And sure enough, vehicles in the black and yellow colors of the Motor Patrol raced into sight and began spitting out Naxid police in helmets and armor, each carrying a weapon. Captain Klarvash, or someone like him, had finally come to the rescue.
The Naxids raced out of sight, toward the riot, scrambling on their four frantic legs. And then came the sound of concentrated rifle fire, as they made up for their belated appearance by beginning a massacre, just as they had so often during the war.
Naxids, Martinez knew, did not believe in warning shots.
Martinez was too exhausted to summon anything like surprise or outrage, and so he plodded after the party as they trudged down the bridge. Pain snarled through his ribs.
The ambulances arrived a few minutes later, but too late for Lady Kosch, who had drawn her last breath just as the sirens began to wail.
The scent of lilacs filled the hospital room. Kelly lay on her back surrounded by a sea of bouquets, her face colorless, her eyes closed, her breathing regular. Vitals were displayed on a screen over her head.
Her short fair hair had been shaved, and her bald head was naked on the pillow, with only a small bandage over the site of the surgery. After hours in the operating room, the bone shards had all been plucked from her brain, but in the three days since she had never risen to consciousness.
Coma. No one could say how long it would last. No one could say it wouldn’t last forever.
Kelly’s face bore a slightly pursed expression, as if on some level she realized she was in trouble.
The hospitals had been full after the riot. The Motor Patrol had killed or wounded nearly eighty people when they’d charged to the rescue, picking targets more or less at random, except for those who came tumbling out of the Corona Club, and who had been deliberately gunned down as they fled. These last Martinez did not mourn.
Once the mob had broken into the club they’d been outraged they hadn’t found anyone to kill, so they looted the place and set it afire. Which resulted in more casualties, three who had been so intoxicated by stolen liquor that they’d passed out in the burning building, and two who’d been trapped by the flames on the stairs, unable to escape because Sodak and Ti-car had jammed the roof door.
The parts of the building that hadn’t burned had been drenched in fire retardant, and the contents were a total loss. At least, Martinez thought, they’d put the wine cellar to good use.
Too, they had good insurance. They would rebuild.
If only the same could be said for the people who had died.
Martinez’s orderly, Alikhan, had survived without harm. Once he’d arrived in his car and seen the crowd turn violent, he’d returned to the bar where he’d been meeting with his cronies and tried to turn them into a rescue force. But they’d been unable to obtain any firearms—which was lucky for them, since they would have been overwhelmed, or shot by the police. By the time they’d charged to the rescue waving bats and bottles, the riot was over and the gutters ran with blood. Alikhan and his friends had to drop their weapons and run, lest they be targeted as rioters themselves.
The retired petty officer who had organized the attack had been identified quickly: there simply weren’t that many snaggletoothed, piebald Torminel petty officers in the Steadfast League. She had been arrested in her home and was now in the hands of the torturers until she gave up the names of whoever had issued her orders. The Minister of Police was confident that a mere petty officer couldn’t have managed the attack on her own. Martinez didn’t exactly agree, and had certainly come away from the siege with an idea of her competence, but nevertheless hoped she’d name Lady Tu-hon or Lord Tork.
He paced around Kelly’s bed, then came to a sudden halt when a bolt of pain shot from his ribs. He pressed a hand over his side. None of his ribs had actually been broken, but the ligaments holding his rib cage together had been torn, and he now wore a binder under his shirt to hold everything together.
Martinez gasped, took a breath, and looked at Kelly. The doctors had told him it was all right to talk to her, in fact that the stimulation of a familiar voice might enhance her recovery. He didn’t want to talk, however, because he knew that whatever he said, it would come out angry. Anger was what he felt now, a dull sullen throb at the back of his mind.
The crowd had wanted him. Him. They had wanted Terran Criminal Martinez, a member of the robber gang who had caused all their misfortunes.
Kelly was in a coma because she’d defended him. Lady Kosch Altasz was dead. And neither of them should have been hurt, because he shouldn’t have been attacked in the first place, because he was not Terran Criminal Martinez, he was a decorated Fleet officer and a celebrated yachtsman and he had never overthrown a bank in his life. He had bet on banks being overthrown, but he had nothing to do with their purchasing the time-bomb assets, ticking away in their vaults and ready to explode . . .
And now the Motor Patrol had gunned down dozens of citizens, and Martinez knew with absolute certainty that he would be blamed for it. As if he had given the Naxids the order to fire.
All of which he wanted to explain to Kelly, except that he was afraid he’d end up shouting.
He threw himself into a chair. Anger snapped in his skull like an angry dog. He made an effort to calm himself, and he looked at Kelly again, at the pale face on the pale pillow, and the anger poured out of him. Perhaps all she needed was someone to talk to her, and he was the man on the spot. Her family lived on Devajjo, months away in the Hone Reach, and he didn’t even know if they’d received his message telling them of Kelly’s injury.
Nobody but me, he thought. He took a breath.
“Well,” he said, “let me tell you about my son, Gareth. He did something quite brilliant the other day . . .”
“The Steadfast League has revealed itself,” Sula said, “as a knife pointed at the heart of this assembly.” Her gaze took in the half circle of the Convocation. Half the desks were empty, which was normal, but the faces of the convocates who had bothered to attend the session seemed more interested than was usual for them. “A distinguished lady convocate makes an unsubstantiated accusation in this chamber, and days later one of the accused is attacked by a mob, a mob the distinguished convocate supports with her money, and which is organized along military principles by redundant members of the Fleet.”
She looked around the amphitheater again. More faces were turned toward her; more faces displayed interest. She wished she were not obliged to use the polite terms common in the Convocation, which for some reason was called “this assembly” instead of by its name. She also disliked being obliged to use “distinguished convocate” rather than “idiot bitch.”
Sula brought her speech to its conclusion. “I should like to inquire of the government whether it is conducting an investigation of the Steadfast League, its financing, its leadership, and its political purpose.”
She had not addressed her remarks to Lady Tu-hon, but Tu-hon was on her feet as soon as Sula sat down. As were Roland Martinez, Lord Chen, Lord Ngeni, his son Pierre Ngeni, and Oda Yoshitoshi.
The Lord Senior called on Roland and his allies first. Roland waxed indignant on the menace to his family, and the others mentioned the one Peer murdered, and a second in critical condition in a hospital. All united in a call for a thorough investigation.
By this point anger and impatience were radiating off Lady Tu-hon in waves. When Lord Saïd at last recognized her, she leaned forward as she spoke, as if she were about to launch herself at his throat.
“The Steadfast League has no political purpose, and it is not an army!” she proclaimed. “The League proclaims nothing but unity, loyalty to the empire, and devotion to the Praxis!” Her orange eyes gleamed. “If the League were an army, I assure you that the Terran criminals would already know it!”
Sula repressed a smile. Lord Saïd had not been oblivious to the threat that Lady Tu-hon posed to his administration, and there had been a minor backstage conspiracy between the Lord Senior and Roland to let Roland�
��s faction speak first, in order to goad Lady Tu-hon into saying something impolitic.
Threatening members of the Convocation, Sula thought, probably counted.
Sula was, as always, uneasy in her alliance with the Martinez family. They were an ambitious, dedicated band of climbers, whose skillful ascent of the High City had left any number of their friends broken on the stones below. At least, she thought, she was working with Roland and not his brother, who seemed to specialize in bringing her misery.
It hadn’t escaped Sula’s attention that Gareth Martinez had survived the mob’s attack perfectly well, to emerge glittering a few hours later on one of his sister’s news programs, while two Corona Club teammates were delivered either to the hospital or to the morgue. If by some miracle he were made king, he’d climb to his throne atop a pyramid of his friends’ skulls.
Tu-hon turned to the Lord Senior. “May I ask the Lord Senior and the ministers whether there already is an investigation of the incident at the Corona Club?”
Lord Saïd’s face was impassive. “In the absence of the Minister of Justice, I will confirm that an investigation is under way.”
“In that case,” Tu-hon said, “why these calls for an investigation that is already in hand? We need only wait for the official results.”
Now it was Sula’s turn again. “My own question was aimed not at investigating the Corona Club incident, but at investigating the League itself. I intended to warn this assembly against a militarized extralegal organization engaged in unauthorized political activity.” She treated herself to a thin smile. “And I speak as someone with experience in raising and training a secret army.”
Which sent Lady Tu-hon off on another rant, which was more or less what Sula intended. She played no part in the debate that followed, but instead followed the players. Those who spoke in Roland’s favor were all Terran, and the absence of Terrans was marked among those who supported Lady Tu-hon. The majority of the convocates present didn’t speak at all, but that told Sula something else: that none of the other species thought the Terrans were worth defending.
We’re already divided, Sula thought.
She was beginning to think that the time for the restrained, polite language of the Convocation was coming to an end.
She was beginning to wonder if Terrans might not be the new Yormaks.
“Well, princess,” said Naveen Patel, “it’s not like we haven’t noticed that the Steadfast League is starting to look like a menace.”
Julien Bakshi took a drag on his cigarillo, coughed, then inhaled more smoke. “They’re being urged to report lawbreakers to their superiors,” he said. “And traitors and subversives, if they can find any.”
Sula laughed. “Their superiors will spend so much time chasing down false leads,” she said, “they’ll never accomplish anything.”
They had the back room at Julien’s restaurant off Harmony Square, and the remains of a luncheon were scattered on immaculate white table linen. Julien tapped his cigarillo into an ashtray that had been placed at his elbow. “The League members are starting to throw their weight around. Three of them braced one of my bookmakers the other day.”
Patel looked at him. “Which one?”
“Big Ngo.”
“And what happened?”
Julien grinned. “What do you think? Ngo sent them to the hospital.”
Patel laughed. “What did they think Ngo would do?”
“But in hospital they talked to the Patrol,” Julien continued, “so Ngo is keeping out of sight.”
Sula remembered Big Ngo from the Secret Army, a slab-sided enforcer who had served as Patel’s bodyguard. She wasn’t particularly surprised that he’d been able to handle himself in an attack.
“We can’t all be Big Ngo,” she said. “There will be other attacks, against people less able to defend themselves, and we should be ready for them.”
Patel raised his coffee to his lips, then paused, his brows knit in thought. “What are you asking us to do, princess?” he asked. “I have a feeling you’re not talking about just defending our, our thing, but defending—who? All Terrans?”
“If need be,” said Sula.
Patel returned the coffee cup to its saucer without tasting it. He pursed his lips. “Exposing ourselves that way,” he said. “Could be a problem.”
“That sort of thing really isn’t our remit,” Julien said.
“Do you remember,” Sula asked, “what we did to the Naxids in the war?”
They were silent. So relentless had been the attacks of the Secret Army that the Naxids had been driven into their own neighborhoods and only traveled out in guarded convoys.
“Most of the Naxids we killed weren’t rebels,” Sula said. “They weren’t working for the rebel government, they weren’t in the security forces. They were just people. We killed whoever we could catch, and the ones we could catch most easily were the ones with no defense at all.”
Julien’s pointed face was thoughtful. “You think it will come to that?”
“I think we should take care that it doesn’t,” Sula said. “We don’t want attacks on Terrans to become common.”
“You want us to retaliate for that business at the Corona Club?” Patel asked.
Sula felt her lips give a disdainful little twitch. “The Martinez family can look after themselves.”
Julien jabbed his cigarillo into his ashtray. “Lots of people dead already in that one. The Naxids got a little of their own back, you ask me.”
Patel took a sip of his coffee. “Here’s another problem, princess,” he said. “Terrans aren’t the only people with military experience in this town. We made up thirty percent of the Secret Army at most. Which means, if it comes to it, our crews will be outnumbered at least two to one by people who have just as many guns and bombs as we do.”
Following this depressing revelation, there was a moment of thoughtful silence. “We should start talking to those people. To the Secret Army veterans. And you should talk to the rest of the Commission. There’s no benefit to the cliques if there’s war in the streets that you don’t control. That’s how warlords get started, and from your perspective, warlords are your rivals.”
Julien’s lips gave a disapproving twist. “We may be getting ahead of ourselves,” he said, “with this business about warlords.”
Sula smiled. “I’m rehearsing your speech for the Commission.”
“Though any kind of disturbance would be bad for business,” Patel said. “With none of the banks making loans, people have to come to us for their money.”
And pay fifty or a hundred percent interest, Sula thought.
“I’ll see if I can produce a list of the League’s officers and organizers,” Sula said. “If we retaliate, we need to retaliate against the right people, and explain why we’re doing it.”
Julien searched in his velvet jacket for another cigarillo and failed to find it. He nervously tapped his rings on the edge of the table. “It’s good to think about this, I suppose,” he said. “And I’ll do as you like and talk to Sagas and the others on the Commission. But I’m reluctant to go any further until the situation clarifies itself.”
“Until another riot?” Sula asked.
Julien grimaced. “That would be clarification, yes.”
“It might stop short of that,” Sula admitted. “We can hope that Tu-hon’s followers aren’t as crazy as she is.”
Though for herself, she was inclined to doubt it.
“How is your Lieutenant Kelly?” Roland asked.
“No change,” said Martinez, resting his forearms on the bar. It had been fifteen days since the riot, and Kelly remained in her hospital room surrounded by dying lilacs. The only change in her condition was the stubble growing on her scalp. Martinez visited daily and chatted with her about his life, and when he ran out of anecdotes he read to her. He’d roped in other officers who knew her, like Sodak and Vonderheydte, so she’d have familiar voices around her much of the day.
It didn�
��t seem to be helping.
There had been a trickle of arrests made since the riot, as those already in custody gave up the names of their comrades. But all the arrests had been of minor figures, and no one had named any of the higher-ups. No one involved in the investigation was talking.
Despite the rioters’ growing casualty lists, to Martinez the whole affair felt like a defeat. And he wasn’t used to defeat, or to the sense of helplessness that followed, and he found himself stalking down the corridors of his house, anger smoldering in his nerves, his big hands curled into fists. He remembered all too well the bloodbath on the stairs, the sneer of the snaggletoothed petty officer, the mindless seething violence of the crowd. He wanted to tear the memories to bits with his own hands.
Whatever violence the state exercised on his behalf, torturing and killing the rioters, it would not erase his anger, or his sense of humiliation. He’d had to flee, and he didn’t like running away.
And now there was another emergency family meeting at the Martinez Palace, in Roland’s study with dim autumn light glooming through the eye-shaped windows. Roland had come straight from the Convocation and was still in his red jacket. Roland unbuttoned his shirt collar, loosened his cravat, and walked behind the bar. “Drink?” he asked.
“Whatever you’re having.”
Roland poured Laredo whisky into crystal glasses and handed one to Martinez. He wore a slight air of distraction, as if he were thinking through a difficult problem.
Another damned defeat, Martinez thought, which his brother would relate in his own good time. Rather than sift through his own dispirited thoughts, he tried to lighten the mood.
“My genius son, Gareth,” he said, “used ‘dysfunctional’ and ‘osmosis’ in conversation today.”
Roland scowled into his whisky. “My genius daughter, Girasole,” he said, “would like to know in what conceivable context Gareth used ‘osmosis.’”
The Accidental War Page 24
