Walter Williams - Conventions of War

“We can’t keep doing the fighting ourselves,” Sula said as she drove alongside one of the slow, greenish canals that cut the Lower Town near the acropolis. “We need an army. And the problem is, we haven’t got one.”

The plan that Sula and Martinez had originally developed involved raising an armed force to hold Zanshaa City against the Naxids, confident that while the enemy would murder any other population without compunction, they would never dare destroy the capital and all the legitimacy that it symbolized. But the government had decided against that part of the plan, and instead settled for training Sula and Eshruq’s action teams, most of whom were now ash drifting along the streets of the Lower Town.

The original plan would have worked much better, Sula thought.

“We can try recruiting,” Macnamara said. “Ardelion and I can each can put together another cell.”

Cells consisted of three people, like Sula’s action team. Each cell leader would know only the members of his own cell and a single member of the cell above, the better to preserve security. Everyone would be known by code names only, to reduce the chances for betrayal. Contact between cells would be through cutouts and letter drops, to prevent anyone from listening to electronic communication.

“Right,” Sula said, “we can recruit. And I can start by training PJ.”

Macnamara gave a snort of laughter. Sula shook her head. “No, it’s too slow. By the time we had the first lot trained, and they each trained a few others, and so on until we had an entire network, we’d all have gray hair and the Naxids will have-Oh, damn.”

They came to a halt behind a truck offloading produce from a canal boat. Sula craned her neck, but she couldn’t see whether there was enough clearance between the produce truck on one side and a Lai-own clothing emporium on the other.

“Stick your head out,” Sula told Macnamara. “See if we’ve got room here.”

Macnamara opened the window, and the rotting-flesh stench of the Daimong laborers floated into the vehicle along with the scent of green vegetables and the iodine smell of the canal. At the taste of the air, a shudder of memory trembled up Sula’s spine. “The hell with it,” she decided.

She shifted the truck to all-wheel-steering and crabbed into the gap. A metal rack of Lai-own clothing was run against a brick wall and slightly buckled, and Macnamara gave a wince as he drew in his head and closed the window to the sudden yelps of the Lai-own shopkeeper. Sula accelerated and kept on going.

“May need a little more practice in the driving department, boss,” Macnamara said.

“Too slow,” Sula said. “We can’t train them in time. They’ve got to train themselves.”

There was a moment, and then Spence nodded. “Resistance,” she said.

“Exactly.”

They delivered the cocoa to Seven Pages, and as the chef counted out the money, she asked, “You heard they shot more hostages?”

“Yes?” Sula asked.

“Thirty. And they were all relatives of the people who were shot yesterday.”

“Ten hostages shot for each Terran,” Sula said. “And nearly five hundred for a Naxid.” Her mind had already outlined another editorial on the subject forResistance.

The chef gave a sour nod. “Exactly. I’d say that’s a good advertisement for how things are going to be.”

“Do we get a free dessert?” Spence asked.

“Not this early, you don’t. Be off, I’ve got work to do.”

The door to the cargo compartment hummed shut on electric motors. Macnamara made certain the cargo door was locked and joined Sula and Spence in the cab.

“Lots of cocoa left,” he told Sula. “What’s it for?”

“Samples,” Sula said. “We’ll be spending the day visiting other restaurants. Some in the High City.”

A good place to gather information, she thought. And they’d contact coffee shops and tobacco clubs as well.

Spence, tucked in the cab between Sula and Macnamara, turned to Sula. “Lucy,” she said, “are you still ‘Lucy’ when we’re on these deliveries? If we use that name in front of people we don’t know, that’s a clue to your cover identity. Gavin and I can fall back on our code names and go by Starling and Ardelion, butyour code name is four-nine-one, after our team. We can’t call you that.”

“No, you can’t.” Sula glanced over the street, the people moving in the shade of the gemel trees that were bright with their white summer blossoms. From the shadows she heard the echo of a name, and she smiled.

“Call me Gredel,” she said.

That night, with the reflected rays of Shaamah glowing on theju yao pot and One-Step quietly passing copies ofResistance on the pavement outside, she wrote with her stylus on the modestly intelligent, glowing surface of her table, producing an essay on how to organize a loyalist network into cells. She threw in every security procedure she could think of, from code names to letter drop procedures.

She realized that she had done part of her job already. Copies ofResistance were being passed from hand to hand along spontaneously formed, informal networks. For her purposes the networks already existed: all she had to do was professionalize them.

The unsuccessful networks would be caught and killed, she thought. All taking bullets meant for her.

The successful networks she would hope to contact later-so they could be killed by other bullets when she needed them.

TEN

Martinez set the wall video to the tactical display, but he didn’t pay a lot of attention to it. He couldn’t stay in his seat: he was compelled to pace, and march, and conduct imaginary conversations with every officer on the ship.

By the time Alikhan came in with his dinner, he’d worked himself into a near frenzy. “What’s happening?” he demanded the instant Alikhan entered. “What are people saying?”

With a series of deliberate gestures Alikhan put the covered plate in front of Martinez and arranged his napkin and silverware. Then he straightened and said, “May I close the door, my lord?”

“Yes.” It was all Martinez could do to avoid shouting the word.

Alikhan quietly closed the door and said, “Lady Michi asked Dr. Xi to report to her. He did so. Then she asked for Captain Fletcher, and he reported to her as well.”

“Any notion of what was said?”

“No, my lord.”

Martinez found himself grinding his teeth. He very much wanted to know what Fletcher said to the squadcom.

“How are the petty officers taking it?” he asked.

“They’re huddling with one another, talking quietly.”

“What are they saying?”

Alikhan straightened with quiet dignity. “They’re not speaking much to me, my lord. I’ve not been aboard very long. They’re talking only to people they know they can trust.”

Martinez drummed his fingers on his thighs in frustration. Alikhan quietly uncovered Martinez’s plate, revealing a rehydrated filet drizzled with one of Perry’s elaborate sauces. Martinez looked up at him.

“Do they think the captain’s mad?” he said.

Alikhan considered the question for a moment before answering. “They don’t understand the captain, my lord. They never have. But mad? I don’t know what a doctor would say, but I don’t think the captain fits any definition of madness a petty officer would recognize, my lord.”

“Yes,” Martinez said. The answer depressed him. “Thank you, Alikhan.”

Alikhan withdrew. A few moments later Martinez looked at his plate and discovered that his food was gone. Apparently he’d eaten it, though he couldn’t remember doing so.

He thought about inviting the lieutenants for an informal meeting aboardDaffodil. Or the premiere lieutenant, Kazakov, to a dinner. To talk, and perhaps to plan for eventualities.