House of Reeds

ship Tepoztecatl.

'…thirty-five seconds to command conference call,' Lachlan announced. In the background, his technicians were busy at work, examining and discarding datafeeds, winnowing out everything but the transmission streams from the Army cantonment at Sobipurй, the Legation in Parus and the Cornuelle high above. 'Stand by to intercept.'

The old Mйxica woman stretched her back, settled her haunches and thumbed up the three primary displays. A blank v-pane appeared in each, accompanied by secondary panes holding personal information, morphology data and a constellation of datastream adjustment controls. She started to slow her breathing in preparation for a sustained burst of activity.

'Legation secure comm is up,' Lachlan reported and the leftmost display shimmered. 'Matching feed, slipstreaming…now.' The face ofa diplomatic service communications tech appeared to Itzpalicue's left for a moment as the man adjusted the comm set in a well-appointed office and stepped away. Legate Petrel sat down, stubbed out a thin cigar and leaned back, waiting for the other members of the conference call to come on- line.

'Running morphology check now…' Lachlan's voice was a constant, steadywhisper in Itzpalicue's ear. 'Heart rate slightly up, eye-blink rate normal, breathing normal…tension index is moderate. He's having a good morning – the missus must have sent him off to work right.'

That was not helpful of Greta, Itzpalicue thought in amusement. He needs to be irritated.

'Delay conference interconnect by one minute,' she ordered Lachlan through her submike. 'Push disturbance report series one through Legation.'

The other two panes began to shimmer as Fleet and Army secure comm registered on the Imperial network. Itzpalicue let her awareness lose discrete focus, taking in the appearance of all three men at once. Both Hadeishi in orbit and Yacatolli at the Sobipurй base showed minute and welcome signs of tension. They waited patiently while the conference call synchronized.

'Legation push complete.' Lachlan came back on-line. 'Routing delay for tri-connect stands at thirty seconds.'

Legate Petrel looked aside as an aide leaned in, whispering urgently, a sheaf of dispatch reports clutched in his hand. Itzpalicue spent the extra ten seconds the delay gained them thumbing up the latest pause-counts for Yacatolli and Hadeishi. The Fleet officer's numbers made her frown.

Fleet and Army secure comm was routinely compromised by the Mirror in the name of state security. Lachlan's technicians had been busy for the past week capturing every comm stream generated by the three men waiting for the conference call. From this data, an array of Mirror comps had been building voice-delay patterns from intercepts of Hadeishi and Yacatolli in conversation. Luckily for Itzpalicue's purposes, the normal flow of human conversation was filled with innumerable silent pauses, gaps, filler sounds like uh, and misspoken, repeated words. Not all minds processed data at the same rate. A distinctly measurable response time dragged between exposure to new data and the mind's concious response.

Chu-sa Hadeishi's recent medical records indicated the long patrol voyage had worn down his body – immune counts were off, fatigue was up, muscular degeneration was apparent, reflexes had slowed – but his mind seemed to have been honed to a distressing keenness. His pause-count was quite low. The old Mйxica woman's fingers danced across the panels, shifting comp attention to the Chu- sa's datastream. Every microsecond will count.

'Connect in three…two…one.' A solid green bar outlined each v-pane.

Itzpalicue let her mind release from conscious concentration, hands poised over the display controls.

'Our meeting has particular import this morning,' Petrel announced without preamble as soon as the images of the Fleet captain and the Army colonel appeared on his display. He raised one of the sheets of paper in his hand. 'Disturbing news arrived here only moments ago – news I doubt has reached the public networks. There has been an attack on a bus terminal in Bandopene on the upper Phison. Sixteen Jehanan were killed outright and dozens more severely injured. Local militia drove the attackers off, but suffered two wounded themselves.'

Hadeishi's image frowned, but the Fleet commander waited silently.

Colonel Yacatolli was more abrupt in his response. 'How does this concern us, Legate? There is inter-factional strife among the slicks on a daily basis.'

'There is,' the Legate replied. 'The target of this attack, however, was a bus owned by Apaxis Transport Company, not the passengers. Apaxis uses imported vehicles of Imperial make – in this case, a Mitsubishi Zo-model seating sixty passengers – and the company is human owned. An Apaxis factor present in Bandopene believes the attacking gang was composed mostly of Jehanan working in the employ of rival transport companies.'

'Imperial-made vehicles have a competitive advantage?' Hadeishi's voice was curious and entirely without the affront already present in the Army officer's. 'They would inspire jealousy?'

'They do,' Petrel said, pursing his lips. 'They are very expensive by local standards. Only a company with Imperial investment capital available could reasonably afford one or more such vehicles. Apaxis owns twelve such buses.'

Hadeishi nodded in understanding. 'Quite aggravating to their competitors.'

'This is not the first such attack.' Petrel raised the sheaf of papers. 'My aides have been culling the last several weeks' news reports. There have been nearly thirty such incidents.'

'No one noticed this before?' The colonel interjected, surprised. 'Weren't they reported?'

Itzpalicue moved – her hands a blur, and the two comps under the bed cycled fully awake.

No one noticed this before? Yacatolli said scornfully on both other channels. Wasn't anyone paying attention?

'Of course they were!' Petrel stiffened slightly in his chair. 'We keep a close watch on everything occurring within the mandate – but none of these other attacks were against a company holding an Imperial charter!'

The old woman dialed up an undercurrent of scorn in the datastream carrying the Legate's voice to Yacatolli's headquarters. The physiology readouts for both men twitched upwards nicely.

'There was no reason to notice,' Hadeishi said, very diplomatically. 'Shuchiji Petrel, do you believe this is part of a larger pattern, or simply a series of localized disturbances?'

'I am concerned,' Petrel said. 'There is palpable tension growing between those who support the presence of the Empire and those who do not…as we all saw at the reception the other night. The natural rivalry between the Jehanan princes is both suppressed by our military presence and exacerbated by the influx of new wealth into Parus and Fehrupurй.'

Yacatolli laughed, tapping the side of his nose. 'You mean – the kujenai of Gandaris and Patala and Takshila have lost control of the trade monopolies which made them rich…'

Petrel nodded approvingly, pleased by the officer's grasp of the local situation.

And Itzpalicue's swift fingers made the colonel see a condescending smile.

'Even so.' Sneer. 'The great cities of the middle Phison – Fehrupurй and Parus – control vast populations and agricultural wealth, but they were starving for metal, timber and raw materials to fuel local industry. Their worked goods – textiles, machined parts, and ceramics – had to leave the local economy via the sea at Patala or by caravan via Gandaris. So things were in tenuous balance.'

'But now,' Yacatolli interjected, eyes narrowed in irritation, 'we've put a spaceport right between them at Sobipurй, and a whole new economy is booming under our protective shield. Do you believe the outland kujen are preparing to move against Parus?'

'No…' Petrel frowned, showing concern. 'But there are persistent rumors…'

No, the Legate said confidently on the 'cast feed, though there are always rumors…

'…of intrigues and plots and mutinies.' Petrel shook his head in dismay. 'These princes are a nest of snakes. I don't trust them out of my sight.'

…and they rarely prove true. The Legate shook his head dismissively. Jumped up thieves and robber-barons, every one of them. I don't trust them out of my sight.

'What do we need to do, then?' Hadeishi stepped into a momentary lull. 'If there is a spate of anti-Imperial