when Mickey revealed that he was left-handed. For him, that was personal.

  I’m a fool to confide in him, Crispin thought, and then said, “But you know, Vichuisse may be right. I should be extremely surprised if he survives the mission two days from now.”

  It took Mickey an astonishing two seconds to get the idea. His eyes lit up and his body spasmed as if he were about to hug Crispin. Then he flung himself across the room, pacing. “Who? Who? Who’s in on it? What can I do?”

  Crispin chuckled. “Not so fast! Captain Burns. Captain Emthraze. Captain Keynes.”

  “Everyone!”

  “Not the fellow who took Matheson’s place; Lang’s a brown-nosing weasel. But Commandant Lennox. And Sublieutenant-Marshal Duncan.”

  “That means Thraxsson,” Mickey said, and then something quick. Crispin asked him to translate. “Sorry! I said: ‘Tell it to the Significant!’ It means sort of, ‘This is too good to be true!’”

  Crispin smiled.

  “What’s the plan? A pincer maneuver? Who’s going to—”

  “It shouldn’t be difficult. We’ll be engaged by the enemy. It’ll be reported as an accident—that is, if anyone even notices he was taken down by his own side.”

  Mickey frowned. “But they will. Have you ever seen Vichuisse put himself in danger in an engagement? He keeps to the edges and plays umpire. That’s how he’s lasted so damned long. It’ll just have to look like a blunder—like somebody got disoriented. Do you want me to—”

  “No,” Crispin said more sharply than he had meant to. “I want you to back me up. To edge him into my sights. And second me if I have to explain. That’s all.”

  Mickey squinted. “You want him bad, don’t you?”

  Crispin half nodded, half shrugged.

  Mickey sank down on a barrel-chair and performed his cigarette-lighting trick with his tail. “I love it! It’s so Queen-damned Ferupian! I love it!”

  “Don’t your people bear grudges, then?”

  “Your people... I haven’t heard that for months! Nobody gives me shit around here like they used to. I think you terrified it out of them.”

  “I didn’t mean that.”

  “If you had, you would’ve said you lizards. But no, we don’t, we don’t even think in terms of grudges. We don’t ask questions. Orders are orders. If you’re commanded to perform an operational suicide attack, you’re supposed to thank the Significant on bended knee for singling you out. I could never have done that, and I knew it—that’s why I made such a terrible Disciple. That’s why I ended up here.”

  “But what do you mean it’s so Ferupian? Seems to me it’s un-anything.”

  “Oh, no, no, no!” Mickey shook his head. “It’s been too long since you were a regular, Captain! The rumors... In this parallel, they fly like birds. This death... that death... well, it wasn’t an accident, you know, he wanted a promotion... well, he had a grudge against him for stealing his girl... and so forth and so on... sometimes I can’t help laughing because it’s just so parochial. War on the other side of the Raw, it’s this gigantic finely tuned operation, the army and the air force and the Chadou, that’s the civilians they moved in from the other side of the mountains, all following the same set of orders, all synchronizing like the different bits of a transformation engine. Our command is totally centralized and all our communications go by air. And it works because we’re winning, Captain. There’s an energy which reproduces every time the SAPpers gain ground. But over here... well, there’s nothing organized about it! It’s really just sanctioned murder of whoever you happen not to like, and all too often that isn’t the enemy, but the fellow you see every day! The Ferupian military is eating itself.”

  “That’s rather harsh.”

  “But it’s true! The only explanation I’ve been able to think of, short of a difference in the national temperament, is that one hundred fucking years of defeat has—how can I put it—killed the daemon in the Ferupian war machine. And it’s fallen apart into this gigantic mess of aggression which is so poorly directed that a hell of a lot of the time, people take it out on their own officers. And some of those officers, like Vichuisse, are trying to hold the system together, but it’s absolutely fucking useless, because they’re incompetent to practice what they preach, because of the ridiculous system you have for selecting officers, which is based on social class, of all qualifications, and which in my opinion is the real reason Ferupe started losing the war in the first place... And meanwhile, you all have this ridiculous faith in the Queen, as if she can’t lose the war even though she really has nothing to do with it, as if she’s some unstoppable force of nature!” He stopped, abashed, as if finally realizing he was treading on forbidden ground. “At least, that’s what I think... ”

  “Do you despise us, then?” Crispin asked eventually. Mickey’s words had stung him to the quick, and yet he had expressed more or less the same opinions accepted by all the officers Crispin knew, merely having arrived at them from a different, clearer perspective.

  “Despise you? Significant, no!” Suddenly Mickey was serious. “How could I? This is my adopted country, isn’t it? I belong here. In Ferupe. In the middle of this defeat. And no, I’m not having you on! There’s a family history of Ferupian tendencies—my aunt joined a Ferupian cult, and so did my uncle, ten years later. My mother’s dream is to get Ferupian girls in her brothel: she knows what sells. I joined the Disciples, but now look at me, here I am! It’s funny the way it comes out.”

  “And yet for a Ferupian, you have some very odd ideas,” Crispin said.

  “I do, don’t I! Maybe I’m just trying to justify my own cowardice by deciding everyone else over here is a coward, too... But... but... ” He closed his eyes and touched his lips with the tip of his tail. Then he opened his eyes again. Liquid black pools, almost perfectly round.

  Crispin took pity on him. “Not that odd, actually. All the commanding officers think more or less the same thing, if you can get them to admit it. Congratulate yourself on your perspicacity, rather.”

  “Don’t flatter me.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  Mickey bit
his lip. It was an oddly endearing gesture. “You aren’t going to change your mind, are you? You’re still going to... involve me?”

  “There isn’t anyone else in this squadron,” Crispin said. “There’s Butch. Captain Keynes of One-forty-five Squadron, I mean. But I—I can’t depend on him.”

  “I hate Keynes’s guts. He hates mine. He blames me for everything that ever went wrong when I was in his crew. I’d kill him if I thought I could get away with it... Does that change your mind?”

  “Bit late now,” Crispin said dryly. “You could rat on all of us. I’ve got to involve you!”

  And for a second the flames appeared again, dancing high between him and the Kirekuni, blotting out his vision; but they had no heat, no power, and they vanished as quickly as they came. The air was dim and sharp. The smoke from the cigarette Mickey was holding in a twist of his tail smelled like campfires, like toasting bread, and Crispin suddenly realized how hungry he was. Outside, the first night patrol was taking off. The grumble of daemon engines came almost too low to be heard. Voices yelled over the wind, which blew chilly through the open window—summer was not quite here yet.

  “I’ve always thought you were different from the rest of them, Captain,” Mickey said. He had been observing Crispin with his head on one side.

  “So has everyone else.”

  “I mean as an airman. The rest of them just say they love glory, they say they live for the kill... but you, you really do. You may be bloodthirsty, but that’s so refreshing. And you value your squadron’s efficiency over your personal advancement. Or at least, that’s how I’ve perceived it.”

  Four years in Ferupe had given Mickey an irritating habit of qualifying everything he said, which detracted not a whit from the inflammatory nature of his opinions. “Don’t suck up to me, Pilot,” Crispin said. He was wondering how he could seal the other’s complicity and dismiss him. Mickey was simply too perspicacious and opinionated. He made Crispin uncomfortable.

  “I wasn’t sucking up! I just wanted to tell you that I admire you! Is that a breach of propriety?”