Land of the Dead (25 page)

Gretchen gave him a look over the rim of her
kaffe
cup. “A Prince of the realm, riding the finest steed in the land, with not the slightest restraint on his activities? What a marvelous adventure for him!”

“For all of us, I fear,” Hummingbird muttered, producing a small paper wrapper from his mantle. He withdrew two small white tablets and placed one of them under his tongue. “Curious—there is only a skeleton crew aboard the
Tlemitl
. Barely enough men to operate her.”

“That many fewer to share the loot.” Anderssen sat back down, scratching her ear, attention already sliding away into this new puzzle.

“Abominations!” Hummingbird exclaimed in outrage as he peered at one of the v-panes. “I’m bumped out.”

“Oh, you’ll get back in, eventually,” Gretchen assured him. “You are a
nauallis
, after all.”

“
Anderssen…” Hummingbird finally looked at her directly and the shock of meeting his dark eyes drew her full attention. “Have you considered what it means to encounter, to experience a First Sun device?”

Gretchen laughed bitterly. “You mean, will fame and fortune go to my head? Isn’t your whole purpose to make sure that
no one
realizes such a thing has even been encountered? There’s no fortune there, for me, and certainly no fame.”

The old man shook his head slowly. “Such things are only the shell, only the surface of the matter.” He pointed with his chin and Anderssen looked down, surprised to find the corroded bronze block in her hands.

“Your ability to use such things imperils your very humanity. You must tread very softly.”

“This? This is just a computer—one of the tools at our command. Do you think using tools threatens anyone’s humanity?”

He nodded. “The men who devised the first rifle, or machine gun, or thermonuclear bomb let go of something innate in themselves. Then those who
used
them left all pretense of humanity behind. How”—he paused, searching for the right words—“how can even a warrior countenance the death of an enemy he has not faced, met eye to eye, and traded blows with in the circle? Anything else is murder. I would say that a murderer has abandoned the common thread which ties us all together.”

Anderssen squinted, wondering if the Crow was mocking her, then shook her head. “None of those atrocities were initiated by the
tools
—the rifle, the machine gun, the bomb only had the misfortune to fall into the hands of men who had
already
decided upon atrocity.”

Then she set the block down, picked up her stylus, and returned to her work.

Hummingbird became quite still, seeing that the European woman had turned her back on him. He watched her intently for nearly thirty minutes, but Gretchen’s attention was wholly devoted to building a new analysis model. Apparently satisfied by what he’d seen, the old Crow returned to his own efforts, and the hours passed by in quiet save for the clicking of their styluses on the control surfaces.

At length, Hummingbird pushed away from his comp—breathed out a deep, long sigh—and stared for a moment at the pale blue wall behind his still oblivious companion. “The dreadnaught’s shipnet is using an unknown encryption and security system. Not only is it unfamiliar to my tools, but it seems impervious to investigation.”

Gretchen made no sign she had heard. Hummingbird scratched the back of his head and surveyed the rest of their cabin. Conversationally, he said: “There are the afterimages of cranes in flight, etched into this ceiling. A former tenant must have needed at least the illusion of the homeworld to ease his mind.”

Still Anderssen ignored him. The
nauallis
grimaced and rose, swaying a little. After two cups of thickly sugared
kaffe
he found steadier footing. Then he sat down on the edge of his bunk and unwrapped a threesquare. Even when he’d finished, the Swedish woman was still hard at work.

Experimentally, he said: “The
Tlemitl
is one of the Emperor’s personal ships—long rumored but never proven. Never have I encountered an Imperial system which could resist my overrides. Always before, the Judges have contrived to know what transpired in Imperial Space. Things are now afoot to which we are not privy. Shall even the Judges shine dim beside the
Tlaltecutli
, the Lord of the Earth? Surely the human race would be at insupportable risk if we cannot penetrate new secrets as they arise! We must get inside this mystery box that is the
Firearrow.
”

“In a minute,” Anderssen mumbled.

“Of course,” he said, watching her with a sort of cool detachment.

At much the same time, his comp constellation completed the process of dumping a set of infiltrators into the
Naniwa
’s communications network, allowing Hummingbird to open a tachyon relay channel without anyone on the bridge being the wiser. A short, discrete burst of data was dispatched out into the wasteland of the
kuub
. A bit later, the reply filtered back to Hummingbird’s console.

Excellent,
he thought, setting a timer to run.
Seventeen hours and counting.

*   *   *

On the command deck, another watch came on duty and
Sho-sa
Oc Chac was once more at his console, monitoring the efforts of the rest of the bridge crew and ancillary departments. Given his background, the Mayan was paying close attention to the efforts of the
Zosen
still rounding out a few tail-end projects. When
Chu-i
Pucatli suddenly tilted his head and stared at the status board in puzzlement, he was up out of his seat and beside the Comms station before the sub-lieutenant could sound an alarm.

“
Sho-sa
, we’ve lost sync with
Tlemitl
’s battlecast,” Pucatli reported, not too surprised to find Oc Chac at his shoulder.

“Have we moved out of range?” Oc Chac asked, reaching over the younger man’s shoulder to key up a diagnostic subsystem. “Is there some kind of heavy debris concentration between us and the squadron?”

“
Kyo
, we’re on a return leg of the patrol pattern—distance is closing with the
Can
and squadron center-point. But the dust—it’s very heavy.” Pucatli slid part of the navigational display into view on his console. “I’ve been seeing irregular gravitational interference with comm, but we’ve rotated through this sector at least once before and did not lose sync.”

“Mark the area. And see if there’s anything on our new map of the
Korkunov
route that could explain the blackout. Perhaps we can avoid it the next time around.”

Oc Chac frowned at the console for a moment longer, watching the diagnostic run.

“
Chu-i
, if anything flags red on that scan—you let me know immediately.”

THE
WILFUL

I
N HYPERSPACE

De Molay was lying in her hammock over the reaction mass tank, eyes closed, listening to the gurgling and chuckling of the pipes winding over and around her, when Hadeishi emerged from the darkness, his face blackened with grease. “Here,” he said, parting her thin fingers and pressing the slim metallic shape of the Webley Bulldog into her hands. “I will return in a little while, but anything may happen between now and then.”

She opened one eye, and then the other, seeing the Nisei had acquired a serrated-blade knife about twenty centimeters long to go with his machete. The machete was now enclosed in a crude, handmade scabbard and strapped to his chest at an angle. The knife fit into his belt. She made a face, eyebrows beetling up. “You will need to be quick,” she whispered. “Do you hear that whine building in the hypercoil? We’re losing gradient fast, we’ll drop back to realspace soon. And when we do, even these lax fools will realize something is amiss.”

“I know.” Hadeishi held up his hand-comp, which was still relaying the nav system telemetry. “About thirty minutes and we’ll drop out. I plan to be back before then.”

He bowed in parting, and then climbed silently down to the Engineering compartment. By his count there were two Khaiden loose in the down-below decks, and both of them had left their duty stations to do … something. So he padded quietly from room to room, working his way around the huge bulk of the maneuver drives. Approaching the access way leading to the hyperspace coil generator he heard the sound of boots on the decking and flattened against the wall.

A Khaid engineer ambled out of the side passage, helmet back, nosily crunching on a heavy, bonelike ration bar. The alien’s jagged, double-flanged teeth were making quick work of the claylike brick.

Mitsuharu’s arm snapped out, the serrated blade spearing up into the underside of the Khaid’s jaw. The creature goggled at him, huge eyes rolling in different directions, and the Nisei lunged, getting an arm under the shoulder joint. The alien was very heavy—massing nearly twice his own weight—and Hadeishi grunted with pain as he eased the corpse to the g-decking. Mindful of leaving a trail, he dragged the body into hypercontrol, wrapped the corpse in a plastic sheet from his other leg pocket, and then wiped off his hands and forearms, which had been spattered with cloying blue-black blood.

Then he continued on, trying to move a little faster. The down-below had never seemed so large before, but now the number of rooms seemed infinite. Finally, having almost completed a circuit of the entire ship, he approached an alcove which served as a crude reference library—there were shelves of data crystals, a comp station, and portable readers hung on the walls. Nearly twenty-five minutes had passed and his chrono was showing time winding down at a swift pace.

But light flickered on the wall of the alcove and there was a singular musk in the air.
Reading up on the new ship, is he? A Khaid seeking to better himself, how excellent.

Hadeishi crept to a point where he could see the elbow and shoulder of the engineer, who was sitting on the bench in the alcove, thumbing through a series of technical manuals.
Laudatory,
Mitsuharu thought, feeling a pang.
I’ve had ensigns who refused to do so much.…

At that instant, the ship began to slide gradient and the transit alarm blared. Startled by the unexpected noise, the engineer looked up in time to catch sight of Hadeishi rushing out of the dimness. The Khaid’s first impulse was to drag out his comm—a handheld unit instead of the usual Imperial wristband—and sound an alarm. In the heartbeat between impulse and action, Mitsuharu hewed down with the machete, the full strength of his shoulders behind the blow, catching the Khaid’s raised hand on the wrist. There was a jarring
crack
and the joint split, along with the z-suit ring.

Howling in pain, the Khaid leapt back, crashing into the shelves. Books and data crystals flew in all directions, rolling wildly on the floor. Hadeishi crabbed in, hacking with the long flat blade, and the edge bit into the engineer’s other arm, drawing a deep wound. Blood slicked the floor, making his footing treacherous. The Khaid sounded a deep coughing howl and scrabbled for some weapon—a knife, a gun—nothing came immediately to hand.

Mitsuharu kicked the engineer’s knee, making the creature topple over, and then stepped in, hacking down. Now the blade fell true and the Khaid’s head lolled to the side, half severed. Hadeishi grimaced, feeling his limbs burn with exertion, and then felt enormous exhaustion wash over him.

The books are ruined,
his father’s voice echoed in memory.
What a pity.

*   *   *

Hadeishi staggered into the Engineering compartment, the tool belts from both dead engineers looped over his shoulder. He was surprised—but pleased—to see that De Molay had dragged herself down to the still-working console and was trying to secure control of the ship’s systems.

“You’ve access to environmental,
kyo
? Good. Pump one percent cee-oh to Command and the cargo bay.” Mitsuharu gasped, feeling winded. “Secure air in Engineering and let’s get you into a z-suit.”

De Molay clung grimly to the console with both hands. “They’ll be in the corridors, too.”

Struggling with the stylus, the
Wilful
’s captain tapped open a new series of v-panes—from cameras Hadeishi had never been able to reach with his own access. The old woman leaned her head over, wheezing: “I can see another figure in the mess as well. Everything else looks clear for the moment.”

“Good.” Hadeishi took a deep breath and set down the extra tools. “Don’t lock the areas where the gas is released. Let them believe free movement is possible.” He stood at her shoulder, watching the suddenly superior v-pane displays with envy. “And where was all of this when I was cleaning the bilges?”

“That one knows there’s a problem,” De Molay observed softly, a blood-caked hand tapping the feed from the bridge. A Khaid under-officer stood uncertainly at the captain’s station, rubbing his eyes. “He could signal for help if the comm system has been recoded since they came aboard.”