Walter Williams - Conventions of War

Later that morning Martinez conducted vicious, mean-spirited inspections of Missile Battery 1 and the riggers’ stores, but it didn’t make him feel any better.

Lord Chen’s comm unit began to make an urgent squeak. “Pardon me, Loopy,” he said. He put down his cocktail and reached into the pocket of his jacket.

He stood on the seaside terrace of his friend Lord Stanley Loo, known since his school days as “Loopy.” A Cree orchestra played festive music from a bandstand that looked as if it had been designed by a lacemaker. The sea breeze carried over the terrace the refreshing scent of salt and iodine, and the roar of the waves on the rocks sometimes drowned out the band. Antopone’s red sky gave the waves a lurid cast.

“Chen,” he said, raising his unit to his ear.

“My lord. Lord Tork requires your immediate presence aboardGalactic.”

Lord Chen recognized the careful diction of Lord Convocate Mondi, one of the members of the Fleet Control Board, a Torminel who took special care not to lisp around his fangs.

“The meeting’s not for another three days,” Chen said. He reached for his cocktail with his free hand and raised it to his lips.

“My lord,” Mondi said, “is this communication secure?”

A cold hand touched Chen’s spine. He put down his drink and turned away from the group on the terrace. “I suppose so,” he said. “No one’s within listening distance.”

There was a slight hesitation, and then Mondi spoke again. “The Naxids are moving from Zanshaa,” he said. “It looks like they’re heading for Zarafan under high acceleration.”

And from Zarafan, Lord Chen knew, they could go straight on to Laredo, where the Convocation were taking up residence.

Where his daughter would land any day.

“Yes,” he said, “I understand. I’ll be there as soon as I can arrange transport.”

And then, as the surf boomed below, he put his hand comm away and returned to the party.

“Something’s come up, Loopy,” he said. “Can you have someone arrange my return to the skyhook?”

“General quarters! Now general quarters! This is not a drill!”

From the panic that clawed at the amplified voice of Cadet Qing, Martinez knew from the first word this wasn’t a drill. By the time the message began to repeat he had already vaulted clean over his desk and was sprinting for the companion that led to Command, leaving Marsden sitting in his chair staring after him.

Martinez sprang for the companion just as the gravity went away. The distant engine rumble ceased, leaving the corridor silent except for the sound of his heart, which was thundering louder than the general quarters alarm. Martinez had no weight but still had plenty of inertia, and he hit the companion with knees and elbows. Pain rocketed through his limbs despite the padding on the stair risers. He bounced away from the companion like an oversized rubber eraser but managed to check his momentum with a grab to the rail.

His feet began to swing out into the corridor, and that meantIllustrious was changing its heading. He had to get up the companion and into Command before the engines fired again. His big hand tightened on the rail so he could swing himself back to the steep stair, kick off and jump to the next deck.

No good. The engines fired suddenly and he had weight again. His arm couldn’t support his entire mass and folded under him, and the rail caught him a stunning blow across the shoulder. He flopped onto his back on the stair. Risers sliced into his back.

Martinez tried to rise, but the gravities were already beginning to pile on.Two gravities. Three… Pain lanced through his wrist as he seized the rail to try to haul himself upright. The stair risers were cutting into him like knives.Four gravities at least… He gasped for breath. Eventually he realized he wasn’t going to be able to climb.

He realized other things as well. He was on a hard surface. He hadn’t recently taken any of the drugs that would help him survive heavy gravity. He could die if he didn’t get off this companion, cut by the stairs like cheese by a slicer.

A sort of crabbing motion of his arms and legs brought him bumping down the stairs, each step a club to his back and mastoid, but once his buttocks thumped on the deck it was harder to move, and the risers were still digging into his spine.Five gravities… His vision was beginning to go dark.

Martinez crabbed with his arms and legs and managed to thump down another stair. Comets flared in his skull as his head hit the tread. He clenched his jaw muscles to force blood to his brain and dropped down another step.

It was Chandra’s nightmare, he realized. Relativistic missiles were inboundand he needed to get to Command. It would be the height of stupidity to die here, vaporized by a missile or with his neck broken by the sharp edge of a stair.

He thumped down another stair, and that left only his head still on the companion, tilted at an angle that cramped his windpipe and strained his spine.Six gravities… His vision was totally gone. He couldn’t seem to breathe. Without the drugs, Terrans could only rarely stay conscious at more than six and a half gravities. He had to get off the stair or his neck was going to be broken by the weight of his head.

With a frantic effort he tried to roll, his palms and heels fighting for traction against the tile, fighting the dead weight that was pinning him like a silver needle pinning an insect to corkboard. Vertigo swam through his skull. He fought to bring air into his lungs. He gave a heave, every muscle in his body straining.

With a crack, his head fell off the stair and banged onto the tile. Despite the pain and the stars that shot through the blackness of his vision he felt a surge of triumph.

Gravity increased. Martinez fought for consciousness.

And lost.

When he woke, he saw before him a window, and beyond the window a green countryside. Two ladies in transparent gowns gazed at the poised figure of a nearly naked man who seemed to be hovering in a startlingly blue sky. Above the man was a superior-looking eagle, and on the grass below the two ladies were a pair of animals, a dog and a small furry creature with long ears, both of whom seemed to find the floating man interesting.

It occurred to Martinez that the man in the sky wasn’t alone. He, Martinez, was also floating.

His heart was thrashing in his chest like a broken steam engine. Sharp pains shot through his head and body. He blinked and wiped sweat from the sockets of his eyes.

The man still floated before him, serene and eerily calm, as if he floated every day.

It was only gradually that Martinez realized he was looking at a piece of artifice, at one of the trompe l’oeil paintings that Montemar Jukes had placed at intervals in the corridors.

The engines had shut down again. Now weightless, Martinez had drifted gently from the deck to a place before the painting.

He gave a start and looked frantically in all directions. The companion leading to Command was two body lengths away. So far as he knew, the emergency, the battle, or whatever it was, had not ended.

He swam with his arms to reorient himself, and kicked with one foot at the floating man. He shot across the corridor, absorbed momentum with his arms-pain shot through his right wrist-and then he did a kind of handspring in the direction of the companion.

He struck the companionway feet first and folded into a crouch, which enabled him to spring again, this time through the hatch atop the companion.

From there it was a short distance to Command’s heavy hatch. The door was armored against blast and radiation and would have been locked down at the beginning of the emergency. Martinez hovered before the hatch, his left hand clutching at the hand grip inset into the door frame, his right stabbing at the comm panel.