What chant settled the racing hearts of my ancestors, Mitsu wondered, rising from his knees, when they rode into the high grass to fight the Dakota and the Iroquois? A deep bow followed and he closed the alcove with the tip of his finger. A metal plate sealed the little shrine, protecting the contents against a sudden loss of pressure or the g-shock of combat.
Hadeishi ran a hand across the spines of his books. His personal quarters should, by tradition, be spartan and bare. He was sure Sho-sa Kosho's cabin was a perfect example of approved Zen minimalism – all plain gray and white surfaces, perhaps small portraits of the Emperor and the Shogun, her tatami, the door to the closet always closed. Mitsu smoothed his beard, looking around at the terrible mess he'd made of this place. Every wall was covered with bookcases – well-built ones too, Isoroku was a dab hand for structural modifications – and every shelf was packed with storage crystals, audio-sticks, hand-drawn paintings in ink, paper-bound volumes, boxes of letters, Heshtic scrolls and paw-books, even things he'd found in the markets of Baldur, Marduk or New Malta. He was sure some of them held writing, but then again – who knew what they truly were? Laundry lists? Accounts of land disputes from some dead, forgotten world?
My whole life is here, he thought, aware of lingering sadness. If the Cornuelle dies, all this will be gone.
Hadeishi sat cross-legged on the tatami, picking up a hand-held comp. The pad came alive with his touch, displaying a set of ship schematics. Frowning, Mitsu considered the builder's diagrams for a standard-issue Tyr refinery. What a monster, he thought – and not for the first time – panning through screen after screen of floorplans. We could almost fit the Cornuelle into the main boat bay. The thought was amusing, but not helpful. He narrowed the view displayed on the pad to those sections housing the meteoroid defense system.
"Looks like an old Koningsborg-class battle cruiser point-defense array," he said wryly aloud after a half hour of examination. Finding the circuits had taken some effort – the sheer size of a Tyr made finding a single system difficult. "Hmm. But spread out over far more surface area."
He paused, brow furrowing in thought. How big is the crew for this leviathan?
Another hour passed before Mitsu found something like a crew-requirements list. Then he raised an eyebrow in cautious surprise.
Thai-i HuГ©mac slid down a gangway ladder into first platoon's sleeping deck and found the narrow room unexpectedly crowded. A small, wiry man with prominent cheekbones and the coppery-bronze coloring typical of the Tlaxcallan highlands, the senior Marine lieutenant went unnoticed for a moment. A crowd of Marines in off-duty fatigues, all hulking backs and shoulders, filled the walkway between rows of bunks on either side. Smoke curled against the ceiling and bit the eyes of the men lying on the top, staring avidly down at something in the middle of the barracks.
HuГ©mac stood quietly for a moment, cataloging the number of violations of shipside regulation visible to his experienced eye. He was impressed by the hushed, pregnant silence filling the room. The senior lieutenant had been wondering where all of second platoon had dissapeared too, but now he guessed the entire Marine contingent on the Cornuelle was packed into this one compartment.
A single voice, hoarse and pleading, rose above the quiet susurration of so many men and women breathing. "Oh great lord, oh gracious master, blessed Five Flowers. Look on these poor, pitiful subjects, see their smooth black bodies, their empty eyes, count the holes in their bellies. See them, see the four houses, see the black squares and the red. Please, master of flowers, giver of gifts, fickle one! Bless these five subjects, give them swift legs, strong hearts and every mercy!"
HuГ©mac rolled his eyes – but only because not a single Marine could see his reaction – and swung nimbly up onto the nearest rack of bunks. Carefully bending low under the pipes and conduits and cable guides crowding the ceiling, he stepped over a half-dozen men to look down into the common area at the center of the deck. None of the Marines on the top bunks paid him any attention, save Heicho Tonuac, who was reading an illustrated malinche titled The Tribulatory Life of Leda and her Swan while chewing gum. The corporal stiffened to attention as the lieutenant stepped over him.
At the middle of the room there was an open space where two facing sets of bunks had been folded back into the walls. HuГ©mac grasped hold of a return-air pipe and leaned out, looking down upon three men and one woman sitting on the floor below. Between them was a woven mat in the shape of a cross. Red and blue ceramic markers were scattered along a track of squares, filling each arm of the cross.
The woman was watching the man opposite her with a bored expression. In turn, he was rubbing both hands together, his voice now a mumble, a click-click-click sound rising up among the slowly curling trails of incense and tobacco smoke. Both men were staring sickly at the arrangement of the counters on the mat. HuГ©mac squinted a little and pursed his lips in appreciation. Five solid red tokens had reached safety in the house of the Rising Sun, five blue in the house of the Moon. One red disc remained, sitting a very likely three squares from exiting the board in victory. One blue token lagged behind, an almost impossible ten squares from journey's end.
HuГ©mac had played a little patolli in his time, but the pile of pay chits mounded up before the woman was of truly legendary size. The thai-i repressed a sigh. I have got to convince the captain to sign off on promoting Felix to sergeant… Then the little burgundy-haired woman would be forced to limit her shipboard gambling income to the other sergeants and the officers. Who might show a tiny shred of sense…and stay far away from her.
Gambling – particularly on patolli or tlachco competitions – was an entirely legal expression of religious piety throughout the Empire, which pleased the Marines and sailors in Fleet to no end. Even the foreigners were only too happy to offer up incense, maize and pulque to Macuilxohitl Five-Flower on payday, hoping to gain the god's blessing in matters of chance.
Down on the floor, the man praying suddenly seized the five polished beans in his right hand and cast them onto the mat with a flick of his wrist. HuГ©mac shook his head – throwing all five as 'spots' and doubling the roll to ten squares was entirely unlikely – no matter what promises the private made to Five-Flower. Throwing a one, two or three – any of which would help Felix, or even let her move the last token from the board and win – were far more likely.
The little black beans bounced, rattled and came to a stop. Private Martine was crouched on his hands and knees, muttering fervently. Three spots, two black.
"Face!" the private groaned. A hiss of indrawn breath filled the compartment as he advanced his blue token. Seven squares seemed an impossible distance. Felix reached out, nose twitching in amusement and scooped up the beans.
She did not pray or rub the beans. They left her hand with a simple flip and scattered across the mat. "Oh," she said in an aggrieved voice, "only eyes."
Her red token advanced two squares. One to go. Martine snatched up the beans and tried to match Felix's offhand toss. The beans scattered and rolled. Most turned up white. Four of them.
"Very good," Felix said, tucking wine-red hair back behind her ears. "Box is very good."
Martine gave her a sick look; blunt, chipped fingers sliding his blue token ahead. Three squares left. Felix gathered up the beans, smiled at the private and let them roll out in a lazy-seeming flip. They bounced on the mat, spinning, and four came up dark, one white. "Snake," Felix said, and removed her last piece from the board.