The Mammoth Book of SF Wars

by Ian Whates

  “Were you watching me?” she asked.

  “I hadn’t seen you around,” Casimir said. “I was curious.”

  He had come around his desk to greet her. He was a plain-featured young man a few years older than Sula, with longish dark hair combed across his forehead and tangled down his collar behind. He wore a charcoal-grey velvet jacket over a purple silk shirt, with gleaming black boots beneath fashionably wide-bottomed trousers. His hands were long and pale and delicate, with fragile-seeming wrists; the hands were posed self-consciously in front of his chest, the fingers tangled in a kind of knot. His voice was surprisingly deep and full of gravel, like a sudden flood over stony land.

  She felt the heat of his dark eyes and knew at once that danger smouldered there, possibly for Sula, possibly for himself, possibly for the whole world. Possibly he himself didn’t know; he would strike out at first one, then the other, as the mood struck him.

  Sula felt a chord of danger chime deep in her nerves, and it was all she could do to keep her blood from thundering an answer.

  “I’m new,” she said. “I came down from the ring a few months ago, before they blew it up.”

  “Are you looking for work?” He tilted his head and affected to consider her. “For someone as attractive as you, I suppose something could be found.”

  “I already have work,” Sula said. “What I’d like is steady pay.” She took from an inner pocket of her vest a pair of identity cards, and offered them.

  “What’s this?” Casimir approached and took the cards. His eyes widened as he saw his own picture on both cards, each of which identified him as “Michael Saltillo”.

  “One’s the primary identity,” Sula said, “and the other’s the special card that gets you up to the High City.”

  Casimir frowned, took the cards back to his desk, and held them up to the light. “Good work,” he said. “Did you do these?”

  “The government did them,” Sula said. “They’re genuine.”

  He pursed his lips and nodded. “You work in the Records Office?”

  “No,” Sula lied. “But I know someone who does.”

  He gave her a heavy-lidded look. “You’ll have to tell me who that is.”

  Sula shook her head. “No. I can’t.”

  He glided towards her. Menace flowed off him like an inky rain. “I’ll need that name,” he said.

  She looked up at him and willed her muscles not to tremble beneath the tide of adrenaline that flooded her veins. “First,” Sula said, speaking softly to keep a tremor from her voice, “she wouldn’t work with you. Second—”

  “I’m very persuasive,” Casimir said. The deep, grating words seemed to rise from the earth. His humid breath warmed her cheek.

  “Second,” Sula continued, calmly as she could, “she doesn’t live in Zanshaa, and if you turn up on her doorstep she’ll call the police and turn you in. You don’t have any protection where she is, no leverage at all.”

  A muscle pulsed in one half-lowered eyelid: Casimir didn’t like being contradicted. Sula prepared herself for violence and wondered how she would deal with the Torminel.

  “I don’t believe I got your name,” Casimir said.

  She looked into the half-lidded eyes. “Gredel,” she said.

  He turned, took a step away, then swung back and with an abrupt motion thrust out the identity cards. “Take these,” he said. “I’m not going to have them off someone I don’t know. I could be killed for having them in my office.”

  Sula made certain her fingers weren’t trembling before she took the cards. “You’ll need them sooner or later,” she said, “the way things are going under the Naxids.”

  She could see that he didn’t like hearing that, either. He turned again and walked to the far side of his desk and stood there with his head down, his long fingers tidying papers.

  “There’s nothing I can do about the Naxids,” he said.

  “You can kill them,” Sula said, “before they kill you.”

  He kept his eyes on his papers, but a smile touched his lips. “There are a lot more Naxids than there are of me.”

  “Start at the top and work your way down,” Sula advised. “Sooner or later you’ll reach equilibrium.”

  The smile still played about his lips. “You’re quite the provocateur, aren’t you?” he said.

  “It’s fifty for primary ID. Two hundred for the special pass to the High City.”

  He looked up at her in surprise. “Two hundred?”

  “Most people won’t need it. But the ones who’ll need it will really need it.”

  His lips gave a sardonic twist. “Who would want to go to the High City now?”

  “People who want to work for Naxids. Or steal from Naxids. Or kill Naxids.” She smiled. “Actually, that last category gets the cards free.”

  He turned his head slightly to hide a grin. “You’re a pistol, aren’t you?”

  Sula said nothing. Casimir stood for a moment in thought, then suddenly threw himself into his chair in a whoof of deflating cushions and surprised hydraulics, and then he put his feet on his desk, one gleaming boot crossed over the other.

  “Can I see you again?” he said.

  “To do what? Talk business? We can talk business now.”

  “Business, certainly,” he said with a nod. “But I was thinking we could mainly entertain ourselves.”

  “Do you still think I’m a provocateur?”

  He grinned and shook his head. “The police under the Naxids don’t have to bother with evidence any more. Provocateurs are looking for work like everyone else.”

  “Yes,” Sula said.

  He blinked. “Yes what?”

  “Yes. You can see me.”

  His grin broadened. He had even teeth, brilliantly white. Sula thought his dentist was to be congratulated.

  “I’ll give you my comm code. Set your display to receive.”

  They activated their sleeve displays, and Sula broadcast her electronic address. It was one she’d created strictly for this meeting, along with another of what were proving to be a dizzying series of false identities.

  “See you then.” Sula walked for the door, then stopped. “By the way,” she said. “I’m also in the delivery business. If you need something moved from one place to another, let me know.” She permitted herself a smile. “We have very good documents,” she said. “We can move things wherever you need them.”

  She left, then, before glee got the better of her.

  Once outside on the hot, dark streets, she used evasion procedures to make certain she wasn’t followed home.

  Casimir called after midnight. Sula groped her way from her bed to where she’d hung her blouse and told the sleeve to answer.

  The chameleon fabric showed Casimir with a slapdash grin pasted to his face. There was blaring music in the background and the sound of laughter.

  “Hey Gredel!” he said. “Come have some fun!”

  Sula swiped sleep from her eyes. “I’m asleep. Call me tomorrow.”

  “Wake up! It’s still early!”

  “I work for a living! Call me tomorrow!”

  As she told the sleeve to end her transmission and made her way back to the bed, she decided that she’d done a good job setting the hook.

  The next day she had deliveries in the High City, the cocoa and tobacco and coffee that Sula had spent her modest fortune acquiring when she found out that Zanshaa’s ring was going to be destroyed, and that there wouldn’t be imports of anything for a long time. At each stop she talked to business owners and employees, a task which came under the heading of “intelligence gathering” even though there was no one left to report the intelligence to – all her superiors had been captured and tortured to death, their torments broadcast live to the planet as a lesson to anyone tempted by the idea of loyalty to the old regime. Sula survived by way of bombing her own apartment as the Naxid police crashed down the door, and then used her back door into the Records Office computer to give herself and he
r team clean identities.

  Sula returned to her apartment weary and sweat-stained. Gredel’s comm unit showed that Casimir had logged three calls asking her out for the night. She took a long, delicious bath in lilac-scented water while considering an answer, then picked up the comm, turned off the camera button that would transmit her image, then returned the last call.

  “Why not?” she said at the sullen face that answered. “Unless you’ve made other plans, of course.”

  The sulky look vanished as Casimir peered into his sleeve display in failed search for an image. “Is this Gredel?” he asked. “Why can’t I see you?”

  “I’m in the tub.”

  A sly look crossed his features. “I could use a wash myself. How about I join you?”

  “I’ll meet you at the club,” Sula said. “Just tell me what time.”

  He told her. Sula would have time to luxuriate in her bath for a while longer and then to nap for a couple hours before joining him.

  “How should I dress?” Sula asked.

  “What you’re wearing now is fine.”

  “Ha ha. Will I be all right in the sort of thing I wore last night?”

  “Yes. That’ll do.”

  “See you then.”

  She ended the call, then ordered the hot water tap to open. The bathroom audio pickup wasn’t reliable and she had to lean forward to open the tap manually. As the hot water raced from the tap and the steam rose, she sank into the tub and closed her eyes. She allowed herself to slowly relax, to let the scent of lilacs rise in her senses.

  The day had started well. She thought it would only get better.

  Sula adjusted her jacket as she gazed out the window of the apartment she shared with Macnamara and Spence, the two members of her team. Because of electricity shortages, only every third street lamp was lit. Most businesses were closed, and those remaining open had turned off their signs. The last of the street vendors were closing their stalls or driving away in their little three-wheeled vehicles with their business packed on the back. The near-blackout imposed by the Naxids – not to mention the hostage-taking, the round-ups that took place in public areas – had severely impacted their business, and there weren’t enough people on the streets after dark to keep them at their work.

  “I should be with you,” Macnamara argued. He was a tall young man, a bushy-haired recruit who had been the star of the Fleet’s combat course. He was from a mountain village on a backwater planet, and war was his way of seeing the worlds.

  “You should be with me on a date?” Sula laughed.

  Macnamara pushed out his lips like a pouting child. “You know what he is, my lady,” he said. “It’s not safe.”

  Sula fluffed her black-dyed hair with her fingers. “He’s a necessary evil. I know how to deal with him.”

  Macnamara made a scornful sound in his throat. Sula looked at Spence, who sat on the sofa and was doing her best to look as if she weren’t hearing this.

  Shawna Spence was a petty officer and an engineer and good at things like bombs, though her chief contribution to the war effort so far was to blow up her own apartment.

  “Can it, Macnamara,” she said.

  Macnamara ignored her and spoke to Sula. “He’s a criminal. He may be a killer for all you know.”

  He probably hasn’t killed nearly as many people as I have, Sula thought. She remembered five Naxid ships turning to sheets of brilliant white eye-piercing light at Magaria.

  She turned from the window and faced him. “Say that you want to start a business,” she said, “and you don’t have the money. What do you do?”

  Macnamara’s face filled with suspicion, as if he knew Sula was luring him into a trap. “Go to my clan head,” he said.

  “And if your clan head won’t help you?” Sula asked.

  “I go to someone in his patron clan,” Macnamara said. “A Peer or somebody.”

  Sula nodded. “What if the Peer’s nephew is engaged in the same business and doesn’t want the competition?”

  Macnamara made the pouting face again. “I wouldn’t go to Casimir, that’s for sure.”

  “Maybe you wouldn’t. But a lot of people do go to people like Casimir, and they get their business started, and Casimir offers protection against retaliation by the Peer’s nephew and his clan. And in return Casimir gets 50 or 100 per cent interest on his money and a client who will maybe do him other favours.”

  Macnamara looked as if he’d bitten into a lemon. “And if they don’t pay the 100 per cent interest they get killed.”

  Sula considered this. “Probably not,” she judged, “not unless they try to cheat Casimir in some way. Most likely Casimir just takes over the business and every minim of assets and hands the business over to another client to run, leaving the borrower on the streets and loaded with debt.” As Macnamara looked about to protest again, Sula held out her hands. “I’m not saying he’s a pillar of virtue. He’s in it for the money and the power. He hurts people, I’m sure. But in a system like ours, where the Peers have all the money and all the law on their side, people like the Riverside Clique are necessary.”

  “I don’t get it,” Macnamara said. “You’re a Peer yourself, but you talk against the Peers.”

  “Oh.” She shrugged. “There are Peers who make Casimir look like a blundering amateur.”

  The late Lord and Lady Sula, for two.

  She told the video wall to turn on its camera and examined herself in its screen. She put on the crumpled velvet hat and adjusted it to the proper angle.

  There. That was raffish enough, if you ignored the searching, critical look in the eyes.

  “I’m going with you,” Macnamara insisted. “The streets aren’t safe.”

  Sula sighed and decided she may as well concede. “Very well,” she said. “You can follow me to the club a hundred paces behind, but once I go in the door I don’t want to see you for the rest of the evening.”

  “Yes,” he said, and then added, “my lady.”

  She wondered if Macnamara’s protectiveness was actually possessiveness, if there was something emotional or sexual in the way he related to her.

  She supposed there was. There was with most men in her experience, so why not Macnamara?

  Sula hoped she wouldn’t have to get stern with him.

  He followed her like an obedient, heavily armed ghost down the darkened streets to the Cat Street Club. Yellow light spilled out from the doors, along with music and laughter and the smell of tobacco. She cast a look over her shoulder at Macnamara, one that warned him to come no further, and then she hopped up the step onto the black-and-silver tiles and swept through the doors, giving a nod to the two bouncers.

  Casimir waited in his office, along with two others. He wore an iron-grey silk shirt with a standing collar that wrapped his throat with layers of dark material and gave a proud jut to his chin, heavy boots that gleamed, and an ankle-length coat of some soft black material inset with little triangular mirrors. In one pale, long-fingered hand he carried an ebony walking stick that came up to his breastbone and was topped by a silver claw that held a globe of rock crystal.

  Casimir laughed and gave an elaborate bow as she entered. The walking stick added to the odd courtly effect. Sula looked at his outfit and hesitated.

  “Very original,” she decided.

  “Chesko,” Casimir said. “This time next year, she’s going to be dressing everybody.” He turned to his two companions. “These are Julien and Veronika. They’ll be joining us tonight, if you don’t mind.” Julien was a younger man with a pointed face, and Veronika was a tinkly blonde who wore brocade and an anklet with stones that glittered.

  Interesting, Sula thought, for Casimir to include another couple. Perhaps it was to put her at ease, to assure her that she wouldn’t be at close quarters with some predator all night.

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said. “I’m Gredel.”

  Casimir gave two snaps of his fingers and a tiled panel in the wall slid open, revealing a wel
l-equipped bar, bottles full of amber, green and crimson liquids in curiously shaped bottles. “Shall we start with drinks before supper?” he asked.

  “I don’t drink,” Sula said, “but the rest of you go ahead.”

  Casimir was brought up short on the way to the bar. “Is there anything else you’d like? Hashish or—”

  “Sparkling water will be fine,” Sula said.

  Casimir hesitated again. “Right,” he said finally, and handed her a cut-crystal glass that he’d filled from a silver spigot.

  He mixed drinks for himself and the others, and everyone sat on the broad, oversoft chairs. Sula tried not to oversplay.

  The discussion was about music, songwriters and musicians that Sula didn’t know. Casimir told the room to play various audio selections. He liked his music jagged, with angry overtones.

  “What do you like?” Julien asked Sula.

  “Derivoo,” she said.

  Veronika gave a little giggle. Julien made a face. “Too intellectual for me,” he said.

  “It’s not intellectual at all,” Sula protested. “It’s pure emotion.”

  “It’s all about death,” Veronika said.

  “Why shouldn’t it be?” Sula said. “Death is the universal constant. All people suffer and die. Derivoo doesn’t try to hide that.”

  There was a moment of silence in which Sula realized that the inevitability of misery and death was perhaps not the most appropriate topic to bring up on first acquaintance with this group; and then she looked at Casimir and saw a glimmer of wicked amusement in his dark eyes. He seized his walking stick and rose.

  “Let’s go. Take your drinks if you haven’t finished them.”

  Casimir’s huge Victory limousine was shaped like a pumpkin seed and painted and upholstered in no less than eleven shades of apricot. The two Torminel guards sat in front, their huge, night-adapted eyes perfectly at home on the darkened streets. The restaurant was panelled in old, dark wood, the linen was crisp and close-woven, and the fixtures were brass which gleamed finely in the subdued light. Through an elaborate, carved wooden screen Sula could see another dining room with a few Lai-own sitting in the special chairs that cradled their long breastbones.