House of Reeds

We could just get an aerocar or ultralight and see the sights…'

Anderssen did not reply, giving the pilot a stony look.

'Oh, okay.' Parker slumped back down behind the Hesht. Maggie snorted, flaring her nostrils in amusement. 'Be all legal then…'

'We will follow the Company directive and get a permit.' Gretchen let out a long, slow hiss. Outside the rain- streaked window, traffic was slowing and she could just make out lights – long strings of glowing neon – rising in the murk. Buildings. We're finally in the city. Oh, I hope there aren't a hundred k of suburbs or something… I suppose it is rush hour, too.

Horns started to blare outside, traffic slowing, and the bus shuddered to a near-halt. Delightful, Anderssen thought, five hundred light-years from home…and stuck in traffic.

Fat drops of rain spattered on the landing platform tucked into the northeastern corner of the Imperial Legation as Sergeant Dawd set foot on Jehanan soil, head up, attention on the ornamental trees surrounding the aerocar pad, one hand on his Nambu and the other extended to guide prince Tezozуmoc down from the aerobus. The transport was steaming in the humid air, fans whining dully. This was apparently the last stop of the day – the other officers had been dropped off at the Imperial Army cantonment south of the city.

'Where are my men? Where are my brave warriors?' the prince declared, striking a commanding pose, long nose in the air. He was wearing his second-best field dress uniform, which featured a dashing cape and an enormous amount of gold and jade trim. Rain hissed away from a built-in repeller field, surrounding Tezozуmoc with a corona of mist. 'I cannot rest until I've seen to their needs! Food, a hot meal, every soldier a bed for the night. I will lie down on the cold earth with them if need be, drinking day-old kaffe from a canteen, sharing their struggle hour for hour, day for day – even the sound of the guns will not dissuade me from my purpose! Even -'

Master Sergeant Colmuir coughed politely, motioning for Tezozуmoc to step away. The prince scowled, but moved aside for the taller man to step down to the tarmac as well. Two Fleet ratings were pulling bag after bag from the cargo compartment, steadily piling up a huge collection of armored, dent-resistant grav-lifted luggage.

'Mi'lord,' the older Skawtsman said patiently, 'you're attached to the Tarascan Rifles as a diplomatic aide – the voice of the Emperor, as it were – not as an actual commander with actual, ah, troops.'

Tezozуmoc's lips curled bitterly and for an instant, Dawd thought the prince was going to strike the master sergeant. Then the boy's face congealed into a tight mask. 'Oh. Well, then, where do I sleep?'

'The Legation itself, mi'lord,' announced a Marine corporal in a dress duty uniform who had hurried up while they were talking. He was carrying a large black umbrella. 'Yaotequihuah Clark at your service, sir. Legate Petrel has provided rooms for you in the Guest House. Our finest accommodations, you may be assured.'

The corporal nodded to Colmuir. 'You've rooms directly adjoining, Master Sergeant. If you'll follow me?'

Dawd held back, keeping an eye on the baggage. The rain was starting to pelt down hard, cutting visibility to a dozen meters or less. He could taste half-burned methanol and oil in the air. The prince was whisked away, Colmuir and Clark on either side. The sergeant followed, both automatic pistols out and in his hands. The Fleet ratings guiding the cavalcade of floating luggage didn't notice – they were concentrating on keeping the prince's baggage from wandering off into the rose bushes or getting hung up in the trees.

Magdalena stared around the hotel room in a tight-lipped, tips-of-her-fangs-bared way far too familiar to Anderssen. They were on the fiftieth floor of a crumbling concrete tower in south-central Parus. Gretchen had been struck, as they walked down the hall to their room, by the wear pattern on the floor. A shallow basin nearly four centimeters deep described the middle of the passage. The room was low ceilinged, dark and very musty.

'Well,' Gretchen said brightly, 'this is nice.' She was looking for somewhere to put her duffel. Jaganite budget hotel rooms seemed to have been designed by Russian efficiency experts. There were no chairs, only high beds on heavy wooden frames and medium-height tables reminding her of spindly armoires. Given the tripodal, tail-heavy stance of the natives, Anderssen realized there might not be any chairs on the whole planet.

That's odd. She was suddenly struck by the seating arrangements on the bus they'd taken from the shuttleport. Was that a human-built vehicle?

'Hhhhhrrrrr!' Maggie's tail twitched sharply from side to side. 'Parker is happy – I think his whole clan have laired here with their nose-biting smoke.'

The pilot ignored her, peering curiously at a mechanism controlling a set of louvered blinds over the windows. Gretchen dumped her bag on the foot of the smallest bed – both Maggie and Parker were taller. The pilot tried one of the buttons on the face of the device and was rewarded with a whining groan from some kind of pulley system.

'This won't blow up, will it?' He poked another button and the blinds shivered into motion, rotating out to reveal a view of the rain-soaked city below. At the same time, a gust of damp, chilly air blew into the room. The pilot grimaced, then started to cough. 'Urgh. Smells like a benzene cracking facility. How long are we staying here?'

'One night.' Gretchen had opened the 'bathroom' door to stare at an uneven tiled floor, rusty drain and complete lack of a bathtub with horror. How would some giant lizard-thing with a tail like a third leg take a bath, o child? Her eyes swung unerringly to a bin along the wall. Sand. They abrade their thick, scaly skin with sand. What a nice scraper made of stone. Oh blessed Mother of Our Savior, deliver me from working off-world.

'Tomorrow,' she declared, 'we're going to find someplace catering to human tastes. I promise. Well, you two will find a place to stay while I visit the Legation and see about our permits.'

'These beds are not soft,' Magdalena declared, having stripped away a coarse blanket to reveal a metal frame holding a suspended net of stout-looking ropes. 'I do not like hummocks. No. Not at all.'

Parker started to correct the Hesht, caught Gretchen making an 'are-you-stupid' face and turned back to staring out at the rain. Parus at sundown was a forest of tall, round towers with softly glowing windows. The local ceramacrete tended to dusty red. Coupled with the setting sun, the city was being swallowed by a foreboding, sanguine night. The pilot squinted through the murk – individual storm cells were visible, pelting the crowded, twisting streets below with rain so thick it made patches of early darkness.

Rubbing his stubbly chin, Parker was puzzled for a moment before he realized the odd layout of the buildings was caused by the presence of broad, curved boulevards looping across the city. Hundreds of tiny, straight streets intersected them at unnatural angles. Weird. Why did they build everything all higgle-piggle like that? Crazy aliens.

Gretchen sat down on the end of her 'hummock' and began digging in her duffel. All of their heavy dig equipment – tents, analysis sensors, environment suits, hand tools – was in storage at the port, in the dubious care of the Albanian Spaceways office. Thankfully, she'd thought to stow a clutch of threesquares in her personal effects. Just the effort of finding them made her feel faint. Too big a day for us. Oh yeah.

'Here,' she said, pitching a bright blue and orange food bar to the pilot. 'I really don't think we should risk room service. Though, Maggie, they might have something live for you to eat…'

'Not hungry.' Magdalena had curled up in a corner on the wool blanket, plush tail over her nose, as far as she could get from the 'hummocks.'

'Right.' Gretchen began chewing on the molй-flavored ration bar. It sure didn't taste like chocolatl. They never did, no matter what the advertisements said.

The office of the Imperial Attachй for Antiquities had tall windows opening on a garden filled with riotous blossoms. Something like a rhododendron tree shaded the windows, heavy boughs of pinkish red flowers hanging against the open shutters. Gretchen was sweating mildly, sitting in a wide-backed chair covered with leopard skin.

While the rest of the Legation was air conditioned and dim, this room was bright, sunny and warm. Around the garden, three stories of windows set into whitewashed, ivy-covered brick reached up to a murky yellow sky. Despite thunderstorms growling and muttering through the night, the pollution hanging over the city had not been washed