Land of the Dead

by Thomas Harlan

  The Prince nodded, clapping his hands lightly together. “That would seem a puzzle, save I have an answer.” He smiled tightly at the Chu-sa, an expression which made the little hairs on Gretchen’s neck rise.

  “That pale, nervous Anglishman you’ve got stowed away in Engineering—yes, I know where he is—give him the telemetry from your passage through the Pinhole and he can reconfigure your sensors to reveal the spiderweb trapping us.”

  Beyond a slight nostril flare, Koshō showed no reaction. But Gretchen could feel the woman’s entire body stiffen from across the room, and the answering surge of pleasure in the Prince. What a foul dog he is, she thought, watching the two of them as from a great distance.

  “Helsdon is not wholly himself—”

  “All the better,” Xochitl snapped, “near-mad as he is may prove to your advantage! I am taking Anderssen here into the artifact, Chu-sa, while you find us a way out of this hole. Is that perfectly clear?”

  “Hai, Gensui.”

  Anderssen felt an enormous surge of delight, like golden honey welling up within her, suffusing her arms, legs—even her thoughts—with anticipation.

  * * *

  Two hours later, Koshō looked up at a soft tapping at the door to her private office. “Enter.”

  The door slid open and Green Hummingbird stepped in, his feet bare, attired in a simple Fleet undershirt and off-duty trousers. Without his usual cloak and hood, he seemed surprisingly small—until one met his dusky green eyes and then his true stature asserted itself.

  “Chu-sa Koshō,” he said politely. “A word with you, if I may.”

  “I believe,” she said, rising and stepping to the door, “that you were confined to the brig, by order of the Prince Imperial himself.”

  No one was in the corridor, though Susan was unpleasantly aware that nearly every centimeter of the Naniwa was under surveillance by some kind of recording device.

  The old Náhuatl nodded. “I am. Thank you for your concern for my comfort. Your hospitality has been most adequate, but I am on my way to pay respects to the Esteemed One and shall not keep you further.”

  With that, he made a polite bow and then slipped out the door again. Koshō stared after him, wondering if she should summon the marine ready squad, have the nauallis clapped in chains and then, perhaps, locked in a room for which there was no key. But then, she thought, starting to feel rising amusement at the thought of seeing the Prince’s face when the escape was discovered, he would wrinkle his way out of that, too. I wonder … Another thought brought her up short. Does Hummingbird believe he will cheat death, too, in the end?

  Juggling the possibilities in her mind, Koshō came to the unpleasant conclusion that letting the nauallis go about his business without interference was less dangerous than following the Prince’s orders. Particularly since she was quite certain that Hummingbird knew what he was doing, even if she couldn’t stand him personally. However, she thought, I do need to keep an eye on the future.

  Susan then went to her console and tapped open a channel to the brig. The marine officer on duty responded immediately, his young face intent and dutiful.

  “Heicho Adamsky, has someone thought to provide the prisoner in cell one with something to eat?”

  Then while she waited for the alarms to sound, most of her attention was on the supply manifests Thai-i Goroemon had forwarded up from Logistics for her review. They were desperately low on every kind of munitions, and only marginally better off for parts, meds, and food. Six months of supplies left, eh? Only if you don’t get a quarter of your stowage vented by a penetrator.

  * * *

  Some time later, the tramp freighter Moulins maneuvered out of the rear cargo hold under its own power. The ship had been hurriedly resupplied with water, food, and other perishables. Reaction mass for the engines had been topped off and Prince Xochitl, his remaining Jaguar Knight, Doctor Anderssen, and a handful of marines borrowed from the Naniwa were on board. In the cramped Command space, Captain Locke and his pilot were watching the external cameras and docking control status with a weather eye. The Prince and his bodyguard had appropriated the Navigator and Comm officer’s seats and were glowering at the backs of the Europeans during the delicate maneuver.

  Gretchen watched them all from the hatchway while the ship was decoupling, then left them all to stew and banged downdeck to the cargo area where all of their luggage had been piled by the middies from the Naniwa. Her duffle had disappeared, to her disgust, under an enormous quantity of marine gear.

  And, she thought, rather morosely, here I am again on this damned tiny ship with these fanatics.

  Locke had accepted this new commission without protest, having apparently spent his time in the brig playing cards and smoking a succession of foul Novo French cigarettes. Now free of the battle-cruiser and at the helm of his own ship again, his hostility towards the Prince and the Fleet marines cluttering up his decks was banked, but simmering. Löjtnant Piet was doing less well at hiding his antipathy, but Xochitl apparently did not care, showing not the slightest awareness of their anger.

  They’ll find a way to get along, Anderssen thought cheerfully, dragging olive-gray duffels aside. “There’s my—oh, what the hell are you doing in there?”

  Beneath the pile of luggage, with his head resting on Gretchen’s field pack, Green Hummingbird had made himself a bit of a nest using a pair of folding kitchen tables. As she moved aside the last of the ammunition crates with a grunt, his lips fluttered with a soft snore.

  “Does the Prince know you’ve come along, Crow?” Anderssen pinched his brown old ear as hard as she could. The old Náhuatl opened one eye, squinting at her, then sat up carefully and eased out of the tiny space under the tables.

  Briskly chafing his wrists and ankles, he observed: “Tlatocapilli Xochitl is noted for his admirable qualities in battle, not for his legendary acumen. Chu-sa Koshō, on the other hand, is beginning to understand how to operate in the wide world, as befits a gifted student with an excellent master.”

  Gretchen shook her head, retrieving her pack. She began digging through the compartments, confirming that everything she’d stowed was still in place and undamaged. “Why did they send him then? They knew what was out here, right?”

  Hummingbird shrugged. “I believe he was judged the most expendable of the Emperor’s sons.”

  “More so than the one that’s always on the 3-v? Tezozómoc the Glorious?” Anderssen was appalled.

  “Not all stone flakes the right way,” the old man replied, pulling on a pair of boots he’d lifted from one of the other duffels. “What use is a pretty piece of flint if it cannot take an edge?”

  “And Tezozómoc can?”

  Hummingbird did not reply, instead he dug around in the bottom of his gear and came up with a plastic container filled with cheesecloth. Holding the jar up, the old Náhuatl turned it this way and that, checking the contents. Then he turned back the lid, smelling the small egg-sized rounds inside.

  “Lady of Light!” Gretchen coughed, eyes smarting. “Those are strong! Is that opium? What the devil are you doing with a basket of knuckles?”

  He smiled serenely at her, tucking the container inside a field jacket he’d stolen from someone, somewhere. “My traveling companion needs a little coaxing to leave his shipping container.”

  Anderssen shook her head in dismay. “You know, Crow, I had a friend who had a fascination for doing archaeology in the ancient home of the Chichimecas. It was always dangerous, uncomfortable work. The land is harsh, the people were poor, running contraband was the only way to make money. All social hierarchies began and ended with some pilli in his fortified house surrounded by an army of goons. Not the kind of lord who likes strangers—particularly inquisitive ones—to come knocking around.

  “But Harriet especially liked taking a gaggle of impressionable students out to do big ground surveys and to excavate just enough of an old city to intrigue the historical agencies, who would then give her more money and permit
s to do whatever she wanted so they could learn the next bit of the story she was telling. I think the reason she did it was because the challenge of facing sudden death and coming home with the bacon got her out of bed in the morning.

  “As long as I knew her, she specialized in visiting the resident gang lord with a gift bottle of uisge-beatha. By the time she’d spent an hour chatting with him in an entirely charming manner, the fearsome and despicable toad had been transformed into her special, professional chum. I never knew her to break any laws, and somehow she always brought her crew home with all their fingers and toes.”

  Green Hummingbird raised an eyebrow. “An enviable record, Doctor Anderssen.” He stood up, patting his pockets. “I believe you are going to need all of your equipment in a very short time.”

  * * *

  Six hours later, the Moulins had reached the edge of the Chimalacatl.

  Gretchen had appropriated the Comm station from the Jaguar Knight and now watched her v-displays eagerly. Endless ranks of jagged architectural forms glided past as the freighter plowed along at right-angles to the surface of the artifact. The structure was apparently composed entirely of triangular sections, each holding a second inverted triangle recessed within. The bronze block was tucked into a pocket of her equipment rig, now strapped on over her z-suit. Her field comp and secondary equipment were tacked to the console, all components recording at maximum fidelity. Just for good measure, her interface to the Moulin’s shipskin, cameras, and the single sensor boom was running bidirectional—which allowed her to offload some processing to the shipnet itself when needed.

  For the moment, she had not connected the bronze block to anything. Despite this measure, it seemed heavy against her chest, and warm to the touch, as though some internal process was underway.

  Even without node 333 in operation, however, enough data was flowing into her conceptual models and analysis matrices to leave her feeling slightly drunk. Fingers trembling, she unwrapped an oliohuiqui packet and pressed the acidic tablet beneath her tongue. Her skin was singing with the tension congealing in the Command compartment, but the promise of so many wonders to come pushed all of her concerns away.

  “Radiation levels are rising,” Piet reported, tapping a winking glyph on his display to expand the warning message. “Captain?”

  “Reconfigure the shipskin for maximum protection,” Locke replied without bothering to consult with the Prince. “Let’s try not to fry!”

  Anderssen paid them little attention, though part of her mind wondered what had happened to the shipskin, for the flow of data into her analysis array did not diminish at all. The exterior configuration of the ship had changed however, shifting into an unfamiliar alignment.

  But for the moment, Gretchen didn’t care about the crew’s machinations. As long as we’re capturing clean data … wait a moment. A subtle change had occurred in the visual flow of the artifact. Nothing obvious—the intersecting triangles had a vertiginous effect on the eye—but the consistency of the shadows pooling in their depths had begun to thicken. “There!” Anderssen suddenly spoke, half-rising from her seat. “Quadrant six by sixteen—that’s a lock entrance.”

  “How can you tell?” Xochitl glared over her shoulder in disgust at the flurry of bizarre glyphs and patterns dancing across her v-displays. “What is all of this static?”

  “Our eyes in the darkness, Lord Prince,” she replied distantly. “Löjtnant—slow a bit…” Her stylus danced across a v-pane cross-connected to the comm system. A burst of indecipherable noise flooded from the ship’s tachyon array. “Now, wait … wait … there!”

  One of the triliths moved—its motion obvious even to the naked eye—receding into sudden darkness. The constellation of other triliths around the missing triangle followed, sliding backward into shadow without evident mechanism. An opening emerged with fluid suddenness—a channel or corridor leading into the interior of the structure. Measurements popped up on Gretchen’s console and she whistled softly, breaking into a huge grin. “Six kilometers on a side, Lord Prince. I think the Moulins will make easy passage.”

  “This was built for truly giant ships,” Xochitl said, his voice tinged with awe. “Like the thousands of wrecks in the debris cloud.”

  No one replied. Locke and Piet were motionless, their faces settled into expressionless masks. Gretchen felt a current of raw fear circulate among the men in Command, but the taste was distant and of little consequence. “Go on, enter,” she directed. “We’ll be shielded from the radiation storm inside.”

  The freighter passed in, maneuvering drives flaring, and was swiftly enveloped by abyssal darkness. Behind them, the constellation of triliths reformed with admirable speed, abruptly cutting off sight of the hot, glowing sky outside.

  “It seems the artifact is not entirely dead,” Gretchen said cheerfully. “No matter. I believe we can open the passage again, when the need arises.”

  In the suddenly dim bridge, Xochitl scratched his nose and—taking a deep breath—began to compose a series of numbers in his thoughts. Zero, one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one …

  ABOARD THE KADER

  “We have comm intercept available, Chu-sa,” De Molay announced in an offhand way.

  Hadeishi’s command chair rotated to face her with an audible whine. Apparently the Khaid refit had failed to properly seal the gimbals, and fire suppression foam was eating away at the mechanism. The Nisei officer shifted restlessly. “We’re synched into their battlecast? Is the translator running?”

  “Such as it is.” De Molay shrugged, her thin shoulders swallowed by the expedition jacket. “Channel eleven.”

  Mitsuharu pressed a finger to his earbug, jumping channels until the hissing growl of the enemy flooded in, making him wince. Dialing down the volume, he found the jury-rigged translator circuit could use a great deal of improvement—about every fourth word of Khadesh echoed back in Nihongo on channel two. He grimaced, feeling a truly staggering migraine coming on, before settling back with his eyes closed, trying to parse some kind of meaning from the staticky roaring.

  After thirty minutes, he wrenched the earbug free and stared cross-eyed at Lovelace and De Molay. Hadeishi said nothing for a moment, keying his med-band to dispense as much painkiller as it would allow.

  “This won’t work. Your efforts are tremendous, but the shipnet comps just can’t keep up with all of the cross-conversations. Have you been recording all of this traffic?”

  The Sho-i nodded vigorously. “We have sixteen hours in the can, Chu-sa.”

  “Can we translate that, if the comp has time to grind away?”

  “Hai, Chu-sa.”

  Mitsuharu shook his head slowly, beginning to despair. “Without following the ’cast in real time, there’s no way we can insert ourselves into the formation … we’d trip ourselves up the first time someone commed to discuss the weather!”

  De Molay spread her hands. “Then we give up and go home. No loss.”

  Her nonchalant expression sparked a flare of anger in the Nisei officer. He glowered at the freighter captain, which drew an amused snort from the old woman, and then he sat back in the uncomfortable chair again, thinking furiously.

  The youngest of the Seven Sisters pressed her forehead to the straw matting covering the floor of Musashi’s hut. “Please, sensei,” she begged earnestly, “none of us can defeat Möngke; he is a monster, gifted with inhuman powers, surrounded by an army of tens of thousands of men. Osaka castle itself is a maze of fortifications, towers, moats … We’ve tried sneaking in, but he’s suborned the ninja clans as well, and they watch by night while his archers watch by day.”

  “He only has one weakness,” Eldest said, kneeling beside her irrepressible sibling. “He believes himself the finest swordsman in all of Asia—not just Nippon—and if you challenge him, then he will come forth to meet you in single combat, for his pride will admit no other rival.”

  “I no longer travel the sword-saint’s road,” Musashi croaked, his v
oice raspy from disuse. He indicated a small stone statue of the Buddha with a seated bow. “I no longer seek conflict in the world of men. Ieyasu and I strove to overthrow the Yuan seven years ago, and failed utterly. Now he is dead and I have found sanctuary here on Mount Iwato. Only the Dokkōdō remains.” He gestured to a series of scrolls sitting on a small side table.

  Eldest glanced sidelong at Squeaker’s twin, who was standing in the doorway, keeping watch.

  “What if the Emperor summoned you, called you forth to do battle with the invaders? Would you deny him, foreswear your duty to all Nippon?”

  Musashi shook his head sadly. “The last Emperor fell at Nara generations ago.”

  “Not so.” The third Sister turned in the doorway. “The Imperial line is sustained even today. Would the plea of the Son of Heaven move you to action?”

  The hermit fell silent, eyes downcast, for a long time. When he looked up, at last, the sunset was gilding the rough-hewn timbers of his hut. “It would.”

  The third Sister extended his hand. “Then stir yourself, Musashi Miyamoto, Nippon calls you.”

  * * *

  “Attention the bridge,” Hadeishi announced, standing up. The low murmur in the circular room died away. The regular watch had swollen to include the leaders of the various ships’ crews rescued from the abyss. Mitsuharu looked about slowly, considering each man and woman as though seeing them for the first time. He stepped to the center of the bridge, where Lovelace had rigged up a holocast projection in place of the old-fashioned plotting display which had formerly served the Kader. It’s no threatwell, Hadeishi thought, but will do for now. He marked off the area of interest with his stylus. A series of vector tracks appeared in the ’cast.

  “The surtu, as the Khaiden name their hunting pack, has dispersed over the last forty-eight hours.” Mitsuharu’s tone was crisp. “Four of their Hayalet-class battleships remain at the entrance to the Pinhole. They are supported by six destroyers, several tenders, and what seems from message traffic to be a troop ship. It is difficult to keep track of their movements under the current conditions, but I would hazard they are making a serious attempt to chart the outlines of the aperture. The other surviving ships have scattered to police the battleground, and to search along the periphery of the Barrier for another way through.” The corners of his eyes tightened minutely. “One of their prey—an Imperial battle-cruiser of the Provincial-class—has escaped the battle by navigating through the Barrier itself.”