Wasteland of flint

going to take care of matters both here on the ship and below on the planet. I must rely on you to deal with this mining refinery ship. But you must do so quietly.'

Hadeishi started to speak, then stopped, eyes narrowing. Finally, he said, 'By quietly you mean in such a way no one will notice, or know, the miner was here, or we were here, or even the civilian expedition.'

The tlamatinime nodded. 'Even so.'

'Without,' Hadeishi continued, slowly stroking his beard, 'the use of atomics, or antimatter weapons, or even – I venture – anything which might leave a lasting and detectable residue in the system, much less that which might be observed from the surface of Ephesus Three.'

'Yes.'

The captain straightened in his chair, tugging his tunic straight. He met Hummingbird's eyes with the slightest smile – barely a crease at his eyes, no more than the faintest twitch of his lips. 'So the Mirror commands,' he said, making a bow in his seat, 'so we obey.'

A sharp bark of laughter escaped Hummingbird, and he nodded, making a wry smile. A cold thread of fear was trying to wrap around his neck, but he kept such phantoms away by a concentrated effort. He hoped the blue pyramid did not reveal something beyond his power to comprehend, though the bits and pieces of this puzzle were assuming a dreadful shape. 'But quietly, Chu-sa Hadeishi, quietly.'

'What about you? To find the whereabouts of this miner – or even to discover if the ship is still in the system – will take us out of orbit, well beyond easy reach if you need retrieval.'

Hummingbird suppressed a further laugh, for he was long familiar with the ways of men, and with the Nisei in particular. The captain was not asking about Hummingbird, but about the men and women on the Palenque. He was asking about his Marines – would they live to return to the Cornuelle? – and even perhaps about Anderssen and the scientists. Delicately phrased, the Mйxica thought, very…what is that word? Ah, kotonakare-shugi – the willful disregard of troublesome matters.

'Anderssen,' Hummingbird said, trading time – which he felt pressing – for politeness, 'is taking her own steps, even now. She has a quick wit, in her light-haired way. If she fails, then I will do what must be done. I hope,' he added, 'to return Thai-i Isoroku, Gunso Fitzsimmons and Heicho Deckard to you at the earliest opportunity.'

Hadeishi made a sharp bow in response and the tlamatinime knew the man was a little embarrassed to have his concern referred to openly. The thought made Hummingbird a little sad. The Chu-sa obviously cared for his crew, as a grandfather did for even the meanest member of his clan. And I would trade all their lives for the Empire, he thought. Vague memories of a time when he had maintained such romantic notions threatened to surface and he made a sharp effort to keep them from distracting him. They are knights, as I am, in the service of a greater power. Like flowers, we are nothing but a fleeting moment of duty and service.

'Is there anything you need, before we cut comm and boost out of orbit?' Hadeishi's attention was already far away, calculating angles and fuel usage and a dozen envelopes of detection. Hummingbird shook his head, then made a shallow bow of his own.

'The road is long, crags above, ravines below,' the tlamatinime said, raising his hand in parting.

'But our feet are swift, our eyes eager to see the home hearth,' Mitsuharu said, and closed the comm.

Hummingbird rubbed his face, wrinkled fingers bronze in the glow of the comp displays. Fleet and civilian records had no record of a mineral or crystalline lifeform which so deftly replicated a living human being. Too, he was intrigued by the degradation of the copy as time passed. It seemed, to his eye at least, the creature drew its strength from the planet in some undefined way. Travel to the ship, and then isolation behind the radiation barrier, had robbed it of the ability to move and hold shape.

'But what made you?' He wondered aloud, replaying the arrival of Russovsky on the ship at half-speed. 'The world below was destroyed so long ago – has such a complex organism had time to flower in this barrenness? Or are you something left over from before – a ghost out of a dead epoch?'

There was a cheerful chirp from one of his sub-panels. Hummingbird looked over, a sudden feeling of unease stealing upon him. The blue pyramid had seen fit to reveal one of its secrets to him. He pulled himself to the display – which sat apart from the others, and was only connected to his comps by a series of cutout buffers – and tapped a convoluted glyph showing a flayed man's face draped over the blackened head of a priest.

A v-pane unfolded and Hummingbird began to read, his dark face barely illuminated by the soft lights playing across the glassite surface. In his eyes, a queer twisting flame burned, reflecting the images dancing before him in the depths of the pyramid.

'Urrrh!' The tip of a metal bar scraped under the ragged edge of the radiation shielding. Maggie twitched her fingers aside – barely avoiding a bad cut – and then squeaked her own makeshift lever into the narrow opening.

'Together,' Gretchen shouted, hoping Magdalena and Bandao could hear her. Anderssen bore down with all her weight and the pleated metal groaned. An inch of bright lamplight was revealed and there was an answering grunt from the other side. 'Again!'

They'd managed to lift the radiation barrier nearly a foot when the main lights suddenly flicked back on and the medical comp beeped to announce it had reconnected to the rest of the shipside network. Gretchen looked up, feeling the cold breeze of the air circulators on her sweat-streaked face.

'Oh, that feels good…' She stood up, wiping her brow, and stabbed a forefinger at the hatch controls. She was rewarded with a screeching sound, and the broken panel ground up toward the overhead. The radiation panel hissed back as well and she ducked through the opening into the nurses' station. 'You two all right?'

Maggie nodded, her face contorted as she queried main comp through the medical display. 'We've only got local power and environment back. The main system is still restricted – someone's dropped a shipwide lockout on us.'

'Who ordered that?' Gretchen examined a secondary panel controlling the medical bay environment. A thought had occurred to her and she wanted to just check one thing…

'I can guess,' Maggie snarled, exposing her incisors. 'A cursed carrion bird watching us from the branches of a dead, rotting tree!'

'Who?' Gretchen found the control set she wanted and tapped out a series of commands. A pale violet light flickered on in the examining room. 'A bird? Oh – you mean a hummingbird.' She glanced up at the surveillance camera. 'He's just making sure our guest doesn't get out. Dai – does the outer hatch work?'

The gunner shook his head. He'd been trying to get the lock to override for five minutes – all to no avail. The door out of Medical into the rest of the hab ring was sealed tight. 'We're still trapped,' he said, running his hand over the metallic surface. 'High-ex rounds from this Luger might penetrate.'

'Not inside the ship,' Gretchen said in a sharp voice. Her whole attention was fixed on the examining room, where the slow pulsing violet glow seemed to etch every surface in sepia tone. 'Well, now…'

The Cornuelle

Hadeishi overhanded onto the bridge, tunic straight, uniform jacket entirely neat. Kosho and Hayes were seated at the main navigation station, heads bent over the display. The Marine heicho standing watch near the hatchway coughed sharply, then straightened to attention. A difficult task in z-g, but he was an Imperial Marine.

Heicho Tonuac started to announce Hadeishi's presence, but the captain shook his head minutely as he slid nimbly into his shockchair. Kosho and Hayes looked up in surprise, catching sight of his entrance, and the exec immediately moved to her own station.

'Sho-sa, sound battle stations. Recall all work crews and prepare to take us out of orbit,' Hadeishi said without preamble as he settled into his chair, powered motors whining to align the shockfoam with his back and legs. 'Full emissions control, Thai-i Hayes. Release active control of the