The Eternal Front: A Lines of Thunder Novel (Lines of Thunder Universe)

by Walter Blaire

  Of course, he couldn’t picture it until she painted the picture for him. Among the polluted, foresight was uncommon, and imagination a cause for suspicion. Nana tapped her heart, and then opened her hand. The teaching mudra jolted him to attention.

  “What is going on, Kinsur?”

  He was slow in answering. Hiding something. “They could simply be here to keep order, given all those new troops.”

  “It could be simply that, but it isn’t,” she said. “Otherwise you would have said so.”

  “They’re here to stifle information about something else,” Kinsur confessed. “They’ve known for several months, and word leaked out almost immediately, but it went to all the wrong people. It generated unrest and rumors of rebellion, but nobody important found out until me. Me, and now you.”

  “What is this next development?”

  “A new space ship has entered the Grigory solar system.”

  “A ship.” Nana’s voice caught.

  “The Haphans have much better optics than we do. Satellites high in the air, and some technology they brought down on Landing Day. We also had a bloodbath at the Sesseran observatory, the only Tachba observatory on the planet, you know. The sky-watchers argued about how the ship entered the system, and then they fought. It lost us some imaginative scrags, irreplaceable old men. You know how people hate drudge work, and what’s more dreary than staring at the stars? Anyway, it took a while for them to collect themselves, remember the ship, and get word to the Planners.”

  “The news never reached my Observers,” Nana said.

  He spread his hands helplessly. “Haphans. Stifled. I can only point out that the news has now reached you.”

  “A space ship!”

  “One ship, which transited into view three months ago. It’s huge. Big enough even for our telescopes to see the occlusions in the stars. It might be the first of many.”

  “Do the Haphans think it’s another wave of colonization?”

  “I can’t begin to guess what the Haphans think and what they know. They might be in contact with the ship even now with one of their old communication machines. Anyway, it was a simple matter to trace the movements of the secret police a few months into the past. They were keeping order in the other provinces, which aren’t as civilized as our Sessera. The local Native Affairs office requested their reassignment. The Spiderfish herself, Jephesandra Tawarna, went to Falling Mountain to beg resources from the Gray House. She met with rejection, and then demanded a personal audience with the local empress. With the results you now see.”

  Demanded? Of the empress? The Haphans usually only demanded things from their Tachba. Everything else was dressed-up civility, with every unambiguous thought smothered in the crib before it could be voiced. But now the chief of the secret police in Ville Emsa, the most terrifying and secretive Haphan in the city, had risked her entire career to ask for help. Nana clarified, “‘Demanded’ is your word.”

  “Demanded is the word she spoke in the transcript, Nana. The official Gray House proceedings, which are shared at my clearance level. I knew not what to make of it, but what a word for a Happie, neh?” Kinsur spied another stale bun on the ground and scooped it up.

  A ship. It was world-changing. It could mean a new alien species on the planet, and a new political power if they had superior technology. It might be an end to Haphan domination, or it could be enough new Haphans that they wouldn’t need their difficult Tachba servitors any longer, and could dispose of them all. It could even imply a medicine for the Pollution.

  “Big secrets, big dangers,” Kinsur said as he chewed.

  “Yes, this would certainly get me killed if the Haphans knew I knew,” Nana said. This was another test for him, and she braced herself when his face changed.

  “Nana, do you know how questions beget more questions? When you asked yours of me, I asked them of others, and new questions came back. ‘Who wants to know?’ I might have mentioned it was a favor for a pretty girl.”

  Oh, no, Kinsur. Nana kept her face blank. Nevertheless, his disquiet increased.

  “Then the questions came back, ‘Who is it, acting like the new queen?’”

  This time she openly cringed. The label was a ticket to the body pile. Kinsur spread his hands helplessly. “And, of course, answers beget answers, so all my contacts in the underground have learned there is a dashta interested in politics.”

  “What have you done, Kinsur? Do they know my name?”

  “Of course not! They only know it’s a dashta, a slight girl. And damn us, but we Tacchies are interchangeable. That could be anybody, right?”

  “No, it couldn’t, Kinsur. There are vanishingly few slight girls in Ville Emsa, much less slight girls who are dashtas.”

  “Yes…yes, that’s true also.”

  “You people!” She turned away from his hurt face before she lost her temper and said something worse. “I have simple questions and only need simple answers. Everybody else has the information I need, but somehow it’s only me who needs to end up on the body pile. Can I really trust no one?” She faced him again. “So when do I die, Kinsur? When do your underworld friends chase me down and kill me for drawing the Haphan eye?”

  “It’s nothing like murdering or dying or killing,” he said, jolted. “They only want to meet the new would-be queen. They want to sit around a fire with the other underground leaders from the fighting units, and meet the young manleader who might knit them together.”

  Nana wanted to cry. “I never said I was a manleader.”

  Nana walked back to the 314th officer’s club. The streets of Ville Emsa were waking up to the night, filling with soldiers. She couldn’t help but be seen, which meant she couldn’t help but be accosted by those poor annoying boots. She unwrapped her belt of silver cloth and draped it over her shoulders. It was a Haphan sash, which announced her place and immunities as alewife to the Observers. The soldiers immediately knew she was a dashta so, as much as she despised the sash, it gave her more room on the sidewalk.

  Damn that Kinsur Keshmadron! And damn her too, for not thinking ahead. Obviously a dashta shouldn’t ask the questions she asked. When the Haphans heard, they would immediately flap with interest. Everybody else would flinch, bow, and scrape in response to the Haphans, even the underworld bosses who pretended to be untouchable. Some information was nothing more than a death warrant. The Haphans, and particularly the chief Spiderfish herself, were utterly humorless when it came to spying.

  Well, the word is out now, isn’t it? The secret police would hear, sooner rather than later. Then the Spiderfish would search the waters, cast her net, and draw her in.

  What about the actual prey of real spiderfish? What did they do to escape? As a young girl, during one of her secret trips outside her family compound, Nana had watched a spiderfish attack play out. The little fishpod —a single creature that coalesced from many fish—writhed at the bottom of a crystal-clear pond, wrapped in sticky filaments. It eventually split back into its constituent fish, all of them going a different direction. It tore itself apart to save any one piece, and muddied the water to confuse the approaching spiderfish. Fish weren’t thoughtful creatures, but these had given young Nana every impression of existential terror. And none of them had survived.

  Moreover, whatever the Haphans’ reason for drawing together those two million soldiers, Nana saw exactly how they would be spent in the trenches. Why didn’t Kinsur see it? The concentration of men and materiel on both sides of the line was a recipe for a massive battle, one of those rare lifetime events that could actually move the trench. They were seeing the build-up to the battle for Ville Emsa. It would be a generational loss of life.

  Or an opportunity. She could do something with this.

  Nana flinched at the thought, but forced herself back into it. I can exploit this opportunity. The Haphans are worried, the soldiers are here, and I am—ready? With a few pokes and taps in the right places, maybe I can stop this farce like a steam engine that throws a
single gear and grinds to a stop.

  I can finish the war.

  Nana climbed the stairs, thinking hard.

  Then she entered the club, which extinguished every thought.

  “Dashta,” an officer shouted. “Captain Cephas called me blood-fed!”

  “I didn’t, but he fucking is.”

  “We all are blood-fed,” Nana said automatically, “and nothing wrong with it.”

  “Dashta! Stop Pleural from looking at Hemes!”

  “Hemes looked at Pleural first!”

  She sighed, and finally focused on the room. On her ridiculous men.

  “Hemes,” she said sweetly, “stop looking at people cross-eyed, or I’ll be so sad.”

  6

  Sethlan & Eponymous

  The officer slid into consciousness. His eyes fell open. Everything looked normal, but nothing was right.

  He lay for several full minutes, eyes locked on the ceiling above. The late evening glow through the window gave the white plaster a touch of infinity. He was certain of only one thing. He was not alone in this mind.

  He was looking through someone else’s eyes.

  The man lowered his gaze past the utilitarian gas-lamp in the wall, past the hooks on the door that held a greatcoat and a short rifle. His eyes landed on a sturdy, scarred, roll-top desk.

  ~There, probably.~ It was bizarre to hear the words in his mind. Spoken with his inner voice, but not his thoughts. Before he could wonder at it, a compelling curiosity drove him to his feet. He edged out of bed and stood. ~And this one’s name is...?~

  The desk contained a folding ID: Sethlan Semelon, Low Captain. A picture of a craggy, disaffected face she presumed was her new home.

  Why am I thinking like this? Sethlan wondered, still groggy.

  ~‘Sethlan,’ huh?~

  Sethlan, touched with wonderment, heard more strange thoughts layering into the unconscious flow of words.

  ~Pretty name…but based on my limited information, this host is a stone killer. The Tachba are a race of twisted humans, born servants but prone to violence. This is the province of Sessera, so this host would be a Sesseran. Sesseran Tachba are favored by the Haphan Overlords for their servility, relative efficiency, and their attempts at culture. Sessera. Sethlan. Sussurating, false-note names. Ssso what’sss going on, Sssethlan?~

  While the new mind stared at the picture ID, she was aware of the other mind—the man’s original mind—waking up and turning alert. There seemed to be ways to think together. Their thought patterns superimposed upon the world of the small apartment. This entrained a disorienting eddy of shared senses but conflicting interpretations.

  I’m dreaming, she heard the man think. At least it’s not the gas attack again.

  ~There they are. Your memories. So, what are you stewing over?~

  Two months had passed since Sethlan lost his unit. He’d narrowly avoided madness—or so he’d thought until about two minutes ago. The Haphan Overlords were loath to trust him with more men, and indeed he didn’t trust himself. He was sick to death of fighting. He wanted answers. He had applied for, and been granted, a position in an Observers unit.

  The Observers were where broken officers went to die, but Sethlan had requested the transfer.

  This folding ID in their hands had been issued by Haphan Indigenous Control. Sethlan was an elite trench-fighter, a unit commander, a Tachba with an unusually strong executive function in his brain. His self-control was an aberration, even among the disciplined Sesserans. He was too valuable to waste, but neither could he simply be released into an unsuspecting populace behind the lines. Too much efficiency, too much murderous competence, too strong an ability to lead others.

  Sethlan had been questioned, assessed, arrested, released, questioned, and arrested again. No doubt they had even discussed him in his absence. The whole affair was humiliating. Hence his frozen glare in the photograph.

  ~I can start with this.~

  And then the new mind in Sethlan’s brain disappeared.

  The folding ID slipped out of Sethlan’s fingers. The odd dream faded from his mind.

  The street noise through the window caught his attention. The tramp of boots, comforting at the moment. Sethlan padded across the room, his body more manageable now.

  A formation of soldiers marched up the street, illuminated only by the light of open doors. Sethlan didn’t know the unit but he knew their story, which never changed. An infantry regiment marching to the rails that would carry them to the eternal front.

  Following the infantry was a barrage interdiction unit from the far North. These were Haphan-trained Tachba in orange jackets. They rolled heavy articulated guns of Haphan design, guns which could shoot inbound artillery shells out of the air. The wooden wheels were taller than the gun crews and as wide as three men standing abreast, to prevent them from sinking into the mud of the front.

  The tiny tavern clock across the street showed half-seven at night, but the season made it nearly dark already. The sidewalks were filled, as always, with off-duty soldiers and the odd civilian or two.

  Sethlan waited, and was rewarded.

  The woman in white appeared on the sidewalk.

  She wore a simple, grime-stained white shift, cut high above the knees and a bit low on the chest. Her skin was a pale moon-white that rarely saw sunlight. A shock of white-blond hair exploded behind her head, barely constrained by a black ribbon. It glowed like spun sugar when she passed in front of an open doorway.

  By puritanical Sesseran standards she was all but undressed, and she was surrounded by soldiers on leave. A Haphan sash over her shoulder showed emblems of place and protection. The men called greetings to her but she never turned her head: to acknowledge the soldiers would simply encourage them. Gaps formed before her. She walked an unswerving path like a ship in a sea of corks.

  Her name was Nanatique Naremsa, or simply Nana. Sethlan knew her. She ran the officer’s club of the 314th Observers, which meant she essentially ran the unit. The Observers was stop-heavy with officers, and all their business was conducted while drunk.

  Seeing Nana on her way to the club brought Sethlan fully back to himself. He had to be there too.

  Perhaps that was the purpose of her frequent walks through the city. She seemed to be everywhere at times, but he noticed her most in the evenings. Evening was when the army’s rearward battle-rhythm rolled over. When the fighting relented—sometimes—and the intelligence officers went to work.

  Soon after Nana arrived, the Observer Officer’s Club would fill with tentative, dangerous, and not wholly sane men. Their eyes would glitter in the light from the fireplace, flummoxed and suspicious, until the liquor smoothed them down. Then they would trickle away to the front, vanishing without notice from their chairs.

  The voice in Sethlan’s mind spoke again. ~Yes, that must be it. She is a Judas goat. Trained to lead the rest to slaughter.~

  The words accompanied a feeling of cynical satisfaction that was unlike him.

  Sethlan turned to the bathroom and washed his face in the basin. He mechanically donned his battlefield uniform, piece by piece, layering the whole complicated affair from the inside underwear to the final greatcoat.

  He was disturbed by that thought: She is a Judas goat.

  Sethlan hadn’t thought it. It categorically wasn’t his thought. He didn’t even know what a Judas goat was; he only knew he despised them.

  Perhaps, he thought, I have finally gone mad.

  Sethlan entered the Officer’s Club and found Tejj and Diggery already at their table, half-asleep with notes fanned in front of them. Since battlefront intelligence was lying in the open, the two of them were nominally ‘guarding’ the table, and could not be given orders by the other officers.

  Sethlan searched for Nana and found her deep in conversation across the dim wooden room with the new Observers officer. This one had transferred in a month earlier and, predictably, alienated the other officers with his fresh anger and despair. He was a heavy, letha
rgic captain with dead eyes. Sethlan imagined he had looked like this transfer when he first arrived: ragged, unwashed, bitter. Distracted by crowds of dead boys he had failed to keep safe.

  “Is the new scrag crying again?” Diggery said, seeing the direction of Sethlan’s gaze. “I hope Nana fixes him soon.”

  Sethlan ignored him. “Tejj, did the orders come in?”

  “I give you joy in your first case file.” Tejj handed over a folder stamped ORDERS ORDERS ORDERS.

  Sethlan noted the thinness of the folder with an embarrassing flush of satisfaction. The case was light enough to be new and unworked, a broad problem statement that Sethlan could develop in any direction he saw fit. Something just his to think about.

  Indeed, the folder contained only a single sheet of paper. The signature at the bottom belonged to Colonel Goldros.

  He glanced at Tejj, who shrugged. Sethlan couldn’t fathom any chain of command that permitted a demented front-line colonel to issue orders to an Observer. Perhaps he should add that to his first problem statement.

  The order itself was terse:

  LOW CAPTAIN SETHLAN SEMELON to SERVICE: REPORT to HAPHAN LORD GENERAL DUKE TAWARNA on the ETERNAL FRONT for ASSIGNMENT DETAILS.

  So he would meet his first Haphan lord. He knew there was more information, but it wouldn’t be on paper. It would be a commodity traded between staffers and helpies on Ville Emsa’s vast information market.

  Sethlan waved the folder at Tejj. “Well?”

  “New artillery shells fired from the South. Very big, very precise, and very long range so we can’t shell them back. We’ll be expected to observe these shells in a barrage, learn their features, and offer a COA.”