The Mammoth Book of SF Wars (39 page)

They absorbed this in expressionless silence. “Why then,” Bakshi said finally, “should we act so as to bring this upon us?”

Sula’d had three days to prepare what came next. She had to restrain herself from babbling it out all at once, to urge herself to remain calm and to make her points slowly and with proper emphasis.

“You want to be on the winning side, for one thing,” she said. “That brings its own rewards. Second, the secret government is prepared to offer pardons and amnesties for anyone who aids us.”

It was like talking to a blank wall. She wanted to stride about, to gesture, to declaim, all in desperate hope of getting at least one of the group to show some response. But she forced herself to be still, to keep her hands clasped behind her, to stand in an attitude of superiority. She had to project command and authority: if she showed weakness she was finished.

“What,” said Sagas, speaking for the first time in his beautiful chiming Daimong voice, “makes you think that we need pardons and amnesties?”

“A pardon,” Sula said, “means that any investigations, any complaints, any inquiries, any proceedings come to a complete and permanent end. Not only for yourself, but for any of your friends, clients and associates who may wish to aid the government. You may not need any amnesties yourself, but perhaps some of your friends aren’t so lucky.”

She scanned her audience again. Once again, no response.

“My last point,” she said, “is that you are all prominent, successful individuals. People know your names. You have earned the respect of the population, and people are wary of your power. But you’re not loved.”

For the first time she’d managed to provoke a response. Surprise widened Bakshi’s pupils, and even the expressionless Sagas gave a jerk of his head.

“If you lead the fight against the Naxids, you’ll be heroes,” Sula said. “Maybe for the first time, people will think of you as agents of virtue. You’ll be loved, because everyone will see you on the right side, standing between them and the Naxids.”

Patel gave a sudden laugh. “Fight the Naxids for love!” he said. “That’s a
good
one! I’m
for
it!” He slapped the table with a hand, and looked up at Sula with his teeth flashing in a broad grin. “I’m with you, my lady! For love, and for no other reason!”

Sula ventured a glance at Casimir. He gave her a wry, amused look, not quite encouragement but not dispirited either.

Bakshi gave an impatient motion of his hand, and Patel fell silent, his hilarity gone in an instant and leaving a hollow silence behind.

“What exactly,” Bakshi began, “would the secret government want us to do—” chill irony entered his voice “—for the people’s love.”

“There are cells of resisters forming all over the city,” Sula said, “but they have no way to communicate or coordinate with each other.” Again, she looked at them all in turn. “You
already
have a paramilitary structure. You
already
have means of communication that the government doesn’t control. What we’d like you to do is to coordinate these groups. Pass information up the chain of command, pass orders downward, make certain equipment gets where it’s needed … that sort of thing.”

There was another moment of silence. Then Bakshi extruded one index finger from a big, pale hand and tapped the table. In a man so silent and restrained, the gesture seemed as dramatic as a pistol shot. “I should like to know one thing,” Bakshi said. “Lord Governor Pahn-ko has been captured and executed. Who is it, exactly, who runs the secret government?”

Sula clenched her teeth to avoid a wail of despair. This was the one question she’d dreaded.

She had decided that she could lie to anyone else as circumstances demanded, but that she would never lie to the people at the table before her. The consequences of lying to them were simply too dire.

“I am the senior officer remaining,” Sula said.

Surprise widened Patel’s eyes. His mouth dropped open, but he didn’t say anything. Tan-dau gave Bakshi a sidelong glance.

“You are a lieutenant,” Bakshi said, “and young, and recently promoted at that.”

“That is true,” Sula said. She could feel sweat collecting under the blonde wig. “But I am also a Peer of ancient name, and a noted killer of Naxids.”

“It seems to me,” Tan-dau said, again seeming to address no one in particular, “that she wishes us to organize and fight her war for her. I wonder what it is that
she
will contribute?”

Defiant despair rose in Sula. “My training, my name and my skill at killing Naxids,” she answered.

Bakshi looked at her. “I’m sure your skill and courage are up to the task,” he said. “But of course you are a soldier.” He looked at the folk on either side of him, and spread his hands. “We, on the other hand, are men of commerce and of peace. We have our businesses and our families to consider. If we join your resistance to the Naxids, we put all we have worked for in jeopardy.”

Sula opened her mouth to speak, but Bakshi held up a hand for silence. “You have assured us that the loyalist Fleet will return and that Zanshaa will be freed from Naxid rule. If that is the case, there is no need for an army here on the ground. But if you are wrong, and the Naxids aren’t driven out, then any resisters here in the capital are doomed.” He gave a slow shake of his head. “We wish you the best, but I don’t understand why we should involve ourselves. The risk is too great.”

Another heavy silenced rose. Sula, a leaden hopelessness beating through her veins, looked at the others. “Do you all agree?” she asked.

Tan-dau and Sagas said nothing. Patel gave a rueful grin. “Sorry the love thing didn’t work out, princess,” he said. “It could have been fun.”

“The Naxids are already nibbling at your businesses,” Sula said. “When rationing starts and you go into the food business, you’ll be competing directly with the clans the Naxids have set in power. It’s then that you’ll be challenging them directly, and they’ll have to destroy you.”

Bakshi gave her another of his dead-eyed looks. “What makes you think we’ll involve ourselves in illegal foodstuffs?”

“A market in illegal foodstuffs is inevitable,” Sula said. “If you don’t put yourselves at the head of it, you’ll lose control to the people who do.”

There was another long silence. Bakshi spread his hands. “There’s nothing we can do, my lady.” He turned to Casimir and gave him a deliberate stone-eyed look. “Our associates can do nothing, either.”

“Of course not, Sergius,” Casimir murmured.

Sula looked down her nose at them each in turn, but none offered anything more. Her hands clenched behind her back, the nails scoring her palms. She wanted to offer more arguments, weaker ones even, but she knew it would be useless and did not.

“I thank you then, for agreeing to hear me,” she said, and turned to Tan-dau. “I appreciate you offering this place for the meeting.”

“Fortune attend you, my lady,” Tan-dau said formally.

Fortune was precisely what had just deserted her. She gave a brisk military nod to the room in general and made a proper military turn.

Macnamara anticipated her and stepped to the rear of the room, holding the door for her. She marched out with her shoulders still squared, her blonde head high.

Bastards, she thought.

There was a thud behind as Macnamara tried to close the door just as Casimir tried to exit. Macnamara glared at Casimir as he shouldered his way out and fell into step alongside Sula.

“That went better than I’d expected,” he said.

She gave him a look. “I don’t need irony right now.”

“Not irony,” he said pleasantly. “That could have gone a
lot
worse.”

“I don’t see how.”

“Oh, I knew they wouldn’t agree with you this time around. But they listened to you. You gave them things to think about. Everything you said will be a part of their calculations from now on.” He looked at her, amused appreciation glittering in his eyes. “You’re damned impressive, I must say. Standing there all alone staring at those people as if they’d just come up from the sewer smelling of shit.” He shook his head. “And I have no idea how you do that thing with your voice. I could have sworn when I met you that you were born in Riverside.”

“There’s a reason I got picked for this job,” Sula said.

There was a moment of silence as they all negotiated the front door of the club. This time, at least, Macnamara didn’t try to slam the door on Casimir. Score one, she thought, for civility.

The delay at the door gave Julien time to catch up. He caught his breath in the copper-plated corridor outside, then turned to Sula. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Better luck next time, hey?”

“I’m sure you did your best,” Sula said. It was all she could do not to snarl.

“Tan-dau got wounded in an assassination attempt last year, and he’s not game for new adventures,” Julien said. “Sagas isn’t a Daimong to take chances. And Pops …” He gave a rueful smile and shook his head. “Pops didn’t get where he is by sticking his neck out.”

“And Patel?” Sula asked.

Julien laughed. “He’d have followed you, you heard him. He’d like to fight the Naxids just for the love, like he said. But the commission’s rulings are always unanimous, and he had to fall in line.”

They descended the moving stairs. Sula marched to the doors and walked out onto the street. The pavement was wet, and a fresh smell was in the air: there had been a brief storm while she was conducting her interview.

“Where’s a cab rank?” Sula asked.

“Around the corner,” said Julien, pointing. He hesitated. “Say – I’m sorry about today, you know. I’d like to make it up to you.”

Can you raise an army? Sula thought savagely. But she turned to Julien and said, “That would be very nice.”

“Tomorrow night?” Julien said. “Come to my restaurant for dinner? It’s called Two Sticks, and it’s off Harmony Square. The cook’s a Cree and he’s brilliant.”

Sula had to wonder if the Cree chef thought it was his own restaurant, not Julien’s, but this was no time to ask questions of that kind. She agreed to join Julien for dinner at 24.01.

“Shall I pick you up?” Casimir said. “Or are you still in transit from one place to another?”

“I’m
always
in transit,” Sula lied, “and now you know why. I’ll meet you at the club.”

“Care to go out tonight?”

Sula decided she was too angry to play a cliqueman’s girl tonight. “Not tonight,” she said. “I’ve got to assassinate a judge.”

Casimir was taken aback. “Good luck with that,” he said.

She kissed him. “See you tomorrow.”

She walked with Macnamara to the cab rank and got a cab. He sat next to Sula in the seat, arms crossed, staring straight forward. One muscle in his jaw worked continually.

“So what’s
your
problem?” Sula demanded.

“Nothing,” he said. “My lady.”

“Good!” she said. “Because if there’s anything I don’t need, it’s
more fucking problems.
”

They sat in stony silence. Sula had the cab let her off two streets from her apartment. Rain had started again, and she had to sprint, her jacket pulled over her head.

Inside she tossed the wet wig onto the back of her chair and combed her short, dyed hair. She considered checking the news, but decided against it, knowing the news would only further irritate her. She settled for a long bath instead.

After her bath she wrapped herself in a robe and went to the front room. The rain was still pouring down. For a long moment she watched the beads of water that snaked down the window.

While watching the water an idea occurred to her.

“Ah. Hah,” she said. The idea seemed an attractive one. She examined it carefully, probing it with her mind like a tongue examining the gap left by a missing tooth.

The idea began to seem better and better. She got a fresh piece of paper and a pen and outlined it, along with all possible ramifications.

There wasn’t a problem that she could see. Nor a way it could be traced to her.

She destroyed the paper, leaving no evidence of her scheme. She looked at her right thumb, the thick pad of scar tissue where her print had once been.

It was very important that she not leave her fingerprints on this one.

In the morning she made deliveries with Spence and Macnamara. Macnamara was a little stiff but at least he wasn’t too visibly sulking.

In the afternoon she went to the Petty Mount for a shopping expedition, and wore the result to meet Casimir at the Cat Street Club. She was late and, as she approached the club with her large shoulder bag banging her hip with every stride, she found Casimir pacing the pavement next to the apricot-coloured car. He was scowling down at the ground, and his coat floated behind him like a cloak.

He looked up at her, and relief flooded his face. Then he saw how she was dressed, in a long coat, black, covered with shiny six-pointed particoloured stars, like a rainbow snowfall.

“You got a coat like mine,” he said, surprised.

“Yes. We need to talk.”

“We can talk in the car.” He stepped towards the car door.

“No. I need more privacy than that. Let’s try your office.”

Petulance tugged at his lip. “We’re already late.”

“Julien will be all right. His chef is brilliant.”

He nodded as if he understood this remark and followed her through the club. There were few patrons at this early hour, mostly quiet drinkers at the bar or workers who hadn’t managed to get home in time for dinner.

Sula bounded up the metal stairs leading to Casimir’s office. “How did the judge thing go?” he asked.

Sula had to search her mind to recall the story that, in her annoyance, she’d told him the day before. “Postponed,” she said.

He let her into his office. “Is that what you need to talk about? Because even though Sergius said I wasn’t supposed to help you, there are a few things I can do that Sergius doesn’t need to know about. Because – oh, damn.”

They had entered his office, the spotless black-and-white room, and Sula had thrown her bag on a sofa and opened her coat to reveal that she wore nothing underneath it but stockings and her shoes.