House of Reeds ittotss-2

by Thomas Harlan

  The Chu-sa stared at the door to the bathroom for a long moment, then gave up on the thought. Too tired. I'll take a long shower in the morning. We can afford the water entropy – we'll have our supplies replenished within the week… Shedding the rest of his uniform, he crawled into bed. Hadeishi was asleep within moments of his head touching the rice-husk pillow.

  A little later, the steward stepped quietly into the bedroom, folded up the crumpled uniform to be cleaned and pressed, and shifted the sheets to cover Mitsuharu's chest. Yejin scowled, face nearly invisible in the fading light, thick fingers brushing across a fresh hole in the cotton sheet. There were others, carefully mended, but the fabric was nearly translucent with wear.

  The Imperial Development Board Warehouse Sobipuru Spaceport

  Chief Machinist's Mate Helsdon thumbed the ident panel of a crate marked with Fleet colors and raised an eyebrow in interest as the contents listed themselves. "Microcell power units, six dozen? These will fit in our field equipment and shuttles. You don't need them?"

  "Already replaced." The shop foreman shrugged, waving his hand at the wall of shipping containers the Fleet engineer was examining. "They sent us sixteen satellites for a first-tier global information grid, along with replacement parts to cover five years of attrition and the shuttles to place them in orbit. Ten of the satellites failed within a week of going operational, so then they sent us another sixteen – but of a different model!"

  Helsdon nodded, bending down to examine the bottommost crate of a dangerously tall stack. Despite the efforts of his shipsuit to adapt to the climate, he had to wipe sweat out of his eyes before he could read the manifest. "Sensor relays, type nineteen. Are these in good shape? We could use hundreds of them…they run our automatic compartment doors."

  "Like I said," the foreman chuckled, lank dark hair tied back behind his head in a ponytail. Watery blue eyes glinted with amusement. "This whole wall is redundant material. Small equipment power cells, replacement comm panels and nodes, synchro-tracking lasers, the works! The development board director wants me to surplus the whole lot to the slicks as an economic stimulus project. But between you and me, Helsdon-tzin, I'd really rather trade for something I can use."

  "Trade?" Helsdon frowned, fiddling with the environmental controls on his shipsuit. Normally, the temperature regulators built into the millimeter-thick fabric under his uniform shirt and pants kept him nice and cool. The shop foreman didn't seem to mind the heat – he wasn't even sweating. "What kind of equipment do you need?"

  "Well," the foreman frowned, "what I really need is a whole 'nother cargo shuttle – the humidity here breeds a bacterium capable of metabolizing hexacarbon – and if I had five or six hundred Macana auto-rifles and ten thousand rounds of 8mm caseless, I could raise the cash to buy one…" He raised a placating hand at Helsdon's grimace. "But! But…I've no d esire to hand the slicks something that will wind up aimed at me, so the real thing I could use is whatever scrap metal you might have on hand."

  "Scrap?" Helsdon gave up on not sweating and feeling miserably hot. "We've suffered some battle damage. We planned to dump the wreckage…"

  "That," said the foreman with a broad grin, "is exactly the kind of trade goods I can use."

  "So," Helsdon said, scratching his jaw and turning on an earbug channel to the ship. Thai-i Isoroku would be interested in this bit of bartering. "How many square meters of hexacarbon steel are you looking for?"

  The Petrel Estate

  Despite Chu-sa Hadeishi's suggestion that she attend the Legation party in a traditional furisode-style kimono, Kosho stepped out of her groundcar in a straight, knee-length black silk dress. Conceding a non-Fleet, civilian occasion, she did not pin up her hair. She also dispensed with her usual command bracelet, settling for a comm-thread disguised by foundation and blush powder on her cheek. A chevalier-style jacket disguised a palm-sized shockpistol. Two silver bracelets obscured her medband.

  Rain threatened, charging the air with the sharp smell of imminent thunder. The sky over Parus was clogged with fat, dark clouds as night advanced. By the time her car was within sight of the estate, Kosho decided to get out and walk. Strings of globe-lights atop the walls gave her an unmistakable heading. A great crowd of locals milled about at the edge of the security perimeter. An instant festival had sprung up on the sidewalks, complete with carts and canopies, and vendors selling steaming drinks, roasted meat, and confections of all kinds. The peculiar cinnamon smell of the Jehanans mingled with wood smoke and boiling tea in the sweltering twilight.

  Fleet ID and the invitation passed her through to an ivy-covered gate. The mansion sprawled within a rectangle of crumbling red-brick walls. The one-and two-story buildings themselves looked quite old to Susan's eye, but she couldn't tell if this was by design or circumstance. The customs of the rich often ran counter to what she considered common sense.

  A stream of party-goers crossing an ornamental garden carried her towards the main house. Servants were waiting to take coats, hats, ornamental cloaks, and umbrellas beneath the shelter of an imposing entranceway flanked by tall granite statues. The figures were Jehanan, bulky, muscled bodies carrying the lintel of the doorway on their shoulders. Kosho made a face at the overwrought tableau as she passed into the vestibule, a very small purse in hand.

  Beyond the entryway, the main, hexagonal hall of the house rose towards a lofty ceiling circumscribed by a mezzanine-style balcony. Old-style chandeliers supporting clusters of shimmering paper lanterns hung down on long cables. Dozens of slow-moving fans stirred the air. The wavering light, reflecting across the ribbed vault of the roof, reminded Susan of sunlight dancing on the walls of a sea cave.

  She guessed there were nearly a thousand people packed into the room, and found a section of wall to stand beside, out of the press of traffic. Humidity and constant noise enveloped her, pressing tight against her flesh. Within a heartbeat, a servant appeared before her with a platter of drinks. Politely, Susan took one – something amber-colored, which she hoped was beer – and waved him on.

  Interesting, she thought, scanning the multitude of human and alien faces. Not as disturbing as the Admiral's Dinner, but telling in its own way. She could pick out only a handful of Fleet officers – the white dress uniforms were hard to miss among the splashy colors of the natives or the rich garments of the civilians – but there were quite a few groundpounders in evidence. As she expected, they formed their own reefs of dark olive uniforms amid the sea of civilians. Kosho judged most of them to be of Mixtec extraction, if the profusion of strong noses, mahogany skin and visible tattoos was any guide. …or Indian, she corrected herself, spying a tall infantry officer with a spade-shaped, belt-length yellow beard, sharp nose and turban wandering past.

  The drink proved to be a passable lager, but far too warm for her taste. Another passing tray won the glass back. Kosho found herself considering elaborate tortures for Chu-sa Hadeishi.

  I do not like parties, she remembered. And this is a very lively, but disorganized party. Worse, the training of her childhood nagged at her conscience. You should introduce yourself properly to the host and hostess.

  Her disgust at feeling guilty about proper protocol must have shown on her face. A middle-aged human, a European with short, sandy blond hair, moved into her field of view. "Surely the beer isn't that poor…" he started to say, then paused with a startled look on his face.

  Kosho realized she was considering him in the same way she scrutinized the unsatisfactory work of junior ratings. Not polite, ko-ko! A voice very much like her grandmother echoed out of memory. Say hello. Introduce yourself. Even a gaijin deserves so much.

  "Your pardon, sir," Susan said, very stiffly. She offered a very small bow. No more than required by common courtesy. "Lieutenant Commander Susan Kosho, IMN Henry R. Cornuelle."

  "Really?" The man's fine-boned face lit with surprised delight. He bowed in return, rather more deeply than necessary. "How unexpected! What brings you to Jagan? You know…"

  Th
e familiar tone in his voice touched off a flood of nausea. I feel trapped, she realized, eyes flicking from side to side. There are too many people here. This room is too big. Those windows are open. Why is this person talking to me?

  Without another word, she turned on her heel and made her way back through the latest arrivals. Everyone she passed seemed appallingly cheerful. Overhead, on the mezzanine, a troupe of native musicians began tuning up their instruments, filling the air with an atonal wailing and clashing sound. The Jehanan nobles present lifted their heads in interest. A hissing and clicking undercurrent to the sound of human voices rose.

  Puzzled and surprised, Johann Gemmilsky, once the Librarian of the refinery ship Turan stared at her retreating back. "…I was just wondering how Captain Hadeishi was doing…" His voice trailed off in dismay. "Good to meet you in person!"

  Shaking his head, Gemmilsky turned around, a tumbler of vladka between thumb and forefinger. "Very disappointing," he sighed. "Quite a striking woman."

  His eye fell upon two brawny Jehanan tribal chiefs, flat, spadelike heads wrapped in unusual red, purple and magenta haylan. They were deep in discussion with a tiny, old Mйxica woman in a black shawl and traditional beaded dress. "Hello! A pair of Arachosian nabobs come down from the hills… Now that is interesting… I wonder if they've brought strings of sprinters for sale?"

  The Pole took a quick swig of his Chernei Gyooz, nodded genially to a chattering crowd of Lencolar Sisters pressing around him and began circulating towards the chieftains with commerce on his mind.

  Kosho stepped out into the garden with a sense of enormous relief. She had not realized how hot and close the hall had become. Even the still-warm night air was a relief. Walking quickly away from the servants in the entryway, she dabbed the sides of her neck with a cloth. I never sweat! Am I falling ill? She realized her fingers were trembling.

  Concerned, she checked her medband, which showed little but calm green lights. Her heart rate was well above normal, but everything else was fine. Perfectly healthy. What is going on?

  Kosho turned, looking back at the dazzling lights, and saw she'd automatically followed a bricked footpath winding through ornamental hedges of native flowers and imported fruit trees. Lemon, pomegranate and hibiscus were thriving in the thick, humid air.

  Susan stepped back to the edge of the porch, trying to make herself re-enter the house. The atonal wailing of the orchestra had faded away, replaced by a sprightly, soaring sound like the wind rushing through golden aspens.

  "This is their music?" she said aloud, surprised by the clean, clear sound. The alien instruments changed pitch and tone, now evoking a rushing freshet cascading over mossy stone. She could feel the vibrations tremble in her skin, almost in the bone itself. Oh, Mitsuharu should have come – he would love this!

  At the same moment, Susan became aware of a tight, constricting sensation in her chest. That's just impossible. I haven't been claustrophobic since I was a little girl. But the feeling was the same, even worse for the cloud-filled sky above her. I serve on a tiny Fleet ship every day! So what if there are a thousand people crammed in there, people I don't know, people…oh.

  She suppressed a sharp stab of irritation, nostrils flaring, and was filled with relief no one else from the ship was present. Despite the security risk, she'd left her Marine escort with their transport. Kosho had no idea how vigorous the local thieves were, but she assumed there were thieves, and three well-armed Marines should be able to defend the groundcar she'd signed out of the Sobipurй motor pool.

  Heicho Felix, Susan was sure, would laugh if the imperturbable Sho-sa admitted to suffering from 'miner's disease.' She triggered a mood stabilizer from the medband. To appease the yurei of her grandmother, she made sure her dress hadn't become stained. She still had her purse. Satisfied with her appearance, Kosho decided to take a leisurely walk through the gardens – which seemed quite beautiful, if difficult to appreciate in the footlights – while her serotonin and endorphin levels evened out.

  Perhaps, she allowed to herself, waiting for a gap to open in the stream of garishly dressed civilians passing by, we were out in the dark for too long. Two years of treading the deck without a friendly shore in sight, dealing with marauders, slavers, angry miners, Megair corsairs, the Khaid…No wonder the Chu-sa found the Admiral's dinner party so disturbing.

  Now she was a little concerned, wondering if Hadeishi's report had been overly colored by this same tricky sense of paranoia. Susan considered calling the ship on her comm and having Smith run a racial-source analysis on the battle group personnel lists, and then remembered the communications officer was groundside, seeing about shore-leave housing for the crew.

  A strikingly alien-looking creature – something like a jewel-crusted mantis – passed into the house and Kosho stepped onto the tiled walkway before realizing everyone had fallen silent for a reason. The kind of supernal calm which crept upon her in the midst of battle threatened, and she turned to see what was going on.

  "Stand aside, ma'am." A very alert Eagle Knight with a craggy face was there, motioning for her to step back. Kosho did so, returning the man's polite nod, and one slick black eyebrow rose in alarm at the scene unfolding behind him.

  A slim young man advanced grandly down the walkway, head held high, chest rippling with platinum scales, long dark hair threaded with gold, turquoise silk pantaloons billowing around his ankles, and a maroon cape fringed with clattering jade slung carelessly over one shoulder. Another Eagle Knight clad in the darkest possible civilian clothing was moving just behind his shoulder, wary eyes flickering across the faces of the goggling onlookers.

  Behind the young man, a huge crowd of giggling, barely clothed courtesans, jugglers, magicians and smug-looking junior officers spilled from the walkway into the gardens. Kosho blinked, took two steps back and stiffened to attention: the reflexive action of an officer confronted with the queasy horror of higher command authority outside her usual chain of command. Worse, the man was an Army officer.

  Unmistakably, the Imperial Prince Tezozуmoc had arrived.

  The prince's party swept past Kosho with a blare of laughter, leaving a cloud of alcohol fumes, stimulant smoke and eye-smarting perfume in their wake. Two junior Army officers bumped into her, then saluted cheerily. The boys were holding up a civilian youth of comparable age, though he was wearing only a blue serape, one sandal and a liberal amount of octli liquor. A great deal of shouting followed as everyone tried to crowd into the vestibule.

  Servants converged from all directions and Kosho caught a glimpse of a tall, assured-looking woman with black hair slashed with white. She appeared from nowhere and took the prince's hands in greeting. Then the jugglers were in the way, tossing lighted brands through the lines of lights hanging from the ceiling. A cloud of smoke wicked up into the red dome.

  "Enough entertainment for me, I think." Susan turned away. Many of the people in the garden flocked to gawk at the prince and she strode quickly towards the vine-covered gate, relieved the prince had neither seen nor recognized her.

  That might be embarrassing, she thought, amused. Susan began to grin at the thought, her humor improving. Assuming he remembers being six years old anymore.

  "Sho-sa Kosho?" A vaguely familiar voice called out. Susan looked up and almost laughed aloud. The monkeys of circumstance are playing tricks tonight.

  A familiar-looking blonde woman of medium height and pleasantly even features was in the archway, bowing and smiling in greeting. A balding servant stood behind her, making a belated, but proper bow.

  "Doctor Anderssen," Susan replied, matching the bow. "A pleasant surprise."

  "The pleasure is ours, Sho-sa. The Chu-sa and your crew are well?"

  "They are." Susan relaxed a little. Doctor Anderssen had been their guest on the Cornuelle during the investigation of certain mysterious events on the planet Ephesus Three. Despite some trying times, the xenoarchaeologist had proved herself circumspect and polite. Kosho approved of her, which was not al
ways the case when civilians were concerned. In the intervening two years, the xenoarchaeologist seemed to have lost a little weight and spent far too much time outside in the wind and sun. She seemed a little uncomfortable in a formal dress. Kosho understood how she felt. "You've just missed meeting Prince Tezozуmoc of the Imperial House and all his friends."

  "We saw him." Anderssen bowed again, but Susan could see she was hiding a grin. "His arrival delayed ours. We couldn't even cross the street."

  Kosho looked out, seeing the traffic had grown much, much worse. A large number of expensive-looking groundcars of Imperial manufacture filled the avenue in front of the mansion. Jehanan drivers were hissing curses at one another and honking their horns. Legation security was trying to clear the traffic, but with little effect.

  "There is still time," Susan said, keeping her voice low, "to return to your place of residence and spend a productive evening watching holovee or playing cards."

  Anderssen choked back a snort of laughter and covered her mouth. "Thank you for the astute advice, Sho-sa, but I received an invitation from the lady of the house and it would be impolite to disappoint her. And…" Gretchen sighed, revealing a flash of irritation. "…there is someone I am trying to find. I hope he will be here."

  "I see." Susan began to feel uneasy again. The blare of the car horns and shouting was beginning to fray her concentration. She tapped her cheek, waking up the comm-thread. "Good luck, Anderssen-tzin. I must warn you, however, the mansion is large – and very crowded. Good evening."

  "Good evening," Anderssen called after her, obviously puzzled. "Best wishes to…"

  The rest of the sentence was drowned out by the raspy shouts of Jehanan street vendors. Kosho left the crumbling sidewalk and slid sideways between two battered thirty-year-old Scandia panel trucks. The comm-thread woke to life with a tingle under her jaw.