“You’re looking for Makemin?” That voice is thickly accented and ragged, coming from a strongly-built man in a long dark sweater, sitting on a canvas seat surrounded by nothing in particular. I go over to him. He smokes, and seeps the smoke out horizontally into the wind from his mouth.

“Wait ‘til you see what mood he’s in before you try to talk to him. If he dislikes you when he meets you, he’ll always dislike you.”

I introduce myself and he tells me his name is Silichieh. He’s part of Makemin’s unit—a veteran, although he hasn’t served with Makemin before. He shows me his green engineer’s armband. When I exhibit my red X’s, he pouts and says, “We’re both professionals,” smiling.

He has a broad square face covered in bristles and a rabbit mouth. I sit down on a low heap of bricks, and now his head is above me, against the oceanic sky. I tell him about my exemption problem and he nods philosophically.

“It’s an old story. Just don’t tell it to him—” whenever Makemin comes up, Silichieh points vaguely in the direction of one of the tents, “—no matter how good your case is he won’t listen, and things will be worse for you then. He’ll think you’re shirking.”

“Do you know where we are going?” Surprising I haven’t thought to ask this earlier.

“Meqhasset,” he says, and his eyes light up strangely. “You know Meqhasset?”

I shake my head no.

“It’s an island. We’re going to Port Conget; there’s a boat there we will take to Meqhasset.”

“Is it very far?”

“Not visible from mainland, but not far.”

“There are Yeseg on the islands?”

“Not yet, but Meqhasset—you don’t know?”

Again I shake my head.

“Well, it’s complicated. Meqhasset is federated with other islands. They’re all independent internally but they are all supposed to cooperate for each other’s defense, and they mount strong defenses, particularly their navy. Meqhasset is very strategically placed because it’s so close to land; from Meqhasset you can really have coastal control here, or pile up troops there to bring anywhere here. Now, lately business there is bad, money’s gone and so, when either we or Wacagan men cross into their waters, other islands’ navy don’t come around. With no money, there’s no help from anyone else, so now Meqhasset is vulnerable, and we race to see who gets there first. That’s why Makemin is so frantic to move.”

“I thought we were fighting to put down a Yeseg rebellion or something.”

Silichieh smiles. “No, no. It’s Wacagan versus Alaks again, as always. Wacagan are backing Tewsetonta, who’s King of Yesegs, and encourage him to break with Alak Emperor, so now Emperor is behind Tewsetonta’s brother Tewsetonka to take his place. Alaks and Wacagan fight through them. Taking Meqhasset is Tewsetonta’s idea, and now we are supposed to head them off before they can get it.”

He looks past me.

“There he is.”