Thomas Harlan
Wasteland of flint
A Note Concerning Measurements
Though her later victories rendered the full terms of the Lisbon Accords moot, the Mйxica Empire abides by the common set of weights and measures set forth by the Accords in A.D. 1724. As a result, distances are in kilometers, weights in kilograms and so on.
Ranks of the Imperial Mйxica Military
From the Annales of Cuauhtitlan
In the beginning was the First Sun,
4-Water was its sign;
It was called the Sun of Water.
For water covered the world,
Leaving nothing but dragonflies above
and fishy men below.
The Second Sun was born,
4-Jaguar was its sign;
This was called the Sun of the Jaguars.
In this Sun the heavens collapsed,
So that the Sun could not move in its course.
The world darkened, and when all was dark
Then the people were devoured.
The Giants perished, giving life to the Third Sun.
4-Rain was its sign;
It was called the Sun of Rain.
For this Sun rained fire from bleeding eyes
And the people were consumed.
From the torrent of burning stones,
The Fourth Sun was born.
4-Wind was its sign, and it was called the Sun of Wind.
In this Sun, all which stood on the earth was carried
Away by terrible winds.
The people were turned into monkeys,
and scattered from their cities into the forest.
Now, by sacrifice of the divine liquid, the Fifth Sun was born.
Its sign was 4-Motion.
As the Sun moved, following a course,
The ancients called it the Sun of Motion.
In the time of this Sun, there were
Great earthquakes and famine,
No maize grew, and the gods of the field
Turned their eyes from the people.
And all the people grew thin, and perished.
The Lord of Heaven cut the heart from his living son,
And so was born the Sixth Sun, which sustains
The universe with infinite light.
Its sign was 4-Flint.
Those who watch the sky say this Sun
Will end in annihilation, when the flint-knife
Severs the birthcord of the Sun, plunging all
Into darkness, where the people will
Be cut to pieces and scattered.
This is the time of the Sixth Sun…
Contents
The Great Eastern Basin, Ephesus III, in the Hittite Sector
Ctesiphon Station, the Edge of Imperial Mйxica Space
Aboard the Cornuelle, Outbound from Ctesiphon Station
Geosync Orbit Over Ephesus III
Aboard the Cornuelle
The "Observatory" Base Camp, the Edge of the Western Desert, Ephesus III
Aboard the Palenque
The Cornuelle
The Western Badlands, Ephesus III
The Palenque
The Cornuelle
The Palenque
The Cornuelle, Outbound from Ephesus III Orbit
In Geosync Over Ephesus
The Cornuelle, Outbound
The Edge of the Ephesian Atmosphere
The Cornuelle
Near the Stonespike Massif, Northern Hemisphere, Ephesus III
The Cornuelle
The Shuttle Wreck, Northern Hemisphere, Ephesus III
The Asteroid Belt, Ephesus System
The Shuttle Wreck, Northern Hemisphere, Ephesus III
Mons Prion, Northern Hemisphere, Ephesus III
Among the Broken Mountains
Outbound from Ephesus III
Mons Prion, Northern Hemisphere, Ephesus III
Aboard the Cornuelle
Southeast of Mons Prion
The Palenque
Slot Canyon Twelve
Deck Six Starboard, the Cornuelle
Near Slot Canyon Twelve, the Escarpment
The Cornuelle
Slot Canyon Twelve
Aboard the Palenque
In the Wasteland
The Cornuelle
The Palenque
The 'Observatory' Base Camp
Among the Broken Mountains
The Palenquem, Inbound
The 'Observatory' Base Camp
Aboard the Turan
Base Camp One
Aboard the Turan
Above Ephesus III
Aboard the Cornuelle
Ctesiphon Station, Just Within Imperial Mйxica Space
Appendix
The Great Eastern Basin, Ephesus III, in the Hittite Sector
The Gagarin sped out of the east, engines running hot, heavy night air hissing under thirty-meter wings. Though the sky behind the little ultralight was still pitch-black, the dawn wind was already beginning to rise, stirring the air. It was very cold, worse for the wind whipping through the airframe. Russovsky's goggles were rimmed with frost and her suit's rebreather left a white smear of CO2 ice across a cargo bag stowed behind the seat. Kilometers of sand blurred past beneath the Gagarin. Ahead, hidden in night but standing out sharply on her vid-eye, the Escarpment shut off the horizon. Tiny green glyphs bobbed at the corner of her vision as a micro-radar taped to the forward wing surface measured and remeasured the height of the cliffs. The mechanism was resetting every second, unable to resolve the summit.
Down on the deck, where a vast soda-pipe field slept among night-shrouded dunes, a haze of fine dust was beginning to lift, stirred by the wind's invisible fingers. The Gagarin droned on, long silver wings glowing softly in the darkness, engines chuckling as they burned hydrogen and spat out fine trailing corkscrews of ice crystal. Russovsky's vid-eye flashed, alerting her to a break in the horizon. An annotation flipped up, showing a snatch of recorded video – flinty cliffs in harsh white sunlight. Blinking in annoyance, her face grim, Russovsky banished the note. She drifted the stick left and the Gagarin heeled over. The ultralight banked, sweeping over a knife blade of red sand rising three hundred meters from the nominal bottom of the basin. As Gagarin rose over the dune, she goosed the engines, wary of treacherous winds coiling close to the mountains.
Now she could feel the enormous mass of the Escarpment, looming darkness against a sky riotous with stars. The mountain range rose up endlessly and ran left and right to the edge of sight. She could feel the ocean of air around the ultralight changing, the quiet stillness of deep night falling away, disturbed by currents, eddies and whirlpools tugging and pressing at the wings. The mouth of the Slot loomed up, a hundred meters wide, an abrupt fissure cut into the mountain. Sweat beaded on her neck and along her spine, but the moisture wicked away into the skinsuit so quickly Russovsky did not chill. The radar threw back a confused jumble of images, trying to resolve the jagged cliffs and boulders at the mouth of the Slot.