Wasteland of flint ittotss-1

by Thomas Harlan

  "What?" Helsdon rubbed his ear, refusing to believe what he'd heard. "You're drunk."

  "Wish I was." Yoyontzin tapped another tabac out of the pack and jammed it into his mouth. Pinching the lighting paper from the end and taking a deep drag seemed to steady him. His deep-set eyes narrowed in amusement. "I'll bet Heicho Felix is going to faint when she hears."

  "I'll take that bet," Helsdon said, rather sharply.

  Yoyontzin was surprised. "You're on — how does five quills sound?"

  "Twenty." Helsdon crossed his arms, squinting at Yoyontzin. "If you're giving money away."

  The pressure door to Hadeishi's office recessed with a hiss and then slid out of sight into the bulkhead. Susan Kosho stepped down into the comfortably-cluttered space. Her white duty uniform glowed in the dim light, sharply distinct from the dark-hued books and paintings covering the walls. Both of her hands were tightly clenched into fists.

  "Chu-sa?" She looked around with a compressed, mostly-hidden expression of distaste. The untidiness of the commander's personal space always made her nervous, though the old man in charge of Hadeishi's quarters kept them scrupulously clean. There were just too many things here.

  "Over here," Mitsuharu's voice came from a side compartment.

  Susan trod gently across deep-piled rugs and paused in the inner doorway. Hadeishi had folded a table down from the wall of a narrow room lined with cupboards. The exec glanced around, puzzled, and then recognized the area as a servant's laundry station. The clever table was an ironing and mending board.

  "What are you doing?" Susan stared at the combat suit laid out on the table with something like despair in her almond-shaped eyes. Hadeishi failed to suppress a small, polite smile. He was in an old, rather worn-looking short-sleeved kimono of dark blue silk. The back and shoulders were covered with a delicately stitched wading crane and cattails in golden thread. He turned his attention back to checking the suit seals with a microscanner.

  "Prepping my suit," Hadeishi said. "Heicho Felix reports her squad has finished gear-check and is now ready to go, so I would be holding things up but Engineering is still mounting our hardline comm system."

  Susan looked around for a seat, found nothing apparent — though she suspected some of the cupboards might slide out or fold down to make one: they had in her grandmother's house — and settled into parade rest instead. "You are determined to carry through with your…plan."

  Hadeishi nodded, turning over one of the black, metallic sleeves of the suit. The surface was formed of overlapping, flexible ceramic plates. "Those skilled in war subdue the enemy without battle. If I go myself there is a chance of such success."

  "Or you may be killed. This is a very risky maneuver."

  Mitsuharu looked up, his narrow face grave. "I know. The art of maneuver is the most difficult — but in this tiny moment of opportunity, we do have some room to move. We hold a positional advantage. Given such an opening, I will risk myself for the best outcome. If we are killed or captured, you know what to do."

  Susan nodded, staring at the combat suit with ill-disguised disgust. "You should not have loaned Fitzsimmons and Deckard to the civilians. They are our most experienced assault troopers."

  "Water flows." Hadeishi replaced the sleeve and took up the other. "Felix will do."

  Susan made a grunting sound and her pale, smooth forehead gained a sharp vertical crease. "Her performance in the combat sims has only been marginal. If there is resistance — "

  Mitsu raised a hand and the sho-sa fell silent. "If you," he said quietly, trying to catch her eye, "are commanding the defense of the refinery with the vigor you showed in the sims, then I expect we will all die. But you are here, not there. Felix will be fine."

  "Very well." Susan clasped both hands behind her back. Her gaze was fixed on a point somewhere over his head. "Navigation informs me our best-path return course to the planet will now take eleven days. I believe the tlamatinime Hummingbird requested we retrieve him from the surface in only ten days."

  "We will not be returning to the third planet until our business here is concluded, Sho-sa. But I appreciate your diligence in bringing this matter to my attention."

  "Kyo, the tlamatinime and the archaeologist could easily have encountered — "

  "They are in some danger, true," Mitsuharu interrupted gently. "But they will be fine. Hummingbird will be fine. He always is. Our business is here, with the refinery. And it will be resolved very soon, one way or another."

  "Hai, Chu-sa." Susan's face settled into a cool, lifeless mask. "Do you require any assistance with your equipment?"

  Mitsu put down the right-hand sleeve of the suit and rested his hands on his knees. He considered his exec for a long moment, then shook his head slightly. "I should do this myself, Susan. Such things are traditional. If you have a moment, please check with Engineering and make sure they've rigged something to keep the comm-wire from fouling."

  Susan nodded sharply, turned and walked quickly out of the laundry room. Mitsu watched her go with a pensive expression. When the outer door hissed closed, he sighed and turned his attention back to the seals on the inner sheath of the armor. They always became stiff in storage, no matter what the armorer said. Sometimes they split, if not carefully looked after, reducing the wearer's flexibility.

  The Palenque

  A subtle change in the background vibration of the ship brought Parker awake, his head throbbing from too much alcohol and too little nicotine. He threw back the hood of his sleepbag and squinted blearily at his chrono. Three hours of wonderful sleep, he thought, feeling the onset of a crushing dehydration headache. I will never, ever, sit down for just one glass of Tukhachevsky's bathwater again. Ever. With or without herring.

  The pilot spread his fingers against the wall behind his bunk. With the Palenque under constant thrust, the habitat ring was locked in place, allowing him to feel some of the vibrations traveling through the spine of the ship. Something had changed; he was aware of a distinct flutter. A reading light above his head let him see well enough to punch up the comm code for Engineering.

  "Parker to Isoroku-san. Are you awake?"

  "Yes." The engineer's voice was terse and there was no video. "Maneuver drive three has started to stutter."

  "Fuel feed?" Parker climbed out of bed and started to get dressed. "Fusion chamber flow control?"

  "I don't know." Isoroku's face suddenly appeared on the comm screen. For a bald man in a Fleet engineer's coveralls, he seemed remarkably mussed. There were heavy bags under his eyes and a salt-and-pepper stubble darkened his chin. Parker assumed he'd been awakened from a sound sleep as well. "Fuel core pressure is constant, which may mean an intake line problem. As a precaution, I am shutting down all three drives."

  Parker nodded, pulling a gray shirt on over his head. "I'll get to the bridge and balance the other two engines. And I'll tell our furry friend what is going on."

  Isoroku nodded and the comm cleared to a default standby image.

  By the time Parker pulled himself along the guide line into the bridge, Magdalena was awake and at her command station.

  "What happened?" the Hesht female growled. "Engineering reports all three drives are offline?"

  "Yes." Parker slid into the navigator's station and called up a drive schematic and the latest system alert logs and diagnostics. "Drive number three started to develop a thrust flutter sixteen minutes ago. Isoroku has shut down all three maneuvering drives as a precaution."

  "How long will this take?" Magdalena was eyeing a chrono and flight plot on her display. "We have an intercept window to match if we're going to pick up the pack-leader."

  Parker nodded, scanning through the diagnostic reports for drives one and two. They seemed to be running clean. The fuel system also seemed to be operating properly, which was troubling. Problem's going to be in the fuel-flow system inside drive three, then.

  He punched codes for an engine restart on both drives, and then began working up a new thrust balancing config
uration. "I'm going to bring one and two back online," he said to the hovering Maggie after a moment. "But we can't increase individual thrust without exceeding our 'quiet' threshold. So…it will be an extra twelve hours before we are inside the pickup window over Ephesus Three."

  "What," Magdalena said, throttling back her temper, "if drive three comes back into operation?"

  Parker made an equivocal motion with one hand. "Then we might be able to squeak back into the window, but probably not. We'll just have to see."

  The 'Observatory' Base Camp

  The Gagarin shuddered to a halt, wings creaking as they sagged, bereft of the lifting wind. Gretchen let go of the stick, grateful to be on the ground again, and tried to uncramp her right hand. Clouds of fine dust drifted past, gilded by the early morning light, obscuring scattered bunkerlike camp buildings. Groaning a little — all of her bruises were throbbing today — she reached up and toggled off the ultralight engines and power plant.

  Outside, the camp had a familiar air of abandonment. The usual litter was missing — no discarded cans or forgotten clothing, no shutters banging in the wind, no stray half-feral dogs pacing stiff-legged in the streets — but Gretchen could feel the emptiness crawling between her shoulder blades.

  I hate this kind of place. On edge, she swung out of the cockpit. Despite how things had gone in the slot canyon, the Sif-52 was slung forward under her left armpit, the pistol-grip only an instant from her hand. The weight of the gun was balanced by a bandolier of ammunition canisters. Gretchen turned on her heel, scanning the buildings for any sign of movement. Nothing caught her eye. The wind was gusting, smudging the sky white with dust, but nothing seemed out of place.

  The camp felt dead, an abandoned toy cast aside by careless children.

  Wrapping the kaffiyeh tight across her breather mask, Gretchen ducked under the wing and made short work of setting the sand anchors. Hummingbird approached, djellaba snapping around his legs in a dark, sand-mottled tail. He too was muffled tight, the glow of morning simmering in his goggles.

  A hiss of static, then "Is there a hangar?"

  Gretchen pointed. The largest above ground building in the camp. "Tight fit for two aircraft, but we'll manage. Better get them inside quick — the wind is picking up."

  Turning away from the wind, they both hurried across the quadrangle toward the maintenance sheds and the hangar building. Gretchen kept a wary eye out — her dislike of recently-abandoned places had not faded with age and time, only grown stronger.

  If I have this sight, she realized, trying to suppress a chill of apprehension, then I might see whatever is left behind. The thought was not pleasant. Her curiosity only went so far.

  "Locked," Hummingbird said, gruff voice nearly lost in the hiss of the wind.

  Gretchen knelt, checking the mechanism. A bolt and bar assembly, sliding into a quickcrete footing and secured with a cheap padlock.

  "Just like our barn at home," she said in amusement, rising and pulling a hexacarbon prybar from her belt. The tube extended with a snap of her wrist and a metallic clank. "Just a moment."

  The lever slid in between the padlock and the vertical bar. Gretchen rotated the hexacarbon tube with a sharp, hand-over-hand motion and there was a groaning squeal as she put her shoulders into the turn. The soft steel of the padlock deformed like taffy and then parted with a ringing ting! "Help me with the door."

  With both of them pushing against the articulated plating, the hanging door rattled up into the roof of the hangar, spitting sand and rust out of the tracks. Gretchen stepped inside, her lightwand raised high, and nodded in tight-lipped satisfaction to see the cavernous space empty.

  "Good. Let's get yours inside first." Gretchen turned back into the wind. Both Midge s were straining against their anchor lines, wings rippling like salmon skin under a heat lamp. "It's getting stronger. Hurry."

  Heads down, they ran across the field, gossamer veils of dust rushing past. The still-rising sun was bloated half-again its usual size with rust.

  "So." Gretchen pulled a pressure door closed behind her, shutting off the tunnel leading to the hangar building. Taking care to keep dust from spilling onto the recycler apparatus around her neck, she unwound the kaffiyeh. Hummingbird had done the same, leaving his cloak and scarf and other gear stacked up beside the door. "We're here at last, and better off than I expected."

  Without a dozen people milling around and the smell of bacon frying and coffee perking, the base's common room was cold, echoing, and unsettlingly empty. Hummingbird sat on the nearest table, feet bare, running an electrostatic vacuum over his boots. Gretchen pulled up a chair — the plastic was badly discolored and the legs were streaked with a calcitelike crust — and sat down. She stared down at her own shoes, grimacing at the ragged edges of the soles and the general ruin of the uppers. Even Fitz couldn't fix these.

  "I am going to go outside," Hummingbird said, banging his left boot against the edge of the table. Reddish grit rained down onto cracked quickcrete. "Before the weather gets any worse. I am…a little worried."

  "Huh! Why? We've finally reached some shelter, where we can refuel and resupply and you're worried?" She pointed a finger at the roof. "We're even out of the wind. That tent was starting to smell."

  "Yes." Hummingbird looked around, his expression becoming almost morose. "That is the problem. I had no idea the camp here was so extensive."

  "Ah." Gretchen ran the edge of her thumb against the boot sole. The material was porous and spongy. Bits of glittering crystalline mica spilled out. She felt a little ill at the sight and dialed her lightwand into UV and stuffed it inside the boot. My feet feel fine…sort of. I hope.

  "Well," she said, trying not to stare in sick fascination at her socks, "humans get kind of busy sometimes — I mean, they planned on being here for two, three years. A camp for a long-term expedition isn't just some tents or a carryall. It's a little town."

  "I can see." Hummingbird fingered the goggles hanging around his neck. The glassite looked like it had been attacked with a power sander or a steel rasp. "I think — no, I am afraid we are too late. Man has been here too long, put too much of his mark on the land. Even our passage across the world has stirred up rumors, echoes…"

  "You mean the Russovsky-thing I spoke to." Gretchen swallowed, preparing herself for the worst, and tugged off one sock. The moisture-wicking, thermally insulated fabric disintegrated in her hand, leaving a blue ring of elastic material around her ankle. Suddenly, she felt light-headed. "Oh, oh sister…"

  "You saw more than a rumor." Hummingbird was staring out the portholelike windows. Sodium-tinted shadows turned his face to graven brass. "I know it was gone when we went back — but such things are real. We're a stone, cast into a still pond. Though we sink and disappear, the wave from our entry propagates through this world. Some of the waves turn back upon themselves — well, you saw the effect — and the memory of our passing through this place is retained. Layers build on layers…" His voice trailed off, wrinkled old face growing stiff in anger.

  "Sure." Gretchen forced down a surge of nausea, bile tainting her throat. She felt faint, but gripped the edge of the table and waited for the sensation to pass. Hummingbird was saying something, but the words were far away and indistinct, unintelligible. Jerkily, she swung her leg up and put her foot across the opposite knee. In the muted yellow light from the windows, the sole of her foot was shiny and slick, almost glassy. "Uhhh…"

  A trembling finger reached out to touch the discoloration — she felt a hard, smooth surface and jerked away again. "Oh blessed sister, deliver us from all the fears of the world, from evil, from want…" Is it deep? Why didn't I feel anything? Is it my whole foot? Oh, Sister, how deep does this go!

  "What happened to your foot?"

  Gretchen looked up, sweating, and saw Hummingbird looming over her, eyes narrowed.

  "I — it ate right through my boots."

  The nauallis knelt beside her, firm hands grasping her ankle and toes, turning the sol
e into the light so he could see. Gretchen slumped back into the decaying chair, fist jammed into her mouth to keep from crying out.

  But there was no pain. Hummingbird squinted, turning her foot this way and that. She could feel the strength in his fingers, immobilizing the offending limb better than a surgeon's vise. White-shot eyebrows gathered over dusky green eyes and then his face became still, wrinkles fading, a sense of release and settling peace washing over his countenance. After a moment, he reached into his vest and produced a small folding knife.

  Gretchen's eyes widened and her leg tried to jerk violently away. Hummingbird's hand tightened and her movement was stillborn. "Hold still," he said, eyes focused on some unseen distance. The blade snapped out of the handle with a sharp click and he put a mirror-keen edge against the heel of her foot. Gretchen felt the world swim again, vertigo surging around her.

  "You should start counting," he said, eyeing her with interest. "Or look away."

  There was a scraping sound, but Gretchen felt nothing more than a tugging. She blinked, surprised. Shouldn't it hurt? The old man made a hmm sound and his fingers tightened. This time, Gretchen could feel more than a tugging; there was a sharp, piercing bolt of pain.

  "Ayyy! Oh, sister…is that blood?"

  "Sorry," Hummingbird said, cleaning the blade on his thigh pad. "Nicked you a little."

  "How bad is it?" The pain parted a cloud of nausea. Her medband reacted, flooding her arm with a pleasantly cool sensation. Gretchen looked down and her teeth clenched. Hummingbird was carving away a slice of her heel; metallic, glistening skin peeling back from the edge of his knife. "Guuuhhh…why — why isn't that bleeding?"

  "Dead skin," he said, lips pursed in concentration. "Whatever got into your boot doesn't seem to have done much more than eat up your calluses."

  The nauallis finished with the heel and cleaned the blade again. Gretchen could feel her foot start to throb, but realized the sensation was more from the tight grip he had on her ankle than anything else.