She hadn’t even offered him an explanation. It was as if the necessity of an explanation had never even occurred to her. She’d just folded her arms, the pistol still in her hand, and asked if he’d help her cover up a crime.
He needed to get rid of the body. If he didn’t, it might turn up again in a way that could hurt him.
At the motor pool he checked out a viridian-green Sun Ray van, and the great weight descended on him again.
After his brief hour of freedom, Martinez turned into the lane. He drove over the curb and parked with the side door close to the barred gate, and the two Military Constabulary guards on duty advanced warily as they cradled their rifles. Martinez left the van and they braced.
“I’ve got to sneak a dignitary out the back of the Residence,” he told them. “Could you go to either end of the lane and make sure no one’s paying attention?”
His voice sounded false, as if he were speaking the most obvious lie in the world, but the two constables opened the gate and trotted to their respective corners. Martinez rolled up the side door of the van and walked into the court.
Sula appeared with a motorized cart, the kind the Residence used to move furniture and luggage. Braga rolled in his carpet on the cart, surrounded by camouflage in the form of luggage, a lamp, and a dining room chair.
“Where’d you find the cart?” he asked in surprise.
“I looked for it,” Sula said, in a tone that froze any more questions in advance.
Martinez glanced left and right at the constables and saw they were looking out for observers, so Martinez climbed into the van, seized the rolled carpet, and yanked while Sula shoved. He’d grabbed the feet without realizing it, and through the carpet he heard Braga’s head thumping on the sill as he came inside. The dining room chair wobbled and fell over. Martinez lay for a moment breathing hard, a stretch of the carpet a weight in his lap, and then he shoved the carpet away and rolled down the van door. Sula retrieved the chair and motored the cart back into the court, then returned, closed the gate, and jumped through the van’s passenger door. Martinez set a course deeper into the dockyard. Neither of them spoke as the van moved on its silent electric motors.
A sensation of moist, cloying, palpable dread filled the van. Martinez’s heart slowed, speeded, slowed again. He felt sweat gathering under his collar.
He dismissed throwing Braga out an airlock. Anything released from the ring would be at escape velocity and would float slowly away from the planet and into space. An object as large as a body would be spotted on radar, and some very advanced telescopes would be trained on it to discover what it was before a shuttle was sent out to retrieve it.
In the end the rolled carpet was hidden in a disused refrigerator. The walk-in refrigerator had been on the heavy cruiser Judge Kasapa, had been damaged at Second Shulduc, and had been replaced. The discarded unit was in a warehouse filled with scrapped hardware, all of it so useless that the Fleet wasn’t even bothering to guard it. At some point in the indefinite future the scrap would be sold to the highest bidder, and the body would either be discovered or it wouldn’t. Martinez hoped that it would have decayed to the point where identification would be impossible, but in any case Martinez, Sula, and the Fourth Fleet would be long gone, and running the empire. A magistrate would need a lot of convincing evidence before he set about any kind of investigation.
Sula and Martinez didn’t speak until he drew up before the back gate of the Celestial Court. “Buy a new carpet,” Martinez said. “Replace that mirror. Wash the floor in something that will destroy DNA.”
“What destroys DNA?” Sula’s voice was hoarse and dull and showed no interest in the answer.
“I have no idea,” Martinez said, “but I’m sure you know how to do research.”
She left the Sun Ray and Martinez returned it to the motor pool. Back in the Residence, he went to his bedroom and stared at his bed for a long moment, then realized he’d never be able to sleep. He called to Mangahas for coffee and sandwiches, and he stayed up late writing orders. He told Dalkeith that he and his staff would be shifting back into the Los Angeles tomorrow, and then he sent notices to his staff to that effect.
Sula’s pale, disdainful face seemed to stare at him from every dark corner of the room. The scent of propellant still hung in his nostrils. He realized he could never be in the same ship with Sula again and thought about how to replace her. His squadron and division commanders had all earned their places and might view the post of tactical officer as a demotion. He decided instead to invite Paivo Kangas. Though his brother, Ranssu, commanded a squadron, Paivo was a lieutenant-captain in command of a frigate, and the post of tactical officer could be regarded as a step up.
Martinez realized that Macnamara would remain with Sula, and that he’d need a new orderly. He wanted someone as wired into the culture of the enlisted crew as Alikhan had been, and so he searched through records for highly rated, retired petty officers who had returned to the colors and come up with a number of plausible candidates. He offered them the opportunity to audition for the job, and then went to his room and carefully packed his belongings after laying out clean linen and a uniform for the next day.
He didn’t know what to do with Sula, other than make sure he was never alone with her again. Then he remembered her plans for using the transport ships as bases for training and decided to put her in charge of that. Accordingly, he drafted orders for the transports to organize as Division Nine of the Fourth Fleet, Lady Sula commanding. He drafted the order to Sula, then decided not to send it until morning, after he’d had a chance to think.
He got a bottle of brandy from the buttery, drank two stiff shots, and went to his bed. His head had barely touched the pillow before he realized he’d scented it with Sandama Twilight, and he leaped from his bed as if his nerves had been jolted by an electric shock. He threw the pillow in a closet and found a new one, but adrenaline kept him from sleeping for a long time, and then his sleep filled with dark, uneasy, doubtful dreams.
Sula scrubbed the tiles with a conventional cleaner that she found in a cupboard. It might not destroy DNA, but at least no one would find a pool of blood on her floor.
A more complete cleanup would have to wait until morning, along with the new carpet and the new mirror.
She might as well follow Martinez’s orders, she thought. Her own ideas seemed to be worthless.
For the moment she felt numb, but she was aware that the numbness would soon crumble like a dam made of spun sugar and release a flood of horror, reproach, and black despair. Why didn’t I tell him? she thought. She searched her mind for some kind of justification she could have offered.
I did it for you. Unlike, it must be said, her other murders.
Right. I did it for you. That would completely have worked. Martinez would have come back to her in a second.
The floor was as clean as she could make it, and the room reeked of disinfectant. She put it and the cleaning materials away, then returned to the living area. Her motions felt strange to her, as if she were just learning to walk, feeling the floor beneath her feet with every step.
She stopped in the dining area and stared without comprehension at the dinner plates beneath their covers, the bottle of wine in its ice-filled cradle. Cooking scents threatened to turn her stomach. She pushed the nearest dish away, and it rang on the crystal goblet intended for Martinez.
Sula looked at the goblet, and then at the wine nearby. Droplets of condensation shone on the bottle like gemstones.
A powerful need for the alcohol struck her, and for a moment she stared at the bottle without breathing. Then she reached for it and poured.
How much worse can it get? she thought, and drank.
Martinez woke in the morning to the sound of an alarm from his sleeve display. Martinez jumped from the bed without quite realizing where he was, then shrugged into his uniform tunic and cued the display.
“This is Senior Squadron Commander Foote, Lord Fleetcom.” This early in the m
orning, Foote’s superior-sounding High City drawl managed to sound even more annoying than usual. “I’m the duty officer on the communications desk, and we’ve received a transmission from Zanshaa that I think you should see.”
“Have they surrendered?” Martinez asked.
“No, my lord. The opposite, if anything.”
Martinez dressed quickly and walked downstairs to the Residence’s communications room, a lushly appointed expanse filled with scalloped, gilded desks, chairs with sinuous curves, and video displays in ornate frames. Foote awaited him, his uniform immaculate, his face set in an expression of studied unconcern. His cowlick waved like a blond flag on the side of his head.
“What’s happened?” Martinez asked.
“It’s a news item,” Foote said. “It wasn’t addressed to us, but they must have known we’d see it.”
Foote triggered the recording, and Martinez saw a news reader offering her report in her sonorous Daimong voice. “The Commandery led the people in rejoicing at the appearance in the Zanshaa system of a hundred and sixty-six ships of the Third Fleet, under the authority of Fleet Commander Lord Pa Do-faq, victor of the Battle of Hone-bar in the War of the Naxid Rebellion.”
Martinez felt a stir of annoyance at this claim, since he’d always viewed himself as the victor of the Battle of Hone-bar, for all that Do-faq had been the senior officer commanding.
The news item continued with a telescopic view of a new, bright constellation composed of the deceleration torches of the Third Fleet heading for Zanshaa, and then cut to a clip of Do-faq. “I am pleased to be able to contribute my forces to those arrayed against disorder and rebellion,” he said. “I am further pleased to announce that a further forty ships, once held hostage by the deceased traitor Nguyen, will be on their way to Zanshaa as soon as their conversion from Terran crews is complete.”
Do-faq looked older than Martinez remembered him and had lost the youthful dark feathery hair on the sides of his head. The added maturity made him look even more like a stern, successful commander, ready to set the empire to rights.
The news reader went on to recapitulate how Nguyen had held the Third Fleet at Felarus by threat of force, but that Do-faq had secretly mobilized specialist teams and killed the Terran rebels before they could fire their weapons. Nguyen and his officers and crews had met their just end, and Do-faq had been accelerating for Zanshaa for the last two months, the journey kept secret until their triumphant arrival.
“Do-faq,” Martinez muttered. “Damn.” Do-faq was far from a hidebound conservative like Tork. He had been an early supporter of the Martinez Method and had drilled his own squadron in its intricacies on the return trip from Hone-bar. He was a good commander, and Martinez couldn’t count on his being as predictable as Tork had been. In any fight, Do-faq would be using Martinez’s own tactics against him.
“If we count Rivven and An-dar,” Foote said, “we have seventy-five ships. We’re very close to Zanshaa here. Do-faq could arrive here in a matter of days with more than twice our numbers.”
“And there are the sixteen ships Tork left at Zanshaa,” Martinez said. “That gives Zanshaa’s complete numbers at a hundred and eighty-two.”
Roland will never let me hear the end of it, Martinez thought. If Roland hadn’t insisted on stopping the Fourth Fleet at Zarafan, they’d be at Zanshaa now, being turned to ash by Do-faq’s cruisers.
Tactics and countertactics were already playing themselves out in Martinez’s mind. Missiles flashed, lasers crackled, and only one possible result presented itself.
“There’s no way we can fight them,” he muttered. “Not a damn hope. We’re going to have to retreat to Harzapid and hope that Wei Jian’s Second Fleet defectors finally turn up, and that we can use the nineteen ships under repair. That would give us . . .” He paused in calculation.
“A hundred and fifty-seven,” Foote said promptly.
“Making victory at least possible.”
Foote gave him an inquiring look. “We’re assuming the news item is true,” he said. “But what if it’s disinformation aimed at getting us to make a precipitate retreat?”
“I want our best analysts looking at that recording for any hint that it’s faked,” Martinez said. “But right now, we have to assume that the enemy are doubling down on their chance of victory.”
And that means we have to double down as well, Martinez thought. He called for a flask of coffee to be delivered to his office and ran up the steps while composing orders in his mind.
And as he ran, he thought about how he was going to have to fight the rest of the war without his finest weapon. Because no one had ever made a better team than he and Sula, and now he wanted never to see her again.
About the Author
WALTER JON WILLIAMS is a New York Times bestselling author who has been nominated repeatedly for every major sci-fi award, including Hugo and Nebula Awards nominations for his novel City on Fire. His most recent books are The Accidental War, Conventions of War, The Sundering, The Praxis, This Is Not a Game, and Quillifer. He lives near Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his wife, Kathleen Hedges.
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Also by Walter Jon Williams
The Second Books of the Praxis
The Accidental War
The First Books of the Praxis: Dread Empire’s Fall
The Praxis
The Sundering
Conventions of War
Investments
Impersonations
Novels
Hardwired
Knight Moves
Voice of the Whirlwind
Days of Atonement
Aristoi
Metropolitan
City on Fire
Ambassador of Progress
Angel Station
The Rift
Implied Spaces
Quillifer
Quillifer
Quillifer the Knight
Maijstral
The Crown Jewels
House of Shards
Rock of Ages
Dagmar Shaw Thrillers
This Is Not a Game
Deep State
The Fourth Wall
Diamonds from Tequila
Historical Fiction
To Glory Arise
Brig of War
The Macedonian
The Tern Schooner
Cat Island
Collections
Facets
Frankensteins and Foreign Devils
The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
fleet elements. Copyright © 2020 by Walter Jon Williams. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Digital Edition DECEMBER 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-246706-5
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-246704-1
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