Conventions of War

NINETEEN

In the morning, Sula made deliveries with Macnamara and Spence. Macnamara was a little stiff but at least he wasn’t sulking too visibly.

In the afternoon, she went to the Petty Mount for a shopping expedition, and wore the result to meet Casimir at the Cat Street club. She was late, and as she approached the club with her large shoulder bag banging her hip with every stride, she found Casimir pacing the pavement next to the apricot-colored car. He was scowling down at the ground, his coat floating behind him like a cloak.

He looked up at her and relief flooded his face. Then he saw how she was dressed, in a long coat, black covered with shiny six-pointed particolored stars, like a rainbow snowfall.

“You got a coat like mine,” he said, surprised.

“Yes. We need to talk.”

“We can talk in the car.” He gestured toward the door.

“No. I need more privacy than that. Let’s try your office.”

Petulance tugged at his lip. “We’re already late.”

“Julien will be all right. His chef is brilliant.”

He nodded as if this remark made sense and followed her through the club. There were few patrons at this early hour, mostly quiet drinkers at the bar or workers who hadn’t managed to get home in time for dinner.

Sula bounded up the metal stairs leading to Casimir’s office. “How did the judge thing go?” he asked.

She had to search her mind for a moment to recall the story.

“Postponed,” she said.

He let her into his office. “Is that what you need to talk about? Because even though Sergius said I wasn’t supposed to help you, there are a few things I can do that Sergius doesn’t need to know about. Because-Oh, damn.”

They had entered his office, the spotless black-and-white room, and Sula had thrown her bag on a sofa and opened her coat to reveal that she wore nothing underneath it but stockings and her shoes.

“Damn,” Casimir repeated. His eyes traveled over her. “Damn, you’re beautiful.”

“Don’t just stand there,” Sula said.

It was the first time she had set out to please a man so totally and for so long. She moved Casimir over the room from one piece of furniture to the other. She took full advantage of the large, oversoft chairs. She used lips and tongue and fingertips, skin and scent, whispers and laughter. She would never have dared try this with Martinez-with him, she lacked this brand of confidence. There was something whorish about it, she supposed, though her own violent, mercifully brief encounter with whoring had been far more sordid and unpleasant than this.

She kept Casimir busy for an hour and a half, until the chiming of his comm grew far too insistent. He rose from one of the sofas, where he was sprawled with Sula on top of him, and made his way to his desk.

“Audio only,” he told the comm. “Answer. Yes, what is it?”

“Julien’s arrested,” said an unknown voice.

Sula sat up, an expression of concern on her face.

“When?” Casimir barked. “Where?”

“A few minutes ago, at the Two Sticks. He was there with Veronika.”

Calculation burned in Casimir’s gaze. “Was it the police or the Fleet?”

The voice shifted to a higher, more urgent register. “It was theLegion. They tookeverybody.”

Casimir stared intently at the far wall as if it held a puzzle he needed badly to put together. Sula rose and quietly walked to where her large shoulder bag waited. She opened it and began to withdraw clothing.

“Does Sergius know?” Casimir asked.

“He’s not at his office. That’s the only number I have for him.”

“Right. Thanks. I’ll call him myself.”

Casimir knew he couldn’t get away with a video-suppressed call to Sergius Bakshi, so he put on a shirt and combed his hair. He spoke in low tones and Sula heard little of what was said. She finished dressing, took a pistol from her bag and stuck it in her waistband behind her back.

Casimir finished his phone call. He looked at her with somber eyes.

“You’d better make yourself scarce,” Sula said. “They might be going after all of you.”

“That’s what Sergius told me,” he said.

“Or maybe,” Sula’s eyes narrowed, “they’re afteryou, and they went to the Two Sticks thinking you’d be there.”

“Or they might be afteryou, ” Casimir said, “and Julien and I are both incidental.”

“That hadn’t occurred to me,” she said.

Casimir began to draw on his clothing. “This looks bad,” he said. “But maybe you’ll get what you want.”

She looked at him.

“War,” he explained, “between us and the Naxids.”

“Thathad occurred to me,” she said.

It had occurred to her the previous night, in fact, while she gazed at reflections of raindrops in herju yao pot. Which was why, that morning, she’d gone to a public comm unit. She wore a worker’s coveralls and the blond wig and a wide-brimmed hat pulled down over her face, and she’d taken the hat off her head and put it over the unit’s camera before she manually punched in the code that would connect her to the Legion of Diligence informer line.

“I want to give some information,” she said. “An anarchist cell is meeting tonight in a restaurant called the Two Sticks, off Harmony Square. They are planning sabotage. The meeting is set for twenty-four and one, in a private room. Don’t tell the local police, because they’re corrupt and would warn the saboteurs.”

She’d used the Earth accent that had once amused Caro Sula. She walked away from the comm without removing her hat from the camera pickup.

She must have been convincing because Julien was now under arrest.

“How shall I contact you?” Sula asked Casimir.

He adjusted his trousers, then gave her a code.

Sula nodded. “Got it.”

He gave her a quizzical look. “You don’t need to write it down?”

“I compose a mental algorithm that will allow me to remember the number,” she said. “It’s what I do with everyone’s numbers.”

He blinked. “Clever trick,” he said.

She kissed him. “Yes,” she said. “A very clever trick.”

The next day the Naxids went berserk. Someone with a rifle went onto a building overlooking the Axtattle Parkway, the main highway that connected Zanshaa City with the Naxids’ landing field at Wi-hun. The sniper waited for a convoy of Naxid vehicles to go by, then shot the driver of the first vehicle. Because the vehicles were using the automated lanes, the vehicle cruised on under computer control with a dead driver behind the controls. Then the sniper shot the next driver, and the next.

By the time the Naxids got things sorted out, at least eight Naxids were dead, and more wounded. The sniper, who was clearly using a weapon much better than the Sidney Mark One, made a clean getaway.

The Naxids decided to shoot fifty-one hostages for every dead Naxid. Sula had no idea how they decided on fifty-one. It wasn’t even a prime number.

Maybe whoever gave the order didn’t know that.

Casimir, who heard the news before anyone else, called Sula shortly after dawn to tell her to stay off the streets. She called the other members of Team 491 and told them to stay where they were, then stuck her head out the door and told One-Step to make himself scarce.

She spent the morning in her apartment with her book of diplomatic history and her mathematical puzzles. At midday her comm chimed with a message that Rashtag, the head of security for the Records Office, had changed his password for the Records Office computer. The new password was included in the message, so she contacted the Records Office computer and found that the Naxids had worked out howResistance was being distributed.

Rashtag was ordered to change the passwords of everyone in the office and to watch the office’s broadcast node for signs of unusual activity. Neither of these worried Sula: she would always get Rashtag’s new password when he changed it; and when she distributedResistance, she always turned off the logging on the broadcast node, so there would be no record of the node being used. It would require some fairly high-level coordination to detect her, and she saw no sign of that as yet.

It was only a matter of time, however.

Casimir called again after nightfall. “Can we meet?” he asked.

“Is it safe to go out?”

“The police have finished rounding up new hostages to replace the ones they shot today, and they’re back to processing ration cards. But just in case I’ll send a car.”

She told him to pick her up at the local train stop. He gave her a time. The car was a dark Hunhao sedan with one of the Torminel bodyguards at the controls. He took her to a small residential street on the edge of a Cree neighborhood-she saw Cree males on the streets exercising their quadruped females, who bounded about them like large puppies.

Casimir was in the apartment of a smiling, elderly couple who apparently did very well for themselves renting out their spare room as a safe house. The room was roomy and comfortable, with flower pots on the windowsills, fringed throw rugs, the scent of potpourri, family pictures on the walls, and a macrame border around the wall video. The remains of Casimir’s dinner sat on a tray along with a half-empty bottle of sparkling wine.

Sula kissed him hello and put her arms around him. His flesh was warm. His cologne had a pleasant earthy scent.

“I think we’ve got a false alarm,” Casimir said. “The Legion doesn’t seem to be after me. Or Sergius, or anyone but Julien. There haven’t been any raids. No inquiries. Nobody’s been seen doing surveillance.”

“That may change if Julien talks,” Sula said.

Casimir drew back. His face hardened. It was as if she’d just challenged the manhood of the whole Riverside Clique.

“Julien won’t talk,” he said. “He’s a good boy.”

“You don’t know what they’re going to do to him. The Naxids are serious. We can’t count on anything.”

Casimir’s lips gave a scornful twitch. “Julien grew up with Sergius Bakshi beating the crap out of him twice a week-and not for any reason either, just for the sheer hell of it. You think Julien’s going to be scared of the Naxids afterthat?”

Sula considered Sergius Bakshi’s dead predator eyes and large pale listless hands and thought that Casimir had a point. “So they won’t get a confession from Julien. There’s still Veronika.”

Casimir shook his head. “Veronika doesn’t know anything.” He gave her a pointed look. “She doesn’t know aboutyou. ”

“But she knows Julien was expecting the two of us for dinner. And the Naxids will have seen that Julien was sitting at a table set for four.”

Casimir shrugged. “They’ll have my name and half of yours. They’ll have a file on me and nothing on you. You’re not in any danger.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” Sula said.

He looked at her for a moment, then softened. “I’m being careful,” he said in a subdued voice. He glanced around the room. “I’m here, aren’t I? In this little room, running my criminal empire by remote control.”

Sula grinned at him. He grinned back.

“Would you like something to eat or drink?” he asked.

“Whatever kind of soft drink they have would be fine.”

He carried out his dinner tray. Sula toured the room, tidied a few of Casimir’s belongings that had been carelessly discarded, then took off her shoes and sat on the floor. Casimir returned with two bottles of Citrine Fling. He seemed surprised to find her on the floor but joined her without comment. He handed her a bottle and touched it with his own. The resinous material made a light thud rather than a crystal ringing sound. He made a face.

“Here’s to our exciting evening,” he said.

“We’ll have to make all the excitement ourselves,” Sula said.

His eyes glittered. “Absolutely.” He took a sip of his drink, then gave her a reflective look. “I know even less about Lady Sula than I do about Gredel.”

She looked at him. “What do you want to know?”

There was a troubled look in his eye. “That story about your parents being executed. I suppose that was something that you said to get close to me.”

Sula shook her head. “My parents were executed when I was young. Flayed.”

He was surprised. “Really?”

“You can look it up if you want to. I’m in the military because it’s the only job I’m permitted.”

“But you’re still a Peer.”

“Yes. But as Peers go, I’m poor. All the family’s wealth and property were confiscated.” She looked at him. “You’ve probably got scads more money than I do.”

Now he was even more surprised. “I’ve never met a whole lot of Peers, but you always get the impression they’re rolling in it.”

“I’d like to have enough to roll in.” She laughed, took a sip of her Fling. “Tell me. If they don’t find Julien guilty of anything, what happens to him?”

“The Legion? They’ll try to scare the piss out of him, then let him go.”

Sula considered this. “Are the Naxids lettinganyone go at all? Or does everyone they pick up for any reason join the hostage population in the lockups?”

He looked at her and ran a pensive thumb down his jaw. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Plus he could be hostage for his father’s good behavior.”

Casimir was thoughtful.

“Where would they send him?” Sula asked.

“Anywhere. The Blue Hatches, the Reservoir. Any jail or police station.” He frowned. “Certain police stations he could walk right out of.”

“Let’s hope he gets sent to one of those then.”

“Yes. Let’s.”

His eyes were troubled.

Good,she thought. There were certain thoughts she wanted him to dwell on for a while.

The first use of the Sidney Mark One rifle came the next morning, as a car drew up alongside two Naxid members of the Urban Patrol and gunned them down. Unfortunately, the driver failed to make a successful escape and three young Terrans were killed in a shootout that left two more members of the Patrol wounded.

Despite the fact that the assassins had been killed, the Naxids shot seventy-two hostages anyway. Why seventy-two? she wondered.

Team 491, alerted by Casimir through the Riverside Clique’s contacts in the police, stayed indoors for the day.

By then Sidney had his Mark Two ready. Sula called him as the team were out making deliveries, and he said things were excellent, not first-class, and she could pick up her package.

The Mark Two was a pistol, small and useful for assassination, that used the same ammunition as the Mark One. It came complete with designs for a sound suppressor.

Sula kissed Sidney on his smoky mouth, gave him enough money to pay the next month’s rent on his shop, and let PJ buy them all lunch.

Meanwhile, Julien had been cleared of suspicion by the Legion of Diligence, though he was remaining in custody as a hostage. Casimir called to tell Sula. “He’s in the Reservoir prison, damn it,” he said. “There’s no way we can get him out of there.”

Calculations shimmered through her mind. “Let me think about that,” she replied.

There was a moment of silence. Then, “Should we get together and talk about it?”

Sula knew there were certain things one shouldn’t say over a comm, and they were skating right along the edge. “Not yet,” she said. “I’ve got some research to do first.”

She spent some time in public databases, researching the intricacies of the Zanshaa legal system, and more time with back numbers of theForensic Register, the publication of the Zanshaa Legal Association. More time was spent seeing who in theRegister had left Zanshaa with the old government and who hadn’t.

Having gathered her data, Sula called Casimir and told him she needed him to set up a meeting with Sergius. While waiting to hear back from him, she prepared the next number ofResistance.

In addition to including plans for the Sidney Mark Two, she praised the Axtattle sniper-“a member of the Eino Kangas wing of the secret army”-and eulogized the assassins of the Urban Patrol officers as “members of the Action Front, an organization allied with the secret government.” She hoped the realization that they hadtwo organizations fighting them now would drive the Naxids crazy.

When Casimir called, he told her the meeting had been arranged. Sula removed her contacts, donned her blond wig, and went to the Cat Street club to meet him.

Sergius Bakshi and Casimir had resumed their normal lives after the Legion had released Julien to the prison system, as Sula was taken to meet Sergius in his office, on the second floor of an unremarkable building in the heart of Riverside.

She and Casimir passed through an anteroom of flunkies and hulking guards, all of whom she regarded with patrician hauteur, and into Sergius’s own office, where he rose to greet her. The office was as unremarkable as the building, with scuffed floors, second-hand furniture, and the musty smell of things that had been left lying too long in corners.

People with real power, Sula thought, didn’t need to show it.

Sergius took her hand, and though the touch of his big hand was light, she could sense the restrained power in his grip. “What may I do for you, Lady Sula?” he asked.

“Nothing right now,” she said. “Instead, I hope to be of service to you.”

The ruthless eyes flicked to Casimir, who returned an expression meant to convey that he knew what Sula proposed to offer. Sergius returned his attention to her.

“I appreciate your thinking of me,” he said. “Please sit down.”

At least, Sula thought, she got to sit down this time. Sergius began to move behind his desk again.

“I believe I can get Julien out of the Reservoir,” Sula said.

Sergius stopped moving, and for the first time, she saw emotion in his dark eyes; a glimpse into a black void of deep-seated desire that seemed all the more frightening in a man who normally appeared bereft of feeling.

Whether Sergius wanted his son back because he loved him or because Julien was a mere possession that some caprice of fate had taken from him, it was clearly a deep, burning hunger, a need as clear and primal and rapacious as that of a hungry panther for his dinner.

Sergius looked at her for a long moment, the need burning in his eyes, then straightened in his shabby chair and clasped his big pale hands on the desk in front of him. His face had again gone blank.

“That’s interesting,” he said.

“I want you to understand that I can’t set Julien at liberty,” she said. “I believe I can get him transferred to the holding cells at the Riverside police station, or to any other place that suits you. You’ll have to get him out of there yourself.

“I’ll provide official identification for Julien that will allow him to move freely, but of course…” She looked into the unreadable eyes. “He’ll be a fugitive until the Naxids are removed from power.”

Sergius held her gaze for a moment, then nodded. “How may I repay you for this favor?” he asked.

Sula suppressed a smile. She had her list well prepared.

“The secret government maintains a business enterprise used to transfer munitions and the like from one place to another. It’s operating under the cover of a food distribution service. Since food distribution is about to become illegal, I’d like to be able to operate this enterprise under your protection, and without the usual fees.”

Sula wondered if she was imagining the hint of a smile that played about Sergius Bakshi’s lips. “Agreed,” he said.

“I would also like ten Naxids to die.”

One eyebrow gave a twitch. “Ten?”

“Ten, and of a certain quality. Naxids in the Patrol, the Fleet, or the Legion, all of officer grade; or civil servants with ranks of CN6 or higher. And it must be clear that they’ve been murdered-they can’t seem to die in accidents.”

His voice was cold. “You wish this done when?”

“It’s not a precondition. The Naxids may die within any reasonable amount of time after Julien is released.”

Sergius seemed to thaw a little. “You will provoke the Naxids into one massacre after another.”

She gave a little shrug and tried to match with her own the glossy inhumanity of the other’s eyes. “That is incidental,” she said.

He gave an amused, twisted little smile. It was as out of place on his round immobile face as a bray of laughter. “I’ll agree to this,” he said. “But I want it clear that I’ll pick the targets.”

“Certainly,” Sula said.

“Anything else?”

“I’d like an extraction team on hand, just in case my project doesn’t go well. I don’t expect we’ll need them, though.”

“Extraction team?” Sergius’s lips formed the unaccustomed syllables, and then his face relaxed into the one he probably wore at home, which was still, in truth, frightening enough.

“I suppose you’d better tell me about this plan of yours,” he said.

Sula’s legal research told her that three sets of people had the authority to move prisoners from one location to another. There was the prison bureaucracy itself, which housed the prisoners, shuttled them to and from interrogations and trials, and worked them in innumerable factories and agricultural communes. All those in the bureaucracy with the authority to sign off on prisoner transfers were now Naxids. Sergius apparently hadn’t yet gotten any of them on his payroll, or Julien would already have been shifted out of the Reservoir.

The second group consisted of Judges of the High Court and of Final Appeal, all of whom had been evacuated before the Naxid fleet arrived. The new administration had replaced them all with Naxids.

The third group were Judges of Interrogation. It was not a prestigious posting, and some had been evacuated and some hadn’t. Apparently, Sergius didn’t have any of these in his pocket, either.

Lady Mitsuko Inada was one of those who hadn’t left Zanshaa. She lived in Green Park, a quiet, wealthy enclave on the west side of the city. The district had none of the ostentation or flamboyant architecture of the High City-probably none of the houses had more than fifteen or sixteen rooms. Those homes still occupied by their owners tried to radiate a comfortable air of wealth and security but were undermined by the untended gardens and shuttered windows of the neighboring buildings, abandoned by their owners, who had fled to another star system or, failing that, to the country.

Lady Mitsuko’s dwelling was on the west side of the park, which was the least expensive and least fashionable. It was built of gray fieldstone, with a green alloy roof, an onion dome of greenish copper, and two ennobling sets of chimney pots. The garden in front was mossy and frondy, with ponds and fountains. There were willows in the back, which suggested more ponds.

Peers constituted about two percent of the empire’s population, and as a class, controlled more than ninety percent of its wealth. But there was immense variation within the order of Peers, ranging from individuals who controlled the wealth of entire systems to those who lived in genuine poverty. Lady Mitsuko was on the lower end of the scale. Her job didn’t entitle her to an evacuation, and neither did her status within the Inada clan.

All Peers, even the poor ones, were guaranteed an education and jobs in the Fleet, civil service, or bar. It was possible that Lady Mitsuko had worked herself up to her current status from somewhere lower.

Sula rather hoped she had. If Lady Mitsuko had a degree of social insecurity, it might work well for Sula’s plans.

Macnamara drove her to the curb in front of the house. He wore a dark suit and a brimless round cap and looked like a professional driver. He opened Sula’s door from the outside, and helped her out with a hand gloved in Devajjo leather.

“Wait,” she told him, though he would anyway, since that was the plan.

Neither of them looked at the van cruising along the far side of the park, packed with heavily armed Riverside Clique gunmen.

Sula straightened her shoulders-she was Fleet again, in her blond wig-and marched up the walk and over the ornamental bridge to the house door. With gloved fingers, to hide fingerprints, she reached for the grotesque ornamental bronze head near the door and touched the shiny spot that would alert anyone inside to the presence of a visitor. She heard chiming within, removed her uniform cap from under her arm and put it on her head. She had visited one of Team 491’s storage lockers, and now wore her full dress uniform of viridian green, with her lieutenant’s shoulder boards, glossy shoes, and her two medals-the Medal of Merit, Second Class, for her part in the Blitsharts rescue, and the Nebula Medal, with Diamonds, for wiping out a Naxid squadron at Magaria.

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.

It took a Peer to unlock a Peer’s cooperation-and not with a bribe, but with an appeal to legitimacy and class solidarity.

Casimir’s lips were warm, his breath sweet. Macnamara, without a seat, crouched on the floor behind the driver and looked anywhere but at Sula sitting on Casimir’s lap. The cliquemen nudged each other and grinned. Spence watched with frank interest: Peer and criminal was probably a pairing she hadn’t seen on her romantic videos.

The driver kept off the limited-access expressways, taking the smaller streets. Even so, he managed to get stuck in traffic. The van inched forward as the minutes ticked by, and then the driver cursed.

“Damn! Roadblock ahead!”

In an instant Sula was off Casimir’s lap and peering forward. She could see Naxids in the black-and-yellow uniforms of the Motor Patrol. Their four-legged bodies snaked eerily from side to side as they moved up and down the line of vehicles, peering at the drivers. One vehicle was stopped while the patrol rummaged through its cargo compartment. Their van was on a one-way street, its two lanes choked with traffic; it was impossible to turn around.

Her heart was thundering as it never had when confronting Sergius or Lady Mitsuko. Ideas flung themselves at her mind and burst from her lips in not quite complete sentences. “Place to park?” she said urgently. “Garage? Pretend to make a delivery?”

The answer was no. Parking was illegal, there was no garage to turn into, and all the businesses on the street were closed at this hour.

Casimir’s shoulder clashed with hers as he came forward to scan the scene before them. “How many?”

“I can see seven,” Sula said. “My guess is, there are two or three more we can’t see from here. Say ten.” She pointed ahead, to an open-topped vehicle partly on the sidewalk, with a machine gun mounted on the top and a Naxid standing behind it, the sun gleaming off his black-beaded scales.

“Starling,” she said to Macnamara. “That gun’s your target.”

Macnamara had been one of the best shots on the training course, and his task was critical since the gunner had to be taken out first. The Naxid didn’t even have to touch his weapon, just put the reticule of his targeting system on the van and press theGo button: the gun itself would handle the rest, and riddle the vehicle with a couple thousand rounds.

And then the driver of the Naxid vehicle would have to be killed, because he could operate the gun from his own station.

A spare rifle had been brought for Sula, and she reached for it. There was no spare suit of armor, and she suddenly felt the hollow in her chest where bullets would strike.

“We’ve got two police coming down the line toward us. One on either side. You two”-she indicated the driver and the other man in the front of the van-“pop them right at the start. The rest of us will exit the rear of the vehicle-Starling first, to give him time to set up on the gunner. The rest of you keep advancing-you’re as well-armed as the patrol, and you’ve got surprise. If things don’t work out, we’ll split up into small groups-Starling and Ardelion, you’re with me. We’ll hijack vehicles in nearby streets and get out as well as we can.”

Her mouth was dry by the time she finished, and she licked her lips with a sandpaper tongue. Casimir was grinning at her.

“Nice plan,” he said.

Total fuckup,she thought, but gave what she hoped was an encouraging nod. She crouched on the rubberized floor of the van and readied her rifle.

“Better turn the transponder on,” Casimir said, and the driver gave a code phrase to the van’s comm unit.

Every vehicle in the empire was wired to report its location at regular intervals to a central data store. The cliquemen’s van had been altered to make this an option rather than a requirement, and the function had been turned off while the van was on its mission to Green Park. An unresponsive vehicle, however, was bound to be suspicious in the eyes of the patrol.

“Good thought,” Sula breathed.

“Here they come.” Casimir ducked down behind the seat. He gave Sula a glance-his cheeks flushed with color, his eyes glittering like diamonds. His grin was brilliant.

Sula felt her heart surge in response. She answered his grin, but that wasn’t enough, and lunged across the distance between them to kiss him hard.

Live or die,she thought. Whatever came, she was ready.

“They’re pinging us,” the driver growled. One of the patrol had raised a hand comm and activated the transponder.

The van coasted forward, then halted. Sula heard the front windows whining open to make it easier to shoot the police on either side.

The van had a throat-tickling odor of tobacco and terror. From her position on the floor she could see the driver holding a pistol alongside his seat. His knuckles were white on the grip. Her heart sped like a turbine in her chest. Tactical patterns played themselves out in her mind.

She heard the footfalls of one of the patrol, walking close, and kept her eyes on the driver’s pistol. The second it moved, she would act.

Then the driver gave a startled grunt and the van surged forward. The knuckles relaxed on the pistol.

“She waved us through,” the driver said.

There was a moment of disbelieving silence, then the rustle and shift of ten tense, frightened, heavily armed people all relaxing at once.

The van accelerated. Sula’s breath sighed slowly from her lungs and she put her rifle carefully down on the floor of the vehicle. She turned to the others, saw at least six cigarettes being lit, laughed and sat heavily on the floor.

Casimir turned to her, his expression filled with savage wonder. “That was lucky,” he said.

She didn’t answer. She only looked at him, at the pulse throbbing in his neck, the slight glisten of sweat at the base of his throat, the fine mad glitter in his eyes. She had never wanted anything so much.

“Lucky,” he said again.

In Riverside, when the van pulled up outside the Hotel of Many Blessings, she was careful not to touch him as she followed Casimir out of the van-the others would store the weapons-and then went with him to his suite, keeping half a pace apart on the elevator.

He turned to her then, and she reached forward and tore open his shirt so she could lick the burning adrenaline from his skin.

His frenzy equaled hers. Their blood smoked with the excitement of shared danger, and the only way to relieve the heat was to spend it on each other.

They laughed. They shrieked. They snarled. They tumbled over each other like lion cubs, claws only half sheathed. They pressed skin to skin so hard that it seemed they were trying to climb into one another.

The fury spent itself sometime after midnight. Casimir called room service for something to eat. Sula craved chocolate, but there was none to be had. For a moment she considered breaking into her own warehouse to satisfy her hunger.

“For once,” he said, as he cut his omelette with a fork and slid half of it onto Sula’s plate, “for once you didn’t sound like you came from Riverside.”

“Yes?” She raised an eyebrow.

“And you didn’t sound like Lady Sula either. You had some other accent, one I’d never heard before.”

“It’s an accent I’ll use only with you,” she said.

The accent of the Fabs, on Spannan. The voice of Gredel.

Lady Mitsuko signed the transfer order that morning. Transport wasn’t arranged till the afternoon, so Julien and the other eleven prisoners arrived at the Riverside station late in the afternoon, about six.

Sergius Bakshi had a longstanding arrangement with the captain of the Riverside station. Julien’s freedom cost two hundred zeniths. Veronika cost fifty, and the Cree cook a mere fifteen.

Julien would have been on his way by seven, but it was necessary to wait for the Naxid supervisor, the one who approved all the ration cards, to leave.

Still suffering from his interrogation, Julien limped to liberty on the night that the Naxids announced that the Committee to Save the Praxis, their own government, was already on its way from Naxas to take up residence in the High City of Zanshaa. A new Convocation would be assembled, composed both of Naxids and other races, to be the supreme governing body of their empire.

“Here’s hoping we can give them a hot landing,” Sula said. She was among the guests at Sergius’s welcome-home dinner, along with Julien’s mother, a tall, gaunt woman, forbidding as a statue, who burst into tears at the sight of him.

Veronika was not present. Interrogation had broken a cheekbone and the orbit of one eye: Julien had called a surgeon, and in the meantime provided painkillers.

“I’llgive them a welcome,” Julien said grimly, through lips that had been bruised and cut. “I’ll rip the bastards to bits.”

Sula looked across the table at Sergius and silently mimed the word “ten” at him. He smiled at her, and when he looked at Julien, the smile turned hard.

“Ten,” he said. “Why stop there?”

Sula returned the smile. At last she had her army. Her own team of three plus a tough, disciplined order of killers who had decided, after all-and after a proper show of resistance-to be loved.