Ninth City Burning (36 page)

Charles raises a hand, like he's going to tip his round hat to us, even though it's not there anymore, then he's gone, and Naomi and I are alone.

“I have heard that sound before,” she says, so softly I almost don't hear her over the alarm. Her eyes are wide, staring around at the buildings above. She actually looks a little scared. “What is it?”

“It's the incursion alarm,” I tell her. “It means we're under
attack.”

L
ife on a harvester gets interesting near the end of a mission. “Surreal” is probably a better word. The hold is stuffed to bursting with everything from granite to grapes, crude oil to raw sugar, chickpeas to live chickens, even assorted hazardous (explosive, corrosive, radioactive) materials sprinkled through to liven things up, but walking the storage aisles, where aged beef carcasses hang next to stacks of honeycomb still crawling with live bees, seems ordinary compared to visiting the habitation decks above.

By the time we've passed through four or five settlements, there is room aboard only for a skeleton crew of pilots and materials handlers; our liaisons from the Academy and the Legion have flown back to their respective institutions, leaving their new recruits behind on the theory that these will be adequately cared for in our capable hands. It isn't a bad theory, in principle—transit from our last stop back to Ninth City usually takes less than a day; how much can go wrong?—albeit one that can be thoroughly disproven by even a single visit to the recruits' quarters.

The kind of mayhem that ensues during the last leg of a mission is, I think, entirely predictable given the factors involved. Take a large group of people, remove them from their homes—against their will, for the most part—and place them in cramped (though not uncomfortable) quarters, all in an environment so strange and alien that only the most mentally unbalanced of them could reasonably have expected to wind up anyplace like it. The only mitigating factor, as far as I can see, is that the shock of encountering thelemity for the first time tends to send a fissure through the more or less universal sentiments of resentment and fear settlers hold when it comes to the Principate. Some cling to their old notions, their
hatred too useful and loyal a standby to relinquish, but far more often the reactions I see bear indications of awe, excitement, and hope—the idea that this great ship, with all its marvelous inventions, is reason enough to believe our destination will be better than the place we left behind.

I don't mention how commonplace thelemity seems when viewed simply as a tool, or how even something so wonderful sours when used for war. The goggle-eyed gapers, babbling effusively over a toilet or a reading light, help distract from those who interpret thelemity only as further confirmation that we of the Principate are thieves and kidnappers, ascribing all kinds of sinister notions to this awesome power we've been keeping secret all these years. The rumor that thelemity is somehow generated by harvesting human souls usually begins to circulate within twelve hours, a matter complicated by the close resemblance such an outrageously paranoid theory bears to the truth.

Our passengers' rampant hostility aside, meeting them has been an education. Not always a pleasant one, to be sure—I've learned to have an artifice on hand to dry spit from my face, and my vocabulary of colorfully derogatory regionalisms increases hourly—but it's allowed me a unique perspective rarely available to someone from the cities. In a way, I and all my comrades back home are in a position very similar to these draftees, filtered and categorized and sorted so that we might be optimally utilized in service of a single overriding goal: victory. We may occupy different positions in the larger structure, but all of us—cadets, officers, soldiers, settlers—are alike in that our lives are circumscribed by the all-consuming imperative of war.

The difference is that those of us raised in the cities have had our entire lives to prepare for the moment when we'll be called to Earth's defense. The exigencies of our society, and the responsibilities that society demands, are impressed upon us from our earliest days, and if the reality of it is less than cheerful, at least we know what that reality is. Such courtesy is not extended to the settlers. Instead, we raise them like livestock, one more quota to be delivered on time. An old adage goes that the first casualty of war is truth, and that seems to be the general opinion around the Principates. But the more I see of the settlements, the more I question how necessary this deception of ours really is. Certainly, a larger dose of truth would go a way toward reducing the bedlam that always ensues on harvesters like mine, deemed inevitable by a leadership that has never been
punched in the jaw by a fifteen-year-old lumberjack who blames you for the disappearance of every friend she's had since she was nine. At the base of things, the settlers are no different from us. This is their war, too, and I think they would fight alongside us if only we gave them the chance.

And then, too, there are the unincorporated peoples, left to their brutal, bloodstained world. I sometimes find myself picturing Rae, and those scars along her neck and ear. I can't even imagine the sort of life she lived before she wound up in that holding cell of ours.

Reggidel has, over years of experience, become adept at staving off the chaos constantly threatening to overrun our new recruits, going so far as to develop a series of lectures and demonstrations that amount to a kind of “introduction to thelemity.” He allowed me to sit in on one such seminar, and afterward pronounced me fully trained in recruit orientation, informing me that I would be looking after such matters from now on so that he could devote his time to reading the latest entertainment texts from the settlements.

When I get to the ship's mess, I find him nose down in a text entitled
The Ravishing of Block 99
, so engrossed that my arrival goes unnoticed despite the strong smell of smoke that follows me in. Entertainment texts are, like crusty milk, a taste Reggidel acquired in the settlements and shows no desire to relinquish despite the wide availability of more wholesome options. Known variously as fuzzies, wipers, pulps, and canners, en-texts are designed mostly to give the horrendously understimulated minds of our settlers something better to do than stew bitterly over being worked to death sixteen hours a day. The texts carefully avoid any and all sensitive issues while reinforcing the prevailing social order wherever possible. Corruption is unerringly punished, hard work and faith in authority rewarded. For the most part it's a lot of love triangles—or, more accurately, love polygons of several more than three sides—notable for their strained drama and implausible sex scenes. There are a number of long-running series, with new installments generated at a startling pace. Reggidel's favorite is Block 99, about the erotic goings-on at a housing project in the fictional Settlement X, an average place but for the unusual percentage of attractive residents and the improbable frequency of exciting events (fires, earthquakes, “hellion” raids, and so on).

As entertainment texts are one of the few commodities abundant in the settlements but scarce in the cities, Reggidel makes a point of stocking
up during every mission. His appetite shows all the signs of real addiction, something Reggidel himself acknowledges, proclaiming that I'd understand if only I would stop being such a snooty Prip and give Block 99 a chance. My response, that I'll happily read the whole series if he takes care of the recruits, is met only with a low chuckle and the rustling of pages.

“It looks like we've got a few passengers in the early stages of IED,” I say now, brushing ash from my ruined jacket. Thelemity affects all living matter in one way or another, the smell of ozone or sulfur at the edge of a thelemic field being the most oft-cited example. Most people experience only a passing tingle or a brief sensation of falling the first time they enter an umbris, though occasionally the results are more spectacular. In the recruits' quarters today, I was presented with a boy suffering from some alarming changes in skin color, a woman with pale green mushrooms growing along her arms and forehead, and an elderly man who had begun sneezing a flaming goo not unlike napalm. Symptoms of Irrational Environment Disorder, or IED, tend to present as minor versions of the activation surges experienced by revenni, though really the condition is more similar to motion sickness.

“We're going to need more pugmento tablets,” I inform Reggidel. “Actually, we should be distributing them as soon as the recruits get on board.” I remove my still-smoldering jacket. “Before they start setting people on fire.”

Reggidel has fixed himself a plate of crusty milk and crunches thoughtfully. “Applesauce works just as well,” he says over a mouthful of gooey bread, still not looking up from his book.

“
Almost
as well.” As I inspected the recruits suffering from IED, the whole room was silent, as though bearing witness to great wisdom and power. Since we were out of pugmento tablets, I administered doses of applesauce, also known to mitigate the symptoms of IED, and curing such an exotic condition by such ordinary means only confirmed my powers in the eyes of our recruits—not before I'd taken a blast of flaming snot to the chest, however, though the fire burned out quickly enough that the only lasting damage was to my uniform. “And the recruits would know that if we bothered to educate them about thelemity before they ended up with fungi sprouting from their eyebrows.”

“We gave them those pamphlets, didn't we?” Reggidel, who knows
mention of the pamphlets will only rile me more, pointedly licks a thumb and turns another page of his book.

“Yes, the pamphlets, which are about as informative as that book you're reading.”

“Don't bring Block 99 into this.” Reggidel's strategy is generally to sit calmly by whenever I feel the need to vent my frustration over the Principate's recruiting techniques. He doesn't see the point in arguing, especially when there is shocking betrayal and meticulously described nudity afoot at Block 99. Now, with his bland, faintly wearied tone, he seems to be inviting me to argue with myself, since he can't be bothered, and I'm about to take him up on it when the soft light overhead dims, then rises into a jarring red.

The calm, friendly voice of the harvester's lead pilot descends out of the air. “Good afternoon, everyone. Unfortunately, it seems our return to Ninth City will be temporarily delayed. We'll be setting down in the next ten minutes or so and switching over to conventional power. Please note that all processes requiring thelemity will be unavailable. Thank you.”

“Aw, crud,” Reggidel grunts. He slaps his book closed and lays a hand on the table in front of him, calling up to the navigation deck. “Hey, boys,” he says. “What's going on? We go dark, and it's going to be a riot in here.”

“I'm sorry, sir,” the pilot says. “Ninth City just sent word of an atmospheric incursion. Glazdell is leaving to support the defense forces.”

Glazdell is the fontana assigned to provide our harvester with a steady source of thelemity. Typically, anyone traveling beyond a city's umbris has to rely on vehicles that operate within the everyday laws of physics, but the harvester is far too large and cumbersome to remain aloft by means of mere aerodynamics. It's a testament to the importance of our mission that the Principate is willing to commit a source to us full-time—except when Romeo rears his faceless head, that is. This will be the third time we've had to go without thelemity since I joined the censors, and beyond the general tension inherent in every incursion, it's always a minor disaster for the cargo, much of which the harvester isn't equipped to deal with under conventional power and will thus have to be dumped. But that isn't what worries me now, not what has me dashing to Reggidel's side.

“Where is it?” I ask, leaning over to speak with the pilot. “Where was the incursion detected?”

“Sixth,” the pilot says, “but the enemy is moving. Command expects we'll engage over Third or Fifth.”

Reggidel has produced a small flashlight and sits back, aiming it at his book. “You should probably go see to the recruits, make sure no one's panicking.” He's got more to say, but I'm not listening. Someone
is
panicking, and that person's name is Censor Vinneas.

I
run for my quarters, pull out the maps and almanacs beneath my desk, and flip madly through, comparing charts and figures, already knowing what I'll find but hoping I'm wrong. I'm not. Though it's daytime in the Third Principate, the Moon will be right overhead.

“Bresley,” I call, summoning the harvester's instarus. “I need to put a communication through to Curator Ellmore at Ninth City.”

Bresley's voice emerges, patient but also imperious, from the nearest wall. “Sir, Ninth City will be under incursion protocols by now. Moreover, we will be going dark in—”

“Yes, thank you, Bresley. That's why I need to speak with the Curator now. Tell her it's an emergency.”

Bresley sighs resignedly. “Very well, sir.”

Within an area powered by thelemity, the available methods of telecommunication are so numerous that deciding which to use can take longer than the communication itself. If you want to contact someone
outside
an umbris, however, the options dwindle drastically, since that requires generating a signal capable of traveling through a medium devoid of thelemity. Instari hate doing this, and Bresley conveys his annoyance by humming peevishly as he raises Curator Ellmore. But it works. After a few very long seconds, I hear her say, “Vinneas? Are you there?”

“Here, ma'am.”

“You'll have to make this fast. I'm expected at Command.”

“Yes, ma'am, I'm sorry, but it's important.”

“Your instarus mentioned as much. Please, proceed.”

“We need to close Lunar Veil immediately.”

“Vinneas,” Curator Ellmore says, in a way that conveys both familiarity with the topic and reluctance to revisit it.

“This attack, Curator—it isn't just a raid,” I press on. “It's a full-scale assault. The Valentines are here now—or they will be if we don't close the Veil right away.”

“I hope you've got some evidence for me.”

“Look at this.” I hold up one of my maps and then, realizing the Curator will be able to see neither me nor it, tell Bresley to open a visual feed, a task he accomplishes promptly if grudgingly. Curator Ellmore's office appears in my wall mirror; through the window behind her, I can see our defense forces taking to the air over Ninth City.

“Here,” I say, pointing to my map. “The incursion began over the Sixth Principate, but the Valentine forces are moving toward Fifth and Third. There are plenty of better targets they might have chosen. The only way their movements make sense is if they're heading for Lunar Veil. This is it, Curator, the attack I've been talking about. This incursion—it's meant to support a larger force about to come through the Veil.”

Lunar Veil is the most heavily trafficked gateway into the Realms, and the only one of any real importance because it opens the route to the Front. It isn't so much a doorway as a hazy place where our Realm, Hestia, meets the one next to us, a mostly abandoned place we call Dis. For the space of several kilometers in the upper atmosphere, always along the line between Earth and the Moon, these two Realms mix like fresh- and salt water at the mouth of a river opening into the sea, a cloud of brackish reality swirling like a storm. Lunar Veil was how the Valentines first came to Earth, and if they plan to return in force, the Veil is how they'll do it.

“You know perfectly well what will happen if I show up at Command arguing that we have to close Lunar Veil because the Valentines are acting strangely. Imperator Feeroy will assure everyone I'm overreacting, that the Valentines have been acting strangely for months.”

She's right. There have been three incursions since I left Ninth City, and while each time another Principate was able to successfully fend the enemy off without Ninth Legion's participation, all have followed the same pattern: Whereas past attacks always consisted of swift raids on targets necessary to supply our Legions at the Front, in these recent incursions the Valentines have held back, giving our forces time to engage. In every instance, such “lingering” (as Imperator Feeroy put it) has allowed us to
escape with our centers of population and production untouched, albeit at the cost of greater damage to our defense forces. Recent numbers put battle readiness in some Principates as low as 50 percent, mostly due to disabled or grounded equipment. It's a trade we were happy to make, since weapons and soldiers are relatively easy to replace, whereas losing a city or a settlement would disrupt supply to the Front for years. Generally, that isn't a bad overall result, logistically speaking—unless there's a major attack on the way. Unless Romeo was just softening us up for the real assault.

“That's true, they
have
been acting strangely for months,” I say, “and this is why. They were trying to weaken our short-term defenses.”

“Which would be a complete change from the tactics they've relied upon for the last three centuries.”

“Yes, ma'am, that's right. And I believe it's because something has changed at the Front. You've seen the data.” We still don't know
how
the Valentines are sneaking into Hestia, appearing out of nowhere in our atmosphere, but Kizabel and I proved pretty conclusively that when they do, it has something to do with our losses in the war. “If there was a way to communicate directly with our forces at the Front, I think we'd learn they've suffered some sort of setback, one that has allowed the Valentines to mount a major offensive against Earth.”

“Were you aware, Vinneas, that Imperator Feeroy has been telling a story that is almost the precise opposite of what I'm hearing from you?”

“No, ma'am, I wasn't.”

“According to Feeroy, the recent increase in the severity of incursions is a sign of desperation. He argues that the Valentines are overextending their resources in one final attempt to regain momentum in this war, a war we've been winning for years and which, if we can maintain pressure at the Front, is about to turn decisively in our favor. Can you guess which of these theories has been the most popular?”

“But Feeroy's theory is completely unsupported by the facts.”

“Imperator Feeroy has woven a plausible explanation for events as they present themselves. You, Vinneas, would have us close Lunar Veil, thereby disrupting our supply line to the Front, just to hold off an attack that would likely eradicate us anyway. Feeroy is promising us victory, and all we have to do is continue on as we have. Unless we can prove your theory definitively, I'm afraid we'll find very little support.”

She's right, of course. Feeroy's narrative is immeasurably more attractive
than mine. Heck,
I'd
like him to be right. But he isn't. Feeroy and the rest of Command are reacting to the situation as they want it to be, not as it is. I shouldn't be surprised—filtering the facts to present the rosiest possible picture is part of human nature—but I am. We're trusting these people with the lives of everyone on the planet. They're supposed to be able to face harsh realities, make tough decisions. And if I can't make them listen now, this war is going to be a whole lot shorter than everyone expects.

“Put a flash on the Veil,” I say.

“What?”

“Flash the Veil. Disrupt the connection between the worlds—that will let us see what's on the other side.” Most of the time, Lunar Veil is almost invisible, just an expanse of seemingly empty air. If you were to fly into it, you might observe a shift in the stars above, or an odd doubling of your vision as one Realm transitioned into another, but more likely you wouldn't notice anything amiss until you found yourself on the other side. Under the right conditions, someone could pass through without even realizing the change. The entire Valentine Host could be waiting on the other side, and we wouldn't know it. We have a small base just beyond Lunar Veil, a waypoint for troops and supplies, but unless I'm wrong, they've already been overrun, and since most types of energy—radio waves, for example—can't cross the boundary between Realms, there's no easy way to check in. But a large discharge of thelemity along that boundary will cause the two sides to momentarily separate, like oil and water, allowing a brief glimpse from one world to the next. “When we do, the Valentines will be there, massing for an attack.”

“Vinneas,” the Curator says, “the enemy is headed for the Veil right now and will likely arrive before our forces can intercept. Executing a flash will require breaking through a good-sized contingent of Valentine fighters.”

“That's exactly their plan!” I shout, unable to restrain my frustration any longer. “They'll hold the Veil until their forces are ready to come through. If I'm right, and we don't do anything, Earth is done. The Valentines have probably already captured Dis, and are mustering to invade Hestia. Closing the Veil now is our only chance to mount an effective defense. Isn't it worth the risk to know for sure?”

Each of the passageways out of Hestia appears and disappears on a schedule coinciding with the movement of some astronomical object relative to Earth. Lunar Veil, which is associated with the Moon, becomes
accessible roughly once every month. Gateways like Lunar Veil are typically only permeable for a short time unless they're held open by a process known as anchoring. If we were to undo Lunar Veil's Anchors now, it would close almost immediately, but we would have to wait a month before we could open it again.

“A month here translates to days or less along most of the Front,” I say. “Best case: We look, Dis is empty. There's a short hiccup in the lines of supply. Command can blame me.”

A shadow of Curator Ellmore's wry smile briefly crosses her face. “You're too low on the food chain to absorb that much blame,” she says. “And as far as Command is concerned, any delay is too long. Our operating directive is to concentrate all available assets at the Front. Even a small interruption will be seen as an unacceptable setback.”

“As opposed to the sort of setback we'd see if the Valentines capture Earth?”

This time Ellmore really does smile, albeit weakly. “I'll find a more diplomatic way to put it when I make my recommendation to Command,” she says. “I don't believe I mentioned Imperator Feeroy has been given full authority over Ninth City's defense forces.”

I sit back in my chair, the red light around me taking on a slow, underwater quality. If Feeroy is in charge, we're in bigger trouble than I thought.

“I've made this case to Command before,” the Curator is saying, “but you've given me something new to work with. Maybe I can convince Princept Azemon or Dux Reydaan to listen. But I'm afraid any orders to the defense forces will go through Feeroy first, and I doubt he'll care much for attempting a flash, not when it means risking his exemplary kill ratio on a frontal assault.”

“Try one of the other Principates,” I say, not bothering to hide my desperation. “Third maybe, or Sixth. They might listen.”

“I don't think they'll take my call, not in the middle of an incursion, but I'll try. Wish me luck.”

When her image vanishes, I stare at my reflection, unable to quite believe what's just happened. I'd come to accept politics as a necessary part of life at Command, to see the muddy maneuvering of bargaining and influence, the interplay of rivalry and ambition, as an unavoidable aspect of governance. But I always believed that when the time came to make a crucial choice, our leaders would act with only the interests of our world
in mind. I was wrong, and because of that, we're about to be wiped out. It just doesn't seem real, that after five hundred years, the war is going to end like this. It could all be over in an hour.

I can't let it happen. “Bresley?” I say. I can feel an idea forming, hazy and soft, but focusing fast. “Are you still in contact with Ninth City?”

“Yes, sir, but—”

“Find Officer Aspirant Kizabel for me. She might still be at the Fabrica.”

“Sir—”

“We don't have a lot of time, Bresley. Please.”

“Yes, sir.” Some of Bresley snootiness has gone, and he searches without humming this time. Possibly he's been listening to my conversation with Curator Ellmore and knows what's at stake. “Sir? I've found her. She's at the School of Rhetoric.”

Rhetoric? I would have expected her to be at her workshop, or else at the Forum with Jax. I don't know if she's been keeping up our appointments since Imway and I joined the Legion, but I hope so.

“Vinneas?” Kizabel's image swirls into view, blurrier than Curator Ellmore's had been, and darker. She looks thinner than I remember, and exhausted, like she hasn't slept in weeks. “What are you—”

“Kizabel, listen. I need you to go to your workshop, or your quarters, someplace with a cog radio, and turn to the channel for long-distance recreational communication.”

“What?” she says. A baffled shake of the head. “Why?”