Walter Williams - Conventions of War

She knew the inadequacy of her words even as she wrote them. Whatever pathos she invented for her readers couldn’t equal the horror and tragedy of the reality. The helpless terror of the victims, the rattle of guns, the moans of the dying and shrieks of the wounded…

She remembered all that from the Axtattle fight. Her atrocity fictions were a pleasant fantasy compared to the memories that swam before her gaze.

More death coming,she thought.Human warmth not my specialty.

As usual,she wrote in Resistance, the Naxids were unable to find their true enemies, and settled for killing whoever they could find. She added:

Our chief criticism of the Torminel was that they killed the wrong Naxid. Nearly a hundred deaths in exchange for a sewer worker shows a sad ignorance of mathematics.

Next time, citizens, find an official, a police officer, a warder, a supervisor, a department head or a judge. And make sure the body isn’t found in your neighborhood.

Then, two days later, an elderly retiree-a Torminel-blew herself up in her own apartment with a homemade bomb. It must have been an incendiary, Sula concluded, because half the building went up in flames.

The Naxids tracked down the bomber’s children and shot them.

It was while searching the Records Office death certificates in search of details of the Torminel and her family that Sula discovered that Naxid was killed in a bomb explosion ascribed to “anarchists and saboteurs.” The Naxid, a minor official in the Ministry of Revenue, was likely killed on account of his vulnerability: he wasn’t important enough to rate guards. The bomb was a small one, explosive packed with nails.

The next issue ofResistance mourned the old Torminel as a stern loyalist outraged by the deaths in the Old Third, and made the dead tax officer a villain condemned by secret trial and executed by members of the Octavius Hong wing of the secret loyalist army.

A hundred and one hostages were shot in retaliation; the Naxids, as usual, inflicting death by prime numbers. It was interesting, she thought, that the hostages hadn’t been shot in response to the bombing, but to the public revelations of the bombing. It appeared that the Naxids weren’t killing hostages because they were being attacked, but in retaliation for the loss of face when the attack was revealed to the public. It was something, she thought, that she might be able to use.

Searching death certificates for other revelations, Sula discovered a great many geriatric cases sprinkled with a few bizarre accidents. She wondered if she could use that too, perhaps turn some of those accidents into incidents of sabotage, then wondered if her imagination wasn’t running away with her.

If so, she wasn’t the only one. The Naxid media announced the arrest and execution of the Octavius Hong wing of the loyalist army, along with their families.

But I invented them!Sula protested to herself.

When she checked the Records Office computer, however, she discovered that the death certificates were real.

The streets steamed after a summer shower, and the truck’s wheels splashed water over the walkway as Team 491 drew up to a cafe bar on the Avenue of Commerce, in Zanshaa’s business district. Macnamara touched the lever that opened the cargo hatch, then bounded from behind the controls to the hatch as it rose, rainwater dripping from its lower edge. Sula climbed out to blink in the bright sun and inhale the aroma of the overripe ammat blossoms, fallen in the storm, mingled with the scent of fresh rain.

“I smell money on the air,” she said to Spence.

Spence lifted her pug nose to the wind. “I hope you’re right,” she said.

Inside, Sula collected her cash from the proprietor, a thin man with a turned-down smile and a crisp white apron, then signaled Macnamara to carry in the hermetically sealed crate of Onamaka coffee beans from Harzapid, which he laid with care behind the bar.

“Thanks,” the proprietor said. He looked critically at Macnamara’s wet footprints on his glossy tile floor. “By the way, a couple gents want to see you.”

Sula turned as the two men rose from their small marble-topped table. “Good coffee,” the first said, and Sula’s nerves sang a warning. He was a large man, wearing a jacket bright with flower patterns and trousers pegged nearly to his armpits. The trouser legs belled out around heavy boots. He wore a heavy silver necklace splattered with thumb-sized artificial rubies, and a matching bracelet on one thick wrist.

“Very good coffee,” his partner agreed. The second man was smaller but had the deep chest and thick arms of a bodybuilder, and hair that was razored into a perfect narcissistic ruff that shadowed his forehead like a cockscomb.

“The question is,” said the first man, “do you have a permit to be in the coffee business?”

Sula sensed Macnamara stepping protectively to her shoulder, and she slid one foot back into a balanced stance as Spence, understanding that something was wrong, bustled forward with a worried expression.

Sula looked narrowly at the first man. “Who are you, exactly?” she asked.

His hand lashed out, probably a slap intended to rock her on her heels and teach her not to ask imprudent questions. But he was dealing with someone who had been through the Fleet personal combat course. Sula blocked his arm and raked her fist along his radial nerve, pulling him forward and exposing his throat. She hacked at his larynx with the edge of her hand, and as he bent to clutch at his neck, stuck her two thumbs in his eye sockets. After which she simply grabbed his head in her hands and pulled it into a rising knee.

His nose broke with a satisfying crunch. Since he was bent over, choking, it was easy for her to drop her elbow onto the back of his neck, which put him on the ground.

Macnamara had already launched himself at the second man, the bodybuilder. Blows and kicks were exchanged, and the two were about even until Spence hurled a pot of hot coffee into the bodybuilder’s face, then broke his knee with a stomping kick launched from the flank.

After that, all three members of Action Team 491 swarmed the bodybuilder and kicked him till he lay still.

Macnamara searched the two men for weapons and produced a pair of pistols they had been too busy to draw. The cafe‘s only two customers watched in wide-eyed alarm and looked uncertainly at their sleeve displays as if with the thought of calling the police. Sula took two steps behind the counter and grabbed the proprietor by the hair. She dragged him across his counter and said, “Who are these people you sold us to?”

“They’re Virtue Street,” the man said, eyes wide. “I pay them tribute.”

Sula clenched her teeth. “I don’t think I’m going to sell you any more coffee.”

She picked up her Onamaka coffee and carried it to the truck, anger and adrenaline rendering the box as light as a pillow.

“Fuck!”she said, furious at herself as they drove away. “Fuck! Fuck!” She beat a fist on the arm of her chair.

“We came out of it all right,” Macnamara said, fingering a scrape on his cheek where the bodybuilder’s rings had marked him.

“That’s not what I mean,” Sula snarled. “I forgot about the tax! Fuck!” She slapped herself on the forehead. “I should haveknown!” She pounded the seat again. “Damn it all anyway!”

She canceled the morning’s remaining deliveries and raged her way home, spitting anger all the way. At the sight of One-Step, crouched on the pavement in the shade of her building’s porch, she felt the fury fade. One-Step straightened his long shanks and rose, a white smile brilliant on his face.

“Beauteous lady!” he declaimed. “Here you come, glorious as the sun and delicate as a flower!”