Hadeishi started to nod, his expression brightening. “Very well! We need to kit up some more bunks, as you’ve said, and take a close inventory of our supplies, but-”
“ Chu-sa,” De Molay said sharply. “How many men and women have we taken aboard?”
“Sixty,” he said after a moment of mentally reviewing the rosters from each capsule.
“We are at one hundred twenty-five percent of environmental capacity, Chu-sa. The scrubbers are showing amber across the board, the sewage recycler is backed up, and we’re out of hot water. In fact, we’re going to be out of water period very soon because there is waste and leakage in these Knorr -class freighters and we’re pushing the system too hard! But that,” she concluded, her voice rising angrily, “won’t be an issue much longer because we are almost out of food.”
Hadeishi sat back, scratching at his beard, which had begun to twist into an ungainly white-streaked tangle. Reluctantly, he walked mentally through the ship, comparing the numbers of compartments to the number of men aboard. These capsules are coming in with some emergency rations aboard, but this freighter didn’t come prepared for a search and rescue mission. We’re just over carrying capacity.
“You’re right,” he said at last, brow furrowed in thought. “We still have capsules on the plot, but nowhere to bunk the survivors for more than a few hours. Where to put them…”
“Success will defeat you if we do not find a way.” De Molay settled back into her blankets. “Or you will have to be satisfied with the souls you’ve already saved, and let the rest go.”
“No.” He shook his head vehemently. “I won’t abandon them.”
“Then what will you do?” The old woman’s exasperation was clear. “There is no room at the inn.”
Hadeishi nodded slowly, his face clearing. “Your point is taken. Plainly, we need another ship.”
“Another ship?” Tocoztic-who had come in while they were talking and sat down quietly at his station-exclaimed. “But-”
“Then get one.” De Molay replied tartly, glaring at Mitsuharu. “I am content to watch from here while you do the heavy lifting, but I would appreciate just one tiny favor, Chu-sa. I would like my ship back in operable condition!”
“Of course.”
Musashi swung the axe in a light, looping arc-striking the end of the log square center-gravity and the full power of his shoulders splitting the wood from end to end with a sharp crack! He reached down, tossed the two sections aside into a large and growing pile, and then reached for another log.
“Pardon me, sir,” came a polite but authoritative voice. Musashi looked over his shoulder, tattered kimono stretching over his muscular arm. An elderly, balding man was standing at the edge of the inn’s wood lot-no, not just a man, someone who had once been a samurai officer. That much was instantly apparent to Musashi from his horseman’s stance, his calm and level gaze. Such men were rare in Japan under Mongol rule-well, rare that they walked the streets and were not in chains, or laboring in some work gang in shackles.
“I understand that you are ronin-and needful of employment?” The stranger tilted his head slightly, indicating the woodpile.
“I need to eat, like all men,” Musashi replied, straightening up. “What’s the job?”
“Tax collectors are going to level their village.” The samurai gestured politely to two farmers cringing behind him, their faces drawn with hunger, their bodies thin with starvation. “As the harvest has been short this year.”
“You’re going to stand in the Noyan’s way? You are a man of great bravery.”
“Not the Noyan.” The elderly samurai essayed a grin. “A local gang-no more than bandits, forty or fifty of them-the governor has parted out the collections, being too indolent to do this himself.”
Musashi felt a spark of interest flare in his breast, so he settled his shoulders, picked up the bokuto and bowed politely. “Now this I need to see,” he said. “How many of us are there?”
“Five others,” Kambei said. “Did I mention all the farmers can pay is our meals?”
Kosho woke to the sound of a reminder chime from her comp. Lying in the dimness of her cabin, she felt perfectly fine for approximately three seconds-then she moved her head, looking over at the screen to see what needed doing-and every muscle, joint, and tissue in her body complained. Oh Queen of the Heavenly Mountain, she thought blearily, did I take that many meds in the last two days?
The bone-deep achiness in her back, legs, and shoulders argued that she had, in fact, taken way too many stayawakes for her body to process in only four hours of sleep. Regardless, she swung out of her bunk and padded on bare feet to the comp.
Ventral end of magazine conveyor thirty-two, in fifteen minutes? Susan scratched her head, feeling an irritating graininess in her scalp, and realized she’d collapsed into bed without even washing her face. The sensation of grime clogging every pore on her body made the Nisei woman shudder, so she tapped a quick “acknowledged” into the comp and fled to the shower.
Fourteen minutes later, in a fresh uniform and with a bulb of tea in her hand, Kosho stepped out of the tube-and nodded in greeting to a junior engineer waiting for her in the little offloading station. Socho Juarez had attached himself to her as soon as Susan had left her cabin.
“ Kikan-shi Ige, good morning. Sho-sa Chac is waiting for me?”
“They all are, kyo. This way please.” The Mixtec engineer gestured for her to precede him.
They all are? Curious, Kosho drained the rest of the bulb and followed along. What is Chac up to now?
Almost immediately they descended a gangway passing through two layers of battle-steel and stepped out onto a hexacarbon walkway running the length of a railway tube. Susan recognized part of the Backbone from all the work they’d done during trials to get the maglev system up and running, but the number of crewmen standing along the sides of the tube ahead of her was surprising. There were at least thirty kashikan-hei with logistics flashes on their z-suits lined up along the walkways on either side of the rail. At the far end of the group, she could see Oc Chac’s polished visage watching for her, though the slim figure at his side was unfamiliar.
The Mayan’s companion was young, no more than a cadet, and what she could see of his face indicated he was straight from the Center, possibly from Tenochtitlan itself, with shining black hair like smoke tied back behind a smooth copper-colored neck. What piqued her interest, however, was the elaborate and beautiful costume he was wearing. A classical Nahuatl mantle formed of tiny gleaming white feathers was draped across his shoulders and back, leaving the front open to reveal a fitted shirt ablaze with green and gold and iridescent yellow. The shirt was also made of feathers, even smaller and more downlike than the mantle. Most of his face was hidden by a hummingbird mask figured in black and red and green-and the mask itself seemed to be formed of beaten gold inlaid with semiprecious stones and jade. His feet were bare on the platform, though tiny conch shells were braided around his ankles. As she approached, the kashikan-hei lining the side walls bowed respectfully, their caps pressed over their hearts, and Oc Chac saluted smartly.
The Mayan officer had set aside his z-suit and uniform and was wearing a hooded cotton cloak and tunic. Like the young man, his feet were bare, though unadorned.
“ Chu-sa on deck,” Juarez announced, his voice echoing in the tubeway. With a rustle, everyone knelt save the Huitzitzilnahualli and Susan. She glanced questioningly to Oc Chac, who motioned for her to step to the edge of the tube beside him and remain standing. When she had done so, the Mayan squatted down with a drum between his legs. A flat, calloused palm struck the stretched leather and a deep, basso boom-boom sounded. In the rail tunnel, the sound reverberated in each direction, generating a skin-tingling vibration.