Use of Weapons

by Iain M. Banks

  'But I want them to leave,' he said, and coughed, doubling over and almost falling off the bed. Sma went to help him, and pulled him a little further on to the bed.

  'What can't you say in front of them?' Livueta Zakalwe asked. 'What don't they know?'

  'I just want to have a... a talk in private, Livvy, please,' he said, looking up at her. 'Please...'

  'I have nothing to say to you. And there is nothing you can say to me.'

  The drone heard somebody in the corridor outside; there was a knock at the door. Livueta opened it. A young female nurse, who called Livueta Sister, told her that it was time to prepare one of the patients.

  Livueta Zakalwe looked at her watch. 'I have to go,' she told them.

  'Livvy! Livvy, please!' He leant forward on the bed, both elbows tight by his sides, both hands clawed out, palm up, in front of him. 'Please!' There were tears in his eyes.

  'This is pointless,' the old woman shook her head. 'And you are a fool.' She looked at Sma. 'Don't bring him to me again.'

  'LIVVY!' He collapsed on the bed, curled up and quivering. The drone sensed heat from the shaven head, could see blood vessels throb on his neck and hands.

  'Cheradenine, it's all right,' Sma said, going to the bed and down on one knee, taking his shoulders in her hands.

  There was a crack as one of Livueta Zakalwe's hands thumped down into the top of a table she stood beside. The man wept, shaking. The drone sensed odd brain-wave patterns. Sma looked up at the woman.

  'Don't call him that,' Livueta Zakalwe said.

  'Don't call him what?' Sma said.

  Sma could be pretty thick, the drone thought.

  'Don't call him Cheradenine.'

  'Why not?'

  'It isn't his name.'

  'It isn't?' Sma looked mystified. The drone monitored the man's brain activity and blood flow and thought there was trouble coming.

  'No, it isn't.'

  'But...' Sma began. She shook her head suddenly. 'He's your brother; he's Cheradenine Zakalwe.'

  'No, Ms Sma,' Livueta Zakalwe said, taking the drug-tray up again and opening the door with one hand. 'No, he isn't.'

  'Aneurysm!' the drone said quickly, and slipped through the air, past Sma to the bed, where the man was shaking spastically. It scanned him more thoroughly; found a massive blood vessel leakage pouring into the man's brain.

  It whirled him round, straightened him out, using its effector to make him unconscious. Inside his brain, the blood continued to pump through the tear into the surrounding tissue, invading the cortex.

  'Sorry about this, ladies,' the drone said. It produced a cutting field and sliced through his skull. He stopped breathing. Skaffen-Amtiskaw used another aspect of its force field to keep his chest moving in and out, while its effector gently persuaded the muscles that opened his lungs to work again. It took the top of his skull off; a quick low-powered CREW blast, mirrored off another field component, cauterised all the appropriate blood vessels. It held his skull to one side. Blood was already visible, welling through the folded grey geography of the man's brain tissue. His heart stopped; the drone kept it going with its effector.

  Both women had stopped, fascinated and appalled at the actions of the machine.

  It stripped away the layers of the man's brain with its own senses; cortex, limbic, thalamus/cerebellum, it moved through his defences and armaments, down his thoroughfares and ways, through the stores and the lands of his memories, searching and mapping and tapping and searing.

  'What do you mean?' Sma said, in an almost dream-like way to the elderly woman just about to quit the room. 'What do you mean, "no"? What do you mean he isn't your brother?'

  'I mean he is not Cheradenine Zakalwe,' Livueta sighed, watching the drone's bizarre operation upon the man.

  She was... She was... She was...

  Sma found herself frowning into the woman's face. 'What? Then...'

  Go back; go right back. What was I to do? Go back. The point is to win. Go back! Everything must bend to that truth.

  'Cheradenine Zakalwe, my brother,' Livueta Zakalwe said, 'died nearly two hundred years ago. Died not long after he received the bones of our sister made into a chair.'

  The drone sucked the blood from the man's brain, teasing a hollow field-filament through the broken tissue, collecting the red fluid in a little transparent bulb. A second filament tube spun-knit the torn tissue back together. It sucked more blood to decrease the man's blood pressure, used its effector to alter the settings in the appropriate glands, so that the pressure would not grow so great again for a while. It sent a narrow tube of field over to a small sink under the window, jetting the excess blood down the drain hole, then briefly turning on the tap. The blood flushed away, gurgling.

  'The man you know as Cheradenine Zakalwe -'

  Facing it by facing it, that's all I ever did; Staberinde, Zakalwe; the names hurt, but how else could I-

  '- is the man who took my brother's name just as he took my brother's life, just as he took my sister's life -'

  But she-

  '- He was the commander of the Staberinde. He is the Chairmaker. He is Elethiomel.'

  Livueta Zakalwe walked out, closing the door behind her.

  Sma turned, face almost bloodless, to look at the body of the man lying on the bed... while Skaffen-Amtiskaw worked on, engrossed in its struggle to make good.

  Epilogue

  Dust, as usual, followed them, though the young man said several times he thought it might rain. The old man disagreed and said the clouds over the mountains were deceptive. They drove on through the deserted lands, past blackened fields and the shells of cottages and the ruins of farms and the burned villages and the still smoking towns, until they came to the abandoned city. In the city they drove resoundingly through the wide empty streets, and once took the vehicle crashing and careering up a narrow alley crammed with bare market stalls and rickety poles supporting tattered shade-cloths, demolishing it all in a fine welter of splintering wood and wildly flapping fabric.

  They chose the Royal Park as the best place to plant the bomb, because the troops could be comfortably accommodated in the Park's wide spaces, and the high command would likely take to the grand pavilions. The old man thought that they'd want to occupy the Palace, but the young man was convinced that in their hearts the invaders were desert people, and would prefer the spaces of the Park to the clutter of the Citadel.

  So they planted the bomb in the Great Pavilion, and armed it, and then argued about whether they'd done the right thing. They argued about where to wait things out, and what to do if the army ignored the city altogether and just went on by, and whether after the prospective Event the other armies would retire in terror, or split up into smaller units to continue the invasion, or know the weapon used had been unique, and so maintain their steady progress, doubtless in an even more ruthless spirit of vengeance than before. They argued about whether the invaders would bombard the city first, or send in scouts, and - if they did shell - where they would target. They had a bet on that.

  About the only thing they agreed on was that what they were doing was a waste of the one nuke their side - indeed either side - possessed, because even if they had guessed correctly, and the invaders behaved as they'd anticipated, the most they could hope to do was wipe out one army, and that would still leave three more, any one of which could probably complete the invasion. So the warhead, like the lives, would be wasted.

  They radioed their superiors and with a code-word told them what they had done. After a little while they received the blessing of the high command, in the form of another single word. Their masters didn't really believe the weapon would work.

  The older man was called Cullis, and he won the argument about where they ought to wait, and so they settled into their high, grand citadel, and found lots of weapons and wine and got drunk and talked and told jokes and swapped outrageous stories of derring-do and conquest, and at one point one of them asked the other what happiness was, and receiv
ed a fairly flippant reply, but later neither could remember which one had asked and which one had answered.

  They slept and they woke and they got drunk again and they told more jokes and lies, and a light shower of rain blew softly over the city at one point, and sometimes the young man would move his hand over his shaved head, through long, thick hair that was not there any more.

  Still they waited, and when the first shells started to fall they found they'd picked the wrong place to wait, and so went scrambling out of it, down the steps and into the courtyard and into the half-track and then away, out into the desert and the wasteland beyond, where they camped at dusk and got drunk again and stayed up specially that night, to watch the flash.

  Zakalwes Song

  Watching from the room

  As the troops go by.

  You ought to be able to tell, I think,

  Whether they are going or coming back

  By just leaving the gaps in the ranks.

  You are a fool, I said,

  And turned to leave,

  Or maybe only mix a drink

  For that deft throat to swallow

  Like all my finest lies.

  I faced into the shadows of things,

  You leant against the window,

  Gazing at nothing.

  When are we going to leave?

  We could get stuck here,

  Caught

  If we try to stay too long. (turning)

  Why don't we leave?

  I said nothing,

  Stroked a cracked glass,

  Exclusive knowledge in the silence;

  The bomb lives only as it is falling.

  - Shias Engin.

  Complete Collected Works (Posthumous Edition).

  Month 18, 355th Great Year (Shtaller, Prophetican calendar).

  Volume IX: 'Juvenilia and Discarded Drafts'

  STATES OF WAR

  Prologue

  The path up to the highest cultivation terrace followed an extravagantly zig-zag route, to allow the wheelchairs to cope with the gradient. It took him six and a half minutes of hard work to get to the highest terrace; he was sweating when he got there, but he had beaten his previous record, and so he was pleased. His breath smoked in the cold air as he undid the heavy quilted jacket and wheeled the chair along to one of the raised beds.

  He lifted the basket out of his lap and balanced it on the retaining wall, took the cutters from his jacket pocket and looked carefully at the selection of small plants, trying to gauge which cuttings had fared best since their planting. He hadn't chosen the first one when some movement up-slope attracted his attention.

  He looked through the high fence, to the dark green forest. The distant peaks were white against the blue sky above. At first he thought it was an animal, then the figure moved out of the trees and walked over the frost-whitened grass towards the gate in the fence.

  The woman opened the gate, closed it behind her; she wore a thin-looking coat and trousers. He was mildly surprised to see that she didn't have a rucksack. Perhaps she had walked up through the grounds of the institute earlier, and was now returning. A visiting doctor, maybe. He had been going to wave, if she looked at him as she took the steps down to the institute buildings, but she left the gate and walked straight towards him. She was tall; dark hair and a light brown face under a curious looking fur hat.

  'Mr Escoerea,' she said, extending a hand. He put down the cutters, shook her hand.

  'Good morning, Ms...?'

  She didn't reply, but sat down on the wall, clapped ungloved hands together, looked around the valley, at the mountains and the forest, the river, and the institute buildings down-slope. 'How are you, Mr Escoerea? Are you well?'

  He looked down at what was left of his legs, amputated above the knees. 'What is left of me is well, ma'am.' It had become his usual reply. He knew it might sound bitter to some people, but really it was his way of showing he did not want to pretend that there was nothing wrong with him.

  She looked at the trousered stumps with a frankness he had only known before from children. 'It was a tank, wasn't it?'

  'Yes,' he said, taking up the clippers again. 'Tried to trip it up on the way to Balzeit City; didn't work.' He leant over, took a cutting and placed it in the basket. He made a note of which plant he'd taken it from, and attached it to the twig. 'Excuse me...' He moved the wheelchair along a little, and the woman got out of his way as he took another cutting.

  She stepped round in front of him again. 'Story I heard said you were dragging one of your comrades out of its -'

  'Yes,' he interrupted. 'Yes, that's the story. Of course I didn't know then the price of charity is developing extremely strong arm muscles.'

  'You get your medal yet?' She squatted down on her haunches, putting one of her hands on a wheel of his chair. He looked at the hand, then at her face, but she just grinned.

  He opened his quilted jacket, showed the uniform tunic underneath, with all its ribbons. 'Yes, I got my medal.' He ignored her hand, pushed the chair along again.

  The woman rose, squatted down again, beside him. 'Impressive display for one so young. Surprised you weren't promoted faster; is it true you didn't show the right attitude to your superiors? That why -'

  He threw the clippers down in the basket, wheeled the chair round to face her. 'Yeah, lady,' he sneered. 'I said the wrong things, my family were never very well-connected even when they were alive and now they're not even that, thanks to the Imperial Glaseen Air Force, and these...' He clutched at the chest of the tunic, hauling at the medal ribbons, brandishing them. 'These I'd trade you; all of them for a pair of shoes I could wear. Now,' he leant forward at her, took up the clippers. 'I have work to do. There's a guy down in the institute who stepped on a mine; he hasn't got any legs at all and he lost an arm. Maybe you'd find it even more fun to go and patronise him. Excuse me.'

  He whirled the chair around, moved off a few metres, and took a couple of cuttings, tearing at two plants almost at random. He heard the woman on the path behind him, and put his hands on the wheels, pushing himself away.

  She stopped him. Her hand held the back of the wheelchair and she was stronger than she looked. His arms strained against the wheels; the rubber buzzed against the stone path, wheels turning but not propelling him anywhere. He relaxed, looked up at the sky. She came round in front of him, squatted down again.

  He sighed. 'What exactly do you want, lady?'

  'You, Mr Escoerea.' The woman smiled her beautiful smile. She nodded at the stumps. 'By the way; the deal with the medals and the shoes; fair enough.' She shrugged. 'Except you can keep the medals.' She reached into the basket, took out the clippers and stuck them into the earth under the plants, then put her hands, clasped, on the front of the seat. 'Now, Mr Escoerea,' Sma said, shivering. 'How would you like a proper job?'

  END

  Table of Contents

  Slight Mechanical Destruction

  Prologue

  1: The Good Soldier

  One

  XIII

  Two

  XII

  Three

  XI

  Four

  X

  Five

  2: An Outing

  IX

  Six

  VIII

  Seven

  VII

  Eight

  VI

  Nine

  V

  3: Remembrance

  Ten

  IV

  Eleven

  III

  Twelve

  II

  Thirteen

  I

  Fourteen

  Epilogue

  Zakalwes Song

  STATES OF WAR

 

 

 
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