The Sundering

by Walter Jon Williams

“I feel…” He was about to say “fine” but he realized that the ease of low gravity, and the comfort of his couch, were about to make a liar out of him. So instead he said, “Good idea,” and closed his eyes.

  He was asleep before the car dropped out of the accelerator ring and into brilliant sunlight. The growing acceleration that pressed him into his couch was much less than he’d been enduring for the last two months and it failed to wake him. Below, the land blazed with color: brown mountains tipped with white, the light green of the land contrasting with the deeper, more profound green of the sea. The atmosphere was a faint blurring on the edges of the world. The whirlwind of a tropical storm, its white gyre of cloud edged with blue, was thrashing southward from the equator.

  Calculations spinning through her mind, Sula watched Do-faq’s tactical experiments on her sleeve display.

  Martinez woke, his mind fresh, just as the car settled feather-light into its terminal, and the couch swung into its rest position, inverted from where it had been at the start of the journey. He and Sula stepped onto what had, when they’d boarded, been the ceiling, and let the fleet commander precede them from the car. He nodded civilly as he passed.

  “And congratulations to you as well, Lady Sula,” he said.

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  Martinez, as he followed the old man from the car, suspected that the congratulations may not have had anything to do with Sula’s decoration.

  Reunited with Alikhan and Martinez’s baggage, they took another train to the shuttle terminus, where they boarded the supersonic for the city of Zanshaa. Martinez traded the ticket he’d already reserved for an entire four-seat first-class compartment. Alikhan retained his original seat in second class.

  With the Golden Orb, which like a device out of a fairy tale had the power to turn others to stone, Martinez marched to his compartment, installed himself and Sula, and drew down the shades.

  Privacy at last.

  He sat next to her and tried not to melt beneath the gaze of those green eyes. Martinez took her hand.

  “I’m afraid to speak,” he said.

  She tilted her head. “Why?”

  “Because I’m not at my best right now, and I might say something wrong. And then…” He sought for words. “And then everything would be spoiled, and you’d walk out of this compartment and I’d never see you again.”

  He saw the blood rise in her translucent pale skin. Her perfume whirled through his senses. “I forgive you,” Sula said. “In advance.”

  He kissed her hand, her palm, her wrist. He leaned close to kiss her lips, then hesitated.

  “I’m not running away,” she said.

  He laid his lips to hers for the space of three heartbeats. She raised a hand to lightly cup the side of his head. He kissed her again, then had to break away because he realized he’d been holding his breath, and that his dizziness wasn’t entirely a result of Sula’s nearness.

  “What is that perfume?” he asked.

  Her lips turned up in a smile. “Sandama Twilight.”

  “What’s so special about twilight on Sandama?”

  She ventured a little shrug. “Some day we’ll go there and find out.”

  He inhaled deliberately. “I wonder how many pulse points you’ve applied it to.”

  Sula tilted her head back and with her hand swept a strand of golden hair from her throat. “You’re welcome to find out,” she said.

  He feasted on her throat for a long, luxurious moment. A shiver ran along her frame. He kissed a path to her ear—bright and flaming—and reached up a hand to lazily undo the top button of her viridian tunic.

  Martinez heard the low chuckle as he kissed the hollow of her throat. “Make the most of it,” she said. “I think that’s the only button you get to open today.”

  He drew back and looked at her at close range, so close that her long lashes fluttered against his. “Why? It’s such a promising start.”

  Her speech warmed his cheek. “Because you’ve already admitted that you’re not at your best. And I deserve the best.”

  “That’s fair,” he admitted, after consideration.

  “And besides,” she said practically, “I see no point in losing my virtue in a train compartment when I’ve gone to all the trouble of acquiring such a nice large bed.”

  Martinez laughed, then kissed her again. “I’ll look forward to the bed. But in the meantime I hope to convince you that train compartments have their advantages.”

  She smiled. “You’re welcome to try.”

  He caressed her with his lips, brushing her cheek and mouth and throat. The train began a smooth acceleration, without bumps or lurches, that would take it to supersonic speed on its way to the capital. His hands floated over her body, and he was rewarded with a sudden intake of breath, a shuddering gasp, and she clutched his hand with her own. And then, as they lay side by side with the warmth of her white-gold hair soft against his cheek, he felt tension enter her body.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  She turned away, took his hand, and lay against his shoulder, placing his hand around her waist. Through the window he could see improbably green equatorial countryside blur past. “Forgive me,” she said. “I’m very nervous. I thought if I could meet you and…sort of take charge—”

  “It would be easier?”

  “Yes.”

  Martinez nuzzled her hair. “Take your time. I don’t want you to run out that door.”

  She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it. “That’s not it. I promise I won’t run again. But I’ve realized that you are going to have to take charge sooner or later, because I’m not going to know what to do.”

  His start of surprise was so violent that she sat up and turned to him. “You’re a virgin?” he said.

  “Oh no.” Her tone was amused. “But it’s been years. A very long time since I had a…”

  “A man?”

  “A boy.” Sadness entered her eyes. “A boy I didn’t love. I think he’s dead now.” She slowly turned away from him, and settled back against his shoulder. He caressed her hair.

  An intuition flashed along his nerves. “You were drinking then?” he asked. On their last disastrous outing she’d told him that she once had a problem with alcohol.

  There was a hesitation before Sula answered. “Yes,” she said. “There are things in my past that I’m not proud of. You should know that.”

  Martinez kissed the top of her head and contemplated her history and his own responsibilities. Her parents had been executed—skinned alive—when Sula was on the verge of adolescence, her family’s homes and wealth confiscated by the State, and Sula herself had been fostered out on a remote provincial world. Certainly any one of these incidents constituted a traumatic enough shock to send her reeling toward the erratic solace of alcohol and sex. It was a tribute to her character that she’d been able to draw herself out of the sink of despair into which she’d been swept.

  But that meant that her only knowledge of love was confined to drunken adolescent couplings, perhaps with boys who had deliberately made her drunk for the particular purpose of coupling with her. Sula had apparently never known the ease and pleasures of bed, the give and take, the gift of laughter and the fire of a proper caress…

  Did not know love at all, he realized.

  And the boy, she said, was probably dead. So even that attachment, whatever it was, had ended badly.

  Martinez took a long breath. She did deserve his best. He would have to try to give it to her, in that big bed of hers.

  And then a realization struck him and he laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Sula asked.

  “I’m just realizing that I’ve lost one of my chief weapons,” he said. “I can’t slip you a few drinks to get you relaxed.”

  Her laughter rose bright in the air. He kissed her ear, and they sat for a while, her head on his shoulder, while mountains rose on the other side of the window and danced jagged along the horizon, then fell a
way again. They chatted of entertainments, of a video they had shared, the comedian Spate in Spitballs! They laughed over their memories of Spate’s famous Mushroom Dance, and rejoiced in their mutual taste for low humor.

  Martinez ordered a meal, and the attendant arrived to set the small table in place, adding white linen, silver, a small vase with flowers, and—to judge by Sula’s expression—some rather inferior porcelain. Sula sat opposite Martinez, her tunic properly buttoned. With the meal, Martinez shared Sula’s bottle of mineral water.

  The train raced on, through forests and over broad rivers; its flanges, placed with precision along its flanks, pulsing out interfering sound waves that canceled its sonic boom. More mountain ranges rose and then fell behind, and the train began slowing as it approached its destination.

  Sula and Martinez embraced, kissed, and watched as Zanshaa’s Lower Town, the huge expanse radiating on all sides of the High City, sped past the window. After the machine came to a halt in the station, Martinez folded Sula in his arms one last time before leaving the privacy of the compartment.

  The terminus was within easy walking distance of the funicular railway that took them to Zanshaa’s acropolis. As they rose to the High City, Martinez looked through the funicular’s transparent walls at the blue stained-glass dome of the old Sula Palace, lost now to the Sula heir, and wondered what passed through Sula’s mind when she viewed it.

  “Why don’t you take me home in your taxi?” Sula suggested. “That way you’ll know where I live.”

  If Martinez hadn’t been so weary, he probably would have thought of that himself.

  To his delight, Martinez found that Sula lived just behind the Shelley Palace, the colossal old pile his family rented in the capital. He suspected that was not an accident.

  “When you have a free moment,” Sula said, “come up and see the bed.”

  She kissed him quickly on the cheek and slid from the taxi before he could put his arms around her. Martinez restrained the impulse to lunge after her, and instead let the Cree driver swing around the corner to halt in front of the Shelley Palace, where Martinez’s family were waiting.

  Martinez’s brothers and sisters had realized that he would be exhausted, and hadn’t planned anything more elaborate than a simple family supper for the night of his arrival. Roland, his older brother, placed Martinez at the head of the table, in the place of honor. He was pleased to be wearing civilian dress for the first time in months. Vipsania and Walpurga, handsome and impeccably dressed even on this informal occasion, sat next to each other on Martinez’s right hand, one in a red gown, the other in sea-green. The youngest sister, Sempronia, sat next to Roland on the left.

  At the far end of the table, next to Sempronia, was her fiancé PJ Ngeni, a cousin of Lord Convocate Ngeni, whose family represented Martinez interests. PJ was suspected of having lost his money in a series of debaucheries, and his engagement was a stratagem on the part of Clan Ngeni to relieve themselves of an expensive and useless relation. One stratagem deserved another, Martinez had felt, and had devised a plan of his own. Sempronia and Lord PJ were engaged, to be sure, but the engagement would be a long one—there would be no marriage as long as Sempronia stayed in school, and Sempronia would be in school for as many years as was necessary for the Martinez family to use the access granted by the Ngenis to wedge themselves into Zanshaa’s highest strata of Peers. And once that happened, PJ would be returned to whence he came, there to remain a debit on the ledgers of his clan.

  PJ had not yet realized, apparently, that the engagement was nothing more than a ruse, and throughout supper he paid Sempronia a series of elaborate courtesies, courtesies to which Sempronia replied with a graceful inclination of her head and a kind, condescending smile, a smile that vanished whenever she glanced down the table at Martinez.

  Sempronia hadn’t forgiven Martinez for shackling her, even temporarily, to this human debacle. Especially when her affections appeared to be genuinely engaged by Nikkul Shankaracharya, Corona’s former lieutenant.

  Martinez found himself uninterested in Sempronia’s problems. She, after all, only had to put up with one imbecile. He had the whole Fleet Control Board.

  “You’ll be decorated and promoted in two days’ time,” Roland said. “At the same time your victory at Hone-bar will be announced throughout the empire.” He gave a sardonic smile. “It’ll be Do-faq’s victory officially, and he’ll be promoted and decorated too—but the people who matter will know who’s really responsible, and since Do-faq is still with his squadron, you’ll be the one seen on video in the Hall of Ceremony….” Roland gave a pleased nod. “After that, we can start pressing to get you a command. It will seem special pleading until everyone realizes you’re the only officer in the Fleet to be decorated twice for actions against the enemy. Then giving you a real job will only seem good sense.”

  Martinez, who personally thought that the special pleading should have started ages ago, nodded as if he agreed, and then realized that his brother had no post whatever within the Fleet or the government, and shouldn’t be aware of any of these details at all.

  “How do you know this?” he asked.

  “From Lord Chen. He and I have been…associated in an enterprise.”

  Martinez looked at his brother. “So how porous is the Fleet Control Board?”

  Roland shrugged. “Everything’s porous. If you’re on the inside, you can find out anything you want.”

  “And you’re on the inside now?”

  Roland looked down at his plate and drew his knife delicately across his filet. “Not quite. But we’re getting there.”

  “If you’re so well connected,” Martinez said, “perhaps you can let me know why I don’t have a new command now.”

  Roland paused with his fork partway to his mouth. “I haven’t bothered to inquire. But I imagine it’s the usual story.”

  “Which is?”

  “You’re better than they are.” While Martinez stared in surprise Roland popped the filet into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “You know the tale—Peers are supposed to be, well, peers. Equals. When one stands out above the others it demonstrates that there’s something wrong with the system, and the people in charge of the system don’t care for that. Remember, the nail that gets hammered down is the one that sticks out.

  “You see,” reaching for the wine and refilling Martinez’s glass, “while you were at the academy preparing for your career as a hero, father and I put our heads together and worked out why he failed when he came to Zanshaa. And the answer seemed to be that he was too rich and too talented.”

  “He’s richer now,” Martinez pointed out.

  “He could buy the whole High City and barely notice the loss. But it’s not for sale…to him.” Roland gave his brother a significant look. “He was the nail that stuck out. He got hammered, and the people here dusted their hands of him and forgot that he ever existed. So now his children are here, and we’re being a lot more quiet about our gifts than he was.” Roland filled his own glass and raised it, glancing over the dining room. “We could have our own palace here, a brilliant house built and decorated in up-to-the-instant tastes, first-rate all the way. But we don’t, we rent this old heap.”

  He gave Martinez a penetrating look. “What we need to avoid aren’t so much errors of judgment, but of taste. We could have a ball every week, and sponsor concerts and plays at the Penumbra, and I could wear the latest cravats and our sisters the most extravagant gowns, and we could get into the yachting circuit and sponsor charities and…well, you know the sort of thing.”

  “I’m not sure I do,” Martinez said. “I’m only the nail that sticks out.”

  Roland smiled thinly. “But you’re sticking out in wartime—and that, I think, is all right. The family can move fast now, because the war is so big that no one’s paying attention to the likes of us. And when the war is over, we’ll be a part of the structure here, and that will be all right, because we’ll have got in without anyone noticing us at all.�
�� He frowned. “There may be a backlash after the war, of course. We’ll have to be prepared to ride that out. That’s why you’ll want all the rank and honor you can achieve now, while they still need you.”

  Martinez glanced down the table at PJ, who was as usual paying elaborate court to Sempronia, and presumably unable to hear the low conversation at the opposite end of the table. “Clever of you to use Sempronia the way you did,” Roland said in Martinez’s ear. “And PJ is, well, so perfect in his way…”

  PJ apparently heard his name spoken, and he looked up—long-headed, balding, dressed with perfect taste, and on his face an expression of amiable vacuity. Roland smiled and raised a glass.

  “So glad you could come tonight, PJ,” he said.

  A bright smile flashed across the table, and PJ raised his own glass. “Thank you, Roland! Happy to be here!”

  Martinez raised his own glass and pretended he couldn’t see the face that Sempronia was making at him.

  It was Sempronia who took his arm just after he’d excused himself and began trudging up the main stair to his bed. He turned to her with pleasure: she was his favorite sister, with fair hair and gold-flecked hazel eyes, features so unlike the dark hair and brown eyes of the rest of the family. She was lively and outgoing, unlike her sisters, who had adopted a premature gravity that made them seem older than they were.

  “Haven’t I been good to PJ tonight, Gare?” she asked. “Haven’t I been a good girl?”

  Martinez sighed. “What do you want, Proney?”

  She looked at him brightly. “Can’t you take PJ off my hands tomorrow?”

  He looked at him. “I’ve just got back from a war, for all’s sake. Can’t you get someone else to do it?”

  “No, I can’t.” Sempronia leaned close to him and spoke in a whisper. “You’re the only one who knows about Nikkul. He just got back from a war, too, and I want to be with him.”

  Through his weariness he managed a glare. “What if I have an assignation of my own?”

  She gave him a look of amazement. “You?” she asked.

  No man, Martinez reflected, is a hero to his sister.