A Talent for War (23 page)

"On the evening after they heard that the City on the Crag had been taken, Candles was watching an interventionist demonstration on campus. But he kept a safe distance."

They were using the front portico of the dining hall as a stage. Seven or eight people were seated up there, all looking appropriately outraged, and all clearly prepared to cut a few throats in a just cause. Marish Camandero was speaking. She's head of the sociology depart-ment, attractive, big-boned, no-nonsense. Exactly the sort of person you need to teach sociology.

There were maybe two hundred demonstrators gathered in the Square. That may not sound like many, but they were loud. And active. They'd brought their own music, which was mostly clatter and shrieking, and they were constantly pushing and grabbing one another. There'd been a couple of fights, one young man seemed to be engaged in trying to couple with a marberry bush, and bottles were evident everywhere.

Camandero was whooping and flapping about mutes and murders, and the crowd had got pretty whipped up.

Into all this walked Leisha. Obviously she'd left her good sense at home. She strolled toward the rear of that mob, just about the time that Camandero was making the comment that history was replete with the corpses of people that would not, or could not, fight.

The crowd roared its approval.

She went on in that vein, how people were hiding their heads in the sand, and hoping the mutes would go away. "Now is the time," she said, "to take our stand with Christopher Sim."

They caught his name and roared it skyward, this helpless mob whose entire world possessed little more than a couple of gunboats.

Somebody recognized Leisha and shouted her name. That caught everyone's attention, and the noise subsided. Camandero looked directly toward her. Leisha was standing on the edge of the crowd. Smiling broadly, Camandero jabbed an index finger in Leisha's direction. "Dr. Tanner understands the mutes better than we do," she said, with mock affability. "She has defended her friends in public before. I believe she assured us less than a year ago that this day would never come. Perhaps she would like to tell us what else we need not fear, now that the City on the Crag has been overrun?"

The crowd had not yet located her. It was her chance: she could have got out of there, but instead she stood her ground. It was a reckless, dangerous thing to do, against the ugly mood of the night. An energetic bookkeeper could have sent them to burn the capitol
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Leisha glared up at Camandero, gazed round her with undisguised contempt, shrugged, and strode toward the portico. I think it was less the act itself than the shrug that struck me. The crowd parted for her, but someone lobbed a cup of beer in her direction.

Camandero raised her arms in a pacific gesture, asking the spectators for calm and generosity, even to those who lack courage.

Leisha walked with regal disdain—it was lovely to watch, but frightening. She climbed the steps onto the platform, and confronted Camandero. The last of the noise drained out of the crowd.

I could hear voices in the wind, and there was some traffic overhead. Camandero was by far the taller of the two women. They faced each other, drawing the moment out. Then she unhooked her throat mike, and dangled It from her fingers, in a way that would have forced Leisha to stretch for it.

The act broke whatever psychic link had connected the two. "I agree," Leisha said, in a clear and surprising amicable manner, "that these are dangerous times." She smiled sweetly, and turned toward her audience. Camandero let the mike drop to the platform. Then she stalked off the stage and plowed through the crowd until she broke out into the Square.

The mike lay where it had fallen.

Leisha pressed her advantage. "The war is very near, "she said. "We aren't part of it yet, but that moment is now probably inevitable." A few scattered cheers broke out, but they died quickly.

"The city tonight is filled with meetings like this. And we should take a moment to consider—"

A blast went off across the Square somewhere. More cheers.

"—To consider what it means. There's another species out there much like ourselves—"

That got a reaction. One person shouted they were nothing like us; others shrieked they were savages. Leisha just stood there, waiting for them to come back to her.

When they did, she said coolly, "They can think!"

The crowd reacted again. I was looking around for help, and wondering what I was going to do if they dragged her down off there.

"They have an ethical system, "she continued. "They have universities where students gather at meetings like this and demand vengeance on us!"

"They had it today!" someone screamed, and the air was filled with threats, against the Ashiyyur, against the University, against Leisha.

"Yes." Leisha was visibly distressed. "I suppose they did. We lost a few ships, with their crews.

And I understand the mutes shot a few people on the ground. And now, in our turn, we have no choice but to spill some blood ourselves."

The mob shook its torches.

"Bitch!" someone shouted.

"Damn right!"

"A lot of people have already died. What about them?"

I knew her answer to that. I'd heard it before: We owe nothing to the dead. They will not know whether we stay or go, whether we honor their names, or forget they ever walked among us. But she was prudent enough not to say that.

"There's still time," she said, "to stop all this, if we really want to do it. Or if not, at least we can keep out of it ourselves. Why isn't the Resistance getting any help from Rimway? Or Toxicon? Those are the systems that have the battle fleets! If the Ashiyyur are really a threat to us all why haven't they come?"

"I'll tell you why," thundered a heavy-set man who was pursuing a doctorate in the classical literature program. "They want a general commitment from us! We're in the combat area, and if we won't help ourselves, why should they risk their own people?"

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The crowd agreed loudly.

"You could be right," Leisha said. "But the plain truth is that Rimway and Toxicon mistrust each other considerably more than they mistrust the aliens."

I'd moved closer during all this. I'm not sure I was ever more fearful in my life than I was during those moments. I'd located a few security people in the crowd, but had that mob gone for her, they'd have made no difference.

"If you're serious about fighting this war, "she continued, "we need to count what we have to fight with. As I understand it, Khaja Luan has one destroyer." She held out her hands, palms up.

"That's it, folks. One destroyer. There are three or four frigates which last saw combat more than a half century ago. And there are a few shuttles, but they will have to throw rocks, since they're not armed. We do not have the facilities to build warships, so we'll have to buy them from someone.

"We're going to have to ram a hefty tax increase through the legislature. And eliminate state-paid educations." She paused and glanced back at the group of people seated behind her. Most prominent among them was Myron Marcusi, of the philosophy department. "I'm sure," she said, smiling brightly at him, "that Dr. Marcusi will be among the first to endorse whatever measures need to be taken to raise money."

"Damned right!" shouted someone in the rear of the crowd.

Marcusi rose to the occasion. "We're not concerned about money here, Doctor Tanner," he said, trying to speak loudly, but having trouble. "There's a great deal more at stake than a few scholarships. We're talking about lives, and possibly human survival, unless we can unite against the common danger."

He ended in a squeal, but he got a loud burst of applause.

And someone began to sing. Other voices picked up the rhythm, and Leisha stood watching, dejected. The song swelled and filled the Square. It was the ancient battle hymn of the City on the Crag. The "Condor-ni."

I spent the next few days linking in with university libraries and out-of-the-way archives, looking for whatever information might be available on Tanner. At night, I read myself to sleep with the works of Rashim Machesney. I managed a dinner with Quinda, and enjoyed myself thoroughly.

For the first time, we did not pass the evening discussing the Resistance.

Several nights after my ride on the Kudasai, Chase called to say she'd found something. She wouldn't tell me what it was, but she sounded excited. That didn't exactly come as good news: I was beginning to hope I might have reached a blank wall, one that would allow me to back off with a clear conscience.

She arrived an hour later carrying a crystal and looking immensely pleased with herself. "I have here," she said, holding out the crystal, "the collected letters of Walford Candles."

"You're kidding."

"Hello, Chase," said Jacob. "Dinner will be ready in about a half hour. How do you like your steak?"

"In, Jacob. Medium-well."

"Very good. It's nice to see you again. And I'm anxious to examine what you've brought."

"Thank you. I've been talking to people at literature departments and libraries all over the continent. This was in the archives of a small school in Masakan. It was compiled locally, but the editor died, and no one ever formally published it. It includes a holo from Leisha Tanner, sent from Millennium!"

Millennium: the last entry in Tanner's Notebooks.

I inserted the crystal in Jacob's reader, and sat down in the wing-back.

The lights dimmed.

Tanner's image formed. She wore a light blouse and shorts, and it was obvious she was
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operating from a warm climate.

Wally, she said, I've got bad news. Her eyes were troubled, and she looked frightened. The woman who had stood up to the mob in the Square on Khaja Luan had been badly shaken.

We were right: Matt was here after the loss of the Straczynski. But the Dellacondans are trying to hide it I've talked to a couple of the people who knew him, and either they won't discuss him at all, or they lie. They don't like him very much, Watty, but they pretend they do. I was talking to a computer specialist, a woman whose name is Monlin or Mollin or something. When I caught up with her she'd had too much to drink. I had learned by then not to approach the subject of Matt in any direct way, because when you do they pretend not to know anything at all.

So I

gradually led the conversation with Monlin around to how we had a mutual friend who'd mentioned her name to me once or twice. She looked interested, but when I named Matt, she lost her composure, and got so upset that she broke a glass and cut her hand. She literally screamed that he was a traitor, and a son of a bitch, and that she'd have gladly killed him if she could. I've never seen such venom. Then suddenly, as if somebody threw a switch, she stopped and wouldn't say any more.

Next morning, I tracked her down at breakfast, but she told me it had just been the alcohol talking. She said she liked Matt, but claimed shed never really got to know him very well. Sorry about his death, etcetera. That evening, she was gone. One of the officers told me she'd been sent on a temporary assignment. He didn't know where.

The thing that bothers me is this: Matt was always hard to get to know. But he's not the sort of person anyone could hate. Watty, these people despise him. His name doesn't exactly excite a little irritation. These people—all of these people—would like to kill him.

I suppose I should leave it at this and go home. I'm tired of talking to military types anyway.

They hate rather easily. But my God I'd like to know the truth. I never knew anyone more loyal to Sim and his damned Confederates than Matt Olander.

This place is a madhouse now. It's overrun with refugees from Ilyanda, and it's hard to get near any of the groundside naval installations. I look around at these people, displaced from their homes, and I get very discouraged. Did you know that the Ashiyyur bombed Point Edward?

How can they be such fools? I wouldn't say this to anyone else, but sometimes I wonder whether Sim isn't right about them. It's hard, Wally. It really is.

I've heard that Tarien will be making a speech downtown tomorrow, dedicating a housing area for the Ilyandans. I'm going to make an effort to talk to him there. Maybe he can be persuaded to look into this business with Matt.

I'll keep you informed.

The image faded.

"Is that it?"

"There's no other transmission," remarked Jacob, "with this crystal."

Chase must have been sitting with her eyes closed, listening. "That's all there is," she said.

"The introduction indicates that subsequent volumes were planned. But none of them got put together. The editor died too soon."

"His name was Charles Parrini, of the University of Mileta," said Jacob. "He's been dead thirty years."

"Somebody else might have finished the project."

"Maybe." Chase straightened. "But if so, it never got published."

"It might not matter," observed Jacob. "Parrini must have collected some source documents.

Find them and you might get your answers."

The University of Mileta was located in Sequin, the smallest of Rimway's six continents, in the desert city Capuchai. Parrini had been an emeritus professor of literature there for the better
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part of a productive lifetime. The library overflowed with his books: the man must have been extraordinarily prolific. His commentaries ran g e d a c r o s s e v e r y l i t e r a r y e p o c h s i n c e t h e

Babylonians. He'd edited several definitive editions of the great poets and essayists (including Walford Candles). But, most interestingly, he'd translated a shelfload of Ashiyyurean poetry and philosophy. Chase and I, working from Gabe's study, spent an entire afternoon and part of the next morning scrolling through the books.

Toward noon of the second day, Chase called me to her terminal. "Parrini's Tulisofala is interesting. I've been looking at the principals on which she bases her ethical system: Love your enemy. Return good for evil. Justice and mercy are the cornerstones of a correct life; justice because it is demanded by nature; and mercy because justice erodes the soul."