(This is yet another prologue for yet another novel that I probably won't ever write. I want to do something funny! Or maybe return to Otter's world.)
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 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,” said the Teach, and poor Grego blushed to the roots of his hair and sat down.
Gregori to his credit lead us as we talked rationally about the intertwining of alliances that lead to the first great planetary war. Thandi pointed out that calling it so 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 in the dry season. And soon under the dust we could see the bump-bumping silhouette of a rider on horseback.
We get few visitors. Shuttles come (regular, announced, unmanned) to ship us off to keep ties with our families. Media turn up by orbital dropshot and attempt to do heartstring pieces on the Children of Peace. But there is only one reason to send a rider.
A war has begun.
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 Teaches come for us in the middle of the night.)
The Baltic Alliances were involved in a simmering language dispute with the Rus. Australia was attempting violent succession yet again (they do this with depressing regularity; there is rarely an Oz child here over five). India and the Mountain Glacial States; the usual thing. And my own Pan-Polar Confeds were bristling over fresh water rights, under threat from several of the American states 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 riders set out from the United Nations bunkers in Cheyenne. They are undefended 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 PanPol/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.
My little sister Margot was fidgeting with her hair. She saw me looking and stopped, and lifted her chin. She has real elegance or at least the potential for it.
Dropshots started turning up, flashing down from orbit and stopping neatly beside the landing spires. It would probably only be drones. Few humans cared to cover a declaration of war, and after a dozen decades there is a protocol to these things.
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. The Teach looked up as the Principle came in. We all stood and were glad to do it. Sitting is the hardest part.
“Children,” the Prince said, in his gentle, dusty voice. “I'm afraid there is bad news. It's an intra-American conflict: Arkansas has declared war on the Mississippi Delta Confederacy.”
“What?” said Sid. I had been trying to remember if he was from Kansas or Arkansas; that answered it. “Are you sure?”
This was inappropriate, of course, but even the Prince 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 this, 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 states 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. And a baby I hadn't even met, Ella Grace, daughter of the Arkansas Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Behind the rider, a Teach came in with Ella wrapped in UN-blue blanket, chubby arm waving vaguely.
“Children of Peace,” said the rider. “Come with me.” Sid took the baby in his arms. They went.
I vote for Otter. However you are funny especially when you put words and attitudes into animals. How about a book on bringing up Vivian told from Gus' viewpoint or a history of your condo told by the animals and pets. They have a lot of funny things to say about you and your neighbours.