House of Reeds

Landing Field Six The M й xica Mandate at Sobipur й , Jagan; End of the Northern Hemisphere Rainy Season

Waves of heat rippled up from the tarmac of a primitive shuttle field. Gretchen tipped back her field hat to wipe a sweat-drenched forehead. Her other hand waved a Shimanjai-made fan over the supine form of her communications technician, Magdalena, who was sprawled on the ragged earth border of the landing field. The black-pelted Hesht was panting furiously, purple-red tongue lolling from the side of her long mouth. The alien female's eyes were bare slits against the copper glare of the Jaganite sky.

"Can she die from overheating?" Parker shuffled his boots on the pavement. The Company pilot's shirt clung damply to a thin body. He was standing between Magdalena and the swollen red disk of the sun, though he cast very little shade at all.

"I don't know," Gretchen said. "But she's suffering. I wish we had our heavy equipment here – at least we could put up a shade."

Parker shrugged, plucking a dying tabac from his mouth and flicking the butt through a nearby fence. Beyond the hexagonal wooden barrier, ten meters of dusty red earth choked with waste paper, discarded glass bottles, scraps of shuttle tire and tangles of glittering cotton string separated them from a row of houses. The shacks were little more than sections of cargo container – most of them bearing the faded, cracking labels of Imperial shipping concerns – turned on their sides and tacked together with extruded foam glue.

The slums sprawling away from the edge of the spaceport did not impress the Company pilot. There were no skyscraping towers, no gravity-defying buildings of alien hue. Nothing over a story in height. Only a mass of tiny, squalid-looking buildings reaching off into a choking brown haze.

"Wouldn't do anything about the thickness of this air, boss." The pilot looked left and right, mirrored glasses catching the heat-haze boiling up from the tarmac. "At least out here, if there's a breeze, we might catch a little of it. In there…" He pointed at the teeming city crouched just beyond the barrier. "…you can't even breathe."

The smell from the city was already overpowering; a thick soup of hydrocarbon exhaust, smoke from cooking fires, a harsh, unexpected smell like cinnamon and the sharp tang of solvents and heated metal.

Ahead of them, some of the other passengers moved up, sending a slow, jerky ripple down the line. Parker was quick to snatch up their bags – one huge duffel each – and drag them forward before the Taborite missionaries behind them could dodge into the gap. Gretchen reached down, took hold of Maggie's upper arms and grunted, hauling the Hesht to her feet.

"Yrrrrowwl-urch," Magdalena groaned in near-delirium, long tongue disappearing behind rows of grinding teeth. One paw batted listlessly at the air. "Sister…just put the gun to my head and trigger-pull. Then…then take my pelt and make a sun-shade for your cubs… Remember me, when you sing at the hunting-fire…"

"Oh, be quiet." Gretchen shook her head in dismay, helping the Hesht forward. The line moved two, perhaps three meters towards the Customs House at the end of the runway. "We'll be in the shade soon, and then, eventually, we can get to our hotel."

Parker snorted, tapping another tabac out of the pack in his shirt pocket. "I think anything called a 'hotel' on this planet will be a sore disappointment." He sighed, shifting to put himself between the sweltering glare of the red giant filling the western sky and the panting Hesht. "After Shimanji n…maybe Mags should have stayed and taken her vacation time there."

Gretchen shook her head, squatting, feeling the asphalt give queasily under her boots. Heat radiating from the tarmac burned the soles of her feet and beat against her face; the landing strip was an oven a thousand meters long and fifty wide. "There will be places like Hofukai on this world, too. Clean, cool, nearpine swaying in a shore breeze, crisp white linens on immaculately made beds… But not down here in this…hole."

"Stupid-ass Company," Parker said, thin lips twisted twisted into a scowl. "You don't suppose we're being punished for doing a good job on Shimanjin? No…what about that business on Ephesus Three? Maybe they're dinging you for all the data the Imperials confisca -"

An accelerating blast of sound drowned out his voice and everyone in the customs line jerked in surprise. As one, the six hundred passengers recently disem-barked from the Imperial passenger liner Star of Naxos turned, staring in alarm at the northern sky.

There, beyond a kilometer of open ground – high springy grass poking up between scattered stubs of eroding concrete, some kind of small horned ruminant grazing on low-lying furze – lay four more shuttle runways – all empty. Beyond them, in turn, a line of gleaming, modern buildings marked the 'main terminal' of the Sobipurй spaceport.

The thundering roar resolved into the shriek of shuttle engines – not just one, but dozens. The northern sky split open, smoky clouds peeling aside as four enormous slate-gray shuttles dropped down through the haze over the sprawling city. The first shuttle tilted back, landing thrusters howling, and a hot, metallic-tasting wind swept across the field.

Gretchen turned her head away as overpressure whipped around her, tugging long blonde hair loose from her field hat, filling her nose with the bitter smell of engine exhaust. A sharp clattering rose from the rows of shacks beyond the fence. The ground trembled as the first Fleet assault shuttle cracked down, enormous wheels spitting sparks.

"What's all this?" Anderssen switched to her local comm as she crouched against the fence, one hand tight on her duffle, the other shielding her face from a whirlwind of grit kicked up off the tarmac.

"It's the Fleet," Parker shouted in reply. He had not turned away, dialing the magnification on his lenses up as high as it would go. "It's not a combat drop…unit markings are still visible under the cockpit windows. A rampart lined with skulls…I think that's the Tarascan Rifles. An Arrow Knight Regiment."

Another flight of four shuttles cut through the clouds, increasing the deafening blast of noise, wind and fumes battering at them. The first set had already rolled to a halt near the main terminal and fore and aft cargo doors were opening.

Parker watched silently as armored combat tracks rolled down into the hot Jaganite afternoon, squads of men clinging to the sides or jogging out of the cavernous holds in long, professional-looking lines. After a moment, he looked up, ignoring the next wave of shuttles coming in. Sure enough, high in the sky, glinting between the streamers of cloud, there were fresh stars burning in the daylight sky.

"Boss…" His voice was a little hushed on the comm circuit. "Did you know Fleet was about to put the hammer down? Here, I mean, on this piss-poor world…" The pilot turned, staring down at Gretchen with a sickly look on his face.

"Parker." Anderssen started to chew on her lower lip, then forced herself to stop. "The Company decided we should come here. End of story. Get your bag, the line's moving."

A noisy, restless crowd pressed against Gretchen on all sides. The cinnamon smell choked the air, making her gasp for breath. Outside the Customs House – a suffocatingly warm hall with a dirt floor and no chairs – was some kind of a public transit station. Enormous metallic conveyances, smooth curves covered by thick, irregular layers of pasted-on advertisements, sat huffing exhaust beneath corrugated metal awnings. A huge mob of the reptilian Jehanan – scaled heads adorned with eye-shields in violent greens and blues, slender arms filled with packages bound in twine – were jostling to climb aboard.

"Which one do we need?" Gretchen had both arms wrapped around her package – the duffel with her gear, clothes, tools, books and papers – and was squeezed in between a nervous Parker and an awake, furious, agitated Magdalena. None of the buses bore Imperial lettering, only the flowing, curlicued native script. "Can we get an aerotaxi?"

"I don't think so," Maggie growled as the motion of the crowd pushed them between two wooden pillars supporting the nearest sun-shade. The bus idling in the bay was easily seven meters high with a bulging glass forward window. The original color of the metal seemed to be a pale, cool green, hidden under layers of grime, glue and paper scraps. Gretchen couldn't swear to her guess about the color. There was more of a sense of flowing water in the smooth outline of the vehicle.

"See?" the Hesht snarled at the sky, where the bloated red sun was suddenly obscured by the whining shapes of aerotaxis flitting past, heading northwest. Parker cursed, spitting out the crumpled remains of a tabac. Human faces stared down out of the open windows of the jetcars. One of the Imperial officers – their black uniforms were clear to see, even from below – waved jauntily at the vast crowd below. "We're on the wrong side of the river for anything to be quick…"

"Yes…" Gretchen slowed to a halt, staring up at the muddy copper sky, watching a veritable armada of aerocars speeding past. For an instant, just the time a drop of water took to plunge from the mouth of a faucet into a sink, everything seemed to slow to a halt. The chattering, rustling shapes of the reptilian Jehanan ceased to move. The hot, humid air held suspended, each droplet of moisture falling from the underside of the metal awnings caught in mid-motion.

I've seen this before. A woman in a feather mantle was smiling down at me. What does -

Then everything was moving again and they were swept past the green bus towards another rank of smaller, harder-angled conveyances.

"There!" Parker started pushing through the crowd. "That one has a sign in Imperial! Mother of God, it's a hotel shuttle bus!"

Gretchen breathed a sigh of relief and followed, leading with her duffel.

High above the flock of aerotaxis, an Imperial troop carrier roared north along the line of the Sobipurй-Parus highway. In the cargo bay, Sergeant Dawd clung to a strap, boots braced against an enormous pile of luggage – the prince's 'personal effects' – buried in green-and-tan cargo webbing. The carrier jerked and shuddered as it swept through pillars of white cloud. The sergeant swayed, wondering how the prince was doing – the boy had managed to sneak a flask of something smelling like industrial solvent aboard. He'll be sorry, Dawdmusedashekeptwatchoverthebaggage.

The hatch to the forward seating compartment cycled open and Master Sergeant Colmuir swung through, shaking his long angular head in dismay. The older man's uniform was liberally stained with yellow-green bile.

"Bit bumpy," Dawd commented, staring at the overhead. "Have a bit of a problem with lunch, Master Sergeant?"

"I did nawt." Colmuir tugged at the webbing over the luggage. He grimaced, stolidly ignoring the long streak of vomit drying on his chest, torso and leg. "Not all Army officers have the steady stomach God gave me." The master sergeant gave Dawd a flinty stare. "An' you'll not repeat such words in any other company, Dawd, not if you value your time in service."

"I do!" The younger man bowed in apology. "Just…never mind, Master Sergeant. I'll keep my thoughts to myself."

"Good." Colmuir held Dawd's gaze for a moment, then looked down at his jacket and shirt and sighed. "Ah, the lad is a study of extremes, isn't he? Has the constitution of a mule for a week's carouse with old man pulque and sister mescal – then can't even keep oatmeal down on a bit of rough air. I am derelict in my duty, I am, hiding back here with you and the hat boxes."

Dawd grinned. "I'll not put you on report, Master Sergeant." He paused, looking forward towards the troop compartment where a good thirty Imperial officers of the 416th were packed in like Avalonian salt herring. "He is an odd one, isn't he? Not what I expected…"

"No…" Colmuir removed his ruined jacket and shirt, revealing a rangy frame matted with bristly black-and-white hair. A faint patchwork of quickheal scars described a lifetime in the Emperor's service. "I've not been here much longer than you, Sergeant. Only a few weeks. I am given t' understand the previous detail was sacked under acrimonious circumstances."

"That's very surprising," Dawd said with a straight face. "Were you briefed?"

"Nawt a word. Just my assignment papers and a new billet." Colmuir dug around in his pack and found a fresh shirt. "Th' prince himself has provided my education. And he is a right educational lad isn't he? Rarely have I seen such a bitter, despondent fellow – particularly one so young. Makes one wonder what made him that way, doesn't it?"

Dawd nodded, his mind fairly boggling at the thought of a young, handsome man – an Imperial prince of the ruling house, no less – grown angry as some crippled old soldier from the bayside pubs. A frown gathered, drawing bushy black eyebrows together. "Master Sergeant, have you met his brothers, his father or mother?"

Colmuir snorted with laughter. "You're trying to balance upbringing against bloodstock, are you? I've the same thought, from time to time. I can tell you this – rumor in the guardservice has it that the boy has never even spoken to the Empress, nor she to him. If you read your guard protocol manual again, lad, you'll see there are orders to ensure she and the boy are never in the same location at the same time. If you look closer – an' I have – you'll see the orders came down from 'er side."

The master sergeant shrugged in response to Dawd's quizzical look.

"Rarely does he see his brothers either – and they are a braw lot, breathing fire every one of them – not a bit like him, d'you see? I have, to balance the scales, seen his father. The Emperor is a proper gentleman, if a bit pinch-faced, an' you can see he cares for the boy." Colmuir sealed up his shirt and rummaged for a pressed jacket. "But respects him? Tha' I do not know."

Dawd's next question was interrupted by a chiming sound. Colmuir threw on the jacket, checked his comm-band, grimaced, and scrambled back through the hatch. The younger man turned his attention back to peering out the window at passing clouds. The edges of a city were now visible through breaks in the thunderstorms, covering the valley floor with a rumpled quilt of flat roofs and isolated skyscrapers.

Rain drummed against a cracked window beside Anderssen's head. Outside, the afternoon downpour was so fierce she could barely make out the shapes of trucks rushing past on an eight-lane raised highway. Inside the bus, she, Parker and Maggie were crammed into a long bench at the very rear of the vehicle. The leather upholstery under her thighs was cracked, discolored and burning hot to the touch. Some kind of multicylinder hydrocarbon engine rattled and wheezed beneath her feet.

"How long until we get into Parus?" Gretchen peered over the pile of duffels between her and Magdalena. The Hesht was folded up, chin resting on her knees, eyes narrowed to angry slits.

"Rrrrr…" Maggie's nose wrinkled up in disgust. The bus smelled old to Gretchen – dry papery sweat, rotting onions, newly washed linoleum – and she was afraid to ask the Hesht what she thought of the odor. "Too long!"

"How big is this bonus again?" Parker was jammed in on the other side of the Hesht, his legs sticking out into the central aisle. An enormous Jaganite filled the rest of the bench. The creature seemed to be asleep, eye-shields lidded down over milky lenses, clawed hands clasped over an ornamented leather vest covered with hundreds of enameled disks. Supple skin around the long nostrils fluttered with regular breaths, though the pattern sounded dissonant to Anderssen's ear. "Can we leave here really soon?"

"Not as soon as we'd like. All the Company note said," she said, leaning closer to the other two and lowering her voice, "was to get here and apply for a survey permit. After we get to the hotel, and get something to eat, and get some sleep – then we'll worry about getting papers."

"And transport," the Hesht rumbled deep in her throat. "I'm not walking in this heat."

"My job, I guess." Parker started tapping his tabac case against one knee, then realized the pack was empty. "Not much to fly down here. I'll bet the Fleet grounds all air traffic as a 'precaution,' even if we had the money for an aerocar. The brief didn't say anything about a military exercise? Maybe an invasion?"

Gretchen shook her head. As was usually the case with the Company, there was little or no briefing material. Costs money to make a proper survey! Can't have that kind of waste…

"No, but all of this happened so suddenly I wouldn't be surprised if some genius at the home office heard something from someone and decided to take advantage."

"Of what?" Maggie's eyes slid sideways to glare suspiciously at Anderssen.

"Of us being done with the project on Shimanjin." Gretchen leaned back against the hot, trembling seat. She was very tired. There was a med-band around her wrist – no Imperial citizen traveled without one – but it was winking amber and red with warnings about local microfauna trying to assault her system with each breath. No wakemeup for me today! "And nearby – as things go, in stellar distances – and the Fleet arriving for whatever reason. I mean, I'd guess if we have to get a survey permit then they need us to examine some Mother-forsaken wilderness, looking for 'anomalous readings' or something equally helpful."

Parker frowned, peering over Maggie's furry, night-black shoulder. "Wait, you mean – for you to just wander around we need a permit? Do we really need that? I mean, Mags here is pretty sly with her surveillance equipment. We could just get an aerocar or ultralight and see the sights…"

Anderssen did not reply, giving the pilot a stony look.

"Oh, okay." Parker slumped back down behind the Hesht. Maggie snorted, flaring her nostrils in amusement. "Be all legal then…"

"We will follow the Company directive and get a permit." Gretchen let out a long, slow hiss. Outside the rain-streaked window, traffic was slowing and she could just make out lights – long strings of glowing neon – rising in the murk. Buildings. We're finally in the city. Oh, I hope there aren't a hundred k of suburbs or something… I suppose it is rush hour, too.

Horns started to blare outside, traffic slowing, and the bus shuddered to a near-halt. Delightful, Anderssen thought, five hundred light-years from home…and stuck in traffic.

Fat drops of rain spattered on the landing platform tucked into the northeastern corner of the Imperial Legation as Sergeant Dawd set foot on Jehanan soil, head up, attention on the ornamental trees surrounding the aerocar pad, one hand on his Nambu and the other extended to guide prince Tezozуmoc down from the aerobus. The transport was steaming in the humid air, fans whining dully. This was apparently the last stop of the day – the other officers had been dropped off at the Imperial Army cantonment south of the city.

"Where are my men? Where are my brave warriors?" the prince declared, striking a commanding pose, long nose in the air. He was wearing his second-best field dress uniform, which featured a dashing cape and an enormous amount of gold and jade trim. Rain hissed away from a built-in repeller field, surrounding Tezozуmoc with a corona of mist. "I cannot rest until I've seen to their needs! Food, a hot meal, every soldier a bed for the night. I will lie down on the cold earth with them if need be, drinking day-old kaffe from a canteen, sharing their struggle hour for hour, day for day – even the sound of the guns will not dissuade me from my purpose! Even -"

Master Sergeant Colmuir coughed politely, motioning for Tezozуmoc to step away. The prince scowled, but moved aside for the taller man to step down to the tarmac as well. Two Fleet ratings were pulling bag after bag from the cargo compartment, steadily piling up a huge collection of armored, dent-resistant grav-lifted luggage.

"Mi'lord," the older Skawtsman said patiently, "you're attached to the Tarascan Rifles as a diplomatic aide – the voice of the Emperor, as it were – not as an actual commander with actual, ah, troops."

Tezozуmoc's lips curled bitterly and for an instant, Dawd thought the prince was going to strike the master sergeant. Then the boy's face congealed into a tight mask. "Oh. Well, then, where do I sleep?"

"The Legation itself, mi'lord," announced a Marine corporal in a dress duty uniform who had hurried up while they were talking. He was carrying a large black umbrella. "Yaotequihuah Clark at your service, sir. Legate Petrel has provided rooms for you in the Guest House. Our finest accommodations, you may be assured."

The corporal nodded to Colmuir. "You've rooms directly adjoining, Master Sergeant. If you'll follow me?"

Dawd held back, keeping an eye on the baggage. The rain was starting to pelt down hard, cutting visibility to a dozen meters or less. He could taste half-burned methanol and oil in the air. The prince was whisked away, Colmuir and Clark on either side. The sergeant followed, both automatic pistols out and in his hands. The Fleet ratings guiding the cavalcade of floating luggage didn't notice – they were concentrating on keeping the prince's baggage from wandering off into the rose bushes or getting hung up in the trees.

Magdalena stared around the hotel room in a tight-lipped, tips-of-her-fangs-bared way far too familiar to Anderssen. They were on the fiftieth floor of a crumbling concrete tower in south-central Parus. Gretchen had been struck, as they walked down the hall to their room, by the wear pattern on the floor. A shallow basin nearly four centimeters deep described the middle of the passage. The room was low ceilinged, dark and very musty.

"Well," Gretchen said brightly, "this is nice." She was looking for somewhere to put her duffel. Jaganite budget hotel rooms seemed to have been designed by Russian efficiency experts. There were no chairs, only high beds on heavy wooden frames and medium-height tables reminding her of spindly armoires. Given the tripodal, tail-heavy stance of the natives, Anderssen realized there might not be any chairs on the whole planet.

That's odd. She was suddenly struck by the seating arrangements on the bus they'd taken from the shuttleport. Was that a human-built vehicle?

"Hhhhhrrrrr!" Maggie's tail twitched sharply from side to side. "Parker is happy – I think his whole clan have laired here with their nose-biting smoke."

The pilot ignored her, peering curiously at a mechanism controlling a set of louvered blinds over the windows. Gretchen dumped her bag on the foot of the smallest bed – both Maggie and Parker were taller. The pilot tried one of the buttons on the face of the device and was rewarded with a whining groan from some kind of pulley system.

"This won't blow up, will it?" He poked another button and the blinds shivered into motion, rotating out to reveal a view of the rain-soaked city below. At the same time, a gust of damp, chilly air blew into the room. The pilot grimaced, then started to cough. "Urgh. Smells like a benzene cracking facility. How long are we staying here?"

"One night." Gretchen had opened the 'bathroom' door to stare at an uneven tiled floor, rusty drain and complete lack of a bathtub with horror. How would some giant lizard-thing with a tail like a third leg take a bath, o child? Her eyes swung unerringly to a bin along the wall. Sand. They abrade their thick, scaly skin with sand. What a nice scraper made of stone. Oh blessed Mother of Our Savior, deliver me from working off-world.

"Tomorrow," she declared, "we're going to find someplace catering to human tastes. I promise. Well, you two will find a place to stay while I visit the Legation and see about our permits."

"These beds are not soft," Magdalena declared, having stripped away a coarse blanket to reveal a metal frame holding a suspended net of stout-looking ropes. "I do not like hummocks. No. Not at all."

Parker started to correct the Hesht, caught Gretchen making an 'are-you-stupid' face and turned back to staring out at the rain. Parus at sundown was a forest of tall, round towers with softly glowing windows. The local ceramacrete tended to dusty red. Coupled with the setting sun, the city was being swallowed by a foreboding, sanguine night. The pilot squinted through the murk – individual storm cells were visible, pelting the crowded, twisting streets below with rain so thick it made patches of early darkness.

Rubbing his stubbly chin, Parker was puzzled for a moment before he realized the odd layout of the buildings was caused by the presence of broad, curved boulevards looping across the city. Hundreds of tiny, straight streets intersected them at unnatural angles. Weird. Why did they build everything all higgle-piggle like that? Crazy aliens.

Gretchen sat down on the end of her 'hummock' and began digging in her duffel. All of their heavy dig equipment – tents, analysis sensors, environment suits, hand tools – was in storage at the port, in the dubious care of the Albanian Spaceways office. Thankfully, she'd thought to stow a clutch of threesquares in her personal effects. Just the effort of finding them made her feel faint. Too big a day for us. Oh yeah.

"Here," she said, pitching a bright blue and orange food bar to the pilot. "I really don't think we should risk room service. Though, Maggie, they might have something live for you to eat…"

"Not hungry." Magdalena had curled up in a corner on the wool blanket, plush tail over her nose, as far as she could get from the 'hummocks.'

"Right." Gretchen began chewing on the molй-flavored ration bar. It sure didn't taste like chocolatl. They never did, no matter what the advertisements said.

The office of the Imperial Attachй for Antiquities had tall windows opening on a garden filled with riotous blossoms. Something like a rhododendron tree shaded the windows, heavy boughs of pinkish red flowers hanging against the open shutters. Gretchen was sweating mildly, sitting in a wide-backed chair covered with leopard skin.

While the rest of the Legation was air conditioned and dim, this room was bright, sunny and warm. Around the garden, three stories of windows set into whitewashed, ivy-covered brick reached up to a murky yellow sky. Despite thunderstorms growling and muttering through the night, the pollution hanging over the city had not been washed away.

"Hmmm." The attachй made a noncommittal noise, his head bent over Gretchen's identity papers and transit visa. She guessed the windows in this room were flung wide to embrace the hot, tropical smell of the flowers outside because the slim young man sitting across from her was a Mixtec. A climate like this would remind him very much of home. She had never seen the great cities of Timbuktu or Ax Idah or Brass herself, but articles in the travel magazines endemic to starliner waiting lounges indicated gorgeous architecture, sprawling gardens and a lively social life. The old Mйxica colonies in sub-Saharan Afrika had flourished after the end of the War.

He looked up, fine-boned features sharp under dark cocoa skin. The young man's face held such a look of seriousness Anderssen was struck by unexpected sadness. Such a handsome man should be letting himself live a little more. Just a tiny bit. Does he remember how to smile?

"I am sorry, Anderssen-tzin, but I cannot give you a survey permit for any region on Jagan." He gathered her papers together and put them into a folder. "I understand you've wound up here by accident, more or less, but an exclusionary planetary excavation, analysis and recovery grant has already been made to the University of Tetzcoco department of Extrasolar Anthropology."

Gretchen grimaced. Tetzcoco EXA had quite a reputation. She tried to hide her reaction, but the young man's eyebrows rose in surprise.

"Have you worked with Professor Der Sege before?"

"Not directly, Soumake-tzin. But I spent two years on Old Mars working for one of his graduate students. He has a towering reputation among my peers."

"Does he?" The attachй rose from his chair and moved to the window, long-fingered hands tapping on the sill. "Well, I have only met with him once or twice since my arrival." Soumake turned, still dreadfully serious. "He is – in my personal opinion – an ass of a man, with half the sense. I do not know what kind of agreement my predecessor struck with the local princes, but Sege is running his own fiefdom up at Fehrupur and I doubt the local kujen would care if a hundred tons of artifacts were being shipped out every month. He'd be using his cut of the proceeds to buy guns."

Anderssen settled a little in her chair, realizing the attache was giving her a particularly searching look. "You're…um…worried about smuggling?"

"I am." Soumake leaned against the window. Like most of the officials and staff Gretchen had seen while wending her way through the halls of the Legation, he was dressed in a long, narrow-cut cotton mantle over a light shirt and dark pants. She sighed inwardly to see he carried off the look very well. Most people in official costume looked like they were wearing a tent…

"Jagan is an ancient world, Anderssen-tzin. Some estimates place the first remnants of civilization here at over a million years old. That verges on First Sun times. Rare to find such a world continuously inhabited over such a vast span of years. One wonders what might lie buried beneath the cities in the hinterland. SГє is hoping for glory, I'm sure."

He looked down at her papers again, now packed up in a dark olive folder. "I am also aware of the reputation enjoyed by the Honorable Chartered Company. Not one which shouts 'academic integrity' or 'law-abiding,' is it?"

Gretchen tried not to squirm and regretted taking a stab at a legal professional presence on this world. But I'm supposed to inform the authorities! They told me to get a permit!

"I'm not…I'm not here on official Company business, Soumake-tzin. We finished a project on Shimanjin and had some free time. The Company doesn't care how I get back home, as long as I pay any difference in the ticket. I missed my connection at Tadmor Station and the next ship out was the Star of Naxos and it was coming through here. Reading about the worlds on the liner-run piqued my interest in Jagan, so I thought I'd spend some time sightseeing before the next liner arrives."

The attache's expression did not change. "You picked a bad time."

Gretchen nodded, striving for a suitably morose expression. It came easily. "We saw the Fleet landing at the spaceport while we were waiting at Customs. Is there trouble brewing?"

A rich, melodious laugh burst from the Mixtec and he shook his head, the flash of a grin lighting his face. The moment passed as quickly as it had come. "Brewing? My dear lady, the valley of the Five Rivers is well past brewing…on the edge of explosion I think." He sat down.

"Between Capsia in the northwest and Patala on the southern coast there are sixty kujenates – principalities – and a dozen feudatory tribes. You may not have noticed yet, but the Jehanan are not the only sentient race resident on Jagan. To my knowledge, there are at least three others. Little love is lost between any of them. There are hundreds of religious sects, all quarreling with one another. In some districts there are entire armies of brigands roaming the countryside.

"Labor unions have begun to spring up in the cities as industry catalyzes around new Imperial technologies. The factory owners negotiate with clubs, poison gas and murder. The mountains to the west are filled with semi-nomadic tribes – such as the Arachosians – whose livelihood is wholesale theft. East of the Phison, thankfully, is a harsh desert, because beyond the Ghor is the fiercely xenophobic empire of the Golden King.

"Into this cookpot you thrust the Empire, the pochteca companies, our own missionary orders and the whole mixture boils far too fast."

"We're not welcome here?" Gretchen indicated the luxurious room and the sprawling compound of the Legation beyond the betel wood doors. None of the buildings within an ancient, red-brick rampart showed the first sign of a hostile populace. There were no guard-posts, no machine guns, no waspwire.

"On the contrary," Soumake said, running a hand across a perfectly smooth scalp. "Every single one of those factions, parties, sects, unions, gangs and princes wants our friendship desperately. Consider this – you are a scientist, you will understand: Jagan is old. Ancient. Worn down by thousands of generations of inhabitants. Entire civilizations have risen and then fallen again. Nuclear wars have smashed them back to savagery and they have clawed their way back up again. Twice the Jehanan have reached into space, only to tumble back at the last moment."

The attachй sighed, pointing at a heavy glass case on one wall. "Consider this metal fragment in an isolation case. Not sealed to protect the artifact, no, but to protect us from radiation permeating the metal casing inside. One of the metallurgists with the Tetzcoco expedition examined the item and confirmed what I had already surmised. Go ahead, take a good look."

Gretchen stepped to the case and frowned. Inside was a stout-looking hexagonal rod, marked by two parallel indents. Faded, indecipherable lettering ran around the top in a band two fingers high. The metal shone silver, without any sign of age or decay.

"This looks like the fuel cylinder for a power plant of some kind."

Soumake nodded, spreading his hands. "An antimatter container, to be precise. Empty now. The antiparticles inside decayed long ago, suffusing the steel sheath with byproduct radiation. After the AM evaporated, the magnetic containment system inside shut down."

"How old is it?" Gretchen measured the device with her hand, taking care not to touch the glass. "Where did it come from?"

The attache rubbed his chin. "I purchased the 'holy relic' from a scrap metal dealer in Capsia last year. A trader from out of the cold waste beyond the mountains had brought it to him. A tentative estimate of the decay rate weighs in at several hundred thousand years. But here is what interests me… The lettering is avery, very early form of Jehanan. Much like you will see on the porticoes of their oldest temples today."

Gretchen turned around, one pale blonde eyebrow rising. "You said the Jehanan civilizations had been destroyed before they could reach into space. Antimatter production facilities are nearly always built in orbit, outside a gravity well."

Soumake nodded. "The physical xenoarchaeologists disagree with me, Anderssen-tzin. They say proof is lacking, but the biologists concur. The Jehanan are not native to this world. They came from space, as we have done, and conquered Jagan. What conflagration tore down their starfaring civilization I do not know…" He grimaced, making a motion which included the city outside the walls ofthe Legation. "…but the native princes are eager reach the stars again. As I said, Jagan is an old, old world."

A steadily deepening frown on Gretchen's face suddenly cleared and she indicated the casing. "Iron."

Soumake nodded. "Iron. Steel. Guns. Ammunition. Armored vehicles. Petro-chemical products. Fuel cells. Advanced atmospheric aircraft. Methanol-engine cargo trucks. Computer networks built from rare metals, or with processing cores which can only be fabricated in zero-g. Before our arrival, the local armies were armed with bows and arrows, spears tipped with metal scavenged from the ruins of the ancients, quilted armor, precious swords made of stainless steel handed down through a hundred generations… Does this sound familiar?"

Anderssen felt cold and sat down, crossing her arms. The Mixtec regarded her steadily.

"Now we are the Japanese merchants," he said softly. "Making landfall on a strange and fabulous shore. Finding an ancient, wealthy civilization lacking iron. Not the knowledge of iron as it was with the Toltecs, no…but the mines are played out, or so far distant from Parus as to be on the lesser moon. They remember the old civilization, these descendants of ancient kings. There are still books, drawings, carvings, oral traditions of a Golden Age when the Jehanan ruled the sky, the waves and the land. They are very, very eager to regain the tools which made them masters of the world.

"I will tell you, the factors from Kiruna paid a heavy price for the right to sell scrap metal on this world. But they are making a handsome profit, unloading the detritus of a hundred years of war in the Inner Worlds. Bargeloads of recycled aluminum from Svartheim and Korgul and New Stockholm arrive every week. And the Fleet won't be interrupting that traffic, oh no."

"But wait…what do they have to trade? Not gold, surely."

Soumake's serious expression remained, but there was a twinkle in his eyes. "Did the Japanese who fled the Mongol invasion of holy Nippon want gold from the Toltecs? No, they needed food, clothing, slaves to clear the deep forests of Chemakum and Chehalis. So they traded what they had – horses, double-season rice, geared milling machinery, metalsmithing – for what they did not.

"And here, on Jagan, aside from pretty artifacts by the ton, there are certain plants which only grow in the Arachosian highlands, or in certain valleys around Takshila and Gandaris. The bitter Nem is a mild psychotropic for the local people, but once the labs on Angehuac have processed the seeds and the milky white sap, well…it becomes much more. Very popular, or so I understand."

"How much profit can there be in biochemicals?" Disbelief was plain in Gretchen's voice.

Soumake snapped his fingers. "Enough, considering they're trading something worth less than a ming here for something with a six hundred percent rate of return by volume on AnГЎhuac. And there are other sources of revenue…glorious textiles, rugs, fine porcelains and ceramics, excellent liquors, certain unique woods. Many, many luxury items in demand in the core worlds because they are new.

"But all of this involves you only peripherally: I will not grant you a permit for survey in the land of the Five Rivers."

"I see." Gretchen thought she did understand and was oddly touched. "You think it's too dangerous for me to be wandering over hill and dale. You think the local princes have accumulated enough firepower to see about settling all their old scores. Is that why the Fleet has arrived?"

Soumake rose from his chair abruptly, face clouded. "I wish every Imperial citizen on Jagan were aboard a Fleet lighter and bound for Tadmor Station today. I suggest…you find an out-of-the-way place to stay, Anderssen-tzin. And remain there and not go out until the next liner comes through. Good day."

Gretchen returned his polite bow, retrieved her papers and made a quick exit. Walking into the cool dry air of the hallway was a welcome shock, wiping away a gathering sense of foreboding. For a moment, though, she turned and looked back at the closed door. He must be truly worried, she mused. I've never seen such a talkative Imperial official before.

The heart of the Consulate was a staircase of native stone dropping two stories from the main business floor to an entry foyer large enough to hold a zenball field. Gretchen was making her way down the steps, distracted by the carved reliefs lining the balustrade, when she nearly ran into a tall woman coming up the steps with a quick, assured walk.

"Pardon," Anderssen said, coming to an abrupt halt before they collided. The woman looked up, fixed her with a cornflower blue gaze and a brilliant smile lit her face.

"My dear! Terribly sorry – I haven't been paying attention all day! You must be freshly arrived? Come about some official business? Of course, no other reason to be in this drafty old place, is there?"

Gretchen found herself turned about and escorted briskly up the stairs and into a sitting room filled with overstuffed chairs.

"Let me look at you. Yes…" The woman's good humor did not abate and the brilliant azure eyes turned sharp, considering Gretchen from head to toe. "Dear, have you found someplace nice to stay? Your current residence just will not do, not for a woman of repute like yourself. There are some beautiful little hotels near the Court of Yellow Flagstones. You will like the White Lily best if I am not mistaken, and I rarely am. Ask any of the taxi drivers, they'll know the way. Yes, very nice, with breakfast – human breakfast – and real beds and, dare I say? Proper bathtubs with hot water. Oh yes."

Anderssen felt a little shocked, as if a bison had crashed out of the nearpine and run right over her, but she mustered herself and managed to squeak out: "Doctor Gretchen Anderssen, University of New Aberdeen, very-pleased-to-meet-you."

"A doctor?" The woman's smile changed, dimming in one way, but filling with warmth as her public persona slipped aside. Gretchen relaxed minutely. "Well done, my girl. Very politely done – reminding me to introduce myself as well." A strong hand – surprisingly callused, given the exceptionally elegant gray-and-black suit the lady was wearing – clasped Anderssen's. "I am Greta Petrel. No, don't laugh, my hair just comes this way, not an affectation at all. All the Army wives don't believe me, of course, but I think you might. Yes, I think you do."

Gretchen managed to tear her attention away from chasing the crisp flood of words coming out of the woman's mouth and saw that Mrs. Petrel's hair was raven black with two white streaks, one falling from either temple. The woman dimpled, one finger brushing across small sapphire pins in her ears and flicking away from the snow-white hair.

"Fabulously jealous, all of them. But what can they say? Nothing but nice things to my face, oh yes. Now, behind my back…well, I really could not care less about their twittering. Now, dear, tell me how you've fared today in my so-grand house. Did you get good service from whomever you saw? Did they serve you tea? Doctor of what, exactly?"

"Xeno…xenoarchaeology, ma'am." Gretchen was suddenly sure the woman wasn't exaggerating when she said my house. She could only be the Imperial Legate's wife. "I'd come to see the attachй of Antiquities about a permit…"

"Ah, Soumake is a dear, isn't he? Such a serious young man, though. I'm sure he told you no quite firmly, even with such beautiful golden hair and sweet features. No matter, he's terribly married and you've children of your own to see after – no sense in gallivanting around after a career officer like him, oh no. Well, he was right to send you on your way, though I'm sure you're just disheartened by the whole sordid business."

Mrs. Petrel shook her head and Gretchen felt suddenly chastised, as if she'd forgotten her sums in front of the entire class. She also felt dizzy. Trying to keep up with the older woman's turn of conversation was wearing her out.

"There is only one sure cure for such things, my dear." Mrs. Petrel tucked a stray tendril of Gretchen's hair back into place and pressed a handwritten card – shimmering green ink on creamy realpaper – into her hand. "I'm having the smallest gathering possible at the summer house in a few days. You come and sit with me and we'll have a bite to eat and some tea. Perhaps I can see if Professor SГє can find a scrap of decency in his black, black heart and let you work under his permit. But no promises!"

Mrs. Petrel swept out of the sitting room, head high, the two white streaks merging to make a V-shape in the heavy fan of hair across her shoulders. Gretchen stared in surprise at the handwritten card in her hand. The front read: "Mrs. Gretchen Anderssen is invited to my party" while the back had an address – also in green ink and the same crisp hand – a date and time.

"How…did she know I have children? How did she know my name?" Anderssen stepped out into the hallway and caught sight of Mrs. Petrel sailing past a quartet of armed guards, the tall, thin shape of a manservant following quietly behind. Seeing him, Gretchen realized he'd been in the background the whole time, silent and as much a part of the paneled walls as the wood itself. "Well."

She laughed, feeling tension ebb from her chest. "I should say, I never. I think I'd better sit down for a minute and get my breath back. What a bracing person."

The chairs were far more comfortable than they looked and Gretchen took a moment to key "Court of the Yellow Flagstones" into her comp. Good lodgings – and she was certain the White Lily was excellent and probably reasonably priced – were worth more than a woman's weight in quills in this business. She couldn't help but smile.

I hope Maggie and Parker are doing all right. Oh, bother! I'd better call them about the hotel.