From Harmony Square she went to the High City and Sidney’s Superior Firearms. Sidney welcomed her into his basement firing range, a place that smelled of both propellant and Sidney’s hashish. Sidney looked more like a dying man than ever, but his mustachios were waxed at a jaunty angle, and he offered her a lemonade and gave her a metal stool to sit on while he fired up his pipe. He coughed, hacked, drew in more smoke. Sula told him what was happening.
“You can come with us,” Sula told him. “We might be able to use a weapons designer. But if you stay, I hope you’ll be able to assist the Terran Secret Army that will be starting.”
Sidney was surprised. “Me? Leave the planet?”
“Why not?”
“The only person in my family ever to leave Zanshaa was my son. And he was killed in the war.”
Which had motivated Sidney to help Sula’s Secret Army during the fighting on Zanshaa. After his son’s death, Sidney had been suicidal, offering firearms that could be traced straight to him; but Sula had found him too useful to sacrifice and used him instead to design cheap, easily assembled weapons suitable for her amateur fighters.
“Do what you like,” Sula said. Even secondhand, the hashish was making her head spin. “But you have to make up your mind now.”
“Well,” he said. His pupils were wide as platters. “I’ll have to let my manager know that I’ll be out of touch for a while.”
“Tell him you’ve gone hunting.”
He laughed, and then the laugh broke down into a wheeze. He spat into a handkerchief, but then he swabbed his chin, straightened, and grinned. “Another world?” he said. “If not now, when?”
She handed him an envelope with his new identity and gave him instructions. “If you can,” she said, “you should bring some weapons with you. Suitably packed, because you won’t be allowed to carry.”
The grin broadened. “I think I know just the thing.”
Sula nodded. “I’m sure you do.”
Weapons were still on her mind the next day, when Sula was in her parlor trying to work out a way to fit an automatic weapon into a credenza. The secret compartment at the back wasn’t long enough to hold the barrel, even after she’d disassembled it, and she hated to leave the weapon behind.
“Let me look at it, my lady,” said Macnamara. He was a fair carpenter, and during the war had built secret compartments into the furniture found in their safe houses. Each apartment had been a small arsenal of firearms, grenades, explosives, and detonators.
In the back of Sula’s mind was the thought that they might have to take command of their transport. Sula had checked the policy of the shipping company, and civilians—which Sula and her friends would pretend to be—were not allowed to carry firearms on the ship. Any weapons would have to be placed in a labeled container and given to the purser for storage. Sula hoped that weapons would be unnecessary, but she didn’t want to trust to the mercies of the purser; and so she’d thought of shipping some of Macnamara’s special furniture as well. If they couldn’t get into the purser’s stores, through either compassion or bribery, they might be allowed into the hold to break the weapons free.
She wondered if she was being paranoid, then reminded herself that paranoia had kept her alive so far.
The air was scented with gun oil. On the floor was a container that Spence and Macnamara had retrieved from one of Action Team 491’s storage units. The equipment had been stored during the Naxid War, and though the weapons and armor should have been turned in at the end of hostilities, Sula had decided against it.
The tradition of paranoia was hard to break.
The container was open, which was unfortunate when Lady Koridun walked in along with Ming Lin. Sula had been expecting Lin—she was arriving to pick up her tickets for the transport—but apparently Lin had met Lady Koridun on the way and hadn’t been able to brush her off.
Lady Koridun’s blue nocturnal eyes opened wide and seemed to glow like lamps. Wordlessly she viewed the rifles, the grenades, the bricks of explosive scattered over the table.
Ming Lin’s face filled with appalled surprise. “Oh, hello!” she said. “I ran into Lady Koridun in the lobby!”
Surrounded by firearms, Sula thought, and not one of them was loaded. She straightened from her crouch behind the credenza and measured her distance to the nearest magazine.
“We’re . . . taking inventory,” she said.
A false, brittle brightness entered Lin’s voice. “Is all that left over from the war? You’ve got a lot of souvenirs!”
Lady Koridun’s eyes shifted from the weapons to Sula. “I wondered why Miss Lin canceled her video appearance next week,” she said slowly. “Now I suppose I know. You’re all running away, aren’t you?”
She had killed so many Koriduns, Sula thought, one more shouldn’t matter. She was trying to work out how to do it, decide whether Koridun would stand still while she loaded a magazine, or whether she’d have to just beat Koridun to death with a gun butt.
“How can I help?” Lady Koridun asked.
Sula was so surprised that she had no real response. “I’m sorry?”
“You’re fleeing, but you’re taking weapons with you. You’re going to start a war against Tu-hon and Tork and the rest. And I want to help.”
Lady Koridun’s tone was so reasonable and full of enthusiasm that it took a moment for Sula to formulate a response.
“Well,” she said, “you might not want to be so closely associated with Terrans right now.”
“Why should I care about that absurd claptrap?” Lady Koridun said. “Tork and Lady Gruum and so on are just wrong. You’ve been right about everything, and they’re out to punish you.” Her blue eyes gleamed. “I’ll do all I can! I’ll bring all my clients into the war on your side!”
“That may be a little premature,” Sula cautioned.
“Hah!” said Koridun. “Tell me what I need to do, and I’ll do it. But I will get to run away with you, won’t I? It’ll be so exciting!”
Sula had found Lady Koridun’s hero worship trying in the past, but now she was beginning to understand its uses.
“Well,” she said. “Let’s talk about that.”
In the end there were eighteen of them, officers, cadets, and enlisted, plus Lady Alana’s family. Lady Koridun traveled supreme class in a vast suite decorated in eight shades of cream, while Ming Lin was in first class, her suite adjacent to that of the Haz family.
Lady Koridun had a lady’s maid with her, another Torminel who knew nothing of the purpose of the journey. Koridun was supposed to be traveling to Harzapid in order to take charge of a publisher she’d bought there. Ming Lin was along to do an author tour.
Sula, under her new name of Tamara Bycke, was supposed to be a consultant helping Koridun with her acquisition. Shawna Spence was installed as Ming Lin’s servant, and the rest of the Fleet officers and enlisted were either more consultants, more servants, or immigrants leaving Zanshaa. Most traveled second class—Sula shared a room with Spence, as she had during the war. She didn’t mind second class—at least it was better than immigrant class.
For they traveled on an enormous immigrant ship bound for Chee via Zarafan and Laredo, its four giant engines capped by what looked like a silver mushroom-shaped half dome. There were thousands of voyagers aboard, all bound for their new lives, and nobody questioned the cover identities of Sula’s party. It was easy to disappear into the crowd, and Sula—with contact lenses and a wig disguising her signature green eyes and blond hair—enjoyed anonymity. She drank tea in the lounge, worked her mathematical puzzles, and tried to think as little as possible about events on Zanshaa.
She was less pleased that the ship was the Marcus Martinez, named after the paterfamilias of the Martinez family—Clan Martinez owned the ship and had built it in their own shipyards at Laredo. Lord Martinez was shipping all these immigrants to a planet under his own patronage.
Before she’d left, Sula had told everyone she would be vacationing on Zanshaa’s south
ern hemisphere, at Lady Koridun’s country estate. She figured no one would be likely to travel all that distance to discover whether or not she was there.
One of the options for video entertainment was a simulation of nearby space, and she noticed the big yacht carrier Corona leaving Zanshaa’s ring three days after the immigrant ship, after which it shaped its course directly toward Harzapid. There was speculation in the media concerning the yachting tactics that would supposedly be developed during the voyage. Trust Martinez, Sula thought, to run for his life in a way guaranteed to make himself seem important and grand.
Corona would probably arrive at their mutual destination ahead of Sula, who would have to detour by way of Zarafan.
Sula kept a watch for warships tracking outgoing vessels, but none seemed interested.
During the war, Fleet elements had traveled from Zarafan to Zanshaa in ten days under massive acceleration, but the immigrant ship, accelerating more gently, took thirty-two days to make the same journey. Sula and her party disembarked from Marcus Martinez straight onto Striver, a cargo-passenger vessel considerably smaller than the vast immigrant ship. There was room for only a hundred passengers, and while there was nothing as crowded as immigrant class, neither was there anything as grand as supreme class. Lady Koridun moved into the vacant owner’s suite, which was the best on the ship; and Ming Lin managed with a suite half the size of the one on the Martinez. Sula and Spence moved from a cabin with double beds to one with bunks.
Sula took the top.
The difference between first and second class was strictly the size of the room: there was no lounge reserved for the higher classes, and all the public spaces, including the restaurant, were used in common. There was no table service in the restaurant, but instead a buffet—and worse, high-caste passengers might think, was that crew dined along with passengers instead of being kept out of sight.
This was fine with Sula until, mere hours before departure, she saw uniformed Torminel come crowding through the passenger entry port into the common room, and she recognized the black tunics of the Legion of Diligence, the fanatical upholders of the Praxis who had dedicated their careers to the eradication of dissidence and rebellion.
Chapter 16
Once Martinez passed on Lord Chen’s message to Roland, a different organizing principle took hold. Martinez had been concerned with escaping with his family and enough officers to make a difference in any subsequent battle, but Roland’s intentions were more dynastic. Walpurga, Roland decided, would take the family yacht home to Laredo, taking with her Vipsania’s children; Roland’s daughter, Girasole; and Martinez’s daughter, Yaling.
“In case we’re annihilated at Harzapid,” Roland said, “we each need an heir in Laredo, to carry on our work.”
“You always maintain the most cheerful outlook,” Martinez said, and then he felt a wave of surprise. “You’re going to Harzapid?” he said.
“Assuming I’m welcome on Corona,” Roland said. “It won’t just be fighting at Harzapid—there will of necessity be a political element in what we’re doing. And I’ll handle that.”
I’ll handle that. Roland’s words, oozing confidence, obliterated any possible objection.
Such a jolly family vacation, Martinez thought. I wonder if Vipsania’s bringing a camera crew.
Lord Chen would stay, despite the danger. So would Vipsania’s husband, Lord Oda Yoshitoshi, to provide opposition to Tork in the Convocation.
Martinez had reasonable success recruiting officers. Since those who had worked most closely with him in the war had been denied a posting by Lord Tork, many were on Zanshaa looking for employment. Martinez hadn’t told all of them where they were going and why, just hinted there might be a confidential mission for which they’d be suited. Chandra Prasad, Sabir Mersenne, and Ahmad Husayn from Illustrious; Vonderheydte and Elissa Dalkeith from Martinez’s first command, the frigate Corona; and Martinez’s friend Lieutenant-Captain Ari Abacha, who joined the expedition with his hairdresser and his personal bartender in tow.
A special case was Lieutenant Garcia, who had escaped promotion not because she was too closely associated with Martinez, but because she had managed to miss the war completely. She’d been second lieutenant of Corona under Fahd Tarafah and had been captured along with most of the crew during the opening hours of the war. She’d spent the war in a prison camp on Magaria, her service patrons had been killed in battle, and thousands of officers with genuine war experience had been promoted over her head. Her own career had been frozen. Yet, on her last day of freedom, she had slipped her lieutenant’s key to Martinez, which allowed Martinez to unlock Corona’s weaponry and make his escape from the enemy, and Martinez always felt he owed her a debt of gratitude. She had been so desperate for employment that she’d volunteered before Martinez got halfway through his recruitment speech.
Each of the recruits was given leave to suggest others who might be willing to join the expedition. Those recruits were given no information at all, only that Captain Martinez wanted them for duty that was hazardous and extremely secret. Martinez was gratified to know that his prestige in the service was such that nine junior officers joined knowing nothing more than this.
Nor was Martinez the only person recruiting pilgrims. Roland brought Hector Braga along, for reasons that seemed obscure. All Martinez could imagine was that whatever Roland and Braga were planning, they were planning it together.
Deep sadness flooded him when he thought of Kelly, still lying in a coma in her hospital room. The escape from Zanshaa to a chaotic situation at Harzapid was the sort of thing she would have very much enjoyed.
He couldn’t take her with them, but Martinez decided he didn’t want Kelly remaining helpless in Zanshaa when the conflict started. He arranged for her to be transferred to a hospital well away from the capital.
Martinez had contacted all the Terran officers he knew and could find, all save one—the one he’d need the most, but also the one he most dreaded.
Three times, he’d found himself in her orbit. Three times, she’d run away.
He cringed at the thought of speaking with her again. Yet he wanted nothing more.
But he knew the meeting was inevitable, and so he let Alikhan drive him to the Petty Mount.
His mouth was dry as he arrived at Sula’s building, and he felt a touch of vertigo swim through his senses.
He had never ceased to dream about Sula. The flashing green eyes, the silver-gilt hair, the straight-backed hauteur that dissolved to passion in bed.
At the end of the war he had made a decision, or perhaps the decision had been made for him. To be with Sula he had been willing to risk the wrath of Terza and her powerful father; the anger of his brother, Roland; and the scorn of strangers; but when the moment came he had found himself disarmed by his child. The infant had been born at his father’s home on Laredo and brought for months across the empire to be placed in his arms at the very moment he returned to his home in Zanshaa.
When he had looked up from the wonder of Young Gareth’s eyes, Sula had been gone.
But now he had come to ask her to join him on the flight to Harzapid, and his nerves jangled as he looked up at her building.
There had been snow overnight, but the morning had brought the melt, and when Martinez left the car he stepped into a small stream running at the curb. He felt an uncomfortable moisture creeping through the seams of his shoe.
A uniformed Terran doorman opened the door for him, and he stepped into the lobby’s warmth. Another uniformed man waited behind a curved desk, and Martinez detected the impersonal sweep of the man’s eyes, eyes that grew more interested when they detected the bulge of Martinez’s sidearm under his overcoat.
“May I help you, sir?” the second man said.
Martinez began to speak, found the words jammed in his throat, then cleared his throat and spoke again. “I’m Captain Martinez. I hope to see Lady Sula.”
“Lady Sula is not in residence,” the man said. “She’s spe
nding the holiday as a guest of Lady Koridun.”
“Ah. Thank you.” Lady Koridun headed a prominent Torminel family, and Martinez could hardly chase Sula down at a Torminel Peer’s estate to warn her that a group of non-Terrans was planning to seize power.
He would have to tell Roland or Lord Chen to pass the word to Sula another way.
“Do you wish to leave a message?” the man asked.
“Just that I called on her.”
Martinez turned, and the doorman kindly opened the door for him. On his way out, he saw the weapon lying heavy in the doorman’s overcoat pocket.
Carrying firearms, he decided, was very much the new fashion.
The voyage outward from Zanshaa combined aspects of a vacation, a country house outing, and a sports training camp. Water bubbled from the fountains and waterfalls, the dining room echoed with conversation and laughter at mealtimes, and officers punished themselves pushing weights in the gym, building the muscle that would help them stand the heavy acceleration that battle might bring. Young Gareth played in the ponds and fountains, chased the rare fish, and had to be locked out of the racing yachts after he spilled apple juice on Laredo’s control panel.
All this was too strenuous for Ari Abacha, who preferred reclining with a cocktail while watching sports on video. He exerted himself to the extent of starting a sports book, and from his chaise longue in the lounge took bets on everything from lighumane to football.
Corona flew under the direction of a reduced crew augmented by the Fleet officers. Captain Sor-tan and the other non-Terrans had been furloughed with full pay, and First Officer Anderson, a Fleet veteran, was now in command. The Terran chef who had fought so well in the Corona Club riot now reigned in the kitchens.
Officially the Corona was on a mission to audition new captains for the yacht races, and so Fleet officers were allowed the use of the yachts that rode piggyback on the carrier’s hull. Races and gymkhanas were improvised. Martinez watched the races carefully. He and Michi Chen might have to promote some of these officers to command warships, and the tactics employed in a race might be the only evidence of their suitability.
The Accidental War Page 30