Walter Williams - The Sundering

The tension was unending. It was a simple enough mission but it called for a high degree of alertness, Sula moving along the streets with dangerous documents under her arm, scanning for police, for Naxid silhouettes, for anyone that might be following her. Getting arrested for something like this would be inane. One of her team paralleled her, moving on the other side of the same street. The third kept watch, and as they moved, their roles switched in rotation.

Every time the team disposed of its sheets, they returned to the sedan for another pile. It was three days before Team 491 finally disposed of all its copies. Towards the end Sula, feet and back aching, wanted to take a stack of sheets to the top of a high building and hurl them to the four winds. For some reason she didn’t.

The sheets seemed to have some effect. The news reported a decree from Lady Kushdai that anyone caught distributing subversive literature would be subject to extreme penalties. She overheard people discussing the battle at Protipanu in cafés where she stopped for refreshment. Three times Sula saw obvious facsimiles ofThe Loyalist stacked in various public places. She knew they were copies because the quality of the paper was superior to the original.

Aching and exhausted, Sula retired to her private apartment and caught up on the messages from the Records Office. She wasn’t surprised to discover that Lady Arkat had been retired as head of security. She had been allowed to send a graceful message of farewell to her subordinates, thanking them for their years of service and wishing them the best. She had then turned over her access and her passwords to her replacement, a Lieutenant Rashtag of the police force, and the altered executive program promptly sent copies of Rashtag’s new passwords to Sula.

Rashtag began his new administration in bombastic mode, issuing a series of new decrees having to do with security and threatening dire punishments for infractions. New passes would be issued, and police would check them at the door. Anyone not at his station during working hours would suffer reprimand or worse. All intrusions would be reported immediately. The watchword wasEfficiency! The next day the watchword wasSecurity! After that,Loyalty!

Sula recognized Rashtag’s style, which was common enough in the Fleet, and a look at his file, which was available to anyone with Rashtag’s passwords, confirmed her judgment. He’d been a police sergeant for the last eleven years, and had just received his step to lieutenant in the last few days, as a consequence of being born a member of the right species. A bully promoted beyond his ability, he would be pleased by those who flattered and truckled to him, and offended by pride or even quiet competence. He would promote the flatterers and drive out the capable. Records Office security would soon be tied in its own regulations and ineptitude, and be less use than ever.

She’d had captains like that. She should make a note never to target Rashtag: he was too useful to the loyalist cause.

Following Rashtag’s amusing orders came something of more interest. The Administrator of Records, the senior civil servant in the Records Office, had been replaced by a Lord Ushgay, and Ushgay had ordered an immediate search through the records to find buildings in certain locations, all to be requisitioned by the government. A large hotel in the High City was to be acquired, with first-class appointments—not that in the High City there were any other kind—plus a number of palaces, preferably those belonging to traitors who had fled Zanshaa with the outcast government.

Other buildings in the Lower Town were also to be requisitioned. Hotels or whole apartment buildings in the vicinity of the main railroad terminus and the funicular railway, plus warehouses as close to that area as could be found. The machine shops of the railway were to be requisitioned, as was the nearby government motor pool and repair shops, including hundreds of transport vehicles suitable for Naxid drivers and passengers. Enough to transport nearly two thousand Naxids.

Sula gave a low whistle. Nowthis was interesting.

That evening, Sula made a diagonal chalk mark on the streetlight on the northeast corner of Bend and 134th Street, the signal that she wished to meet with Hong in front of the Pink Pavilion in Continuity Park at 16:01 the following afternoon. She found Hong beneath one of the old elms, and they approached each other with bright smiles fixed to their faces, as if they were old friends encountering one another by chance. Hong took her arm and began to stroll with her along one of the paths.

It was a bright summer day, and the park was full. A group of Torminel flew kites, preparing for the Kite-Flying Festival in a few days; and young teams of Naxids played lighumane in fields fenced off by bright alloy uprights.

“This is a hand comm,” Hong said, as she felt something drop into her shoulder bag. “We’ll use it only for the Axtattle operation—when that operation’s over, destroy the unit or otherwise dispose of it.”

Elms rustled overhead as Sula nodded her understanding.

“Our sources,” Hong continued, “have told us that Naxid police have been ordered to clear five airfields of all non-Naxid personnel. All of them are on this continent, more or less in a circle around Zanshaa City. One of the fields is Wi-hun, so we’re still betting that’s where the rebel main body will land.” He gave a grim smile. “From now on, your team is on alert. I want you all sleeping in your apartment, with your equipment ready. When Naxids begin to land, I’ll send you a message on the hand comm announcing that your cousin Marcia’s given birth. If I mention birth weight, these are the number of shuttles landing each hour. If I say it’s a boy, that means shuttles are landing at Wi-hun and the Axtattle plan is on.”

“Understood.”

“Once Marcia gives birth, nobody is to be more than two minutes away from your apartment. When I hear the Naxids are getting ready to move into the city, I’ll send a message telling you when to meet me at a restaurant. You’ll get your team to the Axtattle site by that hour.”

“Understood. It looks as if we’ll have a fair amount of warning, because they’re requisitioning transport from Zanshaa City.” Sula dropped into Hong’s own shoulder bag an envelope containing a data foil with a summary of the Records Office intercepts, and then she gave him a brief recapitulation of its contents.

“The hotels and apartments near the funicular will be barracks,” she said. “The other buildings will hold their gear, supplies, and transport. The new elite will be in the palaces in the High City, and the officers and administrators in a High City hotel. My guess is that will be the Great Destiny Hotel, which has a lot of Naxid-suitable rooms and a restaurant that specializes in Naxid food.”

“Very plausible,” Hong nodded.

They paused near the fountain, great white moving columns of water that obscured, then revealed, the park’s famous statue, The Unsound Regarding Continuity with Awe. Continuity looked remarkably like one of the Great Masters, the Shaa. An irony, considering that the Shaa as a species had not Continued.

“No matter what happens on the Axtattle Parkway,” Sula said, “I think we ought to plan the destruction of the Great Destiny Hotel. Make a second truck bomb, drive it in the lobby some night, and blow every middle-rank administrator into low orbit. And the fuckers won’t be able to hidethat — half the city could look out their windows and see it go up.”

A gust of wind brought a fine spray of water into Hong’s eyes. He blinked and held up a hand. “Difficult to get that stuff into the High City, with only the funicular and the one road.”

“That’s why you prepare the truck now,” Sula said. “I know you have teams in the High City, yes?”