The cubbyhole was mostly private and Mitsuharu settled in with his few remaining belongings, including the lamentable
samisen
. Some sticktack and spare wire scavenged from the bins under the engineer’s desk made a hanger for the instrument, and then he lay back in the hammock to consider the conclusion of his grand career as a musician.
And well done with,
he thought, relieved. His efforts had only embarrassed the shade of his father, which was doubtless now resting easily once more in the Western Paradise.
A day after Hadeishi had come aboard and been pointed to his hole, the engineer returned—he was a Marocâin, showing faint traces of Swedish blood, named Azulcay. The officer scowled at Mitsuharu, ordered him to “clean things up”—and then disappeared into the upper decks of the tiny ship to consult with the captain. Barely had Mitsuharu started stowing tools and making sure nothing was going to come loose the next time they turned over the engines, than the Bosun returned and detailed him off to help load cargo.
This led to a raised eyebrow on Mitsuharu’s part; the cargo holds were some kind of refit—a pair of modernized transfer bays sitting on opposite sides of the ship. Though they had a passable ground-loading configuration with extending ramps and a forklift, to his eye they were custom built for open-space resupply with a matching pair of z-g gantries in each hold.
Realizing this, as he helped two other crewmen guide a heavy cargo pallet up the A-ramp, Hadeishi felt a tiny jolt of adrenaline and a tiny fragment of
chambara
rose out of his memory:
Musashi sitting under a bridge, in the rain, with twenty or thirty other rootless men, listening to them complain about the weather, the lack of food, the cold. And marking they were all missing the same
mon
from their
haori,
and the underlying colors were all of a kind.
He started to whistle a little tune under his breath as they rolled the pallet into one of the holds.
* * *
When the loading was done, the Bosun failed to reappear, leaving Hadeishi an opportunity to investigate the farther corners of the
Wilful
. Much of the ship itself was a mess, showing signs of clumsy repair and refitting, but some things very much in order were not easy to hide. The overly large atmospheric drive fairings on the outer hull were matched by a series of interesting bulkheads ringing the hyperspace coil and the maneuvering drives.
He ran a hand along one of the bulkheads, feeling the metal tremble with the action of hidden engines.
A little overpowered, I think. There’s something beyond the usual gear behind these walls.
Mitsuharu’s movements on the ship were limited—there were too many locked doors and hatchways to allow for
all
his curiosity—but he was beginning to feel her out.
She might be fast.
He rubbed his hands together and grinned quietly. Not even the foul air seeping into his quarters from the fuel stowage dimmed his cheer. Sitting in the semidarkness, feeling the
Wilful
throbbing at his back, reactor idling in port, Hadeishi counted up the days and was ashamed to find his “abyss of despair” had lasted only twelve weeks. “Barely three months! Addict!”
His soft laugh drew a glare from Azulcay, who had returned from “upstairs.”
“You, Nisei. Make yourself useful. The below-decks mess needs a cook. The rest of us need dinner. Move.”
The mess proved to need more than a cook, but the simple act of opening the self-heating threesquares and doling out portions gave Mitsuharu a satisfaction out of proportion to the minimal nutrition obtained from the food. Out of long habit, he sat quietly watching the dozen men eating at the single long table while he nursed a cup of tea.
Possibilities,
he mused.
Under the dirt and sloth. Something could be done with them.
The
Wilful
lumbered into space the next day and a shadow lifted from Mitsuharu’s mind. The tug of gravity faded, the ship shivered alive under hand and foot, and even though his spirits sagged momentarily at the tremulous moan the engine emitted, he smiled to be home again.
“Stop smirking,” barked the engineer, who was listening to the maneuver drives with a cocked head. “One of the translator circuits is going bad. Get that kit and follow me.”
TENOCHTITL
Á
N
O
LD
E
ARTH
High on the side of a skytower rising above the neon tumult of the Tlapocan district, a thin, darkly handsome Méxica of indeterminate years stepped from an unmarked aircar and onto a landing platform shining crimson with silken carpet. Six guardsmen had preceded him, each shrouded in combat armor, their faces invisible behind armored masks skinned as jaguars. The nobleman paused, waiting for his bodyguards to check their perimeter and signal an all-clear. While he waited on the open platform, a hot southern wind tousled his long, straight hair, carrying with it the stench of the largest city in the world—burning rubber and plastic, the smoke from countless fires, and the acrid tang of industrial solvents exuded from the endless kilometers of factories, workshops, foundries filling the old city districts climbing the surrounding mountains. Such was the heady air of the Valley of the Méxica people, Anáhuac.
The lead guardsman snapped shut a portable sensor and inclined his head towards the man standing quietly in the center of the platform.
“Clear, my lord,” growled the Jaguar-Knight. The nobleman nodded slightly, and then lifted his arms. A manservant stripped away his mantle and undertunic, leaving nothing but bare flesh. A second servant immediately ran his thumb—enhanced with a spurlike ring—along the man’s shoulders, arms, sides, and down to his heels. The first servant hurried back from the aircar and now gathered up the almost-invisible skinsuit puddling at the Méxica’s feet.
Now the second servant produced a slim metallic wand and carefully ran the device around the periphery of the man’s limbs, eyes fixed on a tiny readout. When he was done, the servant nodded sharply to the Méxica, who let out an infinitely small breath of relief. He shrugged his shoulders, loosening the muscles, and then beckoned for the heavy Tatarsky coat just carried from the aircar. A sleek ermine-fur hat followed, and both servants made a careful check of cuffs, belt, and boots before whispering “all is well” in the man’s ear.
The pattern word made something
click
in his mind, and the omnipresent exocortex overlay that daily informed his vision faded away.
The Jaguar-Knight stepped away from the man’s side, his heavy
Yaomitl
plasma-rifle at half port. The safety interlock was sealed and peace-bonded with a texite strap, but none of the guardsmen could bear to leave their weapons behind, not even here. The circle of iron parted, allowing the Méxica to approach the single door exiting the platform.
The portal was massive—six meters high—and formed of a single anthracite slab. The walls on either side gleamed dully, showing the refractive sheen of battlemetal. When the man’s step reached a hand-span from the door, there was a soft hissing sound and the entire massive structure folded up and away into a hidden cavity. Beyond, a dark corridor receded, lit only by a line of pale blue lights on the floor. Chill air billowed out around the nobleman, biting at his high cheekbones and stinging his lips. Eddies of fog formed as the near-freezing atmosphere inside the corridor mixed with the thick, warm air of central México.
“Await me,” the man said to the Jaguar-Knight before stepping away and pacing down the corridor, fog boiling at his heels. “I will return in due time.”
* * *
The twenty-meter-long passage was entirely empty—and in truth, in the whole of the man’s life this was possibly the only time he was truly alone—and ended in a second titanic slab of stone. As the first had risen, this one receded into the floor at his approach and again the temperature dropped. Hoar-frost now rimed the walls, though the chamber beyond was well appointed with large, heavily constructed chairs, a pair of low waiting tables, and behind them—on walls cloaked in heavy silken tapestries—a vast collection of curious artifacts.
Gorgeous masks and finely wrought amulets, tiny figurines of gold and silver, one or two delicate statues in glossy marble—a collection of treasures, all drawn from the cities, nations, and principalities of Anáhuac—and all well known to the Méxica, who had spent many interminable hours considering them as he waited in this very room.
Thus are our museums plundered,
he thought drily. Any anger had long since been schooled from him.
And our history held up to mock us.
This time he did not pace along the walls, but rather stood quietly, attempting to conserve some vestige of the summer heat in the folds of his coat. The first time the nobleman had entered this chamber—sixty years ago, more or less—he’d come close to hypothermia and he had no desire to lose fingers or toes to hastiness.
A breathing technique, imparted by a
nauallis
of his acquaintance, settled his mind, slowing his heartbeat and moderating his metabolism. His mind, usually filled to capacity with a thousand and one details, all warring with one another for his attention, fell quiet as well. In other circumstances, the Méxica would have welcomed a moment of quiet meditation.
Here, however, such efforts were part and parcel of his preparations.
* * *
No more than an hour later, a creature appeared out of one of the passages opening into the waiting area, and the Méxica was curiously surprised. He guessed—and a review of historical records would later confirm—this was the shortest that either he, or one of his predecessors, had ever waited.
Odd,
he allowed himself to think.
The servitor gestured sharply with a wrinkled gray-black hand and then turned away. The Méxica followed without hesitation and moments later had climbed a flight of steep, granite steps into a second room—this one well known to him, and occupied by a being he knew far too well. Like the servitor, the creature, sitting upon a large chair of some bloodred wood, was wrinkled and gray-black with a heavy, close-napped fur. To a human, it seemed as though a two- or three-meter-high tapir had found hind legs and stood up. A pair of shiny, feverish eyes was placed far back in deep sockets on either side of a long, tapering skull which ended in a pair of slit-like nostrils. Though his scientists had not dared to dissect the rare Hjo which fell prey to misfortune in Imperial space, the Méxica knew the alien could withstand tremendously cold temperatures, that it was very fast when startled, and stronger—kilo for kilo—than an equivalent human. In other circumstances, the suffering the Hjo must endure in the Anáhuac summer might have drawn a drop of compassion from the Méxica, but in this case—he often prayed for even worse heat and drought to afflict his city.
“Esteemed Ekbanz.” The man bowed precisely as low as required, then stood up straight with benign attention arrayed upon his face. “Guide me to Right Thought.”
* * *
“Right Thought?
Right Thought?
” The
zhongdu
Ekbanz’s brow furrowed sharply and his eyes gleamed with distaste. “Ever we are displeased to hear sacred words from your pitiful lips.” A massive hand cut the air sharply. “Though so you must address us, as guided by Law…” There was a long, high-pitched hiss as the creature exhaled through a set of multivalved nostrils.
The nobleman neither spoke nor moved. He felt his own naturally smooth brown skin blotching and pitting with the cold in the audience room. He waited an unseemly period for the
zhongdu
to continue, but by continued slow breathing and a focused mind he kept from making an unwise movement, or showing any hint of the grim cold which was stealing into his limbs.
At last, the
zhongdu
stirred from his contemplations and exposed a single claw tip. The appendage gleamed with red and black lacquer as it pointed at the man’s chest. “You have neglected Duty. You have broken the third agreement, human. By Law, this entire system should be forfeit to us—an example to be made, of cindered worlds and ashy skies.…”
What has come to his attention? And more important, who was the messenger?
“Esteemed—”
“You cannot force harmony from this dissonance! My sources are accurate, timely, detailed in their facts.”
Just fishing for information? I wonder.
“The third agreement?”
The
zhongdu
bared his teeth. Even at this distance, its breath was hot upon the Méxica’s face. “With proper concessions, We may be satisfied with a colony world serving as an example. What do you offer to restore proper balance between us?”
“Esteemed, I still await the accusations.”
The Hjo grimaced, revealing twin rows of tiny, cutting teeth. “You are a bold servant, human. But this is not a matter for a Speaker of the Law to adjudicate. This is between
us
. Our arrangements require that you provide us with
all
evidence of the Ones-Who-Wait in a prompt and forthright matter. If you have found
anything
…”