Children of Peace: Chapter One
A world battered by climate shift and war turns to an ancient method of keeping peace: the exchange of hostages. The Children of Peace - sons and daughters of kings and presidents and generals - are raised together in small, isolated schools called Prefectures. There, they learn history and political theory, and are taught to gracefully accept what may well be their fate: to die if their countries declare war.
Greta Gustafsen Stuart, Duchess of Halifax and Crown Princess of the Pan-Polar Confederation, is the pride of the North American Prefecture. Learned and disciplined, Greta is proud of her role in keeping the global peace — even though, with her country controlling two-thirds of the world’s most war-worthy resource — water — she has little chance of reaching adulthood alive.
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We were studying the assassination of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand when we saw the plume of dust.
Gregori saw it first. In truth he spent most of his time in those days watching for it, his too-pale eyes flickering behind their UV screens. He stood up. It was hard to blame him for watching - he is the son of the minister of peace for the Baltic Alliances - but standing was clearly out of bounds. “Gregori, please,” murmured Brother Delta, and poor Grego blushed to the roots of his white hair and sat down.
To his credit, Grego lead us as we talked rationally about the intertwining of alliances that lead to World War One. Thandi pointed out that calling it a world war when whole continents were left untouched was irredeemably Eurocentric. We all agreed. And we all tried not to watch the plume.
Out on the prairies a single rider can be seen a long way off, especially during a dry spell, and that spring had been dry. It was some minutes before we could see the bump-bumping silhouette of a rider on horseback at the bottom of the dust plume.
We get few visitors of any kind — and only one kind comes by horse. The horseman would be a swan rider, a human in the employ of the United Nations. They were sent out to the Prefectures to present official declarations of war.
Which means that one of us was going to die.
We knew the possibilities, of course. We Children have little love for the media - they are always trying to turn us into tragic kittens for people to sniffle over - but we keep up, nonetheless. It is even encouraged. (It is certainly not true that the proctors come for us in the middle of the night.)
The possibilities: The Baltic Alliances were involved in a simmering language dispute with the Rus. Australia was threatening action against the Drowned States over refugee issues. India and the Mountain Glacial States; water of course. And water again: my own Pan-Polar Confederacy was bristling over rights to the remaining Great Lakes, under threat from several of the American power blocks to the south.
In any case, we behaved well. We debated whether the concept of total war (in Clausewitz’s sense) found its first expression in World War One, or if the German Wars of Unification could be considered early examples. And the rider came closer.
The swan riders are sent out from the United Nations bunkers in Cheyenne: the stone mountain that shelters the physical selves of the UN’s intelligences. They come by horseback, ceremonial and deliberately slow. There is plenty of time in the days it takes them to come here for brinksmanship, last minute treaties, and the like. But soon we could see the pale blue of the banner and the swan’s wings affixed to the rider’s back, and we knew this one wouldn’t be turning back.
No one else stood, though the debate flagged a little. Sidney Carlow, who would be one of those called out if it turned out to be an Pan-Polor/American conflict, tried to catch my eye. Sid has romantic notions about me. I think he is - inappropriately, of course - quite keen to hold my hand if our time ever comes.
Han was running one finger down the back of his skull, smoothing his hair into the notch in the back of his neck. He saw me looking and stopped. Silent as ever, Atta looked out the window like a rabbit looking at a snake.
Dropshots started turning up, flashing down from orbit and stopping neatly beside the induction spire. Just drone cameras. Few humans cared to cover a declaration of war: after four hundred years, the drama of the Prefecture has become a routine.
Classroom discussion — which had turned to whether the Peloponnesian War was total or whether its chronicler Thucydides was, as Sid would say, “full of shit” — came to a halt as the door opened. Brother Delta swivelled toward to the door as the Abbot shuffled in. We all stood and were glad to do it. Sitting is the hardest part.
“Children,” the Abbot said, in his gentle, dusty voice. “I’m afraid there is bad news. It’s an intra-American conflict: Tennessee and Kentucky have declared war on the Mississippi Delta Confederacy.”
“What?” said Sid. “Are you sure?”
This was inappropriate, of course, but the Abbot is kind and will give leeway in these moments. “Of course, Mr. Carlow.” And the rider came in. It was a new one, a white woman with a short black cap of hair and pale blue eyes, the same colour as the UN scarf she had wrapped over her nose, to keep out the dust. She unwound the scarf, catching it on the wings behind her head that she was clearly unused to wearing. She seemed unsure about whether to smile at us.
No one smiled at her. We bowed as one. The drone cameras had begun swarming outside the window.
The rider shook herself and pulled a scroll from her pocket, and began to read the names.
There were only four children from the small nations that had officially declared themselves as warring parties. Sidney James Carlow (James is a nice name) was the oldest. Ryan and Regan Huckabee, age 7, twins, children of the governor of the Delta. The Huckabee twins were held at one of the other Prefectures, but with us was a baby I hadn’t even met, Grace, daughter of the Bluegrass Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Behind the rider, a proctor came in with Grace wrapped in UN-blue blanket, chubby arm waving vaguely.
“Children of Peace,” said the rider, and her voice cracked as if with fear. “Come with me.” Sid took the baby in his arms. They went.
#
After one of us goes to the grey room, there is the impulse to pause. We paused.
Even the Abbot dimmed his facescreen screen to a neutral grey.
There were cameras outside the windows, and it was important to be conscious of that. We stood silently with our faces schooled still. And when we sat down we talked about optimum tariff structures until the viewer figures crashed and the drones flitted away.
#
My next rota was in the gardens. There are those, newly come to the Precepture, who think agricultural labor is beneath them. But even they need to eat, and in the end, everyone works. We even like the gardens, mostly: there are no proctors there. Indeed, we are entirely unmonitored, save for the Panopticon on its mast. We do not think it can hear us, though of course it can read lips.
My cell-mate Da-Xia and I, as the oldest Children on that rota, claimed the job of pulling hookworms off the young tomato plants. We grow tomatoes on a low trellis, which increases yield and decreases rot. It also means that plucking hookworms makes one’s shoulders ache, and the kerosene in the kill jars leaves an unpleasant smell on the hands. But it is a coveted job, even so: there is shade. And the trellis screens us from the Panopitcon.
Xie took full advantage, loosening the ties on her samue and piling up her hair. She twisted it and stuck a twig through the tangle and looked as elegant as a mythological figure, with her slim body and her graceful hands. I was conscious of the sweat prickling on my back and the frizz of my hair. Xie put the kill jar on the edge of one of the raised beds of chard and marigolds and started plucking hornworms. I did the same. Though we presumed ourselves to have privacy, we did not speak. It was hard, losing one of our number to the grey room. You should never think it wasn’t hard.
Through the lace of the tomato leaves I could see the dropshot cameras climb the induction spire and shoot upward into the bleached sky. Sometime the sun caught them and they looked like wires of light. One would streak up, a pause, another and then another. Whatever happened in the grey room must be over, though the rider’s horse was still slopping at the water trough in the shade of the tool shed.
Xie laced her hands behind her and pulled her arms straight until her shoulders cracked. “Do you ever think…?” she began.
And I got ready to deny that I ever thought about the grey room. About how exactly they killed us. What difference did it make? I was ready to say.
But Xie surprised me. “I know you liked him,” she said.
“Who?”
She scrunched her face. “Sid. Obviously.”
“Sid? He did —” I found myself taking apart a marigold with my fingers, unaware of it until the sharp smell stopped me. “He did well enough.” Hereditary rulers, like Da-Xia and like me, usually do well when we are called to the grey room. The children of generals and presidents, like Sid — sometimes they scream. “He did well.”
Xie smiled like the Blue Tara. “That’s not what I mean.”
My voice came out rather cool: “Well, what do you mean, then?”
“I’m not saying you were off playing coyotes,” she said: this was the school euphemism for meeting outside, after dark. “I’m just saying: he was sweet on you. And you didn’t mind. All things are relative, and from you, Greta Gustafsen Stuart, that is practically a declaration of undying love.”
“My marriage will be dynastic,” I said, severely.
Xie shrugged, and picked up her kerosene again. “So will mine,” she said. “But in the meantime, I have eyes.”
I almost snorted. Eyes were the least of it. Playing coyotes? She was the queen of the pack.
“Say his name with me, Greta,” she coaxed, meeting my eyes over the rim of the kill jar. “It won’t kill you. Just say it.”
I took a deep breath in. The kerosene smell from the kill jar made my eyes water. For a moment I could not speak. A red-tail kerred high overhead. Only after I closed my eyes could I find my voice: “Sidney James Carlow,” I said. Xie said it too.
It was all the funeral any of us was ever going to get.
#
In defiance of the principe that power flows upstream, Tennessee and Kentucky lost their war with the Mississippi Delta Confederacy. Perhaps the Delta’s strategic drinking water reserves offshore of Baton Rouge held. Perhaps the desalination plants saw them through. I have not studied the matter closely, though of course any war over water catches my attention somewhat.
In any case, the Bluegrass States lost, and lost badly, broke up along watershed lines, and were partially absorbed into the Delta Confederacy. A regional shakeup followed, with (relatively) peaceful civic uprisings replacing governments and reshaping alliances. Things settled into two loose regional alliances, with the Delta and the Flooded Curve in the south squaring off against a new alliance called Cumberland: the eastern parts of Tennessee and Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, holding influence to the mined out bed of old Lake Erie. Which put it just over the Pan Polar border.
With the new power blocks came new leaders. And some of them had children.
#
I wonder what it would be like to be sent here.
In my own case I do not clearly remember it. I was born in Halifax, and I am sent there twice annually, but it is not my home. I am never at ease there: the citadel hill seems to loom. The sea is restless. The sky is too small. In Halifax I am interviewed and bowed to; my parents kiss me and it feels strange. In Halifax I have to wear shoes indoors, and elaborate clothes with boning that leaves red lines on my skin. There I am Her Royal Highness Greta Gustafson Stuart, Duchess of Halifax and Crown Princess of the PanPolar Confederacy.
When I come here the prairie sky opens up over me. I fold the Crown Princess away like linens into lavender, and I am Greta again.
My family has been hostaged here for generations. The portraits of those who have been called to their duty here are like stars on the dark panelling of Halifax Citadel: scattered among the kings and queens in their dark pleated tartans, children in the white work cloths of the Hostage Precepture. They are honored. When I was small I thought they were angels.
But those who come here, without those generations at their back: I think for them, it must be hard.
#
I was out milking the goats when the shuttle landed. Actually several of us older Children were there, and Thandi and Han were having a debate about with wisdom of goats. Of keeping them, I mean, for goats are undoubtedly wise — or at least clever. No matter how you corral them, you can count on one gorging itself on pickling cucumbers or eating the diapers off the laundry line about once a month. In any case, Thandi was just getting going on the historical role goats play in desertification — starting indeed to slip into a speech entitled Goats: The Scourge of History — when Gregori interrupted: “Look!”
There was a perfectly round cloud on the south-eastern sky.
I was for a moment startled: no shuttles were scheduled, and all shuttles are scheduled. But the bullseye cloud grew quickly bigger, and soon we could see the pinpoint glint of the shuttle its center. Someone was coming here. The compressed-air deceleration rockets gave the little ship a halo of ice and rainbow, which came down toward us until it filled half the sky — huge and shining, a visitation of angels. There was still no sound.
The whip-crack of the sonic boom crashed over us. Then more silence.
The goat I was milking turned then and butted me. Han gave up on the grand conclusion to his counter argument Goats: Some Of Us Like Cheese You Know and helped me haul the pan of milk to the dairy. Thandi and Grego forked in some silage into the pen. We washed our hands at the pump and headed without speaking toward the grey bulk of the Precepture Hall.
By that time the shuttle was right above. It slipped its eddy coils neatly over the induction spire and shed the last of its energy, gliding to a stop in the scrub grass. By then we had drawn the obvious inference: a new Child, or perhaps even Children, were coming. We had heard the Cumberland Alliance leaders had squabbled over this, had dragged their feet: none of the leaders of the new state wanted to risk their children to the Prefectures. But of course that is the point of hostages, and has been since the days when the kings of medieval Europe exchanged their sons to secure a treaty. The Cumberland leaders will know, as every leader in the world knows: go to war if you must, but do so with the knowledge that your children will be the first to die.
We lingered, perhaps a bit more than was strictly proper, over the process of handing over our outdoor tabi to the door proctor. Soon the little AI unfolded extra arms, ready to be more efficient. Its pincers clicked on the ancient flagstones, as if it were drumming its fingers.
I was the last to come in — we had sorted the order with no visible negotiation, and I, as one of the oldest, and much respected, had been granted the privilege. I sat on the bench outside the door and peeled off the thick-soled toe-socks, and waited for the passengers to disembark.
Three maintenance spiders swarmed over the little ship, checking this and that, until one of them dangled itself over the door and fired the bolts. The door clunked and hissed and swung open.
A single Child came out. A boy, I thought, and was proven right later, a boy of about my own age. I had at first only an impression of him: wearing something dark (a shock to the eyes, that), black hair falling across his face, his skin the color of healing bruise. The ship’s steward was at his side, a spindly thing like a preying mantis. It had one hand clamped around his bicep. The boy was all hunched up, his body tense as if space sick, his hands clenched together in front of him, almost as if —
No, not almost. His hands were lashed together at the wrists.
I froze, shocked.
The door proctor, by this time, had collected everyone’s shoes and was waiting for me. It came out and straightened its jointed legs so that its visual sensor could sweep my face. Proctors have no facescreens, so it is hard to judge their moods — but I should not make excuses. I was not attending to the proctor, nor to my duty. I was watching the boy, the new Child. His skin was not the yellow brown of a bruise: rather, it was brown, and he was bruised. Limping as if a knee were wrenched. One of his bound wrists swollen. The AI was dragging him along. I caught a flash of his dark eyes: appeal, defiance, like a slave at auction —
My tabi were forgotten in my hand. The door proctor whirred and clicked, and then when I did not respond, even to that, it prodded me. The electricity made my arm jerk and clench, and I am afraid I may have cried out. My hand spasmed. The boy shouted something. The tabi fell from my numbed fingers and the proctor collected them. Hastily I stumbled to my feet and followed it inside.
Han and Thandi and Grego were still standing in the transept waiting for me. They had seen everything, of course: their eyes were wide, shocked at my disgrace.
The proctor ducked into an alcove and tucked my shoes in the appropriate cubby. No teacher came, so evidently the proctor had not written a demerit for me. Still, my inattention would cost me standing. Grego, who had recently disgraced himself too, gave me an awkwardly kind smile and changed the subject. “Is it the shuttle from the new American alliance? How many did they send?”
“Just one,” I said. My fingers were still trembling. “Just one.”
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