Conventions of War

by Walter Jon Williams

  Spence seemed dubious. “Can I leave as well? Because—”

  “You walk well enough until you get tired. So see that you don’t get tired—take cabs everywhere.”

  Spence gave a yelp of joy and leaped to her feet. Bomb components vanished into hidden compartments that Macnamara had built into the furniture, and everyone changed into clothing more suitable to a night on the town. At the door to the apartment, they separated like the flying fragments of one of their own explosive devices.

  They had been in the same small room far too long.

  Sula went toward the entertainment district along the old canals below the High City. She visited a series of clubs and cafés, sitting at the bar where she could encounter people, or at a table where she could overhear others. A number of men wanted to buy her drinks. She sipped mineral water, let them talk, and tried to steer the conversation toward the Naxids.

  All showed prudent caution about the topic—one never knew who might be listening—but alcohol eventually loosened their tongues. Several had new Naxid supervisors, but said it was too early to know how that would change things. One man had been demoted, his place in the Transportation Ministry taken by a Naxid: he was on his sixth or seventh drink and in the midst of a deep melancholy. Most were eventually willing to admit they were furious that the Naxids had taken hostages.

  “But what can we do?” one said. “We’ve got to cooperate. The whole planet is hostage now.”

  None seemed to have encountered the first issue of Resistance, let alone absorbed the wisdom Sula had so hopefully packed into it. By now she herself was depressed, and her steps brought her to a derivoo club, where she could be comforted by the existence of folk with worse problems than hers.

  The derivoo singer, face and hands whitened, stood straight beneath her spotlight and sang songs of sorrow. Betrayal, shattered hearts, death, violence, accident, suicide, horror—the derivoo’s palate was cast entirely in dark colors. The point was not so much that these griefs existed as that the derivoo was still able to sing about them. Oppressed by every imaginable catastrophe, weighted down by every fearful memory, the derivoo still stood straight and broadcast a message of defiance to the universe. I am beaten, I am bloody, but still I stand…

  Watching the performance was like observing an unforgiving war between passion and control. Too much passion, and the work would tip into melodrama and become absurd. Too much control, and the songs became soulless. The singer tonight was able to walk perfectly the knife-edge between fire and ice, and Sula felt her blood surge in response. She had seen the Home Fleet burn at Magaria, torn to ions by Naxid antimatter. She had brought her team out of the wreckage of the Axtattle ambush as Naxid bullets chewed the building to bits around them. She had watched her comrades die by torture.

  Sula had inflicted tragedy as well as endured it. She had killed five Naxid ships at Magaria along with all their crews. “It was Sula who did this!” she had called to the Naxids at Magaria. “Remember my name!”

  She had claimed the Sula name then, made it her own, even though Sula had not always been her name. Once, when she was very young—when her name had been Gredel—she’d pressed a pillow to the face of Caroline, Lady Sula, and afterward claimed the dead girl’s name, her title, and her small fortune.

  It was not clear in Sula’s mind whether that was a tragedy or not. Probably it was for Caro Sula, though it wasn’t likely Caro would have survived much longer anyway. She had already overdosed once, and would have again.

  Whether any of this was a tragedy for her was as yet unclear to Sula. She was inclined to think not. If there were tragedy involved, she intended that it would be a tragedy for the Naxids.

  She left the club feeling as if she had gained possession of some primal fact of the universe, something both despairing and joyous, and the elation carried her all the way home. Not to the apartment where she met with her team to plan assassinations and to plunder the resources of the Records Office—that was intended to be used only for meetings—but to a one-room place she’d acquired for herself.

  Life on the street was fading quickly in the dim, rationed light. The last food-seller waited only to sell his last few ears of roasted maize before packing up his grill and leaving, and Sula helped him by buying an ear, enjoying its sweetness along with the smoky taste of the charcoal and the coarse sprinkling of salt.

  With only a few streetlights burning, it was dark enough so that she was totally surprised by the figure that rose from the shadows next to the stairs. As her heart leaped, she stepped automatically into a strong stance, the corncob held in her fist like a knife…

  “Is that you, beauteous lady?”

  Sula recognized the voice and relaxed out of her stance. She spoke over the hammering of her heart. “One-Step? What are you doing here this late?”

  One-Step replied with dignity. “You never know when someone will want to see me here in my office.”

  One-Step’s office was the patch of pavement next to the apartment steps, and whatever business he conducted there remained obscure. Sula forgave him this and other flaws for the sake of his extraordinary black eyes, which were brilliant and liquid and beautiful, and on this night unfortunately invisible in the darkness.

  One-Step’s voice turned reproachful. “You haven’t been home, beauteous lady. I’ve been desolated.”

  “A friend got me a bit of work in another part of town.”

  “Work?” His voice brightened. “What kind?”

  “Inventory. But it was temporary, and now it’s over.”

  The voice turned accusing. “You’ve been off spending the money, haven’t you? Spending it without One-Step.”

  “I went to see a derivoo,” Sula said.

  “Derivoo!” One-Step scorned. “That’s all so depressing! You should let One-Step show you a good time. I’ll treat you like you deserve, like the highest Peer of the High City. Like a queen. You’ll never regret a night with One-Step.”

  “Maybe some other time. I want to get some sleep tonight.”

  “Sleep is a treacherous object. Here’s something that may keep you awake for a while.”

  He handed her a plastic flimsy, and she squinted at it as she held it to the dim yellow light of her apartment vestibule.

  Resistance, she read.

  One-Step had been trying to charm his way into her arms ever since they first met, but even so, he was probably surprised at the joyous hug and kiss.

  “Beauteous lady,” he said, “you’ll never regret—”

  “I don’t,” she said, backing away. “But you be careful who you give these to, all right?”

  He was reproachful again. “One-Step is always careful.”

  Sula’s heart was light as she entered the building, went up two flights, and checked her door for signs of intrusion. She entered, switched on the light, and looked at the copy of Resistance, properly printed on perfectly decent plastic. There was no indication where or how it had been printed, and no watermark. “A loyal friend has suggested that we send this to you…” Ah, lovely.

  Thank you, One-Step, loyal friend.

  The apartment smelled of heat and disuse. She went to the little alcove by the window and put the issue of Resistance on the broad ledge, pinning it with the pot that waited there. She opened the window to clear out the heat of the day, checked to make certain her guns and grenades were in the hidden compartments where she’d put them, then sat cross-legged on her sleeping pallet and admired the pot and news sheet together, the way the pale plastic was reflected in the blue-green crackle of the age-old pot.

  The pot was ju yao ware of Earth’s ancient Song Dynasty, an object so valuable that if her neighbors knew of it, they would have bludgeoned each other with crowbars to be the first to break into the apartment and steal it. Just before the Naxids arrived, when sad, dead Caro’s whole inheritance finally came into her possession, Sula bought the pot for fourteen thousand zeniths, a little more than half the total legacy, and much less than it was
worth.

  Porcelain was one of her passions. She had never owned a valuable piece before, but she’d decided that, given that she was going to throw her life away on what was probably a futile effort to resist the Naxids, she might as well indulge herself in this one small thing.

  The rest she had invested more practically.

  She gazed with pleasure at the pot for a few luxurious moments, then went to the bathroom to wash and prepare herself for bed. Then, because she couldn’t stand the merest hint of untidiness, she cleaned away the thin, soft layer of dust that lay over the room. After she used a duster to brush the dust reverently from the ju yao pot, she retired to her bed.

  In the morning Resistance was everywhere: pasted to lampposts, sitting on tables at cafés, weighed down on doorsteps with scraps of iron or bits of crumbled old brick. She had a sweet red bean bun at a pastry shop and filled her mug of tea from the samovar that the customers used in common. Two women in line for the samovar were talking about the copy of Resistance they’d seen.

  “Now I know what to do with that nasty Mr. Klarvash and his requests for data,” one said.

  Exulting, Sula walked the short distance to the larger apartment, and saw that the pot in the window had been moved to the position that meant Someone’s here, and it’s all clear. Even so, she entered via the back stairs, moving cautiously through the kitchen until she saw Spence sitting on the floor behind the little table, with the parts of the bomb spread out before her. Spence was staring at the video wall, and tears coursed unhindered down her cheeks.

  Sula froze. “What’s wrong?” she said.

  Spence turned her streaming eyes to Sula. “They’re shooting hostages. Fifty-five, eleven from each species. Because subversive literature was being distributed. And they’re shooting anyone they catch, and they say they’ve caught a number by now.” She reached for a handkerchief. “And it’s our fault!” she cried.

  Get a grip, Sula wanted to suggest. What do you think that bomb you’re building is for?

  Instead she stepped into the room and made soothing noises. “It’s not our fault. That’s all the enemy. It’s their fault, not ours. We’re not shooting hostages.”

  The video wall showed a group of Daimong being herded onto the execution ground. And if we’re lucky, Sula thought, if we’re really really lucky, the Naxids won’t stop shooting hostages anytime soon.

  FIVE

  “I have always found tragedy to be the most human of the arts,” said Senior Captain Lord Gomberg Fletcher. “Other species simply don’t have a feeling for it.”

  “There’s Lakaj Trallin’s The Messenger,” said Fulvia Kazakov, the first lieutenant.

  “The choral parts are magnificent, as one might expect with the Daimong,” the captain admitted, “but I find the psychology of Lord Ganmir and Lady Oppoda underdeveloped.”

  Captain Fletcher’s dinner stretched the length of the ship’s long afternoon. Every plate, saucer, cup, goblet, and salt cellar on the long table was blazoned with the captain’s crest, and the table itself sat in the midst of painted revelry. The walls were covered with murals of banquets and banqueters: ancient Terrans wearing sheets and eating on couches; humanoid creatures with horns and hairy, cloven-hoofed legs roistering with wine cups and bunches of grapes; a tall, commanding youth, crowned with leaves, surrounded by women carrying phallic staves. Statues stood in the corners, graceful seminude women bearing cups. A solid gold centerpiece crowned the table, armored warriors mysteriously standing guard over piles of brilliant metal fruits and nuts.

  The captain was a renowned patron of the arts, and as an offspring of the eminent and preposterously rich Gomberg and Fletcher clans, he had the money to indulge himself. He had ornamented Illustrious with a lavish hand, sparing no expense to create a masterpiece that would be the envy of the Fleet. The hull had been painted in a complex geometric pattern of brilliant white, pale green, and pink. The interior was filled with more geometric patterns broken by fantastic landscapes, trompes l’oeil, scenes of hunting and dancing, forests and vines, whimsical architecture and wind-tossed seascapes. Most of these works had been created in a graphics program, run off on long sheets, then mounted like wallpaper, but in the captain’s own quarters the murals had been painted on, and were subsequently maintained, by a pudgy, graying, rather disheveled artist named Montemar Jukes, who Fletcher had brought aboard as a servant and promptly rated Rigger First Class.

  Jukes dined in the petty officers’ lounge: no one present at the captain’s dinner was anything less than an officer and a Peer. All glittered in their full dress uniforms, as the captain’s long-established custom was that all meals aboard Illustrious be formal, whether they were a special occasion or not.

  He had established his rule before Martinez joined the ship, but Martinez had added his own unexpected contribution to the ritual. Since the dinners were, after all, full dress, he had worn his decorations—or, in the case of one particular decoration, carried it.

  The award in question was the Golden Orb, a baton on which was mounted a transparent globe filled with swirling gold liquid. It happened to be the highest award in the empire, given Martinez for stealing the Corona from under Naxid noses at Magaria, and every officer and crew, every lord convocate or government employee, was required to salute it.

  So the first time Martinez had arrived for one of the captain’s dinners, Captain Lord Gomberg Fletcher was obliged to jump up and salute him; and this had happened on every occasion since. The captain had been gracious about it—he was never less than gracious—but there was something in the set of the long, handsome face that suggested he had discovered a flaw in the arrangement of the universe. No Fletcher had ever before in history saluted a Martinez, and he resented the fact that he should be the first.

  Tonight, Lady Michi, the guest of honor, sat at the head of the table, with the rest below in order of precedence. Fletcher and Martinez sat beneath Lady Michi, and below Fletcher was the first lieutenant, Fulvia Kazakov, her dark hair braided and tied into an elaborate knot behind her head, then transfixed with a pair of gold-embroidered chopsticks of camphor wood.

  On Martinez’s elbow was Chandra Prasad, her knee pressed familiarly to his. Below them were ranked the other four lieutenants, the ship’s doctor, and the cadets. At the far end of the table was the one non-Terran aboard Illustrious, a Daimong cadet who had commanded a pinnace at the Battle of Protipanu and been absent from his ship, the frigate Beacon, when it was destroyed with all aboard.

  Like the other cadets, the Daimong maintained an intimidated silence in the presence of his superiors, so his views on the psychology of Lord Ganmir and Lady Oppoda went unrecorded.

  “There’s Go-tul’s New Dynasty,” Michi said. “A very moving tragedy, I’ve always thought.”

  “I consider it flawed,” said Captain Fletcher. He was a thin-faced man with ice-blue eyes that glittered from deep sockets, and silvery hair set in unnaturally perfect waves. His manner combined the Fleet’s assumption of unquestioned authority with the flawless ease of the high-caste Peer.

  He was a complete autocrat, but perfectly relaxed about it.

  “New Dynasty concerns a provincial Peer who travels to Zanshaa and comes within an ace of taking her place in elite society,” Fletcher continued. “But she fails, and in the end has to return home. She ends the story in her proper place.” He gave Lady Michi a questioning look. “How is that tragic? Genuine tragedy is the fall of someone born into the highest place and then falling from it.”

  Chandra’s hand, under the table, dropped onto Martinez’s thigh and gave it a ferocious squeeze. Martinez tried not to jump.

  “Which is more tragic, Lord Captain,” Chandra asked, her voice a little high. “A provincial who rises above her station and fails, or a provincial who rises and succeeds?”

  Fletcher gave her a sharp look, and then his expression regained its accustomed poise. “The latter, I think,” he said.

  Chandra dug her claws once more into Martinez’s
thigh. Anger vibrated in her. The other officers stiffened, their eyes on the drama being played out between Chandra and the captain. They were all aware that she and Fletcher were lovers, and they all could see that the relationship might explode right at this moment, in front of them all.

  The moment appalling, Martinez thought. It was like watching an accident: you couldn’t stop it, but you couldn’t turn away.

  “So provincials shouldn’t try to rise in the world?” Chandra asked. “Provincials should stay on their home worlds and let the High City families deal with affairs? The same families that nearly lost the empire to the rebels?” She looked at Martinez. “Where would the Fleet be if Captain Martinez had followed that advice?”

  Though Martinez had to agree that the Fleet was improved by his presence, he preferred not to be used as an example. He knew that despite his success, the captain considered him a freak of nature, something on a par with a bearded lady or a talking dog.

  He knew, but he didn’t particularly feel like rehashing it all at Michi Chen’s birthday dinner, particularly since nothing he said or did would ever alter the captain’s mind.

  “How much worse would our situation be without Captain Martinez, I’d like to know,” Chandra insisted.

  “Captain Martinez,” said Fletcher easily, “isn’t a tragic hero, so far as I know. We’re discussing theater, not real life.” He gave a graceful inclination of his head toward Martinez. “Were a figure like Captain Martinez to appear onstage, it would be a tale of high adventure, surely, not the fall of the great.”

  Chandra gave Fletcher a smoldering glare. “The great have abandoned Zanshaa and are running like hell from the enemy right now,” she said. “Do you think there’ll ever be a tragedy about that?” Her lip curled. “Or will it be a farce?”

  “I think—” Michi began firmly, with the obvious intention of ending the discussion, when a chime from her sleeve display interrupted her. The officers fell silent as she answered: they knew no one would have interrupted the squadron commander’s dinner without good reason.