Hadeishi found it quite interesting—more so with each conversation—that none of the Fleet officers seemed to find it strange or unusual to be rescued by a tramp freighter commanded by a reserve
Chu-sa
in the uttermost wilderness.
But then
, he remembered,
this was a Smoking Mirror operation, which means every man and woman of them came expecting the strange, the untoward and the downright peculiar to happen.
Mitsuharu stepped to the captain’s chair, seeing that De Molay was dozing at her station, still wrapped in a variety of blankets and now wearing a hand-knit shepherd’s cap. He was about to sit when he noticed the shockchair had been reduced to nothing but the bare frame, without even the cracked leather seat he’d grown used to.
“What have you done to my chair?” He gave the old woman a questioning look.
“Hm? Oh, the cushions?” De Molay yawned elaborately, stretching both skinny old arms. “All of your lost children needed something for their heads; these floors are quite cold if you’ve not even a blanket.”
“Yes … that is true.” He fingered the hexacarbon framing and eyed the recessed bolts in the seat.
The old woman scratched at the half-healed wound on her cheek. “So—how is our new crew adjusting to their reduced circumstances?”
“Some of the wounded won’t last, but their spirits are good.” Hadeishi sat, his good mood evaporating. “We’ll lose nearly ten, I think, if we can’t find better medical facilities for them.”
De Molay nodded, watching him closely. “My apologies, but I cannot offer anything better.…”
“That you—that we—are here has already given them a priceless gift.” Hadeishi’s eyes narrowed, thinking of the hidden compartments he knew existed downdeck. “Now,
Sencho
, is that really true? This is a ship of many surprises! I’ve not gone through every centimeter of the holds—have you a whole medbay down there? Along with this”—he indicated the hull with a wave of his hand—“very interesting shipskin and heat exchanger?”
In response, she frowned, jutting her chin forward. “So far the rescue campaign is going well, you would say?”
Hadeishi started to nod, his expression brightening. “Very well! We need to kit up some more bunks, as you’ve said, and take a close inventory of our supplies, but—”
“
Chu-sa
,” De Molay said sharply. “How many men and women have we taken aboard?”
“Sixty,” he said after a moment of mentally reviewing the rosters from each capsule.
“We are at one hundred twenty-five percent of environmental capacity,
Chu-sa
. The scrubbers are showing amber across the board, the sewage recycler is backed up, and we’re out of hot water. In fact, we’re going to be out of water
period
very soon because there is waste and leakage in these
Knorr
-class freighters and we’re pushing the system too hard! But that,” she concluded, her voice rising angrily, “won’t be an issue much longer because we are almost out of
food
.”
Hadeishi sat back, scratching at his beard, which had begun to twist into an ungainly white-streaked tangle. Reluctantly, he walked mentally through the ship, comparing the numbers of compartments to the number of men aboard.
These capsules are coming in with some emergency rations aboard, but this freighter didn’t come prepared for a search and rescue mission. We’re just over carrying capacity.
“You’re right,” he said at last, brow furrowed in thought. “We still have capsules on the plot, but nowhere to bunk the survivors for more than a few hours. Where to put them…”
“Success will defeat you if we do not find a way.” De Molay settled back into her blankets. “Or you will have to be satisfied with the souls you’ve already saved, and let the rest go.”
“No.” He shook his head vehemently. “I won’t abandon them.”
“Then what will you do?” The old woman’s exasperation was clear. “There is
no room
at the inn.”
Hadeishi nodded slowly, his face clearing. “Your point is taken. Plainly, we need another ship.”
“Another ship?” Tocoztic—who had come in while they were talking and sat down quietly at his station—exclaimed. “But—”
“Then get one.” De Molay replied tartly, glaring at Mitsuharu. “I am content to watch from here while you do the heavy lifting, but I would appreciate just one tiny favor,
Chu-sa
. I would like
my ship back
in operable condition!”
“Of course.”
Musashi swung the axe in a light, looping arc—striking the end of the log square center—gravity and the full power of his shoulders splitting the wood from end to end with a sharp
crack!
He reached down, tossed the two sections aside into a large and growing pile, and then reached for another log.
“Pardon me, sir,” came a polite but authoritative voice. Musashi looked over his shoulder, tattered kimono stretching over his muscular arm. An elderly, balding man was standing at the edge of the inn’s wood lot—no, not just a man, someone who had once been a samurai officer. That much was instantly apparent to Musashi from his horseman’s stance, his calm and level gaze. Such men were rare in Japan under Mongol rule—well, rare that they walked the streets and were not in chains, or laboring in some work gang in shackles.
“I understand that you are ronin—and needful of employment?” The stranger tilted his head slightly, indicating the woodpile.
“I need to eat, like all men,” Musashi replied, straightening up. “What’s the job?”
“Tax collectors are going to level their village.” The samurai gestured politely to two farmers cringing behind him, their faces drawn with hunger, their bodies thin with starvation. “As the harvest has been short this year.”
“You’re going to stand in the Noyan’s way? You are a man of great bravery.”
“Not the Noyan.” The elderly samurai essayed a grin. “A local gang—no more than bandits, forty or fifty of them—the governor has parted out the collections, being too indolent to do this himself.”
Musashi felt a spark of interest flare in his breast, so he settled his shoulders, picked up the
bokut
ō
and bowed politely. “Now this I need to see,” he said. “How many of us are there?”
“Five others,” Kambei said. “Did I mention all the farmers can pay is our meals?”
ABOARD THE
NANIWA
I
NSIDE THE
P
OCKET
, F
OUR
L
IGHT
-M
INUTES FROM THE
P
INHOLE
Kosh
ō
woke to the sound of a reminder chime from her comp. Lying in the dimness of her cabin, she felt perfectly fine for approximately three seconds—then she moved her head, looking over at the screen to see what needed doing—and every muscle, joint, and tissue in her body complained.
Oh Queen of the Heavenly Mountain,
she thought blearily,
did I take that many meds in the last two days?
The bone-deep achiness in her back, legs, and shoulders argued that she had, in fact, taken way too many stayawakes for her body to process in only four hours of sleep. Regardless, she swung out of her bunk and padded on bare feet to the comp.
Ventral end of magazine conveyor thirty-two, in fifteen minutes?
Susan scratched her head, feeling an irritating graininess in her scalp, and realized she’d collapsed into bed without even washing her face. The sensation of grime clogging every pore on her body made the Nisei woman shudder, so she tapped a quick “acknowledged” into the comp and fled to the shower.
Fourteen minutes later, in a fresh uniform and with a bulb of tea in her hand, Kosh
ō
stepped out of the tube—and nodded in greeting to a junior engineer waiting for her in the little offloading station.
Socho
Juarez had attached himself to her as soon as Susan had left her cabin.
“
Kikan-shi
Ige, good morning.
Sho-sa
Chac is waiting for me?”
“They all are,
kyo
. This way please.” The Mixtec engineer gestured for her to precede him.
They
all
are?
Curious, Kosh
ō
drained the rest of the bulb and followed along.
What is Chac up to now?
Almost immediately they descended a gangway passing through two layers of battle-steel and stepped out onto a hexacarbon walkway running the length of a railway tube. Susan recognized part of the Backbone from all the work they’d done during trials to get the maglev system up and running, but the number of crewmen standing along the sides of the tube ahead of her was surprising. There were at least thirty
kashikan-hei
with logistics flashes on their z-suits lined up along the walkways on either side of the rail. At the far end of the group, she could see Oc Chac’s polished visage watching for her, though the slim figure at his side was unfamiliar.
The Mayan’s companion was young, no more than a cadet, and what she could see of his face indicated he was straight from the Center, possibly from Tenochtitlán itself, with shining black hair like smoke tied back behind a smooth copper-colored neck. What piqued her interest, however, was the elaborate and beautiful costume he was wearing. A classical Náhuatl mantle formed of tiny gleaming white feathers was draped across his shoulders and back, leaving the front open to reveal a fitted shirt ablaze with green and gold and iridescent yellow. The shirt was also made of feathers, even smaller and more downlike than the mantle. Most of his face was hidden by a hummingbird mask figured in black and red and green—and the mask itself seemed to be formed of beaten gold inlaid with semiprecious stones and jade. His feet were bare on the platform, though tiny conch shells were braided around his ankles. As she approached, the
kashikan-hei
lining the side walls bowed respectfully, their caps pressed over their hearts, and Oc Chac saluted smartly.
The Mayan officer had set aside his z-suit and uniform and was wearing a hooded cotton cloak and tunic. Like the young man, his feet were bare, though unadorned.
“
Chu-sa
on deck,” Juarez announced, his voice echoing in the tubeway. With a rustle, everyone knelt save the
Huitzitzilnahualli
and Susan. She glanced questioningly to Oc Chac, who motioned for her to step to the edge of the tube beside him and remain standing. When she had done so, the Mayan squatted down with a drum between his legs. A flat, calloused palm struck the stretched leather and a deep, basso
boom-boom
sounded. In the rail tunnel, the sound reverberated in each direction, generating a skin-tingling vibration.
In the first silence, the hummingbird dancer raised his arms, lifting one foot. As he did, the white mantle stiffened, conforming to his muscular arms, and the ends extended, becoming proper wings.
Stamp!
His bare foot fell, striking the platform. In the same instant, Oc Chac struck the drum again.
BOOM!
Thus the youth danced, first in an irregular pattern which wended this way and that, each light footstep ringing in the tubeway with the slap of his bare feet swallowed by the deep voice of the drum. Watching him, seeing the rapt faces of her crewmen and feeling a tension singing in the air, Susan felt chilled. Back and forth along the section of rail, the
Huitzitzilnahualli
danced as though flying, an irregular, swooping motion. From one end of the watching crowd he passed to the other, sometimes spinning, sometimes leaping in short, tightly controlled hops. The walls of the tubeway began to vibrate in time with the drum—faster now, as the dancer pushed himself, speeding through the intricacy of the pattern—and both of the Mayan’s hands were a blur on the
huehuetl
.
Suddenly, as the hummingbird dancer completed a high leap, the drum stopped cold.
The boy landed, instantly still, wings draped over his face, covering his head and shoulders.
Not even a breath disturbed the silence. Susan could feel her heart thudding in her chest.
A new sound entered—the soft wail of a conch-bellied mandolin—and the dancer contorted, flinging back his wings, exposing his iridescent chest to the roof of the tubeway. Kosh
ō
stiffened and more than one crewman gasped aloud. A thick crimson streak had appeared over the boy’s heart. It seemed as if blood were leaking from beneath the feathers, pooling under the green and gold. The
Huitzitzilnahualli
leapt straight up, flinging himself backward in a stunning reverse, and as he did so, the white mantle and the gleaming wings became speckled with irregular black spots.