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

by Walter Blaire

  Gawarty wandered through the office, made uneasy by her sudden intensity. Her shelves were full of liquor bottles, unit commendations, ammunition, keys, even mere paper. The mention of Gring reminded him of his task and he gladly changed the subject. “I’m supposed to ask you what you know about Southie politics. Colonel Trappia believes someone might be advising the King of Kings or making new policies in Gring.”

  “See?” Jephia said darkly. “See how careful I have been to hide every little detail? Why would they want to learn about the internal politics of the Moon Kingdoms?”

  “Because someone is changing the way they operate. It’s a natural question.”

  “If they learned about Southie politics, they would have a foot in the door, wouldn’t they?” She shook her head. “After that, they would want to chat with one of the Southern envoys who pop up all the time asking to negotiate. Eventually a Sessie somewhere will ask, ‘Why are we fighting against these nice Tachba, and not…’ You see the problem.”

  “Yet knowing the answer would be helpful.”

  “Don’t grate at me. I acknowledge that your pet Observers have asked a wonderful question. I’m sure we have someone working on it somewhere, but the Observers won’t get an answer.”

  “There must be someone we can trust, like Trappia...” Gawarty almost added Sethlan—obviously Sethlan—but then he remembered what Cephas had told him.

  Jephia gave a sour snort. “I know Colonel Trappia. Trappia sticks in my craw. He is useful, in the Sesseran sense, but a right bastard for protocol. Whoops! I’m empty again, and still thirsty!” She poured out generous dollops of bourbon into—Gawarty watched incredulously—their wine glasses. She added, “You did not say Captain Semelon was trustworthy.”

  “I’d like to think he is. I’d hate to be a suspicious type.”

  “You’d like to? And hate to? He guided you through the front on your first day. That counts for something, I know how difficult it is to keep a scrag alive on the line. What’s not to trust?”

  “Diggery did all the guiding. Semelon was helpful at the start, but then he disappeared.”

  “Oh.” She pulled back his glass.

  “He wasn’t going to be slowed down in any way,” Gawarty said. “I am not insinuating anything—”

  “It was quite explicit in the orders that you were to be allowed to get your bearings,” Jephia said in her sternest sister-voice. “It was explicit in his orders which were written down. They love that. There should have been no room for confusion.”

  Gawarty could see Jephia’s mind working at a fast clip, but he didn’t have the stomach to follow along. He pulled the glass from her hand and sipped his bourbon. Its fumes burned his throat and rose directly to his brain.

  “If a Haphan was to be killed, there is no better alibi than the front,” Jephia said. “People happen to die there frequently.”

  Gawarty merely nodded.

  “No comeback? No defense of Semelon? Don’t you like him?”

  “I’ve seen you like this, Jephia, it won’t make a difference what I say.” Before she could object, he added, “I spoke to another officer, a Captain Cephas. He seems quite smart, but not as respectable as Semelon.”

  “Cephas was my choice,” Jephia said. “Does he call you ‘grace’?”

  “He does.”

  “He’s a sloth, still in the pickling stage of his induction into the Observers. They go through specific periods, these heartbroken Sessies—it’s even written down somewhere. The crying stage, the moaning, the pickling, the picked-up, the active. I hear he does nothing but sit around and antagonize Diggery.”

  “In fact, they were pulling Diggery off his throat when I first walked in.”

  Jephia smiled minutely. “With Cephas it will be ‘grace’ this and ‘liege’ that. His family is actual Sesseran aristocracy, and that’s how they address each other. Though he tries to hide it with a lot of scraping, he is calling you his equal.”

  “He’s high-functioning, at least,” said Gawarty. “He sits where he can hear everything in the club, and he’s clearly loyal to the local empress—”

  “Oh, yes, he is completely loyal.”

  “—So I asked him what he heard, so I could compare it to what I heard.”

  “Is he your first informer? I’m so proud of you!”

  “Don’t patronize me, Jephia. I know he’s yours already. He didn’t say that, but I gathered it from his dislike for you—he mentioned you specifically. And he told me that Trappia is under the thumb of the dashta. He said that Semelon was promoted on the dashta’s say-so.”

  Jephia’s face went smooth when she heard this. “Do you recall your orders? On certain matters, you report to me.”

  “I do, colonel,” he said.

  “Then let us have the vital piece of information, with no complaints about honor. Then we can be brother and sister again. Tell me the dashta’s name.”

  “Nana,” said Gawarty. “I don’t know her surname.”

  “Like they would ever use it anyway. And damn them for letting some bitch creep into the chain of command. If they want to use a smart woman, can’t they induct them into the ranks like a rational society?”

  “I believe that was tried,” Gawarty said drily. “If I remember my history, the women officered-up too quickly, and it got too close to a manleader situation. Stomped on by the Gray House, all of the women strangled in one night by the Haphans. The Sesserans even have a holiday about it.”

  “And here I was, being perfectly righteous, serves me right. Did Cephas mention anything else?”

  “Something big is afoot. He didn’t say it plainly, but that’s what I gathered. If this is on the dashta’s orders, then there is something causing the power shift. He says that Captain Semelon is being elevated because you’ll kill Colonel Trappia soon.”

  “I will be, but it’s a matter of strict timing,” she said. When Gawarty stared at her, she grinned and shook her head. “Never mind, call it gallows humor. Every one of our Tacchie units is making leadership changes like this. They’re changing their organizational structure faster than we can keep up; it’s very disconcerting. When people—especially these people—do new things, there’s a reason for it. I just haven’t uncovered it yet. We are missing the hidden vector. ”

  Gawarty nodded. “It’s the new spaceship entering the solar system. Nothing else has changed, so that must be it.”

  “Maybe,” said Jephia, in a tone which told him no. “Even before the ship, we had growing dissent. The important question is if they know about the ship. That is what we have to find out, and that is your specific task. I know it won’t be easy, a Haphan earning the real confidence of the Sesserans.”

  “I can only try.”

  “When the ship becomes widely known, we must be the first to hear of it. It will lead to all sorts of ideas. It would be a perfect trigger.”

  “Wouldn’t...” Gawarty took a gulp of bourbon. He didn’t want to sound worried, but, “Wouldn’t it be better if there were someone more experienced doing this?”

  “There is. There are. But would you believe, the best work is being done by a Tawarna? My brother! The southscript, and now, finally, a solid lead on Nana the dashta and this Semelon scrag.”

  Gawarty groaned, turning away. “They’re people to me.”

  “Best view them as cogs, like they do themselves.” Ever changeable, Jephia was cheerful again. “I have a few avenues to follow myself. I met a very nice young man at the baths, a Sesseran. I think I will bring him in and stir the nest.”

  Gawarty preferred not to think of his sister at the baths. “I miss hot water.”

  “Yes, in the Quarter, we use more heat than the whole of the rest of Emsa. But we’re worth it!”

  “I had some rustic notion of living with the natives,” Gawarty explained.

  “I won’t ask you to change what’s working, as long as you see that this is serious business. Speaking of which, I think you came up the front stairs? Well, no longer
.” Jephia guided him out of her office and to the edge of the Native Enforcement. A stairwell in the corner of the building opened into darkness. “These stairs lead to a more discreet entrance. You should take them next time.”

  “I’m being watched?”

  “Probably not yet, but soon, when events near a peak, and everything we’ve built starts burning down. Anyhow, the floors below are where we keep the prisoners. It’s an old Sessie building, so no sound or anything else can escape. I would hate for you to wander off the stairs, become lost in those catacombs, and find something unpleasant.”

  Jephia’s eyes focused down the blank depths of the stairwell. She paused, and eventually she tilted her chin with a vacant and rueful look, and glanced over his shoulder. He recognized that gesture, too, an unspoken Tachba cue that had been co-opted by the Haphans it was so useful. It meant, it’s exactly what you think, but let’s avoid conflict by not speaking of it.

  “I understand perfectly, sister,” Gawarty said.

  15

  Nana

  The old munitions factory, dark and looming. Nana walked toward it mechanically, ignoring the omnipresent crowds of soldiers on the street. This was the night, finally.

  She’d consciously not picked a special ‘queenly’ outfit. It had recently been made clear to her that men might notice her dresses more than she suspected. She’d consciously not even pulled back her hair. It jetted every direction, tangling at a thought. She was a dashta, and she would move in humility, down to her bare feet on the icy stone sidewalks.

  Whatever course she thought she was on, it changed tonight. Whether the Haphans killed her in a few weeks, or the underworld bosses killed her in a month, tonight was the night when the trigger was pulled. There was no going back, after tonight.

  “See the slight girl, already ignoring the world like a queen,” said a familiar voice.

  She jerked toward the voice. It was Kinsur’s man Twath, guarding an open door. There was darkness behind him. “Are you challenging me?” she snapped. Nerves, girl! “Because I’m in a mood. I might break something accidentally.”

  Twath recoiled. “All in fun, la. Just a joke! Colonel Keshmadron is waiting inside with the big boss.”

  She brushed past him into the cavernous space beyond. The building had been built for munitions, then it had seen use as the old Ville Emsa induction center, and now it was waiting a new purpose. The bureaucracy being what it was, the Planners may have well forgotten the building existed. It was nothing but a hall which took up the building’s full footprint. The far side was hidden in darkness, as was the ceiling. Open as the space was, the sound was wrong, the air was muffled and close. She realized the building was completely full of men, and she could only see the first few rows of them.

  A welcoming committee had gathered beside the door to meet her. They were the solid old bosses and gangsters who effectively ran the city, two tiers of menace with the most senior and unblinking, Bucephalon himself, at the back. Kinsur Keshmadron was at the front, which revealed his relative value. He’d fall first in an ambush, absorbing anything meant for his betters.

  Kinsur looked as nervous as Nana felt. His agitation increased when she turned away from them, toward the main hall.

  She walked right past the bosses.

  At the front of the hall was a high table ringed with seats, as if the bosses had intended her to sit down together and take turns speaking, the fools. She didn’t have to be a queen to dismiss that ridiculous idea.

  Instead, Nana climbed directly onto the table and stared down at the sea of faces. She might have been facing a hundred men, or a throng of thousands, she couldn’t see. There were so many different kinds of uniforms, swirled together, that they hardly looked like soldiers at all. Their grim faces in the flickering torch light, with the varied plumage, gave them the barbaric look of an ancient war party.

  This is what I’m really bringing to Sessera, she thought grimly. Good-bye, rank and order and place. Good-bye safe clean streets. Good-bye civilization.

  “Look to your left,” she snapped. She heard the tightness in her voice and tried to soften it. “Now look right. Look closely.”

  The murmuring of the crowd eased. Some faces turned obediently, but too few.

  “We are here on black business,” she prodded them. “If you make a mistake, you might die. I most certainly will die. I ask you all, can you be led?”

  There was silence, a long moment of silence, and then a low, indecipherable rumble of an answer.

  She kept her face carefully blank, even as her heart quailed. And this, you fool, is why the Queens ran everything through their dashtas. Her eyes jumped from face to face, hunting for inspiration. There was nothing similar about their uniforms except the worn and broken-in look. The men themselves were nearly identical, all of them old for soldiers, nearly thirty, with stoic and impassive faces. They were all experienced front-line troops, and they were themselves leaders. Though the Sesseran military used Haphan organization, the old Tachba structures still existed in one way or another. These men were each the voice of a collective of soldiers, large or small. And each collective had its own secrets, its own liaisons, even its own name.

  “Are you mute?” she shouted. “I will speak one way to men, another way to boys. I did not ask if I would lead you, I asked if you can be led. You will decide for yourself who should lead—I only know that someone must lead, and soon. Now, answer me directly. I’ve had quite enough cleverness today, and I want some clear, useful answers from solid Tachba men. Can you be led, you suspicious, staring animals?”

  Their eyes, which had either regarded her blankly or speared through her threadbare shift, turned aside. Abashed! Had she been too strict? The question reminded her of her youth. Then, all at once, they looked like... a memory washed over her.

  “La, how can I be angry? You remind me of my brothers, standing there and looking put-upon as I yell at you. You may all be men, unimaginable men, the best Tachba under arms. But I think you’ll always be boys to me.”

  They looked less affronted now and more pleased. But she was still without a uniform answer from the group. Tachba, collected like this, liked nothing more than to work together and shout in unison.

  She thought of a question they could all answer together. “Shall I tell you a story about myself from when I was a girl?”

  An induction convoy was approaching the Naremsa family compound. Hugge, a forester from the Gullard family, had been out hunting when he saw the cloud rising on the far side of the box canyon. Only one thing raised that kind of dust, and when he listened closely he heard the distant roar of oil-powered engines.

  “Which there must be six mechanized trucks or so,” he told the families breathlessly. “And knowing it could only be the Induction squad, I returned directly, as the bird-bear would hunt, so to speak.”

  “Where away?” asked Papa.

  “The other side of the canyon. So ten miles to the river ford, and a few trees pulled off the road. Here by midday dinner.”

  Nana listened with growing anxiety, and when she heard how close they were, she knew she had less than three hours with her brothers before the army took them away forever. She turned slowly. They were glancing at each other with covert, excited grins. In their minds, their lives were finally about to begin.

  The family women drew around Momma in a defensive circle, but Momma didn’t notice them. She stared at her boys with a hard, greedy look, soaking them up as they broke into cheers and punches. When they devolved into an outright brawl, she moved with her retinue into the house, toward the kitchen, to direct their last meal.

  Nana saw the crowded soldiers’ faces and grimaced. Their own inductions would always be vivid in their minds. “You know mothers and sisters—once we get started remembering, we never stop. How tall you were at what age. What you pulled off the shelves. What you stole from our pockets. How you tried to stab us with spoons.”

  She let her eyes rise over the assembly, thinking back.
When was the last time I talked about my brothers?

  “I know it’s easy, even comforting, to think you’re alone on the front. To think that you’re small and pointless, so it’s no consequence when the barrage rolls over you and mashes you into the ground along with all the rest. But I am a dashta. I have spoken to you on quiet nights by the fire. With the ancestors watching, you can’t tell me the usual docket of nonsense, and I hear your real thoughts. I know that you should be more. I know that each of you deserves to be remembered, and was you dying beside me and speaking your last, you would tell me you agree. You won’t confess it directly, but I think of it every night as I fall asleep.

  “Here is what I have learned: the war is a habit. Through long use, Tachba men are born, raised, and sent to the front. Through long use, you fight and die. Through long use. Through habit. The eternal front is not eternal. It was started. And it can be ended.”

  She lowered her voice and produced the mudra of the Closed Eye Opening, “This is true.”

  “True,” the crowd murmured.

  “I shall tell you something else that is true.” The closed eye opened again. “You are not alone. For every sixteen of you there is a Mother, for every eight of you a sister. For some of you, there is even a wife. They are with you. Just because they can’t put a bowl in front of you or scream at you when you do wrong, it doesn’t mean they aren’t with you. Don’t you think we watch the road every morning for your return?

  “When your arm is shot off, you feel some pain. Some interesting pain—that’s just the way Pretty Polly treats you. Eventually the pain leaves. You’re useful again and indifferent to the arm, even proud. But when a momma loses a boy, is that a Pretty Polly pain, or a real mother’s pain? Doesn’t she wake up each morning and remember again that her son is gone? Soon the next son falls, and the mother loses another arm. And then the next one. Until she sees butchery every time she looks in the mirror. Then she turns to the cradle beside her bed, and it’s filled with more sweet little boys. Then she goes downstairs to find her handsome older sons at the table…but she always knows they are lining up to be eaten by the beast. I have seen women destroyed.”