The Accidental War

by Walter Jon Williams

  Lin looked thoughtful. “Will that offer hold in four or five months?”

  “Of course.”

  “Because I’ll be finishing my thesis soon, all about the crisis, and it’s going to be . . . talked about. I’ve had extraordinary access to everything that’s happened since the beginning.” Her hands made nervous darting movements through the air. “It might even be . . . important.”

  Lady Koridun regarded Lin with her deep blue eyes. “If it’s important,” she said, “perhaps its audience shouldn’t be confined entirely to the academy. Your work might deserve a larger readership.”

  “My lady,” said Lin, “I don’t know how to achieve that.”

  “My family owns a publishing house.”

  Ming Lin seemed stunned by her successive waves of good fortune. “I—don’t know how to—”

  “Thank me? Not necessary.”

  Lin was even more taken aback. "No, that’s not what I meant—though I’m grateful, of course. What I meant was, I don’t know how to write for a general audience. My thesis is very technical, with algorithms and charts and statistics . . .”

  “Perhaps we can find a collaborator for you, Miss Lin. Or a very good editor. Your choice.”

  “I—” Words failed her.

  “My advice,” said Sula, “is to surrender.”

  Lin’s hands fluttered once more, then subsided. “Yes,” she said. “Of course.”

  Sula’s hand comm gave a discreet chime, and she turned to view the message from her front office, forwarding a message from Lady Tu-hon. In two days’ time, she learned, the Steadfast League would stage marches throughout Zanshaa, on the theme of Eternal Vigilance Against Subversion.

  These marches, Sula decided, were growing less amusing.

  Chapter 11

  Autumn drizzle spattered the windows of the palace, and a gray mist obscured the view of the Lower Town. The star-shaped brass plugs, scattered over the walls and ceiling to fill the last war’s bullet holes, were dull in the dim light. Martinez and Young Gareth, confined indoors, were spending the afternoon playing a tabletop game called Barbarians of Terra. Young Gareth advanced his chariots on the left, took fire from Martinez’s field fortifications, and watched as the horses reared in panic and the chariots crashed.

  “I’m incandescent!” Young Gareth proclaimed. “Incandescent with rage!”

  Martinez paused for a moment to congratulate himself on the expansion of his son’s vocabulary. “My archers were entrenched,” he said. “Your chariots would have fared better on the other flank.”

  “Requital shall be mine,” Young Gareth proclaimed, a phrase he had learned from a Doctor An-ku drama, and ordered forward his catapults to begin the bombardment of Martinez’s redoubt.

  Martinez ordered his archers to duck and sent some skirmishers forward to locate Young Gareth’s main body. The skirmishers were promptly ridden down by cavalry, and Young Gareth chortled.

  Martinez’s sleeve display chimed. Martinez lifted his arm, saw it was Roland, and answered.

  “The Rol-mar Company’s gone under,” he said. “This is going to mean trouble.”

  The bulletin ominous, Martinez thought. “And Lady Gruum?” he said.

  “I don’t know, I haven’t been able to reach her. I need the family over here now.”

  “Right away.” He broke the connection and looked across the table at Young Gareth, who was studying the board with utter concentration and probably hadn’t heard a word that had been spoken.

  “I’m disheartened, genius,” Martinez told him. “You rode down my skirmishers, and I’m disheartened. So I’m going to surrender.”

  The boy’s eyes widened. “Really? I’ve disheartened you?”

  “Absolutely. I give up.”

  Young Gareth cackled about requital, and Martinez rose to leave and blundered into his son’s cardboard castle, knocking it over and scattering toy men-at-arms over the floor. As Young Gareth rushed to restore order, Martinez apologized, then left for the Martinez Palace.

  When he reached his brother’s home, he let himself in, shaking water off his cap. He found Roland in the lounge, sitting in a leather armchair beneath one of the eye-shaped windows. His feet were stretched out in front of him, and he was scowling at the polished toes of his shoes.

  “How did you find out?” Martinez said.

  “I have friends on Rol-mar’s board.”

  “What happened?”

  Roland shrugged. “Investment money just dried up,” he said. “Plus a lot of the investors ran into financial difficulties and put their bonds on the market, so the price fell off a cliff. No one is willing to invest in new planets any longer, not when they’re worried about starving.”

  “You’d think new planets would be the safest investment possible. It’s not as if planets are going to vanish in the night.”

  “People are more worried about the price of beans.”

  Are you disheartened? Martinez wanted to ask. He also wanted to tell Roland that his young genius had just used disheartened, incandescent, and requital in conversation, but he suspected that in his current mood Roland would not be impressed.

  He looked up as Walpurga and Vipsania entered. The two sisters both wore elegant dresses, scarves, and jewelry, and had clearly been enjoying a long lunch with friends when Roland’s call had taken them away.

  “How bad is it?” Walpurga asked.

  Roland scowled again at his toes. “The Rol-mar Company is bankrupt. Investors have lost everything. I don’t know about Lady Gruum, but whether she’s got money left or not, she’s clearly out of the picture.”

  “This is what Lord Zykov and Allodorm tried to do to us,” Martinez said. “Remember?”

  Roland was tart. “We didn’t do this. Not to Lady Gruum or anyone.”

  “I never said we did.”

  “We don’t profit from this, and we’re badly damaged. Between the Chee Company and Meridian, we have more than sixty-five thousand employees down on Rol-mar, plus millions in supplies and equipment. And that’s not counting the subcontractors’ three hundred thousand workers, and all their gear.”

  “How long can we afford to pay them?” Vipsania asked.

  “For some time, actually. Salaries are far from the largest element of our expenditure. But if we take our people off the planet—along with all the equipment and supplies—and ship them halfway across the empire to put them to work on Chee or Parkhurst—that will cost an absurd sum. I have our people working out exactly how much.”

  Walpurga walked to another armchair and sat. Vipsania went to the bar, found a soft drink, and poured it into a glass. Carbonation hissed faintly, and a lemon scent wafted into the room.

  “And of course we’re already under strain because so many of our clients are unemployed,” Roland added. “All that extra money we made from shorting the banks—” He gave Martinez a significant look. “And the side bets—it may all be needed to keep our clients dry and fed.”

  “We had always intended most of the workers to stay,” Martinez said. They were intended to be the first wave of immigrants, building their own cities, homes, and infrastructure. “Maybe,” he said hopefully, “they won’t have to leave at all.”

  “They have no title to anything,” Walpurga said. “They had to work for seven years in order to qualify for land and a home, and that time hasn’t expired.”

  Vipsania made a sour face. “So they’re out of work and they’re homeless, but we have to pay them anyway.”

  “Well,” Martinez said to Roland, “you are a convocate. Shouldn’t you be talking to Lord Saïd and arranging for another Peer to take up the patronage of the planet? Or arranging to take it on yourself?”

  “Our father is already patron to three planets,” Roland said. “They’re not going to give him another one.”

  “But still.”

  Roland gave Martinez a stony look. “I’ve tried to reach the Lord Senior. Also the chair of the Committee for Planetary Settlement. But the Convocatio
n’s adjourned for the Autumn Festival, and the Lord Senior’s off in the south at his estate. No one’s returned my calls.”

  “So why are we meeting?” Martinez asked.

  “Because,” Vipsania said, “we must decide what we need, and how to ask for it, and who to ask, and the earlier we decide that, the better.” She settled onto a sofa with her soft drink.

  Martinez conceded the point. “Obviously the best result is for another Peer to take Lady Gruum’s place as patron, and leave us in place.”

  “Obviously,” Walpurga said. “But likely?”

  “Normally the Convocation would stampede over one another for the chance to be patron to a new world,” Roland said. “But in the current financial crisis, and with Lady Gruum’s example before them, they might well hesitate.”

  “Lord Chen,” said Martinez. There was a moment of silence.

  Roland spoke thoughtfully. “I believe he may suit.”

  Walpurga looked at him. “His financial condition is very healthy, I believe?”

  Roland looked at his brother, who spread his hands. “So far as I know,” he said. “Maurice doesn’t confide in me.” He looked from one to the other. “He’s at the house in the To-bai-to Highlands for the holiday. Terza and I and the children were to join him tomorrow.”

  The other three considered this. “Could you contact him now?” Vipsania asked. “It would be useful to have his agreement before we end our meeting.”

  Martinez sighed, then lifted his left arm to view his sleeve display. “I’ll talk to Terza first,” he said.

  Roland’s hand comm went off as Martinez completed his order to his display. He paused while Roland glanced at his message, then turned to give verbal commands to the video display above the bar.

  “My office tells me there’s something I have to view,” he said, and then Lady Tu-hon appeared on the screen. She stood outdoors in a high-collared dark overcoat, and someone held an umbrella over her head to ward off the drizzle.

  “How often must we lament the conspiracies and calumnies before the administration takes action?” she demanded. An invisible throng roared its approval, and then the screen switched to a view of the crowd filling a tree-lined space that Martinez recognized as Loo Park in the Old Third district of the Lower Town. The swarm filled the park and overflowed its boundaries, and they held signs and banners that wilted in the rain. A rally of the Steadfast League, clearly. The picture cut back to Tu-hon, and her orange eyes flashed.

  “The gang of criminals responsible for the financial catastrophe is known to the authorities!” she proclaimed. “And now they have claimed another victim—a Peer of the first rank, a Peer who was trying to open an entire world for her clients and for the benefit of millions of hardworking emigrants.” Lady Tu-hon made an abrupt gesture, as if she were throwing away the hopes of those emigrants. “We must ask ourselves why the authorities refuse to act, and why they allow this gang of Terrans to continue their depredations!”

  The crowd roared, and the four members of the Martinez family looked at one another. “Gang of Terrans?” Walpurga said. “What gang do you think she has in mind?”

  “Us,” said Vipsania.

  “Us, yes,” said Roland. He frowned in thought. “But ultimately, I think, she’s aiming much, much higher.”

  “Gareth?” Terza said. Her image appeared in Martinez’s sleeve display, and when she saw his expression her face took on one of concern.

  “Gareth. What’s wrong?”

  He looked at her and took a breath. “I’m afraid there’s rather a lot of news.”

  After the Autumn Festival holiday, the Convocation resumed a debate regarding a proposed amendment to the budget reducing funding for local arts and cultural services. This was viewed as a temporary measure in view of a budget shortfall and wasn’t considered particularly controversial, but many convocates felt they should put it on record that they generally supported arts and culture despite the upcoming vote. Sula didn’t bother with any assurances and spent the debate working mathematical puzzles and sending messages back and forth to her office, and she paid little attention to the argument until she recognized the voice of Lady Tu-hon.

  Sula looked up from her puzzle and saw Tu-hon rising from her seat halfway across the amphitheater of the Convocation. A jeweled collar glittered about her neck. Her amplified voice was pitched to ring from the roofbeams. “These painful reductions would hardly be necessary if the economy had not been plundered by Terrans!” she said. “Criminals who have yet to be punished by the authorities.”

  Sula jumped to her feet at once, but it was Lord Saïd who first took action. He rose from his chair and adjusted the rings on his wand of office, reducing Lady Tu-hon’s amplification and allowing his own rhetorician’s voice to rise in the chamber.

  “I trust the distinguished lady convocate is not impugning the entire Terran species,” he said. “Such a sentiment is expressly forbidden by the Praxis, as I’m sure the lady convocate is aware.”

  “I wish to reassure the Lord Senior that I do not condemn all Terrans,” Lady Tu-hon replied, once she had her amplification back. “I refer only to the Terran criminal conspiracy who make their fortunes off the current economic distress. Cosgrove, for example, and his coconspirator Lady Kannitha Seang. And of course the Martinez clan, who not only profited off the bank failures, but who have driven the Rol-mar Company into receivership and ruined the hopes of the millions who had hoped to immigrate to this promising new world.”

  Pure astonishment snatched the breath from Sula’s lungs. Lady Tu-hon’s audacity had electrified the sleepy assembly and provided a startling contrast to Sula’s two years of dull conclaves and uninspired debate.

  Roland Martinez was already on his feet, but now furiously waved an arm to be recognized. Lord Saïd spoke first.

  “It is customary that such serious accusations be backed with evidence,” he said. “I trust the distinguished lady convocate can substantiate her allegations?”

  “The administration already possesses the evidence,” said Lady Tu-hon. “Cosgrove is in custody, and the man is clearly guilty, but there has been neither trial nor execution. The Imperial Bank during Kannitha Seang’s administration conspired with Cosgrove and committed numerous frauds, but there have been no indictments and Lady Kannitha walks freely among us. Clan Martinez’s development companies remain profitable, even as they’ve bankrupted the Rol-mar Company that employed them—and the trades of the individual members of the Martinez family, which helped to drive two banks into financial ruin, are available in the records of the Exchange, for all the empire to view.” She cast a serene glance over the room. “I say nothing of other Terrans—shadowy figures haunting the vestibules of the Convocation—who act as agents and messengers for the conspirators and their clique.”

  Sula made a mental note to tell Lamey to make himself scarce until this situation was somehow resolved.

  Roland Martinez was boiling with rage and continued to call for recognition, but Lord Saïd passed him over in favor of the Minister of Justice, who was asked to report on the progress of the prosecutions against Cosgrove and any others suspected of fraud and bad dealing. The minister reported that Cosgrove’s finances were so complex and baffling that his trial had been delayed until he could help the investigators make better sense out of them. As for Lady Kannitha, the investigators had no evidence that she had any dealings with Cosgrove whatever, or any knowledge of the bank’s Cosgrove account until after the financier’s emprise had collapsed.

  “The bank committed fraud, and Lady Kannitha was in charge of the bank,” Tu-hon proclaimed. “What more evidence is necessary? And as for Cosgrove—the authorities are now asking for his assistance? His bones should be broken with hammers, and then he should be strung from a scaffold and skinned alive!”

  The justice minister hastened to assure the Convocation that gruesome punishment awaited Cosgrove, but that a better understanding of his finances was desirable in order that new commercial re
gulation, aimed at preventing any future Cosgroves disturbing the fiscal peace, might best be promulgated. Lady Tu-hon treated this reply with scorn.

  Lord Saïd finally permitted Roland Martinez to speak. Roland decried the slanders inflicted on his family and the Terran species and insisted that the Chee Company and Meridian had been severely damaged by Rol-mar’s failure, which had stranded hundreds of thousands of workers on a barely inhabited world far from help.

  “If you had not driven banks into receivership with your destructive trades,” Tu-hon replied, “perhaps the crisis wouldn’t have reached as far as Rol-mar, and you could have continued to bilk investors out of their fortunes.”

  “Bilking? The Chee Company billed Rol-mar for work done on Rol-mar’s behalf. Does anyone allege that the work was not done?”

  “I will defer to Lady Gruum to answer that question.”

  Lady Gruum rose from her seat, looking strangely fragile with her pale face, round staring eyes, black velvet gown, and tall heels. She spoke of extortionate and ruinous demands from the Chee Company, and how she had sacrificed much of her own personal fortune to meet them, only to fail to keep up.

  Lady Gruum drew herself up and spoke with the ringing tone of a symphony. “I regret extremely that I have disgraced my ancestors by failing as patron to Rol-mar,” she said. “But I have only one piece of advice to offer to my successor—avoid the Martinez family!”

  That had Roland on his feet again, along with his allies like Lord Chen, Lord Ngeni, and Oda Yoshitoshi, all of them ready to bear witness to the essential virtue and probity of the Martinez family and the defamatory character of the allegations against them. Sula was not entirely willing to agree with them, but she was more than willing to defend her species. And besides, she knew perfectly well the reasons the economy had faltered and was willing to testify to that in open Convocation if given the opportunity. But instead the Lord Senior chose to refocus the debate.