CHAPTER SIX
A real diplomat is one who can cut his neighbor’s throat without having his neighbor notice it.
—Trygve Lie
Hotel Cielo Dorado, Aserri, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova
Esmeralda woke up with company. Spooned up behind her, one arm under her head and the other, the right one, wrapped around her, that hand cupping her left breast, was her lover, Richard, earl of Care. Richard, captain of the Spirit of Peace, still slept. Automatically, she pushed back against him. It couldn’t be said she enjoyed sex. She expected that she never would. But she could enjoy Richard’s enjoyment and she could enjoy the warmth, if not the feeling.
Warmed by Richard, she thought, He says he wishes he could take off his skin and wrap me in it. I believe it, too.
Richard had taken his pinnace down to Aserri the night before, borrowed Esmeralda from the high admiral—an easy thing, that, with Wallenstein so infatuated with her empress—and taken the girl to dinner and then bed. There he’d done his best to show how much he’d missed her on her too frequent official absences.
Before Richard, Esmeralda’s only experience of sex had been the rape of peasant girls to be expected from the sons and soldiers of Count Castro-Nyere, the absolute ruler of her home province of TransIsthmia, and the far more violent and even more violating rape of the slave pens of Razona Market.
How I might have felt about sex if the soldiers of Count Castro-Nyere and all the slavers at Razona Market hadn’t fucked me until I bled, I can’t say.
For a moment, just a moment, the memories caused the girl to tighten like the skin of a drum. Then the warmth and the other memories—not least that Richard was serious about wrapping her in his skin, were it but possible—let her relax again.
Yet he, ever sensitive to her, at least, felt the tightening and startled awake immediately. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“Fine, love . . . I’m fine,” she replied, softly. “Just a little nightmare.” The kind you have when you’re wide awake. “Go back to sleep.”
With a gentle squeeze of her breast, and a light kiss against the cascading midnight of her hair, he did.
In the same wing of the hotel, on the same floor, but with a guard on the specific corridor, Marguerite Wallenstein and the empress, Xingzhen, lay wrapped in each other’s arms so tightly that, but for size and color differences, it would have been near impossible to tell where one began and the other ended. As it was, Wallenstein, blond and tall, physically quite dominated the empress, while the empress held the whip hand emotionally, and also literally, when they thought they had enough privacy.
Sadly, here we do not have enough privacy. But, my almond-eyed love, when this conference is over—which is to say when your generals and admirals and my General Janier and his people have worked out the details of continuing the war—you and I are going to Atlantis for a vacation. There’s a nice latifundia there that goes with the office of high admiral. There, there’ll be privacy enough for everything you want to do to me and everything you want me to do for you.
The high admiral had always considered herself bisexual with a very slight preference for dominant men. What she was discovering was that she was bisexual with an absolute preference for Xingzhen.
I never believed in love at first sight. The more fool I.
Headquarters, Tauran Union Security Force-Santa Josefina,
Rio Clara, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova
An acetated and color-coded map, the colors and their intensity shaded for what was believed to be the density of Balboan-trained, -equipped, and -directed legionaries in various parts of the country. The map had been provided by the Santa Josefinan public force, though Marciano’s own intelligence people thought it was pretty close to accurate. The map was accompanied by a police lieutenant Marciano introduced to his staff as “Lieutenant Blanco,” who had brought with it a folder containing names and addresses for the known legionaries who had come back home.
Claudio Marciano was more than ordinarily torn. He hadn’t yet been officially asked, less still ordered, to start rounding up the legionaries in Santa Josefina. But the orders would be coming along soon, he suspected. For that matter, it made a certain sense to start picking them up now, or at least soon, while they were scattered and—mostly, though he doubted entirely—disarmed. That would allow his people to use minimal force. Indeed, they might be able to arrange things so as to be seen as nothing more than backups for the Santa Josefinan Public Force. Minimal force would mean fewer civilians hurt or killed. With a little luck, perhaps no one would be hurt; none of his, none of theirs, no police, no civilians.
And isn’t that the ideal? he asked himself. To compel one’s enemy to give up his purpose while suffering no harm oneself? Not that even Belisarius ever quite managed to do that.
In any case, the lack of orders was no reason for him not to have his staff and subordinate commanders planning for the roundup. Neither was it reason not to be coordinating with the Public Force.
Especially so since, once a roundup begins, the odds are really good that the other Santa Josefinan regiment will be across the border in no time. That will be fine—well, no, not exactly fine, but survivable—provided I can eliminate the internal threat before they pin us, and then get my command concentrated along their obvious axis of advance and main supply route. On the other hand, let me and my little pocket division have to split our efforts between a guerilla movement and a fixing force on the border or—worse!—having crossed the border and I’m screwed. Hard. No grease. And not kissed first. Ugly, in other words.
The other alternative, hitting the well-armed, well-trained, and probably all too well led force around Ciudad Cervantes, he didn’t even consider, and for the same reason he’d pulled back from the border once it became obvious that the battle within and for Balboa had been lost. There were simply too many of the bastards, they were too good—not perfect, certainly not supermen, but too good—and they were too ruthless and thorough.
After all, it’s not like the Santa Josefinans are the only troops there in their Valle de las Lunas. I’ve got it on pretty good authority that there’s a five-cohort tercio of mountain troops there, too, straddling Hephaestus Mountain across the border. Eleven cohorts? Probably four or five battalions of decent artillery. Do not want to deal with that. Not, not, NOT.
“Eleven cohorts?” he asked Lieutenant Blanco, currently serving as his good authority. “Eleven?”
“Including the three we are quite sure are already inside the country, yes,” answered Blanco, “but not counting their Cazador maniples, or the engineers, or the light armor. Could be twelve; there may be four cohorts already in country. And there are rumors we have not been able to pin down that a very large cohort of women warriors is assembling close by, too, a cohort as big as any two others. Plus possibly another cohort, small but high quality, from their special operations regiment.”
“And I am still troubled. What is your source?” asked Marciano, to which question Blanco only smiled in reply.
My primary source, thought Blanco, even as he kept his face perfectly neutral, is probably Legate Fernandez. At least I think he’s the one who’s ordered me fed information by Sergeant Morales of the recruiting maniple here in Aserri. Is the information accurate? I don’t have any reason to doubt the troop list he’s been providing. It’s just that I’m not sure of his reasons for providing it. Perhaps he just wants you to feel threatened into passivity. Perhaps his chief, the gringo named Carrera, remembers that you and he had fought side-by-side, against the same enemies, in Pashtia, and doesn’t want you hurt.
For my part, I just want my country to be a real country again, independent, able to defend itself, not a beggar for help from big brother. I would prefer that we not become a part of another real country, either, for which Balboa is the likely candidate. We’re similar, yes, but not so similar that I want us married to them. But there’s no reason for us to end up annexed, since the Balboans have been kind enough to provide us a couple of regiments, already formed and ready.
“Let’s just say,” said Blanco, with a sly smile, “that we have people on the other side.” This had the virtue of being absolutely true and entirely misleading, both.
Though Marciano wasn’t entirely misled. He retained, at least, some doubts about Blanco’s true loyalty. Nor, if the police lieutenant was loyal to the idea of his country free of foreign troops and able to stand on its own feet, did Marciano consider that blameworthy.
Dangerous to me and my men? Yes. Blameworthy? No.
Marciano cast his attention back to the annotated and color-shaded threat map. “Funny that the ones inside Santa Josefina already are concentrated along the Shimmering Sea side of the country, with only a few here on the Mar Furioso side, near us. Or maybe not exactly funny . . . I’ve seen more humorous things.”
“Why did they do that?” Blanco asked. His sojourn through the Atlacatlan Military Academy hadn’t been designed for much more than to make him a decent platoon leader.
Marciano, who was as up on insurgency as anyone around, answered, “Putting the one regiment out away from us is probably to give them more time and warning to disperse if we move against them. The others probably belong to the regiment still in Balboa. My guess would be recon troops, or special operations troops. And their mission is probably to call for artillery to support and advance, and blow or secure bridges to keep us from either supplying or maneuvering, while letting them do both?”
“How both?” the policeman asked. “That makes no—”
“Different needs,” the Tuscan replied. “The bridge we need gets blown. The bridge we’re not watching gets seized and guarded. Different techniques. The enemy side of a bridge gets cut so they can fix it without too much interference from us while we have to expose ourselves to fix the bridge if they’re on the other end. For example.”
“Yeah, ‘for example,’ ” the policeman agreed. “I think that means that the easier job, rounding up the ones near here, has to come first, but . . .”
“But that warns them to disperse on the Shimmering Sea side, which makes that job a lot tougher.”
“Oh, well,” said Marciano, softly, “I knew the other side back in Pashtia. They weren’t stupid then, either.”
Hotel Cielo Dorado, Aserri, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova
The problem with bugging the hotel for real-time intelligence, something Fernandez’s intelligence net in Santa Josefina was perfectly capable of, was that no one knew what the UEPF was capable of. Could they detect bugs? Could they detect the most sophisticated bugs? Fernandez had to assume so. At least he had to until someone could talk to the young cabin girl who said she wanted to help. If she said they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, or wouldn’t bother, which were not quite the same things, and if the legate decided they could trust her on that, the only problem would be keeping all the various microphones from squealing out loud from feedback from each other.
Until then, Fernandez had ordered hands off or, rather, “No bugs.”
Thus, although the high admiral, the empress, and Janier, plus their various staffs, all watched what they said, and tended to speak in circumlocutions, they didn’t—at least for the nonce—really need to.
The only place they could speak freely was one conference room, and not a particularly large one, that was swept daily by Tauran, UEPF, and Zhong intelligence.
The conference room was on the hotel’s third floor, separate from all other rooms, and reachable only by its own elevator. The walls were doubled, to prevent eavesdropping that way. And the place came with its own system for interfering with radio waves. It was nearly as secure as Wallenstein’s own office, aboard the Spirit of Peace, and, though she didn’t know it, much more secure than the main conference room on the ship, as well.
“We insist on control of the country, post conquest, east of the western border of the old Transitway Area and north of the central cordillera,” said the empress, “plus control of the Isla Real¸of the city, of the city of Ciudad Cervantes, of the city of Nata, of the Florida and Pablo Manuel locks, and of the military facilities in that sector.
“We further insist on the right of free immigration of our people to the entire country, without limit or quota, without let or hindrance.
“Lastly, we insist on receiving the war criminals Raul Parilla, Patricio Carrera, and Conrad Chu for trial in our courts followed by execution by us. Their crimes deserve no less.”
“Preposterous,” answered Janier. “The World League Mandate is ours, legally and by right. We could not give it up to you, nor give up half of it to you, under any circumstances.
“Though you are welcome to hang the criminals—”
“Nothing so quick and easy,” said the empress, interrupting.
“Whatever. You can execute them any way you like, since we will not. But we cannot under any circumstances give you half the country.”
“It’s not more than a quarter,” Xingzhen insisted.
“With right of unlimited immigration it is the entirety, within a generation,” said Janier, with a sneer that only a Gaul could have produced. “By saying ‘half’ I was just averaging what you claim versus what you’re trying to steal.”
“Steal!” The empress’s eyes flashed with outrage. “Steal! Let me tell you about theft, you Gallic pickpocket! Let’s start with Zikawei, shall we. Stolen from us and then sold—Did I say pickpocket?” She hissed, “I meant fence!—to Yamato. The half of Liwan Island you extorted! Jilong!” she spat out, naming another former Gallic possession in Xing Zhong Guo, during less enlightened times. “Zhigu!”
I should have expected, thought Wallenstein, a certain resentment toward the Gauls. I wonder why the subject never came up before. Maybe because talk is difficult when communicating by eating each other.
Before Janier could make the answer he was clearly puffing himself up for, Wallenstein held up her hand to forestall his response, then said, simply, “The Federated States will not permit it, Empress. Taking Balboa will be difficult enough if the FSC stays out of it. It will be impossible if they join the Balboans. Their fleet dominates the planet in a way that even mine does not.” And, if they only knew it, they could dominate my fleet, too.
“Then pay me in other coin,” said Xingzhen to Janier, with a heat both angry and bitter. “You want my people to bear the major burden, to spend a cubic meter of blood for every liter of yours. Pay me to make it worth it.”
“I will pay you, băo bèi,” said Marguerite. And I don’t mean just in sex.
The empress turned liquid eyes on the high admiral. “I know you will, băo băo,” she said, gently, reaching up one delicate hand and then running one perfectly nailed finger down the high admiral’s cheek. The gentle tone died then. “But I will not permit you to pay what this Gallic thief and his people owe me and mine. He and his started the fucking war that got my carrier sunk and my people killed.”
Leaning in to rest her cheek against Marguerite’s, the empress added, so softly Janier couldn’t hear, “And I know you mean to give me immortality, so we can be together forever. I want that, too, băo băo. But that is for us, for you and I, alone . . . or, rather, together. My people must have their share, as well. They, after all, will be paying this Gallic fence’s blood bill.”
“We will pay the cost of the war,” conceded Janier. “That is, the operational cost, pay, ammunition, fuel, rations, parts. If you lose major pieces of equipment, that is on you. We will not be funding you in rebuilding your navy.”
“Not good enough,” the empress insisted.
Janier sighed. “We will pay ten thousand drachma for any Zhong soldier killed, and five thousand for each one crippled.”
“Still not enough.”
“We will, as I already agreed, give you the chief miscreants if they can be taken alive. I can make no promise that they will be taken alive.”
“More!”
Wallenstein had a sudden inspiration. “Would free access to Tauran military technology and a license to produce any of it be sufficient?”
Without hesitation, Xingzhen answered, “Yes. In advance.”
“In principle,” said Janier, “yes. It can be presented as aiding the common war effort. It will also annoy the Federated States, a selling point not to be underestimated with our politicians. But that is only in principle. The people who own the patents, the government agencies that have them classified, these are all difficult sells.”
“Twenty years of rejuvenation to the primaries,” said the high admiral.
Janier chewed knuckles for a few moments, then said, “I think that will be sufficient. Even so, we have a problem.”
“Yes,” said Wallenstein, “the peace conference might actually succeed in its stated aims, which will leave you out of Balboa, the Tauran Union shown as incompetent and weak—not even a real country, anyway—Zhong Guo’s losses unavenged, and the FSC still dominating the surface of the planet.”
And my planet without the five great powers set up, here, that will keep you all—all except for my beautiful empress, who is going to spend most of her life with me—at each other’s throats forever, hence occupied here rather than going to the Earth.
Cedral Multiplex Shopping Mall, Aserri,
Santa Josefina, Terra Nova
The mall was close enough to the hotel that Esmeralda could make it in a walk of no more than five brisk minutes. The walk was not only brisk, it was simply lovely. Cedral was its usual heavenly ideal of perfect weather—which explained the mall, as well as the rich who frequented it—and both resplendent with flowers and replete with their fragrance. The cars here were better tuned, burned better gasoline, and were fewer than in more populous parts. There were no stinking, fuming buses at this time of day; the service ran only in the early mornings and late evenings, and then only to bring in and take away the hired help.
The message she’d retrieved and decoded was that she should wear nice clothes, but nothing too noticeable, that she should go alone to the mall, that she should make sure she wasn’t being tailed when she went, that at the mall she should go into the recruiting station and that there someone named Triste, a junior legate, would introduce himself.
It had a couple of suggestions on how to avoid being tailed.
Going alone was easier said than done, what with Richard on the surface. She’d had to wait two full days for his shore leave to end and he to return to the Spirit of Peace. Fortunately, crime in this part of Aserri was essentially unknown, so she didn’t need an escort. Even so, Esmeralda hung back, heart pounding. It was treason, what she was planning and, even worse, treason against a man who loved her desperately and a woman who was almost a mother and who had saved her from a particularly shitty death.
And though I can walk easily, now, she thought, back in the slave camp at Razona Market walking was always difficult when they finished with me. That, I suppose is the difference between having to and wanting to, or at least being willing to. That’s the difference between my own society at the high end, then, and now. And they still killed and ate my sister.
As usual, that memory, or series of them, was sufficient to buck her up when her spirit wavered. She pushed on, walking through the mall’s wide glass doors and onto the gleaming tile. Just before passing through the doors she saw a poster, color printed and crudely glued to the wall, depicting what seemed to be a Tauran soldier with horns growing out from the sides of his beret.
As per her instructions, she went to a restaurant. Just before she reached it, on the same side of the mall, she noticed a realty office. There she stopped, looking over the high-end property on offer in Cedral. From there, she walked on to the restaurant, Tinto’s, then sat down facing in the direction from which she’d come.
She ordered a light snack, two small empanadas and a soft drink, then watched for what seemed a long time to see if anyone was following or watching her. From there she went into one of the three-story department stores—she’d shopped there before, with Estefani from the embassy—and went up two escalators, then down three. From the bottom floor, she walked briskly in the other direction, then took an elevator up to the floor she wanted. When it opened, she stepped out, took a glance around, and walked into the recruiting station.
Once she’d entered the station, Esmeralda looked for the recruiter she’d spoken to before, Sergeant Riza-Rivera. He was there, but not, like last time, at the desk labeled “Centurion Chavez.” She thought the sergeant went very pale indeed, once he saw her.
Riza-Rivera arose, walked to her, and announced, “Ah, Miss Miranda. I’ve been expecting you. Your test is all prepared if you would just follow me.”
Riza-Rivera led her to a back office, one labeled, in fact,
“Testing.
Quiet Please.”
He took Esmeralda through the door, closed it, and introduced her to the light-skinned man sitting at one of the booths. Right behind him was a tall, slender, really rather pretty woman, also in uniform. The man was mostly salt and pepper-haired. The woman was blond, what one could see of her hair with it pulled back into a bun.
“Legate Triste,” the man said. Jerking his thumb at the woman he added, “She’s Warrant Officer Aragon, Cass Aragon, and this is the last time she’ll appear in Santa Josefina in uniform. I’m going to be your primary control, Miss Miranda, but she’s your day-to-day contact while you’re on planet, and your key out of here if things go to crap. She, after all, can go with you to places I cannot. Cass is taking a job at the realtor’s here in the mall. Thus she’ll be generally available.”
“Now, miss, if you will have a seat.”