Conventions of War

by Walter Jon Williams

  FIFTEEN

  Sula had some morning deliveries on the High City and thought she might as well collect some club gossip from PJ while she was on the acropolis. Having some idea of his indolent habits, she waited till the sun was high in Zanshaa’s viridian sky before she called him on a public terminal. Since she trusted his intentions but not his intelligence, she’d made certain that he had no way to contact her, nothing he could betray to the enemy—he would have to wait for her to initiate contact.

  “Yes?” he mumbled as he answered. His eyes were blurry, his thinning hair awry—either she’d awakened him or he was just out of bed.

  “Hi, PJ!” she called brightly. “How’s the lad this morning?”

  Recognizing her voice, his eyes came into sudden bright focus as he stared at her image on the comm display. “Oh!” he said. “Oh! Things are, ah, excellent. Just excellent.”

  If he’d said first-rate instead of excellent, that would have meant the Naxids had nabbed him and she should ignore everything he said, particularly any attempt to set up a meeting.

  “I say,” PJ said, “Lady—I mean, miss—there’s someone I need you to meet. Right away.”

  “Half an hour from now?”

  “Yes! Yes!” He made a strange, thoughtful face, pulling at his jaw. “If you’ll come by the palace, we’ll go to his…place of business.”

  “Be cautious about, ah…” About my being the secret government.

  “Of course.” He gave a wink. “No problem there. He doesn’t even know we’re coming.”

  Oh dear, Sula thought as she broke the connection. PJ had contracted an enthusiasm.

  She hoped he wasn’t planning on blowing anything up without her advice.

  Team 491 delivered its last cargo of cigars and vacuum-packed coffee beans, collected some inconsequential information from club workers, then drove to the Ngeni Palace, where PJ had already opened the service drive gate. He waited before the massive root systems of the ancient banyan tree that overshadowed his cottage, standing with his usual languid ease in the shade while he smoked a cigarette.

  “Miss Ardelion! Mr. Starling!” He greeted Spence and Macnamara with great energy, then turned to Sula. “Lady, ah, Miss Lucy.”

  “What’s up?” Sula asked.

  He brightened. “Wait till you see what Sidney’s got in his shop! You’ll jump for joy!”

  He stubbed out his cigarette, led them back down the drive, coding shut the gate behind them, then on a roughly diagonal course across the High City. PJ was practically skipping in his excitement. The streets were half empty, and vehicles full of military constables were parked at some of the intersections. As their dark Naxid eyes swept over her, Sula looked away, exceptionally conscious of the pistol tucked into her waistband under her jacket. Then she thought she shouldn’t have looked away, she was acting suspiciously. But then she thought no, probably no one looks at them. Everyone was suspicious equally.

  She walked past the Naxids and they made no move to stop her.

  The sound of the aejai seemed to echo from half the shops in the city. There wasn’t a hint of a breeze to cool the burning day, and they were all glossy with sweat by the time they arrived at their destination, a narrow shop in a pedestrian lane lined with other specialty shops, offering antiques or quality meats, tailored uniforms or Daimong delicacies, or…

  SIDNEY’S SUPERIOR FIREARMS, said the sign. And across the door was a banner: CLOSED BY ORDER OF LORD UMMIR, MINISTER OF POLICE.

  Sula felt an electric hum in her nerves. Brilliant, she thought.

  She would try to remember to give PJ something very nice on his birthday.

  “I found out at the club that Sidney was closing,” PJ said as he took them down an alley behind the building. “I stopped by yesterday to chat with Sidney and reconnoiter, and since then I’ve been waiting for you.”

  PJ stopped by a door of greenish metal and banged on it. Sula stood for a moment in the hot silence and gazed at the fragrant corpse of a kanamid, probably killed by a cat, that lay between two gray resin waste bins with its six limbs pointing crookedly to the sky.

  The metal door rolled open with a subdued electric hum. She shaded her sun-dazzled eyes to see the man standing in shadow on the far side of the door: he was white-haired and thin and had a goatee with a waxed, curled mustache, much like those worn by petty officers of the Fleet. Sula tasted a smoky scent that drifted from the open door.

  “My lord,” the man said. His voice was grainy. “These are your friends?”

  “Yes, Mr. Sidney.” PJ’s tone was a little smug. “This is Miss Lucy, Miss Ardelion, and Mr. Starling.”

  The man’s eyes, pupils broad as the barrels of a shotgun, scanned Sula and her companions. “Come in then,” he said, and stood back.

  The back of the shop was a marvelously compact workroom, computer-guided lathes, tools gleaming in their racks, magnifiers and manipulators on shelves, racks of exotic, cured woods and ivories, gun barrels gleaming on shelves. Sula’s heart warmed to the meticulous orderliness of it all.

  The heavy scent of hashish, however, made her less certain, as did the curl of smoke from a gleaming metal pipe that Sidney picked up from one of the workbenches as he passed.

  “Let me take you up front,” he said. They passed through a door into the shop’s narrow front. Weapons gleamed softly in the racks on the walls, in polished wood cabinets. Sidney stopped before a coal-black metal carrying case that held a long-barreled hunting weapon. He picked it up, held it in the air. The barrel was a damascened concoction of contrasting metals beautifully wrought together, silver and black chasing each other down its length like serpents. The stock was a deep red wood polished and inlaid with a floral pattern in ebony. There was a magnifying scope with a deep amber display that would prove easy on the eye at night, and iron sights for the classically inclined.

  “I built this for Lord Richard Li,” he said, speaking around the pipe clenched between his teeth.

  Sula gave a start at the name. Lord Richard had been her captain, killed bringing his Dauntless into action at Magaria. He had been engaged to Terza Chen, the woman—no, the conniving bitch—who had married Martinez.

  She fought her way back through the curtain of memory that had draped across her mind. “The Naxids have shut you down?” she asked.

  Not the brightest thing she could have said, admittedly, but at least she’d gotten the words out.

  “I’m surprised it’s taken them this long,” Sidney said. “I suppose they’ve had other things to think about, being a new government. I wouldn’t know.” He replaced the rifle in its case and took a meditative sip on his pipe. “I could apply to reopen the business if I agreed to sell exclusively to Naxids, but I don’t want to think about those bastards using one of my guns to kill hostages, and all the weapons configured for other species are still unsellable no matter what I do.”

  He locked the rifle case and turned around. His eyes were hard. “The thing is, I can’t sell these weapons. But there’s nothing in the new regulations about my giving them away.”

  Sula stared at Sidney in stunned surprise. A self-conscious look crossed his face, and he took his pipe from his mouth. “I’ve been remiss,” he said. “Would any of you care for a smoke?”

  “Umm,” PJ began, on the verge of accepting, but Sula answered for them all.

  “Not right now, thanks,” she said. She looked at Sidney. “You’re going to give us all these guns?”

  He gave her a hard look. “If you’ll make good use of them.”

  Sula’s mouth went dry. “That’s …very generous.”

  Sidney shrugged. “They’re worthless now. I can’t return them to the manufacturers—the makers have been forbidden to do business too. I’ll have to break my lease; I can’t afford to keep this place and I can’t afford to store the weapons. I could sit here waiting for the government to confiscate them, but why?” He shrugged again. “I’d rather see them put to use.” He began to say something, then shook his h
ead and clamped the pipe between his teeth again. “Not that I want to know what you’re going to use them for, of course.” He turned again and laid a hand on the metal case beside him on the counter. “There are only a few pieces I can’t let go—the true custom work. If any of them were found after a…misadventure, the trail would lead straight to me.”

  He stepped back a pace and swept a hand along the glass of the counter, indicating a row of gleaming pistols, each adapted to the Lai-own hand. “All sporting weapons, of course,” he said. “Of limited use for military purposes. But in the right hands…”

  He sipped on his pipe, and exhaled a dense cloud of smoke. Sula made the mistake of inhaling, and burst out coughing.

  “Sorry,” Sidney said politely.

  After the coughing ceased, Sula made an effort to collect her thoughts from the mist that swirled through her head. She knew she was going to need fresh air very soon.

  “Mr. Sidney,” she managed, “do I understand that you design guns?”

  “That’s right,” Sidney said. He puffed another cloud of smoke, and Sula took a step back.

  “Perhaps you can help me,” she said, and had to cough again. Tears dazzled her eyes as she recovered her voice. “I’ve been looking for a particular kind of firearm.”

  Interest glittered in Sidney’s eyes. “Yes?”

  “Not at all the kind of work you usually do. The opposite, in fact. Something that could be put together without great expense out of components that could be acquired very easily.”

  Sidney gave a snort of amusement, then affected to consider the problem. “Computer-operated lathes can do some amazing things, given the right programming.”

  “Let’s just say that my own lathe-programming skills are limited.”

  Sidney smiled. “I seem to have a lot of free time at present. Let me put my mind to it, then, Miss…Lucy, was it?”

  “Lucy. Yes.”

  “Well,” Sidney said. “If you’ll give me a call in a few days, perhaps I’ll have something for you.”

  “Fantastic!” Spence said as they took the first of several truckloads of firearms from Sidney’s place, on their way to store them in PJ’s basement. “I can’t believe he’s giving us all this stuff! And the ammunition too!”

  “He’s quite brave, isn’t he?” PJ asked. His smile was sillier than usual after an hour of hauling crates through Sidney’s smoke cloud.

  “He’s not brave,” Sula said. “He’s suicidal.”

  The silly smile faded from PJ’s face. “My lady?” he said. “I mean, my Lucy. I mean—” His mouth opened fishlike for words but failed to find any.

  “Do you think the manufacturers haven’t kept a record of the serial numbers of all these weapons?” Sula asked. “Not to mention the ballistics tests they’re required to do before the weapons even leave the factory? The first time we use one of these, they’ll track it to Sidney and tear his ribs out trying to find out who he gave them to. And that would lead to you, PJ.”

  PJ turned pale. “Oh,” he said.

  “Maybe Sidney hopes he’ll take a few Naxids with him when he goes. Maybe he doesn’t care about himself or about you. Or maybe he thinks he’ll be able to hide. But until we know what he means to do, we’re going to store these guns in your basement and never use them, not unless we know Sidney is safe.” She contemplated the road and the overcareful driving undertaken by Macnamara, who was no less affected by hashish fumes than anyone else.

  “Besides,” Sula said, “I’ve got other plans for our Mr. Sidney, and they’d be spoiled by his committing suicide.”

  By the end of the day, she’d talked Sidney into reopening his gun shop exclusive to a Naxid clientele. “Only the elite can afford your guns anyway,” she told him. The tax of one hundred zeniths on every firearm sale—half a year’s wages for the ordinary person—raised them entirely out of the range of the ordinary consumer. “When you deliver the guns to their new owners, you’ll get through their security.”

  Sidney gave a grim smile. “You see me as an assassin?” he asked.

  “No,” Sula said. “We have other people for that.” She hoped. “Instead I need you to take careful notes on access, on what guards are stationed where. On any routines that might be useful.”

  “I can do that,” Sidney said. “How do I contact you?”

  Sula hesitated. She had declined to give PJ a way of communicating with her on the grounds that he might accidentally give himself—or her—away. For her to give Sidney such a means while PJ was present might offend PJ. And while she didn’t much care if PJ’s feelings were hurt, she didn’t want him made despondent or careless.

  “We’ll have to let you know about that later,” she said. “In the meantime, we’ll have to contact you.”

  For the present, she gave him the simple communications code she’d given PJ, to use the phrase “first-rate” if he were ever compromised by the Naxids. He nodded with what appeared to be sage comprehension, though considering how much hashish he’d smoked over the course of the day, Sula wondered that he could stand upright, let alone understand instructions.

  She supposed she’d find out.

  Now, returning to the communal apartment, she checked Gredel’s comm unit and discovered that Casimir had logged three calls asking her out for the night. She took a long, delicious bath in lilac-scented water while considering an answer, then turned off the camera that would transmit her image before she picked up the hand comm to call him back.

  “Why not?” she said at the sullen face that answered. “Unless you’ve made other plans, of course.”

  The sulky look vanished as Casimir peered into his sleeve display in a failed search for an image. “Is this Gredel?” he asked. “Why can’t I see you?”

  “I’m in the tub.”

  A sly look crossed his features. “I could use a wash myself. How about I join you?”

  “I’ll meet you at the club,” she said. “Just tell me what time.”

  He told her. She would have time to luxuriate in her bath for a while longer and then to nap for a couple hours before joining him.

  “How should I dress?” she asked.

  “What you’re wearing now is fine.”

  “Ha ha. Will I be all right in the sort of thing I wore last night?”

  “Yes. That’ll do.”

  “See you then.”

  She ended the call, then ordered the hot water tap to open. The bathroom audio pickup wasn’t reliable and she had to lean forward to open the tap manually. As the water raced from the tap and the steam rose, she sank into the tub and closed her eyes, allowing herself to slowly relax, to let the scent of lilacs rise in her senses.

  Clean porcelain surfaces floated through her mind. Celadon, faience, rose Pompadour. Her fingers tingled to the remembered crackle of her ju yao pot.

  The day had started well. She thought it would only get better.

  Sula adjusted her jacket as she gazed out the window of the communal apartment. The last of the vendors were closing their stalls or driving away in their little three-wheeled vehicles with their businesses packed on the back. The near-blackout imposed by the Naxids—not to mention the hostage-taking—had severely impacted them, and there weren’t enough people on the streets after dark to keep them at their work.

  “I should be with you,” Macnamara argued.

  “On a date?” Sula laughed.

  He pushed out his lips like a pouting child. “You know what he is,” he said. “It’s not safe.”

  She fluffed her black-dyed hair with her fingers. “He’s a necessary evil. I know how to deal with him.”

  Macnamara made a scornful sound in his throat. Sula looked at Spence, who sat on the sofa and was doing her best to look as if she weren’t listening.

  “He’s a criminal,” Macnamara said. “He may be a killer, for all you know.”

  He probably hasn’t killed nearly as many people as I have. Sula remembered five Naxid ships turning to sheets of brilliant white eye-pierc
ing light at Magaria, and decided not to remind Macnamara of this.

  She turned from the window and faced him. “Say that you want to start a business,” she said, “and you don’t have the money. What do you do?”

  His face filled with suspicion, as if he knew she was luring him into a trap. “Go to my clan head,” he said.

  “And if your clan head won’t help you?”

  “I go to someone in his patron clan. A Peer or somebody.”

  Sula nodded. “What if the Peer’s nephew is engaged in the same business and doesn’t want the competition?”

  Macnamara made the pouting face again. “I wouldn’t go to Little Casimir, that’s for sure.”

  “Maybe you wouldn’t. But a lot of people do go to people like Casimir, and they get their business started, and Casimir offers protection against retaliation by the Peer’s nephew and his clan. And in return Casimir gets fifty or a hundred percent interest on his money and a client who will maybe do him other favors.”

  Macnamara looked as if he’d bitten into a lemon. “And if they don’t pay the hundred percent interest they get killed.”

  Sula considered this. “Probably not,” she judged, “not unless they try to cheat Casimir in some way. Most likely Casimir just takes over the business and every minim of assets and hands it over to another client to run, leaving the borrower on the streets and loaded with debt.” Macnamara was about to argue, and Sula held out her hands. “I’m not saying he’s a pillar of virtue. He’s in it for the money and the power. He hurts people, I’m sure. But in a system like ours—where the Peers have all the money and all the law on their side—people like the Riverside Clique are necessary.”

  “I don’t get it,” he said. “You’re a Peer yourself, but you talk against the Peers.”

  “Oh.” She shrugged. “There are Peers who make Casimir look like a blundering amateur.”

  The late Lord and Lady Sula, for two.

  She told the video wall to turn on its camera and examined herself in its screen. She put on the crumpled velvet hat and adjusted it to the proper angle.