The sniper was a semiretired Daimong named Fer Tuga, a hunting guide from the Ambramas Reserve, half a continent away. On his periodic visit to Zanshaa to visit his daughter, he’d take the hunting rifle he left in her apartment and use it to kill Naxids.
The last occasion had gone wrong when the Naxid convoy returned a torrent of accurate fire within a few seconds of his firing his first round. He’d barely escaped with his life.
“The Naxids have got to have something new,” Tuga reported. “Either they saw me behind a darkened window or they saw the bullet in flight.”
It turned out to be the latter. A small mobile phased-array radar system linked by a cleverly programmed computer to automatic weapons platforms.
Sniper tactics at once became much less profitable. Bomb use increased by way of compensation. Bombs began getting larger and more sophisticated, and adapted to different targets.
The Naxids moved more security forces into the capital, which just created new targets.
There were plenty of ways for Project Daliang to fail, and Sula tried to work them all out in advance. She spent long hours with maps of the city and with timetables, trying to arrange for proper rendezvous. Two light earth-moving machines were abstracted from government stores. Prisons were put under observation. Word was passed along the entire unwieldy apparatus of the secret army that action was imminent, and that it would involve taking and holding buildings. Bombs, grenades, and rockets were manufactured and stored in secret depots. Grannies were set to work baking ammunition for the Sidney rifles.
Sula went up to the High City on a day when chill drizzle had turned the funicular’s flagstone terrace dark and wet. She wanted to inspect the empty Ngeni Palace and make certain it was adequate for hiding the Bogo Boys and the other strike troops who were scheduled to come up the cliff.
PJ seemed more cheerful than usual. “I’m happy to show you the old place,” he said, “but when are you going to need it?”
Sula hesitated, sensing something behind his words. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been evicted. Some Naxid clan has requisitioned the property. I got the notice two days ago, and they gave me ten days to get myself and my belongings out.” He gave her a brilliant smile. “I can be useful now. I don’t have to live in the High City. I can move to the Lower Town and become a soldier in the secret army.”
Already calculations were flooding through her mind. “Can we check the weather report?” she asked.
He led her to a desk, and with a few commands she discovered that the cold drizzle would last for another two days, then be pushed away by a high pressure front from the southwest. There would be at least four days of beautiful, sunny, summery weather.
There’s our window,she thought. She hoped six days would be enough.
She straightened and looked at him. “I hope you’ll employ our trucking firm to move your belongings to your new lodgings.”
He shrugged. “I don’t have any belongings to speak of. Not since my father lost all our money.”
“You’ve forgotten the pile of weaponry that Sidney gave us, and that’s still in storage.”
“Oh.” PJ’s eyes widened.
“And surely Clan Ngeni doesn’t want all their furniture and other possessions to go to the Naxids? Or have the Naxids insisted that everything remain?”
PJ looked as if he hadn’t considered this. “No,” he said. “I suppose I can take anything.”
“Then we’ll remove your clan’s stuff for you. And I’ll need to look at the palace after all-assuming, of course, that you don’t mind if we use the place for one last operation.”
“Certainly. Of course.” Anxiety crossed PJ’s expression. “But I really can join the secret army after I’ve left the High City?”
She looked at him. “PJ,” she said, “you’vealways been in the secret army. You were my first recruit.”
He was flustered and, she thought, pleased. “Well yes. Thank you. But I mean a real soldier.”
“You’ve always been a real soldier.”
Surprised delight flushed PJ’s cheeks. “I’ve only wanted to be…to be worthy.”
“You’re more than worthy,” Sula said. “And as far as I’m concerned, better off without her.”
Her words brought an uncomfortable sadness to PJ’s long face. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “She was so bright and lively, and I…” He fell silent.
Something he’d said came to Sula’s mind.
“PJ,” she said, “you mentioned that your father lost your family’s money.”
“Yes. Gambling, and-” He sighed. “-other sorts of gambling too-unwise investments. Stocks and futures and debentures, whatever those are. My father hid the losses for a long time, and I had a very pleasant life for a while, with cars and clothes and entertainments and…” He groped for words. “…the usual. But it was all borrowed money. So I turned thirty-five and then…” He threw out his hands. “Then it was all gone.”
Sula was surprised. She had always assumed PJ lost his money in debauchery. Instead he’d lived a perfectly normal life for a member of his class, oblivious to everything around him, until suddenly his life wasn’t there any longer, and he became the object of pity and contempt that his relatives had tried to sell to Clan Martinez, only to have him rejected by the woman he loved and bundled into marriage with someone else.
Perhaps, she thought, her own life had been easier, since she’d never had any money to begin with.
“I’m sorry, PJ,” she said.
The expression on his face was hopeless. “I know the marriage to Sempronia was supposed to be all about money,” he said. “But I was too useless and ridiculous to take seriously, and-” His eyes were starry with tears. He turned away. “Let’s look at the palace, shall we? I have the key right here.”
Sula followed him across the court and through the cavernous, empty house, filled with silence and ghosts, and gathering dust. She wanted to comfort him, but knew she was the wrong woman for the job.
He was another casualty of Martinez’s ambitions. As was she.
Three days of frenzied work followed, and the long-limbed, stumbling, uncoordinated giant that was the secret army began to pull itself free from the muck in which it hid itself and prepare to take its first great strides. Trucks rolled up to the High City, carrying away Ngeni furniture, replacing it with paint, canvas, medical supplies, and mountaineering gear. Sula rode the trucks along the streets of the High City, making notes on a map of which palaces had guards, and therefore held someone worth guarding. She wondered what would happen to the guards during an emergency, whether they’d stick at their posts or rush to the fighting. She supposed she’d find out on the day.
Storage cabinets were opened and Team 491’s formidable arsenal removed and placed in willing hands. Friends on the police opened a warehouse and over four hundred modern automatic rifles, an equal number of sidearms, ammunition, sets of body armor, and grenades and their launchers became the possession of the secret army. The police didn’t even have to be bribed.
A pair of the scouts watching the prisons were captured, and apparently provided to the Naxids the false information with which they’d been primed. Through the friendly contacts the cliques maintained with agents of law enforcement, Sula learned that the prison guards had been quietly reinforced and that police and Fleet personnel were shifted out of the city center to react to any mass breakout attempts.
The Naxids were apparently satisfied that they were about to spring a trap. So was the White Ghost. Time would tell which of them was right.
At last there came a moment when the last message had been sent, the last weapon readied, the last plan made, revised, and remade. Then, as the sun touched the horizon, Sula walked into the safe house she shared with Casimir and found him dressed in his long Chesko coat with the triangular mirrors, the shining boots, the long walking stick with its glittering globe of rock crystal.
The room had a strange scent of lavender, and she p
aused in the door in astonishment. He turned to her, the skirts of his coat swirling, and made an elaborate bow.
“Welcome, Lady Sula,” he said. “We’re going out tonight.”
“You’re mad,” Sula said. “Do you realize how much-”
“Everything’s taken care of,” Casimir said. “The soldiers are doing all the work, and the general can relax.” He took a step to one side and revealed the green moire gown that he’d draped on the bed. “I’ve provided more suitable clothing for an evening out.”
Sula closed the door behind her and took a few dazed steps into the room. “Casimir,” she said, “I’m a completewreck. I haven’t slept in days. I’m keeping myself going on coffee and sugar. I can’t doanything like this.”
“I have drawn a relaxing bath,” he said. He made an elaborate show of looking at his sleeve display. “Our car will pick us up in half an hour.”
Wondering, Sula walked into the bathroom, shed her clothing, and stepped into the lavender-scented bath. She lay back in the lukewarm water and commanded the hot water tap to open. She added hot water until steam was rising from the surface of the water, then lay back and closed her eyes. It was only an instant before she jerked awake to Casimir’s knock.
“The car will be here in ten minutes,” he said.
She busied herself quickly with the soap, then dried, brushed her hair, applied cosmetic and scent. She stepped naked into the front room to put on the gown, and Casimir watched from a corner chair, a connoisseur’s smile on his face. The gown fit perfectly. He rose from his chair and bent to kiss one of her bare shoulders, a brush of lips on her clavicle that sent a shimmer of pleasure along her nerves.
The car was a long sedan, driven by Casimir’s two Torminel bodyguards. It was the first time she had seen the guards since Casimir went underground, when their conspicuousness necessitated shifting them to other duties.
The car eased its way through the growing shadows and delivered them to the side entrance of a club on the Petty Mount. The place was dark, with a few spotlights here and there, on a table beneath an immaculate crisp white tablecloth, on the gleaming dance floor, on the empty bandstand. A tall Lai-own waitron stood in reflected light by the table.
“Sir,” he said. “Madam.”
The Lai-own poured champagne for Casimir and sparkling water for Sula, then vanished into the darkness. Sula turned to Casimir.
“You’ve done this just for us?” she asked.
“Not entirely for us alone,” he said, and then she heard Veronika’s laugh.
She came in with Julien, both dressed well and expensively, if not with Casimir’s flair for style. Veronika wore her glittering anklet. Sula hadn’t seen her since her exit from jail. Veronika looked at her as she approached, and her eyes went wide.
“They tell me you’re a Peer!” she said. “They say you’re the White Ghost, in command of the secret army!” She waved a hand dismissively. “I tell everyone that I knew you when you were just a math teacher!”
The waitron brought more drinks and their meal. When they finished eating and were served coffee, a four-piece Cree band came in and began setting up their instruments. A shiver of apprehension wafted up Sula’s spine as she remembered the Cree in the haberdashery, the one who had first addressed her as the White Ghost.You are she, he had said.
The Cree with his wonderfully acute hearing must have recognized her voice from the brief video clips inResistance. Now she wondered if she dared speak in front of the band.
She touched Casimir’s thigh and leaned next to him.
“Are you sure we’re safe here?” she asked.
He grinned. “I have two extraction teams waiting outside,” he said. “Anybody comes, they’re in for a fight.” He nuzzled close to drop a kiss on her earlobe. “And I’ve got the escape route planned. Just like you taught me.”
“After the war,” she said, “the Riverside Clique will be found to have acquired a very dangerous collection of skill sets.”
The band began to play. The two couples stepped onto the dance floor and Sula’s nervousness faded. In the slow dances, she clung to Casimir, her head on his shoulder, her eyes closed, existing happily in a world of sensation: the music that beat in time to her heart, the sway of Casimir’s weight against hers, the deep musky scent of his warm body. In the faster dances, she was content to let him guide her, as he had all evening, a responsibility he accepted with silent gravity. He was focused entirely on her, his face composed in an expression of solemn regard, his dark eyes rarely leaving her face.
The band fell silent. The dancers’ applause was swallowed in the huge empty room. Casimir took her hand and led her to the table.
“This next act is just for you,” he said.
A Terran woman stepped onto the stage in a rustling flounce of skirts, her face and hands powdered white except for round rouged spots high on each cheek. She carried herself like a warrior, her chin high, imperious pride glittering from her eyes.
A derivoo. Sula’s heart surged, and she pressed Casimir’s hand.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Julien raised an eyebrow. “I hope you realize what a sacrifice the rest of us are making,” he said.
The derivoo stood in a spotlight, one of the Cree played a single chord, and the derivoo began to sing. The single strong voice rang in the air, proclaiming a passionate love fated to become anguish, a lover once adoring now turned to stone. Each syllable raked Sula’s nerves; each word seared. The singer proclaimed the confrontation of one lone heart with the Void, pure in the knowledge that the victory of the Void was foreordained.
For the next half hour the lone brave voice faced every horror: sadness, isolation, death, lost love, violence, terror. There was no pity in the world of the derivoo, but neither was there surrender. The derivoo walked proudly into the realm of death, and died with scorn and defiance on her tongue.
The performance was brilliant. Sula stared in silent rapture throughout, except for the moments when she burned her hands with furious applause.
It was the most perfect thing she could imagine, to hear these songs just before making a desperate gamble with her own life. It was good to be reminded that her own existence was just a spark in the darkness, so brief that it scarcely mattered whether it ended now or later.
At the end of her performance, the derivoo held for a moment a pose of pure defiance, then turned and vanished into the darkness. Sula applauded and shouted, but the singer scorned the very idea of an encore.
Sula turned to Casimir. “That was wonderful,” she breathed.
“Yes, it was.” He took her hand. “I watched you the whole time. I’ve never seen an expression like that on your face.”
“Sing like that,” she said, “and you’ll see it again.” She turned to Julien and Veronika. “What did you think?” she asked.
Veronika’s eyes were wide. “I had noidea, ” she said. “I’ve never seen derivoo live before.”
Julien loosened his collar. “For me, it was a little intense,” he said, “but she’s a terrific performer, I’ll hand you that.”
The two couples parted. Casimir and Sula returned to the long car with the Torminel bodyguards and followed the vehicles of the extraction team out of the area. When they were alone in the apartment, which still smelled of the lavender bath oil, Sula put her arms around Casimir and gave him a long, grateful kiss.
“That was the most perfect evening I can imagine,” she said.
His body was warm against hers. “I wanted to give you one special night to remember,” he said, “before our time together ends.”
Her nerves gave a leap at his words. She looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
There seemed an extra measure of gravel in Casimir’s deep voice, as if there were an obstruction in his throat, but there was perfect logic in his words.
“Project Daliang will either succeed or not,” he said. “If it fails, we won’t have much to worry about, because it’s lik
ely one or both of us will be dead. But if it succeeds, then you become Lady Sula again, and I stay who I am. Lady Sula lives in a whole different world from me.” He attempted a defiant grin. “But that’s all right. It’s as it should be. I have no right to complain, being what I am.”
Her mind whirled, but she managed to assemble a protest. “That doesn’t have to be true.”
Casimir laughed. “What are you going to do?” he said. “Introduce me to your Peer friends? And what will I be tothem? An exotic pet.”
Sula took a step away from him. She felt her face harden into anger. “That is simply not true,” she said.
There was a touch of scorn in his voice. “Of course it is. I’m a cliqueman. The only way I can get into the High City is to fight my way in with an army.”
Angry words boiled up from her heart, but she caught them at the last minute.Don’t destroy this, she thought. She had smashed perfect evenings in the past, and she would smash this one if she wasn’t careful.
“I’m fighting my way in too,” she said.
“Yes. And I know how much it must have cost you to get where you are now.”
Her mind staggered under the certainty that Casimir somehow knew about Caro Sula. Howcould he? she thought wildly.
“What do you mean?” she said in a whisper.
“The night that Julien was arrested,” Casimir said. “That performance you put on in my office, showing up naked under your coat. I was completely boggled by what you did that night.” He reached out a cool hand and drew a long finger along her bare shoulder. “You haven’t acted like that since, but then you haven’t had to. You got what you wanted-me clear of Julien’s arrest, which you’d arranged so you could get old Sergius on your side in the war.”
Her nerves turned to ice. “Who else knows?” she said.
“I figured it out, but that’s because I was there to see that very impressive show you put on for my benefit. Julien will never guess, but I wouldn’t put it past Sergius to work it out eventually.”
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