“
Infirmus fui et visitastis me
,” Mitsuharu returned soberly.
De Molay stared at him in surprise, the corner of her mouth quirking into a smile. “‘I was sick and you visited me.’ That is—”
“The twentieth rule,” he said, nodding to the cross on her breastplate. “This is a strike-carrier of the Order of the Temple; I would say a refitted Norsktek
Galahad
-class hull with—by what I saw from the shuttle viewport—an entirely upgraded drive array. Out of the yards on New Malta?”
“It is indeed,” De Molay said, pleased. “And it is appropriate that you have attended to all her details.”
Mitsuharu’s thin black eyebrows lifted in query.
“In good time,
Chu-sa
,” De Molay said with no emotion whatever. “If you will step over here, please.” She guided him away from the others. Templar medical staff were everywhere in the bay, triaging the rescued Imperials. A line of grav-sleds was waiting to take the survivors away. “Come with me, there is someone who has waited a long time to see you again.”
In the tube-car, Mitsuharu closed his eyes—for just a moment—and fell sound asleep against the upholstered chair.
* * *
Tap-tap-tap went the blind man’s bamboo cane on the side of the road, ticking against the mossy rocks laid at the border. Musashi was dozing, nearly asleep in the shelter of the little shrine. Rain was drumming on the slanted, tiled roof, but his head was dry on a bundle of cloth holding the rice-paper book he’d been so laboriously writing in. He opened one eye halfway as the shuffling mendicant ducked under the eaves. “Ah, pardon,” wheezed a tired voice. “Just getting out of the rain.”
“Welcome, brother,” Musashi replied, moving his legs out of the way. Both shins were bound in bandages. “I’d offer you tea—if I had any—or a rice ball—if I had one. But I’ve neither, so you’re welcome to the dry roof at least.”
The blind man laughed, his stout face creasing into a merry smile. “The
tamghachi
have left this whole province hungry—or so they tell me in the inns, when there is nothing to eat.” He settled down on a little bench, head bowed over his cane.
Outside, the drumming sound of the rain was supplemented—then replaced—by the rattle of hooves on the metaled road. At first one horse, then a dozen. “Hm.” The blind man dug vigorously at one ear with a blunt finger. “Someone is coming in a great hurry. I wonder—could it be the militia? I’ve heard there is a murderer loose—he slew a tax collector some days ago.”
“Interesting.” Musashi yawned, hands behind his head. “But the militia does not ride war horses.”
* * *
Hadeishi awoke to find a sandy-haired man with knight-commander’s tabs standing beside his gurney. The familiar sounds and smells of medbay surrounded them, and De Molay was loitering behind the Templar. Her gray eyes wrinkled up in amusement at the look on Hadeishi’s face when he recognized Ketcham.
“You were in a bad way the last time I saw you,
Chu-sa
Hadeishi,” the European observed.
Mitsuharu smiled wryly. “Aside from far too much radiation exposure, I believe my wounds are only of the heart, Præceptor Ketcham. You found another ship, I see, and one better suited to you than wildcatting with an illegal ore refinery.”
“I did.” Ketcham scratched the back of his head, failing to suppress a huge grin. “You seem to have gotten back into the hot-chair, too, by hook and by crook.”
“By stealing my ship,” De Molay grumbled. Her good humor made the elderly woman seem a dozen years younger. “Twice!”
“I returned it,” Hadeishi said quietly. He looked around the room, hoping for a comm panel.
“Much the worse for wear!” De Molay objected, jutting out her chin pugnaciously.
“He has that way.” Ketcham laughed. “You will want to know,
Chu-sa
, that Commander Kosh
ō
is well, though busy aboard her ship, which is somewhat … battered. We intend to ship your men across to the
Naniwa
as soon as she has atmosphere restored on all decks, and proper facilities prepared.”
Mitsuharu felt his heart ease at the news of the battle-cruiser’s survival and lay easier on the gurney. “Then I can sleep at last.”
He closed his eyes, feeling the tug of tremendous weariness, and wondered idly if it were possible for him to sleep for a full week. Then he sat up again, frowning at the two Templars. They had not moved, and were waiting for him expectantly.
“My men, you say, to the
Naniwa
. Where am I bound, if not with them?”
De Molay produced a data crystal, bound with gold and white bands. “If you recall,
Chu-sa
Hadeishi, you signed aboard the merchanter
Wilful
as an engineer’s mate. After W
ilful
’s unhappy experience with marauding Khaid, you assumed emergency captaincy until such time as you engineered the capture of the Khaiden light cruiser
Kader.
You served as
de facto
captain aboard her until the vessel was evacuated. From our point of view, you are still captain of the
Kader
, but her fate is yet to be decided. And you are still our employee, bound by contract. One possibility is to scuttle the cruiser and add her remains to the debris along the Barrier. Another is to affect sufficient repairs to allow transit to the nearest Temple shipyard where she may either be reborn, or recycled. In any case, she is your charge. These orders—” She tapped a fingernail against the crystal. “Affirm your employment and responsibilities.”
De Molay reached for his hand and closed his thin, newly scrubbed fingers over the crystal. It seemed tremendously heavy, possessing a weight in his mind far in excess of the tiny dimensions.
Hadeishi’s glance shifted to Ketcham. “What time is it and when does the next watch begin?”
De Molay turned a snort of laughter into a sneeze.
Ketcham shook his head, putting on a forbidding expression. “You,
Chu-sa
, are on medbay time. Down here, I’m XO of the
Pilgrim
in name only. When the Infirmarian lets you go, you can take your duty station. Until then—well, you’ll have time to sleep at last.”
ABOARD THE
NANIWA
I
N COMPANY OF THE
P
ILGRIM
AND HER SUPPORT FLOTILLA
Chu-sa
Kosh
ō
nodded in greeting to the two Imperial marines standing watch outside medbay pod twenty-seven, and then stepped inside without a pause, followed by
Kikan-shi
Helsdon. The pressurized door whispered shut behind them and Susan paused a moment, letting the portal seal, before turning around, hands clasped behind her back. The
Naniwa
’s commander looked civilized again—she’d had a shower, been out of her z-armor for nearly a day, and gotten a few hours of sleep. Helsdon, now sitting nervously in a corner chair, looked little different than usual. The engineering teams had been working around the clock to repair secondary hull damage and return normal living conditions to the hab rings and command compartments.
“Anderssen-
tzin
, good afternoon.”
Gretchen looked up from her field comp, face mottled with bruises, her tangled blond hair tied back in a ponytail. Her bare arms and neck were shining with quickheal, and her ruined civilian z-armor had been replaced by a matte black Fleet skinsuit while she remained in medbay. She was sitting on a bed of crates, spare insulation, and blankets—the regular pod bed had been moved somewhere else. A portable lamp hung from the ceiling, shedding a bluish-white glow. On her field comp’s screen, a relayed feed from the main navigational array was unspooling, showing the singularity and its attendant stars. The icon of the Sunflower was nowhere to be seen.
“It’s gone.” The Swedish woman set the comp down, shoulders slumping in weariness. “Dragged down by irresistible gravity. The last sanctuary of the Vay’en is no more.”
Kosh
ō
glanced to Helsdon, who shook his head in ignorance. The Nisei woman pursed her lips, frowned once, and then tilted her head questioningly at the xenoarchaeologist.
“I do not know who these
Vahyyyen
might be, but I am very interested in determining what happened to Prince Xochitl and Ambassador Sahâne. Can you tell me?”
“Oh,” Anderssen blinked, and then rubbed her face, trying to remember. “I had forgotten all about the two boys … they are dead, Captain. One of the Templars shot Xochitl in the face with an assault rifle, and Sahâne—well, he was burned alive by a plasma burst and then cut in half. Old Crow, he—” She nodded to herself, feeling light-headed. “He was shot, then stabbed, and then fell down a very, very deep pit. But—but I could not say for certain he perished, not being able to see the bottom of that pit. It was quite deep.”
Susan’s expression congealed into a cold, immobile mask. “My marines found you drifting on a jury-rigged grav-sled outside the artifact, Doctor Anderssen, in the company of a half-dead, blinded Jaguar Knight who had been
Cuauhhuehueh
of the Prince’s guard detachment. The ship Xochitl commandeered—the
Moulins
—has disappeared. Do you know what happened to the freighter?”
Gretchen shrugged. “One of the Templars survived the melee with the Prince and his men. He must have taken it out of the landing cradle—she was gone when Koris and I reached the garbage disposal port.”
“I see.” Kosh
ō
’s jaw tightened in frustration. “Do you know how the freighter avoided our notice—assuming the ship left the vicinity of the
Chimalacatl
and boosted outbound, to join the rest of the Templar battle-group? Helsdon here and my techs have gone over the sensor logs at least three times—finding nothing.”
“It was a military ship,” Anderssen offered. “Disguised as a freighter. But the crewmen were all Order Knights and they were using—at the end—powered armor and modern weapons. Better than the Prince’s men had, from what I saw.”
Susan looked to Helsdon, clicking her teeth. “Then the
Moulins
could have been equipped with the same stealthing technology the
Pilgrim
’s fighters were showing off against the Khaid.”
“No reason,” the engineer coughed, covering his mouth, “to believe otherwise,
kyo
.”
“Why are you asking me, Captain?” Anderssen was watching them both with an odd, distant expression. “I’m just an archaeologist caught up in something far, far bigger than she expected.”
“I need any information you can give me, Doctor, because I’m beginning to wonder if
we
will be allowed to leave this place.” The Nisei officer indicated the ship, the rosette, the universe with an encompassing wave of her hand. “I know these things: that my ship is alone, wounded and in desperate need of resupply. A presumably friendly fleet—including a strike carrier easily the size of the
Tlemitl
—has come to our aid, is providing medical assistance, and has sent across dozens of wounded rescued from other Fleet ships lost in the recent series of battles. But at the same time, you tell me that Knights of the Temple have murdered an
Imperial Prince
, the ambassador of a friendly realm, and also an Imperial Judge, and … I wonder if we are next, if the Knights decide to clean up this little mess before they go on their way.”
“Oh.” Gretchen leaned her head on one hand, eyes half closed. “That is a problem, I guess.”
“It could be … serious.” Kosh
ō
stood beside the bed, her attention fully upon the Swedish woman. “You came here with Hummingbird. I
know
he was at the center of all this. I have a horrible suspicion that he
arranged
all of this. But I do not know why—and I hope that you will tell me, for the sake of my crew, if not out of courtesy to me.”
Anderssen regarded Susan sidelong, her expression still and distant for nearly a minute. Then she lifted her head, attention returning to the present, and she looked at Kosh
ō
with great curiosity. “Captain, do you remember that this is the third time our paths have crossed? Each time, great events have been in play—at Ephesus III, on Jagan, and now here.… I wonder, is
Chu-sa
Hadeishi here as well? I know you’ve your own ship now, but—”
“He is.” Kosh
ō
’s stoic expression was suddenly and subtly transformed, cycling from glad relief to concern to suspicion and then grim certainty. “He
is
here. Hummingbird brought him here. Hummingbird brought
me
here, and the Prince, and—what in the Nine Hells was he doing? What were
you
doing with him?”