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

by Walter Blaire

  “You have my permission to leave the compound whenever you want,” he said, with words that sounded like Momma. “Obviously, a budding pharmacienne will need freedom of movement to locate important herbs and minerals in the forest.”

  Nana nodded, sad. She knew what would come next.

  “No need to sit here at the fire every night,” he continued gruffly. “You’re a woman, now. You’re grown, and what an accomplishment you are.”

  He saw the tears on her cheeks and frowned.

  He reached for her hand, but then gathered her into a fierce hug, murmuring, “It’s your life now, little heart. O, be safe! Never be too brave.”

  1

  Sethlan

  The Haphan-written officer’s manual in Sethlan’s pocket listed the three classic requirements for an effective military unit: stop-trained soldiers; a suitable enemy; capable leadership. He had never given that brief section of the manual much thought, because it seemed more suited to appeasing the Haphan obsession with list-making than to guiding Sesseran officers. Yet in only three days, the 314th Observers was faltering for lack of leadership. Sethlan blamed himself. Following his revelation of the Southie dreadnought, Colonel Trappia had reported in person to Haphan Intelligence and not returned.

  Meanwhile, Observer officers completed assignments, reported back, and clogged the tables at the club. The already close room turned intolerably cramped. Only Colonel Trappia’s regular table remained empty, a steady reminder that something had distorted the right order of the war.

  Self-answering questions floated in the stuffy air. The Haphans had killed Colonel Trappia, hadn’t they? Trappia was like their own father, wasn’t he? The Happies lacked a proper education in respect, didn’t they? Did anyone know the proper response to this? The page in the officer’s manual? The more alcohol flowed, the more talk bordered on sedition.

  Meanwhile the sculls ran themselves ragged, pulling beer, placing it on tables, cleaning up the vomit. Nana monitored them closely, confiscating metal pens, hidden hair-knives, and anything else that could be plunged into the most irritating officers. She steered the emotionally frail into drunkenness, mothered the violent drunks into mere vexation, and then soothed the vexed. Just as she neared exhaustion herself, her 314th Observers was saved by a fortuitous event.

  Officers began to fall ill. Some disease moved through the unit day by day, toppling the loudest Tachba first. It was not pretty. The victims’ faces turned yellow. Their stomachs distended and audibly boiled with gas. They shat themselves to exhaustion, usually in their pants.

  To Diggery and the other helpies fell the task of dragging these unfortunates down to Sell Street and lining them up on the edge of the sidewalk. By convention, soldiers on leave would drag the unwell dregs of the previous night to the hospital. The sick officers moved a block at a time as they were randomly picked up, then frequently dropped, and forgotten. In a mere day or two of this vascular movement, they arrived at the hospital and reported for sick call.

  Thanks to South’s new cleverness at the front, Sethlan was attuned to patterns implying hidden behavior. By and large, the 314th’s mysterious disease struck only the troublemakers, and they were carried out before their toxic worry could spread. None of them died; it was more like unofficial leave at hospital, where complaints and anger were the order of the day. Nana was artfully poisoning her officers.

  As far as Sethlan could tell, none of his fellow Observers realized this except Diggery, who caught a taste of the sickness and went AWOL for a week. He returned as the disease petered out. He had a new coat, a bloodstained collar, and two black eyes.

  “I have returned.” Diggery pulled up a chair with a knowing smile. “There are big things afoot.”

  Sethlan had the day’s bulletins in his lap. It fell on him to review and sign them in Trappia’s absence. If this was what the colonel had to look at, he could keep it. Today it was a flurry of promotion announcements, finally followed and explained by a report on the death of Cralatic Caramandon, Field Marshal of all Sessera. The man had been murdered by his helpie during a disagreement over some misplaced gloves.

  Diggery cleared his throat. “Big things afoot, yes!”

  “Alright, then,” said Cephas from across the club. “What big things are afoot?”

  That was sufficient for Diggery. “Are we not observing the goings-on in town?” he asked. “Are we not noticing the strange new Impies on our streets? Strangers with fine shoes, robot-precise tailoring, and too much time on their hands? They float around doing nothing, but they always check their precision pocket watches.”

  “A detachment of secret police has infiltrated Ville Emsa,” said Sethlan.

  “So you’ve seen them?”

  “No, but I expected them.” Sethlan thumbed the pile of bulletins. None of them exceeded his new clearance level, and none of them mentioned anything about Haphan secret police. The Haphans were acting unilaterally, without the knowledge of the Observers, without informing even the indigenous officers who had proper clearance. “People in this town know the future of the war. The Haphan squads are here to plug leaks about the dreadnoughts.”

  “It’s not about the dreadnoughts,” said a voice at Sethlan’s shoulder. Sethlan glanced up. Cephas was finally mobile! The captain pulled an empty chair from under Diggery’s foot and sat at the table uninvited. “Plugging leaks in Ville Emsa? How futile.”

  “The secret police seem pretty effective to me, Cephas,” Diggery said.

  “Yes, they are devastatingly effective.” He watched Diggery’s face. “Don’t be confused, snappie. The Haphan clandestine service is highly effective, and they are too valuable to waste on a futile exercise like plugging leaks. We Sessies leak like a Southie dreadnought. No plumber can plug us. We can’t even plug you, Diggery, and that’s a unit imperative.”

  “So…what?”

  “These secret police are listening for the real threat. They won’t find that either, but they know it’s here. They are chasing the revolt. They are trying to forestall a rebellion.”

  The word sat in the air. Diggery went still and locked his eyes on his stein, turning it on the table. “Rebellion, sir?”

  “Rebellion.”

  Sethlan forced himself to look at Cephas’s slate-gray face. He found nothing readable. No gloating over a scrap of information, no animosity for Diggery.

  With a languid blink, Cephas reoriented toward Sethlan. He turned his whole body and leaned forward. “Now, let’s see Captain Semelon’s vaunted, high-function mind at work.”

  Sethlan said, “Why don’t I call a drink for you instead?”

  Cephas shook his head knowingly. “She can’t help you with this.”

  That was a veiled stab at his reputed addiction to Nana, mere wounding diversion to steer Sethlan from the truth. He didn’t answer it, because by then the problem had taken hold: Let’s presume the Haphans fear a rebellion.

  ~Yes. Let’s wish more problems upon ourselves.~

  Shut up, Voice, Sethlan thought. Let’s also presume the front is working as smoothly as it seems, with no sign of rebellion. The trains are running, materiel is arriving at its destination, the front line warfighters are locked into the four weeks on, four days off schedule from time-out-of-mind. Sesseran planners are spending men at the right rate and in the right places. No evidence there. It would be something else.

  He met Cephas’s eyes. “The Colonel is being briefed on this? That would explain his long absence. They’d keep him afterwards to watch for Pretty Polly.”

  Cephas nodded but it wasn’t an answer. He merely approved of Sethlan’s question.

  And irritatingly enough, that seemed to be the end of it. Cephas said nothing more, but only tilted away to look for a scullery boy. His neck cracked, and he rolled it like a sea turtle stretching from its shell. Annoyance flushed through Sethlan. Had he just been tested? For the fat old captain to produce ‘rebellion’ and then walk it back without explanation was rude, unheard-of. In fact, Sethlan
had no proper social avenue except to take it personally.

  “Diggery,” he said, “give us the table.”

  “Rebellion! Fuck.” Diggery looked ill, as if Nana had caught him again, and left without objection.

  When they were alone, Sethlan turned his eyes to the air over Cephas’s shoulder. “I wonder if more will be spoken of rebellion.”

  He phrased it as a statement—the way the Haphans liked to ask questions of each other—so Cephas could either answer or misunderstand it, whichever suited him best. The Haphans were never direct when it mattered most. Sethlan believed that Cephas would understand Haphan-style questioning and understand it quite well.

  “No hint or muttering in the air near me, at least,” Cephas said. “Too little to mention, anyway. ‘Rebellion,’ eh? I shall put the word away. I don’t want you to stumble over it.”

  ~Let’s punch Cephas off his chair. You’re burning to punch him. Punch the truth out of him.~

  “Do you notice a different quality between us when we talk?” Cephas mused. “We’re like two craggy old dashtas. I find it pleasantly challenging. We’re not polluted, at least not in the regular way.”

  Sethlan didn’t want to be distracted, but he said, “I noticed the same about my old line commander, Colonel Goldros.”

  Cephas’s hand twitched. He removed it from the table.

  “So you know him, Cephas?”

  “He lost me my unit.”

  “Mine too. I almost disobeyed his order.”

  Cephas nodded faintly. “Same here, and I wish I had. He sent me directly into an ambush. South is getting clever.”

  “He sent me directly into a gas attack.”

  “Yes, we’ve all heard the non-secret of your gas attack,” Cephas said, but without heat. “Colonel Goldros’s genius seems to lie in bringing his officers to the edge of disobedience.”

  Sethlan weighed the notion. “And the officers who do not disobey, well, it seems they fail the test.”

  “And they’re relieved of command, in a way. Yes, I’ve already processed all this.” Cephas took a mug from the tray of a passing scull. “Colonel Goldros is creating a fraternity of officers who will say no to authority. Officers with the brains to decline bad commands. Officers not like us.”

  “That’s a big leap,” Sethlan murmured.

  “Why did you fail your test?” Cephas asked directly. For a moment he seemed like just a regular officer.

  “Colonel Goldros gave me a puzzle I had to solve. ‘The enemy is growing too clever.’ Against my better judgment, I had to solve that.”

  “It was similar for me. And look at us now, we’re in the Observers where we are asked to do nothing but solve puzzles.” Cephas gathered his feet to stand. “Thank you for the unsatisfying conversation.”

  ~Let him leave.~

  You just advised me to punch the truth out of him.

  ~I changed my mind. He’s dangerous somehow.~

  But Sethlan ignored the Voice. He said, “Since you’re here, Cephas, there is the matter of how to pay your boots.”

  Cephas sat back down, instantly on guard. “I haven’t heard that before, ‘how to pay your boots.’ My boys are lying in pieces, covered in mud, devoured by oar beetles, I imagine.”

  “Not one of them would want to think they had harmed you.” Sethlan said. He covered any possible gentleness by lighting a cheroot.

  Cephas nodded. “My boys were good boys. They were the light of…a papa’s eyes. I agree they would not want to harm me. Putting aside that they’re all dead.”

  “There is much you can still be doing.” Sethlan winced at himself. He could have produced something more artful.

  Cephas’s expression turned corrosive. “That Nana slut told you to tinker with me, didn’t she?” Sethlan twitched at the word, and Cephas noticed. He continued, “That slut tinkers with everyone, you know.”

  With any other officer in the 314th, Cephas would already have been punched out of his chair. With certain other officers, Cephas would have been stabbed or shot as well, but those officers were on sick list at the moment. A dashta was never talked down. Nana was never talked down. She was the single unbreakable thread that could lead them back to useful service.

  Did Cephas think Sethlan was somehow safer than the other officers? Had Sethlan passed an earlier test by surviving the word ‘rebellion?’ Perhaps this was merely the fastest way for Cephas to divert the conversation from his boys. Or maybe Cephas did ache to die, and insulting the dashta was his sure-fire plan to make that happen.

  Sethlan finally abandoned the question. If Cephas was like any other man, he didn’t need a specific reason to antagonize others. He could simply want the fastest path to nowhere.

  And there was a big problem with Cephas’s intelligence, Sethlan realized. That was the reason Sethlan felt no regard toward the older, obviously high-functioning captain. Cephas was nothing but a series of deflections. The word ‘rebellion’ proffered and retracted as if it weren’t blasphemy. The affront to the dashta, merely to punish a clumsy intrusion into his personal grief.

  Sethlan felt a brief, sorry satisfaction at having uncovered a fellow officer so quickly. He said, “If you’re hoping to be euthanized, then you’re wasting your time harassing Diggery. Forget what that boy says. He has the patience of stone; it’s the Haphan schooling.”

  Cephas’s eyebrows arched.

  “But I think you already know that, don’t you?” Sethlan continued. “You know Diggery is the only safe one to taunt. You can torture him without fear, which means you’re only playing the role of the broken captain. You’re hiding here for some other purpose.”

  Cephas took a drink, moving slowly as possible while his eyes scoured Sethlan’s face. “You’re slow, Sethlan, but you eventually produce an interesting thought or two. I won’t say surprising thoughts, because I’m painfully polite. I also won’t say ‘correct’ thoughts, because who is really doing the hiding? Isn’t it you? Let me illustrate. I insult Nana to your face, and what do you do? You erect a creative framework to explain a secret purpose. I insulted the dashta, and you ignored it. Are you still Tachba enough to see how aberrant that is? The world is not so clever, Sethlan, and every occurrence is not a knot that must be untied. But you can’t help it, can you? Even at the expense of your boys, you must untie knots. You just can’t help it.”

  “Why can’t I help it, captain?”

  “Because you’re circling. When a pile of shit explodes in your face, you’re supposed to take action to close the ass. You don’t sit and wonder about the ass it came from. You’re falling out of service. Your usefulness is evaporating. You’re going still. You’re returning to the earth but you don’t know it yet. You’re buried but walking around. You’re mouldering into our next Colonel Goldros. You prefer thought over life.”

  ~Don’t get mad. You don’t need to respond. This isn’t about you.~

  Sethlan said, calmly, “Cephas, you’re trying to distract me again.”

  “See what I mean? I insult you, severely and severally, and you look through it. You are hardly any kind of Tachba, are you? There’s no you there, anymore.”

  “What are you leading me away from?”

  Cephas flinched but pushed on. “Shall I simplify myself even further, captain? Shall I attempt to connect your mental disorder to external reality? Watch this—”

  Cephas lurched forward and poked Sethlan’s shoulder with a stiff finger. It jarred Sethlan out of his tight focus. Cephas nodded at Sethlan’s annoyance.

  “See, Sethlan? Going still. You’re sick and growing sicker. Don’t direct your obsessive behavior toward me. Since you’re so interested, I will tell you my purpose, but you must never ask about it again. My purpose is very simple.”

  ~Not so simple he doesn’t have to dress it up…~

  Cephas mistook Sethlan’s listening to the Voice for more patience. He gave a hoarse sigh. “My purpose is so simple, Sethlan, that you will never comprehend it. My purpose is to exceed by one the
number of minutes I’ve been alive. I will do this until I die, and then I will have fulfilled my purpose.”

  Tachba are bad liars, and falter when concocting untruths. But although Cephas spoke smoothly and evenly, Sethlan was certain he was speaking lies. Sethlan simply didn’t know why he was so certain Cephas was lying. “To what end did you insult the dashta, Cephas?”

  “See what I mean? There’s no fire in you. The real problem is that you want to fucking impose between me and my memories of my boys. And you’re doing this on Nana’s say-so, if I may guess.”

  “On the dashta’s say so.”

  “A dashta is just a girl. A smart girl, certainly, but nothing close to an ancient bastard like myself. By the way, she is smarter than you. She got much further along before she pissed me off.” Cephas tipped his stein and stood. “I won’t be fixed, Sethlan, and I won’t be meddled with. Anything you can suggest about ‘paying my boots,’ I’ve already thought it. I’m glad you’re satisfied with whatever flimsy excuse gets you back to the front. I might be just a little less flimsy than you, is all.”

  Sethlan watched closely, following every move. This finally irked Cephas.

  “Don’t gather me, you scrag. You won’t find anything out, and neither will the fucking dashta.” Cephas raised his voice for the club and pointed to the back of the room. “That is my table, you scrags. I sit there and do my duty to the Observers and the imperium by dying as fuck-well fast as I can. Why aren’t you all doing the same? Why are you pretending to hold on, when you know what this unit is for?”

  Sethlan didn’t watch as Cephas stalked away. He had it now. The old monster was being useful after all, and so much the better that it coincided with his urge to sit like a reptile near the heat of the fire, where he could hear everything in the club.

  Cephas tested others with seditious words. He elicited responses and measured temperatures. Though he rarely left the club, he was unsurprised by developments in the outside world. Then, he switched tables at the first mention of the Haphan secret police. He was aware of Sethlan’s deep doubt about Colonel Goldros, and what an odd thing to be aware of, on a front with millions of men.