House of Reeds

an old shell left out in the wind.'

'Oh.' Gretchen checked her comp, which was still humming to itself and trying to make the metallic plate wake up. 'If the pigments and binding layer are breaking down, then opening the door might break the atmosphere suspension inside… The whole faГ§ade of the wall could crumble to dust.' She stood upslowly, fearful of alarming the creature huddled on the floor, and stepped to the portal.

Dust and a surface layer of grime came away at her touch. Gretchen dug a sampler out of one of the pockets of her work-pants. Running the pickup over the surface cleared a hand's breadth section – and the material resembled the polished ceramic making up the floors and walls. 'Probably not a metal,' she muttered, watching the display on the sampler flash through an analysis sequence. 'Looks solid though. Airtight.'

The sampler beeped, displaying a list of compounds. Anderssen puzzled through the materials, then shook her head. 'A layer-bonded ceramic – nearly as tough as steel and probably lasts longer in this environment. Unfortunately, it's holding cohesion pretty well. No noticeable surface degradation and I don't have an erosion matrix built up to gauge what wear there is.'

Her eyes fell on the pushta under her octopus. 'Malakar, wouldn't these books be even older than the room? I mean, if they came from…' She paused, wondering if she'd caught the translator in an error. Wouldn't be the first time! 'Did you say your people came from 'earth'?'

'Yes,' rumbled the Jehanan, now squatting, long arms folded over bony knees. 'Another bit of shell we've not lost hold of… Our race was born on earth, long, long ago.'

But Anderssen had plucked out her earbug, and the hooting, warbling voice had pronounced a word she knew. Her heart sank, knowing at least part of the answer to the creature's agonized questions.

The Jehanan word for 'earth' was 'Mokuil,' not AnГЎhuac, not Terra. A dead world, if Hummingbird spoke true, Gretchen remembered, filled with pity. Desolate and shattered, a vigorous race which had woken the Valkar and so been destroyed millennia ago. Leaving only corpses among which humanitymight hide, avoiding notice ourselves…

There was a soft beep from the floor.

She knelt and checked her comp. The first set of scans were complete. The pushta was inert, showing no response to external power. Cold and dead, broken by the weight of thousands of years of neglect. Organic analysis found traces of a bacterium particular to Jagan, one which ate and corroded metal, on the stippled contact points.

How sad, Gretchen thought, cradling the plate in her hands. Malakar was watching her, eyes hooded, shoulders hunched against the sides of her long head. The world ate away everything they wanted to save, leaving nothing but dust and empty, lightless halls. Even their great conquest turned bitter…Were they refugees from the destruction of their homeworld? Had they seen the Valkar rip aside the sky, seen their cities burn? How long did they flee through the dark, seeking a new home?

She looked up. 'There is only one thing we know for sure. The child who painted that picture had tasted Nem untainted by the biosphere of Jagan. He or she must have come from race-home, from Mokuil itself. You've looked upon – touched – the work of the first of your kind to stand under the red sun of Bharat.'

The creature lowered her head, clasping scaled arms over eye-ridges. A trembling, desolate hooting sound reverberated from the walls and fled down the empty hallway.

The Gemmilsky House

Gandaris, 'Peerless Foundation of the Vaults of Heaven'

Two aerocars lifted from the rear garden of the mansion, their repeller effect rippling the conical trees and making their trapezoidal leaves rattle musically. Both vehicles bore nondescript colors and flew no warning lights, though the house and grounds were still wrapped in night's cloak. Standing in the watchman's alcove of a more traditional Jehanan building across the street, a figure in a long leather coat watched the 'cars rise silently and then speed away across the hills. The peaks behind the city – a long arm of snow-covered mountains reaching down from the massif of Capisene – were painted pink and silver with the first brush of dawn.

Rubbing cold hands together, the figure watched the mansion gate for a quarter-hour before stirring as the wooden portals opened. A Jehanan bundled in thick furs and enormous padded boots emerged, long snout puffing white vapor in the chill air. The house cook shuffled across to a locked wooden box beside the street and produced a key.

While the cook was taking out the day's delivery of eggs, freshly cut zizunaga fillets and imported Bandopene molk-cheese, the man in the long coat walked quickly across the street and ducked through the gate. With a furious expression, he strode up the curving carriage drive and let himself in the front door with his own key.

A three-toned chime sounded in the entryway as Gemmilsky unsealed his coat, stripped off his gloves and hung a drover's hat on its accustomed hook in the coat closet. Brushing back short-cropped sandy hair, the nobleman paced down the main hall and almost immediately encountered both old Nuskere Pol – who was majordomo of the current residence, just as he had served the venerable Gandarian mansion torn down to accommodate the whim of a mad asuchau out-lander with far too much money for his own good – and Corporal Clark. Despite the early hour, both the human and the Jehanan were completely turned out for a day's business.

'Viscount,' Clark said, surprise hidden behind a neatly trimmed dark beard. Nuskere Pol bowed, long hands clasped together in front of his fur-lined brocade robe.

'If there is business to discuss, we can speak by comm -' Clark fell silent. Gemmilsky had such a look of restrained fury on his sharp face that the adjutant realized any attempt to speak reasonably was doomed to failure.

'I have come for my personal effects,' Johann said. 'Nuskere, if you could wake the servants and have them pack my things, I will be speaking to the cook.'

Clark frowned. 'Sir – I assure you, nothing of yours has been touched.'

'Almost truth,' Nuskere interjected in a whispery voice, snout wrinkled in distaste. 'The young kujen drained every last egg of voodku in the house.'

'That will be paid for!' The corporal twitched slightly, trying not to glare at the majordomo. 'Mi'lord, I was careful to pack away all of your clothes and other personal effects and -'

Gemmilsky's eyes narrowed. 'Very thoughtful,' he said coldly. 'Some of my men will be arriving outside in short order. Bring all of my carefully packed belongings downstairs and see them properly stowed. A bill has already been submitted for the rest to the Legation in Parus.'

Clark nodded, hoping the man wouldn't lose his temper and have to be restrained. Gemmilsky turned to the old Jehanan and produced a sheaf of documents from his coat pocket.

'Nuskere Pol, I am pained to inform you that I will no longer require your services or those of the staff.' Johann pressed the heavy documents into the majordomo's claw. Clark could see they were affixed with wax stamps and different kinds of seals and some were bound in metallic thread. 'Here are papers of release from your service to the household and severance pay. Generous, I hope. There are also letters of recommendation, for I trust you will find a worthy household to serve in future.'

The corporal stiffened a little at the man's tone and was about to speak sharply with him when the front door banged open and the cook burst in, bags of eggs clutched to his heavy coat. The Jehanan was hissing and warbling at a tremendous rate, far faster than Clark's translator could keep up. Old Nuskere stiffened in alarm, but Gemmilsky – his face softening for the first time – replied to the agitated cook in a calm tone, managing a very respectable version of the same wavering hoots and trills.

Catching a bit of the conversation, Clark stepped to the open door and looked out warily. The front gates had been thrown wide and a procession of enormous hairy behemoths was striding up the drive. Each hrak – an untranslatable word the corporal's translator supplied from context – bore a creaking howdah of wooden slats and leather fittings. The lead hrak slowed to a halt, guided by a tiny, short-faced type of Jehanan the corporal had never seen before, and then knelt with a snuffling groan.

'Wouldn't expect to see mammoths here, would you?' Gemmilsky said, coming to stand at Clark's shoulder.