The other two, who had remained silent, hooted in agreement. The human said nothing, watching the nervous prince with a placid expression.
"Yes, a chance…for the yi birds to peck your eye-sockets clean and dig their talons into your rotting entrails!" Bhrigu hopped from one foot to the other, then reached out his claw. "Very well. Give me our share. We will be ready on Nem-day."
"You will?" The kurbardar and the other two stared at the nervous one in surprise. "But -"
"He knows," Timonen interjected smoothly, retrieving the stack of envelopes and sorting them swiftly into four equal piles, "that if you do not stand together, you will each be buried separately." The blond head bowed to the little Jehanan. "Your friend here understands how to gamble."
Bhrigu flashed his teeth again, but took careful custody of the proffered keys.
"Now," the Finn said, affecting to wipe sweat from his forehead, "some small issues to consider when you attack the Imperial installations…"
All four Jehanan bent over the table and maps, eyes and ears attentive.
Within the House of Reeds Takshila
Gretchen sucked absently on her breathing tube, cheek pressed to the floor of the passageway. Dust tickled her nose and one eye was closed as she squinted into the viewer of her microscope. The lens-end of the tiny Ericsson 'scope was nosed into an almost imperceptible crack between the base of the doorway and the floor.
"No…" Anderssen turned a tiny dial with her fingers. The image expanded, swelling until she could see the pitted surface of the ceramic composite. "This seal is airtight. I think the door sets into a groove in the floor. To get an atmosphere probe inside we'll have to drill a hole."
"Hoooo…" Malakar shook her head slowly from side to side. The Jehanan was showing signs of oxygen deprivation. The long-fingered hands twitched intermittently. "Door is thick, very strong, like all these old walls."
"Yes, I'd imagine so." Gretchen rose slowly, running the 'scope along the edge of the door with long-practiced ease. The entire seal was tight, showing a remarkably well-turned edge to the door-frame and the portal itself. Disappointed, she folded up the 'scope and tucked it away. "Your ancestors built well. This" – she patted the door gently – "is as well machined as any human factory could make."
The old Jehanan made a leaky hissing sound. Anderssen reached down and picked up the gipu. The egg was weak and faint. Darkness lapped around them, reducing the shape of the gardener to pale bluish glints on scale and a tiny gleam in each eye-socket.
"We have to leave," Gretchen said, holding the ovoid to her breathing tube. "I don't have enough emergency oxygen for both of us to stay. We have to get up to a level where there's still some air circulation."
Malakar nodded weakly, hunching over and placing her hands – fingers splayed out – on the floor. Anderssen crouched, hooking an arm under the creature's shoulder, and heaved up. The Jehanan was surprisingly heavy.
"Here, breathe for a moment." Anderssen tugged the air tube further out of her jacket collar and slid the tip between blackened, diamond-shaped teeth. Malakar stirred, wheezing softly, and then was able to stand up.
"My thanks," she rumbled, still leaning heavily on the human.
Together, they shuffled down the passage, the wan light of the gipu shining before them. For a few moments, reflected light gleamed on the door, and then there was only stifling darkness.
By the time they had climbed the long stairs, Gretchen could taste the air freshening. Malakar's strength returned as well, and the gardener could make the last steps – the most worn, Anderssen thought, from the brittle concavity of the stone – under her own power. They passed through a vaulted doorway and Gretchen paused, running her hand across the door-frame. A deep, rectangular groove filled with cobwebs and dust ran down the center of the out thrust stone.
"Malakar – are all of the doorways like this one?"
The Jehanan turned, hooded eyes considering the opening. "In the lower levels. They are no longer cut so, above. There is no purpose – only old, traditional decoration."
"This…this isn't just decoration," Gretchen said softly, wiping away the grime. In the light of the gipu, something gleamed in the recess. Bending slightly closer, Anderssen jammed her hand into the opening and felt a cold, smooth surface under her fingers. Turning her palm over, she brushed grit from her fingertips into the cup of her hand. She whistled softly, seeing dark brown flakes against her pale skin. "This is rust."
"Hur hur!" The Jehanan trilled in amusement. "There is no – what are you about?"
Gretchen stepped around the side of the door and switched the frequency on her goggles. A UV wand clicked on in her hand and the human began running the light up and down the wall. Three steps along, she stopped and began knocking on the surface with her fist.
"There is nothing of use here," Malakar said, sounding irritated. "All of these passages are the lungs of a dead tomb. I should not have brought you here… You've told me nothing I didn't grasp before! Everything we were is lost, drowned in shadow. Hrrr…"
The knocking sound changed tone, ringing hollowly, and Anderssen tucked away the wand and brought out a wooden-handled chisel. Scraping the edge across the hollow section, she sketched a quick rectangle. A blow with the haft cracked the fragile surface, and then she picked away the rest with the tip.
The Jehanan stared in surprise as Gretchen, face intent, cleared away old paint and plaster from a recessed panel holding six indentations.
"This is just like the locking panel on the door down below," she declared, glancing sideways at Malakar, eyes shining gipu-blue. "All of the doors in the lower tunnels are like this. Mechanical locks – electrical locks – and pressure-tight portals. When they open, they slide up magnetic tracks into the ceiling… Every flooris perfectly even. Every wall curves so smoothly. No chisel and hammer ever touched these surfaces! The lower levels are filling with bad air because the air circulation system broke down thousands of years ago. Then the recyclers failed and no one knew how to fix them… The native bacteria ate away everything metallicit could find…"
Gretchen stood away from the wall, head tilted a little to one side. She stared at the Jehanan intently. "Do you understand what I'm saying, Malakar? Do you know where we are?" She paused, nodding to herself. "You do know. You remember, when all else have forgotten. Are you the only one who does?"
"Hoooo…" The Jehanan shuffled back warily. The head ducked down a little and turned, fixing the human with one gleaming eye. "Many things have been forgotten, some for the best! Your thoughts, this old one thinks, are too quick by far for your own good. A wonder your tribe has not cast you out! Abandoned you in the Cold Lands to starve and die…"
"You wanted answers," Gretchen said, alarmed by the creature's tone. "I've given you some. Now you'll give in return – trading like for like – this place, the 'hill of the mandire,' your 'house of reeds' – did it come from Mokuil? Are we standing in the bowels of one of the great ships which crossed the void? Was a Nem painted on that wall by the light of a green star?"
"Hrrrr!" Malakar lunged, catching Gretchen by surprise with long arms, throwing her to the ground. Enormous strength pinned the human down, crushing the breath from her lungs. Anderssen struggled, trying to break free. "What do you speak of?" Malakar bellowed. "How can an asuchau human know the sacred light, the star of our fathers, burns harivarpan – green as the first grass?"
"Ayyy!" Gretchen cried out in pain, feeling claws dig into her arm. "Mokuil has a hot green sun," she bit out, wrenching fruitlessly against the gardener's strength. Anger boiled up, casting discretion aside. "But your race-home is dead. A blasted wasteland tenanted by ghosts. A dead shell where nothing grows – no Nem, no hatchlings, no short-horns, nothing – only wind keening through endless ruins."
"Hurrrr…" Malakar slumped despondently and Anderssen pushed the creature away. The Jehanan swayed, clawed fingers scratching at the floor. "No, no, you are lying. A sly asuchau human, making stories, shadows dancing on
a wall – deceiving me. You cannot have seen the lost world. You cannot!"
Gretchen felt her arm, and clucked worriedly when her fingers came away damp with blood.
"Say you did not see…" The gardener's voice trailed away into a dismal fluting.
"Ahh…that hurts." Anderssen pulled one arm out ofher jacket and winced to see three deep gashes shining red against her pale skin. Her medband had dispensed a coagulant, but Gretchen snaked out a bandage and slapped the self-disinfecting pad onto the injury. "I have not seen Mokuil with my own eyes. A vision on a distant world let me look with a Jehanan's eyes, walk with their steps. In that moment, I felt the warmth of that hot, young star on my shoulders." One arm done, she turned and bandaged the shallow gash on the other as well.
"Do you exist solely to torment?" the Jehanan groaned, huddling against the floor. "You question and pry and sneak, you offer to separate shell from sac, truth from legend – and everything you say is a needle-sharp claw digging into my heart. Hooo… I did not believe in demons ere now! I scoffed – I raised my voice against the short-sighted Masters – argued – connived – stole to keep the old tales alive…"
Gretchen shrugged her jacket back on and began picking up her fallen tools.
"I should have listened to them!" Malakar wailed, inching away. "They knew better than this old one! They knew…" The whistling voice faded into unintelligible hooting and fluting.
Rising, Anderssen walked quietly over to the gardener's side, then knelt, putting both arms around her shoulders. "Come, rise up. Do you have a room of your own? A place to sleep? You need to rest, to eat."
"No…I have no khus." The old Jehanan tried to rise, failed, and then – with Gretchen's help – managed to come to her knees. "I will not work at the tasks they set me – so they let me lie by the fire in the common hall with the other vagrants. I am" – a deep hur-hur boomed in the broad chest – "not to be trusted with the minds of the hatchlings or short-horns. Too many tales do I tell, of kingdoms lost and days gone by." Claws folded over the Jehanan's snout. "Ahhh… Our losthome, our paradise, a tomb…all gone…gone…"
Anderssen heaved the gardener up to her feet. "You will be in worse trouble if I'm found here. Can you show me the way back to the terrace? I can get out from there."
A clawed hand folded around Gretchen's wrist and the Jehanan's deep-set eyes fixed upon her. "Why did you come here, human? What were you looking for when I found you?"
Anderssen's lips twitched into a wry smile. "What was I looking for? I was looking for a scrap of legendary shell. A memory out of the past. One of your stories. Something so old it would be new to human eyes. Even older than the Jehanan or the Haraphan. As old as Jagan itself."
"Hoooo…" Malakar whistled, nostrils flaring. "You are seeking the heart of the Garden! The false idol, the holy of holies which the blind worship, crawling before a dead god. You are looking for the kalpataru."
Anderssen nodded, one hand sliding inside her jacket and taking hold of the chisel. "I am."
"Worthless," the Jehanan said, puffing air dismissively. "Old accounts say the tree once gave every desire, revealed all secrets, elevated the mind as the gods might…but I know no Master of the Garden has been graced with its power for three hundred generations! This I know, though my old hide would be laid bare with barbed whips to say such a thing aloud."
"Have you seen it?" Gretchen said eagerly, before she could restrain herself. "Is it far away?"
"Hoooo! Your eyes are very bright, human! Your voice is quick, your little claws scratching at the wrapper of a sweet – very much like a short-horn, you are, very much."
"Your pardon," Anderssen said, bowing in apology. "Just show me the way to the terrace."
"Hurrr… A curiosity to confound the foolish…" The Jehanan paused, long snout lifting in thought, eyes glittering in the gipu-light. "Your machines…You wish to pry and snoop and listen and measure the tree-of-deceit, don't you? Yes, you do, all those hungry thoughts picking and chipping and breaking open shells to see what savory treats lie inside." A delicate trill escaped the creature's throat.
Gretchen watched the Jehanan with growing unease. There was a malicious tone creeping into the gardener's voice. "What happened to you?" she said after a moment. "You believed in the Masters ofthe Garden once, but now…now you think I'll prove the kalpataru is false. Will that give you back what you lost? You didn't seem pleased about the school-room…"
"I will never tend the Garden again," Malakar said, head dipping mournfully. "None of the others would allow such a thing. The short-horns and hatchlings are not interested in my dusty old stories. But this new Master…his snout is crooked and filled with lies! He says…he says the tree is still alive – but that only he can hear, that only he is blessed."
A frenetic energy welled up in the old Jehanan's frame.
"I think he lies," Malakar snorted, "but you can tell me the truth of the matter, can't you?"
Swallowing, her throat unaccountably dry, Gretchen nodded.
"Yes," she said. "If you take me to the device, I can see what can be seen."
The Cornuelle In Orbit Over Jagan
Two message-waiting glyphs – one from Engineering and one from Sho-i Smith – winked to life on Chu-sa Hadeishi's command display. As the communications officer had been ordered off the bridge, Hadeishi pointedly ignored the call from Engineering and thumbed open a comm pane to the junior officer's quarters.
The v-pane unfolded, revealing Smith – still in uniform, sweat-stained collar undone – sitting in the cramped workspace created by folding a JOQ rack into the bulkhead. Hadeishi could see Three-Jaguar lying on the bunk overhead, eyes half-lidded as she listened to a signal feed on a set of old-style headphones. A command-class comp was jammed in with her – a feat only possible because the Tlaxcalan woman was petite enough to fit sideways into a Fleet sleeping rack – and the display was alive with analysis diagrams and data flow patterns.
"Yes, Smith-tzin?" The Chu-sa kept his voice level, though he was irritated with the boy. Junior officers are supposed to sleep whenever they can, Hadeishi thought very piously, not stay up working late.
"Kyo, we've managed to trace most of this off-band encrypted traffic through the local comm networks. There is a locus and it's in orbit."
"Coordinates?" Hadeishi raised an eyebrow in interest. "A ship or a satellite?"
Smith punched the descriptors directly to the threatwell on the bridge of the Cornuelle. One of the heavy merchant ship icons shown on orbital path flared amber and acquired a targeting outline. The Chu-sa considered the shipping registry data on his sidepane.
"The Tepoztecatl…Six months outbound from Old Mars. Interesting…registration is up to date, port taxes paid, customs seals intact. Logs show daily shuttle traffic to the surface – expensive." Hadeishi brought up the secondary comm traffic data the two junior officers had collected and his face stiffened into impassive, glacial surprise. "This is an enormous volume of traffic… What arethey doing?"
"Video feeds, kyo." Smith glanced up. Jaguar nodded in agreement, eyes now open and following the conversation. She'd pulled the headphone away from one ear. "We haven't been able to crack their encryption, but the volume of data is so large they can only be passing realtime video from some kind of surveillance array on the planet back to the ship."
"Video? You mean they're processing intercepts from a fleet of spyeyes?"
Smith and Jaguar nodded. "There are hundreds of active comm channels in the traffic volume, and we think each one is a discrete camera. And, kyo, look at the source distribution…"
A map of the northern part of continent four unfolded on Hadeishi's command display. An orbital track designator appeared, showing the location of the Tepoztecatl, while clouds of brilliant points emerged on the map, clustering heavily in the large cities, but also liberally dusting the countryside.
"This covers every locale of size from Patala to Gandaris," the Chu-sa said in a thoughtful voice. He paused. "This level of covera
ge must be enormously expensive to deploy and maintain." Hadeishi glanced at the two officers. "Could we deploy this kind of network?"
Jaguar shook her head. Smith shrugged. "We've got spyeyes for the Marine combat teams and some extras for shuttle security and surveillance, plus spares, which gives us twenty. This network on the planet has – at last count from the data-stream – almost a thousand in operation."
"Then they're not documentary filmmakers," the Chu-sa said in a dry voice. He was beginning to get a tickling feeling on his neck. This sounds familiar, but where… "What else do we know about this freighter? Have they had any conversations with traffic control?"
"Minimal contact with traffic control," Smith answered. "All their transponder codes are squared away and they haven't moved orbit other than station-keeping burns. They seem to have four different shuttles aboard – or so Hayes-tzin guesses from their drive-flare signatures." Jaguar reached over Smith's shoulder and tapped up something on his panel. The Sho-i nodded, watching the feed come up. "Here, kyo – we shot some video of them as well – just to make sure we were tracking the data-stream properly."
A hand-sized v-pane appeared on Hadeishi's display, showing the long cylindrical shape of the Tepoztecatl with an edge of Jagan in-frame. The view panned, showing that nearly a quarter of the surface was covered with antennas and comm relay receptors. The Chu-sa grunted, not terribly surprised. "Looks like a Nightingale-class emissions collection frigate…" Then he squinted in interest at the display. Hadeishi tapped the 'magnify' glyph twice and then slid his finger back along the time-in-spool indicator. From a distance, the freighter seemed stationary, but the close-up revealed the cargo and habitat pods behind the screen of communications equipment were spinning.
"They've got spin up throughout the whole ship," the Chu-sa said, mostly to himself. "Why would they need gravity in all those cargo areas…" His eyes flicked back to the side-panel with ship registry information. "Manifest shows a crew of sixteen, but radiated heat load is high…"
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