"Sublight engines at low power, Mister Hayes. Here is your plot." The captain flicked a glyph with his stylus and the motion plot appeared in the threat-well. Hadeishi felt a tug of disappointment — Ephesus Three had no moon, which would have made the Cornuelle's escape path much shorter — and he'd been forced into a long ellipse to swing away from the planet. "Refine please — we must orient our engine flare away from the planet. Once we have moved out of the plane of the ecliptic we can go to higher power, but only if the body of the ship blocks line-of-sight to our thrust plume."
"One minute to boost." Kosho began to count seconds.
Hadeishi felt the engines come up as a faint, thready vibration in the panel under his hand. Acceleration tugged at his sleeve, but in the tight embrace of the shockchair he barely noticed.
The Cornuelle began to move, slowly and carefully, swinging away from the planet and the distant dot of the Palenque. From Hayes's reworked plot, Hadeishi saw they could shift to cruising speed in approximately sixteen hours. A long slow pull, he thought with a flash of irritation. My thoroughbred forced to plod in the mud.
"Time?" Mitsuharu looked to Kosho with interest. The exec flushed, one slim hand diving into the pocket of her duty jacket, then looked guiltily to the clocks on her command panel.
"Seven minutes," she said. Hadeishi thought he could see a faint blush on her cheeks.
"Excellent."
After thirty minutes of acceleration gentle enough to win Thai-i Hayes a pilot's berth on a Pochteca starliner, Hadeishi ordered the crew secured from battle stations and raised himself from the captain's chair. Feeling Kosho's eyes on him as intent as any targeting laser, the chu-sa turned to the Navigation and Weapons stations. "We will discuss finding the Tyr in thirty minutes, after the duty watch changes."
Hadeishi returned to his cabin, where the steward had cleaned up his abandoned tea and put away the usual litter of books and 3v readers which accumulated around the captain's desk and workstation. Ship's night had already come, the dinner hour passed and a fresh off-duty uniform was laid out for him. Hadeishi took a moment to strip down and shower. After his allotted six minutes, he combed out his hair — grimacing at the threads of white beginning to appear among the oily black — and tied back a heavy queue behind his head. Kosho might boast a longer fall of raven hair, but Hadeishi thought he could present himself at court, if the need arose.
Which, he thought ruefully, is extremely unlikely. He owned an admirable service record, but his "secret" personnel jacket — where a Fleet officer numbered one's patrons among the Imperial clans or in the Diet — was sadly lacking. There was a single letter, carefully preserved, expressing the gratitude of the Laird MacLaren for the timely intervention of the Bara-class destroyer Toge during a Megair raid on the MacLaren-owned mining world of New Devon. But Mitsuharu doubted the MacLaren household even remembered the incident at this late date.
When he returned to the bridge, Kosho and Hayes — who had obviously not had the luxury of a shower — were waiting on either side of the threat-well, the softly glowing holospace crowded with indicators, icons and velocity markers. Hadeishi paused in the entryway and spoke softly into his comm. "Kusaru-san, please bring three teas — very sweet — and two tubes of miso."
There was barely a grunt in answer from his steward, but Hadeishi knew the old man would see to the matter immediately.
"So," he said, bringing himself to a halt by grasping the rail girdling the threat-well. "How do we find this miner? Or has he left, even before we begin our search?"
A lesser being than the lieutenant commander would have given Hadeishi an open glare, he was sure, but the young Sho-sa contented herself with failing to bow before beginning to speak. "We know the Tyr-class refinery was here, Hadeishi-san, not only from the evidence of the shuttle photograph, but from the results of our navigational survey." Her stylus tap-tapped on the control display for the threat-well. A series of points winked in the holo, describing a long, rough arc.
"This is a compressed display of the Ephesian system," she said. "This gray section is the asteroid belt occupying the orbits between Three and the distant, irregular orbit of Four. We acquired the navigational scans made by both the original Imperial probe and by the Palenque upon arrival in the system. Luckily," and she allowed herself a wintry smile, "Sho-sa Cardenas was a careful man. Like yourself, he ordered his navigator and exec to conduct a systemwide navigation survey as soon as they arrived in Ephesus orbit."
Kosho made a sharp motion with her stylus and most of the objects in the well vanished.
"This is the condensed version of the Palenque scan. You see it is moderately detailed. Luckily for us, Navigator Gylfisson concentrated a fair amount of his long-range scan activity on the asteroid belt. I believe that he — like the presumptive miner — was looking for planetesimals bearing heavy ores, radioactives, rare metals and so on. We made the same kind of scan during our survey…" The stylus moved again, and a second layer of data appeared, showing a much thicker representation. "…with superior equipment. Hayes-san has been running orbital comparisons of the three sets of data, looking for disturbances and anomalies."
The stylus indicated the arc of winking points.
"Something has moved through this cloud of asteroids, altering spins, altering orbits, producing a faint — but identifiable — trail. We believe this was left by the Tyr as she worked through the belt. I also believe the refinery is still in the system."
Hadeishi raised an eyebrow. Kosho's eyes glittered, though she remained outwardly calm.
"We have gravity scans from the moment the Palenque entered the system up to the accident. During that time, we see no evidence of a hyperspace transit. Our trail of sensor fragments begins in the middle of a dense pocket in the asteroid belt. I suspect the Tyr was already here — and working — when the Palenque arrived. The trail continues up to the end of the Palenque data."
"And now?" Hadeishi had been watching Hayes's face grow longer and longer. "Wouldn't the miners have been monitoring the Palenque's transmissions? Wouldn't they realize something had happened and jump out as soon as the coast was clear?"
"I don't think they did." Kosho glanced sideways at Hayes. "Thai-i Hayes does not agree, but…the Valkyrie was photographed only three days before the accident. At that moment, the time to transit between Ephesus Three and the presumptive location of the miner was almost twelve days. So at best the shuttle has to go meet the refinery, which leaves the asteroid cloud to rendezvous between the belt and Three. If the shuttle leaves Three the same day; if they just dropped in, grabbed whatever they were looking for and jetted out, then the minimum time to transit is eight days."
Kosho's wand sketched a box in the air, describing a fat volume of space between the red disc of Ephesus and the gray scattering of the belt.
"So at event plus five, they could have met — somewhere in this volume — and made gradient to hyperspace. Now — a Tyr masses in excess of three hundred million tons empty and I think she'd have taken on at least another hundred million tons of ore samples, or more, by this time. The departure spike from such a large mass leaves a lasting footprint — and I don't see one in this volume."
"Hayes-san?"
"Chu-sa, I'm not sure we'd see one in this system for more than a few days, no matter where the departure took place." The weapons officer scratched his eyebrow. "The planetary orbits in this system are all messed up and irregular, there are queer gravitational tides and eddies. Our own footprint is barely discernible today and we know our entry-point to the centimeter!"
Kosho made a dismissive motion with her stylus. "We're a fraction the mass of a Tyr and our hyperdrive is tuned to leave as little footprint as possible. Look — " A new set of data clouded the well. "There's no spike on any record; not ours, not the Palenque's…and I believe our scans of the asteroid belt in the projected path of the Tyr show evidence of further disturbance. I think the refinery ship is still here. I think her captain is greedy and kept right on wo
rking after the accident on the Palenque. He badgered as soon as we entered the system, hoping we'd go away. Now he's stuck — ore holds are full of rich samples — and he doesn't want to dump mass. If he tries to make gradient to hyperspace, he'll have to light up like a temple tree and we'll see him."
Hadeishi raised a hand. Kusaru appeared silently with the tea and miso. Both of the junior officers took the light meal with grateful bows, though only Hayes drank from his z-g tight cup.
"I understand," Mitsuharu said. "Is there a swift way to tell if the refinery ship is still here?"
Kosho nodded sharply. "Yes." Her stylus stabbed at the last winking point. "We creep in here and check the area of disturbance — if he's slagged out a rock, we'll be able to get a reading on his drive exhaust and be able to tell how long ago he was working." A flicker of hungry pride flashed across her composed oval face. "To the hour and the minute."
Mitsuharu nodded, privately calculating their course and time to intercept. "Hayes-san, plot us a course and execute. But gently, very gently. We must creep away from the planet and approach this prey with equal caution."
The Palenque
The main hatch into the Medical bay opened suddenly, sliding into the overhead with a soft thump. Gretchen looked up from where she was kneeling on the deck of the examining room, her work lenses dialed to hi-mag. She heard Bandao hiss and step back and a low growl from Magdalena. Flipping up her lenses, she found herself staring into the black snout of a shipgun, held in the hands of one of the Marines — she couldn't tell which one — in combat armor.
"Over against the wall," the Marine said, his voice a buzz through the suit. Bandao moved back, automatic held gingerly between his thumb and forefinger. The Marine crabbed into the room and was immediately followed by another, taller, man also in matte-black combat armor. "Just lay the gun down on the deck."
Gretchen rose, spreading her hands wide to show they were empty. A heated sense of outrage was warring with the urge to laugh aloud at the insectlike appearance of the soldiers, and she managed to remain composed. The two Marines surveyed the room, then relaxed fractionally.
"Clear," the taller one — Fitzsimmons, Gretchen guessed — said, his voice almost unrecognizable through the faceplate of his suit. Then she stiffened as his rifle swung toward her. From this vantage, the weapon seemed very large. "Doctor Anderssen, please leave the examining room and stand over here by Bandao-tzin."
Almost tiptoeing, she ducked through the damaged doorway and moved to join Bandao — who had adopted a very calm expression — and Magdalena, who was emitting a near-subsonic growl which raised the hackles on the back of Gretchen's neck. Worried, Anderssen took hold of the Hesht's paw to restrain her.
The lean, wrinkled shape of Hummingbird stepped into the room. His high forehead gleamed like polished mahogany in the overheads and his dark eyes swept across the three of them to settle on the debris in the medical bay.
Without speaking, the Mйxica judge went to the adjoining room and knelt to examine the deck. The Marines said nothing, one of them covering the nauallis with his rifle, the other keeping a strict eye on the three civilians. Gretchen itched to speak, but guessed this was not the time and place to annoy Imperial authority. He could just ask politely…
Hummingbird moved around in the examining room and Gretchen couldn't really see what he was doing but there was a strange muttering sound, and the man seemed to go back and forth, sometimes turning this way and that, making a slow, convoluted circuit around the long table. At length he returned to the doorway and motioned for the nearest Marine to hand him a small black bag. Hummingbird took out a small electrostatic vacuum and a specimen container.
He returned to the room and resumed moving slowly around the table. Again, Gretchen thought she heard a peculiar sound, but it was so faint and the acoustics in the two rooms so poor, she couldn't make out what he might be saying. Neither Marine showed any reaction, and even Magdalena was starting to settle down.
Eventually, Hummingbird returned to the nurses' station and stowed a newly-heavy specimen container in the carryall. The bag closed with a heavy click.
"The dust is inactive," Hummingbird said, looking up, his eyes dark as flint. "What did you do?"
Gretchen took a half step forward and felt both Bandao and Magdalena tense behind her. "I think the organism started to die the moment Parker's shuttle left the Ephesian atmosphere. When the radiation shielding dropped, it just came…apart. But five minutes of high-UV flooding the chamber seems to have stopped all remaining molecular activity."
The Mйxica nodded, glancing at the control panel for the examining room. "Like the spores infesting the shuttle engines. You think they are a related species?"
Gretchen felt a certain familiar hollowness in her gut. And now, she thought, the Imperial authorities will step in and a great deal of work — months of observations, countless crystals of data, maybe a man's entire career — will vanish like night dew. "Sinclair-tzin has a theory — and as expedition microbiologist, he should — which points to a commonality across all Ephesian life."
"All current Ephesian life?" Hummingbird's tone grew sharp, as if he already knew her answer. "Since the destruction of the surface?"
Gretchen's eyes narrowed and she felt a subtle tension tighten in the old Mйxica. He's fishing, she thought, but for what? Then she thought of the cephalopod fossil and the entombed cylinder. Too much had been happening for her to show Sinclair that bit of evidence. In any case, she was familiar enough with the types of organisms trapped in the ancient limestone to know there was no evolutionary descendent among the microbiota flourishing on the surface today. The violent arrival of the First Sun builders had separated the two epochs of Ephesian life as night from day. "All current life," she said. "Like the spores in the intakes or whatever organism gave fruit to this…copy of Russovsky."
"Yes…" Hummingbird seemed suddenly older, the brief flicker of interest and tension ebbing away. He visibly slumped. "Everything made new, green shoots rising from desolation. You did well to destroy what remained, no matter how inert it seemed."
Gretchen nodded, and fought to keep from looking down at her boots. Got to get these into secure storage, she thought guiltily, and figure out some way to keep them alive for study.
"I have sent the Cornuelle away," Hummingbird said, abruptly changing the subject. "As Thai-i Isoroku informs me this ship will be able to make gradient to hyperspace within the day." The tlamatinime looked to the two Marines. "Ship's records indicate there is an unused Midge in storage in cargo ring two. Please assist our engineer in readying the aircraft for operations on the surface."
Fitzsimmons cracked his visor and pulled off his helmet. Gretchen noticed the Marine's hair had become a tangled, dark mass and had to stifle an amused smile. "Yes, sir. How many days' fuel and food?"
"As much as will fit," Hummingbird said wryly. His composure had returned, the brief appearance of fatigue falling away. "You will also need to rig for a high-altitude aerial insertion — I believe the Midge class has the proper mounting brackets."
Fitzsimmons nodded sharply and motioned with his head for Deckard to leave the room. The other Marine backed out, lowering his shipgun, and Fitzsimmons followed. Hummingbird nodded to Gretchen and the others, and then picked up the bag.
"What are you doing?" Gretchen said in a disbelieving tone.
"That is my business," he said, giving her a sharp look. "But your project here is at an end. There will be no further flights to the planetary surface and Mister Parker should prepare this ship to make the jump back to Ctesiphon Station."
Parker, seated on the bridge of the Palenque in the pilot's chair, a mess of tabac butts, printouts of ship's systems and partially torn-apart comp panels strewn around him, stared at the Mйxica as if he'd sprouted a forest of eyestalks. "You can't possibly be serious."
"I am," Hummingbird said in an entirely reasonable voice. "These Komodo-class shuttles have flyout tracks in the cargo bay. Isoroku assure
s me he can mount a Midge on a breakway pallet. These are technical matters — easily solved by sweat and concentrated effort — but you concern me."
"Damn right I'm a concern!" Parker fumbled a tabac out of his vest pocket and jammed it, unlit, into the corner of his mouth. "You'd better explain to me why I have to make an unpowered, ballistic skip approach to the upper atmosphere of Ephesus — without active instruments — and then let you bail out the back of the shuttle — with the cargo doors open in a six hundred-k slipstream."
The pilot squinted at the Mйxica, then lit his tabac with a sharp snap on the stubble underneath his chin. "Fitzsimmons there could shoot you just as dead, right now, without risking anyone's hide with such a reckless stunt."
Hummingbird looked consideringly at the Marine, who shook his head in answer to an unasked — but apparently understood — question. "Sir, our other pilot's Fuentes," the Marine said, "and he's not as steady on the stick as Parker. Neither Deckard nor I are qualified on a Komodo or anything like it. Ground crawlers, sure…"
The Mйxica turned back to the pilot, his eyes flitting across Gretchen — who was holding position with her hand on the back of the pilot's chair — without a pause. "Parker-tzin, circumstances have conspired to put you in a position of responsibility. I need you to fly that shuttle — in the manner described — and I need you to return safely to this ship, so it can jump out to Ctesiphon Station as quickly as possible." As he spoke, the tlamatinime's voice hardened by degrees, making Parker sink deeper and deeper into his shockchair. "Given another alternative, I would relieve you of these tasks, but you are the tool to hand, and you will serve."
"But…no sensors? An unpowered drop into atmosphere? That's — "
"Necessary, Parker-tzin. It is necessary." Hummingbird looked around at Gretchen and Magdalena and Doctor Lennox — who was looking entirely pale and washed out, like a cotton sheet left to hang in the summer sun for far too many days. "This is within my authority," he said, raising his voice very slightly, drawing every eye to him as iron filings to a lodestone. "As nauallis, as judge, as the voice of the Empire in this godless place. We have blundered into uncompromising danger and we will be lucky indeed to escape without harm."
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