The Accidental War Read online

  The Yormak and the two Terrans gazed at one another for a few seconds, and then the Yormak, without changing expression, altered course to walk around Lord Mehrang. Mehrang took a step to block the Yormak’s path. The Yormak altered course again, and again Lord Mehrang blocked it. The Yormak gave a kind of sneeze from slitted nostrils, then stood completely still. This time it waited for Mehrang and Vijana to move out of its way and then walked past them, again without acknowledging their existence. It paused, then used the tool to scoop up a patty of cattle dung and dump it in its furry sack.

  “They burn dung for fuel,” Mehrang said in disgust. “We give them stoves, but . . .” He waved a hand helplessly.

  “Burning dung?” said Vijana. “That would account for the smell.”

  Mehrang walked on in the direction of a drumlin, a glacial-formed ridge running parallel to the lake. “And that scoop it carried?” he said. “The design hasn’t changed in millennia. All their tools, the clothes, the tents . . . it’s all identical as far back as we can go through the archaeological record. Eighty thousand years, they’ve been making the exact same spear point, the same cattle goads, the same snowshoes, the same cradleboards for their young.”

  The smell had caught in his throat again, and again he spat. “They don’t evolve. They’re a dead end.” He made a broad gesture that encompassed the entire world of Esley. “The Praxis is all about evolution. When we encounter a new world, we import new plants, new crops, new animals, and let them all compete with the native life-forms. The best life-form wins. Except we can’t do it here.” Disgust welled in him. “Even if we started absolutely level, with the same primitive technology, in a hundred years any of the other species under the Praxis would outcompete the Yormaks. They’d be extinct.”

  Vijana shivered in his greatcoat. “I might be extinct if I stay out here much longer.”

  Mehrang ignored the complaint and strode on through the camp, into the smoke of the dung fires and the stink of hides and unwashed bodies, past the Yormaks, who barely glanced at him. He came to a kind of cove carved into the flank of the drumlin and paused to watch a group of Yormaks sitting or kneeling there. Before them was a natural shelf on which sat some objects—stones, a bundle of twigs wrapped with grassy twine, the shoulder bone of some creature with glyphs carved into it. One of the Yormaks was holding another object—some sticks lashed together with rawhide into a kind of asterisk shape, with stones and bits of bone tied to it all with strands of sinew. The Yormak was speaking rapidly, apparently to the thing itself, with other Yormaks chiming in, as if in agreement, or offering further clarification.

  It was the most animated, Mehrang thought, that he’d ever seen these creatures.

  Vijana seemed bewildered. “What are they doing?” he asked.

  “It’s classified as ‘undefined ritual behavior,’” Mehrang said. “But it sure looks like religion to me.”

  “Religion?” Vijana was appalled.

  “They’re calling on these things—these fetishes—for some kind of supernatural aid.” Mehrang spat again. “This is a shrine, except you can’t get the government to admit that. Officially, these aren’t gods or fetishes, they’re ‘traditional ritual objects of uncertain utility.’” He laughed. “What kind of lawyer gibberish is that? They’re bending over backwards not to see what’s happening right in front of us.”

  Vijana was confused. “But if it’s actually religion—” He shook his head. “Well, that can’t be, right? Because if it were—”

  “If you or I practiced religion openly,” Lord Mehrang said, “we’d be arrested and very possibly executed.” He flapped a hand at the Yormaks. “But these—creatures—are allowed to flout the Praxis in the most egregious way. Explain to me how that’s even possible!”

  Vijana spread his hands. “I’m in the Fleet,” he said. “All manner of orders are given that I’m obliged to carry out, whether they make sense or not.”

  “You understand, then.” Lord Mehrang nodded. “Someone decided ages ago that the Yormaks were going to be protected, and now they’re protected no matter what madness they do.” He stepped closer to Vijana, looming over the younger, smaller man. “The only way that would change,” he said, “is if the Yormaks rebelled.”

  “Rebelled?” Vijana was dubious. “Why would they rebel? They seem to have everything exactly the way they want it.”

  Lord Mehrang took Vijana by the arm. “Let’s not go into that right now,” he said. “Let’s just assume that the Yormaks rebel for whatever reason gets into their thick heads. What would you do if the lord governor asked for your assistance to end a revolt? How would you do it?”

  Vijana considered this and spoke through lips blue with the cold. “Firing antimatter missiles from orbit would be far too destructive. Still, Yormaks would best be attacked from the air, I imagine. Arm aircraft with automatic weapons.” His brows knit. “How many aircraft do you have on Esley?”

  “The administration has been generous with licenses. There’s such a lack of infrastructure on my poor planet that aircraft are necessary to knit the settlements together.”

  “And weapons?”

  “We’d have to make most of them, but we have enough industrial capacity to turn out what we’d need in short order.”

  “Bombs? Incendiaries?”

  Lord Mehrang smiled. “Entirely within our capacity.”

  Calculations flickered across Vijana’s face. He seemed wholly absorbed in the problem. “How dependent are the Yormaks on their cattle?”

  “Completely. For food, clothing, shelter, bone for tools, and dung for their fires.”

  “Yormaks might be able to hide, I suppose, but they can’t hide whole cattle herds.” He looked up in query. “Kill the cattle, and the Yormaks will starve?”

  “They fish and hunt, but they won’t survive on that alone, not in this climate.”

  “Well then. Just mow the cattle down, along with any Yormaks we find. Either way the rebels die.”

  Lord Mehrang gave a satisfied smile. “Let’s say you take command of suppressing the rebellion. How far away is your nearest superior?”

  “I’m an independent command, so I report directly to the Commandery on Zanshaa. If they detailed someone from the Home Fleet to supervise me, it would be at least three months before he arrived. But more likely they’d order a squadron out from the Fourth Fleet at Harzapid, and that’s six to eight weeks out, depending on how soon they could leave and how many gravities their commander piles on to get here. Since it’s a chance to command in the suppression of a revolt, they’d almost certainly be here sooner rather than later.”

  “It sounds as if someone would want to steal your credit for suppressing the rebels.”

  Vijana shrugged. “It’s the Fleet, my lord. You’d be surprised how often the credit goes where it doesn’t belong.”

  “Your possible supersession concerns me.” Mehrang patted Vijana on the arm. “If anything as regrettable as a rebellion were to occur, I would have to make certain that you received proper credit for a successful action. A promotion, decorations . . .”

  “Beg pardon, my lord. But these are not within your purview.”

  Mehrang straightened. “I am not without influence. I am patron to an entire world, and my own patron is Lord Convocate Mondi, on the Fleet Control Board. Which is in charge of decorations and promotions.”

  “Mondi is most influential,” Vijana agreed.

  “And of course Esley itself would express its appreciation. There would be cash rewards, and grants of land. Choice grants, too, taken from the Yormak reserves, and full of resources, or perhaps in strategic locations certain to be developed within your lifetime. You would be patron to a city, perhaps more than one.”

  Vijana smiled. “A gratifying picture, my lord. But of course there is no rebellion, and the lord governor has not summoned me to his aid.”

  “The lord governor is my cousin. We agree on many matters.”

  Vijana’s thin little mustache twit
ched. “And the rebellion? The Yormaks have no reputation for violence.”

  Mehrang smiled. “Watch,” he said. He turned and walked into the midst of the dialogue between the Yormaks and their totem, and then he snatched the talisman from the hand of the speaker and brandished it high above his head. The Yormaks yelped in surprise, or gave deep coughs of apparent disgust, then sprang to their feet and clustered around Mehrang, all of them shouting, or howling in warning. Some snatched stone knives from their belts or brandished other implements. Alarmed by the threats and the noise, Vijana patted his greatcoat for a weapon he knew was not there.

  Just as the howling peaked, just as it seemed the Yormaks were about to tear Lord Mehrang limb from limb, he returned the totem to the Yormak who had been holding it. The shouts and shrieks died away almost to nothing. After patting the creature and speaking soothing words, Lord Mehrang left the group and returned to Vijana. The Yormaks resumed their dialogue with the talisman as if nothing had happened.

  “See?” Mehrang said. “Those fetishes are the only things they really seem to care about. It’s not hard to get them stirred up.”

  Vijana nodded. “I’m impressed, my lord. Impressed by all the . . .” He hesitated. “The planning you’ve put into this.”

  Mehrang took Vijana’s arm again and steered him out of the camp. “Shall we go to some warm place and have a drink?” he said. “We should give further thought to your future.”

  “I should like nothing better, my lord,” said Vijana. They walked through the herd again, then up the slope toward Mehrang’s aircraft. Vijana flapped his arms for warmth. He gave Mehrang a thoughtful look.

  “It would be better if the rebellion happened in winter. You could track the Yormaks through the snow.”

  Mehrang nodded. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

  “Have you ever considered fuel-air explosives? If we could get them built, they’d wipe out a whole herd of cattle at a single go, along with any Yormaks in company.”

  Lord Mehrang smiled even as the cutting wind blew sharp ice crystals into his face. “You’ll have to tell me all about them, Lieutenant-Captain,” he said. “They sound most useful.”

  The first videos of the rebellion were jittery and incomplete and were supposed to have been shot by the employees of Forestry and Fisheries assigned to supervise and protect the Yormaks. They showed a howling mob of Yormaks brandishing weapons, and over the soundtrack you could hear the custodians shouting in alarm before the video abruptly cut off. Some of the videos ended with the thud of blows, or the screams of wounded.

  Rescue parties found only the bodies of the custodians, beaten and stabbed with primitive weapons, and lying adjacent to the camps of the Yormaks, who by now were showing no interest whatever.

  The scenes hadn’t been difficult to arrange. There were plenty of people on Esley who hated the Yormaks and their guardians both, and Lord Mehrang had been careful to encourage and reward that hatred.

  The videos provided enough evidence for the lord governor to declare the Yormaks in a state of rebellion, and to call for assistance from the Fleet. Police forces descended on the remaining guardians, rounded them up, and escorted them to the towns, where they would be safe.

  Along the way, the police killed any Yormaks they encountered.

  The governor also called for volunteers to form a militia, and within days well-armed hunters were speeding out onto the winter tundra in their tracked snow machines, following the trails of the herds.

  A few weeks later, the fuel-air explosives began to prove their worth.

  Lord Mehrang amused himself with the thought of the last few Yormaks being rounded up to live in zoos. Though he very much doubted that, once confined, they would long survive.

  Chapter 1

  Lord Chen, wearing the wine-red coat of a convocate, walked among the purple lu-doi blossoms in his courtyard. The spring day was unseasonably hot and sultry, and he felt prickles of sweat beneath his collar.

  Around him on all four sides loomed the tall Nayanid-style gables of the Chen Palace, the center of the power, money, privilege, and duty that had surrounded Maurice Chen from the hour of his birth. A tangible reminder of his status, his importance, and his position within the empire.

  Gravel crunched beneath his mirror-polished shoes. The beige stone of the palace glowed in the bright sun. Birds called from overhead. The heavy, sweet scent of the flowers oppressed him.

  He rehearsed his arguments in his head. Then he rehearsed them again.

  Lord Chen approached a bronze statue of a maiden wearing an elaborate, formal gown of a fashion that had gone out of style a millennium ago. Near the statue was an old Lai-own servant with a tray, laying out the refreshments Chen had ordered: a pot of tea with two cups, alongside a dish of muffins, pastries, and sweets.

  Suddenly Chen felt the need for something stronger.

  “Bring me mig brandy,” he said.

  The Lai-own bowed, his feathery hair waving in the spring air. “Do you wish me to bring the bottle, my lord?”

  Lord Chen fought impatience. Did the creature think he’d be swigging a whole bottle of brandy in his garden, in the middle of the afternoon?

  “Bring it to me in a glass.”

  “Right away, my lord.”

  The servant brought him the drink on a salver, and Lord Chen tossed it off in a single gulp. A pleasing fire coursed its way down his gullet. He returned the glass to the salver and looked up to see his daughter, Terza, approaching from amid the blossoms.

  Terza seemed to float over the path in an air of unhurried tranquility. On the sunny, sultry day she wore a lacy white summer dress that contrasted with the long black river of hair that fell past her shoulders. Her expression was serene without being insipid, her almond eyes acute without being intrusive.

  Besides which, she was quite frankly beautiful. Because, Lord Chen thought, she was a Chen—the product of millennia of breeding, of education, of taste, now gliding toward him through the palace garden of her ancestors.

  She looked at the glass he’d placed on the salver. “It is a hard day?” she asked.

  Not yet, he thought. But he gestured with one hand in an equivocal way. “Not worth discussing,” he said. “You weren’t at the Ministry today?”

  Terza held a post in the Ministry of Right and Dominion, the civilian bureaucracy that served the Fleet. If she’d come from work, she’d have worn the brown tunic of a civil servant.

  “I did some work from home,” she said. She was not only a high-ranking official but a high-ranking Peer, and there was little pressure to spend time in the office.

  The servant drew a chair back from the small table and offered it to Terza, and she thanked him and seated herself. Then the Lai-own helped Chen to his seat.

  “I have tea,” he said. “Unless you’d prefer something stronger.”

  “Tea would be lovely.”

  The servant poured. A rich, smoky odor filled the air, the scent of the first cutting from the family tea plantation in the To-bai-to Highlands. Terza opened a napkin, and the fine linen wafted over her lap.

  “Thank you, Tarn-na,” Chen said, and the servant ambled back into the house.

  “How is Mother?” Terza asked.

  “I’ve heard no complaints from Sandama,” Chen said, “so I suppose she’s doing well.”

  She cocked her head and looked at him. “Are you lonely?”

  He was, actually, and had been for years, ever since his wife had left Zanshaa rather than live with the family tragedy. But he smiled and took her hand. “Not as long as you’re here.”

  Terza smiled and squeezed his hand. “And you have grandchildren to keep you young.”

  The grandchildren, he thought. Who are part of the problem. But he smiled again.

  “Yes. And I have the affairs of the clan to keep me busy,” he said. “I had a meeting with the directors just this morning.”

  She withdrew her hand and took a cup of tea. “Good news?”

  “Be
tter than good,” Chen said. “Our businesses are reaping record profits. Particularly shipping.”

  She nodded. “Yes. Of course.”

  “We are completely free of debt and obligation. We own the ships outright, and we own much of the cargo. We—”

  He was interrupted by blaring music, trumpets of some sort, that floated over the Nayanid gables. He looked up and scowled.

  “What’s that?” Terza asked, as the fanfare was joined by what sounded like kettledrums.

  “Cosgrove the financier,” Chen said. “Our new neighbor. His children and their friends have some kind of . . . brass band . . . and they rehearse at every hour of the day.”

  Cymbals crashed. Birds rose alarmed into the sky.

  “Oh, they are unspeakable,” Chen continued. “They throw enormous parties that disturb the entire neighborhood. The other night they all spilled out into the street and began a game of zephyrball, outside and in the middle of the night. We were lucky any of our windows survived.”

  The music came to a clattering, stuttering halt. Then started all over again, more discordant, but with even more enthusiasm.

  “It might be different if they could actually play,” Chen said.

  “Is this the Cosgrove from Hy-Oso?” Terza asked. “Shipping and finance?”

  “And gold. He’s got some kind of corner on those gold-bearing seaweeds they have there.” He grimaced. “They’re new. Like so many of the people I see in Zanshaa these days.”

  Terza took a bite of pastry, dabbed with her napkin at the corner of her mouth.

  “The war made some people rich,” she said delicately.

  “All the wrong people, if you ask me.”

  She smiled. “You were just telling me how wealthy we are.”

  “We didn’t profit from the war,” Chen said. “We almost lost everything. But with the years of peace, we’ve finally worked our way out from under.”

  From under your in-laws, he thought.

  From their earliest days in the Hone Reach, the Chen family had always been strong in shipping, but the outbreak of the Naxid War had been a disaster. A significant number of Chen ships had found themselves in parts of the empire controlled by the Naxid rebels and had been confiscated by the enemy. Loyalist ships had wiped out many of these in raids, and the Naxid rebels had used the survivors so hard that they all needed refitting. Others were cut off in remote areas where they could only sit in dock and await the end of the war.