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

by Walter Blaire

  “In a moment,” she said. “We’re dropping my brother at his apartment. For a little longer, Warty, everything must be normal. Nothing strange happened tonight, do you hear? Act normal. Except maybe lock your door for once.”

  “Okay.”

  She locked eyes with him. “Be with Daddy tomorrow. You and your Observer friends will be ordered to his bunker. Be sure that order is obeyed. I have a bad feeling about this. About all of it.”

  She turned to Sergeant Ho and switched into the fast, exclusionary conversation of long-time collaborators. Gawarty followed them not at all. He would be ignored if he asked further questions and excoriated if he had a thought, so he didn’t even try. He lay down on one of the empty stretchers and tried for sleep, which never came.

  13

  Sethlan

  Sethlan entered the club and stopped abruptly at the door. He nearly backed out again.

  ~What’s going on?~ The Voice asked. ~I’ve never seen them do that.~

  The Observers were gathered in circles, muttering and glancing alertly at the other circles. It was like the launch of a night song run, and they were revving up to do some violence in the forest. When they registered Sethlan in their midst, they all spoke at once. He could distinguish nothing but Nana’s strained face. She had her sculls gathered behind the bar.

  “Shut your holes,” Sethlan blared. “Everything in its place.”

  He stalked to his table with Hemes close on his heels.

  “Glass with you.”

  “Oh, just tell me,” Sethlan snapped. Hemes did not immediately reply, and Sethlan had to watch him sit and pinch his knees as he prepared his words.

  ~You know something from this one’s face.~

  He’s deputized himself to speak for the Observers.

  ~But what is going on?~

  You’ll learn when I do.

  Hemes chewed his cheek, his eyes anywhere but on Sethlan. When he finally spoke, his words came slowly, put together with labor. “How happy we should be, if you could communicate with Colonel Trappia for us.”

  Sethlan snorted. That’s not likely. Aloud, he said, “He’s still not back, I take it?”

  “More than that, he still can’t be found, and it’s been several days.” Hemes tugged at his hair. “Several appointments missed. His apartment empty. A report of…activity…on the streets.”

  Nana placed steins on the table and sank into the chair beside them, entering the conversation without any artistry at all.

  “Let’s have it,” Sethlan grated.

  “Brief is best,” Hemes agreed. “Pleural spoke with Colonel Trappia two days ago on Sell Street. Shortly after, the colonel was seen fighting with several Haphans. They knocked him over, cut his hamstrings, and pulled him into a Haphan command car. So obviously we would like to know when he might return, haut captain.”

  ~He’s saying…~

  “Trappia has been taken, Semelon.” Nana said. Her eyes were dull and tired.

  Possibly more than merely taken, if they maimed him first, Sethlan thought.

  The other officers in the club were silent, straining to overhear but also trying not to seem unduly interested.

  “And?” Sethlan said.

  “And what, sir?” Hemes took confused. “Colonel Trappia has disappeared, haut captain. He was taken.”

  “You’re worried for the colonel,” Sethlan clarified. He spoke less for Hemes than for the room at large. “Is that it?”

  “We are headless.”

  Sethlan raised his voice. “Here’s where Colonel Trappia would see the 314th Observers, if he walked in at this moment. He would see us standing around while the service that makes us useful is forgotten, while the roles that make us human are untenanted. We have brother officers returning from the front, and they haven’t heard your news. Must these officers now discover that it wasn’t a brotherhood after all, but really just a single colonel pulling some strings? That it wasn’t a war, but one man’s daydream? Do you think Colonel Trappia was magic?”

  “Hardly!” spluttered Hemes. “But—”

  Sethlan rode over him. “Colonel Trappia is a cog like the rest of us. We answer to the empress not him. We don’t stand in circles, hissing like killkracken over an egg. What does the colonel always say? Sparks will fly. Well, sparks have flown. We ignore sparks. They don’t matter.”

  Hemes frowned as Sethlan finally stood. “But everything is centered on Trappia.”

  “Don’t list your confusions to me,” Sethlan snapped. “Center on your duty.” He turned to the room. “Who is next in line to command?”

  He was answered by faint muttering.

  “I am next in line,” Sethlan said. “Haut captain-meh, and here are my orders. For the next day, we operate as if the colonel will walk through that door at any moment.”

  “There’s no point in pretending that Trappia will come back,” Hemes said softly.

  “I believe someone has been telling dark stories to these men,” Sethlan said, still angry. “Someone has been talking about the end of the world. But probably the worst that happened is that Colonel Trappia was only kidnapped and killed.”

  As he said it aloud, he knew it was undoubtedly true. The prim old officer with the bottomless well of discipline, who was always willing to unfold with a drink. This officer now sprawled in a pile of corpses somewhere, his uniform mussed, his well-exercised mind gone still, an unpalatable image. Sethlan glanced at Nana, who watched the steins on the table.

  “We won’t insult the colonel with weakness and doubt,” Sethlan said. “Does anybody think the colonel didn’t know it was coming? Does anybody think our old man was surprised to be yanked off the street? Show some damned pride.”

  He glared at the officers until they finally turned away. Hemes finally stood, straightening his jacket. Then he took a step back, out of reach of a theoretical knife stroke. From this, Sethlan knew to expect the worst.

  Hemes said, “The men might say it’s a succession.”

  “Then they are not spending their time fruitfully fighting the Moon Kingdoms, are they?” Sethlan said. “Hemes, take to the front, so says the haut captain. Report by 1500, and I don’t care what you do there. Find some way to be useful.”

  Hemes stiffened and backed away.

  ~He’ll think he’s being punished,~ the Voice observed.

  And so he is. He’s forgotten who the real enemy is.

  ~What’s wrong with succession, anyway?~

  A succession is when a subordinate kills the leader to take over. He was suggesting I was either insane or unsavory. Either way, it’s something the Haphans frown upon. As if I have time for intrigues like Nana. Some time on the front will change his priorities.

  ~You mean it will keep him from spreading the idea.~

  Sethlan bit down on any number of answers. I need just one day.

  “Now is it time to change our routine?” Nana’s voice was very low, almost inaudible.

  Please, Nana, leave off. I just need one day. And then, maybe, one more day after that.

  Sethlan turned to her, saw the stubborn set of her face. A similar willfulness welled up inside him. “Service. Routine. Duty. Nothing changes.”

  “This routine—and duty—makes us easy to find. If we’re easy to find, we’re easy to silence.”

  “But we’ve already been found, you said.” Before she could reply, he added, “The dashta is in the table of command, isn’t she? Forget what the Haphans think. The dashta leads and commands, doesn’t she? Isn’t that true?”

  “The dashta makes judgments,” she allowed. “She judges and never stops.”

  “Dashta, pass the word. I want every officer in the 314th Observers wearing full battle regalia from now on and ready to fight like real officers. You will put the word out for new recruits with front-line experience; we’re looking for fighting soldiers. Tell them that the Observers pay above the grade—shit, tell them we pay in dirty bourbon. We need them by tonight. Do you understand?”

  �
��I hear thy words.”

  “Do you even follow orders anymore?”

  “I hear thy words.” Her eyes flashed.

  “You will pass those instructions to the sculls, dashta, and they will tell the officers, who will leave the room with every sign of haste.”

  “Those are your orders,” she said, still waiting.

  “Those are my orders to you,” Sethlan repeated. “And you will keep the Observers around you as your bodyguard.”

  “The fuck I will, Sethlan,” she said. “That’s stupid and you know it. The trains carrying the bombs are arriving today. We have the times; we even know which tracks. I will send an armed and ready squad to each train on the timetable, and they will intercept the trains outside of Ville Emsa.”

  Yod save me from women with ideas, Sethlan thought.

  ~Why? It’s the right idea.~

  I know. I made the wrong turn with the bodyguards.

  ~Aren’t the dashtas supposed to keep thinking clearly, when the men can’t see past their noses?~

  It’s just…she can’t come to harm. For a moment, Sethlan’s mind spun without traction. I can’t lose her.

  ~Have some dignity, man.~

  The world can’t lose her.

  ~That’s more like it.~

  He leaned down, his face close to hers. She almost pulled away, but she could not be seen flinching from anything, least of all one of her own officers. In that, she was as trapped as he was.

  “You’re right, of course,” he said, and she rewarded him with the glimmer of a smile. “Three train cars, three squads. Please find some high-function sergeants to run the squads. Intercept the trains and turn them around. The earlier the better.”

  “Haphans will die,” Nana warned. “Innocent Haphans.”

  He didn’t let himself wince. “I know. They’d understand if they knew the whole story.”

  “I have another equally good, dashta-caliber idea for you. Will you listen?”

  He groaned with frustration. “I have one day, Nana. Do you understand what the Haphans have done?”

  “I think I understand what they’ve done, Sethlan,” she said tightly.

  ~What did they do? Apart from all that stuff they did?~

  “Nana, the Haphans pulled a summary on a unit commander. On a damned colonel. As far as the Haphans are concerned, the 314th is now a scrap of paper waiting for the fire. That’s how they do it; they behead the unit, and then pry it apart. In a day at most, a messenger will walk into the club with orders to disband the 314th.” He glanced at the officers in the club. “They are quiet for now. If they are not sorted into other units, and soon, they will talk themselves into a Haphan-killing spree to answer for the colonel, and the Haphans know it.”

  Sethlan studied the expressions crossing Nana’s face. She was arguing with herself. Hardness supplanted softness, which was replaced yet again.

  ~She might not object to a Haphan-killing spree.~

  “I will support you,” she finally whispered. “What will you do?”

  Sethlan knew, as soon as he told her, he would lose this woman’s heart. But this was not the time to mourn.

  He said, “I’m going to the front—”

  “So far away!”

  “—I’m going to General Tawarna, to tell him what we know. He will override the bad orders and put the Haphans back in the right.”

  Her face closed like a door. As if the silhouette of her soul had backed away from the windows of her eyes. She stared straight forward, not seeing him at all.

  She said, “And that’s your plan.”

  ~The run-to-daddy plan.~

  It’s the only rational plan, and dignity isn’t in it. Sethlan thought. What nobody talks about, and what the histories never explain, is that dashtas only pretend to beg for help. Begging is not what the dashtas are for. It’s not what the queens are for. They can’t submit, they can barely bend. They commit suicide rather than compromise. If anybody thought they could be compelled, they would lose their influence. Half of protecting a dashta is protecting her from herself.

  ~So who does all your begging, then?~

  The compromise, humiliation, and begging—those are what the men do. The men who love the dashtas.

  Sethlan straightened and turned to the door.

  Nana said, “Safe journeys, haut captain.”

  ~Well, that sounds final.~

  “You’ll miss me when I’m gone?” Sethlan gave her the shadow of a grin. That was what he’d asked her just weeks ago, when Tejj was still in service, when he was still casting aimlessly for a purpose. He’d cringed at himself then but didn’t mind it so much now.

  Nana didn’t smile, and maybe she didn’t remember his question out of a thousand identical ones from the other officers. But she nodded.

  14

  Nana

  “Phella Namsa, alewife, 31st. Nanatique Naremsa, alewife, 314th. Mathibve Naremsatha, haut scullery, 40th...” The Haphan nurse droned on, indifferent to her insults of pronunciation.

  After this initial role call of the three hundred “signal females” of Emsa, the first alewives were summoned into the examination rooms, alphabetically by name. These women tried to seem confident and indifferent as they left, but they were the eternal outsiders. The Aphalons and Bemses never got to gossip. Their thankless task was to make their examinations last as long as possible.

  “Step forward to be processed, they tell us,” Mesma griped. “Jump up on this table and give us your legs in the stirrups.”

  “I happen to not mind it,” said a diffident girl to the side. “But then, I have been caught of a few viruses.”

  She faded back at the immediate teasing. Nana sent a small grin her way. The girl was brave enough to stand out for even a moment, and Nana felt a quick affinity for her, even as she was knocked back down.

  “May I lead,” she said, addressing the faces around her. “And will you spread my words?”

  “You may lead.” Affirmations drifted back.

  “I lead the men,” she told them, always a good reminder. By now, everybody either knew about her address to the bosses at the old recruiting center, or they’d participated in the dashta-run meeting afterward. “I have learned this: Ville Emsa will be sacrificed when South breaks through.”

  “Sacrificed,” said a suspicious old dashta in an old-style headdress. “Emsa, sacrificed?”

  “More than sacrificed,” Nana answered. “Emsa will be poisoned, so the Tachba will get no satisfaction. Do you follow me? Now think: how would such a thing be done?”

  The old dashta squinted and pursed her lips, allowing herself to consider the question. Her skin was like loose fabric, and the kohl on her face slid into new shapes with each expression. Eye-writing glyphs. It took Nana a moment to decipher the meaning of each eye: Lost-many / Mourns-many. This would make her the Mourner, the wizened matriarch of the Planners. Every unit fed into the maw of the trench, every resulting death, would be her personal regret.

  “The buildings leveled, the food gone,” the Mourner said. “A half million civvies running from the hunger and the cold. A difficult supply problem.”

  Nana let an edge of anger show as she shook her head. “A half million refugees would break the Haphan supply chain and bring discontent to the entire territory. That would only serve the South, wouldn’t it? This must serve the Haphan purpose. Emsa will fall and there will be no refugees.” She watched their stony faces. “The explosives are being put in place even now.”

  “That would be a lot of explosives, wouldn’t it?” Memsa hazarded doubtfully.

  “These are landing-day bombs, brought down from space with the first colonists.”

  The women went to work on the allegation, brows furrowed. Nana glanced around the crowded room. The other dashtas were noisy and animated, while Nana’s little cluster of the most respectable and highest-ranked women was only a tiny knot at the edge of the room. Anything larger would have drawn the attention of the Haphans, and from there it would only be tr
ouble.

  “Let me be frank,” the Mourner said flatly, “your information may be wrong. I won’t call it a lie because I don’t know what you heard. My Planners are not stupid, but the Haphans parent us in almost every respect. This does not sound like a reasonable, far-seeing Haphan plan.”

  Nana agreed with the old woman. It made no sense, yet she’d seen the orders herself. There was still a missing piece, but she couldn’t let her misgivings show as she answered.

  “Do you think that the Gray House meets with the bureaucrats, and the bureaucrats mingle with the military? Do you think they all drop in on the secret police, to make sure they’re all on the same page—in order to obliterate a city? Something like this cannot be kept secret for long, which is why I found out. I think it’s why my Colonel Trappia was pulled off the street and squeezed. An order here, a requisition there, a train schedule shifted. It only needs a few well-placed orders to make it happen.”

  She saw they weren’t following. “Imagine your men, then. A sergeant meets Pretty Polly, and she steals his wits. The next morning, he will be leading a dozen good boys into danger between the lines, and he’s circling so tightly he’ll get them all killed. What do you do? You squeeze a brainbird quill in his drink, and the sergeant takes sick. You don’t tell your sculls what you’re doing, you don’t explain it to the boots, you don’t run it past your commanding officer. You’re dashtas, you just fix the problem. It’s the same with the Haphans. Some higher-up Haphan, somewhere, is solving a problem.” She shrugged. “Remember, I only said that Ville Emsa is to be destroyed. I never said this would be wise, or that it is what every Haphan wants. And lucky for us dashtas. We don’t even have to go against the empire. We don’t have to do a single thing that most Haphans would not do first themselves, if only they knew the problem.”

  “What is our task?” Mesma asked softly.

  “Tell your men one thing,” she said. “Refuse to move.”

  “Refuse to move?”

  Nana shrugged. “It worked for me once when I had no other path. Refuse to move, don’t make things worse, take your licks, live through the next few minutes.”