House of Reeds

dangerous.'

'Kidnapped. I was kidnapped.' The prince's face slowly lit with delight, perfectly even teeth white in the darkness of the tunnel. 'By the Holy Ever-Virgin Mother of God, I was kidnapped!'

Sergeant Dawd did not react, though he could feel the ulcers in his long-suffering stomach begin to pucker with acid.

'This…' Tezozуmoc clapped a friendly hand on the Skawt's shoulder. 'Is the best news I've had…oh, in ages! Wait until my father hears this!' The prince suddenly paused, staring at Leslie's stony expression. 'Master Dawd? Why such a long face? This is good news! Someone – dire enemies of the Empire – perhaps even the infernal Danes! For the love of Christ, they thought I was worth doing away with!'

Sergeant Dawd turned, frowning, raising a hand for silence. Lights were beginning to flicker on the roof of the tunnel and a booming, chattering noise filled the air. He could hear people laughing, their voices raised in drunken, inharmonious song.

'Lie flat, mi'lord,' the Skawtsman whispered, struggling to keep from just jamming the boy's head down onto the corrugated metal. He checked to make sure the magazine was full, then thumbed back the safety on the Nambu 10mm. 'We're not safe yet.'

The vast, round shape of a party barge drifted past. The balloon was festooned with glittering lights, including a broad glowing videopatch showing drunken rabbits dancing under a smiling moon. 'Drink Mayahuel beer,' boomed a recorded voice, 'and be more fertile!'

The gondola swayed into view, crammed with masked people laughing and singing, then rose majestically past. Dawd lowered the automatic slowly.

A black figure swung into the opening of the tube, boots clanking on metal.

Tezozуmoc leapt up, shouting in fear, and cracked his head against the curving roof. Groaning in pain, the prince collapsed, clutching his scalp, fingers bloody. Dawd breathed out a long sigh of relief and flipped the automatic back into the holster on his gunrig.

'Not dead, I see,' he said, nodding to Master Sergeant Colmuir.

'Nawt yet,' grinned the Aberdeen-man, keeping his head low. 'But close, very close…what about him?'

Dawd turned, staring in disgust at Tezozуmoc, who was curled up and whimpering. 'Take him home, I suppose. Clean him up. Nothing else to do now.'

As an aside, he leaned close to Colmuir. 'Master Sergeant, why did we ally ourselves with these… savages?'

'Oh, lad,' Colmuir nodded sagely, 'it was them or the Anglish. And compared to the Anglish…well, we've still the better of the deal wit' these heathens.'

The lean-faced master sergeant grinned at Dawd's sour expression and snaked a tabac from his pocket. The older man looked a little battered – craggy brow and seamed face spattered with blood and bruises – in the flare of the self-lighting cigarette. 'Don't make such a face, lad. It's a man's work, isn't it? Better than wasting time in University!'

'I suppose,' Dawd checked his weapons and tools by touch. 'The pay is better.'

Colmuir chuckled, taking a long drag. His long-limbed frame was bent almost double to keep a graying head from knocking against the roof of the tunnel. 'Most don't think so, but you've seen both sides of the fence, haven't you? D'you miss the hallowed halls of aca'deme?'

Dawd grunted. 'I suppose…but grading lower-form essays on early Mйxica poets lacks something of the spice of our activities here.'

The master sergeant ground out his tabac. 'Let's get him out of here, then.'

Tadmor Station

The Edge of Imperial Mйxica Space

The murmur of four thousand impatient travelers filled the transit hall, making it difficult for Gretchen Anderssen, field xenoarchaeologist for the Honorable Chartered Company, to hear the politely soft voice of the Albanian Spaceways ticket agent in front of her.

'I am sorry, Anderssen-tzin, but your tickets have been changed.'

'Changed?' Gretchen scowled uneasily at the little Nisei woman, tucking tangled blonde hair back behind her ear. 'By whom?'

'By the issuing authority. There is a note and a new travel packet.' The ticket agent tapped her pad and a metal plate slid aside on the countertop, revealing a comm panel. Anderssen pressed her thumb onto the receptor pane and crossed muscular arms, steeling herself for bad news. Though nearly a century had passed since the Empire's conquest of Earth had driven her parents into exile on the Skawtish colony-world of New Aberdeen, the middle-aged Swedish woman didn't expect any superior – either in business, or in a social setting – to treat her as anything but a tool to be moved from place to place as the needs of the community bid.

We lost the War, her grandmother's voice echoed in Gretchen's memories, and we have to make do with just surviving. It used to be worse…

A Company memo header appeared, accompanied by a terse message and her field supervisor's chop.

Go to Jagan. Apply for a survey permit at the Legation. There is a device which must be examined.

'This is the entire note? The only message?' Gretchen wiped the pane clear with a flick of her hand. 'Have all our tickets been changed? All three of us?'

The ticket agent nodded politely, providing Anderssen with a set of travel chits. 'David Parker – Imperial citizen, Magdalena – Hesht female on a wayfarer visa. They are your traveling companions, yes? Here are their new tickets. You have been re-routed to the Imperial Protectorate of Bharat, planet Jagan. Stay is open ended, with a return voyage to New Aberdeen as originally scheduled.'

'What?' Parker, the Company team pilot, was standing in line behind Anderssen and now he plucked a half- burned tabac from his mouth to stare at her in horror. 'Where the hell is Bharat? What happened to our vacation time?'

Gretchen turned the chit over in her hands. The dull roar of fellow travelers arguing, crying, pleading lapped around her. 'A drop-in,' she mused aloud, feeling intensely irritated. 'I haven't gotten a drop-in for…well, ever, actually.' She looked up to find the others staring at her. 'What this means is someone reported something unusual on this planet. Probably some farmer turned over his field, broke a plow wheel and thought he found a First Sun library. The Company heard about it and -'

'We shouldn't go.' Parker made a disgusted face, rubbing a flat hand across his balding pate. The pilot was thinner than Gretchen, a wiry, stoop-shouldered Anglishman with twitchy reflexes and a mellow, almost indolent approach to every task. 'Never give up vacation time. Can we refuse?'

Magdalena showed her incisors, a dull yellow-white gleam against ebon lips. In truth, the Hesht wasn't more than a few centimeters taller than Parker, but the thick muscle corded over her sleek feloid frame and her plushy, glistening fur made him seem frail and weak in comparison. 'More work? The yrrrchowlssshama is playing with us.'

Gretchen hastily covered the exposed fangs with raised fingers, glaring at the Hesht. Maggie's eyes narrowed and then she closed her mouth with a petulant flick of her ears. The Hesht were still not common in human society, though their interstellar migration had been creeping across the Empire for nearly twenty years. Magdalena was very well acculturated, as least in comparison to other knockabout youngsters exiled from the enormous sub-light Arks carrying the bulk of her people on their endless voyage. But most citizens quailed at the sight of so many needlelike teeth exposed at once.

'Next, please.' The ticket agent waved them away, beckoning for the line to advance.

'Do we get duress pay at least?' Parker relit his tabac as they moved aside. 'A bonus? Working-on-vacation time?'

Magdalena's long ears pricked up. 'Fresh-killed meat, still hot, dripping with juice?'

Anderssen studied the fine print on the work authorization. 'Yes…works out to triple-time, plus the usual bonuses if there's really something to find.' She bit her lip, thinking. 'A fair bit of change.' New clothing for all the kids, new turbine core for mom's lifter, maybe even a new field comp for me… 'Paying by