again. A sound like a tubercular breathing; such sharp, short gasps. Where is it coming from?
But then the Jaguars entered and escorted him, gently this time, away.
In the darkness, when the door had closed, Xochitl threw himself down on the sofa and passed his hand over a side-lamp. A dull, orange-tinted glow sprang up and the Prince raised an eyebrow questioningly at the largest of the screens at the back of the room. A pair of lambent, angular eyes gleamed back at him.
“Satisfactory, Esteemed?” Xochitl strove to put the proper deference into his voice, but knew in his heart there was only truculence and barely suppressed anger in the words. “Or shall I interview another?”
THE NANIWA
The lift dinged politely and a battle-steel hatch cycled open, revealing the semicircle of Command. Kosho stepped onto the bridge feeling tense and unsettled. She rolled a heavy, Fleet-style data crystal between her fingers, her expression distant. Hadeishi was close in her thoughts, but not as she often heard his voice-relating advice or giving orders in the midst of battle-rather with new appreciation for the compromises he had made while commanding the Cornuelle.
“Transferring ship authority, Chu-sa,” Oc Chac said, switching the command codes from his console to hers.
“Accepted, Sho-sa,” she replied absently, settling into her shockchair. Susan held up the crystal again and it gleamed with the reflection of dozens of v-displays circling the deck. She had never felt comfortable with the kinds of company Hadeishi had kept, or the odd side diversions he would turn the light cruiser to. Many of those excursions-too many, really-had been at the behest of shadowy figures like Green Hummingbird, who was now sitting in a cabin on deck six, using her water for a shower and eating food from her dispenser system.
I forced the terms of the trade, so why do I feel I’m the one carrying home a koku of grass seed?
“ Sho-sa?” She beckoned the XO over. “Load this into the navigation system, but do not replicate the data onto the squadron ’net.”
“ Hai, kyo! ” Oc Chac took the crystal gingerly, but then he stopped, trying to formulate a properly deferential question.
“It is a copy of the Korkunov telemetry, Sho-sa. Recovered from a message drone launched by the Calexico only moments before she was destroyed.” Susan raised a warning hand as the Mayan’s face twitched with surprise. “We are lucky to have the data, but do not question how the goat got into the garden.”
Oc Chac nodded slowly, and then ventured to say, “ Kyo, an access request has been received from a group of visitors on six-with your chop, Chu-sa. Should it be approved?”
Susan nodded, though a nagging feeling of being cheated remained.
Doggedly, Oc Chac pressed on: “ Kyo… this ship we captured, the Moulins, her crew is to be kept in the brig, secured? But not the, ah, guests in the cabin on six?”
“Even so, Sho-sa.”
“ Hai, kyo! I’ll have this data loaded immediately.”
“Excellent. Run it as an overlay in the well. I want to see a comparison with the plot provided by the Mirror scientists.”
Then she leaned back in her chair, fist pressed to her chin. We’ll have a better picture of this Barrier, but I’m going against the spirit of the operational orders in taking a nauallis aboard in the midst of a Mirror obsidian-op. The Chu-sa never seemed to mind, she thought, feeling a pang at the memory of Hadeishi sitting forlorn and directionless in the fumeiyo-ie on Toroson. Then her expression hardened. And so my sensei lost his ship and nearly his entire crew. And now we are forever apart.
Oc Chac returned from one of the operations consoles, hands clasped behind his back.
“New orders have come from squadron, Chu-sa. The Tlemitl has taken over battle-cast control.”
Kosho lifted one eyebrow. “The whole matrix? Squadron-level targeting and countermeasures? Did this come from Chu-so Xocoyotl or from the Prince?”
“Everything, kyo, is now routing through the Firearrow. The Tokiwa is lead for the battle-cruiser squadron, but the Flag has switched ships. Prince Xochitl has also ordered all probes presently monitoring the Pinhole to be withdrawn.”
Susan tapped her fingers lightly on the armrest. “And the scientists?”
“Ordered back aboard their transports, kyo. All technical personnel have been transferred to the Tlemitl. The Can is being abandoned.”
“The Prince is certainly decisive!” He is cutting the Mirror out of the picture. That will be his father’s direction. So-is this a Fleet operation now? Or are Hummingbird and Xochitl actually acting in concert?
Oc Chac suppressed a scowl at her sarcasm-one which Kosho was too distracted to notice, or comment upon-and returned to his station. The Chu-sa remained in her seat, her expression distant, ignoring the comings and goings of Command, old memories unspooling in her mind’s eye.
The Naniwa pressed on, following her patrol pattern, wake surging bright with particle decay.
Down on deck six, in an officer’s cabin with two bunks, a shower, proper desks, and a real closet, Gretchen threw down her duffle bag and kicked off her boots. “By the Risen Christ, Hummingbird, do you think they have fresh hot water? That would be a relief after bathing in recycled spit for a week…” She sorted out her field comp and notebooks from the backpack, including a little Hesht figurine that Magdalena had given her in parting. Grrault is the god of travelers, bachelors, and the unlucky, so keep him close and remember to give him bits of meat or bone from time to time, Magdalena had said in complete seriousness. See this cavity? Place the sacrifice within and after a moment or two, watch the color of his eyes. Amber means the meat is poisoned, red means it is safe to eat. Then the Hesht had paused, snout wrinkling up. Safe for a Hesht to eat, of course. For a cub like you with only one stomach… perhaps not. But still, he’s sure to bring good luck.
Parker had laughed, pressing his favorite multitool into her hands and giving her an awkward hug. If you need a ride, he said, sniffling, you just comm, right?
Hummingbird did not reply, and when Anderssen turned around, she whistled in appreciation.
The nauallis had unlocked both of his traveling bags. One of them had unfolded cleverly into an entire desktop-style comp station with three large v-displays and two stylus pads. The other bag was packed tight with equipment boxes of all kinds. Hummingbird had already appropriated one of the desks and was plugging in cables as fast as he could.
After watching for a moment, Gretchen dove in beside him and started unpacking comm relays and other devices from the second bag. Hummingbird, obviously in a tearing hurry, flashed her a warning look-to which Anderssen gave a smirk in return, saying: “Don’t give me that sour face, Crow, I know which end is which.”
“Very well. Find a set of modules marked with double bands of green-they can be assembled into a t-relay station. It would speed things up tremendously if you could get that operational.” He seemed dubious, but gestured for her to proceed before turning back to completing his system setup.
Gretchen smiled to herself and began rooting through the bag, looking for the doubled green bands. Almost immediately, she ran across a bricklike object wrapped in-of all unlikely things-a parchment envelope.
“Well now,” she said to herself, running a finger across the smooth material. “What is this? A book?”
The envelope was held closed by a silver clasp ornamented with a well-worn device. Peering closer and turning the envelope to throw the sigil into relief, she made out the stylized figures of two men-were they in armor? They seemed to be sporting pointed helmets-riding on a single horse.
I’ve seen this sigil before, she thought, slipping a fingertip under the clasp and opening the envelope.
A heavy metal block-corroded bronze or brass at first glance-slipped out into her hands. As soon as the device touched bare skin, Gretchen felt there was a fundamental imbalance in the mechanism. Attempting to resolve this, she switched the block around and found one end was fitted with a strip of Imperial-standard interface ports. “A comp,” she said aloud, though not meaning to. “It feels so old…”
Puzzled, she ran her fingertips across the corroded surface, but no rust or scale came away. Instead,
