"What's all this?" Anderssen switched to her local comm as she crouched against the fence, one hand tight on her duffle, the other shielding her face from a whirlwind of grit kicked up off the tarmac.
"It's the Fleet," Parker shouted in reply. He had not turned away, dialing the magnification on his lenses up as high as it would go. "It's not a combat drop…unit markings are still visible under the cockpit windows. A rampart lined with skulls…I think that's the Tarascan Rifles. An Arrow Knight Regiment."
Another flight of four shuttles cut through the clouds, increasing the deafening blast of noise, wind and fumes battering at them. The first set had already rolled to a halt near the main terminal and fore and aft cargo doors were opening.
Parker watched silently as armored combat tracks rolled down into the hot Jaganite afternoon, squads of men clinging to the sides or jogging out of the cavernous holds in long, professional-looking lines. After a moment, he looked up, ignoring the next wave of shuttles coming in. Sure enough, high in the sky, glinting between the streamers of cloud, there were fresh stars burning in the daylight sky.
"Boss…" His voice was a little hushed on the comm circuit. "Did you know Fleet was about to put the hammer down? Here, I mean, on this piss-poor world…" The pilot turned, staring down at Gretchen with a sickly look on his face.
"Parker." Anderssen started to chew on her lower lip, then forced herself to stop. "The Company decided we should come here. End of story. Get your bag, the line's moving."
A noisy, restless crowd pressed against Gretchen on all sides. The cinnamon smell choked the air, making her gasp for breath. Outside the Customs House – a suffocatingly warm hall with a dirt floor and no chairs – was some kind of a public transit station. Enormous metallic conveyances, smooth curves covered by thick, irregular layers of pasted-on advertisements, sat huffing exhaust beneath corrugated metal awnings. A huge mob of the reptilian Jehanan – scaled heads adorned with eye-shields in violent greens and blues, slender arms filled with packages bound in twine – were jostling to climb aboard.
"Which one do we need?" Gretchen had both arms wrapped around her package – the duffel with her gear, clothes, tools, books and papers – and was squeezed in between a nervous Parker and an awake, furious, agitated Magdalena. None of the buses bore Imperial lettering, only the flowing, curlicued native script. "Can we get an aerotaxi?"
"I don't think so," Maggie growled as the motion of the crowd pushed them between two wooden pillars supporting the nearest sun-shade. The bus idling in the bay was easily seven meters high with a bulging glass forward window. The original color of the metal seemed to be a pale, cool green, hidden under layers of grime, glue and paper scraps. Gretchen couldn't swear to her guess about the color. There was more of a sense of flowing water in the smooth outline of the vehicle.
"See?" the Hesht snarled at the sky, where the bloated red sun was suddenly obscured by the whining shapes of aerotaxis flitting past, heading northwest. Parker cursed, spitting out the crumpled remains of a tabac. Human faces stared down out of the open windows of the jetcars. One of the Imperial officers – their black uniforms were clear to see, even from below – waved jauntily at the vast crowd below. "We're on the wrong side of the river for anything to be quick…"
"Yes…" Gretchen slowed to a halt, staring up at the muddy copper sky, watching a veritable armada of aerocars speeding past. For an instant, just the time a drop of water took to plunge from the mouth of a faucet into a sink, everything seemed to slow to a halt. The chattering, rustling shapes of the reptilian Jehanan ceased to move. The hot, humid air held suspended, each droplet of moisture falling from the underside of the metal awnings caught in mid-motion.
I've seen this before. A woman in a feather mantle was smiling down at me. What does -
Then everything was moving again and they were swept past the green bus towards another rank of smaller, harder-angled conveyances.
"There!" Parker started pushing through the crowd. "That one has a sign in Imperial! Mother of God, it's a hotel shuttle bus!"
Gretchen breathed a sigh of relief and followed, leading with her duffel.
High above the flock of aerotaxis, an Imperial troop carrier roared north along the line of the Sobipurй-Parus highway. In the cargo bay, Sergeant Dawd clung to a strap, boots braced against an enormous pile of luggage – the prince's 'personal effects' – buried in green-and-tan cargo webbing. The carrier jerked and shuddered as it swept through pillars of white cloud. The sergeant swayed, wondering how the prince was doing – the boy had managed to sneak a flask of something smelling like industrial solvent aboard. He'll be sorry, Dawdmusedashekeptwatchoverthebaggage.
The hatch to the forward seating compartment cycled open and Master Sergeant Colmuir swung through, shaking his long angular head in dismay. The older man's uniform was liberally stained with yellow-green bile.
"Bit bumpy," Dawd commented, staring at the overhead. "Have a bit of a problem with lunch, Master Sergeant?"
"I did nawt." Colmuir tugged at the webbing over the luggage. He grimaced, stolidly ignoring the long streak of vomit drying on his chest, torso and leg. "Not all Army officers have the steady stomach God gave me." The master sergeant gave Dawd a flinty stare. "An' you'll not repeat such words in any other company, Dawd, not if you value your time in service."
"I do!" The younger man bowed in apology. "Just…never mind, Master Sergeant. I'll keep my thoughts to myself."
"Good." Colmuir held Dawd's gaze for a moment, then looked down at his jacket and shirt and sighed. "Ah, the lad is a study of extremes, isn't he? Has the constitution of a mule for a week's carouse with old man pulque and sister mescal – then can't even keep oatmeal down on a bit of rough air. I am derelict in my duty, I am, hiding back here with you and the hat boxes."
Dawd grinned. "I'll not put you on report, Master Sergeant." He paused, looking forward towards the troop compartment where a good thirty Imperial officers of the 416th were packed in like Avalonian salt herring. "He is an odd one, isn't he? Not what I expected…"
"No…" Colmuir removed his ruined jacket and shirt, revealing a rangy frame matted with bristly black-and-white hair. A faint patchwork of quickheal scars described a lifetime in the Emperor's service. "I've not been here much longer than you, Sergeant. Only a few weeks. I am given t' understand the previous detail was sacked under acrimonious circumstances."
"That's very surprising," Dawd said with a straight face. "Were you briefed?"
"Nawt a word. Just my assignment papers and a new billet." Colmuir dug around in his pack and found a fresh shirt. "Th' prince himself has provided my education. And he is a right educational lad isn't he? Rarely have I seen such a bitter, despondent fellow – particularly one so young. Makes one wonder what made him that way, doesn't it?"
Dawd nodded, his mind fairly boggling at the thought of a young, handsome man – an Imperial prince of the ruling house, no less – grown angry as some crippled old soldier from the bayside pubs. A frown gathered, drawing bushy black eyebrows together. "Master Sergeant, have you met his brothers, his father or mother?"
Colmuir snorted with laughter. "You're trying to balance upbringing against bloodstock, are you? I've the same thought, from time to time. I can tell you this – rumor in the guardservice has it that the boy has never even spoken to the Empress, nor she to him. If you read your guard protocol manual again, lad, you'll see there are orders to ensure she and the boy are never in the same location at the same time. If you look closer – an' I have – you'll see the orders came down from 'er side."
The master sergeant shrugged in response to Dawd's quizzical look.
"Rarely does he see his brothers either – and they are a braw lot, breathing fire every one of them – not a bit like him, d'you see? I have, to balance the scales, seen his father. The Emperor is a proper gentleman, if a bit pinch-faced, an' you can see he cares for the boy." Colmuir sealed up his shirt and rummaged for a pressed jacket. "But respects him? Tha' I do not know."
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Dawd's next question was interrupted by a chiming sound. Colmuir threw on the jacket, checked his comm-band, grimaced, and scrambled back through the hatch. The younger man turned his attention back to peering out the window at passing clouds. The edges of a city were now visible through breaks in the thunderstorms, covering the valley floor with a rumpled quilt of flat roofs and isolated skyscrapers.
Rain drummed against a cracked window beside Anderssen's head. Outside, the afternoon downpour was so fierce she could barely make out the shapes of trucks rushing past on an eight-lane raised highway. Inside the bus, she, Parker and Maggie were crammed into a long bench at the very rear of the vehicle. The leather upholstery under her thighs was cracked, discolored and burning hot to the touch. Some kind of multicylinder hydrocarbon engine rattled and wheezed beneath her feet.
"How long until we get into Parus?" Gretchen peered over the pile of duffels between her and Magdalena. The Hesht was folded up, chin resting on her knees, eyes narrowed to angry slits.
"Rrrrr…" Maggie's nose wrinkled up in disgust. The bus smelled old to Gretchen – dry papery sweat, rotting onions, newly washed linoleum – and she was afraid to ask the Hesht what she thought of the odor. "Too long!"
"How big is this bonus again?" Parker was jammed in on the other side of the Hesht, his legs sticking out into the central aisle. An enormous Jaganite filled the rest of the bench. The creature seemed to be asleep, eye-shields lidded down over milky lenses, clawed hands clasped over an ornamented leather vest covered with hundreds of enameled disks. Supple skin around the long nostrils fluttered with regular breaths, though the pattern sounded dissonant to Anderssen's ear. "Can we leave here really soon?"
"Not as soon as we'd like. All the Company note said," she said, leaning closer to the other two and lowering her voice, "was to get here and apply for a survey permit. After we get to the hotel, and get something to eat, and get some sleep – then we'll worry about getting papers."
"And transport," the Hesht rumbled deep in her throat. "I'm not walking in this heat."
"My job, I guess." Parker started tapping his tabac case against one knee, then realized the pack was empty. "Not much to fly down here. I'll bet the Fleet grounds all air traffic as a 'precaution,' even if we had the money for an aerocar. The brief didn't say anything about a military exercise? Maybe an invasion?"
Gretchen shook her head. As was usually the case with the Company, there was little or no briefing material. Costs money to make a proper survey! Can't have that kind of waste…
"No, but all of this happened so suddenly I wouldn't be surprised if some genius at the home office heard something from someone and decided to take advantage."
"Of what?" Maggie's eyes slid sideways to glare suspiciously at Anderssen.
"Of us being done with the project on Shimanjin." Gretchen leaned back against the hot, trembling seat. She was very tired. There was a med-band around her wrist – no Imperial citizen traveled without one – but it was winking amber and red with warnings about local microfauna trying to assault her system with each breath. No wakemeup for me today! "And nearby – as things go, in stellar distances – and the Fleet arriving for whatever reason. I mean, I'd guess if we have to get a survey permit then they need us to examine some Mother-forsaken wilderness, looking for 'anomalous readings' or something equally helpful."
Parker frowned, peering over Maggie's furry, night-black shoulder. "Wait, you mean – for you to just wander around we need a permit? Do we really need that? I mean, Mags here is pretty sly with her surveillance equipment. We could just get an aerocar or ultralight and see the sights…"
Anderssen did not reply, giving the pilot a stony look.
"Oh, okay." Parker slumped back down behind the Hesht. Maggie snorted, flaring her nostrils in amusement. "Be all legal then…"
"We will follow the Company directive and get a permit." Gretchen let out a long, slow hiss. Outside the rain-streaked window, traffic was slowing and she could just make out lights – long strings of glowing neon – rising in the murk. Buildings. We're finally in the city. Oh, I hope there aren't a hundred k of suburbs or something… I suppose it is rush hour, too.
Horns started to blare outside, traffic slowing, and the bus shuddered to a near-halt. Delightful, Anderssen thought, five hundred light-years from home…and stuck in traffic.
Fat drops of rain spattered on the landing platform tucked into the northeastern corner of the Imperial Legation as Sergeant Dawd set foot on Jehanan soil, head up, attention on the ornamental trees surrounding the aerocar pad, one hand on his Nambu and the other extended to guide prince Tezozуmoc down from the aerobus. The transport was steaming in the humid air, fans whining dully. This was apparently the last stop of the day – the other officers had been dropped off at the Imperial Army cantonment south of the city.
"Where are my men? Where are my brave warriors?" the prince declared, striking a commanding pose, long nose in the air. He was wearing his second-best field dress uniform, which featured a dashing cape and an enormous amount of gold and jade trim. Rain hissed away from a built-in repeller field, surrounding Tezozуmoc with a corona of mist. "I cannot rest until I've seen to their needs! Food, a hot meal, every soldier a bed for the night. I will lie down on the cold earth with them if need be, drinking day-old kaffe from a canteen, sharing their struggle hour for hour, day for day – even the sound of the guns will not dissuade me from my purpose! Even -"
Master Sergeant Colmuir coughed politely, motioning for Tezozуmoc to step away. The prince scowled, but moved aside for the taller man to step down to the tarmac as well. Two Fleet ratings were pulling bag after bag from the cargo compartment, steadily piling up a huge collection of armored, dent-resistant grav-lifted luggage.
"Mi'lord," the older Skawtsman said patiently, "you're attached to the Tarascan Rifles as a diplomatic aide – the voice of the Emperor, as it were – not as an actual commander with actual, ah, troops."
Tezozуmoc's lips curled bitterly and for an instant, Dawd thought the prince was going to strike the master sergeant. Then the boy's face congealed into a tight mask. "Oh. Well, then, where do I sleep?"
"The Legation itself, mi'lord," announced a Marine corporal in a dress duty uniform who had hurried up while they were talking. He was carrying a large black umbrella. "Yaotequihuah Clark at your service, sir. Legate Petrel has provided rooms for you in the Guest House. Our finest accommodations, you may be assured."
The corporal nodded to Colmuir. "You've rooms directly adjoining, Master Sergeant. If you'll follow me?"
Dawd held back, keeping an eye on the baggage. The rain was starting to pelt down hard, cutting visibility to a dozen meters or less. He could taste half-burned methanol and oil in the air. The prince was whisked away, Colmuir and Clark on either side. The sergeant followed, both automatic pistols out and in his hands. The Fleet ratings guiding the cavalcade of floating luggage didn't notice – they were concentrating on keeping the prince's baggage from wandering off into the rose bushes or getting hung up in the trees.
Magdalena stared around the hotel room in a tight-lipped, tips-of-her-fangs-bared way far too familiar to Anderssen. They were on the fiftieth floor of a crumbling concrete tower in south-central Parus. Gretchen had been struck, as they walked down the hall to their room, by the wear pattern on the floor. A shallow basin nearly four centimeters deep described the middle of the passage. The room was low ceilinged, dark and very musty.
"Well," Gretchen said brightly, "this is nice." She was looking for somewhere to put her duffel. Jaganite budget hotel rooms seemed to have been designed by Russian efficiency experts. There were no chairs, only high beds on heavy wooden frames and medium-height tables reminding her of spindly armoires. Given the tripodal, tail-heavy stance of the natives, Anderssen realized there might not be any chairs on the whole planet.
That's odd. She was suddenly struck by the seating arrangements on the bus they'd taken from the shuttleport. Was that a human-built vehicle?
> "Hhhhhrrrrr!" Maggie's tail twitched sharply from side to side. "Parker is happy – I think his whole clan have laired here with their nose-biting smoke."
The pilot ignored her, peering curiously at a mechanism controlling a set of louvered blinds over the windows. Gretchen dumped her bag on the foot of the smallest bed – both Maggie and Parker were taller. The pilot tried one of the buttons on the face of the device and was rewarded with a whining groan from some kind of pulley system.
"This won't blow up, will it?" He poked another button and the blinds shivered into motion, rotating out to reveal a view of the rain-soaked city below. At the same time, a gust of damp, chilly air blew into the room. The pilot grimaced, then started to cough. "Urgh. Smells like a benzene cracking facility. How long are we staying here?"
"One night." Gretchen had opened the 'bathroom' door to stare at an uneven tiled floor, rusty drain and complete lack of a bathtub with horror. How would some giant lizard-thing with a tail like a third leg take a bath, o child? Her eyes swung unerringly to a bin along the wall. Sand. They abrade their thick, scaly skin with sand. What a nice scraper made of stone. Oh blessed Mother of Our Savior, deliver me from working off-world.
"Tomorrow," she declared, "we're going to find someplace catering to human tastes. I promise. Well, you two will find a place to stay while I visit the Legation and see about our permits."
"These beds are not soft," Magdalena declared, having stripped away a coarse blanket to reveal a metal frame holding a suspended net of stout-looking ropes. "I do not like hummocks. No. Not at all."
Parker started to correct the Hesht, caught Gretchen making an 'are-you-stupid' face and turned back to staring out at the rain. Parus at sundown was a forest of tall, round towers with softly glowing windows. The local ceramacrete tended to dusty red. Coupled with the setting sun, the city was being swallowed by a foreboding, sanguine night. The pilot squinted through the murk – individual storm cells were visible, pelting the crowded, twisting streets below with rain so thick it made patches of early darkness.
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