The Sundering

by Walter Jon Williams

  “Fourteen, today,” Sula said. “Less, tomorrow.”

  The woman blinked. “I’ll have to contact the owner.”

  “By all means.”

  Fourteen thousand would clean out Sula’s bank account, but she suspected that her bank account wouldn’t do her much good under a Naxid regime anyway.

  The saleswoman returned from her call with a calculating look in her eye. “He’ll want the money today,” she said.

  “Right away, if he likes. But I want you to pack that pot in the most secure container you’ve got. I may have to put it through some gravitational stress.”

  The woman nodded. “We can produce a foam package for you that will include a pressure-sensitive balloon to support the interior.”

  “Very good.”

  Sula held the vase for a moment before it was packed away, letting her eyes dwell on the subtle shades of the blue-green glaze while she brushed the crackle with her fingertips. Then, like a nursing mother reluctantly parting with her newborn, she allowed the vase to be taken away and packed.

  The next day she reported to the Villa Fosca, a pink stucco palace set amid green rolling farmland, and while cities filled with refugees and her supplies of cocoa and tobacco were sent down the skyhook and began to appreciate in value, Sula was put through a course in communications, weapons, explosives, and hand-to-hand combat by engineers, military constabulary, and members of the Intelligence Section. The tenants of the villa were Terrans only, which implied that volunteers belonging to other species were being trained at other facilities.

  Life in the villa was odd. In the mornings the trainees slogged through ditches and waist-high fields of rye in full body armor, afternoons were devoted to class work, and in the evening the enlisted went under tents while the officers wore full dress for supper and behaved as if they were at a summer resort. Almost all the officers were young—even their commander, Lieutenant Captain Hong, was under thirty—and that encouraged a lighthearted style. There was a lot of drink and music and horseplay around the pool, and at night, Sula suspected, a great deal of cohabitation. Sula, who at the formal suppers wore more impressive medals than anyone present, was treated with respect even as she declined offers of alcohol and sex. The others forgave her these eccentricities on the grounds that she was a hero and entitled to her crotchets.

  Other officers were scandalized that she didn’t have a servant, and though she protested that she had organized her belongings exactly as she wanted them and that anyone else could only disturb her arrangements, they insisted on procuring an orderly from the ranks. Sula had never in her life interviewed a servant and was intimidated by the prospect, but the others had already organized themselves into an informal committee and carried out the interviews themselves, while Sula sat in their midst and nodded as if this were the sort of thing she did every day. Before long she had an orderly named Macnamara, a tall, curly-haired, clean-cheeked youth who had volunteered from the military constabulary. He was one of the stars of the personal combat courses, and Sula felt a growth in confidence knowing he’d be guarding her back.

  Sula gathered that Martinez’s idea of defending Zanshaa with an actual army had been deemed impractical, but the government didn’t want to abandon the capital entirely. Sula was to be part of a stay-behind team intended to gather intelligence and to participate in sabotage and the assassination of traitors.

  Near the end of their twenty-day course, the teams were inspected by Senior Captain Ahn-kin of the Intelligence Section, and Ahn-kin paused before Sula—braced at the salute, in immaculate full-dress uniform, with her combat gear laid out on the peristyle before her—and gave her a long stare.

  “You are Lieutenant the Lady Sula, are you not?” Ahn-kin asked.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Ahn-kin leaned forward intently. “Why are you here, my lady?”

  Surprised, Sula stammered out something about wanting to defend the Praxis.

  “That isn’t what I mean,” Ahn-kin said. “I meant that you should not be here at all. You are one of the most recognizable Terrans on this planet. How can you hide in an enemy-occupied city and expect not to be recognized?”

  For a moment Sula could think of no reply that was not obscene. Her own stupidity, and the imbecility of those running this operation, had just been driven home with the simplest of questions.

  Disgust stung her throat like the taste of bile.

  We’re just playing soldier out here. For all the good we’re doing, we might as well be playing hopscotch.

  “I’ll change my appearance, my lord,” she said finally.

  “I hope you will,” Ahn-kin said severely.

  The next day she went to a cosmetician in Edernay and had her hair bobbed severely, and dyed a deep jet-black. Recalling that her only civilian clothing consisted of a simple black party dress, she acquired a modest collection of civilian clothes, and wore some of these on her return to the villa. The consensus of opinion was that her pale complexion, contrasting with the black hair, made her even more striking than before.

  “But do I look like me?” she demanded.

  There was a collective hesitation. “Perhaps you could do something with the eyes.”

  Cosmetic contact lenses were easy enough to procure. And carotene supplements would darken her complexion, at least if she didn’t overdo them and turn bright orange. Sula made a note to procure a supply of these items.

  After the twenty-two days of the course were run, the group was assembled by their commander, Lieutenant Captain Lord Octavius Hong. He was a young man with hair that had gone prematurely gray, and he projected the vigor and clean enjoyment of the sportsman. Clearly he had volunteered for the job because he thought it would be a way to leapfrog over the heads of the many elcaps senior to him, a fast route to promotion and distinction.

  Hong stood on the veranda and addressed the trainees ranked on the lawn below. He spoke quickly, incisively, and without notes, while making vigorous gestures with his black-gloved hands. Sula had to admit that whoever had taught Hong rhetoric and public speaking had done a good job.

  “Lord Governor Pahn-ko has authorized me to inform you of a number of developments that may be of interest to you,” Hong said. “Lord Saïd has ordered changes in the administration of the empire in order to assure a continuation of order in the event of a loss of the capital and the absence of the Convocation.”

  In the event? Sula wondered if any one of Hong’s audience didn’t know that one of these things had already happened, and that the other was inevitable….

  Hong made a chopping gesture with one gloved hand. “Each of the lords governor has been ordered to establish a General Council, composed of members of all loyal species and of all sectors of society. This council will aid each governor in administration, and provide support to the Convocation and to the successful conclusion of the war….”

  And to keep an eye on each other, Sula thought. And as for “all sectors of society,” she thought she could name a few that wouldn’t be seen among the councils of government.

  “Each governor is also instructed to appoint a deputy governor, a loyal citizen who will act in his stead if the governor is forced to surrender to the enemy. The deputy governor is authorized to appoint a secret council to aid him in this endeavor, as well as to make military appointments. The deputy and his aides will fight on in the event of any Naxid occupation.”

  And will keep an eye on the General Council, Sula thought. The knowledge that the councillors were being observed by secret appointees, some with guns, would no doubt have a chilling effect on any attempts to get cozy with the Naxids.

  “On Zanshaa, however, the arrangement will be slightly different.” Hong marched to the front of the verandah and gazed down at his command with his hands clasped behind his back and his chest thrust out, a picture of confidence and mastery. “Zanshaa is already under a military governor,” he said. “When the Naxids come, Fleet Commander Pahn-ko and his entire staff and council move i
nto a secret facility now being prepared for them. The fleetcom will remain in command of our units and much of the civil administration. So you can rest assured that any order you receive from me will have the direct authority of the governor. And you should know that your efforts on behalf of the Praxis will be brought to the lord governor’s attention for commendation and promotion.”

  He withdrew a fist from behind his back and brandished it, waist-high, to emphasize the importance of this statement. Sula hadn’t actually been worried on this score, but now she began to think that worry might have been the appropriate reaction all along. It was unclear how an elderly fleetcom in hiding was going to control all these elements of society without making himself conspicuous, especially considering that the Naxids were going to be looking for him anyway.

  Let’s hope Pahn-ko never meets anyone face-to-face, Sula thought. Let’s hope they have all the codes worked out. Let’s hope that nobody up the line has a complete list of all of us written out with our names and addresses.

  Thus inspired by Hong’s speech, the trainees were then given a false backup identity, and then left the Villa Fosca for Kaidabal, a city of two million south of Zanshaa. They were split up into three-person Action Teams, eleven of which made an Action Group—Sula was amused to see that the organization charts manifested the old Shaa love for prime numbers. Sula’s Action Team 491—another prime—consisted of herself as leader, Engineer/1st Shawna Spence as technician and demolition specialists, and Macnamara as a runner and general backup.

  The city was distracted by the First Fruits Festival, and amid the crowds of celebrants the teams experienced no difficulty as they took on their cover identities and practiced hiding, infiltrating, communicating through cutouts, and assembling at certain places, at certain hours, in order to conduct mock operations. The pace was somewhat more relaxed than at Villa Fosca, and Sula took a few days to travel to Zanshaa and create a small, privately held company under her cover identity, one that dealt in used machine parts. Ownership of her crates of cocoa, tobacco, and coffee were transferred to this company, and the crates themselves shifted to new warehouses. En route the labels on the boxes were changed, and now read: Used machine parts—for recycling. She couldn’t think of any label less likely to raise curiosity or encourage theft.

  No one recognized the businesslike, dark-haired, dark-eyed woman as Lady Sula. Not even when she put on her uniform, took off her dark contacts, put the black hair under a uniform cap, and went to her bank to withdraw all her remaining funds in cash. The bank clerk, no doubt used to cash withdrawals by now, stifled a yawn as she handed Sula her money.

  It was then that Sula produced her special warrant from the military governor. “Now,” Sula said, “I want you to erase my thumbprint from your records.” Anyone on an Action Team was authorized to order any critical records erased—loans, bank accounts, lines of credit, and especially the thumbprint that would present conclusive and legal identification.

  The clerk blinked. “My lady?”

  “I’m closing the account. You have no reason to retain my print, and I’d like to see you erase it. In fact,” showing her special warrant, “this requires you to erase it.”

  “That’s not our procedure,” the woman said. “We keep everything.”

  “Do it now,” Sula said, but the clerk had to call her manager, who viewed Pahn-ko’s order and then shrugged his shoulders.

  Sula watched as Caro Sula’s old print vanished into electric oblivion, and took comfort that another piece of the past was safely buried.

  The Action Group moved to Zanshaa City, where they continued to conduct exercises. A rather amazing amount of specialized assassination equipment and explosive went into storage lockers all over the city. Team 491 was placed in a middle-class corner apartment in a Terran district of the Lower Town, a neighborhood called Grandview. They were on the top floor of a four-story building, with a small terrace and windows looking out over two street. It was a pleasant enough place, plainly furnished, and once all the gear was tidied away to Sula’s satisfaction, the furniture rearranged, and the place given a general cleaning, she began to feel a growing optimism about her mission.

  The Naxids rather obstinately did not come. Sula wished she’d known they would take their time: she would have managed a much less chaotic evacuation of the Zanshaa ring.

  One morning the door chimed, and Sula answered to find the concierge, an elderly man named Greyjean. Both his upper incisors were missing and he suffered from a consequent habit of misplacing certain consonants.

  “Are you finding everything suitable, my lady?” he asked.

  “Everything’s fine.” Sula, remembering her cover identity, added, “You don’t have to call me ‘my lady.’ I’m a commoner.”

  The old man seemed surprised. “My mistake, miss. I got a different impression from the constabulary.”

  A warning bell sang a clear note in Sula’s mind. “Constabulary?” she asked. “What constabulary?”

  “The military constabulary who evicted the previous tenants,” the concierge said. “They said they needed this apartment for some Fleet VIPs.”

  Sula stared at the old man. “Ah. Ha,” she said.

  We are in such fucking trouble, she thought.

  ELEVEN

  Steadied by the arm of the rigger who helped him rise, Martinez dragged himself out of the boarding tube into the airlock, then braced briefly to answer the salute of the lieutenant who stood before him. She was nearly as tall as Martinez, and had a heart-shaped face and brown hair drawn into a knot behind the head and twined around a pair of gold-enameled chopsticks.

  “Captain Martinez reporting aboard Illustrious,” he said.

  “Welcome to Illustrious, lord captain,” she said. “I’m the premiere here, Lady Fulvia Kazakov.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Martinez offered her his hand, and she took it.

  Alikhan pulled himself out of the tube behind Martinez, placed his feet carefully on the deck, then braced in salute. “My lady,” he said.

  “This is Alikhan,” Martinez said. “My orderly.”

  Kazakov briefly returned the salute, and nodded to the rigger. “I’ll have Turnbull here show your servants to their quarters, and to yours,” she said. “But I know that the squadcom would like to meet you now, if that’s convenient for you.”

  “Certainly,” Martinez said. If it hadn’t been for the month of acceleration, his transit to Illustrious aboard the Daffodil might almost have been pleasant. Daffodil had been designed to pamper high company officials, and there were showers, a laundry, private cabins, a large range of entertainments, and a full kitchen stocked with delicacies by Perry, the recruit who had been forced to leave Ari Abacha’s service, and who had joined Martinez despite the ominous prospect of ship duty. Perry had done the cooking, and judging by the exclamations of the others had done it extremely well.

  “The others” constituted Martinez’s full allotment of servants. The third, Espinosa, was a rigger, and the last, Ayutano, a machinist. Martinez hadn’t intended to use these two as servants at all, and they had been brought more or less as a gift to Illustrious’s captain, as Martinez had observed that ships that had been away from the dockyards for a while could always do with extra machinists and riggers.

  After leaving the airlock Martinez followed Kazakov up a companionway toward officers’ country. The heavy cruiser Illustrious had six times the volume of Martinez’s old Corona, with nearly the four times the number of crew. The quarters were more spacious, with corridors broad enough for four humans to march abreast.

  From the first sight of Illustrious framed in Daffodil’s ports, it had been clear that the captain had spared to no expense to turn his ship into a masterpiece of style. The exterior hull had been painted with a complex geometric pattern in pink, pale green, and icing-sugar white. Inside, the corridor walls had been tiled with a distinctive, complex pattern, golden-yellow and dark red accented with white and black. Occasionally the tile pattern
would open to reveal a trompe l’oeil niche or window painted with a scene from nature, a riot of greenery in which capered fanciful beasts or birds.

  The rooms which Martinez passed on his way to Lady Michi’s quarters were each distinctively designed, with abstract patterns which favored turquoise and red and yellow ochre, or with more trompe l’oeil, cabins painted so that they seemed to be opening to some fantastic landscape, or to a series of elaborately decorated rooms. The style and scale of it made the aesthetics of Corona’s old captain Tarafah, with his football motif, seem like those of an amateur.

  All this, Martinez knew, had been created, supervised, and paid for by Lord Gomberg Fletcher, the captain of Illustrious. Martinez had never encountered Fletcher, but he knew that this offspring of the highly-placed Gomberg and Fletcher clans was not only considered the Fleet’s leading aesthete, but was the owner of one of the empire’s greatest art collections, some elements of which were on display in Illustrious’s more public areas.

  And furthermore it was all immaculate. Martinez’s practiced eyes saw no dust, no grime, no scars. The crew he encountered were spotlessly turned out and alert, leaping out of Martinez’s way as soon as they saw him, braced against the walls, chins high.

  “As long as we’ve passing by my office,” Kazakov said, “Let me take care of your captain’s card.”

  Kazakov’s office seemed to be the wardroom, the walls mellow with scenes of men and women reclining on couches while eating and drinking. One of the lieutenants and a steward leaped to the salute as Martinez entered. “As you were,” he told them.

  There were computer displays along one wall, and Kazakov dropped into a chair and took Martinez’s captain’s key. Martinez wondered briefly why Kazakov was working in the wardroom, and then realized that it was because he, himself, had probably taken her actual quarters for himself.

  A ship’s tactical officer was normally a lieutenant assigned the duty by the captain; but in a flagship the squadron tactical officer was appointed by the flag officer and considered a part of her staff. Such an officer was usually still a lieutenant, if a favored one, but it wasn’t completely unknown for a staff officer to have higher rank.