Malakar fell silent again, claws scratching on the floor, raising tiny puffs of dust.
"But…" Gretchen wanted to pat the creature's shoulder, but had no idea if such an offering of sympathy would be properly understood. "There are no dates, no signs to tell when the murals were painted? Or even if they relate a true tale of your people?"
"Hoooo…" The old Jehanan raised her head wearily, seemingly spent. "We feel the truth in our bones, on our tongues, in the taste of the air, the bitterness of the Nem. Even the freshest hatchling knows without being told…Jagan is not our home. We are strangers here, picking for grubs in the ruins of our ancestors."
"The Nem fruit is supposed to be sweet?" Anderssen could see the signs of pain and loss in the creature's expression now. "Is it from your true-home?"
"Yesss…" Malakar's mouth yawned sadly, showing a forest of broken teeth. "The breath of life, the guardian, yielding a sap which folds back illusion from reality. There are many rituals concerning the Nem, but…there, in the room, there is a little painting of a trilobed fruit in one corner and the characters 'I like Nem, it is sweet to eat.' This old horn believes those words are true."
"Who painted the murals, Malakar? They weren't priests, were they? Not historians."
The Jehanan rubbed her long snout. "The roof is a little low and curved. We sat on the floor, listening to the shower-of-the-way. So many stories she told us, explaining all the bright pictures…"
"It's a school room, isn't it?" Gretchen kept her voice soft. "Children – hatchlings – painted the murals. But you don't know how long ago, or if they were painting something they'd seen themselves, or only read about in pushta or heard from a long-horn. That's why you wanted to know how old the paint is…"
Malakar hissed in despair, pressing her head against the floor. "How long have we been lost?" she wailed. "Where is our home – is earth gone? Did we flee? Are there sweet Nem somewhere, under a bright sun, not so cold as cruel Bharat which glares at us from the sky? Are we alone? All alone?"
Anderssen felt a chill wash over her; the translator in her earbug was running out of synch with the sobbing wail of the creature's words. She waited until the groaning voice fell silent again.
"Malakar, can we open the door? Do you remember how?"
"Huuuuuoooo…" The old Jehanan opened her eyes. "This door has stood closed for a long count of years… The last good Master bade it sealed. The painted colors were beginning to fade, to crack, like an old shell left out in the wind."
"Oh." Gretchen checked her comp, which was still humming to itself and trying to make the metallic plate wake up. "If the pigments and binding layer are breaking down, then opening the door might break the atmosphere suspension inside… The whole faГ§ade of the wall could crumble to dust." She stood upslowly, fearful of alarming the creature huddled on the floor, and stepped to the portal.
Dust and a surface layer of grime came away at her touch. Gretchen dug a sampler out of one of the pockets of her work-pants. Running the pickup over the surface cleared a hand's breadth section – and the material resembled the polished ceramic making up the floors and walls. "Probably not a metal," she muttered, watching the display on the sampler flash through an analysis sequence. "Looks solid though. Airtight."
The sampler beeped, displaying a list of compounds. Anderssen puzzled through the materials, then shook her head. "A layer-bonded ceramic – nearly as tough as steel and probably lasts longer in this environment. Unfortunately, it's holding cohesion pretty well. No noticeable surface degradation and I don't have an erosion matrix built up to gauge what wear there is."
Her eyes fell on the pushta under her octopus. "Malakar, wouldn't these books be even older than the room? I mean, if they came from…" She paused, wondering if she'd caught the translator in an error. Wouldn't be the first time! "Did you say your people came from 'earth'?"
"Yes," rumbled the Jehanan, now squatting, long arms folded over bony knees. "Another bit of shell we've not lost hold of… Our race was born on earth, long, long ago."
But Anderssen had plucked out her earbug, and the hooting, warbling voice had pronounced a word she knew. Her heart sank, knowing at least part of the answer to the creature's agonized questions.
The Jehanan word for 'earth' was 'Mokuil,' not AnГЎhuac, not Terra. A dead world, if Hummingbird spoke true, Gretchen remembered, filled with pity. Desolate and shattered, a vigorous race which had woken the Valkar and so been destroyed millennia ago. Leaving only corpses among which humanitymight hide, avoiding notice ourselves…
There was a soft beep from the floor.
She knelt and checked her comp. The first set of scans were complete. The pushta was inert, showing no response to external power. Cold and dead, broken by the weight of thousands of years of neglect. Organic analysis found traces of a bacterium particular to Jagan, one which ate and corroded metal, on the stippled contact points.
How sad, Gretchen thought, cradling the plate in her hands. Malakar was watching her, eyes hooded, shoulders hunched against the sides of her long head. The world ate away everything they wanted to save, leaving nothing but dust and empty, lightless halls. Even their great conquest turned bitter…Were they refugees from the destruction of their homeworld? Had they seen the Valkar rip aside the sky, seen their cities burn? How long did they flee through the dark, seeking a new home?
She looked up. "There is only one thing we know for sure. The child who painted that picture had tasted Nem untainted by the biosphere of Jagan. He or she must have come from race-home, from Mokuil itself. You've looked upon – touched – the work of the first of your kind to stand under the red sun of Bharat."
The creature lowered her head, clasping scaled arms over eye-ridges. A trembling, desolate hooting sound reverberated from the walls and fled down the empty hallway.
The Gemmilsky House Gandaris, "Peerless Foundation of the Vaults of Heaven"
Two aerocars lifted from the rear garden of the mansion, their repeller effect rippling the conical trees and making their trapezoidal leaves rattle musically. Both vehicles bore nondescript colors and flew no warning lights, though the house and grounds were still wrapped in night's cloak. Standing in the watchman's alcove of a more traditional Jehanan building across the street, a figure in a long leather coat watched the 'cars rise silently and then speed away across the hills. The peaks behind the city – a long arm of snow-covered mountains reaching down from the massif of Capisene – were painted pink and silver with the first brush of dawn.
Rubbing cold hands together, the figure watched the mansion gate for a quarter-hour before stirring as the wooden portals opened. A Jehanan bundled in thick furs and enormous padded boots emerged, long snout puffing white vapor in the chill air. The house cook shuffled across to a locked wooden box beside the street and produced a key.
While the cook was taking out the day's delivery of eggs, freshly cut zizunaga fillets and imported Bandopene molk-cheese, the man in the long coat walked quickly across the street and ducked through the gate. With a furious expression, he strode up the curving carriage drive and let himself in the front door with his own key.
A three-toned chime sounded in the entryway as Gemmilsky unsealed his coat, stripped off his gloves and hung a drover's hat on its accustomed hook in the coat closet. Brushing back short-cropped sandy hair, the nobleman paced down the main hall and almost immediately encountered both old Nuskere Pol – who was majordomo of the current residence, just as he had served the venerable Gandarian mansion torn down to accommodate the whim of a mad asuchau out-lander with far too much money for his own good – and Corporal Clark. Despite the early hour, both the human and the Jehanan were completely turned out for a day's business.
"Viscount," Clark said, surprise hidden behind a neatly trimmed dark beard. Nuskere Pol bowed, long hands clasped together in front of his fur-lined brocade robe.
"If there is business to discuss, we can speak by comm -" Clark fell silent. Gemmilsky had such a look of restrained fury
on his sharp face that the adjutant realized any attempt to speak reasonably was doomed to failure.
"I have come for my personal effects," Johann said. "Nuskere, if you could wake the servants and have them pack my things, I will be speaking to the cook."
Clark frowned. "Sir – I assure you, nothing of yours has been touched."
"Almost truth," Nuskere interjected in a whispery voice, snout wrinkled in distaste. "The young kujen drained every last egg of voodku in the house."
"That will be paid for!" The corporal twitched slightly, trying not to glare at the majordomo. "Mi'lord, I was careful to pack away all of your clothes and other personal effects and -"
Gemmilsky's eyes narrowed. "Very thoughtful," he said coldly. "Some of my men will be arriving outside in short order. Bring all of my carefully packed belongings downstairs and see them properly stowed. A bill has already been submitted for the rest to the Legation in Parus."
Clark nodded, hoping the man wouldn't lose his temper and have to be restrained. Gemmilsky turned to the old Jehanan and produced a sheaf of documents from his coat pocket.
"Nuskere Pol, I am pained to inform you that I will no longer require your services or those of the staff." Johann pressed the heavy documents into the majordomo's claw. Clark could see they were affixed with wax stamps and different kinds of seals and some were bound in metallic thread. "Here are papers of release from your service to the household and severance pay. Generous, I hope. There are also letters of recommendation, for I trust you will find a worthy household to serve in future."
The corporal stiffened a little at the man's tone and was about to speak sharply with him when the front door banged open and the cook burst in, bags of eggs clutched to his heavy coat. The Jehanan was hissing and warbling at a tremendous rate, far faster than Clark's translator could keep up. Old Nuskere stiffened in alarm, but Gemmilsky – his face softening for the first time – replied to the agitated cook in a calm tone, managing a very respectable version of the same wavering hoots and trills.
Catching a bit of the conversation, Clark stepped to the open door and looked out warily. The front gates had been thrown wide and a procession of enormous hairy behemoths was striding up the drive. Each hrak – an untranslatable word the corporal's translator supplied from context – bore a creaking howdah of wooden slats and leather fittings. The lead hrak slowed to a halt, guided by a tiny, short-faced type of Jehanan the corporal had never seen before, and then knelt with a snuffling groan.
"Wouldn't expect to see mammoths here, would you?" Gemmilsky said, coming to stand at Clark's shoulder. "They're not the real thing, of course, just an unusual Jehanan analogue. True mammals, too. Quite rare on this world. A biologist I consulted in Parus thinks they might actually be native. Now, you had carefully packed baggage to bring down, didn't you?"
The corporal nodded, tore his eyes from the hrak settling onto the lawn, and hurried back down the hall. Old Nuskere was wringing his hands, watching the near-legendary hrak and their drivers with wide eyes, when Johann turned from the door himself.
"Master? Are you…are you going to the Cold Lands? Truly?"
Gemmilsky nodded, a faint sparkle in his eyes. "I am. Too many Imperials here for my taste. I hear many wild tales of the lands beyond Capsia. I would like to see the cities in the ice for myself, if they truly exist."
The Jehanan shuddered and pushed the door closed with both hands. "Horrible fates await those who pass the White Teeth, master. Horrible…you should stay here – I am sure the brown-faced men will leave soon. This is your home!"
Johann looked around the hallway with a pensive, sad expression. "It was, for a little while. Now, I want you all out of here before the sun is high. No one is to stay! Let these Mйxica and their minging lapdogs feed themselves." He paused, a grin starting to twist his lips. "Tell cook to give all the food and drink in the house to the poor. My gift to the city. And I give you and the other servants all the bed linens, towels, everything but the furniture and the manse itself."
Nuskere stared at him for a moment, then began to trill helplessly in laughter, sides shaking, hiding his snout in stiff old hands.
Tezozуmac waved cheerily at a Gandarian nobleman moving quietly through the scrub higher on the slope and looked down quizzically at Colmuir. The master sergeant was down on one knee, the long-barreled rifle at the ready.
"What was the name of that one?" The prince pointed over his shoulder. "The one with the particularly long snout and the green and black felting on his jacket?"
"Lord Pardane Fes," the Skawtsman whispered, tensely scanning the plane trees rising above the high grass. "Cousin of the kujen I believe and an avid hunter… Mi'lord, you really should lower your profile. The xixixit – -"
"What exactly is this fearsome creature?" Tezozуmac interrupted. He was feeling rather good – the aerocar ride had cleared his head a little, the day was pleasantly cool, and there had been a fine selection of beverages laid on by the kujen. While the natives had not made their way into the hills by air, they still managed to put on a very respectable luncheon in a pavilion under spreading trees. "Dawd tried to show me a picture, but I was busy throwing up at the time."
Colmuir did not look up, keeping his attention focused on the upper branches of the nearest copse. The Ghuhore district lay in the rain shadow of jagged mountains on the southern side of the Kophen. The vegetation ran to grassy hillsides spotted with clusters of dry-leaf trees and thickets of a spiny bramble. Steep ravines filled with thick brush split the slopes. The tu grass varied in height from two to four meters, which made visibility difficult for men on foot and excellent hunting territory for the triply-winged, uncannily silent xixixit.
"A native wasp, mi'lord, of uncommon size and ferocity. Hangs in the trees like a three-meter-long bat. Carries a bifurcated stinger – the poison dissolves the innards of the victim – very grisly, you understand."
Tezozуmac frowned, checking his teeth for bits of grilled meat. He had found the roast zizunaga fillets very savory. "Are they colored like a wasp? I'd think yellow and black would stand out in this country…Or are they sort of a mixed brown and green with tan legs?"
"Sir, I don't rightly – what did you say?"
The prince pointed, Colmuir snapped his head around and an enormous, mottled insect burst up from the high grass between Tezozуmac and Lord Pardane Fes and his loaders. The master sergeant hurled himself between his charge and the xixixit, swinging the rifle around. Shoved off balance, the prince fell backwards into the grass, broke through a screen of immature tu stalks and tumbled down the hillside.
The wasp, crystalline wings blurring into near-invisibility, darted to the right. Colmuir's rifle bellowed, spitting a long tongue of flame and sending the crack! of a gunshot echoing across the hillside. Lord Pardane's servants bolted, the noble Jehanan flung himself flat on the ground and the slender tree above him burst into flames as the self-fusing high-explosive bullet smashed into the trunk and blew apart.
Colmuir cursed, jacked back the ejector lever on the side of the rifle and groped for a fresh round. The Jehanan lord bounced back up, shrilling lurid insults at the clumsy human and caught sight of the xixixit blurring downslope, weaving between the isolated trees with fluid grace. Burning branches falling around him, Pardane Fes braced his rifle, took aim and squeezed the trigger.
The master sergeant felt the air over his head snap with the passage of a bullet, and rolled up himself, shouting in alarm. "Mi'lord! Mi'lord Prince, where are you?"
Downslope, the Jehanan bullet narrowly missed the fleeing xixixit and blew apart in a stand of red-barked brush. Flames licked up from the wounded trunk, caught among dry leaves and began to smoke furiously. The insect dodged into the unexpected cover and daintily wiped its feeding mandibles clean of fresh blood. Having only whetted its appetite, the xixixit then noticed a bipedal figure stumbling through the brush at the bottom of the slope and took flight, pleased at the prospect of a second meal so soon in the day.
Pardane's servants, meanwhile, followed their lord headlong down the slope. The long legs of a Jehanan were well suited for bounding between the tufts of high grass, but one of the loaders stumbled almost immediately and when he'd picked himself up, stared in horror at the eviscerated carcass of a young molk, entrails scattered by the xixixit's cutting mandibles. The servant had only an instant to wonder why a calf had wandered this far up from the valley before the hooting bellow of his master summoned him to the chase.
Tezozуmoc, half-blinded by dirt and clouds of tu pollen, crashed through a wall of thorny brush and stumbled into a stream. An algae-slick rock immediately turned under his foot, pitching him into the water with a splash. For a moment, he lay stunned in the current, shivering as snowmelt rushed over him, and then the prince heaved himself up and crawled onto a muddy bank.
Exhausted and in shock, Tezozуmoc rolled onto his back in a drift of fallen leaves and tried to clear his eyes. The first thing he saw was the blurring, jerky flight of the xixixit as it darted through the stand of trees hanging over the stream. Bluish plates of fresh chitin gleamed under older sections of brown scale. The long, pendant legs and cutting mandibles tucked against the bipartite body gleamed jewel-green.
The prince groped for something to use as a weapon. In the incongruous silence, the sound of an aerocar turbine idling was jarringly loud. Tezozуmoc tipped his head back and caught sight of a woman – a human woman – in a silk blouse, field trousers and a sensible sun-hat.
The xixixit blurred forward, glossy black stingers flaring down for the paralyzing strike.
There was a deafening crack-crack-crack directly over the prince's head. The smell of propellant and atomized metal choked Tezozуmoc and he flinched into a tight ball, hands over his ears. Three armor-piercing rounds smashed into the thorax and head of the xixixit as it lunged across the stream. The fluoropolymer-coated bullets tore through the armored chitin and splintered into dozens of razor-sharp sub-munitions, which tore through the soft inner organ sac.
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