House of Reeds

The Mйxica Mandate at Sobipurй, Jagan; End of the Northern Hemisphere Rainy Season

Waves of heat rippled up from the tarmac of a primitive shuttle field. Gretchen tipped back her field hat to wipe a sweat-drenched forehead. Her other hand waved a Shimanjai-made fan over the supine form of her communications technician, Magdalena, who was sprawled on the ragged earth border of the landing field. The black-pelted Hesht was panting furiously, purple-red tongue lolling from the side of her long mouth. The alien female's eyes were bare slits against the copper glare of the Jaganite sky.

'Can she die from overheating?' Parker shuffled his boots on the pavement. The Company pilot's shirt clung damply to a thin body. He was standing between Magdalena and the swollen red disk of the sun, though he cast very little shade at all.

'I don't know,' Gretchen said. 'But she's suffering. I wish we had our heavy equipment here – at least we could put up a shade.'

Parker shrugged, plucking a dying tabac from his mouth and flicking the butt through a nearby fence. Beyond the hexagonal wooden barrier, ten meters of dusty red earth choked with waste paper, discarded glass bottles, scraps of shuttle tire and tangles of glittering cotton string separated them from a row of houses. The shacks were little more than sections of cargo container – most of them bearing the faded, cracking labels of Imperial shipping concerns – turned on their sides and tacked together with extruded foam glue.

The slums sprawling away from the edge of the spaceport did not impress the Company pilot. There were no skyscraping towers, no gravity-defying buildings of alien hue. Nothing over a story in height. Only a mass of tiny, squalid-looking buildings reaching off into a choking brown haze.

'Wouldn't do anything about the thickness of this air, boss.' The pilot looked left and right, mirrored glasses catching the heat-haze boiling up from the tarmac. 'At least out here, if there's a breeze, we might catch a little of it. In there…' He pointed at the teeming city crouched just beyond the barrier. '…you can't even breathe.'

The smell from the city was already overpowering; a thick soup of hydrocarbon exhaust, smoke from cooking fires, a harsh, unexpected smell like cinnamon and the sharp tang of solvents and heated metal.

Ahead of them, some of the other passengers moved up, sending a slow, jerky ripple down the line. Parker was quick to snatch up their bags – one huge duffel each – and drag them forward before the Taborite missionaries behind them could dodge into the gap. Gretchen reached down, took hold of Maggie's upper arms and grunted, hauling the Hesht to her feet.

'Yrrrrowwl-urch,' Magdalena groaned in near-delirium, long tongue disappearing behind rows of grinding teeth. One paw batted listlessly at the air. 'Sister…just put the gun to my head and trigger-pull. Then…then take my pelt and make a sun-shade for your cubs… Remember me, when you sing at the hunting-fire…'

'Oh, be quiet.' Gretchen shook her head in dismay, helping the Hesht forward. The line moved two, perhaps three meters towards the Customs House at the end of the runway. 'We'll be in the shade soon, and then, eventually, we can get to our hotel.'

Parker snorted, tapping another tabac out of the pack in his shirt pocket. 'I think anything called a 'hotel' on this planet will be a sore disappointment.' He sighed, shifting to put himself between the sweltering glare of the red giant filling the western sky and the panting Hesht. 'After Shimanji n…maybe Mags should have stayed and taken her vacation time there.'

Gretchen shook her head, squatting, feeling the asphalt give queasily under her boots. Heat radiating from the tarmac burned the soles of her feet and beat against her face; the landing strip was an oven a thousand meters long and fifty wide. 'There will be places like Hofukai on this world, too. Clean, cool, nearpine swaying in a shore breeze, crisp white linens on immaculately made beds… But not down here in this…hole.'

'Stupid-ass Company,' Parker said, thin lips twisted twisted into a scowl. 'You don't suppose we're being punished for doing a good job on Shimanjin? No…what about that business on Ephesus Three? Maybe they're dinging you for all the data the Imperials confisca -'

An accelerating blast of sound drowned out his voice and everyone in the customs line jerked in surprise. As one, the six hundred passengers recently disem-barked from the Imperial passenger liner Star of Naxos turned, staring in alarm at the northern sky.

There, beyond a kilometer of open ground – high springy grass poking up between scattered stubs of eroding concrete, some kind of small horned ruminant grazing on low-lying furze – lay four more shuttle runways – all empty. Beyond them, in turn, a line of gleaming, modern buildings marked the 'main terminal' of the Sobipurй spaceport.

The thundering roar resolved into the shriek of shuttle engines – not just one, but dozens. The northern sky split open, smoky clouds peeling aside as four enormous slate-gray shuttles dropped down through the haze over the sprawling city. The first shuttle tilted back, landing thrusters howling, and a hot, metallic-tasting wind swept across the field.

Gretchen turned her head away as overpressure whipped around her, tugging long blonde hair loose from her field hat, filling her nose with the bitter smell of engine exhaust. A sharp clattering rose from the rows of shacks beyond the fence. The ground trembled as the first Fleet assault shuttle cracked down, enormous wheels spitting sparks.

'What's all this?' Anderssen switched to her local comm as she crouched against the fence, one hand tight on her duffle, the other shielding her face from a whirlwind of grit kicked up off the tarmac.

'It's the Fleet,' Parker shouted in reply. He had not turned away, dialing the magnification on his lenses up as high as it would go. 'It's not a combat drop…unit markings are still visible under the cockpit windows. A rampart lined with skulls…I think that's the Tarascan Rifles. An Arrow Knight Regiment.'

Another flight of four shuttles cut through the clouds, increasing the deafening blast of noise, wind and fumes battering at them. The first set had already rolled to a halt near the main terminal and fore and aft cargo doors were opening.

Parker watched silently as armored combat tracks rolled down into the hot Jaganite afternoon, squads of men clinging to the sides or jogging out of the cavernous holds in long, professional-looking lines. After a moment, he looked up, ignoring the next wave of shuttles coming in. Sure enough, high in the sky, glinting between the streamers of cloud, there were fresh stars burning in the daylight sky.

'Boss…' His voice was a little hushed on the comm circuit. 'Did you know Fleet was about to put the hammer down? Here, I mean, on this piss-poor world…' The pilot turned, staring down at Gretchen with a sickly look on his face.

'Parker.' Anderssen started to chew on her lower lip, then forced herself to stop. 'The Company decided we should come here. End of story. Get your bag, the line's moving.'

A noisy, restless crowd pressed against Gretchen on all sides. The cinnamon smell choked the air, making her gasp for breath. Outside the Customs House – a suffocatingly warm hall with a dirt floor and no chairs – was some kind of a public transit station. Enormous metallic conveyances, smooth curves covered by thick, irregular layers of pasted-on advertisements, sat huffing exhaust beneath corrugated metal awnings. A huge mob of the reptilian Jehanan – scaled heads adorned with eye-shields in violent greens and blues, slender arms filled with packages bound in twine – were jostling to climb aboard.

'Which one do we need?' Gretchen had both arms wrapped around her package – the duffel with her gear, clothes, tools, books and papers – and was squeezed in between a nervous Parker and an awake, furious, agitated Magdalena. None of the buses bore Imperial lettering, only the flowing, curlicued native script. 'Can we get an aerotaxi?'

'I don't think so,' Maggie growled as the motion of the crowd pushed them between two wooden pillars supporting the nearest sun-shade. The bus idling in the bay was easily seven meters high with a bulging glass forward window. The original color of the metal seemed to be a pale, cool green, hidden under layers of grime, glue and paper scraps. Gretchen couldn't swear to her guess about the color. There was more of a sense of flowing water in the smooth outline of the vehicle.

'See?' the Hesht snarled at the sky, where the bloated red sun was suddenly obscured by the whining shapes of aerotaxis flitting past, heading northwest. Parker cursed, spitting out the crumpled remains of a tabac. Human faces stared down out of the open windows of the jetcars. One of the Imperial officers – their black uniforms were clear