He shoved her head toward the lake, “Look out there!” he said. “We never overfeed those lake fowl. The whales come back every year, because we say we must preserve the process. But what is that process but another circle of life and death? Why don’t we take control of it, Zin? Why don’t we change it? They come and they go, every year, just like the Enemy. But always with them, and with our Enemy, we follow the same protocol. We enable the same cycle. We could be gods, and instead we condemn ourselves each cycle. We condemn ourselves to be monsters.”
She could have broken his grip. He was an old man, a politician, and she was a soldier. But she endured him, because he was her father. “We are not gods,” she said.
Merriz’s fist was fast. Zin heard the crunch as his punch met her father’s rib cage. Elodiz huffed out a cry and crumpled.
“For fucks’ sake,” Merriz said. “Did you forget who you were?”
Zin stared at the old man moaning on the ground between them. “No,” she said. “I know who I am.” She raised her gaze to Merriz. “Do you, Merriz? Do you know what we are?”
* * *
Many question the work of the Justice Commission. When wars end, collective amnesia is common in other countries. People forget the things that they did during war, and they puff themselves up like paragons of virtue, as if acts committed during war were somehow only committed by the aberrant, by the one percent of people believed to be truly monstrous. These sociopaths are far less common than many believe. Wars are not fought by sociopaths, they are fought by ordinary people. That’s what’s so frightening about them.
The Justice Commission was created as part of the post-war protocol formed in the Second Age. After the Enemy had been turned back, everyone who had participated in the war had to make a public accounting of their crimes. Silence and forgetting would only deny the experiences of victims, deepening their trauma, and contribute to the mass delusion that the atrocities we committed during our wars were only perpetrated by a few. And, of course, if we forgot what we did, what we were capable of doing, to win the war each turn, then we would not be able to summon that horror within ourselves to fight again the next time. We could not forget how to make war, because in another two hundred years, we would need to unseal these records again, and remember.
In truth, when the war first started, only ten percent of our troops would actually fire on the Enemy. Oh, they might light off cannons from a distance, or catapult great gobs of burning pitch at ships, but when it came to shooting a weapon—dead or fungal—they found they could not aim and fire at another human being when they could make out that person’s face.
You must train people to kill. And we did. Breaking open the records from the four Ages of uprisings before us helped. We saw what we had done. We knew what was possible.
Other countries ask why we don’t keep our people trained for fighting between wars, but the truth is we are a peaceful country, and you cannot build a peaceful country when half of its resources are dedicated to war. A country with an army will use it. You cannot train soldiers to deal out death and expect them to stop when they come home. When you train people to enjoy killing, they will kill, and they will look for ways to kill, and ways to abuse that power, even when they come home. They will disrupt any attempt at peace.
People trained in war will bring the war home.
I learned this from parents. I learned this at school. I learned it even in basic training: a country of killers was not a country at all but a war machine, a snake always eating its own tail. But it was not until a woman raised her hand during philosophy class the second week of basic training and asked the implicit question behind that knowledge that I considered what that meant.
“If soldiers who have killed can never go home and create a peaceful society,” she said, “what happens to all of us after the war?”
The instructor did not hesitate. “Our fates are sealed when the Commission disbands,” she said. “The protocol has clear instructions on what’s to be done with those who fought.”
* * *
The great court theater was packed to bursting. Children had scrambled up onto the roof and were peering down around the edges of the great glass dome. The whirring of copper recording devices was a constant whine, noxious and distracting.
Zin and Merriz, as the Justicars who had brought in the man on trial, sat just behind the prosecutor’s table. Merriz was chewing a gob of sap, which Zin would have found more insufferable if she could actually hear him chomping on it above the din of the recorders.
When they brought Elodiz into the court theater, a murmur rolled through the crowd. He stood in the raised box of the condemned.
The prosecutor rose from her seat and read his four pages worth of crimes aloud to the court. “Do you admit to these crimes?” she asked.
“Of course,” Elodiz said. “That’s what we’re all here for, isn’t it?”
The prosecutor continued, “And on whose order did you commit these crimes?”
“First Premier Torozina’s,” he said.
“That would be the former First Premier Torozina,” the prosecutor said. “The leader of this country.”
“Yes.”
“And why would our country’s highest elected office ask you to commit these crimes?”
“They were necessary to win the war.”
“How so?”
Elodiz grimaced. “How so? How do you think we turn them back every two hundred years? You think you can turn a country of pacifists into soldiers suddenly, after two centuries of peace? Soldiers must be inspired, prosecutor.”
“So you undertook these acts of barbarism to... inspire people?”
“No country wants war,” Elodiz said. “Why should some idiot commoner risk her life at the front when she can live out her life on her farm baking bread and fucking her husbands? It’s natural not to want war. No one wants it. We all understand that, do we not? But it is those who lead countries who shape these policies, and it is always an easy thing to drag people along, no matter if it’s a pacifist or tyranny. The people can always be led about by the nose. It’s easy. Just tell them they’re being attacked by a grievous evil, by some nefarious, cannibalistic monster of a threat. Denounce the peacemakers for their lack of spine. Tell those on the fence that it is these pacifists who are putting us in real danger. Say they are endangering our freedom, and ultimately, our very existence. It works the same in every country, in every age.”
The prosecutor nodded. “If you understood that these actions would condemn you by the laws of our country, why did you undertake them?”
“I knew when this began that I would either go down as our history’s greatest hero, or its greatest villain,” Elodiz said.
Zin snorted.
Elodiz’s gaze moved to her. He jabbed at finger at Zin. “You think you’re better? You shoot people in the street for ‘war crimes.’ Crimes they committed at the behest of the state that resulted in the end of this war and the crushing of our enemies. You aren’t any better than me. You’re worse, in fact, because you don’t even know what you’re doing. You don’t even have the self-awareness to know what’s going on. But they will pin a medal to your chest right up until they ask you to murder yourself. And I’ll die a collaborator. Is it worth it?”
“Was it worth it for you?” Zin said.
Judge Corvoran banged her gavel.
“Yes!” Elodiz said. “I would do it all again. I would kill every one of them to see this country great again.”
“Your worships...” the prosecutor began.
Judge Corovan raised her hand. “It’s all right,” she said. She sighed. “Ta Muvard, the state understands that there were crimes that had to be committed during times of war. Great crimes which were indeed sanctioned by the state. But crimes done in service for any cause are still crimes in this court. Crimes committed in war must be—”
“This is a circus,” Elodiz said. “This is not justice—”
“I’m afraid it is our
justice,” Corovan said. “You understood when you committed these acts that there would be a reckoning. Do you have his paperwork, prosecutor?”
“I do.” The prosecutor handed Corovan one of her green files.
Corovan pulled a thin government-caliber slide from the sheaf. “Is this your signature and hand print, Ta Muvard?”
“It is,” Elodiz said. His face was still angry, but his tone was lower.
“And do you remember what you signed here?”
Elodiz said nothing.
“I will read it aloud to the court,” Corovan said. “In the interests of full transparency. This is the first case where a senior official disputes the charges.” She read aloud, “I, the undersigned, agree that the War Office will commission me for certain crimes which will aid and abet the ending of the current conflict with the Enemy. In engaging in these duties for the state, I understand that on the cessation of hostilities, I may be considered a collaborator and put on trial for crimes against my country. I understand that committing violence against another human beings remains illegal in our state, and I expect to be prosecuted for these crimes to the fullest extent of the law at war’s end.”
“Does that sound right?” Corovan said.
Elodiz nodded.
Corovan held up the page. “We are each called to a singular purpose when faced with an enemy greater than ourselves. But that does not mean that we can sacrifice our humanity. Do you have any regrets to air in this court?”
“Yes,” Elodiz said, “Just one.” He gazed at Zin again. “I regret only that I have built a world where my daughter will be a hero, and have a medal pinned to her chest... but I will not live long enough to see it.”
Judge Corovan raised her gavel.
“And—” Elodiz said, holding up a hand. “I regret that when she marches into the ovens, of her own volition, her chest covered in medals, that I will not live to hear her say I was right.”
The gavel came down. The Judge read his sentence. A sanctified death. It was something.
As they escorted Elodiz from the room, he looked back once at Zin. She kept her face neutral, knowing how many recording devices were trained on her impassive face.
Then it was over.
The crowd stood. A few reporters tried to ask her questions. She rebuffed them. Zin and Merriz sat still beside one another for some minutes while the theater cleared out. Then, finally, Merriz pulled on his hat. “Well, that was something,” he said.
Zin sat motionless. “I didn’t know they asked him to do it,” she said.
“Hey,” Merriz said, “it doesn’t matter why someone does something, does it? You said you didn’t care why. You want justice? Well, that’s what it looks like.”
“And we’re next.”
“I read the protocol too,” he said. “I can sing it in my sleep. If you believe in a peaceful country, if you believe that’s really what we were before the war, well, peaceful places don’t have monsters, Zin. We’re building a world that’s got no place for us. Best enjoy the time we’ve got.”
Zin imagined it just as her father had said, her standing up in court the way he was now, and agreeing that she had indeed shot collaborators and punched women in the face, and tortured people, her own people and the Enemy, at the behest of the state, and then she would have to straighten her spine and walk of her own volition to her own fiery death.
In the end, no one could kill her or Merriz or any of the other Justicars. They had to die by their own hand, of their own volition. And what they would leave behind was their children and their grandchildren, to create a society run by human beings who had never known war, and had never committed violence. They would sacrifice themselves at Savazan’s feet to build a peaceful world for another two hundred years, until they did it all over again. Peace was the one thing she believed it. The one thing she would kill for, and the one thing that she would ultimately die for.
It was in the protocol.
Merriz tapped her hat. “Come now,” he said. “We have seven hundred and thirty more names in case file 446. Who will bring them to justice, if not us?”
Zin pulled on her hat. “I’m fond of justice,” she said, and resolved to eat more glutinous treats, because her time was short, and the price of peace was high.
She and Merriz walked out into the grimy dusk of the latest rotation of the sun, and if Zin squinted, she could almost see the stars.
Copyright © 2015 Kameron Hurley
Reprinted by permission of the author.
Read Comments on this Story on the BCS Website
Kameron Hurley is the author of The Mirror Empire, Empire Ascendant, and the God’s War Trilogy. She has won the Hugo Award, Kitschy Award, and Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer; she has also been a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, Nebula Award, Locus Award, BFS Award, the Gemmell Morningstar Award, and the BSFA Award for Best Novel. Her short fiction has appeared in Popular Science Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, Year’s Best SF, The Lowest Heaven, and Meeting Infinity. Her nonfiction has been featured in The Atlantic, Locus Magazine, and the upcoming collection The Geek Feminist Revolution.
Read more Beneath Ceaseless Skies
SHADOW’S WEAVE
by Yoon Ha Lee
When Tamalat heard the crunching in the snow behind her, she knew who had followed her to the funerary tower. So close, she thought, but there was no help for it. “I thought an ex-engineer would be better at following directions,” she said, turning around. She knew better than to leave her back exposed.
Brio’s pale skin was all too visible in the ruddy light of sunset. His shadow was missing. Tamalat didn’t flinch from its absence; long practice. Of course, that was why she had come here.
To Tamalat’s aggravation, Brio smiled at her. “You made me curious,” he said.
Tamalat glared at him, although she was more annoyed at herself than at him. What had she expected? That he’d take a letter asking him to stay cooped up in a guesthouse—even a letter from her—at face value?
“Besides,” he added, “I was worried about you.”
“Please,” she said, “I’m not the one in danger.” They’d almost escaped being stoned near the border, despite traveling at night whenever possible. As nations went, Soreive was distressingly civilized, which meant that settlements were well-supplied with street lights. Tamalat had almost considered hiring a palanquin for Brio, on the grounds that no one would suspect that the person inside had no shadow, except he would have been singularly unconvincing as a merchant or courtesan. Besides, if they had had that kind of money, they would have been able to settle somewhere in the mountains, instead of eking out a dubious existence as mercenaries.
He wasn’t looking at her but at the tower silhouetted before them, made of pale stone that sheened red-gold in the dwindling light. “This is why you’re desecrating holy ground?” he asked.
“I didn’t know you were religious.”
“I’m not, but if we’re caught here—”
The door creaked open. A plump woman with skin almost as dark as Tamalat’s watched them from the entrance. Her red robes, with their amethyst beads, indicated that she belonged to Soreive’s religious caste. “It’s a little late for that,” she said in the trade tongue that Brio and Tamalat had been conversing in. Despite a tendency to prolong the vowels, her accent was very good.
Tamalat performed a deep salaam. Brio remained standing, hands near the hilts of his knives. Tamalat considered yanking him down with her, but that wouldn’t impress the priest favorably either.
“Priest,” Tamalat said in the local language, lifting her head enough to peer at the other woman, “we apologize for this intrusion—”
The priest waved a hand. “It’s a lonely duty,” she said, “and it’s cold out. Come in so I can talk to you properly.”
Tamalat had her suspicions, considering that she hadn’t spotted any temple guards. The story went that Soreive’s priests weren’t permitted weapons because they’d developed
a habit of military coups at some point early in the current dynasty. Now they were known for their skill at unarmed combat.
Brio must have been having similar thoughts. He didn’t look relaxed in the slightest. “I’d rather not,” he said.
This would have been much easier if he had stayed at the guesthouse as Tamalat had instructed.
The priest’s smile showed well-kept teeth. “This is holy ground for a reason. I stand between you and the spirits of the dead. People do die where you come from, don’t they?” Her gaze lingered where Brio kept one of his better-concealed daggers.
Tamalat cleared her throat. She had come here for help; she didn’t want to antagonize the priest. The hard part would be making Brio behave. “We’ll come.”
Brio’s pause was very slight. Then: “As you like.”
The priest led them inside and up the stairs. Lights flew from the cool nowhere darkness to accompany them, floating at shoulder height. Tamalat imagined that she saw butterfly zigzags and drifting leaves in the afterimages that flickered before her vision.
“Spirits?” she asked.
“Yes,” the priest said.
Brio appalled Tamalat by poking at one of the lights. It shied.
The priest stopped abruptly. “They’re wary of you, given your condition,” she said. “I wouldn’t try their patience if I were you.” She turned and looked Tamalat up and down. “He’s why you’re here, I presume. How did you make it this far?”
“We traveled by night,” Tamalat said, “or off the roads.”
Brio, moved by some calculation of his own, had drawn one of his daggers. Tamalat slapped it out of his hand. He let her. The dagger clattered partway down the stairs, and lights flurried around it.
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