Land of the Dead

by Thomas Harlan

  Helsdon cursed under his breath, rubbing his palms on his thighs. “The Barrier. The Naniwa and the Moulins could reach the Sunflower because all three of you were aboard!” He laughed, a little hysterically. “All my work to identify the Barrier threads—for nothing! Good thing we didn’t get too close while the security system was still operational!”

  “Wait—” Koshō’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “The builders of this place were obviously fond of threes and multiples of three. I can understand the ambassador, if his people had once been the servants of the Vay’en. But how did you and Sayu qualify as keys to the structure? You’re not Hjo!”

  “I was.” Anderssen knuckled her brow-line with one fist, feeling an enormous migraine coming on. “Hummingbird had exposed me to that corroded-looking bronze tablet—let me use it as a comp—and the Vay’en ‘instructor’ within began to rewrite my neurology. The tablet led us through the Barrier—you saw the effects as it revised the ship’s interfaces and systems—the same was happening to me, though I didn’t realize it until too late. While I was under its influence, the Chimalacatl treated me as a Hjo as well.”

  “And the Prince?”

  Gretchen pursed her lips, examining Susan’s face with great care. “Did you care for him?”

  “Me? For Sayu?” Koshō looked horrified. “He pursued me, momentarily, at Chapultepec when we were in the lower form. But I was not what he expected, so—nothing came to pass. After that, there was open rivalry between us, and—I must confess—he often came up short.” She paused, remembering. “Later he did better—after third year he seemed to collect himself. Then he was the popular one, the pretty one. Captain of the Ullamaliztli team—everything expected of a scion of the Imperial house.”

  Anderssen nodded to herself. “Like me, he had an overlay which allowed him entrance, made him seem enough of a Hjogadim to qualify for the machine. I don’t think he realized, even at the end, why he was here. Whoever sent him must have known what would happen … but you know, Hummingbird was surprised to encounter Xochitl out here. Surprised when the big battleship arrived.” She ran her fingertips along the outside of her field comp. “You said the Crow arranged all of this—but I don’t agree. I think he was trying to manage a situation that kept escalating out of his control. Some of it—yes, he brought me here, he had something to do with the Templars being here—the rest? It seems doubtful.”

  “He arranged—he arranged the Khaid.” Helsdon looked more uncomfortable than ever. “We’ve found traces in the comm system of t-relay activity between the Naniwa and the Khaid fleet during the fighting outside the Pinhole.”

  “Ah.” Gretchen nodded, remembering. “I helped him assemble a t-relay when we first came aboard.”

  “And he arranged for Chu-sa Hadeishi to be here.” Susan’s expression was positively glacial. “Both to further his own ends—and as leverage with me, if needed.”

  “Yes.” Anderssen was watching the Nisei officer again and smiling faintly. “I didn’t like the Crow—hate might be too weak a word—but he had something in mind for you, Captain Koshō, and for me as well. You’d served with Hadeishi for a long time, hadn’t you?”

  “Five years,” Koshō said grudgingly, regarding the archaeologist with suspicion. “What do you mean—in mind?”

  “So you’d seen Hummingbird come and go over those five years, always dropping in unexpectedly, getting your ship and your captain into some kind of dodgy situation? Always on off-the-books business for the Tlamantinime?” Gretchen didn’t wait for a response from Susan. “He had the same pattern in mind for you, and for me. Once you had your own ship—this ship!—you’d be put on frontier duty, patrolling alone at the edge of cultivation—one step out into the darkness—with no support, no backup, and no oversight.”

  She paused, running one hand through her tangled, greasy hair. Koshō looked like she’d swallowed a sour pickle. “Where is your political officer, Captain? Where are the Mice? I haven’t seen any—isn’t that very strange?”

  “We—” Susan halted, considering. “I had assumed Oc Chac, my new Sho-sa, was the Mirror representative aboard—but you’re right, there should be a whole complement on a ship this size.” She glanced at Helsdon, who had retreated again and was swallowing nervously. “All of the other ships in the squadron were drawn from units tasked to support the Mirror science teams. They would have been crawling with political officers. But not us?”

  “You see? The Tlemitl was free of them as well. Hummingbird mentioned at one point—I don’t think he realized I was listening—that the Prince’s ship had entirely new security systems—none like those used by the Judges, or the Mirror. I doubt that would have been allowed if there were proper political officers aboard!

  “And after all of this business was done—if you survived—then you’d be sent off on patrol, and then I would be the one dropping in unexpectedly when I needed a ship for some dirty work.”

  Koshō grimaced. “You’re one of the Tlamantinime now, are you? I thought there were no female Judges.”

  “There aren’t.” Anderssen bit at the edge of her thumb. “But once I heard the Crow and two others talking—a female counterpart to the nauallis exists—and they were pressing to take on a similar role along the frontier. I think that now—driven by fear—the old strictures are breaking down. I think Hummingbird hoped I would become his apprentice—take on his responsibilities—and the two of us would replace him and Hadeishi, if they died or grew too old to act.”

  “How interesting.” Susan’s displeasure radiated from her as a sharp, prickly heat. “I have no appetite for his schemes—and now that he’s dead, then all of this can die with him.”

  “Can it? If he spoke truly—if the Templars were correct in their belief—then someone must walk the fences, watch in the shadows, do all the things Hummingbird and his brother Judges have been doing.”

  Koshō shook her head. “He arranged the deaths of thousands of Fleet crewmen. He, and whoever decided to poke this nest of ants with a stick, and whoever dispatched Sayu to his death. Do you want that kind of hideous karma upon your soul?”

  “No.” Gretchen’s voice faltered. “It’s already cost me my boy. A wise woman once said—almost immediately after meeting the Crow—that he stank of ‘broken shells and ash.’ She was right—he would not hesitate to sacrifice a fleet, a planet, even a whole species to achieve the ends he thought necessary. But I begin to perceive there are other players in the game, perhaps those on the very summit of the Heavenly Mountain, who will sacrifice even more to win, or just survive.”

  She tapped the navigational plot. “Alliance with the Vay’en would have cost us our humanity. Even if our bodies endured—they would have been no more than husks filled with a living flame—and every human being alive would have been their slave. Yet someone, somewhere, believes it was absolutely necessary to do so.”

  “This implies the annihilation of our species at the hands of this unknown threat is the alternative.” Susan flexed her hands angrily. “One of the first lectures Chapultepec beats into the heads of the lower form is that the realm of the Méxica, for all its power, pomp, and majesty, is a tiny principality in a galaxy filled with mammoth empires. It is easy to forget that we are weak and ill-regarded.” She laughed bitterly. “They do not tell you, however, anything about these great powers … that is ring-zero information. Only the Emperors will know how low on the mountain we truly are.”

  “Hummingbird implied the same to me, when first we met.” Anderssen closed her field comp. “When you work for the Honorable Company, it’s very clear your purpose is to poke and pry and dig in the dead cities and ruined worlds, not for scientific benefit, but for tools—weapons—knowledge from the ancients that will benefit the Empire. Make it stronger, make it more powerful. Climb another step on that mountain.…” She sighed, shaking her head. “The Mirror was trying the same thing here. They found something and wondered if it could make them great—but they were only a cat’s paw. The Templars c
ame prepared. Hummingbird came prepared. Even Xochitl was sent by someone who knew what was here already.”

  “What about the Khaid?” Helsdon ventured. “Why bring them into the equation?”

  “The Judges—or Hummingbird—must have decided that the Mirror fleet had to be destroyed. And they didn’t know the Order was also in play with a powerful fleet.” Gretchen smiled ruefully at Koshō. “He had great faith in you, Captain, expecting you and your ship to survive when everyone else was slated to die. The arrival of the Tlemitl threw all of those plans into question—he was almost frantic when the Prince arrived.”

  “And the Knights of the Temple,” Susan said, her lip curling in distaste, “stood by waiting to clean up the survivors—on either side!—and take the prize.”

  “And now they have it.” Helsdon’s pale face was drawn with worry. “Chu-sa, we’re not ready to fight or even run. Perhaps—perhaps we should give her over, if that will obtain our safe passage?”

  Gretchen nodded in agreement, but Koshō’s expression turned obstinate. “She’s all we have for a bargaining chip—I’m not going to offer her to anyone.” She raised a slim hand to forestall Anderssen’s rejoinder. “Consider this as well—at least three Imperial factions were involved here—the Mirror, the Judges, and presumably the Emperor himself—who else could have dispatched Sayu with a newly minted super-dreadnaught? It is very likely the Knights are also divided amongst themselves—if not, why send some of their agents in secret, and others arrive with such overwhelming force as to seize the prize openly? Also weigh that they have not attacked us, though at least a day has passed since the missing Templar from the Sunflower should have reached the Pilgrim.”

  This gave Gretchen pause, and she settled back, searching her memories. “That is … possible. Hummingbird had not intended to reach this place aboard the Moulins—we were supposed to meet another ship—one carrying an ally, he said—but the Khaid had intercepted them. I think—I got the impression we were going to meet Captain Hadeishi on that other ship. And he’s here, now, right?”

  “Yes.” Susan nodded, her eyes dark. “I’ve been told he is aboard the Pilgrim. They took him aboard, along with many survivors from the Imperial ships destroyed outside the Pinhole. I’ve spoken with one of his officers—a Mirror technician, actually—who was brought over from their medbay. He was on a ship called the Wilful, commanded by a woman Sencho named De Molay.”

  “Really? How curious…” Anderssen opened her field comp again. “Yes—I thought that sounded familiar. A famous Templar surname, actually. So two Templar spy-ships—and a fleet to back them up—but maybe only one of the freighters was intended to be here. The other—the crewmen on the Wilful—they had an insignia, a tattoo actually, of a—ah, here it is: the Croix recroisetée au pied fiché, in crimson on a white field.”

  She turned the comp so Koshō and Helsdon could see a cross composed of three smaller squared crosses—for the crossbar and crown—then the long end of the cross was more like a spike, or spear, pointing downward.

  “Striking,” Susan commented, “but not the insignia of the Knights of the Order. They bear a cross with equal arms and rounded ends, fit to a circle, not a rectangle.”

  “This one,” Gretchen said, tapping up a second image, which matched the Nisei officer’s description.

  “So there are your two factions, Chu-sa.” Anderssen shrugged again. “Probably representing a political split within the Temple hierarchy; each espousing the same goals, I’m sure, but embracing markedly different means to reach the end.” She tapped the croix fiché. “Three crosses, each composed of three arms, surmounting a spear. I—I saw something like that when I was aboard the Moulins. The sense of it was a warrior brotherhood, standing watch on the edge of infinity, much like the Judges.…”

  “Three of three?” Helsdon blinked. “Like the patterns on the surface of the Chimalacatl?”

  “Aping the Vay’en and their symbology.” Gretchen scowled. “The Hjogadim were the same way, thinking the oversize robes and scepter of their overlords would grant them the power of Lord Serpent! Fools. The strength of the Vay’en was—is—beyond our ability to grasp.” She laughed harshly, thinking of the hundreds of thousands of Hjo corpses desiccating in the garbage disposal chutes throughout the massive artifact. “The same fate awaits us—our puny little principality—if the great houses, the Emperor and the Order all fall out amongst one another over the prize. It is better the Sunflower is gone—safer by far for everyone. Much better.”

  Hearing a change in the Swedish woman’s voice, Koshō’s jaw tightened and she glanced sideways at Helsdon. The engineer was watching Gretchen as well, and the same dawning suspicion was showing in his face. “You destroyed the artifact, Doctor? You—what did you do?”

  “And why? Just to protect humanity from some hypothetical civil war?” Susan seemed genuinely curious. “Are you certain such a fate would befall us?”

  “Look around you, Captain!” Gretchen rang her knuckles on the damaged wall beside her. “An Imperial Judge betrayed the Prince’s expedition to the barbarians! Just to keep the Emperor’s hand from the hilt of this infernal blade! The unity of the Temple is already divided, one faction intriguing against the other—and it will not end here, no—it will not end until Anáhuac is a burning ruin and all our colonies and settlements are laid waste.” Her voice had gained a harsh, hectoring edge. “Because even should we seize this power for ourselves and learn its use—others will come which we cannot withstand, even with this weapon! Remember the lesson from the Hill of Grasshoppers!”

  The Swedish woman winced, feeling her bruised torso twinge. Angrily, she stabbed at the field comp with her stylus, invoking a projected image of the rosette—the three brown dwarves, the distant demarcation of the Barrier, the singularity—then she cupped the holo in her hands. “The Vay’en assembled this. They dragged these suns into position, spun up a black hole of their own, wrapped in the wall of knives—everything within ten light-years is here by the will of Lord Serpent, who perished nearly a million years ago!” She caught Koshō’s eye with a piercing, exasperated glare—then jabbed a finger at Helsdon. “We can barely perceive their works with our instrumentality—and you expect the Mirror, or the Fleet, to grasp their technology?”

  “In time.” Susan lifted her hands, conceding the point. “But what else can we do? Even if we are beneath the notice of these great powers, that must surely change. When that black day comes, we’d be remiss in all duty if we had not prepared as best we could. Even to the point of waking—as you say—a power like the Vay’en and seeking their alliance.”

  “Foolish. Very foolish.” Gretchen buried her head in both hands. “At least this temptation is banished—none of the sleepers will return from the pit.” She made a casting-away motion. “The balance in the system has been destroyed. Structures you cannot perceive have descended deep into slow-time, quite close to the event horizon of the singularity. The tidal stress on the Thread broke apart the Chimalacatl—the Pylon, the great chrysalis chambers, the warehouses for the hosts—all gone.”

  “We saw.” Helsdon sounded sick, but his face was alight with interest for the first time. “How—how did they do it? Hold something in balance deep in the gravity well? A platform—for the Vay’en themselves?”

  “There were two lattices,” Anderssen replied, growing weary. What little strength had returned to her while recuperating in medbay was beginning to flag. “One fell while the other raised—not much, in the scale of their works, but enough. Enough for them to feel time quicken again.”

  “Who?” Helsdon frowned, glancing to Koshō for support. “You said the Vay’en fell to oblivion—but something else rose up out of slow-time? What else was dwelling in this place? Something that will issue forth, as these Vay’en would have done?”

  “Not yet, maybe never.” Gretchen made a vague motion towards the floor. “Eventually they might escape the gravity well, as their ancestors did. Or not. They have”—a small, fierce s
mile flitted across her face—“free will at least. They’ll have to choose, just like the rest of us.”

  “Who? If the Vay’en perished in the singularity, what was on the other structure?”

  “Their children.”

  Helsdon and Susan stared at her, uncomprehending.

  “That clever little bronze tablet Hummingbird gave me? He must have thought it a personal comp, or a ship-comm of some kind. But it was a teaching device for immature Vay’en. It tried to reprogram my mind and failed because my poor old ape brain just wasn’t capable of following the lessons. But it was a piece of the puzzle—and a twisty, nasty one at that. You see, the tablet was very old, even to the Vay’en. It was something they’d put aside—a failed, melancholy experiment—in favor of another, more promising way to cheat death.”

  Koshō said nothing, hands clenched tightly behind her back. The Swedish woman’s voice had a queer, atonal quality and her face seemed marked by some last remnant of a hot golden glow. Helsdon drew back, shaking hand reaching for his sidearm.

  “The Vay’en were—are—energy creatures,” Gretchen continued. “We would consider them sentient wave structures. And I would guess they could manipulate electromagnetic fields in close proximity to themselves with great dexterity. But in turn, their own physicality could be manipulated by quantum resonance. With the tablet, they were trying to bring their offspring ‘up to speed’ by exposing them to the already established mentation pattern of an accomplished elder. The mind in the tablet had been a poet, I think. Some kind of great artist. They wanted to keep his essence alive, even when chaos claimed him at last.

  “In the beginning, the Vay’en evolved in the interface around a black hole. They could live far beyond its confines, but from all we saw, it seems they returned there to breed.” Gretchen halted, watching her two companions digest what she’d said.

  Susan spoke first, musingly. “It was a nursery.”

  Anderssen nodded, digging around for a threesquare in her blankets.