Hope Renewed

by S. M. Stirling

  Still, the coastal city of Borreaux looked well enough; the terrain was less mountainous than most of the southern shore of the Gut, a long narrow plain flanking a river between low mountains. The plain was covered with vineyards, mostly; the foothills of the mountains were gray-green with olives, and the upper slopes still heavily forested with oak and silver fir despite centuries of cutting for buildings and ship timber and barrels. The town itself sprawled along the river in a tangle of docks and basins, backed by broad, straight streets lined with trees and handsome three-story blocks of buildings in a uniform cream limestone. The slums weren’t quite as bad as in most Union cities and were kept decently out of sight. The rooftop terrace of this restaurant was quite pleasant—sun shining through the striped awnings, servers in white aprons bearing food and drink on trays. . . . . . and just to spoil it, three Chosen officers in gray were at a table nearby, two men and a woman, and two local ladies. The Land aristocrats were plowing their way through a five-course meal, and punishing a couple of bottles of the local wine fairly hard. Or rather, the two men were, and laughing occasionally with their local companions, who were either extremely high-priced talent or the minor gentlewomen they appeared to be. The Chosen woman was sipping at a single glass of the wine and looking around. Medium-height, dark hair and eyes . . .

  Christ, it’s Gerta! Jeffrey thought, with a jolt of alarm that turned the hunger in his stomach to sour churning. Why didn’t you tell me?

  Would have, lad, if it’d been an emergency. Don’t want you to lose your alertness, though. We can’t always notice things for you.

  He tried to keep a poker face, but Gerta must have seen some change. She raised the wineglass slightly, and an eyebrow with it. The mannerism reminded him of John a little—but then, they’d been raised together. It startled him sometimes to remember that John had been born among the Chosen. If it wasn’t for that clubfoot . . .

  observe:

  A man’s looks were more than muscle and bone; the personality within shaped them, everything from the set of his mouth to the way he walked. It took a moment for Jeffrey to realize that the tall man in the uniform of a Land general was John. The face was the same, but full of a quiet, grim deadliness. The city behind him was familiar, too: Borreaux, but in ruins. A dirigible floated overhead, and columns of Land troops were marching up from the docks.

  john hosten is in the upper 0.3% of the human ability curve, Center said. in the absence of his disability, and assuming no intervention on our part, the probability of his achieving general rank by this date in his timeline is 87%, ±4. probability of becoming chief of general staff, 73%, ±6. probability of becoming head of chosen council of state, 61%, ±8. probability of chosen conquest of visager increases by 17% ±5 in that eventuality.

  Jeffrey gave a slight internal shudder. With no clubfoot—and no Center—he and John would probably have spent their lives fighting each other.

  correct. probability—

  Shut up, Raj and Jeffrey thought simultaneously.

  The waiter arrived at last, and laid a bowl of the famous Borreaux fish stew before him; trivalves in their shells, chunks of lizard tail, pieces of fish, all in a broth rich with garlic, tomatoes, and spices. It smelled wonderful; it would have been even more wonderful if the waiter hadn’t had a rim of grime under his thumbnail, and the thumb hadn’t been dipping into the stew. Jeffrey forced himself to ignore that, and what the kitchen was probably like; he poured himself a glass of white wine and tore a chunk of bread off the end of a long narrow loaf. Say what you liked about the Unionaise, they did know how to cook.

  And it was a damned unlucky chance that Chosen officers, and Gerta of all people, happened to be right here when he was expecting—

  A small, slight man came up to Jeffrey’s table and sat, taking off his beret and stubbing out a villainous-smelling cigarette in an ashtray. His eyes flicked sideways toward the Chosen three tables away.

  “They can’t hear us,” Jeffrey said. “And we’re facing away.”

  So that they couldn’t lip-read. Offhand, he thought that the two male Chosen were straight-legs; Gerta certainly wasn’t, though, and might well have been trained in that particular skill. As to what they were doing here . . .

  “And we have business,” Jeffrey went on, spooning up some of the fish stew. “Damn, but that’s good,” he said mildly.

  “Vincen Deshambre,” the thin man said. Jeffrey took his hand for a moment. “Delegate of the Parti Uniste Travailleur.” He slid a small flat envelope out of his jacket and across the table.

  “Colonel Jeffrey Farr,” Jeffrey replied, reading it.

  He spoke fair Fransay, and read it well; the Union del Est had been the Republic’s main foreign enemy until a generation or so ago, with skirmishes even more recently. Santander military men were expected to learn the language, for interrogations and captured documents, if nothing else.

  Vincen looked over again at the table with the Chosen. “Bitches,” he said, his voice suddenly like something that spent most of its time curled up on warm rocks.

  Jeffrey looked up, raising his eyebrow. Only one of the Chosen could possibly qualify.

  “Not the foreigners,” Vincen said. A light sheen broke out across his high forehead, up to the edge of the thinning hair. “They’re just pirates. If we were united, we could laugh at them.”

  I don’t think so, Jeffrey thought. Alone, the Union against the Land of the Chosen would be a match between the hammer and the egg. Not quite as easy a victim as the Empire had been, of course. For one thing the terrain was worse, for another it was farther away, and for a third the country wasn’t quite so backward. Still, I see his point. And the Land wasn’t about to simply invade the Union. That would mean war with Santander, and the Chosen weren’t ready . . . yet.

  Neither was Santander.

  “Those whores are what’s wrong, them and those like them.”

  Jeffrey did a quick scan across the other table, then turned and let Center freeze the picture in front of him, magnifying until they all seemed to be at arm’s length.

  “I don’t think they’re professionals,” he said.

  Vincen flushed more deeply; it was a little disconcerting to see a man actually sweating with hate.

  “Elite,” he said, using the Fransay term for the upper classes. “Merdechiennes are losing their power, so they call in foreigners to prop it up for them.”

  “Well, two can play at that game,” Jeffrey said.

  The Unionaise gave him a sharp look Santander had taken several substantial bites out of the western border of the Union, in the old wars. Jeffrey smiled warmly.

  “We’re not territorially expansive . . . not anymore, at least.”

  Of course, much of the western Union was an economic satellite of the Republic these days, and the Travailleur—Worker—party didn’t like it one little bit. Despite the fact that without that investment, its members would still be scratching out a living farming rocks as metayers, paying half the crop to a landlord.

  Vincen grunted. “As you say. We have the evidence now. General Libert is definitely in correspondence with Land agents. They offer transport for his Legion troops back to the mainland.”

  Center called up a map for Jeffrey. The Union del Est covered a big chunk of the southern lobe of Visager’s main continent, between Santander and the sort-of-republic of Sierra. South of it wasn’t much but ocean right down to the south polar ice cap, but there were a series of fairly substantial islands, some independent, some held by the Republic or the Union.

  “Libert’s on Errif, isn’t he? That’s quite a ways out, seven hundred kilometers or so. Can’t your navy squadron in Bassin du Sud keep him bottled up?”

  The Legion were the best troops the Union had, and mostly foreigners at that. They were the ones who’d finally beaten the natives on Errif, after a war where the Union regulars nearly got thrown back into the sea And there were large units of Errifan natives under Union officers on the islands too, now. They’d p
robably be about as tough fighting against the Union government as they had been in the initial war.

  “The navy is loyal to the government, yes,” Vincen said. “But the Land, they offer air transport if there is a matching military uprising on the mainland.”

  Jeffrey whistled silently, remembering the air assault on Corona in the opening stages of the Imperial war. Can’t fault the Chosen on audacity, he thought. Errif was a lot further from their bases. Overfly the Union, he thought, calculating distances. They could at that; the Landisch Luftanza had a concession to run a route that way. Refuel at sea, from ships brought round the continent in international waters. Yes, it’s possible. Just. You had to be ready to take chances in war; otherwise it turned into a series of slugging matches. Big risks could have big payoffs . . . or disaster, if things went into the pot.

  “Why don’t you recall him and jail him?” Jeffrey asked. “Before he has a chance to rebel.”

  Vincen clenched his fists. “Because this coalition so-called government has even less balls than it has brains!” His half-howl brought stares from the tables around them, and he lowered his voice. “Us, the damned syndicalists, the regional autonomists—everyone but the twice-damned anarchists and separatists, and name of a dog! We have to keep them sweet, too, because we need their votes in the Chambre du Delegats.”

  He made a disgusted sound through his teeth, hands waving. Unionaise were like Imperials that way: tie their hands and they were struck dumb as a fish.

  “Last year, we could have arrested him. Arrested all the traitors in uniform. What did our so-called government do? Pensioned half of them off! Gave them pensions wrung out of the workers’ sweat, so that they could plot at their leisure.”

  “‘Never do an enemy a small injury,’” Jeffrey quoted. “Old Imperial saying.” Very old, from what Center said.

  Vincen’s small eyes were hot with agreement. “We should have executed the lot of them,” he said. “Now it’s too late. The government is holding off on General”—he virtually spat the word—”Libert in the hopes that if they don’t provoke him, he’ll do nothing.”

  “Stupid,” Jeffrey said in agreement. “They’re also probably afraid that if they send troops to arrest him, they’ll go over to him instead.”

  Vincen nodded jerkily. “There are loyal troops—the Assault Guards, for instance—but yes, the ministry is concerned with that.”

  “Which brings us down to practicalities,” Jeffrey said. “If there is a military uprising with Land support, what exactly do you plan to do about it?”

  “We will fight!”

  “Yes, but what will you fight with?”

  The little Unionaise linked his fingers on the table. “We have confidence that part of the army at least will remain loyal. Beyond that, there are the regional militias.”

  Jeffrey nodded. He had no confidence in them; for one thing, they had even less in the way of real training than the provincial militias back home. Some of the states of the Union were run by the conservative opposition parties, and thereby pro-Chosen. Even in the ones that weren’t, too many of the militias were under the influence of local magnates, almost all of whom supported the conservative opposition parties, as did the Church here. The Church here was a great landed magnate, come to that.

  “And we’ll hand out arms to the party militias of the coalition, and to the workers in the streets—let’s see how the Regulars like being drowned in a sea of armed workers.”

  “It’s good to see you’re in earnest,” Jeffrey said. It all sounded like a prescription for a bloodbath, but that was preferable to another swift Chosen triumph, he supposed. “For my part, I can assure you that my government will declare any outright intervention in internal Union affairs an unfriendly act.”

  That meant less than it should; semi-clandestine intervention wouldn’t provoke Santander retaliation. The Republic simply wasn’t ready for war, either physically or psychologically.

  “And I think we can guarantee that you’ll be allowed to purchase weapons. Speaking in my private capacity, you’ll also find some of our banks sympathetic in the matter of loans. Provided your government is equally reasonable.”

  “I suppose you’ll want concessions. . . .”

  They settled down to dicker; when Vincen left, the expression on his face was marginally less sour. Fortunately, the Chosen officers left a little later. The men went with their local companions; one of them stopped to say a final word with Gerta Hosten. She laughed and shook her head. The man shrugged, and the girl with him pouted. When they had left, Gerta picked up her wineglass and came over to Jeffreys table.

  “You’re welcome,” he said as she seated herself without asking permission.

  The hard dark face showed a slight smile. “We meet again. A pleasure. It would have been an even bigger one if Heinrich had had the sense to shoot you four years ago. I told him you were a spook.”

  “I’m here on vacation,” Jeffrey said, smiling back despite himself. “Besides, Heinrich doesn’t have your suspicious mind.”

  “Which is why he’s a straight-leg. Too damned good-natured for his own good.” Gerta raised her wineglass. “These Unionaise make some pretty things,” she said as the cut crystal sparkled in the evening sun. “And they make good wine. But they couldn’t organize sailors into a whorehouse.”

  “Well, that’s your problem,” Jeffrey said. “You’re the ones with the training mission here.”

  “Purely as private contractors, on leave from our regular duties,” Gerta said piously.

  “And I’m a tourist,” Jeffrey said.

  Unwillingly, he joined in Gerta’s chuckle.

  “You know the best thing about competing with you Santies?” Gerta asked. When he shook his head, she continued: “It’s not that you’re short of guts, because you aren’t, or because you’re stupid, because you aren’t that, either. It’s that you’re never, ever ready.” She finished her wine and rose.

  “And we’re going to win this round,” she said.

  “Why’s that, the invincible destiny of the Chosen race?”

  “Invincible muleshit,” she said cheerfully, with a grin that might have come out of deep water, rolling over for the killing bite. “The reason that we’re going to win this one is that we’re trying to help fuck this place up—and the Unionaise are positive geniuses at that, anyway.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Everyone in Bassin du Sud was afraid. John Hosten could taste it, even without Center’s quick flickering scans of the people passing by. The narrow crooked streets were less full of people than he’d seen on previous business visits, and the storekeepers stood at the ends of their long narrow shops, ready to drop the rolling metal curtain-doors. Windows were locked behind the scrolled ironwork of their balconies, and similar ironwork doors had been pulled across most of the narrow entranceways that led to interior courtyards. He could still get glimpses down them, the sight of a fountain or a statue in old green bronze, or a line of washing above plain flagstones.

  Gerta’s smile haunted him, seen through Jeffrey’s eyes.

  Every time he’d seen her smile like that, people started dying in job lots.

  There was something else about the streets, he decided. I hope Jean-Claude is still there. Something very odd about the streets, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

  few military personnel, Center said.

  Bassin du Sud had a fair-sized Union garrison, plus a navy base. In fact, if he turned, he could see part of it downslope from the rise he was on. His stepfather would have gone into a cold rage at the knots hanging from the rigging of the three hermaphrodite cruisers at the dock, and the state of their upperworks, but . . .

  The sound hit a huge soft pillow of air, knocking him backward. Down by the naval docks a hemisphere of fire blossomed upwards, with bits and pieces of iron and wood and crewmen from the three cruisers. A stunned silence followed the explosion, then a great screaming roar like nothing he had ever heard in his life.
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  A mob, Raj’s mental voice said softly. That’s the sound of a hunting mob.

  Over it came sounds he had no problem recognizing. First a series of dull soft thuds in the distance, like very large doors slamming. Then a burbling, popping sound that went on and on, rising and falling. Artillery and small arms.

  “I’m late, God damn it,” he said, and began to run. Perhaps too late. The rough pavement was slippery and uncertain under his boots; he kept his right hand near the front of his jacket, ready to go for a weapon.

  Careful, lad, Raj cautioned. I don’t think foreigners are going to be all that popular around here right now.

  The narrow street widened a little, into a small cobbled plaza the shape of an irregular polygon, with a fountain in the middle spilling water into granite horse troughs around it. A bullet spanged through the air. He dove forward and rolled into the cover of the troughs, ignoring the stone gouging at his back, and came up with the automatic ready in his hand.

  A man in a monk’s brown robe was staggering away from the little church on the other side of the plaza. He was a thick-bodied man, with a kettle belly and a round, plump face. A few hours earlier it might have been a good-natured face, the jolly monk too fond of the table and bottle of the stories. Now it was a mask of blood from a long cut across the tonsured scalp. Dozens of men and women in the rough blue clothing of city laborers were following the monk, jeering and poking him with sticks, spitting and kicking. The cleric’s heavy body jerked to the blows, but his wide fixed eyes looked out of blood-wet skin with a desperate fixed expression, as if his mind had convinced itself that the exit to the plaza represented safety.

  There was no safety for him. One of the mob tired of the fun. The pried-up cobblestone he swung must have weighed ten pounds; the monk’s head burst with a sound much like a watermelon falling six stories onto pavement. He collapsed, his body still twitching beneath the brown robe. John swore softly to himself and rose, letting the pistol fall down by his side. The black crackle finish of the weapon’s steel probably wouldn’t show much against his frock coat . . . and while the ten rounds in the magazine also wouldn’t be much good against a charging mob, he didn’t intend to die alone if it came to that.