Anderssen- tzin, then you will not see what they have found.” Then he nodded to the envelope. “Bring the device- one text I have seen names it the Adh’atr , which is the easiest for us to say-I think you will need its capabilities soon.”
Goddamnit. Gretchen tossed the block from hand to hand, then stowed it in her backpack. Dragging everything with her, she hustled out into the corridor, where she found the Esteemed One clinging to Hummingbird’s shoulder, its face a ghastly hue. The plastic bucket had disappeared, but the z-suit-or armor or carapace-was liberally streaked with regurgitated fluids. Together, they were shuffling towards the nearest lift.
“I will compel action,” the Hjo declared loudly, long gray nose raised in defiance. “Someone will be Instructed for this. There is a Certainty!”
“If I may suggest-” Hummingbird said, his voice low, “there is a small but well-equipped ship aboard that could easily receive your person and take you to a safer location…”
“No!” The creature’s reaction was abrupt and violent, though for the moment it lacked the strength to do more than flail one arm. “Order and harmony must be restored without resort to flight! Flight in a tiny, ill-equipped cylinder, crowded with apes and their acrid stench…” Sahane muttered. “ They will try again to destroy me, the last of a noble and laudatory descent. No… Take me to the place of authority!”
“But Esteemed One, the Prince is at the focus of action, in Secondary Command…” Gretchen started to speak-seeing Hummingbird gesture towards the glyph for deck thirty-nine on the lift controls-but kept her peace, wondering what the old Nahuatl intended.
“Yes. There shall be a confrontation.” The creature was mumbling again. “And explanation!”
Hummingbird bowed obediently and pressed the call button for the lift. When the doors cycled open, the Hjo lurched inside-making a snuffling whine upon seeing the confined space-and then Hummingbird and Gretchen slipped inside as well, keeping to the corners and out of the way of the long, furred arms. The creature swung its head from side to side as the lift raced between decks.
By the time the blast-doors to Secondary Command irised open, the ambassador had managed to straighten up to his full height and-somehow-his z-suit and exposed fur had shed the vomit. Anderssen found the creature tremendously interesting; when first she’d set eyes upon it, the Hjo seemed shrunken and withered. He-yes, this is a male, I’m sure of it-felt incomplete. But now it is filling out, becoming more sure of itself. She eyed the armored suit curiously. Was a med-band at play here, injecting some kind of confidence-building med into the creature?
“Account for this wretched treat-” Sahane stopped, long mouth yawning open, his dark eyes reflecting a hot white glow. All of his newly won assurance staggered, quailed, and then fled. A pained whimper emerged from his throat. Gretchen looked away from the creature in surprise and then her own eyes went wide with delight.
Secondary Command had been reconfigured to create one massive v-display which stretched from floor to ceiling and wrapped around three-quarters of the chamber. The Command consoles had been relocated to the sides and back of the room, their smaller v-displays filled with ever-changing data. On the vast canvas, a live camera feed of the Sunflower filled the room with the hot white glare of the ejection jet boiling up out of the singularity. The three bloated orbs of the brown dwarves studded the sky and the dark mass of the accretion disc formed a backdrop for the tri-lobed structure. Those surfaces at an angle to the jet glared with reflected light, throwing the Chimalacatl into high relief.
“How big…” whispered Anderssen, fumbling in her jacket pockets for a hand-comp. “My god, it’s five thousand kilometers on a side!”
A Jaguar Knight in combat armor suddenly blocked her view, a gauntleted hand crushing her fingers and plucking the comp from her grasp. Another Ocelotl had moved in on the other side, immobilizing Hummingbird, who was standing quite still, all of his attention focused on the Hjo and a slim, handsome man of middle age rising from a shockchair placed at the center of the room. Seeing him in the flesh, Gretchen felt a pang of disappointment- he’s not nearly so pretty in real life -but then caught sight of the Prince’s face and felt a bolt of adrenaline flush through her limbs. He is furious, though!
The Jaguars picked up the wave of displeasure radiating from Xochitl as well, and the one holding Anderssen seized her neck with an armored hand. Servos whined in her ear and the metallic grip dug into her flesh. Oh god, he’ll just twist and “Esteemed One.” With a visible effort, the Prince halted his angry pace and bowed, face contorted with the effort of mouthing peaceful words. “I am relieved to see you are feeling better, but I urge you to return to Medical. You will be safe there and your diverse stomachs set in order.”
The Hjo trembled from head to toe, but managed to squeak out: “Turn us about, mad creature! The radiation levels in this sector must be immense. Have you no care for your offspring to come? We must depart immediately!”
Anderssen experienced a strange sensation, watching the ambassador swaying before the Prince. The jolt of fear which had struck the alien dumb now seemed to supplement the earlier sense of assurance. She could taste a stark, unadulterated desire to live, and wondered if the creature had ever felt that particular spike of self-awareness before. Then Gretchen blinked rapidly, half-blinded by the glare from the v-display, and wondered if she was hallucinating. The air around the creature seemed to be flickering or twisting with tiny fleeting gleams of light. A reflection? But of what?
As she turned her head-feeling the armored fingers still digging into her neck-the spectacle on the v-display drew her eye like a magnet. The panorama seemed terribly familiar-something she’d seen, or read in a book, or- What is it? Those triliths are… damn, but it’s just beyond reach!
Behind her, Hummingbird had somehow moved closer to the Hjo, a supportive hand under one arm, and she could hear him whispering: “Departure, yes. An excellent idea, Esteemed One.”
Anderssen and the Prince spoke simultaneously: “It is not!”
Xochitl turned towards her with a scowl, jaw tight. “Get her out-”
“This object can only be a First Sun artifact,” she blurted, catching his eye. “The Ik-Hu-Huillane tablets speak of an ‘abode of the waking mind’ which is formed in threes and multiples of three-this structure is the very image the Yithians speak of!”
“Yes… At last.” The Prince’s face cleared, the words striking a chord in him. “I’ve a remote going aboard that structure within moments, and we’ll-”
Out of the corner of her eye, Gretchen caught sight of an entire console filled with v-panes wink out. The comm officer sitting at the station cried out in alarm.
“ Chu-sa! My Lord Prince!” A man’s voice echoed in the air. “We’ve lost contact with the shuttle.”
A section of the Prince’s console unfolded into a large v-pane, showing Chu-sa Kosho’s face, which was now cold and alert, her eyes flickering from side to side. Xochitl stepped back to his shockchair, intent on the Nisei officer.
“Well?” he demanded.
“The cargo shuttle has exploded, Gensui.” Susan’s lips were a tight line, her brow furrowed. “No warning, no energy emissions… we’re rewinding the telemetry, but I don’t believe there is anything left to recover.”
The Prince cursed, unable to keep rein on his temper a moment longer, and slammed a fist into the side of the shockchair. The Hjo recoiled, though Hummingbird’s grip was tight enough to keep the creature from falling down. “We must flee,” Sahane wailed, “reverse your course, human. Reverse now!”
Without considering the ramifications, Gretchen slipped free of the Jaguar’s grip-the Knight was staring at the console display, his attention distracted for a moment-and slid into a shockchair beside the horrified comm- tech.
“Roll that feed back, my dear,” she said, voice calm and commanding. “Frame by frame.”
The parchment envelope was opened and one of the octopus arms snaked from her pocket into a socket on the console without anyone noticing. Gretchen snugged her earbug tight against the background noise. The Prince and Kosho were disputing the merits of sending another shuttle towards the Sunflower. “Give me broad-spectrum passive scan at 20X for surface of the structure directly adjacent to the explosion…” Should be some impact scarring now, from the debris. Crude-but I’ll take the infopoints.
