"Hello, Susan," Mitsu nodded at her, feeling stubbled, unshaven and out of sorts. Kosho, for her part, looked entirely composed. "Are you up early or out late?"
"Late, Chu-sa," she replied, studiously avoiding looking directly at him. "Hayes has been running navigational scans of the asteroid belt. I was considering the data and time elapsed."
Mitsu grunted, punching up a cup of bancha-grade yamacha. He waited, hands in the pockets of his robe, while a cup descended from the machine and filled with hot, black liquid. Cradling the tea, he shuffled to the table where Susan was sitting. She raised an eyebrow as he approached, nostrils flaring at the sharp, distinct odor wafting from his cup.
"With respect, Chu-sa, how can you drink such a cheap, bitter grade of tea?" Kosho seemed to shrink away from the harsh smell. "It's barely cured at all!"
"This?" Mitsu swirled the liquid, watching grayish foam twist into a corkscrew pattern. "My father used to make this for us every morning when I was little, before we went to school. If I rise early, I can't drink anything else. There is one thing missing, though."
"Which is?" Susan put her own cup — filled with a delicate golden broth of steaming water, boiled rice and finely rolled leaves — aside with a grimace.
Hadeishi smiled fondly. "The smell of diesel and wet pavement. In Shinedo there's rain almost every night, or fog…that's what I remember best. Sharp black tea and the sound of my shoes in the mist as I walk to school, hearing the heavy trucks on the old highway, bringing goods into the market district."
Kosho's grimace eased a little, but her head tilted questioningly. "What is a truck?"
Mitsu hid a smile. His executive officer's family background was not included in her service record, but no one who had spent more than a day in her company would classify her as anything less than a daughter of the nobility. In comparison to his own relatively low birth, Hadeishi was sure a great social gulf existed between them. His own family at the feet of an invisible mountain, hers somewhere in the clouds. Outside of the Fleet, he doubted they would have met, or even been allowed in proximity to one another.
"A truck is like an aircar, but it runs on wheels, on the ground. They burn petroleum distillate for fuel, which is cheap and efficient, though there is a distinctive smell from the combustion process. Very noticeable on a damp, cold morning."
"Are they still used today?" Susan's tone implied such devices were remnants of some ancient, time-shrouded age of barbarism and chaos. "On Anбhuac?" Or relegated to the colonies, where men struggled to carve a life from howling wilderness, only a single step from hunting with knapped-flint spears and knives of sharpened bone.
Mitsu nodded, eyes crinkling with a smile over the lip of his cup. "I believe so. The markets of the lower city deal in bulk goods — agricultural products, raw materials, metal, ceramacrete, goods delivered in lots of thousands — in such circumstances the cost of freight is an important consideration. Shuttles, aircars, lifters — they are reserved for luxury items, not for bundles of steel pipe and casks of beer."
"I suppose." Susan's expression settled from a grimace to a tight mask. "Efficiency must be profit in such an enterprise."
"Yes," Mitsu said in an equitable voice. I am surprised to hear the filthy, dishonorable word profit from your lips, lady Kosho. Again he suppressed amusement at her reaction. Hadeishi knew he'd never had a better second officer. Kosho was tenacious and hardworking and faultlessly competent, but there was a constant nagging tension between them. A divide which could not be crossed, though they had served together for the better part of three years. For his part, Mitsu was convinced his subordinate was aware of the division between them, but he was equally sure she did not know exactly why. Susan will think this is the isolation of command; my role as captain drawing such a distinct line between us. Yet, Hadeishi was certain the true gulf lay in the abyss of their respective births and upbringing. Their futures would be different as well, and therein lay the seed of bitter separation.
In time — in two years, or four, as Fleet decided in its infinite wisdom — Susan Kosho would leave the Cornuelle and be posted to a larger ship — a sleek battle cruiser or a light carrier — as captain and commander. Mitsuharu Hadeishi, of such low birth, would remain aboard the little cruiser, perhaps for the rest of his career. In twenty years, should luck favor him, he might become a flotilla commander, responsible for screening some larger battle group. In twenty years, Kosho would be an admiral and her inflectionless voice would descend to him from on high, ordering his ship into the raging maw of battle.
Fate, he thought and found solace there. But for now, my duty is to guide her, to make her better, by such means protecting myself and my crew on some later day.
"What did you find in Hayes's data?" Mitsu took another sip from his cup.
"Well, sir," Susan settled back in her chair. The tension in her face and shoulders eased, her thoughts turning away from the disreputable mysteries of trade and back to the mission at hand. "Young Smith-tzin had been reviewing our navigational data and found something he did not understand. He brought the data to me, expecting he'd made a mistake or an error." The exec's lips quirked into the ghost of a smile. "He did not make a mistake."
Susan leaned over and tapped the nearest wall panel awake. The Imperial crest appeared briefly, accompanied by the tinny blare of flutes and drums. She accessed an astronomy module from among a dizzying array of choices. A black field appeared, anchored by a dim yellow disc surrounded by gleaming motes.
"This is the Ephesian solar system." Kosho's well-manicured forefinger indicated a reddish disk. "The third planet. And here is the asteroid belt which hides our 'wildcat' refinery ship. Hayes has been building a navigational map of the belt, searching for anomalies or radiation spikes — anything that might help us pinpoint the enemy. He became concerned today when — after the first pass of the map was complete — it seemed the belt was too small."
Hadeishi nodded slightly and motioned for her to continue. Susan tapped up a new screen filled with figures and graphs.
"Our dutiful sho-i ko-hosei then undertook a review of the projected initial system mass, local stellar formation density and the current distribution of planetesimals throughout the observed volume. He wondered if some quirk of orbital mechanics had distributed the non-aggregated mass into two or three belts, rather than just one." A glitter entered Kosho's eyes and her lips curled back from dazzlingly white teeth. "This was not the case. Indeed, the analysis of the system as a whole shows the total mass to be slightly higher than expected for this type of sun and this area of space."
"How much so?" Hadeishi had already formed a tentative conclusion. An obvious answer, he thought, feeling cold again. Even the cup in his hands had suddenly lost its comforting warmth. But…
"There should not be a noticeable asteroid belt here at all. Yet there is. The system mass is higher than astronav projects." Susan's fingertip drifted over the dull red disk of Ephesus III. All traces of humor had vanished. "This extra mass came from somewhere. I have spent the last eight hours considering the source of this unexpected belt. I believe the cloud of planetesimals we are racing toward consists of the inner core and mantle of the third planet."