House of Reeds

comps. I've train tickets, too, so tomorrow – Parker, listen to me – we need to find the train station and see how much baggage we can take with us.'

The pilot nodded, though he didn't seem pleased.

'Maggie – is there any kind of local datanet we can query for more information about these priests?'

The Hesht shook her head mournfully. 'I fear not, hunt-sister. This entire kaaasha- shaan suffered a catastrophic failure – one involving the profligate use of atomic weapons – six or seven hundred years ago. There are notes in what passes for an Imperial historical archive indicating a sophisticated world-net existed before the last collapse. But now? The natives just reinvented rotary-wheel counting-cards.'

'Are you sure?' Anderssen unfolded from her mat and paced to the window. Outside, the storm continued to belch rain into the streets, hiding everything behind a wall of fog and mist. 'There are relay towers on some of the higher buildings…'

'A voice network.' Maggie tapped her earbug. 'The Imperial Development Board for Barbarous Planets is financing a city-level network for personal use. Very old technology, cheap, reliable and easy to deploy – every kit and caboodle has one.' The Hesht's tongue flashed in amusement. 'Once all the relays are built, a world-net will creep up out of the grass…but there's nothing now.'

Parker was frowning, which drew an inquiring eyebrow from Gretchen. 'Didn't they have a communications network before the Empire showed up?'

'They had a post office,' Maggie said, flat black nose wrinkling in disdain, 'before you monkeys arrived. Paper letters delivered twice a day to each den in the city, once a day out in the country.'

The pilot's disbelief was plain. 'Not even a telephone? That's stupid. You can make a telephone with two cans and some string!'

'There are telephones,' the Hesht snapped, 'but they're restricted to central offices in each town or city – no private lines – and you have to stand in line, breathing everyone's -'

'Not string…shielded copper wire or optical thread,' Gretchen interrupted thoughtfully. 'Even a voice-only residential network would require thousands of kilometers of cable. Millions for the whole planet…'

The Hesht flicked her ears at Parker and sniffed loudly. 'My hunt-sister pays attention.'

'Sure…sure…I remember.' Parker frowned at the dirty carpet as ifit had begun to chew on his boot. 'They don't have any ready sources of iron or copper or tin – all used up thousands of years ago. I get that – but if that's the case – then anything made of metal should be pretty costly, right?'

Anderssen nodded. 'So?'

'So, why was I able to buy these for next to nothing down in the souk?' Parker knelt, rolling open the dusty carpet with a deft movement. There was a rattling clank and four gleaming metallic shapes were revealed under the cloth. Gretchen hissed in alarm, and then her eyebrows drew together in concentration. Each weapon was held in place by a strap sewn to the carpet. Rows of pockets between each rifle held ammunition magazines.

'Automatic rifles? Imperial issue? You bought these in a public market?'

Parker nodded, catching her eye with a worried glance.

'I went out this afternoon,' the pilot said, running a hand over the nearest rifle. 'Looking to catch the lay of the land, find some smokes, get Maggie the latest malinche – you know, the usual. Didn't scare up anything on the main streets, but then I found the edge of the market district and decided to see what was for sale in the back alleys.'

Parker spread his hands, indicating the guns. 'Off the boulevards, things are a little different than you'd expect. Hundreds of dark little streets lined with shops. Arcades three and four stories high filled with music and smoke and little bakeries. Cafйs. A farmers market a kilometer long and two wide. And anything you might want to buy. These I found in a street of – it's hard to describe – but travel supplies, I guess: gangs of bearers to carry your bags, luggage, tents, these horned riding lizards, everything you'd need for a journey. And guns – lots of guns.'

'How much did these things cost?' Gretchen's lips thinned to a sharp line. She glared at the pilot. She didn't care much for guns, not on the job. Any girl growing up in the high timber on New Aberdeen learned to shoot when she learned to walk, but that didn't mean she liked them. Having weaponry around meant there was an easy way to solve disputes – and Anderssen had teased enough bones out of the ground without putting them there too.

'Fifty quills the lot.' Parker didn't smile. 'These are military surplus submachine guns – they've makers' stamps from some factory on Kiruna. They're a knockoff of an old KV-45B rifle used during the last war. Super reliable. Takes a standard Imperial 8mm round. Won't jam up or rust in this drippy weather…'

Gretchen rapped her knuckles on the barrel of the nearest weapon. 'This is anodized steel.'

'Exactly.' Parker started to chew on his tabac. 'So if iron and copper are supposed to be like gold here, why could I buy these on the sidewalk? Why so cheap? What are they doing here anyway?'

'I don't know.' Anderssen stood up. 'But they're not our business and we don't need them. In the morning, I want you to trade them for something useful – anything but more weapons.'

'Wha…boss! Wait a minute, there's something else you need to know.' Parker stood as well, and Gretchen was alarmed to see open fear on the man's face. 'I haven't been here long, but everywhere I went there was a really, really bad vibe in the air. Down in the souk – I mean where the natives go to get happy – they don't like humans very much. Not at all… We might need th ese. I saw…thereare plenty more guns on the street. And what about the priests in this reed house place? They don't sound very polite either!'

Gretchen shook her head sharply. 'Parker! We aren't here to rob a bank, even if these monks are vicious fanatics. We aren't an army and we're not going to try and take on the city population. We're going to stay quiet and get up to Takshila and find out what this 'heavenly tree' is, or isn't, quietly. Guns are not quiet. Ever.'

The pilot started to speak, saw the tense look on her face and raised his hands in defeat. 'Sure, boss. I'll get these out of here in the morning.'

'Good.' Gretchen turned to the Hesht. 'Maggie, can you access the local wireless voice network? Are our personal comms compatible? They are? Good.' She shuffled through the papers Petrel had given her and found what seemed to be a rental agreement. 'Find out where this apartment is and make sure it's in line of sight of the House. If it is, great, otherwise – find us someplace that is.'

The Hesht nodded somberly. 'What about this den?'

'We'll keep it,' Gretchen said, staring out at the city again. Lights were beginning to shine fuzzily through the murk as the rain lifted. She wondered what the Jehanan sitting in those dimly lit rooms were thinking. Are they cursing us? I might be, if Imperial merchants suddenly started dumping surplused machine guns on my streets. 'We might need to arrive suddenly at any hour. Keep the key.'

A Nondescript House

On a Street of Trumpetvines, Central Parus

Skin stretched tight, a jittery hum tickling her spine, Itzpalicue settled into a nest of patterned quilts and v-pane displays. Thin trails of blood seeped down her chest, spouting like tiny serpents from pricks along her collarbone and breasts. The bitter taste of oliohuiqui burned on the back of her tongue and the Mйxica woman felt two steps removed from the quietly glowing panels. Lachlan's technicians had installed two large v-pane displays on either side of the bed.

Every window was shuttered – the putative owners of the house were on vacation, visiting the seaside temple of Tembanifar, way off in the south near Patala – and reinforced with ablative armor. One display held a string of palm-sized v-panes, showing feeds from cameras scattered through the house and grounds.

A motley company of Arachosians squatted or dozed in the garden, long reptilian heads hidden by embroidered traveling cloaks. Not one of the mercenaries was more than a hand's reach away from his weapons. Invisible against the smoggy sky, translucent spybugs drifted over the whole neighborhood, watching every passing cart and laundry boy. Inside, the downstairs rooms were empty save for lengths of armored cable descending into the tunnels under the old house. Three meters behind each window and door, 'pop-top' area saturation weapons stood on triangular stands, ready to erupt if anything burst uninvited into the ground floor.

Itzpalicue's wrinkled hands drifted across the displays and they sprang to life, filling with dozens of v-panes, showing telemetry from the orbiting Cornuelle, video from every native and Imperial groundside source, an overhead view of the Mirror operations center, even the bridge of the Flower Priest support