House of Reeds ittotss-2

by Thomas Harlan

  "We're doing just fine…you're the famously unknown Anderssen?"

  "I am." Gretchen felt Parker stiffen behind her. "Doctor Gretchen Anderssen, University of New Aberdeen, forensic xenoarchaeologist…"

  "A Company pit-rat, you mean." The tall one in front's skin was flushed with sweat. "Come sniffing around our work…looking to steal enough for a publication, Anderssen? They don't let you do much real work, do they? Shouldn't you be carrying jade for your husband?"

  "I think you'd better just step back," Parker said, pushing past Gretchen, who had been struck speechless. "And apologize."

  "Parker…we're guests here." Anderssen felt her heart start to race and her fingers found the comfortably smooth surface of her medband. Adrenaline churned through her bloodstream. She triggered a calmedown. "I won't disappoint our hostess by starting a brawl. Good evening, gentlemen."

  The Mйxica spread his arms, blocking their path. He smiled, showing fine white teeth. "We're curious, Doctor. I'm sure you've seen wonders on the Rim, while you were scurrying here and there, stealing crumbs to take back to Old Mars. Why don't you…"

  Gretchen felt her breath slow and the room faded a little.

  Crepuscular gray light vomited from an ancient doorway, hurling her backwards. She hit sand, tumbled and staggered up. The Sif shockgun was still smoking in her hand, making elaborate curlicues of smoke in the terribly thin air. Someone was shouting, but a howling roar of static filled her ears. Monstrous shapes boiled out of the tunnel, striding forward on countless joined legs, a forest of spike-like tendrils dancing above translucent, half-invisible bodies.

  "…share them with us?" The post-doc jammed his elbow sharply into Parker's chest. Gretchen stepped aside, her face tight and composed, giving Parker room to catch his balance.

  "I am here on vacation," she snapped, voice very cold. "A personal guest of Legate Petrel's wife, Greta. If you wish to discuss your work at Fehrupurй with a professional, I advise you to contact the local Company offices." She stepped forward and the tall Mйxica, surprised, gave ground. Gretchen swept the rest of them with a scathing look. "Tend to your trenches and alluvial assays, children. Drink less and think about your work more."

  Without waiting for them to react, she pushed between two of them on the left. Even as she started to move, Gretchen felt them give way. She'd known they would back down. Known just these two were too timid to seize her arm, too drunk throw a punch. Reaching behind her, she seized Parker's arm and dragged him through the opening.

  She heard a confused shout from behind, but did not look back. An avenue opened in the crowd and she was striding effortlessly through a gyrating, constantly moving throng of brightly dressed people. A path opened before her with the movement of their bodies, a random, confused dance without pattern or form. Parker was trying to say something, but the words felt slow. They failed to reach her attention, which was focused on moving without thought, reacting without contemplation.

  Gretchen was in the vestibule, feeling the rain-cooled night wind on their face, when the sharp feeling collapsed, some unimaginable equilibrium disturbed. She felt sweat spring out all over her body and nearly tripped on the step. Her fingers cramped painfully and she released Parker's arm. The pilot was staring at her, eyes wide.

  "Mother of Christ…damn, boss, that hurts!" The pilot rubbed his arm, wincing. "How…how did we get out of there?"

  "Never mind. Let's go." Anderssen ducked her head, embarrassed, and hurried out. Oh, Sister, where did that come from? Her stomach turned over, knowing too well what had happened. I thought I'd forgotten all about…those things. "I'm very tired."

  "Sure…" Parker followed, looking over his shoulder. The gay, cheerful mob filling the hall seemed impenetrable from this vantage. Hundreds of people engaged in drinking furiously, talking nonstop, filling the entire chamber from wall to wall. "How did we…?"

  Standing near the buffet tables, Itzpalicue's head rose, eyes narrowed in sudden interest. The old woman stared around warily, ignoring a coterie of Imperial merchants babbling away about rates of exchange and tonnage loads of used groundcars. They were all very pleased with the appetite of the Jehanan for their wares.

  What was that? Something in the charged, drunken atmosphere had changed. A ripple. A wave counter to the current swirling around the hall. That was not what I was looking for…something else. That felt familiar.

  Excusing herself, Itzpalicue made her way stiffly up a staircase curving onto the mezzanine. One wrinkled old hand on the railing, she stopped at the first turn in the stairs. Below her, the crowd was a dizzying array of brilliant colors, flashing metal, somber uniforms. The old woman licked her lips, eyes almost closed, leaning on her cane, tasting the air, feeling sound rushing around her in a palpable, physical wave.

  Gone. Whatever had disturbed the familiar pattern of avarice, fear, lust, hope and despair charging the air had vanished from her frame of perception. Did someone leave?

  "Lachlan?" She turned her head, hiding her lips from anyone in line of sight. "Ident trap everyone in the garden, minus five minutes. Someone leaving the party, perhaps in a hurry…felt human, but get me…"

  Another change in the air – a spike of imminent violence shot with sharp, inhuman rage – snapped her head around. A ripple of reaction was spreading through the crowd, though the Mirror agent doubted most of the humans below were even aware of their instinctive movement away from unseen danger. The splashpoint was a salon on the far side of the hall and something there – an enraged Jehanan, she realized – was about to draw blood.

  A sound like a steam pipe bursting caused Tezozуmoc to spring backwards, heart racing. The Jehanan female he'd been trying to converse with made an equally alarmed squeak in a fluting voice and scuttled sideways, pale rose skin turning a bruised orange color. As the prince whirled around, all he saw was a blur of black cotton as the taller of his two bodyguards hurled himself into harm's way. There was a clang! of steel on aluminum and the Skawtsman was driven back into Tezozуmoc's chest. The prince went down with an oof and his face flushed red as he gasped for breath. Then he started to wail in fear.

  The bulky shape of a Jehanan loomed over the Skawtsman's shoulder, long triangular mouth agape, exposing multiple rows of triangular teeth. A cruel scar puckered under the creature's left eye-shield, twisting like an enraged snake. A fetid stench of rotten meat and spoiled grain alcohol rolled over the prince, making him gag. Colmuir struggled, shoulders grinding back into Tezozуmoc's breastbone and arm, to keep a stabbing sword locked against the hand-guard of his Nambu. The point of the gleaming blade jutted over his shoulder, aimed directly at the prince's forehead.

  "Kkkkrrrr-ich! Khay-gu, izh-huma!" The Jehanan shook his massive head, ornamental eye-shields bouncing, a rippling shirt of copper rings stretched tight against scaled pectorals.

  "What does he want?" Tezozуmoc squeaked in fear.

  "Wants…to kill you…mi'lord," the Skawtsman bit out, both hands locked tight on the grip of the Nambu. "Shouldn't have touched the lass…urrgh!"

  "I didn't do anything!" The prince's voice was squashed down to a frail whisper. "She was…urk…just singing for…me!"

  "Hhuh-hen yehr," a careful voice intruded. Sergeant Dawd appeared behind the Jehanan, a short-barreled automatic rifle in his hands. The flash-suppressor of the weapon jammed into the side of the native's neck, just behind the jaw joint, where heavy plate-scales protecting the face, cranium and chest faded away into pebbly stretch-skin. "Ghawww-yeh."

  "What is he saying?" Tezozуmoc wasn't trying to whisper, but his vision was blurring with black sparks as his lungs compressed under the weight of both the muscular Skawtsman and the bent knee of the Jehanan. "Oh, mother…I'm dying…"

  Shocked silence was broken by a babble of voices. Vaguely, the prince made out the smooth, controlled voice of the Resident speaking rapidly in the same barbarous, guttural tongue. The pressure on his chest eased fractionally. Dawd withdrew, the assault rifle disappearing under his black coat.
The sergeant seemed very tense. He should lie down, Tezozуmoc thought, his head spinning. Like me. Very comfortable. Heavy, heavy blankets they have here.

  Colmuir eased back his pistol, wincing to see the hand-guard had been nearly cloven through, and spread his hands, eyes locked on the black, glittering pits which served the Jehanan for optics. The stabbing sword remained exactly poised, needlelike tip aimed directly at the prince.

  Resident Petrel, elegant face sheened with sweat, leaned in, talking quietly to the Jehanan. Colmuir, catching the gist of the conversation – his command of the Parusian dialect did not match Dawd's easy mastery, but it served – rolled carefully over, shielding the prince with his body. At the same time, he plucked an ampoule from a stickypatch inside his armored jacket and jammed the drug dispenser against the side of Tezozуmoc's neck.

  "Oh now, not fair…" wheezed the prince, eyelids rolling up. His body shuddered and fell limp on the floor. Sweat slithered down Colmuir's nose and spattered across the boy's gilded shirt.

  "Oh, Saint Mary of the Angels," the Skawt muttered, waiting for the wickedly sharp sword blade to plunge in between his shoulder blades. He had a sinking feeling the ablative, armored mesh would not stop the ice-pick-like stroke for more than a heartbeat.

  The guttural exchange between the Resident and the Jehanan general was now a three-way conversation as Bhrigu, kujen of Parus, had arrived, and the sound level was rising very, very quickly. The prince hopped nervously from one foot to the other, complaining loudly to Petrel in a mishmash of NГЎhuatl and Jehanan. The Skawt could feel more people – men in Army dress boots and trousers – crowding into the salon. All of the prince's 'new friends' had fled.

  Dawd edged into Colmuir's field of vision, pudgy face lit with a kind of inner glow. "Nice party, Master Sergeant? The Governor's got kujen Bhrigu calming down his man. Apparently the bonny lass is regarded with protective affection by General Humara there. But we need to get his highness out of here immediately." Dawd peered at the boy's face. "Knocked him out, did you?"

  "Aye." Colmuir rolled sideways, saw the massive shape of the Jehanan soldier had withdrawn. A solid wall of Mixtec officers – though none of them were armed with more than carving knives snatched up from the buffet tables – was between the limp, sweaty shape of the prince and a steadily growing crowd of hissing Jehanans. The rose-tinted female had disappeared. "Didn't take much. Don't see how the lad can drink, smoke and drop so much in one night…"

  "Youth," Dawd grunted, slipping one arm under Tezozуmoc's. Colmuir took the other side and together they sidled off, heading for the servants' entrance at the back of the entertaining room. A tall, well-dressed woman with white-shot hair held the door open for them. She looked down at the prince with a pensive expression as the two Skawts hustled him into a brightly lit, tile-floored maintenance corridor.

  Itzpalicue watched the bodyguards dragging the prince away in an eyecast v-pane transmitted by a spybug loitering near the roof of the kitchen corridor. She sniffed with longstanding amusement. Her opinion of the prince had not changed in years. "Well, he certainly livens up a party, doesn't he?"

  Will he live? a female voice replied. The old woman nodded, marking the efficient way the two Skawtsmen were moving the body.

  "Of course," Itzpalicue said quietly to the empty air. The mezzanine balcony had emptied with amazing speed once word of the altercation lit through the party. An excited buzz throbbed in the air as hundreds of people chattered madly about what they imagined they'd seen. "He's young and took no direct harm. Worse for his liver, to judge by the prodigious quantity of stimulants he downed this evening. But I suppose he'll get another fresh one."

  He was sweating like a malaria victim when he greeted me, Mrs. Petrel said in a concerned tone. Does he spend all of his time like this?

  "Probably," the old woman answered drily. "With the Light of Heaven for a father? This son is not cast from the same alloy as the others. But no matter, more fuel for my fire. We'll make sure he gets home safely this time. Can't have him dying in some sordid brawl over a joygirl – that would not play well on the holocast nets, no indeed."

  Bhazuradeha is no courtesan. Greta's voice was very sharp. She may be the finest poet in this generation of Jehanan – certainly the most talented in Parus. General Humara was enraged because she was singing part of her new composition, Skythe-Color-of-Birthshell-Fragments, for the prince. They were verses the general had yet to hear – and among these people, such things are touchy matters. Humara is particularly sensitive.

  "A few stanzas were cause for attempted murder?" Itzpalicue bristled at the implied reprimand in the woman's voice. "Over poetry?"

  Over an impromptu audition. Bhazuradeha is very ambitious. Humara feared the prince would become her patron in his place.

  "Not a very discerning woman." The old Mйxica snorted into her hand. "What would she want from our dissolute boy?"

  To be elevated beyond the reach of these squabbling petty nobles. The safety to speak that which is in her heart. In time, holocast access via the Development Board's new satellite network. The chance for her words to reach millions of her fellow Jehanan, rather than merely the tens of thousands who gather to hear her recite in public.

  "Tens of thousands?" Itzpalicue said in disbelief. "For a poet?"

  If Nezahualcoyotl of Tetzcoco were alive today, how many of your people would wish to hear him read Nitlayocoya or Song of Flight in person? A hundred thousand? A million?

  "That's entirely different. The Doomed Prince was a Mйxica!"

  Of course.

  Itzpalicue terminated the conversation and switched back to the operations channel. She did not enjoy being mocked. Frenetic air surged around her like a living sea, making her tremble with reflected excitement, fear, rumor and adrenaline. She started a breathing pattern to slow her heart before she lost focus.

  "Lachlan? Yes, you saw? Good. The crowd is nearly hysterical right now…patch me through to the Whisperers downstairs…" There was soft tone in her ear. "Instant rumor, little mice: There is a secret Imperial archaeological mission on Jagan, seeking to steal certain artifacts…"

  The Cornuelle Over The Northern Pole of Jagan

  A large v-pane on the wall of Hadeishi's office displayed the threatwell feed from the bridge. A mass of ship glyphs in a variety of colors stood poised at the center of focus. The Chu-sa was only paying partial attention to the chatter on the Fleet channel; too many lists and rosters and status reports spread out on the table between him and Kosho demanded his concentration.

  "Transit kick in three…two…one…" The voice of Thai-i Hayes was calm, collected and a little bored.

  The threatwell convulsed as local space distorted. The cloud of lights wavered, climbing rapidly into gradient, and then vanished abruptly. A side-glyph flashed as the Cornuelle's main sensor array went active, scanning a vast empty globe around the transit point. Two minutes passed as the Chu-sa paged through readiness reports, lips pursed.

  "Transit zone secure. No debris. No gravitational anomalies." Hadeishi heard the senior lieutenant straighten up in the command chair as he activated a wideband transmission channel. "Attention all ships. Imperial battle group Tecaltan has made transit. Bharat system traffic control reverting to IMN Henry R. Cornuelle. Please verify orbit and routing status…"

  Hadeishi turned down the sound. Duke Villeneuve and his weekly dinner parties had departed, leaving the Cornuelle the sole Fleet presence in orbit around Jagan. For some reason, the Chu-sa felt a weight leave him. He grunted at himself, causing Kosho to look up, dark brown eyes questioning over the top of a stack of repair and maintenance requests.

  "I feel," he said in answer to her silent question, "as if we've stood down from alert status."

  Susan laid down a lengthy report discussing repairs to the Officer's Mess. To other eyes, she would seem perfectly composed, but Hadeishi saw a frown hiding behind her smooth features. "Chu-sa, there are persistent rumors of trouble groundside. Now we are alone again and
our armaments are drawn down to almost nothing. No backup. Not even a frigate to extend our sensor range…our crew exhausted…"

  "I know." Hadeishi shrugged, offering a tiny smile. "I still feel better. We're used to operating alone. I wait with interest to see if Nineteenth Fleet responds to my latest readiness report in a timely fashion, or if another battle group arrives from the direction of Keshewan with sobering news."

  "You still think Villeneuve is making transit into a trap? That the Admiralty purposefully gathered every suspect captain into one group, so they could all be exterminated at one go?"

  "I suspect – but I do not know – such things have happened before."

  Susan frowned openly. "Chu-sa, I disagree… If those captains carried the 'black mark,' then the Mirror would disappear them one at a time. Quietly. Without anyone noticing. It's insane to let them form a battle group, complete with resupply ships, a fleet mobile repair dock, everything they'd need to flee…or fight."

  Hadeishi shrugged again and put down the v-pad. He rubbed his temples, feeling a headache start to come on. "True. But something is going on…I'm getting a gitchy feeling."

  "Kyo…" Kosho paused, wondering how much she should push her captain. "Have you considered going groundside with the first shore-leave contingent?"

  "Should I?" Hadeishi gave her a questioning look. "Do you feel I've been cooped up on this ship for too long?"

  "No one," Kosho said, after another pause, "has carried more responsibility than you for the past twenty months. Despite Isoroku's grumbling about his workload, I would feel better if you put yourself on the first rotation. Did I tell you about the musicians I heard?"

  Hadeishi lifted a hand. "Sho-sa, you're avoiding the question. Do you think my ability to command has been reduced by a lack of…recreational activities?"

  "I cannot say that, kyo." Susan stiffened.

  "No, you cannot!" Hadeishi sounded irritated. "In some situations, that could be construed as mutinous. I will go with the last rotation, as I've already made clear. It is traditional for the captain to go last, so last I will go."