Wasteland of flint

The heicho began clipping interface leads onto the exposed components. At the inner door, Clavigero was counting nervously, marking the seconds while the airlock was exposed to open space. The builder's blueprints indicated a two-minute safety interlock, past which an alarm might sound. Hadeishi hoped the miners had not wired a direct alarm system to the bridge.

'Stand by to pierce outer hatch.' Tonuac swam inside with the last case. The bulky shape of a shipyard hexacarbon drill was strapped to his chest. As he did so, Maratay kicked himself out through the opening, catching the edge of the opened lock door. He swung round to face back inside. His motions had the same kind of controlled, endlessly-practiced grace shown by Felix in disassembling the access panel.

Hadeishi flattened himself against a wall now covered with gear. Felix ignored Tonuac as he powered up the drill and maneuvered the machine to sit flush with the airlock door. A series of lights on Felix's panel flashed amber in warning.

'Forty-five seconds,' she announced in an offhand voice. Tonuac ignored her, checking the seals around the base of the drill. A pressure test showed green and he punched the GO button. Immediately, Hadeishi felt a thready, intermittent vibration through the wall at his back. The drill attacked the inner surface of the airlock door, ejecting a stream of sparking hexacarbon flakes through a side vent.

'Thirty seconds.' Felix consulted her handheld and let the Cornuelle comp attack the access panel. This time, there was a barely noticeable flash of numbers and the inner door unlocked. 'Door two unlocked.'

Hadeishi clicked his circuit to the Cornuelle. 'Comm will be dead in five seconds.'

Kosho did not have time to reply. Felix rotated a locking ring and the hardline disconnected. The monofilament wire hung suspended for an instant before Maratay – his gloves protected by magnetically active pads – reeled the line out of the lock.

'Fifteen seconds.' Felix glanced at Tonuac. The drill was still vibrating against the door.

'Twelve seconds.' Maratay nodded sharply and moved out of sight.

'Door one pierced,' Tonuac announced, disengaging the drill adhesion seals. He handed off the tool to Hadeishi, who stuffed it into the appropriate case. A cloud of drifting metallic curls floated around him. Outside, Maratay forced a pressure-sleeve into the fresh drill hole. The comm hardwire was tucked inside. Tonuac grabbed the connector as it eeled through the opening, slid a seal gasket around the device and handed off to Felix.

'Outer segment sealed.' Maratay's harsh Gujari accent conveyed some of the tension Hadeishi felt. The Marine swung nimbly around the edge of the airlock door. He and Tonuac moved out of the door frame itself. 'Inner segment sealed. Outer door cleared to close.'

Hadeishi heard the comm channel chime open and saw Felix had reconnected the hardline to the relay. The system warbled happily to itself, signaling a clear connection back to the ship.

'Six seconds,' she declared, one hand poised over the outer door control lever. She eyeballed Tonuac and Maratay to make sure they were behind the cross-hatched danger stripe and swung the control down. 'Closing outer door.'

A thump followed as the airlock engaged, rolled closed and slid into secure position. Tonuac kept an eye on the hardwire, guiding the monofilament with his hands. 'Outer door secure. Pressurizing.'

Two minutes later, the airlock was at positive, nominal pressure, the seals around the hardline were holding and the inner door rotated aside. Maratay and Clavigero sidled out into a dim, gray-walled passageway. Hadeishi waited until all four Marines had exited the lock and taken up positions on either side. He stepped out into shipside gravity and frowned.

The bulkhead opposite held a dark – apparently broken – map panel. Streaks of rust spilled down unpainted metal. He looked up and down the corridor – some of the overhead lights were missing, while everything had an unmistakable air of decay and long-overdue maintenance. The difference between the immaculate, shipshape Cornuelle and this wreck was striking. Hadeishi shook his head in dismay and consulted his handheld.

'Left-hand corridor,' he said, trying to avoid staring at the deck, which had a thin sheet of some kind of oil shimmering underneath the waffle-grid flooring. 'Three hundred meters straight on, then there's an internal pressure hatch.'

Maratay moved out on point, gliding down the dingy passageway at a run. Hadeishi looked around again and clicked open the channel to the ship. 'Sho-sa, what do you make of this?'

The crew is too small, Susan's voice came back, as clear as if she stood at his side. And the ship is too large. According to the builder's plan, there are nearly a hundred and twenty k of corridor and pressurized space inside a Tyr.

'Understood.' Hadeishi closed the channel and bent to help Tonuac and Felix haul the rest of the equipment cases into the corridor.

The Palenque, Inbound

One of the v-panes showing a peapod data-feed suddenly went dark. A warning light flared on Magdalena's control panel and the resolution of the composite image on the main display degraded markedly. Now there was only a flickering, indistinct image of a vast, sprawling storm seen from a great height. Barely better than looking out a window at the distant planet. And who knew what was happening under the mottled ochre clouds?

'Only one eye left. We see no better than a snake,' the Hesht snarled helplessly. She wanted to pace or run or just crash through a stand of high grass, long legs blurring across hard-packed, dusty ground. Trapped on a tiny ship without proper exercise facilities, limping along at half-speed, a vast distance from the lost steppes of Heshukan, her options had been reduced to shredding the furniture…and now even the joy of exercising her claws palled. 'Parker, engine status?'

A comm pane flickered and shifted as a hand in a work glove adjusted a camera lens. The blunt, broad, plant- eating face of Engineer First Isoroku glared out at her. 'There has been no change since your last request for status. Maneuver drive three is still offline.'

Magdalena showed her incisors in response, though she knew the challenge was lost on these humans. 'Where is Parker-tzin?'

The engineer shifted and pointed with a tilted head. The pilot's work boots were partially visible, wedged inside some kind of maintenance accessway. A sort of muffled song was barely audible, leaking out from the opening. Maggie's ears twitched – Parker's idea of a pleasing tune did not coincide with hers. Where are the yowls and shrieks? 'He, too, is still busy.'

She could tell – feel, really, from the tense tilt of his head and the flare of his nostrils – that the engineer was getting rightfully upset by her constant badgering. Despite their standing difference of opinion over remaining in the system, the Fleet officer had set himself to work in an admirable way. Even a Hesht of her particular temper could see he was making an honest effort. Though every instinct screamed to rush ahead, to boost output on the remaining two maneuver drives – and emit a radiation signature visible throughout half the system – she forced her mouth closed, politely hiding her teeth.

'Isoroku-tzin,' she said, forcing the words out in a strangled-sounding voice. 'My apologies for interrupting your activities. Please carry on. When drive three is online, I would appreciate… yrrrr…being informed.'

The engineer did not respond immediately. In fact, he squinted rather suspiciously at her. At length, lips pursed, he said, 'Apology accepted,' and signed off the channel, still frowning.

Magdalena ran half-extended claws through her fur, wondering what passed for thought in the heads of these tree-dwelling fruit-eaters. 'Rrrr…what is going on down there?'

The storm-covered surface of the third planet mocked her, the single staring red eye of a monstrous serpent. Still on edge, she began experimenting with the different kinds of sensors mounted on the peapod. None of them proved immediately helpful.

'I think,' a gruff human voice said from the entryway, 'you've confused Isoroku- tzin.'

Maggie turned and gave Gunso Fitzsimmons a level stare. In the daily routine of the ship, the Marines stayed off the bridge – Parker claimed they didn't like the smell, though of course