Land of the Dead (5 page)

Mitsuharu made a little space among the grave goods with his fingers and set both sake bottles among the debris left by other mourners. He considered his comm for a long time. The metal surface was chipped and worn, discolored by plasma backwash, and a sixteen-glyph was blinking on the display surface.
Messages of sympathy from fellow officers
, he thought, entirely devoid of curiosity,
I will never view.

Hadeishi placed the flowers atop the comm and bent his head over clasped hands.

“One leaf lets go,” he whispered, eyes squeezed tight, “and another follows on the wind.”

I am sorry, mother, father; that I did not come home. News of your illness, your death, reached me by courier off Kodon, when vital repairs were already underway. I am late to bring you these things, to pray for you, to bid you a speedy journey home to the Blessed Isles. I am sorry. I am not a good son. I was not a good captain. Now I am a wretched player in a disreputable tavern. So the wheel turns.

The foundation of the temple-house was laid upon the grave of that first man—a lesser courtier of the Imperial House; a
kugyo
born in Echizen—to die upon
gumshan
. He was not the last. Fell beasts roamed the primordial forest and the natives were quick and sly, slipping unseen through deep shadows with knives of knapped stone. The weather was far fiercer than the nobles of Nara and Kyoto expected, and the refugees accounted barely a handful of men experienced in hunting, fishing, carpentry, blacksmithing … by winter’s end, another quarter of the survivors were crudely interred around the temple-house. The great cemetery had begun its millennia-long sprawl.

But the third spring had brought an unexpected sight—long boats with many rowers toiling up the coast from the south. The handful of Nisei ships which remained seaworthy—many had been cannibalized for nails, lumber, cordage, and other desperately needed fittings—met the Toltec
pochteca
on the low swell at the mouth of Deception Creek. From the front step of this very temple-house, a pillar could be seen on the farther shore where the Emperor’s representatives had first held conversation with the emissaries of the great southern kingdoms. By then the Nisei had driven the tribal peoples from their villages along the shore and were beginning to clear the forest for their new city.

Mitsuharu finished his prayers and remained seated, feeling entirely directionless.

I’ve done what must be done,
he realized,
every commission discharged. Honor to Fleet, family, and Emperor satisfied by the most meager effort. My purpose at an end.
His lips twisted in dismay and thin, fine-boned hands patted at his service jacket, feeling for the hilt of a knife or blade of some kind.
Ah, old fool. You traded your service
tant
ō
for new strings for that useless scrap of wood … you have already forgotten yourself, haven’t you? A samurai, an officer, without even the least weapon to hand? What would Lord Musashi think of you now?

Hadeishi grunted, the harsh sound echoing in the silent temple, and answered himself. “Lord Musashi was never bothered by the lack of steel!”

An old, old memory came to mind—the fuzzing screen of an ancient black-and-white two-d set showing the calm, centered face of a samurai framed by the pillars of another temple, one in Japan itself, where a ring of ruffians—not even
samurai
, though their nervous hands held blades aplenty, but bandits and honorless men—circled the lone sword master. A strong wind was blowing, rustling the leaves of ancient trees, bending their creaking limbs. Lord Musashi had nothing in his hands save a length of willow wood.

They were doomed,
Hadeishi remembered, the ghost of a child’s smile in his eyes.
Though he had nothing but the clothes on his back.
The
Five Rings chambara
had played on the two-d every afternoon throughout Mitsuharu’s childhood. Hundreds of episodes, rarely shown in order, depicting the long and remarkably heroic life of the sword-saint Miyamoto Musashi. An excellent reason for a youngster to run home from school and fling himself onto the floor of his parent’s house in a pile of blankets, eyes fixed on the tiny screen.
Five Rings
was particularly beloved for its setting—Japan itself, during the long struggle of the Restoration, when the Nisei had returned to the home islands and driven out the vile Mongol dynasty which had terrorized their homeland during five centuries of exile.

I will have to buy a knife next week,
Hadeishi thought glumly.
When I’ve a little money again.

The door of the temple-house slid closed behind him with a soft click. Mitsuharu tucked his chin into the collar of his jacket, frost biting his face. A long walk faced him—back into the upper city, across the lower bridge vaulting the estuary, a hike up over the ridge separating the well-heeled Khahtsalano district from the area around the spaceport, and finally home to his pallet.

Hadeishi was descending the wooden stair into the cemetery proper when a long-drawn-out rumble reached him, carried up from the south in the cold, still air. A laser-boosted shuttle cut through the clouds, a bright red spark racing away to orbit.

They look big from down here,
he thought, remembering sitting on the hillside across the river from the main launch-pits at
uchu
with his father.
Gigantic. Leaping into the heavens on wings of flame …
But even the largest shuttle was dwarfed by the massive shape of the commercial liners waiting in orbit, much less the vast bulk of a Fleet carrier or dreadnaught. The cold was in his heart now, and an ache was trickling along his spine.

He trudged across the bridge, bitter sea wind piercing his jacket and sweater, cap tugged low.
There was a merchanter’s guild office,
Hadeishi remembered,
and I’d qualify for a senior rating’s birth. Perhaps even an officer. On a miner, or a cargoman, or a bulk carrier. It would be … something. Better than being a samisen player for drunkards.

The wounded sound of the
Cornuelle
’s spaceframe groaning as she twisted into the atmosphere over Jagan was suddenly sharp in his memory. The hoarse rasp of his own breath inside the helmet, the queasy nausea of shattered ribs. Corridors clogged with floating debris, bubbles of smoke, and the drifting bodies of the dead.

I killed my ship.
Susan’s face appearing out of the darkness, her eyes blazing with worry as her helmet visor levered up. The tightening of dismay around her almond-shaped eyes as she realized what he’d done.
I killed my own children. For pride. Because I was very good at what I did. But not good enough to deny fate.

Neon washed his face as he walked, expression vacant, thoughts light-years away. Snow was falling again, dusting his hunched shoulders with white. He’d felt terribly cold then, too, strapped into his shockchair, hands numb with the effort he’d spent to get the ship’s nose up, her orbit stable.

If I were not prideful,
Mitsuharu thought, feeling his spirit sink even lower.
I could be among the stars again. But what am I beyond pride
, he wondered,
without my uniform, without duty? Am I more than a shell of starched linen and golden ribbon? Is there any reason to be anything else?

Without a warship to command, he realized, merely shipping out was without purpose.

Lord Musashi,
he remembered,
would not compromise his honor at such a pass. He would wait patiently, living on a beggars’ charity, until someone deserving of his service called upon him. Even if he waited until death.

But that was a very cold comfort, on this gray and frigid day.

TENOCHTITL
Á
N

T
HE
C
ENTER OF THE
W
ORLD
, A
NÁHUAC

Sahâne stepped gingerly down a flight of well-worn steps formed from compressed ash, his eyesight adjusting smoothly to the abrupt separation of a hazy, hot day and the cool dimness of a restaurant. The insect-whine of his cooling system fell below audibility and the Hjogadim priest let out a relieved hiss. His long snoutlike nose twitched, assailed by the thick, greasy smell of cooking meat, the acid bite of chilli powder, and the earthy smell of red beans simmering in an iron skillet. With a conscious effort, Sahâne closed his mouth, thick gray tongue rolling back into his jaw.

This species of indigene, young smoot,
a gruff, pedantic voice spoke out of memory—one of an interminable number of teachers replaying in response to the situational prompt—
grows uncomfortable, even agitated, when confronted with the sight of our superior dentition.

“No teeth, no teeth,” the Hjogadim muttered to himself, a jaundiced eye roving around the gloomy cavern. Long wooden tables—all too small for his two-meter-plus frame—jammed against the walls, crowded by throngs of chairs. Threatening wrought-iron chandeliers hung from the domed ceiling on chains. “A torture chamber,” Sahâne observed, beginning to feel nervous.
To remain demands intoxicants.

The cool air, however, was a blessing he was loath to abandon so quickly. The superconducting threads running through his heavy fur could only dissipate so much heat when he was walking—no, more like swimming—through the thick hot air of the city. That the natives would build underground, or behind heavy whitewashed adobe walls, or install their own refrigeration systems on a massive scale, did not trouble his mind. Sahâne was keenly aware of his own discomfort, but the theoretical trials of a planet of inconsequential
toys
did not move him at all.

Circling around the wicked ornamentation of the nearest chandelier, the Hjo sat at one of the tables, back against the pleasantly cool wall, and wondered if the establishment was closed. A handful of other patrons sat at the far end of the long room, but none of them had paid his entrance the slightest attention. Sahâne’s long, tapir-like head swiveled, looking for the telltale ghosting of a human comm-panel in the air.
Nothing.
He frowned, the leathery skin around two deep-set eyes wrinkling up. He could
smell
food, but … how did you order a meal without an interface?

“A
waiter
comes,” someone said, in passable Trade. “And you tell him which ingestibles you desire.”

Sahâne’s frown deepened into puzzlement. The human settling into a chair opposite the young Hjo was familiar—Sahâne had been aware of him dozens of times—but they’d never spoken before. The fine coating of hollow hairs forming the top layer of his fur shivered, making the silver-gray gloss ripple.
An Eye should not speak; it is inappropriate! Its only duty is to spy.

“Though,” the human male continued, tucking a pair of sunglasses into a pocket of his mantle, “the menu here is limited. You’d be best to order an
octli
beer and perhaps a plate of
nopalli
, if you are hungry.”

“I am not,” Sahâne said, after a moment of consternation. “You have never spoken to me before—is there a … a situation? A danger?”

Every member of the Hjogadim delegation on Anáhuac, to the best of Sahâne’s knowledge, had at least three Eyes fixed upon them—not all at once, of course, but in rotating shifts throughout the swift Terran day—but always from a distance. This one—tall, as the indigenes went, with sleek dark fur on its head and regular, waxy-skinned features—had always been at least a block away for as long as the Eye had observed the Hjo. That it should come closer—or even
speak
to Sahâne—implied something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Ah,
the Hjo suddenly realized,
the wretched Eyes don’t wish me to purchase trimethoxyphene from this new vendor. The previous merchant must have complained—

“There is no situation,” the toy said, quite calmly. It approximated a Hjo smile, lips tight. “You are perfectly safe. There will be only a slight delay before the priest comes.”

Sahâne blinked, feeling a familiar fog of confusion congealing around him. He did not like this place—the backwater polity; the crude, barbarous planet; much less this dreadful bowl of hot smog that passed for a city—and the intrigues and plots of the local princelings did not move him at all. His master the
zhongdu
seemed to take an interest in the chattering and scrabbling of the
humans
, but Sahâne had done his best to stay far, far removed from such things. It was not, after all, his purpose.

“The …
hikuli
priest is coming here?” Sahâne whispered tentatively. “How would he know to come—”

“I told him,” the human said, unnaturally slim fingers producing a data-crystal, “that you would be a little late, and wished to try authentic Tenochtitlán food. Where else but Tlatelolco would you find such fine grilled dogs? We will need only a moment for our business.”