House of Reeds

cafeteria on the corner.

That is a lot of riding lizards, he realized, and a lot of big Jehanan with guns and spears. What are they…

'Oh, bleeding hell!' Parker bolted back down the passage, through the wooden door and then up the stairs as fast as he could go. After three flights of steps he was wheezing and feeling faint. 'Come on, David,' he cursed at himself, poking at his medband. 'Only thirty-two more to go… Oh, Xochipilli, Lord of Flowers, why did I ever taste your bitter smoke?'

Pale in the face, he hauled himself up another flight, slewed around the turn and then gasped up another. Finally, he remembered to tap on his comm. 'Thirty more…only thirty…huuuugh! Magdalena! Can hear you hear me?'

Gretchen's head cracked against the stone floor, sending a bolt of pain through her skull. Malakar dragged her along the passage, heedless of the human's flailing limbs.

'Malakar,' she managed to croak out. 'Stop!'

The gardener turned, her face livid with scars, dull crimson battle-armor still scorched with particle-beam impacts, one eye a glassy white where shrapnel had torn into the socket. The kujen 's guardsmen clustered around her, armor and weapons equally worn. Most of them were barely adult, though not one soldier remained young.

'We must go back,' Anderssen said, using the wall to help her up. Icy fear rolled along her arms and back. 'They are trying to wake up the kalpataru. I have to stop them. It must be destroyed.'

'Are you mad?' White-Eye bellowed, her voice booming with anguish. Claws clenched the hilts of her force-blade. 'We've not heard from homeworld in sixteen years – with that device we can reopen the communications network, send for reinforcements, send for our families! My scientists are sure they can restore the linkage and bring up the planetary net in only hours.'

Malakar's face interleaved for an instant with the crippled Queen. Gretchen swayed, clutching at the wall. 'No, no, we mustn't do that!' Her voice boomed strangely and Anderssen felt a wrenching sensation, as if other voices were forcing themselves through her mouth. 'The Jeweled-Kings attacked us and seized the device because it's horribly dangerous -'

'No more of these child's superstitions,' the scarred Jehanan screamed, blade flaring sun-bright in her hand. Gretchen flinched back and Malakar lunged forward, stabbing with the length of shattered lohaja taken from the wall cavity.

'We've paid dearly to reclaim the kalpa' and by HГєnd's name, I'll invoke its power mysel -'

Anderssen hurled herself away from the blow – saw the jagged end of the board smash into the face of a Jehanan soldier bulking in the corridor – and everything popped back into reference. The soldier squealed, snout bleeding, and knocked the board aside. Gretchen surged up, throwing the point of her shoulder into the thick, armored chest. The Jehanan slammed into the wall.

'Quick, Malakar!' Gretchen shouted, struggling to hold the massive soldier pinned. He hissed like a steam boiler in her ear and flexed forward, flinging Anderssen into the wall. The gardener swung wildly with the board, but the soldier ducked and slashed at her head with his claws.

Gretchen snatched a cutting tool from her vest, thumbed the little device to high-beam and jammed the hissing plasma-jet into his neck. The Jehanan squealed, scales flaring red-orange. Flame spilled away from the tool, blinding him. Anderssen threw her weight behind the cutter – scales popped with a snap! And there was a gout of scalding steam as the plasma-torch sheared through the scaly integument and erupted into his chest cavity.

Malakar hooted in horror, scuttling back, but Gretchen kicked the body away, her face grim.

'Come on,' she said, thumbing off the tool, 'we've got to stop them. Find his gun.'

Parker stumbled through the door into the apartment, gasping for breath, sweat streaming from every pore. He collapsed to his knees on a sleeping mat. 'Oh god, Mags, they're right behind me!'

'I heard you,' Magdalena said, briskly rotating the wheel controlling the door. The six triangular sections rasped closed and she threw the locking bolt with a clang. The Hesht turned, ears back flat, and sniffed Parker's sweaty head. 'Pfawgh! Stewing in your own waste! Can you even stand?'

The pilot groaned, forcing his fatigue-exhausted legs up. He was trembling from head to toe. 'I don't…feel so good.'

Maggie snarled in disgust, showing all her teeth, forced herself up and slapped self-adhering black packets on either side of the door. 'Get into harness, sog-tail. Now!'

The pilot staggered to a pair of open windows and slumped against the wooden frame. Most of their equipment had been gathered up and stuffed into Maggie's duffel, but a black fleximesh harness lay out and Parker managed get one arm into the proper opening by the time the Hesht reached his side.

Magdalena seized his other arm and forced the harness on, glossy black paw sealing the clasps and jerking the mesh to a proper fit. Parker bleated, feeling doubly abused, but was having trouble standing without assistance. 'Now, Maggie, you're not thinking we have to -'

'There is no other way off this floor and out of the building,' the Hesht growled, slinging the duffel across her stomach. The sound of Jehanan voices hooting and booming echoed dimly through the door. A sharp rapping sound penetrated. 'Clip to my back,' she said, snapping two dark green monofilament spools to the front of her harness. 'Now, kitling, no time to laze on the rocks!'

Startled, Parker put his chest to the Hesht's back, hooked harness to harness and wrapped his arms under her shoulders. 'All aboard,' he muttered.

Magdalena squared her hips, planted her feet and lifted with a strained hiss. A little dizzy, Parker clenched his legs back to get them out of the way. Awkwardly, the Hesht turned around and backed into the window, paws gripping the frame on either side. Monofil line hissed from the spools on her harness. Parker caught a glimpse of a line of anchors driven into the floor of the room.

'Will that – ayyyyy! Oh sweet Jesus!' Parker squeezed his eyes shut as Maggie tipped backwards.

The Hesht worked her feet into a solid position, a cool breeze gusting across her pelt. She carefully took a pair of monofil gloves from a pouch on her climbing harness and tugged them on. Inside, the banging on the door had ceased and she could hear a drill whine sharply against ceramic. Dust puffed from the center of the portal. Both gloves on, she powered them up and watched for the winking green light indicating descender field strength at maximum.

The hexagonal door shattered with a crack! and bits of ceramic rattled against the windowpanes. A cloud of dust billowed into the room. Maggie heard a cheerful beep from the gloves, clenched hard on the monofil line and kicked back. Wire hissed between her gloves and she, Parker and the duffel bounded back a half-dozen meters. Her feet hit a section of blank concrete and started to skid. She leaned further back, forcing her boots flat on the wall.

Parker felt cold wind ruffle his hair, the cawing of native avians from far below and absolutely nothing beneath his swinging feet. 'Oh goddddd,' he bawled, clutching tight.

Takshilan guardsmen burst into the apartment, one ducking left, one right and another dodging forward in the middle. All three were clad in bulky cloth armor plated with hand-sized ceramic lozenges. Their long snouts were covered with leather facings, their deep-set eyes masked by bulging goggles. The one on the left turned, the muzzle of his automatic rifle sweeping across the empty room.

'Kramat -' he started to call out, beckoning the rest of the squad forward with one claw.

The black packets pasted beside the doorway detected heat and motion within their limited perception and blew apart. Choking white smoke blasted out, hiding the near-supersonic expansion of tanglewire coils. A thread- end smashed into the chest of the lead commando, puncturing his armor. He was thrown down, gasping, and the wire stiffened, tearing through scale and muscle. The room filled with a glittering black cloud. The other two soldiers had leapt back in time to avoid the brunt of the blast, but the knockout gas in the smoke flooded over them.

Someone in the hallway – spooked by the high-pitched ting-ting-ting of wire anchors punching into the walls – fired accidentally and the entire squad opened up, blazing away at the smoke. Tracers ripped through the haze, smashing the remaining windows. The lead commando, still tangled, was torn in half by