The officer-there were no obvious markings on his armor to indicate this, but Helsdon had a sense of the Knight from the way he carried himself-surveyed the room. The Jaguar’s gaze settled on the engineer, which made Malcolm swallow nervously. Not good; someone has realized I’m the “survivor.”
“The Prince Imperial will speak with you,” the officer declared, his voice underlain by a vocoder-generated growl.
A firm grip helped him to his feet and down the hall. I guess consent isn’t required. Wisely Helsdon made no protest, simply following along where directed. Any instinct to resist had been suppressed by his tremendous weariness. A tubecar put him and his escort at the main shuttle bay, which had previously been the Calexico ’s cargo loading hangar. A mint-new shuttle was standing by, hull glittering with protostellar debris. He got a good look at the crest above the hatchway as he was hustled inside. The Imperial household! They did mean “the Prince.” Saint Ebba the Younger, preserve me from the attention of On High.
***
The shuttle drifted into a boat-bay on the side of the Tlemitl which could have swallowed the Calexico whole. The descent of the passenger boat to the landing stage seemed almost ludicrous to Helsdon as he watched acres of freshly constructed pressure wall roll past the porthole. Even the seats on the shuttle were so new they squeaked. Professional curiosity drove him to eyeball the curve of the air intakes, and peer out at the flaps and lifting surfaces on the shuttle wing.
Two versions up, at least, from the last of these Tegus models I worked on.
Inside the super-dreadnaught, he was struck by the emptiness of the passages. An SDN usually carried an enormous complement; freighting a Fleet Command staff, whole embassies, trade delegations, and a full regiment of marines. But here-as he and his escorts zipped along on a g-sled-most of the offices, or spaces for shops, were empty.
Only a combat crew aboard, he guessed. At one point they passed a pair of technicians rooting around in a series of access panels in an adjacent hallway. Still doing the fit and finish work. So this heavyweight has been rushed into service.
The sled passed through two checkpoints-both manned by more Jaguar Knights-and finally they found themselves in a tenanted precinct. Officers, technicians, and staff orderlies filled the passages, each moving with the kind of swift direction which implied a task of tremendous importance.
They dismounted in a double-height corridor lined with enormous mural-sized v-panes.
On the left side, as Helsdon hurried past, two towering volcanoes-the doomed lovers Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl-loomed over a vast, bowl-like city drowned in night. But so great was the glow of lights and fires and refineries in the valley that it seemed filled with rivers of molten gold. Beyond the dim outline of the two peaks, the night sky was split by the blazing white-hot descent of an enormous meteor, which would in just moments smash into the plain of Tlaxcallan a hundred kilometers to the east. The streaking fire-trails of thousands of anti-ballistic missiles-launched by the Mexica in a vain hope to destroy the incoming weapon-were frail in comparison.
That Blow-and even Helsdon, raised on a colony world far from the Center knew the story, which was a foundation stone of Imperial mythology-would shatter the neighboring province, triggering massive earthquakes which would level most of Imperial Tenochtitlan, and inspire a new ice age due to the dust thrown into the upper atmosphere. But all of this would not fatally wound the Empire and, indeed, the Mexica reaction to the attack would carry their armies victoriously to every corner of the globe.
Curiously, Helsdon could not-in his half-addled state-recall the name of the adversary who had struck the Blow. Must have been one of the European powers-was it Denmark? I cannot remember.
To the right, the mural panels were dark, showing only intermittent static and a wandering glyph indicating the v-server attached to them had suffered some kind of file corruption problem.
At the end of the hall, a massive, blocky stone gate stood closed. Each door post was formed in the shape of a jaguar standing on its hind legs, paws raised, talons unsheathed. The lintel was formed of a line of squared-off skulls, deep-set eye sockets filled with shadow. As the engineer approached, one of the jaguar heads swiveled towards him-and even after serving in the Fleet for nearly ten years, the sight still raised the hackles on the back of his neck-and the feline eyes burned a deep, lambent yellow for a moment. Both Knights paused, and their firm grip on Helsdon’s shoulders held him in place while they were scanned. Then the gate swung open, stone valves grinding ominously. The Ocelotl officer stepped inside, muttered something, and then gestured for Helsdon to enter.
The engineer presumed such quarters would be filled with every kind of luxury. But instead, he found himself facing a slim, dark-haired, copper-skinned young man with perfectly regular features, in a room stacked with shipping crates and a series of oddly decorated free-standing screens. The young man was sitting on the edge of a table heaped with a fortune in papers and real books. On him, Fleet dress whites seemed more than a uniform, they seemed to glow under the strip lights in the ceiling, and the contrast with his dark skin was very striking. In full court regalia, an Imperial Prince would be almost invisible under the weight of a massive, jeweled feather-cloak and pendants and torques of gold.
But here, in this jumbled room, he exuded an effortless, almost irresistible authority. Only one dissonance caught at Malcolm’s attention.
He seems… anachronistic, Helsdon thought. Where are all of his electronics? The Prince did not wear a medband or comm bracelet, or even an earbug. There was a velour-skinned sofa, but no chairs and no bed. A strange, not-entirely-unpleasant odor of musk and tobacco hung in the air. The engineer was frankly puzzled when he knelt before the Prince. As he did, he noticed the Jaguars had remained outside, leaving him-apparently-alone with the young man. He was no expert on court ritual and etiquette, but it seemed rash to let one slightly deranged Fleet kika-no within arm’s reach of the Emperor’s son. But he must be well armed of himself. Aren’t the Imperial Family supposed to be superhuman?
“ Tlatocapilli -great lord, son of the Light of the World-how may
I-”
“Get up,” Xochitl snapped irritably. “Tell us-tell me-what you saw and how you survived.”
Helsdon breathed in deeply. This isn’t the real thing, it’s only a story about what happened to another person. Just another debriefing. Nothing can reach me here.
“Light of Heaven, I was going EVA to repair a thermocouple relay,” he began.
He related the momentary glimpse of the “blurred thread” which cut Calexico in half, leading to so many deaths, and then the long desperate struggle to stay alive in the wreck of the destroyer. Eventually-and by this time his voice was hoarse-another Imperial Scout ship had arrived and recovered him.
When Helsdon finished, he found himself rubbing his hands on his trousers. Why do they sweat so much? Then he stood in the awkward silence, trying to focus on the Prince. The room had darkened into night cycle as he’d talked, and now Xochitl was only a vague shape, his light-colored mantle a lesser shadow in the gloom.
“Thank you, Engineer Second.” Xochitl stood up slowly.
Wish I could see his face better. Didn’t he believe me?
Xochitl spoke to the air: “ Kikan-shi Helsdon is ready to return to the research station.”
Helsdon’s mind-which seemed oddly fogged-cleared at the thought of returning to work. Now there it is again. A sound like a tubercular breathing; such sharp, short gasps. Where is it coming from?
But then the Jaguars entered and escorted him, gently this time, away.
In the darkness, when the door had closed, Xochitl threw himself down on the sofa and passed his hand over a side-lamp. A dull, orange-tinted glow sprang up and the Prince raised an eyebrow questioningly at the largest of the screens at the back of the room. A pair of lambent, angular eyes gleamed back at him.
“Satisfactory, Esteemed?” Xochitl strove to put the proper deference into his v
oice, but knew in his heart there was only truculence and barely suppressed anger in the words. “Or shall I interview another?”
The Naniwa
The lift dinged politely and a battle-steel hatch cycled open, revealing the semicircle of Command. Kosho stepped onto the bridge feeling tense and unsettled. She rolled a heavy, Fleet-style data crystal between her fingers, her expression distant. Hadeishi was close in her thoughts, but not as she often heard his voice-relating advice or giving orders in the midst of battle-rather with new appreciation for the compromises he had made while commanding the Cornuelle.
“Transferring ship authority, Chu-sa,” Oc Chac said, switching the command codes from his console to hers.
“Accepted, Sho-sa,” she replied absently, settling into her shockchair. Susan held up the crystal again and it gleamed with the reflection of dozens of v-displays circling the deck. She had never felt comfortable with the kinds of company Hadeishi had kept, or the odd side diversions he would turn the light cruiser to. Many of those excursions-too many, really-had been at the behest of shadowy figures like Green Hummingbird, who was now sitting in a cabin on deck six, using her water for a shower and eating food from her dispenser system.
I forced the terms of the trade, so why do I feel I’m the one carrying home a koku of grass seed?
“ Sho-sa?” She beckoned the XO over. “Load this into the navigation system, but do not replicate the data onto the squadron ’net.”
“ Hai, kyo! ” Oc Chac took the crystal gingerly, but then he stopped, trying to formulate a properly deferential question.
“It is a copy of the Korkunov telemetry, Sho-sa. Recovered from a message drone launched by the Calexico only moments before she was destroyed.” Susan raised a warning hand as the Mayan’s face twitched with surprise. “We are lucky to have the data, but do not question how the goat got into the garden.”
Oc Chac nodded slowly, and then ventured to say, “ Kyo, an access request has been received from a group of visitors on six-with your chop, Chu-sa. Should it be approved?”
Susan nodded, though a nagging feeling of being cheated remained.
Doggedly, Oc Chac pressed on: “ Kyo… this ship we captured, the Moulins, her crew is to be kept in the brig, secured? But not the, ah, guests in the cabin on six?”
“Even so, Sho-sa.”
“ Hai, kyo! I’ll have this data loaded immediately.”
“Excellent. Run it as an overlay in the well. I want to see a comparison with the plot provided by the Mirror scientists.”
Then she leaned back in her chair, fist pressed to her chin. We’ll have a better picture of this Barrier, but I’m going against the spirit of the operational orders in taking a nauallis aboard in the midst of a Mirror obsidian-op. The Chu-sa never seemed to mind, she thought, feeling a pang at the memory of Hadeishi sitting forlorn and directionless in the fumeiyo-ie on Toroson. Then her expression hardened. And so my sensei lost his ship and nearly his entire crew. And now we are forever apart.
Oc Chac returned from one of the operations consoles, hands clasped behind his back.
“New orders have come from squadron, Chu-sa. The Tlemitl has taken over battle-cast control.”
Kosho lifted one eyebrow. “The whole matrix? Squadron-level targeting and countermeasures? Did this come from Chu-so Xocoyotl or from the Prince?”
“Everything, kyo, is now routing through the Firearrow. The Tokiwa is lead for the battle-cruiser squadron, but the Flag has switched ships. Prince Xochitl has also ordered all probes presently monitoring the Pinhole to be withdrawn.”
Susan tapped her fingers lightly on the armrest. “And the scientists?”
“Ordered back aboard their transports, kyo. All technical personnel have been transferred to the Tlemitl. The Can is being abandoned.”
“The Prince is certainly decisive!” He is cutting the Mirror out of the picture. That will be his father’s direction. So-is this a Fleet operation now? Or are Hummingbird and Xochitl actually acting in concert?
Oc Chac suppressed a scowl at her sarcasm-one which Kosho was too distracted to notice, or comment upon-and returned to his station. The Chu-sa remained in her seat, her expression distant, ignoring the comings and goings of Command, old memories unspooling in her mind’s eye.
The Naniwa pressed on, following her patrol pattern, wake surging bright with particle decay.
***
Down on deck six, in an officer’s cabin with two bunks, a shower, proper desks, and a real closet, Gretchen threw down her duffle bag and kicked off her boots. “By the Risen Christ, Hummingbird, do you think they have fresh hot water? That would be a relief after bathing in recycled spit for a week…” She sorted out her field comp and notebooks from the backpack, including a little Hesht figurine that Magdalena had given her in parting. Grrault is the god of travelers, bachelors, and the unlucky, so keep him close and remember to give him bits of meat or bone from time to time, Magdalena had said in complete seriousness. See this cavity? Place the sacrifice within and after a moment or two, watch the color of his eyes. Amber means the meat is poisoned, red means it is safe to eat. Then the Hesht had paused, snout wrinkling up. Safe for a Hesht to eat, of course. For a cub like you with only one stomach… perhaps not. But still, he’s sure to bring good luck.
Parker had laughed, pressing his favorite multitool into her hands and giving her an awkward hug. If you need a ride, he said, sniffling, you just comm, right?
Hummingbird did not reply, and when Anderssen turned around, she whistled in appreciation.
The nauallis had unlocked both of his traveling bags. One of them had unfolded cleverly into an entire desktop-style comp station with three large v-displays and two stylus pads. The other bag was packed tight with equipment boxes of all kinds. Hummingbird had already appropriated one of the desks and was plugging in cables as fast as he could.
After watching for a moment, Gretchen dove in beside him and started unpacking comm relays and other devices from the second bag. Hummingbird, obviously in a tearing hurry, flashed her a warning look-to which Anderssen gave a smirk in return, saying: “Don’t give me that sour face, Crow, I know which end is which.”
“Very well. Find a set of modules marked with double bands of green-they can be assembled into a t-relay station. It would speed things up tremendously if you could get that operational.” He seemed dubious, but gestured for her to proceed before turning back to completing his system setup.
Gretchen smiled to herself and began rooting through the bag, looking for the doubled green bands. Almost immediately, she ran across a bricklike object wrapped in-of all unlikely things-a parchment envelope.
“Well now,” she said to herself, running a finger across the smooth material. “What is this? A book?”
The envelope was held closed by a silver clasp ornamented with a well-worn device. Peering closer and turning the envelope to throw the sigil into relief, she made out the stylized figures of two men-were they in armor? They seemed to be sporting pointed helmets-riding on a single horse.
I’ve seen this sigil before, she thought, slipping a fingertip under the clasp and opening the envelope.
A heavy metal block-corroded bronze or brass at first glance-slipped out into her hands. As soon as the device touched bare skin, Gretchen felt there was a fundamental imbalance in the mechanism. Attempting to resolve this, she switched the block around and found one end was fitted with a strip of Imperial-standard interface ports. “A comp,” she said aloud, though not meaning to. “It feels so old…”
Puzzled, she ran her fingertips across the corroded surface, but no rust or scale came away. Instead, Anderssen realized that the surface was quite smooth, but had been mottled by tremendous heat at some time in the past. This isn’t right, she felt, and tugged at the interface strip until it came away. Better. She sat down on her bunk and opened her backpack, pulling out her trusty old octopus and jacking the multilead into her own comp. Then, humming softly to herself, she began testing the tiny pits r
evealed by the removal of the interface strip.
After an hour, Gretchen realized she was thirsty and looked up to see that Hummingbird had quietly completed the assembly of his comp station, including the t-relay, and was running well over a hundred v-panes, all showing a wide range of data and visualizations.
“Who made this, Crow? This little comp I’ve got here?”
Hummingbird did not turn, but shrugged his wiry old shoulders. “It came to me in trade, Anderssen -tzin. I did not think it wise to show while we remained on the Moulins.”
Gretchen snorted. “You didn’t trust Captain Locke and his devout crew?”
“Not at all.” The old nauallis rubbed the back of his head. “Their beliefs are genuine, but while I have some standing among them, I am not one of them, if you follow my meaning. They agreed to help us come this far, but we will need a better conveyance to move forward. To reach the device.”
“Hmm.” Gretchen turned the bronze block over in her hands. It was quite dense for its size. The interface strip was reattached and reconfigured. She reached for her portable input panel and v-display. “You don’t know where this came from?”
“I know who gave it to me,” he answered, in a very dry tone. “But before that? I could not say.”
“And what did you trade for it?” Anderssen regretted asking the question immediately, realizing she did not want to know the answer. He might trade anything, for anything, she thought, feeling a cool chill trip across her shoulders.
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