Walter Williams: Conventions of War

Sula opened the bedroom door and looked at Spence, who was sprawled on her bed, her wounded leg on one pillow, her straw-colored hair strewn over another. “It’s over,” Sula said. “You can turn down the volume now.”

Her voice probably had more bite than she’d intended. Over the last few days she’d had her fill of Spence’s romantic videos.

“Yes, my lady!” Spence said in proper military style, and from a position on the bed that approximated attention commanded the wall to silence.

Sula was embarrassed by Spence’s overreaction. “Lucy,” Sula said. “Call me Lucy.” It was her cover name. Then, “Do you need anything?”

“I’m all right, Lucy, thanks.” Spence shifted her sturdy hips on the bed.

“Right,” Sula said. “Call if you want something.”

Sula closed the door and returned to the figures she’d scribbled on her pad. There was a tap on the door, and then it opened to reveal Constable Second Class Gavin Macnamara, the third member of her action team. Tall and curly-haired and ingenuous, he had been Team 491’s runner, traveling through the city on his two-wheeler to collect and distribute messages. But that had been in the days when there were people to send messagesto. Now he wandered Zanshaa’s Lower Town at random, collecting what information he could.

He glanced at the video wall as he entered, his expression tentative. “Is it over?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“How was it?”

She gave him a look. “A hundred and seventy-five reasons not to surrender.”

Macnamara nodded and sat on a chair.

“How are people taking it?” she asked.

Macnamara’s open, friendly face clouded over. “They’re trying to ignore it, I think. I think they’re telling themselves that the condemned were all military, and that it doesn’t apply to them.”

“And the hostages?”

On arrival in the city the Naxids had grabbed over four hundred hostages from the streets, and announced they would be killed if any more acts of resistance were mounted.

“People are still angry over the hostages,” Macnamara said. “But they’re starting to be scared too.”

“There are thirteen Torminel unaccounted for,” Sula said. “At least three action teams, plus their group commander.”

Macnamara absorbed this news thoughtfully. “How do we find them?”

Sula could only shrug. “Hang around in Torminel neighborhoods till we hear something?”

It had been a facetious suggestion, but Macnamara took it seriously. “A good way to get arrested. Torminel cops are going to wonder what we’re doing there.”

Especially as the Torminel were a nocturnal species. Terrans would very much stand out in their neighborhoods, both at night when the Torminel were active or in the day when they weren’t.

Sula gave it some thought. “Maybe it’s better if wedon’t contact them,” she said. “They’ve got all the supplies they need to conduct a war right where they are. So do we. If we’re not in touch, we can’t give each other away.”

Macnamara nodded. “So we’re going to keep on fighting then,” he said.

The option to quit had always been there. To stay where they were and do nothing, to wait for the war to end one way or another. No one would blame them, not once their superiors had died.

“Oh yes.” Sula could feel the tension twitching in her jaw muscles. “We’re still at war. And I know just where we’re going to start.”

“Yes?”

“With Lord Makish of the High Court,” Sula said. “The Naxid judge who sentenced our friends to death.”

An expression of satisfaction settled onto Macnamara’s face. “Very well, my lady,” he said.

High Judge Makish lived in the Makish Palace in the High City, and for anyone who wasn’t a mountaineer, there were only two ways onto Zanshaa’s granite acropolis: a funicular railway for pedestrians, and a switchback road for vehicles. Since the seat of the entire government was in the High City, in the midst of a hostile population, Sula supposed the Naxids would be very careful about who got onto the acropolis and who didn’t.

After buying Spence supper from Riverside vendors, Macnamara and Sula went to the lower terminus of the funicular railway at suppertime, when many of the High City’s servants and workers would be returning to the Lower Town. The usual vendors and street performers had been cleared from the broad apron in front of the terminus, and Sula saw Naxid guards on the roof of the Central Station across the street, but otherwise civilian traffic seemed normal, and the line of buses and cabs on the street was reassuring, though fewer than usual.

“See if you can talk to someone at the bus stop,” Sula told Macnamara. “I’ll go inside the terminal.”

“Are you sure?”

Macnamara’s attempts to protect her from danger were endearing in their way, but in the end annoying. Sula said she was sure and walked across the highway.

In the funicular terminus she stood on the far side of the polished onyx rail and tried to act as if she were waiting for someone. Access to the funicular was controlled, she saw, by a squad of Naxids, all carrying rifles and wearing armor over their centauroid, black-beaded bodies. A petty officer with a hand terminal checked some manner of list as his subordinates checked the identification of anyone trying to board.

Only a squad,she thought, but she knew more Naxids were on hand: they had requisitioned a number of hotels and apartments in this vicinity, and these were probably packed with troops.

Nearly half the departing passengers were Naxids, scuttling over the polished floors and dodging between the other commuters. Many wore the brown uniform of the civil service. Apparently, employment prospects had improved for their species.

Sula pretended she’d seen the person she’d come to meet, then joined a complete stranger for the walk to the outside. She found Macnamara waiting for her.

“Right now the Naxids are working off a list of everyone who lives in the High City,” he said. “Workers have to provide documentation from their employers that they’re needed. But the rumor is that special identification will be required soon.”

Sula gave the matter some thought. “That’s good,” she said. “A letter would have to come from areal employer, one already on the list-and they might check. It’ll be easier to get the special badges.”

She had ways of getting false documents out of the Records Office.

Her mind was already abuzz with plans.

That night she checked into the Records Office and found that Lieutenant Rashtag’s word for the day was“ Observance!” The newly appointed head of Records Office security was fond of bombastic bulletins, and they always included the single-word exclamation intended to inspire the security staff.

Sula saw that the next day’s bulletin was already on file, and that its inspirational word was“ Compliance!” For a moment she was tempted to alter it to“ Subversion!” but decided to save that for another day, the day when the loyalist ships appeared above Zanshaa and the Naxid domination was at an end.

She wondered what single-word exclamation Rashtag would utter if he knew that she had free run of the Records Office computers, and with Rashtag’s own passwords. With a combination of luck, carelessness on the part of the previous administration, and one long night of caffeine-fueled programming, Sula had gained mastery of the Records Office system before the Naxids had even arrived. Any password created by the head of security was sent to her automatically, so even if she were detected and the passwords changed, she’d still have complete command of the place.

She was now able to access, alter, or create any personnel record. Birth and death certificates, marriage and divorce decrees, records of education, residence, and employment, primary and special identification…