Walter Williams - Conventions of War

Her sidearm was a weight against one hip.

To avoid being overconspicuous, she wore a nondescript overcoat, which she removed as soon as she heard footsteps in the hall. She held it over the pistol and its holster.

The singing tension in her nerves kept her back straight, her chin high. She had to remember that she was a Peer. Not a Peer looking down her nose at cliquemen, but a Peer interacting with another of her class.

That had always been hardest-to pretend that she was born to this.

A female servant opened the door, a middle-aged Terran. She wasn’t in livery, but in neat, subdued civilian clothes.

Lady Mitsuko, Sula concluded, possessed little in the way of social pretension.

Sula walked past the surprised servant and into the hallway. The walls had been plastered beige, with little works of art in ornate frames, and her shoes clacked on deep gray tile.

“Lady Caroline to see Lady Mitsuko, please,” she said, and took off her cap.

The maidservant closed the door and held out her hands for the cap and overcoat. Sula looked at her. “Go along, now,” she said.

The servant looked doubtful, then gave a little bow and trotted into the interior of the house. Sula examined herself in a hall mirror of polished nickel asteroid material, adjusted the tilt of one of her medals, and waited.

Lady Mitsuko appeared, walking quickly. She was younger than Sula had expected, in her early thirties, and very tall. Her body was angular and she had a thin slash of a mouth and a determined jaw that suggested that, as a Judge of Interrogation, she was disinclined to let prisoners get away with much. Her light brown hair was worn long and caught in a tail behind, and she wore casual clothes. She dabbed with a napkin at a food spot on her blouse.

“Lady Caroline?” she said. “I’m sorry. I was just giving the twins their supper.” She held out her hand, but there was a puzzled frown on her face as she wondered whether she had met Sula before.

Sula startled her by bracing in salute, her chin high. “Lady Magistrate,” she said. “I come on official business. Is there somewhere we may speak privately?”

“Yes,” Lady Mitsuko replied, her hand still outheld. “Certainly.”

She took Sula to her office, a small room that still had the slight aroma of the varnish used on the shelves and furniture of light-colored wood.

“Will you take a seat, my lady?” Mitsuko said as she closed the door. “Shall I call for refreshment?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Sula said. “I won’t be here long.” She stood before a chair but didn’t sit, and waited until Lady Mitsuko stepped behind her desk before she spoke again.

“You have my name slightly wrong,” Sula said. “I’m not Lady Caroline, but rather Caroline, Lady Sula.”

Lady Mitsuko’s eyes darted to her and she froze with one hand on the back of her office chair, her mouth parted in surprise.

“Do you recognize me?” Sula prompted.

“I…don’t know.” Mitsuko pronounced the words as if speaking a foreign language.

Sula reached into a pocket and produced her Fleet ID. “You may examine my identification if you wish,” she said. “I’m on a mission for the secret government.”

Lady Mitsuko pressed the napkin to her heart. The other hand reached for Sula’s identification. “The secret government…” she said softly, as if to herself.

She sank slowly into her hair, her eyes on the ID as Sula sat down too, with her overcoat and cap in her lap. She waited for Lady Mitsuko’s eyes to lift from the ID, then said, “We require your cooperation.”

Mitsuko slowly extended her arm, returning Sula’s identification. “What do you-what does the secret government want?” she asked.

Sula leaned forward and took her ID. “The government requires you to transfer twelve hostages from the Reservoir Prison to the holding cells at the Riverside police station. I have a list ready-will you set your comm to receive?”

Speaking slowly, as if in a daze, Lady Mitsuko readied her comm. Sula triggered her sleeve display to send to the desk comm the names of Julien, Veronika, nine prisoners chosen at random from the official posted list of hostages, and-just because she was feeling mischievous when she made the list-the Two Sticks’ Cree cook.

“We expect the order to be sent tomorrow,” Sula said. She cleared her throat in a businesslike way. “I am authorized to say that after the return of the legitimate government, your loyalty will be rewarded. On the other hand, if the prisoner transfer does not take place, you will be assassinated.”

Mitsuko’s look was scandalized. She stared at Sula for a blank second, then seemed to notice for the first time the holstered pistol at Sula’s hip. Her eyes jumped away and she made a visible effort to collect herself.

“What reason shall I give for the transfer?” she said.

“Whatever seems best to you. Perhaps they need to be interrogated in regard to certain crimes. I’m sure you can come up with a good reason.” Sula rose from her chair. “I shan’t keep you.”

And best regards to the twins.Sula considered adding that, a clear malicious threat to the children, but decided it was unnecessary.

She rather thought that she and Lady Mitsuko had reached an understanding.

Mitsuko escorted her to the door, lost in thought, her movements disconnected, as if her nervous system hadn’t quite caught up with events. At least she didn’t look as if she’d panic and run for the comm as soon as the door closed.

Sula threw the overcoat over her shoulders. “Allow me to wish you a good evening, Lady Magistrate,” she said.

“Um…good evening, Lady Sula,” Lady Mitsuko replied.

Macnamara waited in the car, and leaped out to open the door as soon as Sula appeared. She tried not to run over the ornamental bridge and down the path, and instead managed a brisk, military clip.

The car hummed away from the curb as fast as its four electric engines permitted, and made the first possible turn. By the time the vehicle had gone two streets, Sula had squirmed out of her military tunic and silver-braided trousers. The blouse she’d worn beneath the tunic was suitable as casual summer ware, and she jammed her legs into a pair of bright summery pantaloons. The military kit and the blond wig went into a laundry bag. The holster shifted to the small of her back.

The van carrying the extraction team roared up behind, and both vehicles pulled to a stop: Sula and Macnamara transferred to the van, along with the laundry bag. Another driver hopped into the car-he would drive it to the parking stand of the local train, where it could be retrieved at leisure.

As Sula jumped through the van’s clamshell door, she saw the extraction team, Spence, Casimir, and four burly men from Julien’s crew, all bulky with armor and with weapons resting in their laps. Another pair sat in front. The interior of the van was blue with tobacco smoke. Laughter burst from her at their grim look.

“Put the guns away,” she said. “We won’t be needing them.”

Triumph blazed through her veins. She pulled Macnamara into the van, and then, because there were no more seats, dropped onto Casimir’s lap. As the door hummed shut and the van pulled away, she put her arms around Casimir’s neck and kissed him.

She knew that Sergius and the whole Riverside Clique couldn’t have managed what she’d just done. They could have sniffed around the halls of justice for someone to bribe, and probably already had without success; but none of them could have convinced a Peer and a judge to sign a transfer order of her own free will. If they’d approached Lady Michiko, she would have brushed them off; if they’d threatened her, she would have ordered their arrest.