The Rods and the Axe Read online

  “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, t
wo 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.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.

  —Robert A. Heinlein,

  Have Space Suit—Will Travel

  Fort Williams, Balboa, Terra Nova

  Out on the parade field, a group of about a dozen Castilians was practicing carrying around a very heavy and large—huge, really—crucifix, the Jesus Negro de Puerto Lindo, on upraised arms. They’d borrowed it from the small town outside the Sergeant Juan Malvegui Military Academy for a victory parade through the city of Cristobal. They marched in a sort of truncated goosestep, singing the whole time.

  “Nadie en el Tercio sabía

  Quien era aquel legionario

  Tan audaz y temerario

  Que a la Legión se alistó.”

  If asked, Carrera couldn’t have said why he was just now getting around to seeing his boy and his little one-girl crusade, Pililak. He’d been on this side before, watching the prisoner return and annoying the Kosmos, yet he’d never stopped by to see Hamilcar. He might, if asked, have rationalized it as, “Don’t want the boy’s relationship with the other cadets wrecked by connection to me,” or even, “Oh, let the little bitch get fucked; she’s earned it.”

  In point of fact, those two rationales might have played a part. Much the larger part, however, was, “How the hell do I deal with this? It is not a particular personal strength, dealing with runaway girls and sons that, by the grace of God, went to war and have come through whole.”

  Not that he was going to let his mind wander to those verities, however. Let the boy’s mother sort that kind of thing out.

  Nobody was working on repairing the damage from the fighting as Carrera’s helicopter touched down on the pad, bouncing for a half a minute or so on its landing gear. That pad was not so far from the post pool, below Headquarters Hill with its four tile-roofed buildings, the flagpoles with their signal gun, and the club to the east of the flagpoles. They, at least, had survived the fighting unscathed; now two flags, Balboa’s and Castile’s, floated on the breeze.

  The damage to the post and the buildings of its quad was severe. Even the quad’s parade field was chewed up and cratered by artillery and mortar fire. It was a physical pain to Carrera to look out and see the damaged, scorched, soot-marked barracks, some with the tiles of their roofs showing gaping holes. He sighed, thinking, If the place you were happiest in your life is home, then this was my home. I only hope it can be repaired, once the war is over.

  He heard them now, the Castilians bearing their huge cross, as they continued to sing:

  “Más si alguno quien era le preguntaba

  Con dolor y rudeza le contestaba:”

  Carrera had any of several aircraft he could call on for transport, from a Cricket recon plane to a small helicopter to an IM-71 troop carrier, which was what he rode now. He’d really had to; none of the other things available would do for him, his son, and, that defiant horny little bitch who escaped. Damn, love that girl. She’ll produce some fine grandchildren, I’m sure. I’d just hoped it wouldn’t be so soon. Rather, I hope it isn’t too late.

  He was disabused of that notion as soon as his feet touched the ground. Having been advised in advance, the commander of the post and the Castilian cohort that had defended it, as well as Chapayev, the commander of Ham’s cadet tercio, had made very sure to have the boy and his girl—no, his woman now, thought Chapayev and Muñoz-Infantes, both, independently—waiting at the pad. One look was all it took; Ham, rifle in one hand, with his other arm wrapped protectively around the—My, isn’t she pretty?—girl; Pililak, “Ant,” in her own language, uniformed but without insignia, leaning into the boy, her chin lifted defiantly.

  “Soy un hombre a quien la suerte

  Hirió con zarpa de fiera;

  Soy un novio de la muerte

  Que va a unirse en lazo fuerte

  Con tal leal compañera.”

  You’re too late, old man, the girl’s face seemed to say. My lord is mine!

  Again, Carrera mentally sighed. Hamilcar had always been a bit distant from his dozen wives. I see in your enfolding arm, my boy, every human male entrapped by the joys of a woman . . . or girl. Shit, what am I going to tell your mother?

  Face a mask of sternness, Carrera raised one arm, pointing into the helicopter. To your seats, GO! He left them there and, bent slightly, hat clasped tightly in his hand, walked to where Chapayev and Muñoz-Infantes waited. Those two smiled broadly.

  Once past the arc of the rotors, Carrera and the other two, plus a couple of hangers-on, exchanged salutes. No words could be heard over the roar of the helicopter’s engine, the whine of the transmission, and the whopwhopwhop of the air-churning blades. With a finger gesture, Carrera indicated they should walk up the hill toward the club east of the flagpoles, for a little chat.

  “Cuando, al fin le recogieron,

  Entre su pecho encontraron

  Una carta y un retrato

  De una divina mujer.”

  Ant could be defiant when her father-in-law was present and glaring. It was when he was not that the uncertainty crept in. In her seat—a rather better one, leather and upholstered, than the troops got—as Iskandr, whom most called Hamilcar, buckled her in, she began to tremble.

  “Relax, Pili,” said her lord. “I know you’ve only flown once before but . . .”

  She gripped his arm with both hands, putting a temporary stop to his maneuvers with the seat and shoulder belts. “It’s not the flight, my lord. While I am with you I fear for nothing. It’s your father. My people have tales of the fathers of gods, wicked, bitter, cruel . . .”

  “I am not a god, Pili, however much you and Alena the witch insist I am. I’m just a boy. And the old man . . . well, no, he’s not going to be happy about you defying him. But he is going to be happy about . . .”

  Well, I hope he is.

  “If she’s not pregnant,” said Chapayev, “it’s not for lack of trying.”

  “You could have stopped them,” Carrera said accusingly, over his mug of beer.

  “Duque,” said Muñoz-Infantes, twirling a wine glass and smiling to show he was not entirely serious as he said, “if I could
not stop my daughter from sleeping with this Volgan bastard prior to marrying him, and I could not, then nobody was going to keep your son out of that girl.”

  “She was very helpful with the wounded,” offered Chapayev. “It’s amazing the pain a young boy will endure with a smile if there’s a pretty girl there to hold his hand.”

  “So?” asked Carrera, who wasn’t really entirely in the mood to be mollified as regarded his self-willed daughter-in-law.

  “So she did your line proud,” said Chapayev who, truth be told, liked and admired the girl enormously. “So you should be proud. For God’s sake, Duque, she’s as brave and determined as any man in the legion. A not-yet-fifteen-year-old girl sets out on her own, across jungle like she’s never seen before, crosses the fucking Transitway, nearly gets run down by a freighter, loses her food, her water, her map, her compass, loses enough blood to mosquitoes for an emergency room’s need, and still finds the boy she loves? They write poems and songs about girls like that, they’re so rare.”

  “Yeah, she did have big brass ones, didn’t she?” Carrera smiled. “But if I don’t terrorize the bitch there’ll be no peace in the future. And, even then, Chappie, she’s so young, too young for a baby.”

  “You wouldn’t make her abort it?” asked Muñoz-Infantes, solid Catholic and scandalized as the very thought.

  “I’m probably a bad Catholic and no kind of Christian at all,” said Carrera, just as scandalized, “but I’m better than that.”

  “Good,” said the Castilian defector. “I would hate to think my men and I fought for a monster.”