The Praxis

by Walter Jon Williams

  Tarafah seemed little mollified. “That’s good. But I still can’t believe that Fanaghee would take advantage of the Festival of Sport in this way. It just isn’t right!”

  “My lord,” Martinez said. “I no longer believe that the Naxids are planning a surprise inspection.”

  Tarafah blinked at him. “What?” he said. “What are you bothering us with, then?”

  Martinez tried to settle his leaping wits. “You don’t need weaponers or engineers or constables to pull an inspection, Lord Elcap,” he said. “You need weaponers to control the weapons bays. Engineers to control the engines. And constables to control the crew—and the officers.”

  Tarafah’s brows knit as he tried to puzzle it out. “Yes. That’s true. But what are you saying?”

  Martinez took a deep breath. “I think the Naxids are going to board the ship and take her. Take all the ships they don’t have already.”

  Tarafah gave a puzzled frown. “Why would Fanaghee do that? She doesn’t need to capture our ships. She’s already in command of the Second Fleet.”

  To prevent his hands from trembling with eagerness and frustration, Martinez clamped them on the butter-smooth edge of the table and squeezed.

  “She could be acting to suppress a mutiny she believes is about to break out,” Martinez said. “Or it could be a rising of some kind.”

  The trainer, Mancini, seemed even more puzzled than his captain. “On the Festival of Sport?” he demanded in a high, peevish voice. “A rising on the Festival of Sport?”

  “What better time?” Martinez asked. “Most of the crew, and all the senior officers, will be off the ship watching the games.”

  “The Naxids are participating in the festival,” Koslowski said. “They’re having a huge tournament of lighumane, and—” He hesitated. “Some of the other sports they do.”

  “On the Festival of Sport?” Mancini repeated. “Spoil the football and disappoint the fans? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” Tarafah said. “Why should Fanaghee lead a rising? She’s at the top of her profession—she’s a fleet commander, for all’s sake.”

  “I don’t know,” Martinez said. He hesitated—he knew this might sound dangerously absurd, but it was the only argument he had left. “Maybe it’s not just Fanaghee,” he said. “Maybe all the Naxids are rising.”

  The others stared at him. Then Koslowski lowered his eyes and shook his head, his lips quirked in a tight smile. “All the Naxids?” he murmured. “That’s too ridiculous.”

  “The Naxids are the most orthodox species under the Praxis,” Tarafah said. “There’s never been a single rebellion in Naxid history.”

  “They’re pack animals,” Koslowski said. “They always submit to authority.”

  “They’d never spoil the football,” Mancini proclaimed, and smacked his lips as he drank his ale.

  “Then what could they possibly be doing?” Martinez asked. “I have no other explanation.”

  “That doesn’t mean there isn’t one,” Koslowski said reasonably. “Maybe Fanaghee’s decided to drill her people on boarding. Maybe it’s a familiarization tour for new arrivals. Who knows?”

  Tarafah seemed happy to agree with his goalkeeper. “This speculation is useless,” he said. “I’m not going to get inside Fanaghee’s mind, or Kulukraf’s either.” He turned to Martinez. “Lord Gareth, I appreciate your…diligence. But I think you’ve let your imagination run away with you.”

  “Lord Elcap,” desperately, “I—”

  “Perhaps we should return to tomorrow’s game,” Tarafah said. “That’s something a little more within our sphere.”

  Martinez suppressed the impulse to hurl his glass at his captain’s face.

  “To our winning play!” Mancini said, and raised his glass. “Sorensen to Villa to Yamana to Sorensen to Digby—and goal!”

  Martinez drank with the others, as despairing, unvoiced shrieks echoed one after another in his skull.

  He didn’t manage to eat much of his dinner. When the elcap proposed another review of the videos of Beijing’s game, Martinez excused himself and made his way to his cabin. Once there, he sent messages to the other officers he knew on station, asking if they’d care to meet him in one of the bars on the station. Salzman didn’t reply, Ming sent his regrets, Aragon said that he was participating in the wushu tournament in the Festival of Sport and was making an early night of it. Aidepone was likewise preparing for tomorrow’s game of fatugui, and only Mukerji accepted. Viewing the transmission, with its sonic interference, Martinez knew that Mukerji was already in a bar.

  Martinez joined him in the Murder Hole, a dark, nebulous, and noisy place, with ear-shattering music and dancing. Mukerji bought three rounds of drinks while Martinez showed Mukerji the Naxid maneuvers on his sleeve display and explained his theory.

  Mukerji put a friendly arm around Martinez’s shoulders. “I always thought you were mad!” he said cheerfully. “Totally mad!”

  “You can tell your captain!” Martinez shouted over the music. “I can give you the data! He might be able to save his ship!”

  “Totally mad!” Mukerji repeated. He pointed to a couple of Fleet cadets standing by the bar. “If it’s my last night of freedom, I want some recreationals,” he said. “Who do you want—the redhead or the other?”

  Martinez excused himself and made his way out onto the ring station with whisky fumes swirling through his head.

  Perhaps he was mad, he thought. No other officer credited his theory about the Naxids. Maybe they’d been right about the absurdity of his premise. It made no sense that the most obedient and orthodox species under the Praxis would suddenly turn rogue.

  He admitted to himself that he didn’t like Naxids and never had. He likewise admitted that it was an irrational prejudice. Naxids had always made him uneasy, unlike the other species united beneath the Praxis. Perhaps he had let his bias run in advance of the facts.

  He thought again of those parties marching up and down the ring station’s broad avenue, and at the thought, a chill certainty went through his frame.

  No. He was right. The Naxids were going to board the ship. It was possible there was some rational explanation for it other than a rising, some reason that hadn’t occurred to him, but the boarding would happen.

  And if the boarding were to be prevented, Martinez would be the one to do it.

  Martinez returned to his cabin aboard Corona and called Alikhan.

  “My lord?”

  “No good with the captain,” Martinez said. “Or with anyone else.”

  Alikhan didn’t seem surprised. “I have spoken to the master engineer,” he said.

  “And?”

  “Maheshwari agrees with your lordship.” Spoken carefully, in case of eavesdroppers.

  Martinez sighed. Maheshwari was something, at least.

  “Very well,” Martinez said. “Let me know if—” He fell silent, defeated, then finished, “Let me know if anything.”

  “Very good, my lord.”

  The orange End Transmission symbol appeared on Martinez’s sleeve display, and he blanked it.

  Fully aware that this was the last time he might ever do these things, he took off his clothes, hung them neatly in his tiny closet, and prepared for bed.

  Plans for saving Corona eddied through his head, all fog and futility.

  Sorensen to Villa to Yamana to Sorensen to Digby, he thought.

  And goal.

  TEN

  Martinez, with most of Corona’s crew, stood on the station rim outside the airlock and cheered and clapped as Tarafah led Corona’s team out of the ship. Immaculate in white sweats, with Corona’s blazon on his chest and his lieutenant captain’s shoulder boards pinned on, Tarafah grinned and waved as if he were jogging into a stadium filled with ten thousand fans. Koslowski followed at the head of the players.

  “Corona! Corona!” the crew chanted. Martinez pounded his big hands together till they were s
ore.

  The team jogged away to the rim train station that would take them to the skyhook terminal, and were followed by the waddling figure of their trainer, Mancini. Lieutenant Garcia, in undress mourning whites, whooped and waved her cap over her head.

  “Let’s go!” she shouted. “Let’s give the Coronas our support!”

  Shouting, most of the crew poured after the team, leaving behind the cadets condemned to spend the day aboard, and Dietrich and his partner Hong, both looking depressed at having to play military constable while the rest of the crew was off on a lark.

  Served them right for being large and handsome, Martinez thought. Since the airlock guards were the members of Corona’s crew most often seen by outsiders, Tarafah chose them for their imposing appearance rather than for any skill at policing.

  Lieutenant Garcia herself remained behind, cheering and clapping as the crew pounded after their team. Then she turned to Martinez and stepped up to him.

  “Take this,” she said in a soft voice, and Martinez felt something warm and metallic pressed into his palm. “Just in case you’re right.”

  Martinez glanced at his half-opened hand, saw Garcia’s second lieutenant’s key, and felt his mouth go dry. He shut his fist on the key.

  “Koslowski doesn’t wear his key while playing,” Garcia murmured. “I don’t know where he keeps it. Try his safe.”

  Martinez managed a nod. “Thank you,” he said.

  Garcia’s dark eyes held his. “If they take the Fleet,” she said, “blow everything. The ships, the ring, everything.”

  Martinez stared into the dark eyes. His nerves wailed like violin strings tuned to the breaking point. “I understand,” he said.

  Garcia gave a quick, nervous nod, then turned and ran after her crew.

  Martinez let his breath out slowly as he watched Fleet personnel stream past along the rim. They laughed and shouted, carrying banners and signs, their officers striding with them, happy to let them have fun. It was their first holiday since the period of mourning began, and they were ready for an delirious good time, already drunk on freedom and anticipation.

  Martinez watched them go by and wondered what would happen if he just ran out among them and started shouting, “Back to your ships! There’s a rising! If you go down to the planet, all is lost!”

  He’d be laughed at, if he was lucky. If he was unlucky, he’d be hit on the head by the constables and dragged off to jail.

  Blow everything, he thought again. There were thousands of personnel on the ships and the ring station, and millions of civilians, all to be vaporized or blown to bits—but only if he was right about the Naxid rising. If his fears were justified, everything was already lost.

  Except maybe Corona. Maybe he could save his ship.

  He put Garcia’s key in his pocket, then turned to face the airlock. Dietrich and Hong stood there, stiff-spined in the presence of officers, along with Warrant Officer First Class Saavedra, a middle-aged, mustachioed man who had double duty as Corona’s secretary and supply officer, and Cadet Kelly, a lanky, clumsy pinnace pilot in charge of the weapons department in the absence of the drunken master weaponer.

  “Kelly. Saavedra. After you.” Martinez made shooing motions with his arms, and the two turned obediently and headed into the airlock. Martinez began to follow, then paused by the two constables. Dietrich and Hong braced as they detected his inspection.

  “I want you to understand,” Martinez said, “that no one comes aboard Corona without my permission.”

  “Yes, Lord Lieutenant,” the two chorused, eyes forward.

  “And by that I mean anyone,” Martinez continued, speaking with forceful emphasis that he hoped did not sound either fanatic or insane. “If Anticipation of Victory itself comes back from the dead and demands to be let on, you are not to let him aboard without my express permission.”

  The two blinked in surprise. “Very good, Lord Lieutenant,” Dietrich said.

  Martinez looked from one to the other. His mouth was dry and he hoped his voice wouldn’t break. “And furthermore,” he said, “you will use all necessary force to prevent anyone from coming aboard who does not receive my permission. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Lord Lieutenant,” the two chorused again, though Martinez could see more of their eye whites than he should, a sure indication they thought the third lieutenant was out of his mind.

  “There is a special order I wish to give you,” Martinez said. “If I think it necessary for you to retreat from this post through the airlock and into the ship, I will transmit the words ‘Buena Vista.’” He looked at them, then repeated with special emphasis, “ ‘Buena…Vista.’ Repeat the words, please.”

  “Buena. Vista.” In chorus.

  “Buena Vista,” Martinez repeated again. The name of the house on Laredo where he’d been born, the name given by his romantic mother in words that belonged to an antique Terran language no longer spoken and read only by scholars.

  He could see, drawn through the ether between the two constables in invisible letters, the conviction that he was insane.

  “Very good,” Martinez finished. “I’ll send Alikhan out with refreshments every so often. Remember what I said.”

  There were four doors between Martinez and the interior of Corona, two at the rim airlock, where Dietrich and Hong stood guard, and two on the frigate’s bow lock, with the docking tube in between. Martinez moved along this series of barriers and entered his kingdom.

  A kingdom with nineteen subjects, most present in obedience to the regulation that required every vessel in commission to carry sufficient crew aboard, even in dock, in case an emergency required that the ship be maneuvered. A dozen of those aboard were intended to work the ship, and the rest consisted of the two constables and a full kitchen staff preparing a huge celebratory meal in anticipation of Corona’s victory.

  Martinez let himself into the ship’s small armory with his lieutenant’s key, then summoned Alikhan and Maheshwari. While he waited he signed out a sidearm and strapped the weapon on its constable-red belt around his waist. He signed two more out to Alikhan’s and Maheshwari, then handed Alikhan’s pistol to him as he arrived, along with a red constable’s armband and helmet.

  “I’m thinking of sending you to the airlock,” he said. “Those boys might need some stiffening.”

  “Very good, my lord.” He looked at the armory datapad, then signed for his weapon and pressed his thumb to the weapon’s ID scanner.

  “And another thing,” Martinez said. “I want you to go to the riggers’ locker and get whatever you’ll need to drill the first lieutenant’s safe.”

  Alikhan nodded. “Do you wish that done immediately, my lord?”

  “No.” Breaking into the premier’s safe in search of his key was, among other things, a capital crime, and if he were discovered, it would be a race between the Criminal Investigation Division and the Legion of Diligence to see who would kill him first. Martinez wasn’t quite willing to commit himself to the executioner’s garotte just yet.

  “Just have the equipment ready in the lord lieutenant’s cabin. If we have to burn gees out of here, it’ll be easier to have what you need on hand rather than have you try to haul it to Koslowski’s cabin under three and a half gravities.”

  “Very good, my lord.”

  Maheshwari arrived and braced to the salute. He was a small, mahogany-skinned man, with crinkly hair gone gray, a pointed beard, and mustachios dyed a spectacular flavor of red.

  Martinez handed him a sidearm. “I hope this won’t be necessary,” he said.

  “There won’t be trouble in my division,” Maheshwari said as he signed for the weapon and scanned in his thumbprint. “But I can’t speak for some of the other folk on board.”

  “In a short while I’m going to call for an engine startup drill. It takes forty minutes or so to ready the engines for a cold start, yes?”

  Maheshwari smiled with brilliant white pebble-sized teeth. “It can be done much faster, my lord.�
�

  “Let’s not. I want the drill to seem as normal as possible.”

  As possible was the key here. No drill was going to be normal on the Festival of Sport.

  “The electrical and data connections are dropped at three minutes forty, if I remember,” Martinez said. “We’ll start the drill and then hold at four minutes.”

  “Beg pardon, my lord,” Maheshwari reminded, “but water and air connections are dropped at four minutes twenty.”

  “Oh. Right. We’ll hold at five, then.”

  “Very good, my lord.”

  Dropping water, air, electrical, and data connections to the ring station would be the station’s first warning if Corona left its berth unexpectedly. Martinez wanted to delay that warning as long as he could.

  At least he was confident that, if necessary, he could leave his berth when he wanted to, whether the engines were ready or not. He knew that 641 years ago a raging fire had broken out in Ring Command on Zanshaa’s ring station, subsequently spreading to seven berthed ships, all destroyed along with their crews. The ships could not unberth, or even close their airlock doors, without permission from Ring Command, which by then had been gutted by fire.

  Since then, regulations had insisted that a ship under threat could unberth without permission, and had complete control of its airlock doors. Martinez could get Corona out of its berth; the only question was whether the other warships would permit her to survive past that point.

  Martinez did his best to pretend that he had his imperturbable, omnipotent officer’s face on, and ventured to give the master engineer a confident smile. “Good luck, Maheshwari.”

  Maheshwari’s response was courtly. “The same to you, Lord Lieutenant.”

  The engineer braced in salute and returned to Engine Control.

  Martinez locked the armory and went to the central belt elevator that would take him to Command, then hesitated, one hand on the wide belt that held his sidearm and stun baton. If he walked into Command wearing this thing, everyone would consider him a lunatic. If the Naxids did nothing, or if what they did had a rational explanation, then the entire crew would know by the end of the day. He’d become a laughingstock.