Carnifex (47 page)

Well, in a sense it's a disarmament problem. Why don't we send off one of those people? They've all got the right attitude. And they can be relied upon. But who, specifically?

"Bernard Chanet is here to see you Mr. Secretary."

"Send him right in, Irene," said Simoua, rising from his seat to warmly greet his proposed new governor for the world of Terra Nova.

Warm and fulsome greeting or not, Chanet seemed, at best, disinterested. Rather, his interest was made manifest when he asked, "What's in it for me and mine?"

Oh, so that's how it's going to be
, thought Simoua, with a mental shrug.
No problem.

"What do you want?"

Oh, so they want a patsy that desperately, do they
? Thought Chanet.
Things there are worse than I thought. My price just went up.

"Amnesty?"

"Amnesty for what? What have you done?" Simoua asked.

"No, no," Chanet said, explaining, "I want you to have my son put in charge of Amnesty, Interplanetary."

"But they're . . . "

Chanet's uplifted eyebrow stopped Simoua before he could say "independent." Not that the organization was a wholly owned or wholly funded subsidiary of the United Nations, but since the UN was
much
better funded now, what with direct levies of tax coming from the citizen of the United States . . . 

"We have . . . 
influence
," Simoua conceded. "This could be arranged . . . "

"For life," Chanet amended. "With right to select his successor."

"That's impossible! Why, in the last thirty years since I took over as Secretary General, we've only made appointments like that twice. And both of those were special cases."

"More special than a war being waged against our control of those portions of Terra Nova that aren't under the governance of major powers here?" Chanet asked.

"Perhaps not," Simoua conceded. "Note, though, that the major powers here do not govern Terra Nova; they dump there."

Chanet nodded his head at the correction, then went silent, leaving the Secretary General to think.

If there were some clamor to take this job
, Simoua thought,
I'd tell this arrogant upstart to stick it. Sadly, the line for the posting isn't even one deep, outside of the fascist ex-officers in the Peacekeeping Department. It will be expensive though. Why, I'll have to bribe all nine members of the Interplanetary Executive Committee, including the Treasurer. Doable? Yes.

"Fine," Simoua told Chanet. "You leave in four weeks as a Special Representative of the Secretary General with plenipotentiary powers. Your specific instructions will follow, along with the forces we will allocate to you. And your son has the chair of Amnesty. Later, we can meld the chair and the secretary generalship. As for making those permanent, let's let him keep them for so long that no one remembers when it was even possible for someone else to have them. Legalities can follow the custom, once established."

"Katana wa samurai no tamashii."
(The sword is the soul of the samurai.)

Ancient Yamatan Saying

No operation is perfect. Several score men from the butchered column made it back to Abdulahi with wild tales of frightful airplanes and equally frightful infantry swooping in to massacre his followers. None could say what had happened to their chief's heir and the uncertainty was an ulcer eating at the old pirate's innards.

Uncertainty ended shortly thereafter as a single Cricket landed at Bimali's dirt airstrip. From it emerged three armed Cazadors and a legionary naval officer in dress whites. The naval officer was the same one, Tribune Puente-Pequeño, who had served as judge at Gedo.

"Bring your chief, Abdulahi, here," was all the naval officer said.

It was several hours before Abdulahi made an appearance. By that time, the Cazadors had set up a tarp and prepared tea. The naval officer and Abdulahi sat under the tarp and sipped tea for some time before the pirate chief spoke.

"What happened to my son?" he asked.

"Abdulahi, the junior? We have him."

"I want him back."

"Your son was captured while leading an armed band en route to prevent a legitimate action against piracy," the naval officer said. "As such, he is an accessory after the fact to piracy. Thus, he has been sentenced to death, along with all his men. They are being held pending review of the sentences. After review of the sentences, they will be hanged and their bodies dumped at sea."

"You can't do that?" Abdulahi insisted.

"Why not?" the naval officer answered. "Who's to prevent it?"

Abdulahi's mouth opened to answer, but no words came out. In fact, there was nothing to prevent it. The enemy fleet, what he knew of it, was no great shakes as fleets went. But it was still infinitely superior to anything
he
had. The World League? No, there was nothing there. They couldn't even prevent his former country from dissolving into anarchy; they surely couldn't do anything now. The United Earth Peace Fleet? No, the Pig in Space, Robinson, had made it clear he could not intervene directly. Indeed, without the advice of the High Infidel, his main striking force would never have been destroyed. Yes, he'd have lost a village and the way in which he'd lost it would have terrified his followers. But he'd lost that anyway and his followers had been terrorized anyway.

"What do you want?" Abdulahi asked, hopelessly.

"That's simple. You must cease all piratical activity against shipping under our protection and return all hostages held. Your son will not be executed, though he will be held for some years, if you comply. Otherwise, he will hang, along with a number of his men, the very next time there is an attack at sea. More will hang with each further attack. When we run out, we'll grab more. After all, you're all guilty; we can take anyone we want. We also want your means of communication with the UEPF. We will know if you retain the means, I assure you."

And what good did the supposed "intelligence" I got from space do for me? Nothing. I can give that up. But end our attacks at sea . . . ?

"I cannot control my followers," Abdulahi answered. "If I once could have, that ability was lost to me when you destroyed my column. There will be more attacks," he mourned, "and then you will hang my most beloved son." His chin sank on his chest. Barely, the heartbroken old man restrained his tears.

"I think," Puente-Pequeño countered, "that after the example we just set in your town of Gedo you will have less problem controlling your people than you suspect. Besides, we didn't say you must stop all piracy, only that you must never again touch a ship under our protection. Some shipping we want you to attack."

"Eh?" The pirate's chin lifted and his eyes lost a part of their mournful look.

Smiling the naval officer said, "There are certain shippers who have paid you not to attack their shipping, is this not so?"

Warily the pirate chief nodded.

"Good. Who are they?"

Abdulahi rattled off the names. Mentally, the naval officer checked off all those known to have been buying off the pirates, plus some others who had been unknown. There was only one missing.

"You forgot Red Star Line," the officer said.

"Oh, yes. Sorry. It's just that they've been paying us so long . . . "

"No matter. We want you to attack them, all those who paid you off, until such time as we say 'halt.' As you attack them, we shall make them pay a great deal for protection, all they should have paid us this last year plus interest and penalties. By the time they have broken, you should have enough of a ground force built up that you can maintain control in the future. Moreover, we will send some first rate infantry to protect you and your family, and to help you keep control, while you rebuild."

Abdulahi looked wonderingly. He had thought himself powerful and ruthless. He had followed Mustafa because he thought he had found one even more powerful and ruthless than he was. But these mercenaries? They were beyond anything he or even Mustafa had contemplated. And their power, though small in the big scheme of things, was magnified by their callousness, lack of pity, mercilessness, cruelty and heartlessness to terrifying heights.

Perhaps the deal is not such a bad one.

One of Kurita's ancestors, back on Old Earth in the early twenty-first century, had had an interesting theory. Possessed of an ancient sword, a family heirloom dating back to before the
Sengoku Jidai
, the Period of the Country at War, that ancestor had observed that the sword was old and "tired," as the Japanese said. It had seen too much use, had been polished too many times. It was thin and most of the high carbon layer had gone from it.

"All weapons are living beings," had said this ancestor, "This is merest revealed truth. They have souls. Is my family's sword less alive because it has lost weight? I think not. I think that all it ever was is still contained within that weary core of metal. And yet, does it not look sad?"

The ancestor had mused upon this, neither resting nor eating nor drinking, for three days. At last, with his mind free of normal mortal limits, he had had an insight. "We live as well. And we do not become different, or lose our souls, by changing our kimonos. Perhaps this sword merely wants a change of clothing."

Kurita's ancestor had spent two years searching out the right swordsmith for the work he had in mind. In Japan's revival of its ancient art, many swordsmiths had appeared. Few were of sufficient artistry for his family sword, however. Of those few, none initially would undertake the job. Screams of "Heresy! Blasphemy!" arose wherever he'd tried.

At last he had found one, a smith willing to try new things or—in this case—old things in a new way.

For two more years this smith studied the Kurita family heirloom. Looking at the temper line, the little dots of pearlite and martinsite, he saw back to the technique used by the earlier smith, saw the painting on of the clay wash, saw the precise glow of the charcoal in the brazier.

The smith took a
gunto
sword, a relic of Old Earth's Second World War, and experimentally attempted what Kurita's ancestor had wanted with it. He was disappointed to find that this really told him nothing, that the solid make up of the new sword did not replicate the problems of recladding a properly layered sword. Moreover, he found he had wasted much of the rare and expensive
tama-hagane
, the traditional steel produced from iron rich sands in the last remaining
tatara
smelter in Japan, in Shimane Prefecture.

Next the smith had experimented on a worn out
tanto,
or dagger, though not one as old as the Kurita sword. This
tanto
, unlike the
Gunto
sword, had been made in the traditional manner. The result
worked
, for certain values of work. Still the smith was not satisfied.

Armed with the insights gained from working on the
tanto
, the smith then obtained a sword forged in the seventeenth century and falsely labeled as the work of the great smith, Kunihiro. The forgery had been well made—how else could it even hope to pass itself off as the great master's work?—and much was learned from resheathing this.

At length, the smith felt ready. He took several pounds of
tama-hagane
and from it forged a four thousand layer, high carbon skin, or
kawegane
. Using the old Kurita sword for the base, he forged around it this new skin, welding the two together with heat and the strokes of his hammer. Did he hear the sword scream under the pounding.
No matter; I scream in the dentist's chair, too.
Then he tempered it in such a way as to recreate a temper line, or
hamon,
essentially indistinguishable from the original.

Last of all, the smith added every distinguishing mark found on the sword prior to recladding it. A warrior is, after all, entitled to the honor of his scars.

Fosa and Kurita sat opposite each other, cross-legged on a rice straw mat on the floor of the Commodore's quarters. The sword lay between them on a silk scarf. Though it glowed from the daylight streaming in through the portholes, to Fosa is seemed to glow with an inner light as well.

"It's . . . beautiful," said a stunned Fosa, stunned because the Commodore had never before shown him the sword. He did not wear it aboard ship.

"It's unique," Kurita corrected. "The smith who did this was hounded from the art for tampering with tradition. Eventually, he borrowed the sword and killed himself with it; so say the family legends. My father gave it to my care when I took over command of the Battlecruiser
Öishi.
I have no heir, and all my nephews are swine. I imagine I will send it to the restored
Yasukuni
when I feel my time is upon me. After all, though the shrine boasts nine and ninety rocks from my people's battlefields now, it has never had a rock from a naval battlefield. It does have that one forty-six centimeter shell but that was never fired, of course. A sword, however, should do well enough."

"You should wear it," Fosa said. "Here on the ship. I think the men would approve."
Hah, they'll think it's great.

"Perhaps I should."

"You still have people who make such weapons in Yamato, do you not, Commodore?"

"Yes. It has experienced something a rebirth of late."

Again Fosa looked at the sword, admiringly. "Is there one you might recommend?"

"I shall enquire," answered the Commodore. "They live, you know? Swords, ships, rifles, too. All the weapons of man have their own souls, their own spirits. Thus the wise men of Yamato teach. And I have always felt it was true."

The sun had gone down and the quarters were empty except for Kurita and the sword. The sword was still out, though now illuminated only by the candles the commodore had lit.

Is the sword my agent,
the old man wondered,
or am I its? It's a good question. Am I the Zaibatsu's agent to the Legion . . . or have I become the Legion's agent to the Zaibatsu? I do not know. I
do
, however, know that the mission here for which the Legion contracted is about over. Yet I have told my principals none of this. Why should this be?