The Accidental War

by Walter Jon Williams

  Martinez didn’t answer: his attention was focused on his next target and the acceleration that was dragging against his mind. His suit clamped down on his extremities to keep blood from draining from his brain, and his breath was laboring against the increasing weight that piled on his chest.

  Laredo’s course was taking him across the orbits of four of Vandrith’s moons, to V6, a small moon with a meteor-scarred face and no atmosphere to speak of.

  “You’re in sixth place,” Kelly informed him. He already knew that. Right in the middle of the pack.

  Gravities piled on Martinez like smothering blankets of heavy wool, and his heart boomed in his chest as it fought against increasing acceleration. His breath came in deep grunts forced up from his belly. Three-quarters of the way to V6 he cut the engines and pitched the Laredo over—he panted with relief in the brief moment of weightlessness—then began a deceleration that would send him past the moon and on a steep curve toward his next objective, a satellite placed ahead of V6 in its orbit.

  The deep craters of V6 flashed on his displays like yawning mouths reaching to swallow him, his periapsis so close that he was straining one of the very few safety features of the race—computer control of the yacht was forbidden unless the plotted course would result in actual collision with a planet, in which case the computer would take over and swing the yacht wide.

  This time the computer did not intervene. Martinez used a reverse gravity assist to aid the braking, his torch burning the entire time, and skipped away from V6 and on toward the satellite, which was already maneuvering. His vision narrowed, turning dark around the edges. He adjusted his course and fought for consciousness.

  “You’re overtaking Elmay,” Kelly reported. “Don’t let him burn you.”

  Martinez overtook without colliding or bathing Laredo in Elmay’s antimatter tail, and that put him in fifth. The satellite scudded past, but by that point Martinez was already burning for V7, his next target.

  “You are in fifth place,” Kelly said. “Lamanai is first. Altasz is in second.”

  And Foote is third, Martinez thought. He had some catching up to do.

  And so it went for nearly two orbits, gravities piling hard on Martinez’s body and mind as he fought for every objective. In a moment of inattention, Lamanai of the Apogee Club failed to anticipate the maneuvering of a satellite and missed her mark by a hand’s breadth; and though she was still technically ahead of the others, she’d have to detour to tag the satellite again on the final orbit, and that would take her out of the running.

  Martinez used a gravity assist from the rocky moon V9 to add a burst of speed and jump one spot ahead. He was on Foote’s tail.

  Lady Kosch Altasz, Martinez’s teammate, would inherit first place once Lamanai made her detour on the next orbit. Two other racing boats missed their targets and were out of the running. That left nine in the race.

  “Where’s Severin?” Martinez asked.

  “I’m . . . not sure,” Kelly said. “He’s in last place . . . I think. His track is wandering all over the place, I can’t work it out. His crew can’t figure out what he’s doing either.”

  Martinez didn’t have the luxury of contemplating Severin’s course: he was engaged in a massive deceleration in order to swing around V5. His vision narrowed, and he had the sense that ocean breakers were crashing inside his skull, one thunderous boom after another . . .

  The tawny bands of V5 swept past, and there was a moment of blessed weightlessness as he pitched the ship to its new heading. His moment, he thought, had just come.

  His left fist slammed the throttle forward, and he dived toward V3. Now he was on the far side of Vandrith from Kelly and his transport ship Corona, and out of direct contact—communication would be routed through a satellite on this side of the gas giant, but it would add a three-second delay each way, and any news Kelly sent him would be out of date by the time it arrived.

  The red-and-ochre mass of Vandrith completely filled his vision. Another engine flare burned close, and Martinez saw that it was Foote, aiming for V3 on a slightly different heading. That blond ninny had worked out the same trick Martinez planned to employ—or more probably he’d paid one of his crew to work these things out for him.

  Martinez would just have to do the maneuver more precisely than Foote. After which the lead would be his.

  Accordingly he maintained his burn for V3 even after he prudently should have rotated his ship and started a deceleration—clenching his teeth, fighting for every breath, his vision narrowed to a mere dot. He waited until he saw Foote cut his own engines, and then he held on for a couple more seconds before he cut power and spun the ship over. Unable to properly read the displays, he performed the maneuver by feel alone and then rammed the throttle forward again.

  His vision slowly returned, and he saw Foote’s boat hovering in the display, its engines aimed at him like the barrels of a gun, and then Foote’s antimatter fire lit again, and gamma rays promptly fried every sensor on the forward part of Laredo.

  Screens went black.

  Martinez himself was safe: Laredo’s crew compartment was surrounded by thick slabs of antiradiation armor. And he could replace the sensors on the fly: yacht designers anticipated these problems. But he wouldn’t replace them for the moment, as any new sensors would be cooked as soon as they were deployed.

  Fortunately Martinez didn’t need to look forward: he was flying stern-first, aiming for V3, the blue dot visible against the striped surface of Vandrith. He stared at V3 as his vision faded again, and his right hand on the joystick made minute adjustments to his course. This took him out of Foote’s gamma ray plume just as he jammed the throttle all the way forward and his vision faded completely beneath an avalanche of gees.

  There was a crash and Martinez’s helmet snapped back against his headrest. It felt as if someone had just dropped a ton of boulders onto his solar plexus. He tasted blood. His stern sensors showed nothing but a brilliant flash of ions.

  Laredo had just encountered the methane-rich blue atmosphere of V3. It wasn’t at a steep enough angle to dive through the methane to an impact with the planet—instead Laredo would skip off the topmost layer of the atmosphere. But contact with the atmosphere would brake the yacht, and also, since Martinez’s direction was opposite to that of the moon’s rotation, he would be slowed by a negative gravity assist.

  Leaving a brilliant trail of ionized radiation across the blue surface of V3, Martinez bounced off the moon like a rubber ball, his momentum considerably reduced. That enabled him to safely cut the corner in the race for a satellite placed in the orbit of V7, a target that Altasz and the others were heading for directly, their boats standing on tails of flame as they decelerated the hard way.

  In that moment of inspiration while looking at the course, Kelly had found a way for him to leap to the head of the queue.

  Foote and his Cockerel, trailing ions, followed Laredo three seconds behind. Martinez cut his engines, replaced his burned sensors, and oriented his boat to nip close to the target satellite and then head on to the next via a slingshot at V8. Then, head swimming, he took a breath and shoved the throttle forward again.

  “You’re in the LEAD you’re you’re LEAD LEAD the LEAD!” Laredo had just flown into direct communication with Corona again, and Kelly’s jubilant cry was echoed by the very same transmission chasing Martinez around the back of Vandrith.

  Martinez flashed by the satellite a good fifteen seconds ahead of Altasz, but by then he was accelerating again, burning for V8. Foote was still a scant few seconds behind, and Martinez was pleased in the knowledge that this time it was his gamma ray tail that was cooking his rival’s sensors.

  They were very near the end of the race. From here it was a straightforward burn to V8, then on to a satellite, then back to V12 and the finish line. Hardly challenging at all, except in terms of how much punishment the pilots could stand. It was no longer a test of maneuver and intelligence, but of stamina, conditioning, and physiology.<
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  And Foote showed every sign of rising to the challenge. His engines burned at maximum thrust, and the gravities were piling on. Martinez matched Foote’s acceleration exactly, knowing that all he had to do was keep his lead, and that Foote’s loss of his forward sensors wasn’t going to help him much.

  V8, with its ruddy atmosphere and drifts of carbon dioxide snow, loomed closer. Martinez’s thoughts crawled beneath the gravities weighing them down. He locked his track exactly where he wanted it and watched as blackness invaded his vision.

  The encounter with V8 lasted only a few seconds and was in the direction of the moon’s rotation. The slingshot added a burst of acceleration, and Martinez slammed back in his seat and felt darkness smother his mind.

  When he woke, he was in a weightless cabin. The throttle had slipped from his unconscious grip and snapped back to the neutral position, shutting off the engine. This new spring-loaded throttle was a reform that had come about as a result of the Blitsharts disaster, when Captain Blitsharts’s dead hand on the throttle kept his boat accelerating into the void for hours.

  Martinez slammed the throttle forward again and was promptly punched into his seat. He had to take a few moments to orient himself with regard to his displays, and just as he found the target satellite and corrected his course, Foote’s Cockerel slipped past him.

  “You’re in second!” Kelly called. “Damn damn damn!”

  Not for long, Martinez thought, and clenched his teeth against gravity. There was no way he would allow one of the Apogees to snatch first place from him, not after their disgusting protest.

  He passed out once more on the way to the satellite, but apparently so did Foote, and the relative position remained unchanged. Martinez came so close to the satellite that he almost obliterated it, and now he had V12 in his sights. Foote had taken a slightly different line and was now off Martinez’s bow, antimatter tail brilliant in the night.

  This time Foote passed out first, and Martinez passed him in the seconds it took him to recover, only to lose the seconds all over again when it was Martinez’s turn to lose consciousness. And then, as he regained his vision and clenched his teeth in anticipation for the final acceleration, he saw something flash across his displays far ahead of him, something that looked like a star that had broken free and shot like a skyrocket for V12.

  “What was that?” he managed, every word a battle against gravity.

  Kelly was stunned. “That was—that was Severin. He just won! He’s in first!”

  “How?” Martinez demanded.

  “I don’t know! I don’t see how it’s possible! The stewards are conferring, but the computer says he won!”

  Martinez came in third, with Foote ahead of him literally by a nose.

  “What the hell just happened?” Martinez demanded.

  Shushanik Severin had spent the first three-quarters of the race tagging satellites on a path uniquely his own, and to all appearances in a very inefficient way. The scoring computer had counted him in last place.

  The point of all his wanderings was to end far from Vandrith at V11, from which he turned and then dove at full acceleration for the surface of the gas giant, tagging two of his last three satellites but accelerating almost the entire way. When he hit Vandrith’s atmosphere, he kept his engines lit, and his boat entered at such an angle as to form an aerodynamic projectile, which meant that—instead of braking—he actually gained speed. But more importantly, as he was traveling in the same direction as Vandrith’s rotation, he benefited from a gravity assist, and—as the gas giant exerted enormous gravitational force compared to its moons—the gravity assist was colossal. Severin was fired out of Vandrith’s atmosphere at an enormous velocity, as if from the empire’s most prodigious cannon.

  Naturally Severin was rendered unconscious by the acceleration, but he recovered in time to tag the very last satellite on his way to the finish line at V12. He was traveling at such a velocity that it took him four and a half hours to decelerate and return to Corona, by which time the party had already started.

  By this time Corona and the other transports were already on their return journey to Zanshaa, traveling at a steady one gravity so that plates would stay on tables and drinks in cups. Pilots, friends, and support crew roistered back and forth between the dinner tables. Vipsania’s camera crews dragged various people off for interviews.

  Severin turned up looking a bit dazed. As he had all along, he wore his blue Exploration Service uniform, Martinez suspected because he really couldn’t afford the grand wardrobe displayed by most of the yacht captains present.

  To be sure, Martinez hadn’t enjoyed being upstaged by Severin at the climax of the race, but after a few drinks he’d grown philosophical. The Corona Club’s pilots had taken three of the four top places at the finish, and even though Martinez hadn’t personally won the Vandrith Challenge Cup, the object itself would still look very good in the club trophy case for the next six years—for the Vandrith Challenge wasn’t held annually, but only when Vandrith’s orbit took it close enough to Zanshaa to make the trip conveniently short.

  And if Martinez couldn’t win himself, he would just as soon the winner be someone he liked.

  When Martinez saw Severin enter Corona’s banqueting hall, he rushed to hand him a glass and to shake his hand. Vipsania’s cameras caught everything. Severin’s face—high cheekbones, narrow eyes, straight black hair—shook off its befuddled look as the assembled company began the “Congratulations” round from “Lord Fizz,” and a grin slowly worked its way onto his features.

  There followed the formal presentation of the cup by Lord Orghoder. It was a hideous thing, half a man’s height, solid gold, and with reliefs of allegorical figures like the Spirit of Competition, the Wings of Speed, and the Glory of Friendship. Severin offered polite thanks to Lord Orghoder and to his boat’s support staff and was then rushed off to be interviewed by one of Vipsania’s broadcasters.

  Martinez sent one of the waitrons to take him some food. The poor man deserved to eat.

  Martinez found Lady Fitzpatrick standing next to him. “Is it true,” she said, “that our new champion is a commoner?”

  “He is,” Martinez said. “But at least he didn’t file a sneaky little last-second protest.”

  Lady Fitzpatrick, the steward of the Apogee Club, gave him an accusing look. “It’s bad enough that you permit a commoner to compete. But to win?”

  Martinez fought off an unjustified urge to apologize. “Who am I to refuse the man who shut off a pulsar?”

  Lady Fitzpatrick’s eyes narrowed. She looked at the door beyond which Severin had vanished. “He is that gentleman?” she said.

  “He is.”

  She looked at him. “Clearly an original mind,” she snarled.

  Exit, muttering, Martinez thought as she wandered off. Martinez took himself to the punch bowl for a refill, where he encountered Foote, whose fair flushed face suggested he had taken a fair-sized load of alcohol on board.

  “I crossed ahead of you by one eight-hundredth of a second,” Foote said. “Aren’t you going to congratulate me?”

  “I’d be happy to,” said Martinez, “so long as I don’t have to sing that damned song again.”

  Foote seemed a trifle morose. “Your explorer friend has eclipsed us.”

  “You’ll have to settle,” Martinez said, “for the glory of commanding Light Squadron Eight.”

  The thought cheered Foote. “And what will you do by way of compensation?” he asked.

  Martinez refilled his punch cup. “This,” he said, “for starters.”

  He wandered back into the throng and found Severin heading for the buffet, having finally escaped Vipsania’s interviewers. “Thanks for sending dinner after me,” he said.

  “How do you feel?” Martinez asked.

  Severin’s hands probed his torso. “My ribs aren’t happy,” he said. “I’m trying to walk without bending over. And I’m seeing flashes in both eyes.”

  “See the ra
ce doctor.”

  Severin nodded. “After the puppet show.”

  Martinez stared at him. “The puppet show,” he repeated.

  “I was scheduled to perform tonight,” Severin said. “I’m just not sure where I fit on the revised schedule.”

  Martinez looked at Severin in amazement. Severin—a commoner, promoted for his war service into a milieu to which he could not normally aspire—had found a unique way to enter a society for which he had not been prepared by either birth or training. He had devised a sort of career for himself as an entertainer, a creator of puppet shows for a sophisticated, adult audience. He had become the pet of a number of high-status Peers, mostly women, and performed his entertainments in their parlors, for a choice audience.

  What other entertainments might follow, in certain bedrooms, were only rumored.

  Whatever they were, his talent as a performer had gained him access to high-ranking society, and in a situation in which all parties could be comfortable. His status as an entertainer had not been the least of Severin’s achievements.

  “Tonight,” Martinez said, “you’re the cynosure of all eyes. Your job is just to be at this party and enjoy yourself, and to accept the worship of your genius.”

  “Oh? That would be all right, then?” Severin seemed genuinely curious.

  “Yes,” Martinez said firmly. “You are completely forgiven.”

  A few hours later, Martinez and Vipsania stood on one of the balconies above the dining room and watched their celebration roll on. The weak and faint of heart had long since fled, and the heavy drinkers had settled in for the long haul. A group was clustered in a corner watching a sports feed from Zanshaa, and another group was rewatching the race, stopping the replay every so often for analysis. Music rose from the grand stairway that led down to the ballroom, where a few aerobically fit diehards were still dancing.

  No puppet show was in evidence.

  Water cascaded from a nearby waterfall—Corona was celebrated for its elaborately engineered water features. The transports belonging to the other yacht clubs were museums of their heritage: their paneled walls displayed portraits or memorabilia of racing pilots who had died centuries ago, and their cabinets displayed trophies that had belonged to the club for millennia.