by Ian Whates
Pahayal likes to imagine that electors in their gold-threaded brocade and commanders in their fire-kissed gauntlets remember the cause, what shape the conclusion might take, whether they have hope for victory. She likes to imagine there will come a time when every child doesn’t become de facto combat personnel the instant they receive their first neural implant linking them to the public sync. The nature of their conflict with Sujari makes everyone a target, erasing distinctions between civilian and not.
No weapons are deployed beyond the rare low-grade disease, the occasional supply sabotage. Instead the grid is the battlefield, neural paths the besieged infrastructure, data synapses the entry points. Over the decade casualties have been low – theirs is a war by treaty, governed by strict terms – to avoid Hegemonic attention, but the effects of constant fact-fluxes and contradiction strikes have shown. Pahayal’s work includes rudimentary media-processing, turning figures into readable reports, and she’s lost count of the suicides. There have been rapid advances in adaptive partitioning and grid filters, but they can’t keep up with Sujari ballistic glitches. It’s easier to accelerate weapons development than defensive measures, a military friend told her once.
The same friend succumbed to an attempt to rip out all her network nodes without a surgeon’s help. Pahayal is only surprised it doesn’t happen more often; she has felt the urge, might have tried it if she weren’t so squeamish about her own blood.
Near the city, data streams are haunted by echoes of scattershot assault. In her peripheral sight Pahayal glimpses cascading cilia, twitching barbs. On better days there is no sensory load – sight without tactility or smell is easier to dismiss – but sometimes they can be so solid she’s nearly convinced she’s facing foreign replicants, bristling limbs and eyes full of black light.
“Is my imagination overactive or do they look alarming?” Etiesse shades her eyes and leans close to the silver-web window. “Like they could be anti-infantry units.”
For a moment Pahayal thinks the off-worlder has been infiltrated too, that Etiesse is seeing a trembling world, thin surface tension a whisper from collapse. She follows the Imraal’s gaze to the harvesters in their fields of nacre-rice. They cut and collect, eight legs keeping rhythm ballet-precise over nutrient and water pipes. Reaping the riches of Jiratar to be distilled into pearl perfume and opal tea.
She wipes her hand on her hip, sweat-smear quickly absorbed. “If you’re an arachnophobe.” Anti-infantry is precisely what they are, multipurpose. “What do you do for a living?”
“Security contractor – civilian sector strictly, since the other one is, ah, fussy to work with. Duller job than most think and I hardly ever get time off.”
Their visit to the Immigration and Tourism Bureau is quick, though Etiesse is scandalized when she discovers that a tourist visa lets her stay no more than a week and doesn’t apply system-wide. “So if I wanted to visit Sujari, which is all of next door away, I’d have to apply for a different one?”
“Just how it works.” Pahayal shrugs. An Imraal rarely requires a visa to travel anywhere. “You’re used to getting your own way, aren’t you?”
The off-worlder makes a soft, unamused noise. “It’s just – never mind. Can’t I repay you in some way? Pick a place or twenty. My treat.”
Pahayal chooses the most exclusive, most remote attractions. A performance of Lijaj Enmu sculpting herself in live obsidian, the new aviary where replicant crane-serpents evolve by the minute to lay unique flower zygotes, a lunch at the most fashionable desert restaurant where they are served fennec roe, pepper lychee, and glacier seal curries. Unfazed, Etiesse pays for every item and admittance.
During dessert, a glistening tadpole with a newborn’s features climbs out of her opal tea. Pahayal sets the cup down carefully. It is not real, she knows, but this one reeks of mud and rot. Even after routine data purges, there are always some vestiges left behind. “Just what kind of salary do security contractors make?”
The Imraal sips from her cup, evidently seeing and scenting nothing more extraordinary than nacre-rice essence. “Hey, that’s indelicate to ask.”
“Not exact numbers. On a ratio of risk to reward?”
“Much too little. My work takes me places but most of the time I spend hours at grid-dead conferences, site inspections, and eating dreadful food.” Etiesse smirks, a flash of perfect dental care. “You don’t ask; you interrogate. What do you do?”
“Journalist. My investigative phase is long past.” In the grid a report flashes by. Wind plant explosion. Two workers attacking each other, a third engaging a pressure valve.
“Hah, I knew it’d be something like that. And thank you, you’ve been a wonderful host.”
Come evening, Pahayal sees Etiesse off to a hotel as furiously expensive as anything else they have sampled that day. A beehive of resin walkways and soft hexagon windows, the lobby lined with military-grade network disruptors. Guests never have to feel the slightest ripple of Sujari viruses.
She doesn’t expect to see Etiesse again.
THE FOLLOWING WEEK something changes. Commander Indoma falls. Captain Daharej, after that. From all reports, though such information is always inexact, Pahayal doesn’t think either ate their own guns. It was something more, a virus that overloads cardiovascular implants, turning heartbeat to heart attack.
Defensive sub-grids, Mazael’s Apiary and Seven-Teeth Stream, shudder to fragments. Their adjuncts stagger. Both officers were in charge of primary countermeasures, and while they did prepare subordinates the integration process is arduous.
Pahayal doesn’t dwell on the news too much. The glitches become worse and she has to fight harder to separate what’s real from what isn’t, to ignore the stabs of nonexistent pain, the pinpricks of fictive memory. Someday, Jiratar and Sujari will be a subject for anthropologists and historians. Abstract and endlessly fascinating.
Inexplicably, Etiesse invites her out again; just as inexplicably Pahayal says yes and books them a visit to frost orchards on Mount Ushol. For the occasion she dresses better than usual, gleaming sari over thermal secondskin, beads in her hair. Makes her feel almost human.
For their first destination Etiesse selects a weapon gallery. When they arrive she races ahead, kicking up snow, all the graceless haste of an excited child. Pahayal follows without trying to keep up, her gaze on the shimmering peaks, her senses and sync quiet for once.
In the gallery she finds Etiesse bright-eyed and grinning over a fanfare of winter blades patterned on the lace of ice crystals, the softness of frost-laden branches, the entropy of thawing leaves.
“These are gorgeous.” The Imraal holds up a talwar, turning its serrated edges sidewise. Shadow matrices refract through them. “I didn’t know Jiratar made anything like this. You should export them, collectors would pay a fortune.”
“There are monsoon and summer blades too, but none of them is really functional.”
“With the right specifications they could be. And the forms are so unique! Is this a rime orchid?”
Pahayal rolls the texture and shape of tact across her tongue, decides to advance without. “You don’t know much about Jiratar, do you? Or speak any of our languages? Lahili, Sepaan, even Jiresh?”
Etiesse gives her a look, eyebrow raised. “Cut a tourist some slack, will you? My parents have ideas, but I’m just here to sightsee.”
“Your family a few generations back –”
“What belongs to my ancestors doesn’t necessarily belong to me.” A small smile, held steady, not tense or brittle: this is a challenge Etiesse has met before, an argument she must have subdued many times. “Mind, my genealogy is all Jiratar, so obviously my parents and theirs disagree. They’d be frantic if I pick a partner outside our stock. Awfully traditional, my family.”
“What would you prefer then?” Pahayal knows she is testing an edged limit. “A Costeya? Pale, with eyes like ice?”
“Imral is full of devastatingly clever people to marry, if you like that sort of thing.
” Etiesse picks up an urumi and runs a gloved finger along its whip-curl. “These overlapping veins are so pretty. They are hand-generated too, aren’t they? Anyway, why are you so offended that I don’t wish to claim my forebears’ heritage?”
“Because aren’t you saying Jiratar isn’t good enough; that you have all you need from being Imraal?”
“To be properly Imraal I would have to be Costeya.” The smile widens. “Even if I get surgery to seem like one and never go within spitting distance of a sari or sherwani, my ancestry records would still be evident. So I don’t do that. I’m content with what I am.”
Pahayal steps close – for what, she isn’t sure. What point to prove if one even exists, what confrontation to force if she’s even that brave.
A shadow closes over them, proboscis and legs arranged like wheels. The shriek of rivets coming loose and metal beams snapping under impact, the tinkle as pieces of roof splinter and fall – soft – on bright arctic tiles.
Gunfire; a smell of scorched glass. Pahayal thinks dispassionately that of course Etiesse is armed. Then she realizes that this isn’t a glitch-missile or malware manifesting. What she sees is not optical augmens.
When she takes the off-worlder’s arm she feels the warmth and throb of recoil. “This way,” she says through her teeth.
Etiesse doesn’t holster her pistol as they join the thin flow of staff.
The panic shelter seals. Pahayal counts twenty shell-shocked faces: like everywhere else the gallery is phasing people out for replicants, minimizing human employees. Looking from one stricken expression to the next she knows none of them can believe this is real, a physical attack at last, a seismic shift in Sujari tactics.
She tries to open an outbound channel for distress calls. Finds she cannot.
“They disrupted communications on a civilian target? For pity’s sake, have some fucking principles.” Etiesse’s voice is low and harsh, chipping at the quiet. “Is this facility armed?”
“Yes.” A thin man brings up an overlay. His hands shake. “Explosive drones. I’ll just – automatic.”
“Make it manual and turn control over to me. And pray, since remote warfare isn’t my forte.”
A rumble of architecture coming apart. Pahayal stares as Etiesse switches on auxiliary lenses, feeds of churning legs and razor tails pearled with detonation beads. Pahayal has seen Sujari locusts in simulation, because every Jiratar citizen must be prepared. The genuine articles are so much more, so much worse.
She will think back on this moment, often. Jaundiced light falling on them. Etiesse settling into a distant calm as her hands move across the input panel, painting rapid ruin.
It is impossible for defensive drones to dismantle and decimate Sujari flyers. Etiesse makes them.
Silence stretches. The overlay gives a close, explicit view of shattered mouthparts, splayed legs, broken pinions. All targets neutralized.
“WE ARE AT war,” Pahayal says on the train back, “with Sujari.”
There has never been a penalty for giving the secret away. Hegemonic discovery would mean punishment of both planets; in the face of that, convicting individuals for the breach is pointless. Sheer mad tribalism has silenced them all. Or their ragged minds forgetting that salvation can be had at the price of treason.
“Ah,” Etiesse murmurs. “That explains.”
They have the carriage to themselves. Jiratar trains are segmented vehicles, each made to detach and seek an individual destination as required. The idea appeals to Pahayal more than ever. Perhaps she can catch the first ship off-world, out-system. Perhaps she can step forward and taste the weightless relief of free fall.
“Pahayal.” The way her name is spoken makes her look up. “Whatever happens I want you to know that you weren’t the first to tell. We’ve had agents on Sujari for a year. You can’t blame yourself, not for anything. And you probably knew this would happen sooner or later.”
“What are you saying?” She can’t breathe.
“That I am sorry.”
“Who are you?”
“I never gave an alias. Colonel Etiesse Hari-tem-Nakhet, currently assigned to – no, that doesn’t matter. It’s not as if what command I’m associated with is relevant.”
Pahayal’s throat closes. “You’re Hegemony.”
“When you’re non-Costeya, you have to be twice as Hegemonic to stand a chance, and what better way than to serve as a soldier?” The off-worlder shakes her head. “Our tactician projected Sujari would be the first to escalate, but not this soon. Our presence must’ve made them panic.”
Pahayal checks. There have been other strikes. “They attacked because you’re here. You are why five thousand died and counting. Intervention is –” The Hegemony has no right, they have always agreed. The one point of consensus: neither planet would appeal to a higher authority. Jiratar and Sujari have long been Hegemonic constituents, but they would not surrender this final shred of dignity.
Etiesse’s shoulders tense. “Do you want this to continue?”
“It’s not for me to decide. You can’t just...”
“Who do you trust to decide? I don’t mean who has the power. I mean who you believe has the competence, the sense.” The soldier – the soldier – has the grace to avert her eyes. “The moral code, if you will.”
“To best collaborate with you and hand over the last pretense we have of sovereignty?”
“To stop the bloody war!” Etiesse exhales sharply, too loud.
“Ministry of Education,” Pahayal says, her fingers twisted into a hard whitened knot. “Second Magistrate Shahari Udha.”
“Thank you.” Etiesse tugs her shark pendant free and sets it in Pahayal’s lap. “Stay safe. I’ll do what I can to make this no uglier than it has to be.” She leaves the carriage. Soon the vibration of a unit uncoupling resonates down the train’s connectors.
Pahayal stares at the pendant. She unlocks a window, but in the end cannot find the courage to throw either it or herself out.
IN THE PRIVACY of her home Pahayal scans the pendant for malware, a tracking signal, anything. But it’s just a piece of jewelry, an antique crafted in a Tiansong city. The price it would fetch at auctions is criminal.
She climbs to her roof, searching the sky for silhouettes of Mahing scythes and Sujari locusts. Wings like monsoons, mandibles like hail.
She uncovers more about Colonel Etiesse. An officer from a rich family, gifted with copious talent and ambition to match. Piecing together publicity and administrative rhetoric, Pahayal judges that if Etiesse succeeds here, her advancement will be as good as given.
Shahari messages her, effusive. This way we’ll gain everything Sujari stands to lose. Our weight in Hegemonic regard will change. Pahayal never responds.
It doesn’t escape Pahayal that this is the best outcome for Jiratar. Waiting for Sujari to make the first move, sacrificing Commander Indoma and Captain Daharej, the five to six thousand casualties. So Jiratar can claim victimhood to Sujari aggression – previous grid warfare will be accounted as nothing compared to the unleashing of physical weapons. And the Hegemony has known for some time, Etiesse said as much. A year. A year ago, many more people were alive. Hundreds of thousand. Half a million.
Through reports she follows the colonel’s progress, a chart of tidy skirmishes on the ground, efficient battles in orbit. “I should have brought a gun,” Pahayal whispers to herself, to an empty room, just to hear it aloud. “I should’ve drowned her.”
The replicant warns that she is receiving less social stimuli than is advisable, that her nutritional intake is dipping below acceptable threshold. She extinguishes its voice.
She leaves the house once for the municipal disposal, where the pendant will be crushed and turned to raw material. Probably for armament fabricators. That thought turns her around and back to the relative security of her rooms. It’s no longer safe to be out.
MIDDLE OF THE night she wakes up suffocated in nacre-rice. When she opens her mouth for breath more rush
es in, pouring down her throat thick and blue and precious. Her muscles clench and her joints quiver in their sockets as she struggles upright, hard brittle grains pressing down like burial.
The illogic burst ends. She retches over her bed, bile and saliva, dry-heaving. A little longer and her body would have been fooled into asphyxiating.
She turns on the news. One of the feeds shows harvesters tearing each other apart. Stalks and collected grains are scorched under the fire of unsheathed weapons and the thunder of percussive webs. Paddies grow viscous with machine blood.
Entire minutes pass before she understands the real damage. A glance at some stills on the wall, a few tokens from her family – conch shells, costume jewelry – but she can’t recognize any of them. If they’ve ever existed... but they must have. Everything frays.
When the silence of her house can be borne no longer, she takes what essentials will fit into her carrier, short-circuits safety protocols, and has her house burn itself down. The fire doesn’t last, but it is thorough – she stays to witness the walls char and the windows crisp. The entire time she can’t stop shaking.
She goes to the river whose name lurks under her tongue but doesn’t emerge, parks her carrier by a dense jasmine bush, and sits at the bank watching trap-drones.
A call from Etiesse, the first since they parted on the train. She takes it, too hungry for another human voice to refuse.
“Cut off from the local grid,” the colonel says, no preamble: all business, precisely a soldier. “They’ve deployed logic bombs. From the look of it they seeded those in the rice fields a month ago.”
“You’re too late. Didn’t you anticipate this?”
“Logic bombs are proscribed.” Etiesse’s voice is leaden. “You’ve an offline census archive, haven’t you? Integrate that, initiate a population-wide sync, and the damage will be... not all reversed. But mostly.”
“I’m seeing –” She feels nothing at all. “Medical channels are lousy with distress calls. Cerebral hemorrhage, cardiac arrest, more. Is that reversible? Of course not.”
