Gretchen sat squeezed in behind a narrow fold-out table on the mess deck, a mug of coffee clinging to a stickyplate by her right hand and a battered field comp balanced on her left knee. The crew was grumbling in and out of the tiny space, getting their threesquares heated and coffee refreshed, and passing what gossip had managed to evolve in the last shift. The room was cold, crowded, and noisy. Every surface felt worn with age and constant, hard use. Like the rest of the ship-or the parts she’d seen-it was spotlessly clean, but the freighter was of an age that no amount of scrubbing and polishing could make the walkways, walls, or counters seem fresh.
Despite this Anderssen felt almost happy for the first time in nearly six months, her nostrils filled with the stink of cold diesel and burning rubber. Abstracts from a good year’s worth of the Extraplanetary Archeological Review flipped past on the comp’s screen. From time to time she recognized names or remembered the faces of old coworkers or rivals or long-standing dignitaries in her field. Occasionally an obituary cropped up-leaving a small, cold chill behind as she paged to the next document.
How did I get so far behind? All of the time spent toiling at the Technical College seemed to have faded from memory already, as though the whole interlude had been a fever dream, and her last “real” assignment and this one were running together with only a few idle weeks at home in between. Easy to forget the last half year, I guess. She hoped that was true.
The articles were the same as ever-plenty of insights promised, but the results were always a few pages of heavily censored data, some halfhearted conclusions, and hopes for further funding. The good stuff, of course, was never in the public journals. The Honorable Company, or the Mirror Which Reveals, saw to that quickly enough. Our Secret Histories, she thought morosely, where the truth goes to be stuffed, buried, and forgotten.
Her coffee cup suddenly shivered-dark liquid pulsing into a sharp spike and then collapsing. Her stomach did the same thing, at the same time.
The freighter had dropped from transit. The g-decking in the mess area failed momentarily, eliciting curses from a crewman trying to refill his cup from the dispenser. Gretchen’s mug had a clear cover, which kept it from disgorging a flight of brown-and-white globules into the air. Without thinking, she put her thumb over the drinking spout-gravity returned-and she wiped her finger on the thigh of her field pants.
Hummingbird ducked into the room, even his short frame needing to bend to get through the hatchway from the passenger cabin they’d booked for this leg of their journey into the unknown. Like the crew, the old Mexica was kitted out in a workaday mantle over his z-suit with a broad leather belt at his waist and deep pockets. As he passed, Gretchen looked up curiously. The old man lifted his chin, indicating the hatchway to the control deck.
“Are you ready to transship?”
Anderssen nodded. Next bus, now departing… “How soon?”
“We’ll see in a few moments.”
Though he hadn’t invited her, Gretchen slipped out from behind the table-tucked her comp away, drained the coffee cup-and followed along quietly. They had been in motion-hopping from ship to ship-for nearly ten days now and the old sorcerer had yet to speak more than a handful of words to her, none of them concerning their eventual destination.
When she squeezed into the door to the control space- bridge seemed too grand a word for the crowded warren of consoles, wire bundles, and creaking shockchairs-the sharp, abrupt impression of fear and adrenaline was a cold splash on her face. Better than coffee! she thought, feeling suddenly awake and on edge.
The freighter’s master, a short balding little man named Locke, was standing over the pilot’s shoulder, peering at the main navigational display. The camera displays were filled with a riot of iridescent color. Thick clouds of dust congealed out of the void on every side, lit with the radiance of distant, unseen stars. In comparison to the usual emptiness of interstellar space, the view seemed dangerously crowded. Hummingbird was also squeezed in, on the other side of the pilot, and his face seemed tight.
“One drive trace,” muttered Locke, chewing on the edge of his thumb. “Too big for our contact.”
“Maybe two,” ventured the pilot. His stylus clicked on the display surface. The navigation holo shifted slightly and Gretchen, now quite alert, could see two vectors illuminated by the computer. “But this big signature is washing out the other.”
“Our ship?” Green Hummingbird was watching Locke closely.
The freighter captain rubbed his forehead, and then swung into the navigator’s seat. “The commercial shipping registry has some drive signatures on file,” he said, uneasy. “Let’s see what it kicks up.”
Hummingbird waited patiently, while Gretchen-who felt an urge to start tapping her fingers-took the opportunity to examine the little room and the adjacent compartments. In comparison to the mess area, things were cleaner, and some components might have been recently replaced-but even so, there was a sense of age and hard use permeating everything she could see.
No, she suddenly thought, that’s not right Locke cursed, drawing her attention back to the three men. Two ship’s schematics had come up on his display-one obviously of considerable size, the other showing an outline almost exactly like their own paltry freighter. The captain sat back, covering his mouth with one hand. He pointed at the larger schematic with his chin.
“This is the flux signature of a Khaid Neshter -class destroyer. And the smaller one must be your ride.”
The pilot hissed in dismay, looking back to the drive trails on the navigation holo.
“The smaller ship’s signature is showing a couple hours newer than the entry-point for that destroyer… but their chrono tracks synch up on exit.”
“I warrant the freighter went in chains!” Locke stood up, giving Hummingbird a hard look. “There’s no ride onward for you, Mexica. We’re turning around and getting the hell out of here.”
“Our agreement, Captain Locke, says you deliver me and my assistant to our destination.” Hummingbird’s tone was even, showing neither anger nor concern. “I will provide you with new transit coordinates and we will press on.”
Locke bristled and Gretchen could feel his agitation like a sharp, prickly heat on her face. Before the captain could continue, however, Hummingbird raised a hand and looked over to Anderssen.
“Could you step outside, and see we’re not disturbed?”
Meeting his gaze directly, Gretchen felt the adrenaline-heat suddenly flow away, replaced by cool calculation. He expected this, she realized. The old nauallis didn’t seem fazed by the turn of events, though there was a substrate of annoyance in his voice.
“Sure, boss,” she said, ducking out through the hatch. The heavy steel drew closed behind her, though she didn’t let the panel lock into the socket. Three crewmen were now standing around the dispenser, their attention drawn by her sudden appearance and the clank of the hatch.
“I think,” she said brightly, “that you’re all going to get a hazard bonus.”
The men looked at her quizzically, and then one bustled off down-ship with three cups balanced in his hands. Gretchen leaned against the hatchway and unwrapped a stick of chicle from her pocket. I am so very nonchalant, she thought in amusement as the hot taste of cinnamon filled her mouth. Very much the idler.
The remaining two crewmen ignored her and sat down to the table.
Without consciously intending to, Anderssen turned to examine some old bulletins posted on the nearest wall and let her eyes lose focus. Like magic-if sensory prioritization could be called magic-her hearing sharpened and she heard one of the men say: “Spero Lockenem maleficum eum circuagere non permissurum esse.”
The other replied, equally softly: “Navarchus non stultus est. Claude os et oculos aperi!”
How odd. They’re speaking -
She forced herself to step away from the door and pick up her cup of coffee. The little sound leaking through from the control space indicated a vigorous discussion was under way, and now that these two burly specimens were watching her, it wouldn’t be polite to overhear. She swirled the cold liquid around in the cup, frowned, and went to the dispenser. Both of the men at the table turned away as she passed, but something about their clothing-no, their tool belts-caught her eye. Nothing unusual about them, she thought, wondering what had set her on edge. You’re getting paranoid… that’s Hummingbird’s business, not yours.
Hot liquid steamed into the cup and she thumbed the glyph for extra cream, extra sugar-substitute.
Both of the crewmen stood up, pitched their cups, and climbed down the ladder to the engineering spaces.
Not their work tools, she realized, watching them go out of the corner of her eye. They have the same sidearm. The thought caught in her memory and other fragmentary images suddenly coalesced. Tattoos-at least two, maybe three of these men have a crimson cross fitche on a white field. Like an insignia. Every one of them has at least one handgun. All about the same size, too, as though they were issued arms. These men must be ex-military.
She gave the mess deck a considering glance, then cast about in memory for any other details she’d glossed over in the last two days while the ship had bounced from transit point to way station and onward into this trackless expanse. The Moulins was small; listed as a freighter seeking supercargo passengers, or some kind of high-value, low-mass cargo that couldn’t wait for a big liner or cargo-carrier to come by. Or, she realized, for fugitives to smuggle… like her, like the Crow. Or information-very low mass; data-crystals or comp discs-and that could turn a tidy profit.
That familiar pressure-the constant, draining, exhausting need for quills which had been omnipresent her whole life-seemed out of place here. That’s not right. This captain, this crew, they don’t taste right, feel right; they’re not mercenaries. She couldn’t say quite why, but she was suddenly certain that Locke and his men were not out in the back of beyond looking for money.
A spy-ship? But not an Imperial one. Her heart skipped. None of the crew she’d seen were Mexica or Nisei or Skawtish or any of the other nations bound by the compact of the Four Hundred families. Could this be an HKV courier? A Resistance ship? Glorious Christ, there is still a Royal Navy at work amongst the stars? She thought of her great-grandfather, a fiery old man with a neat white beard, killed in the Last War. He had served aboard a Swedish cruiser in battle near Saturn. A flood of emotion filled her and for an instant-her heart aching-she perceived something of the shape of the ship, the crew, even the irritable Captain Locke. She saw a bloody spear, shining in the darkness, radiating roseate light into the void. Pointed ever outward, fixed upon the heart of an invisible, implacable enemy.
Chilled and sweating, Gretchen slumped back against the bulkhead. The coffee cup squeaked in her hand. When she looked down, her knuckles were white. Oh. Well. I guess I don’t need Malakar’s singing to bring on this… this… whatever it is.
The peculiar perceptual gestalt which came and went-incited by stress, or by psychotropic drugs, or the presence of another being in a state of extreme agitation-had been absent from her daily existence while she’d toiled away in the basement office on New Aberdeen. The nightly visions or dream-states which caused her to speak aloud in the tongues of ancient Mokuil had been slowly diminishing as time passed and her body recovered from being exposed to the memory-echo of the kalpataru. Malakar’s notebooks were filled with drawings, songs, tales long lost to her people-Gretchen’s troubled sleep had yielded up an unexpected bounty for the old librarian-but even that had been drawing to an end when the Hummingbird had arrived.
Now, with her mind feeling awake for the first time in months, Anderssen licked her lips in unease. Is simply being in the presence of the nauallis enough to fray the veil blinding my perception? On Ephesus he had to give me a pill-a dose of oliohuiqui to part the shadows-but on Jagan all I needed was the presence of the Tree Which Gives What You Desire. And here? There doesn’t seem to be even so much…
The prospect of perceiving the true shape of the world around her, to glimpse the underpinning of men’s purposes, was both troubling and exciting. Now if only I could make it work when I want it to! That would be a bonus. What a tremendous tool. Just seeing the proper pattern of a broken pot would Then, with her mind alert to the present, she heard through the hatchway Hummingbird’s low, sharp voice speaking in an unfamiliar language, though the vowel cadence sounded terribly familiar. Locke’s astonished reaction was like a bucket of ice water.
“You? Pr?ceptor? Impossible!”
Peering through the partially open hatch, Gretchen caught sight of the old Mexica’s face. The nauallis nodded slowly, his arm lifted as though displaying some symbol to the merchanter.
Ah, a pity. Anderssen’s throat felt tight with disappointment. These men were not HKV, not Resistance. A crimson cross on a white field. A bloody spear and some secret language. No crew-women to be found. Just some marginal religious sect fallen prey to the Crow’s blandishments.
Disappointed, she gathered up her things and crawled back to their tiny cabin behind the food recyclers. Lying in the narrow bunk, with barely enough room for her shoulders, much less her feet, the hurt curdled in her breast. The thought that Grandfather’s cause-noble and doomed as it had been-was still secretly alive in the wilderness out beyond the Rim, had lifted a little of the weariness upon her heart. Now the same cold weight settled again, twice as heavy, and she fell into a fitful sleep, troubled by dreams of men’s voices singing beyond a golden doorway, in a lost tongue she ought to understand.