House of Reeds

away.

'Hmmm.' The attachй made a noncommittal noise, his head bent over Gretchen's identity papers and transit visa. She guessed the windows in this room were flung wide to embrace the hot, tropical smell of the flowers outside because the slim young man sitting across from her was a Mixtec. A climate like this would remind him very much of home. She had never seen the great cities of Timbuktu or Ax Idah or Brass herself, but articles in the travel magazines endemic to starliner waiting lounges indicated gorgeous architecture, sprawling gardens and a lively social life. The old Mйxica colonies in sub-Saharan Afrika had flourished after the end of the War.

He looked up, fine-boned features sharp under dark cocoa skin. The young man's face held such a look of seriousness Anderssen was struck by unexpected sadness. Such a handsome man should be letting himself live a little more. Just a tiny bit. Does he remember how to smile?

'I am sorry, Anderssen-tzin, but I cannot give you a survey permit for any region on Jagan.' He gathered her papers together and put them into a folder. 'I understand you've wound up here by accident, more or less, but an exclusionary planetary excavation, analysis and recovery grant has already been made to the University of Tetzcoco department of Extrasolar Anthropology.'

Gretchen grimaced. Tetzcoco EXA had quite a reputation. She tried to hide her reaction, but the young man's eyebrows rose in surprise.

'Have you worked with Professor Der SГє before?'

'Not directly, Soumake-tzin. But I spent two years on Old Mars working for one of his graduate students. He has a towering reputation among my peers.'

'Does he?' The attachй rose from his chair and moved to the window, long-fingered hands tapping on the sill. 'Well, I have only met with him once or twice since my arrival.' Soumake turned, still dreadfully serious. 'He is – in my personal opinion – an ass of a man, with half the sense. I do not know what kind of agreement my predecessor struck with the local princes, but SГє is running his own fiefdom up at Fehrupurй and I doubt the local kujen would care if a hundred tons of artifacts were being shipped out every month. He'd be using his cut of the proceeds to buy guns.'

Anderssen settled a little in her chair, realizing the attachй was giving her a particularly searching look. 'You're…um…worried about smuggling?'

'I am.' Soumake leaned against the window. Like most of the officials and staff Gretchen had seen while wending her way through the halls of the Legation, he was dressed in a long, narrow-cut cotton mantle over a light shirt and dark pants. She sighed inwardly to see he carried off the look very well. Most people in official costume looked like they were wearing a tent…

'Jagan is an ancient world, Anderssen-tzin. Some estimates place the first remnants of civilization here at over a million years old. That verges on First Sun times. Rare to find such a world continuously inhabited over such a vast span of years. One wonders what might lie buried beneath the cities in the hinterland. SГє is hoping for glory, I'm sure.'

He looked down at her papers again, now packed up in a dark olive folder. 'I am also aware of the reputation enjoyed by the Honorable Chartered Company. Not one which shouts 'academic integrity' or 'law-abiding,' is it?'

Gretchen tried not to squirm and regretted taking a stab at a legal professional presence on this world. But I'm supposed to inform the authorities! They told me to get a permit!

'I'm not…I'm not here on official Company business, Soumake-tzin. We finished a project on Shimanjin and had some free time. The Company doesn't care how I get back home, as long as I pay any difference in the ticket. I missed my connection at Tadmor Station and the next ship out was the Star of Naxos and it was coming through here. Reading about the worlds on the liner-run piqued my interest in Jagan, so I thought I'd spend some time sightseeing before the next liner arrives.'

The attachй's expression did not change. 'You picked a bad time.'

Gretchen nodded, striving for a suitably morose expression. It came easily. 'We saw the Fleet landing at the spaceport while we were waiting at Customs. Is there trouble brewing?'

A rich, melodious laugh burst from the Mixtec and he shook his head, the flash of a grin lighting his face. The moment passed as quickly as it had come. 'Brewing? My dear lady, the valley of the Five Rivers is well past brewing…on the edge of explosion I think.' He sat down.

'Between Capsia in the northwest and Patala on the southern coast there are sixty kujenates – principalities – and a dozen feudatory tribes. You may not have noticed yet, but the Jehanan are not the only sentient race resident on Jagan. To my knowledge, there are at least three others. Little love is lost between any of them. There are hundreds of religious sects, all quarreling with one another. In some districts there are entire armies of brigands roaming the countryside.

'Labor unions have begun to spring up in the cities as industry catalyzes around new Imperial technologies. The factory owners negotiate with clubs, poison gas and murder. The mountains to the west are filled with semi- nomadic tribes – such as the Arachosians – whose livelihood is wholesale theft. East of the Phison, thankfully, is a harsh desert, because beyond the Ghor is the fiercely xenophobic empire of the Golden King.

'Into this cookpot you thrust the Empire, the pochteca companies, our own missionary orders and the whole mixture boils far too fast.'

'We're not welcome here?' Gretchen indicated the luxurious room and the sprawling compound of the Legation beyond the betel wood doors. None of the buildings within an ancient, red-brick rampart showed the first sign of a hostile populace. There were no guard-posts, no machine guns, no waspwire.

'On the contrary,' Soumake said, running a hand across a perfectly smooth scalp. 'Every single one of those factions, parties, sects, unions, gangs and princes wants our friendship desperately. Consider this – you are a scientist, you will understand: Jagan is old. Ancient. Worn down by thousands of generations of inhabitants. Entire civilizations have risen and then fallen again. Nuclear wars have smashed them back to savagery and they have clawed their way back up again. Twice the Jehanan have reached into space, only to tumble back at the last moment.'

The attachй sighed, pointing at a heavy glass case on one wall. 'Consider this metal fragment in an isolation case. Not sealed to protect the artifact, no, but to protect us from radiation permeating the metal casing inside. One of the metallurgists with the Tetzcoco expedition examined the item and confirmed what I had already surmised. Go ahead, take a good look.'

Gretchen stepped to the case and frowned. Inside was a stout-looking hexagonal rod, marked by two parallel indents. Faded, indecipherable lettering ran around the top in a band two fingers high. The metal shone silver, without any sign of age or decay.

'This looks like the fuel cylinder for a power plant of some kind.'

Soumake nodded, spreading his hands. 'An antimatter container, to be precise. Empty now. The antiparticles inside decayed long ago, suffusing the steel sheath with byproduct radiation. After the AM evaporated, the magnetic containment system inside shut down.'

'How old is it?' Gretchen measured the device with her hand, taking care not to touch the glass. 'Where did it come from?'

The attachй rubbed his chin. 'I purchased the 'holy relic' from a scrap metal dealer in Capsia last year. A trader from out of the cold waste beyond the mountains had brought it to him. A tentative estimate of the decay rate weighs in at several hundred thousand years. But here is what interests me… The lettering is avery, very early form of Jehanan. Much like you will see on the porticoes of their oldest temples today.'

Gretchen turned around, one pale blonde eyebrow rising. 'You said the Jehanan civilizations had been destroyed before they could reach into space. Antimatter production facilities are nearly always built in orbit, outside a gravity well.'

Soumake nodded. 'The physical xenoarchaeologists disagree with me, Anderssen- tzin. They say proof is lacking, but the biologists concur. The Jehanan are not native to this world. They came from space, as we have done, and conquered Jagan. What conflagration tore down their starfaring civilization I do not know…' He grimaced, making a motion which included the city outside the walls ofthe Legation. '…but the native princes are eager reach the stars again. As I said, Jagan is an old, old world.'

A steadily deepening frown on Gretchen's face suddenly cleared and she indicated the casing. 'Iron.'