Conventions of War (11 page)

“Nothing in the inspection could have provoked it?”

“No, my lady. The captain complimented Thuc on his department before killing him.”

Again Michi drew in her breath. Her eyes grew thoughtful. “You can think of no reason?”

Martinez hesitated. “The captain and Lieutenant Prasad…ended…their relationship yesterday. But if he was going to kill anyone over it, I don't know why it would be Thuc.”

Maybe Thuc was handy,
he thought.

Michi considered this a moment. “Thank you, Captain,” she said finally. “I appreciate your informing me.”

There was a clear tone of dismissal in her words, and Martinez wanted to protest. He wanted Michi to ask him to stay so they could work out some kind of theory about what had just happened and why, and then decide on a course of action. But Michi left him no choice but to stand, brace, and make his way out.

Martinez had to pass Fletcher's quarters on his way to his own. The captain's door was closed. As he walked past, he strained his senses to detect anything that might be happening inside.

Like what?
he thought.
A burst of maniacal laughter? A pool of blood creeping from under the door?

There was nothing.

He entered his own office and left the door open in the event that someone might want to talk to him.

No one did.

T
he fourth edition of
Resistance
flew into the world on wings of electrons, carrying with it the announcement that Laurajean and his two colleagues had been killed as a result of the sentence of a tribunal of the secret government. Sula identified Laurajean's two friends as well, having gotten the names from the death certificates filed electronically in the Records Office.

The tribunal has passed other sentences, and execution is now pending,
Sula wrote.

That should put a scare into them.

The previous three editions had been sent out with the forged security heading claiming they'd originated at the broadcast node of the Naxid-occupied Hotel Spartex. Sula decided that the Spartex had probably suffered as much as it was likely to from the Naxid security services, so she looked through some of Rashtag's mail, found the code for the broadcast node at the Fleet Commandery, and used that instead.

Now the Naxid security services would have to investigate the Naxid Fleet. The Fleet, she thought, was just going to
love
that.

Sula munched a pastry filled with sweet red bean paste as she sent out the usual fifty thousand copies of
Resistance,
then licked her fingers, closed her connection to the Records Office computer, and turned to where Spence and Macnamara waited, playing a puzzle that Spence had just bought from a street vendor. It was an intricate tangle of wire, with beads that moved from one intersection to the next, and could sometimes jump from one connection to another.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the puzzle, Sula looked at it with her chin propped on her fists. “What's the point of it, exactly?” she said.

Spence gave a puzzled frown. “I'm not sure. When the vendor demonstrated the thing, it all seemed pretty clear. But now…”

Sula moved a bead along the wire to the next intersection, but it failed to move any farther. She moved it in the other direction, and with a sudden clang the entire puzzle fell apart into a jangling snarl of wires and beads.

She drew back her finger and looked at the others. “Was that
supposed
to happen?” she asked.

Spence blinked. “I don't think so.”

Sula stood up. “Maybe we should try something a little less challenging.”

Spence looked up at her. “Yes?”

“Win the war.”

“Right.” Spence rose reluctantly to her feet.

“And in the meantime we need to deliver some cocoa.”

It was Macnamara who rented the truck this time, after which the three drove to one of the warehouses where Sula was keeping her cocoa, coffee, and tobacco, all in boxes labeled to discourage theft and marked
USED MACHINE PARTS, FOR RECYCLING
.

“We can't keep doing the fighting ourselves,” Sula said as she drove alongside one of the slow, greenish canals that cut the Lower Town near the acropolis. “We need an army. And the problem is, we haven't got one.”

The plan that Sula and Martinez had originally developed involved raising an armed force to hold Zanshaa City against the Naxids, confident that while the enemy would murder any other population without compunction, they would never dare destroy the capital and all the legitimacy that it symbolized. But the government had decided against that part of the plan, and instead settled for training Sula and Eshruq's action teams, most of whom were now ash drifting along the streets of the Lower Town.

The original plan would have worked much better, Sula thought.

“We can try recruiting,” Macnamara said. “Ardelion and I can each can put together another cell.”

Cells consisted of three people, like Sula's action team. Each cell leader would know only the members of his own cell and a single member of the cell above, the better to preserve security. Everyone would be known by code names only, to reduce the chances for betrayal. Contact between cells would be through cutouts and letter drops, to prevent anyone from listening to electronic communication.

“Right,” Sula said, “we can recruit. And I can start by training PJ.”

Macnamara gave a snort of laughter. Sula shook her head. “No, it's too slow. By the time we had the first lot trained, and they each trained a few others, and so on until we had an entire network, we'd all have gray hair and the Naxids will have—Oh, damn.”

They came to a halt behind a truck offloading produce from a canal boat. Sula craned her neck, but she couldn't see whether there was enough clearance between the produce truck on one side and a Lai-own clothing emporium on the other.

“Stick your head out,” Sula told Macnamara. “See if we've got room here.”

Macnamara opened the window, and the rotting-flesh stench of the Daimong laborers floated into the vehicle along with the scent of green vegetables and the iodine smell of the canal. At the taste of the air, a shudder of memory trembled up Sula's spine. “The hell with it,” she decided.

She shifted the truck to all-wheel-steering and crabbed into the gap. A metal rack of Lai-own clothing was run against a brick wall and slightly buckled, and Macnamara gave a wince as he drew in his head and closed the window to the sudden yelps of the Lai-own shopkeeper. Sula accelerated and kept on going.

“May need a little more practice in the driving department, boss,” Macnamara said.

“Too slow,” Sula said. “We can't train them in time. They've got to train themselves.”

There was a moment, and then Spence nodded. “
Resistance,
” she said.

“Exactly.”

They delivered the cocoa to Seven Pages, and as the chef counted out the money, she asked, “You heard they shot more hostages?”

“Yes?” Sula asked.

“Thirty. And they were all relatives of the people who were shot yesterday.”

“Ten hostages shot for each Terran,” Sula said. “And nearly five hundred for a Naxid.” Her mind had already outlined another editorial on the subject for
Resistance.

The chef gave a sour nod. “Exactly. I'd say that's a good advertisement for how things are going to be.”

“Do we get a free dessert?” Spence asked.

“Not this early, you don't. Be off, I've got work to do.”

The door to the cargo compartment hummed shut on electric motors. Macnamara made certain the cargo door was locked and joined Sula and Spence in the cab.

“Lots of cocoa left,” he told Sula. “What's it for?”

“Samples,” Sula said. “We'll be spending the day visiting other restaurants. Some in the High City.”

A good place to gather information, she thought. And they'd contact coffee shops and tobacco clubs as well.

Spence, tucked in the cab between Sula and Macnamara, turned to Sula. “Lucy,” she said, “are you still ‘Lucy' when we're on these deliveries? If we use that name in front of people we don't know, that's a clue to your cover identity. Gavin and I can fall back on our code names and go by Starling and Ardelion, but
your
code name is four-nine-one, after our team. We can't call you that.”

“No, you can't.” Sula glanced over the street, the people moving in the shade of the gemel trees that were bright with their white summer blossoms. From the shadows she heard the echo of a name, and she smiled.

“Call me Gredel,” she said.

That night, with the reflected rays of Shaamah glowing on the
ju yao
pot and One-Step quietly passing copies of
Resistance
on the pavement outside, she wrote with her stylus on the modestly intelligent, glowing surface of her table, producing an essay on how to organize a loyalist network into cells. She threw in every security procedure she could think of, from code names to letter drop procedures.

She realized that she had done part of her job already. Copies of
Resistance
were being passed from hand to hand along spontaneously formed, informal networks. For her purposes the networks already existed: all she had to do was professionalize them.

The unsuccessful networks would be caught and killed, she thought. All taking bullets meant for her.

The successful networks she would hope to contact later—so they could be killed by other bullets when she needed them.

M
artinez set the wall video to the tactical display, but he didn't pay a lot of attention to it. He couldn't stay in his seat: he was compelled to pace, and march, and conduct imaginary conversations with every officer on the ship.

By the time Alikhan came in with his dinner, he'd worked himself into a near frenzy. “What's happening?” he demanded the instant Alikhan entered. “What are people saying?”

With a series of deliberate gestures Alikhan put the covered plate in front of Martinez and arranged his napkin and silverware. Then he straightened and said, “May I close the door, my lord?”

“Yes.” It was all Martinez could do to avoid shouting the word.

Alikhan quietly closed the door and said, “Lady Michi asked Dr. Xi to report to her. He did so. Then she asked for Captain Fletcher, and he reported to her as well.”

“Any notion of what was said?”

“No, my lord.”

Martinez found himself grinding his teeth. He very much wanted to know what Fletcher said to the squadcom.

“How are the petty officers taking it?” he asked.

“They're huddling with one another, talking quietly.”

“What are they saying?”

Alikhan straightened with quiet dignity. “They're not speaking much to me, my lord. I've not been aboard very long. They're talking only to people they know they can trust.”

Martinez drummed his fingers on his thighs in frustration. Alikhan quietly uncovered Martinez's plate, revealing a rehydrated filet drizzled with one of Perry's elaborate sauces. Martinez looked up at him.

“Do they think the captain's mad?” he said.

Alikhan considered the question for a moment before answering. “They don't understand the captain, my lord. They never have. But mad? I don't know what a doctor would say, but I don't think the captain fits any definition of madness a petty officer would recognize, my lord.”

“Yes,” Martinez said. The answer depressed him. “Thank you, Alikhan.”

Alikhan withdrew. A few moments later Martinez looked at his plate and discovered that his food was gone. Apparently he'd eaten it, though he couldn't remember doing so.

He thought about inviting the lieutenants for an informal meeting aboard
Daffodil.
Or the premiere lieutenant, Kazakov, to a dinner. To talk, and perhaps to plan for eventualities.

But no. That might call Fletcher's attention to his lieutenants. Because of his position on Michi Chen's staff, Martinez was one of the few people aboard
Illustrious
that Fletcher couldn't legally kill. The lieutenants weren't so lucky. If Fletcher suspected Kazakov of plotting with Martinez, then Kazakov might be in jeopardy.

Martinez sipped his glass of water, flat and tasteless from its trip through the recyclers, and then called Alikhan to clear the table. Just as Alikhan was leaving, Martinez's sleeve comm chimed.

“Martinez,” he answered, and his heart leaped to see the squadcom's face on the display.

Now, he thought, Michi would call him to a conference, and the two of them would work out something to do about Fletcher.

“Lord Captain,” the squadcom said, “I'd be obliged if you'd arrange a squadron maneuver—an experiment, rather—in three days, after we pass Termaine.”

Martinez fought down his surprise. “Yes, my lady. Do you want any kind of experiment in particular?”

“Just make sure it lasts at least a watch,” Michi said. “We don't want the squadron to get rusty.”

“No, my lady.” He paused for a moment in hopes Michi would open the subject of the killing, and when nothing was said, he hopefully asked, “Do you have any other requests, my lady?”

Michi's tone was final. “No, my lord. Thank you. End transmission.”

Martinez gazed for a moment at the orange end-stamp on his sleeve, then blanked the display.

Chenforce hadn't had a maneuver since before Bai-do, so it was probably time to shine the squadron's collective skills. The ships would be linked by communications laser into a virtual environment and fight a battle against an enemy force, or split into two divisions and battle one another.

Maneuvers in the Fleet, traditionally, were highly scripted, with the outcome determined in advance and the ships and their crews rated on how well they performed the tasks they were assigned. Michi, however, had requested an “experiment,” a type of maneuver that Martinez and Squadron Commander Do-faq had developed after the Battle of Hone-bar. In an experiment, the outcome of the maneuver was not determined in advance, and the ships and their commanders were free to improvise and experiment with tactics. It was a measure of Michi's generosity that she was willing to permit this: most commanders would have insisted on knowing they were going to win ahead of time.

What was perhaps more important under the current circumstances was that while the maneuver was going on, Fletcher would not be conducting inspections, and thereby not be tempted to execute subordinates in passing.

Nor could Fletcher conduct an inspection while Chenforce flew by Termaine in two days. Everyone would be at general quarters for ten or twelve hours while they waited to see if Termaine would attempt resistance.

That left tomorrow, still a routine day in which the captain was free, if he desired, to conduct an inspection. Martinez wondered why Michi hadn't ordered a maneuver then as well as three days hence.

Perhaps, he thought, Michi was giving Fletcher a test. One more dead petty officer and she'd know what steps to take.

He looked at the naked winged children that had been painted on his office walls, and he wondered at the mind that could both commission such art and plan a cold-blooded killing.

Martinez threw himself into planning the experiment. He altered the composition of the forces several times and modified the fine details obsessively. It was a way to avoid thinking about Fletcher, or remember Thuc falling with a fan of scarlet spraying from his throat.

That night, he wore a virtual headset and projected the starscape from outside
Illustrious
into his mind, hoping it would aid his sleeping mind in achieving a tranquility that had eluded him all day. It seemed to work, until he came awake with his heart pounding and, in his mind, the black emptiness of space turned to the color of blood.

Breakfast was another meal eaten without noticing the contents of his plate. He dreaded hearing the businesslike sound of heels on the deck, Fletcher and Marsden and Mersenne, marching to his door to summon him to another inspection.

Even though he half expected the sound, his nerves gave a surprised, jangled leap when he heard it. He was on his feet and already half braced when Fletcher appeared in his open door, wearing full dress, white gloves, and the knife in its curved, gleaming scabbard.

“Captain Martinez, I'd be obliged if you'd join us.”

Cold dread settled over Martinez like a rain-saturated cloak.

“Yes, my lord,” he said.

As he walked to the door, he felt light-headed, possessed by the notion that everything from this point was predestined, that he was fated to be a witness to another inexplicable tragedy without being able to intervene, that within an hour or two he would again be reporting to Michi Chen while somewhere in the ship crew scrubbed blood from the deck.

Once again the captain wanted him as a witness. He wished Fletcher had just brought a camera instead.

Again Fletcher's party consisted of himself and two others. One was Marsden, the secretary, but Mersenne had been replaced by Lord Ahmad Husayn, the weapons officer. That told Martinez where the party was going, and he wasn't surprised when Fletcher took a turn two bulkheads down and headed through a hatch into Missile Battery 3.

Gulik, the rat-faced little master weaponer, stood there braced along with his crew. Once more Martinez watched as Fletcher conducted a detailed inspection, including not just the launchers and loaders, but the elevator systems used to move personnel along the battery, the large spider-shaped damage-control robots used for repairs during high-gee, when the crew themselves would be strapped in their acceleration couches and barely able to breathe or think, let alone move. Fletcher checked the hydraulic reservoirs of the robots, inspected the radiation-hardened bunker where the weaponers would shelter in combat, and then had two missiles drawn from their tubes. The missiles were painted the same green, pink, and white pattern as the exterior of the ship, and looked less like weapons of war than strange examples of design, art objects commissioned by an eccentric patron, or perhaps colorful candies intended for the children of giants. The captain dusted them with his white-gloved fingers—he expected missiles in their tubes to be as clean as his own dinner table—then had them reinserted and asked Gulik when the loaders had last been overhauled.

At last Fletcher inspected the weaponers themselves, the line of immaculately dressed pulpies, arranged in order of rank with the petty officers at the end.

Martinez felt his perceptions expanding through the battery, sensing every last cable, every last switch. He seemed hyperaware of everything that occurred within that enclosed space, from the scent of oil on the elevator cables to the nervous way Husayn flexed his hands when the captain wasn't looking to the sheen of sweat on Master Weaponer Gulik's upper lip.

Gulik stood at the end of the line, properly braced. Fletcher moved with cold deliberation up the line, his practiced eyes noting a worn seam on a coverall, a tool inserted in its loop the wrong way around, a laundry tag visible above a shirt collar.

Martinez's nerves flashed hot and cold. Fletcher paused in front of Gulik and gazed at the man for a long, searching moment with his deep blue eyes.

“Very good, Gulik,” Fletcher said. “You're keeping up your standards.”

And then Fletcher, incredibly, turned and walked away, his brisk footsteps sounding on the deck, his knife clanking faintly on the end of its chain. Martinez, head swimming, followed dumbly with the rest of the captain's party.

Out of the corner of his eye, as he stepped over the hatch sill, he saw Gulik sag with relief.

Fletcher led up two companionways, then turned to Martinez.

“Thank you, Captain,” he said. The superior smile twitched again at the corners of his mouth. “I appreciate your indulging my fancies.”

“Yes, my lord,” Martinez said, because
You're welcome
wasn't quite the effect he was after.

Martinez went to his office, sat behind his desk and thought about what he'd just seen. Fletcher had called him to witness an inspection at which nothing unusual had occurred.

Fletcher makes scores of inspections every year, Martinez thought. But he's only killed
one
petty officer. So how eccentric was that?

An hour or so later Lieutenant Coen, Michi's red-haired signals officer, arrived with an invitation to join the squadcom for dinner. Martinez accepted, and over a cup of cold green melon soup informed Michi that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred at the morning's inspection.

Michi didn't comment, but instead asked about the experiment in two days' time. Martinez outlined his plans while frustration bubbled at the base of his spine.

What are you going to do?
he wanted to ask. But Michi only spoke about the war game, and then of the flight past Termaine the following day.

At the end of the meal he was more baffled than ever.

That night he came awake out of a disordered dream to find himself floating. He glanced at the amber numerals of the chronometer that glowed in a corner of the wall display and saw that it was time for a course reorientation around one of the Termaine system's gas giants, a final slingshot that would send Chenforce racing past the enemy-held planet.

Martinez watched the seconds tick past, and then the engines fired and his mattress rose to meet him.

Two hours later Alikhan woke him with a breakfast of coffee, salt mayfish, and one of Perry's fresh brioche. Afterward, Alikhan began assisting him into his vac suit in preparation for the walk to the Flag Officer Station.

Everyone on the ship knew the hour at which general quarters would be called, and most were now struggling into their vac suits, or would be shortly.

The suit checked its own systems and displayed the result on its sleeve display: all was well. Martinez took a last sip of coffee, then took his helmet from Alikhan and dismissed him to go to quarters, where he'd don his own suit with the aid of another weaponer.

Martinez clomped down the corridor, awkward in the suit, and dropped down two decks to the Flag Officer Station. Michi was already present, along with her aides Li and Coen. Michi stood with her back to him, her helmet off, her hair tucked into the cap that held her earphones and the projectors of the virtual array. The unfixed chin strap dangled on her shoulder. Her head was bent and one hand was pressed over an ear as if to hear better.

Even in the bulky suit Martinez could see the tension in her stance. “Stand by,” she said, and swung around to him, her face a mask of furious calculation. He braced.

“My lady.”

“I need you to take command of
Illustrious
immediately. Something's happened to Captain Fletcher.”

“Has he—” Martinez began.
Run amuck with a kitchen knife, perhaps?
He couldn't seem to find a way to phrase the question tactfully.

Michi's words were clipped and curt, nearly savage. “There's a report he's dead,” she said. “Now get to Command and take charge before things go completely to hell.”