“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.” Kosho 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 Kosho 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.” Kosho’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?”
“Do you really want to know?” Gretchen spread her hands. “You will find no ease to your worries!”
“Tell me.” Susan’s voice sounded stretched and brittle.
“The Crow found me on New Aberdeen,” Anderssen said, “and he needed help with something beyond his ‘capacity to evaluate.’ I thought he needed my technical skills as a xenoarchaeologist-but that was a gravely incorrect assumption. He never said-he never does, you know?-what he expected me to do.”
“And you just came when he beckoned?” Kosho sounded disgusted.
Gretchen shook her head, all expression draining from her tired face. “No. I had been waiting for him, or someone like him, to come nosing around. After everything that happened on Jagan, when I came home empty-handed, without a bonus check from the Company, I found that my boy Duncan had been killed while working on a trawler in the Northern Cape Sea. That-”
She stopped, her attention suddenly far away from the medbay and the two officers. Susan waited, watching the subtle play of emotions on the blond woman’s face, until Helsdon stirred, looking at his commander beseechingly.
“Anderssen- tzin, we don’t have much time. Please tell us what the Hummingbird was doing here.”
“Oh.” Gretchen shook herself, grinding the heel of one palm into her left eye. “I have a recording, I think. My suit comm was on when he told me. You can hear it from his own lips.”
She tapped up a sequence on her field comp, and then slid the volume to three-quarters. The sound of static and harsh breathing filled the little room, and then the old Nahuatl was saying:… the annihilation of the Prince, the Khaid, even the poor Ambassador and my own life in the bargain. A clean set of books-nothing falling into the Emperor’s hands to upset the balance at home-and time. Time we desperately need.
The recording stopped and Anderssen made a face. “We came here in little tramp freighters and mail-boats before the Moulins, which seemed like more of the same. Hummingbird didn’t have anything on his side but some fancy comps in a case, me-for whatever I was worth-and his own invincible self assurance. Do you hear him? He was hurt when he said that, and afraid-not of dying, no, but of failing at the task he’d taken upon himself.”
She stopped, running her finger across the navigational display. The Chimalacatl was already gone, torn to shreds as it fell. Comp projections showed the delicate balance holding all three of the brown dwarves was beginning to fail. In a hundred years, or a thousand, the entire rosette would succumb to the black hole and obliterate all traces of the Vay’en and their works.
“I thought,” Gretchen continued, “when I sent them down into oblivion, that I defeated him. But listening to his voice now, I think I did exactly what he wanted… even better than he could have managed himself.”
Susan made a soft, strangled sound. “He wanted the Sunflower destroyed?”
“More than that,” Gretchen replied. “He needed-or the Judges needed-to ensure that not only was the artifact obliterated-but everyone who had come seeking its power was slain, denied, or convinced it did not exist. The Prince is dead, the Khaid massacred, the Order Knights left with empty hands… we are witnesses to the immolation of the evidence. The nav plot shows that the entire Barrier will be swallowed up in time, pulled into the black sack and made to vanish.”
She laughed nervously. “Only three people remain who saw the heart of the structure, who know what happened there-me and an Order Knight who escaped, the one who departed in the Moulins. He will certainly carry the news to his masters-and I wonder how they will react?”
“They came well equipped,” Kosho admitted grudgingly. “The Pilgrim is the core of a full-scale squadron and seems more than capable of mopping up the leftovers of our ill-fated expedition. If we’re on the books to be marked off-we won’t last long.”
“If you give me to them, they will let you go.” Gretchen’s statement carried an odd weight of certainty. “I think they are very keen to know the fate of the Vay’en, and the Chimalacatl, and what transpired within.”
“That seems, to me, Doctor Anderssen, an excellent reason not to put you into their hands.” Susan offered a tight, bitter smile. “I am still an officer of the Fleet and the Emperor’s servant. If we escape, then duty requires that I report what transpired in this benighted place. It seems unwise to leave all of the witnesses in the hands of the Temple. But what becomes of you after we return-I cannot say.”
“It does not matter.” Gretchen’s expression was bleak. “I’ve done all I can. Like Hummingbird, my death or disappearance evens the books, leaving almost no trace of our passing.”
“Untrue.” Kosho lifted her chin, indicating the icons of the Templar ships on the plot. “They are still here-they have possession-but what do they gain from all this, Doctor? Are they now an enemy of the Empire?”
“No.” Anderssen scratched the back of her head, where a sore had developed from wearing her helmet so long. “They came seeking to ally themselves with something-with someone-they thought remained in this funereal place. Hummingbird alluded to needing time. He believed-and the Templars believe-some enormous calamity is fast approaching. One which we-humanity-cannot withstand without the assistance of the kind of powers which once dwelt here.”
Helsdon stiffened in his chair, fear stark in his features. “My God, woman, this place was built by a race with the power of the Gods! We won’t have this level of technology for thousands of years!”
Susan nodded in agreement, her complexion growing waxy. “Do you know what they fear? Do the Templars?”
“They believe they know.” Gretchen smiled sadly. “I do not. But I can tell you the Order Knights are being used, as you and I were used by Hummingbird, by another agent-another puppet master hiding in the wings, out of our sight. This seems to me a skirmish-an opening move-where greater powers than the Empire are jockeying for position on the field of combat.”