House of Reeds ittotss-2 Read online

  "Not dead, I see," he said, nodding to Master Sergeant Colmuir.

  "Nawt yet," grinned the Aberdeen-man, keeping his head low. "But close, very close…what about him?"

  Dawd turned, staring in disgust at Tezozуmoc, who was curled up and whimpering. "Take him home, I suppose. Clean him up. Nothing else to do now."

  As an aside, he leaned close to Colmuir. "Master Sergeant, why did we ally ourselves with these…savages?"

  "Oh, lad," Colmuir nodded sagely, "it was them or the Anglish. And compared to the Anglish…well, we've still the better of the deal wit' these heathens."

  The lean-faced master sergeant grinned at Dawd's sour expression and snaked a tabac from his pocket. The older man looked a little battered – craggy brow and seamed face spattered with blood and bruises – in the flare of the self-lighting cigarette. "Don't make such a face, lad. It's a man's work, isn't it? Better than wasting time in University!"

  "I suppose," Dawd checked his weapons and tools by touch. "The pay is better."

  Colmuir chuckled, taking a long drag. His long-limbed frame was bent almost double to keep a graying head from knocking against the roof of the tunnel. "Most don't think so, but you've seen both sides of the fence, haven't you? D'you miss the hallowed halls of aca'deme?"

  Dawd grunted. "I suppose…but grading lower-form essays on early Mйxica poets lacks something of the spice of our activities here."

  The master sergeant ground out his tabac. "Let's get him out of here, then."

  Tadmor Station The Edge of Imperial M,xica Space

  The murmur of four thousand impatient travelers filled the transit hall, making it difficult for Gretchen Anderssen, field xenoarchaeologist for the Honorable Chartered Company, to hear the politely soft voice of the Albanian Spaceways ticket agent in front of her.

  "I am sorry, Anderssen-tzin, but your tickets have been changed."

  "Changed?" Gretchen scowled uneasily at the little Nisei woman, tucking tangled blonde hair back behind her ear. "By whom?"

  "By the issuing authority. There is a note and a new travel packet." The ticket agent tapped her pad and a metal plate slid aside on the countertop, revealing a comm panel. Anderssen pressed her thumb onto the receptor pane and crossed muscular arms, steeling herself for bad news. Though nearly a century had passed since the Empire's conquest of Earth had driven her parents into exile on the Skawtish colony-world of New Aberdeen, the middle-aged Swedish woman didn't expect any superior – either in business, or in a social setting – to treat her as anything but a tool to be moved from place to place as the needs of the community bid.

  We lost the War, her grandmother's voice echoed in Gretchen's memories, and we have to make do with just surviving. It used to be worse…

  A Company memo header appeared, accompanied by a terse message and her field supervisor's chop.

  Go to Jagan. Apply for a survey permit at the Legation. There is a device which must be examined.

  "This is the entire note? The only message?" Gretchen wiped the pane clear with a flick of her hand. "Have all our tickets been changed? All three of us?"

  The ticket agent nodded politely, providing Anderssen with a set of travel chits. "David Parker – Imperial citizen, Magdalena – Hesht female on a wayfarer visa. They are your traveling companions, yes? Here are their new tickets. You have been re-routed to the Imperial Protectorate of Bharat, planet Jagan. Stay is open ended, with a return voyage to New Aberdeen as originally scheduled."

  "What?" Parker, the Company team pilot, was standing in line behind Anderssen and now he plucked a half-burned tabac from his mouth to stare at her in horror. "Where the hell is Bharat? What happened to our vacation time?"

  Gretchen turned the chit over in her hands. The dull roar of fellow travelers arguing, crying, pleading lapped around her. "A drop-in," she mused aloud, feeling intensely irritated. "I haven't gotten a drop-in for…well, ever, actually." She looked up to find the others staring at her. "What this means is someone reported something unusual on this planet. Probably some farmer turned over his field, broke a plow wheel and thought he found a First Sun library. The Company heard about it and -"

  "We shouldn't go." Parker made a disgusted face, rubbing a flat hand across his balding pate. The pilot was thinner than Gretchen, a wiry, stoop-shouldered Anglishman with twitchy reflexes and a mellow, almost indolent approach to every task. "Never give up vacation time. Can we refuse?"

  Magdalena showed her incisors, a dull yellow-white gleam against ebon lips. In truth, the Hesht wasn't more than a few centimeters taller than Parker, but the thick muscle corded over her sleek feloid frame and her plushy, glistening fur made him seem frail and weak in comparison. "More work? The yrrrchowlssshama is playing with us." Gretchen hastily covered the exposed fangs with raised fingers, glaring at the Hesht. Maggie's eyes narrowed and then she closed her mouth with a petulant flick of her ears. The Hesht were still not common in human society, though their interstellar migration had been creeping across the Empire for nearly twenty years. Magdalena was very well acculturated, as least in comparison to other knockabout youngsters exiled from the enormous sub-light Arks carrying the bulk of her people on their endless voyage. But most citizens quailed at the sight of so many needlelike teeth exposed at once. "Next, please." The ticket agent waved them away, beckoning for the line to advance. "Do we get duress pay at least?" Parker relit his tabac as they moved aside. "A bonus? Working-on-vacation time?" Magdalena's long ears pricked up. "Fresh-killed meat, still hot, dripping with juice?" Anderssen studied the fine print on the work authorization. "Yes…works out to triple-time, plus the usual bonuses if there's really something to find." She bit her lip, thinking. "A fair bit of change." New clothing for all the kids, new turbine core for mom's lifter, maybe even a new field comp for me… "Paying by the day, too, not the usual flat rate." "Really?" Parker brightened. "Including transit time? Can I see that?"

  Gretchen handed over the chit, feeling disoriented, and raised her head to search the massive v-pane filling one entire wall of the cavernous hall. Thousands of ships passed through Tadmor every week. One of them would carry her team to Bharat. Hope it's a real liner, she grumbled to herself, not a tramp with berths over the reactor. Then she thought about how long it would be until she saw her children and her mother, walked in the realspruce forest behind the steading breathing cool, fresh air, and had to fight down tears. Fucking Company. I am so tired of this. She rubbed her eyes. "Hey," Parker said, watching her face with alarm. "Hey now boss, it's just a couple weeks. Look – they're estimating a week to Bharat, two weeks there and then another week back to New Aberdeen. You can route through Toroson instead of Coromandel Station and it'll be faster. With triple-time, it's like working three months in one! You could spend nine weeks on vacation instead of three and still be ahead, quill for quill." "Rrrr…" Magdalena's ears flicked back, showing what she thought of that. The Hesht never mentioned her own pack, or expressed the slightest interest in returning to the Ark of her birth, but she considered Anderssen her 'hunt-sister,' and Gretchen's cubs, therefore, were her cubs as well. Her opinion of Parker varied, but most of the time she treated him like a younger brother, which meant cuffing him, claws retracted, at least once a day. "Another month until she sees her cubs? How many feathers is that worth?" "They're called quills," Parker replied, handing the Hesht the chit. "Not feathers, fur-brain." Magdalena bared her incisors at the human male. "You need feathers to make a quill, stinky." "I have to go," Gretchen said, interrupting them before her two companions really started to bicker. "But you don't. I could log a call saying you'd already boarded your own ships…" Magdalena sniffed, ears back, and held up the travel chit. "Where hunt-sister goes, I go. Not for feathers" – her plushy black nose wrinkled up – "but to make sure you see your cubs and den again." The Hesht caught sight of Parker's grimace. "No one knows this world – any untasted meat is dangerous!" "But…but…" Parker glared at b oth of them. "My mum is expecting me for dinner in two weeks! What am I going to tell
her?" "Buy her some nice fresh meat," Magdalena sniffed, "with all those extra quills you'll earn."

  Jagan Fourth Planet of the Bharat System

  A brisk chime disturbed the meditations of a tiny old woman sitting cross-legged on a rumpled, unmade bed. The room was dark, lit solely by the glow from dozens of v-pane screens. Bundles of cable snaked everywhere, disappearing through holes cut into the floorboards. She was breathing steadily, first through one nostril, then through the other.

  The chiming became insistent – drowning out the muted sound of pedicab horns and passing trolleys – and beetle-black eyes flickered open.

  The old woman turned her attention to the flashing glyph on the panel, a wizened thumb mashing the winking shape of a running man. A v-pane unfolded, revealing the shaved head of a Flower War Priest, forehead marked by broad stripes of soot and ash.

  "My lady Itzpalicue." The man inclined his head nervously. In the near-perfect fidelity of the display, she could see sweat beading beneath the paint anointing his brow. "There is news of Battle group Eighty-Eight Tecaltan. They are inbound now from the forward Fleet base at Toroson."

  "When will they arrive?" Her voice was creaky and dry, dead branches rubbing against stone, but the sharp expression on her face betrayed a keen intelligence. Her high, classically Mйxica cheekbones were marked with lines of red-stained pinprick scars. "Who commands the Flingers-of-Stone?"

  "Villeneuve, my lady." The Flower Priest's expression changed subtly, shading from barely hidden fear to nearly-open delight. Itzpalicue suppressed a surge of irritation with the openness of the man's thought processes. An agent of the Empire, she thought, should show some self-control. "We have already forwarded the officer rosters and ship manifests to your network."

  "So…Duke Alexis has his frontier command at last." The old woman's wrinkled lips twitched up slightly, black eyes glittering with delight. "I am pleased the Admiralty saw fit to grant your request. I am sure he is delighted as well."

  "How could the Frenchman fail to be pleased?" The Flower Priest made an expansive gesture, mostly lost in the narrow focus of the v-pane pickup. "Four Mitla-class fast dreadnaughts, a dozen Kasei-class heavy cruisers and a veritable armada of smaller ships. Two Marine regiments, thousands of support personnel…everything an ambitious junior admiral could want."

  "Everything he needs to fight a minor war on some forgotten planet on the edge of the Empire. A pity his reputation will be stained by the inevitable result…" Itzpalicue turned a portion of her attention to the officer rosters flipping past in her secondary data-feed. The documents opened, paged and closed with blurring speed. An unexpected sense of relief glowed for a moment as she digested the information. "Have your analysts examined the commanders' list for the battle group?"

  "Yes, my lady. They are entirely acceptable for our purposes. Almost all are barbarians…or at least not citizens born of the Four Hundred Houses. No one important is liable to be killed or injured."

  "Well, your enterprise should go well, then." Itzpalicue inclined her head. "Did you expect the presence of the prince Tezozуmoc?"

  "Yes!" The priest's face swelled fat with self-congratulation. "A lucky stroke! The Light of Heaven recently spoke with our master about his youngest son's poor reputation. Of course we were happy to oblige his desires…as they run alongside our own. The boy will be thrust into the forge fire…"

  Itzpalicue snorted delicately, a dry whispery sound. "Forge fire? In this flowery war you're arranging? More like the flame of a candle, I think."

  "Not so!" The priest had forgotten his earlier trepidation and now soot-blackened eyebrows converged over a sharp nose. "The Xochiyaoyotl is not play-acting, my lady! The divine fluid will be spilled in full measure, pleasing both the Holy Mother and her Son. The boy may die gloriously, as befits a Mйxica prince on the field of battle, or he may triumph as Imperial arms will surely prove victorious over the barbarians. Either outcome will suit our purpose – and please the Light of Heaven! – well enough. Prince Tezozуmoc's reputation will be given new luster, whether he lives or dies, you may be assured of that."

  I would not call the Jehanan 'barbarians,' the old woman mused, as their civilization predates even the simians of Anuhuac who gave birth to our noble race…and the thrice-blest Light of Heaven. She considered the Fleet rosters on the secondary displays. "Have you chosen the ship to sacrifice as Elder Warrior?"

  "No…" The Flower Priest sniffed, annoyed at having his contemplation of the Emperor's incipient favor disturbed. "My acolytes are reviewing the Fleet records now." He paused, peering at her with a tinge of apprehension. "Do…do you have a recommendation?"

  Itzpalicue made a show of pausing to consider, though she had already grasped sufficient detail from the data-stream to know that while there were commanders on the list who could play the traditional role, none of them were just right. Then she said: "The Mirror bows to the experience of the xochiyaotinime in this matter." She favored him with a tight, wintry smile. "Should circumstances change, however, do not fear but I will render any advice deemed necessary."

  "Of course." The Flower Priest managed to nod genially.

  The old woman could see fear pricking in his face, making the priest twitchy and nervous. Most Imperial citizens had a remarkably similar reaction when confronted with an agent of the Mirror Which Reveals The Truth. Itzpalicue, who had served the Imperial security ministry for her entire adult life, would have been affronted if she had not been regarded with trepidation and near-horror. And not without cause, for the Mirror wielded enormous power within the Empire, answering only to the Emperor himself, and keeping many secrets.

  One lowly Flower Priest could easily disappear, particularly with Xochiyaoyotl in the offing.

  Flower War exercises were not usually the domain of the Mirror – Itzpalicue's presence on Jagan had already thrown the priests' usual planning into confusion – and awareness of the Mirror's interest in this particular War of Flowers was causing more lost sleep for their analysts than the presence of one junior, ill-regarded and expendable Imperial Prince.

  The Flower Priests operated on the fringe of Imperial space, allowing themselves a generous margin of anonymity and distance in case of some unforeseen disaster. While they took some care in picking a suitable 'honorable enemy,' past events indicated that even the most placid-seeming world could unleash untold devastation on the Imperial combat forces sent in harm's way. Not every alien civilization was pleased to have the Mйxica engage them in unexpected warfare, just for the purpose of blooding freshly raised regiments and newly promoted Fleet commanders. Still, Itzpalicue thought, with a rather amused air, the xochiyaotinime and their games do serve a purpose, both for the people and the military, and for the Emperor. Even, sometimes, for the Smoking Mirror.

  The modern implementation of the Flower War was a far cry from the ritualized combats waged by the ancient Mйxica against their neighbors in the Heart of the World. Long gone the glorious mantles, feathered cloaks and elaborate head-dresses for the favored combatants. No more the cleared fields of honor scattered along the frontiers of the early Empire. No year of pampered luxury leading to the altar of divine sacrifice awaited those honorably overcome in combat. Only simple death, spilling precious fluid on some forgotten world.

  Itzpalicue sighed aloud, wondering if the reality of those lost times was as clean and elegant as the official histories related. Not likely! Blood and shit smell much the same, regardless of the age.

  Jagan was a remote world, but introducing the Light of Heaven's personal interest, even if through the disreputable person of Tezozуmoc, raised the stakes enough to make everyone sweat. And with a high-ranking Mirror agent in residence…well, Itzpalicue knew for a fact the Flower Priests were twisting themselves into a knot trying to second-guess her purpose.

  "Any advice you might deem fit to relate," the priest continued, trying to keep his head above water, "would be as jade and turquoise to us. You have our priority channel, of course."

&n
bsp; "I do." Itzpalicue quashed her smile. "Please let me know before the horns and flutes sound. I will remove myself from Parus for the duration of the…contest."

  "Oh, there's no danger…" The priest stopped himself. A trail of sweat trickled down the side of his head and disappeared into a starched white collar. "Your pardon, my lady. There will be some danger. We are not fighting with macauhuitli wrapped in cotton, oh no! The barbarians have only modest arms to hand, but a knife still cuts! No, no…I would be remiss to tell you there was no danger once our own troops are engaged by the rebellious elements among the Jehanan."

  He tried to show a controlled smile, but the pasty color of his flesh beneath the ceremonial paint made him look much like a defleshed skull. "I fear the substance of most buildings in Parus – grand city though it is – will not be able to stop even the small-caliber railgun rounds fired by our Fleet shuttles or Tonehua-class combat vehicles. You should take care."

  "I will." Itzpalicue made a sitting bow, indicating the conversation was over. "Good day."

  The channel folded closed on the v-pane even before the Flower Priest could respond.

  Sighing, Itzpalicue shook her head in dismay at the man's lack of control. Even the most dim-witted Flower Priests probably guessed the Mirror agent had full access to all Imperial communications in Jaganite near-space and on the surface of the ancient world. Yet he still tried to keep her informed of developments, even though her own communications network was superior to his own. The Mirror's reputation of omniscience was not vigorously reinforced by all the power available to the Imperial government for nothing.

  If the Tlachiolani – the Mirror Which Reveals The Truth – could not see into the minds of every citizen, much less the secret councils of the European and Afrikan governments fulminating in exile among the Rim colonies, they could ensure full access to Imperial communications, secure public networks and voice traffic. Nearly all civilian data was exposed to the Mirror of Black Glass, either through back doors in mass-produced communications equipment or revealed by Imperial 'mice' scanning and analyzing broadcast data streams in realtime.