Conventions of War by Walter Jon Williams Page A

loyal friend has suggested that we send this to you…
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    At the end, Sula appended a copy of the first edition of Resistance, for any who hadn’t seen it.
    Because most of the Records Office personnel had gone home at the close of the business day, Sula sent out Resistance in smaller packets of a few thousand each so as not to tie up the broadcast node too conspicuously. As before, fifty thousand were sent. As before, they were sent randomly to inhabitants of Zanshaa who were not Naxids.
    PJ’s comm chimed as these operations were under way. He answered, then reported. “My smoking club. They’re going to be closed for a few days, till the damage is repaired.”
    â€œAnyone hurt?” Sula asked.
    â€œCuts from flying glass, a couple of sprained ankles, and one broken collarbone.”
    Sula sent another two thousand copies of Resistance on their way. “Did you ask what was happening at the Makish Palace?”
    PJ looked stricken. “I didn’t think to.” He turned to go back to the comm.
    â€œDon’t worry about it,” Sula said quickly. “It’s not that important. When they reopen I’m sure you’ll get the story.”
    The caterer arrived with a glorious meal for four, crisp duck served with a creamy eswod concoction and a tart sauce of taswa fruit. PJ offered the best of the Ngeni clan’s cellars to Spence and Macnamara, and afterward produced cigars.
    â€œThis reminds me,” Sula said. “What is your club doing for tobacco now that the ring’s gone?”
    PJ gave an unhappy shrug. “Make do with the local variety, I suppose.”
    The climate of Zanshaa, for some reason, did not produce first-rate tobacco. Or cocoa. Or coffee. Sula, as it happens, had used half her inheritance to purchase quantities of the best of each of these before the ring was destroyed, and had them shipped to the surface, where they waited now in warehouses.
    â€œI might be able to help them out,” she said. “But no thank you, I don’t smoke.”
    Afterward, Action Team 491 reluctantly left the Ngeni Palace for whatever lodgings they could find. They were supposed to be workers caught in the High City when the exits were closed, and it would be logical for them to look for a hostel to stay in—and Sula told her team to make certain they got receipts, in order that their stories be all the more convincing.
    Lodgings were indeed hard to find—there were plenty of genuine workers wandering from one place to the next, with their IDs scanned by police patrols every few blocks. Sula finally found a place by paying more than she suspected a worker could afford. There, she enjoyed another bath, to wash away the odor of PJ’s cigars, then slept on the broad, faintly scented mattress.
    In the middle of the night she heard the creak of a floorboard, then felt the pillow press down hard on her nose and mouth. She gasped for breath, but there was no air. She tried to claw the pillow off her face, but her hands were pinned.
    She sat up with a cry half strangled in her throat, her hands clutching at her neck. Her pulse thundered in her ears like a series of gunshots. She stared blindly out into the dark, trying to see the shadow that was her attacker.
    â€œLights!” she called, and the lights flashed on.
    She was alone in her room.
    She spent the rest of the night with the lights on and the video wall showing a harmless romantic drama that Spence would probably have adored.
    In the morning she rose and found that the road and the funicular had been reopened. Showing her identification and her receipt for a night’s lodging, she left the High City for the Lower Town. As she took a cab to Riverside, she saw a few copies of Resistance pasted to lampposts, each surrounded by clumps of readers.
    Buying breakfast from a vendor near the communal apartment, she learned that the Naxids had ordered their remaining hostages shot, then sent the