One-handed, she kept the v-cam up while she flicked a glowbean into the passage.
More blue light filled the space – a corridor with slanted walls, matching the angle of the door. It ended no more than a dozen meters away, abruptly, in rough, uneven extrusion. Frowning with concern – how queerly even – Russovsky advanced gingerly across a glassy, slick floor. The rock here, like that throughout the Escarpment, was Ephesus's particular trademark – a jumbled, compressed, mangled aggregate of sandstone, rhyolite, granite, and flint. She paused at the irregular wall, staring into another chamber opening off to her right.
"Ah…krasivaya devushka!" Russovsky's faded sapphire eyes crinkled up in a broad smile. Her fingers were trembling a little as she set the v-cam down on the sandy floor, letting the camera adjust itself level so it could record the wall in detail. Kneeling, she ran gloved fingers over the rumpled, irregular surface. There were whorls and lumps and patterns familiar in kind, if not in detail, to her experienced eyes. Here, a fluted shape, the outlines of stalklike legs, a curled shell. There, the echo of flat-pressed reeds and tiny nutlike cysts.
Limestone. The muddy floor of a primordial Ephesian ocean. The wall rose up at a queer angle, obviously trapped in the greater matrix of the mountain. Russovsky rose, picked up the v-cam and panned it around, showing the way the passage ended at the shale. A gray eyebrow rose, seeing a set of cylindrical objects scattered near the wall.
Russovsky bent down, examining one. They seemed to be stone, or crusted with ancient fossilized earth. There were three of them, regular in length and width. Sucking cautiously on the stone in her mouth, Russovsky backed away, still recording with the v-cam, and then walked carefully back to the ultralight. The smooth, almost mirror-smooth tunnel floor could have been cut with a plasma torch.
She was exhausted and hungry from the long night-flight. After choking down a threesquare bar Russovsky drank some more water and lay down on the sand under the Gagarin. The suit kept her body temperature within a survivable range and was far too much trouble to shed. The glowbeans were beginning to die, letting soft darkness steal back into the chamber. Russovsky tugged a folded woolen blanket from under the seat of the ultralight and tucked it under her head. Faded red, orange, and black stripes made a repeating series of pyramids on the blanket. The wool was scratchy on her cheek and the woman closed her eyes and fell asleep.
The storm beyond the door roared like a distant sea.
Ctesiphon Station, the Edge of Imperial Mйxica Space
"Porlumma…Flight sixty-two…squawk!…boarding for Porlumma…"
Gretchen Anderssen pushed through a heavy crowd, cursing her lack of height. The receiving bay of the station was hundreds of meters wide and at least sixty high, but the crowd of hot, sweaty, strange-smelling beings made her claustrophobic. The booming, distorted voice of a station controller announcing departing flights made the air tremble. Gretchen wiped her forehead, turning sideways to slide past two huge Kroomakh. Their scaly, pebbled skin smelled like juniper pine resin, but the sharp tang was not welcome, not in this heat.
The crowd began to thin, though when she stepped out of a milling group of Incan tourists, all in plaid and tartan and bonny caps with white carnations, she saw a power fence separating the landing bays and their high-vaulted tunnels from the exit doors. The whole huge mob of passengers was funneling down into six gates, each labeled by caste or nation. Gretchen stopped, standing in the middle of the grimy floor, and put down her bags. A migraine was beginning to tick behind her left eye. Why is there always a line?
Looking up, she frowned, seeing the first-class receiving bay above, half-visible through arching metal girders. There, in cool scented air, slidewalks were conveying parties of rich Imperials through station customs. Their glittering feather-capes flashed and shimmered with rainbow hues and shining jungle colors. Smiling dark-suited servants carried traveling bags, sleepy children, cold drinks for their masters. One of the nobles, glossy black hair trailing down below her waist, earrings flashing gold in the soft white light, looked down. Gretchen stared back at the Mйxica woman, then grimaced politely when the Imperial lady waved.
She looked down at her own hands, muscular, the left scarred by an accident with an ultrasonic cleaning tool on Old Mars, deeply tanned by too many hours exposed under alien suns. They were not smooth and soft. They were nicked and calloused and entirely inelegant. She had to work, with her hands, in poor conditions. She wondered, and not for the first time, what it would be like to be well-born, into one of the families of the Center. To be up there, above, in the cool air, gliding down a slidewalk, a beautiful feather-cape hanging from pale smooth shoulders, with jewels and gold around her neck.
Her grandparents' flight from the wars on Earth – on Anбhuac, as the Mйxica would say – had crushed any hope of social status – not only were they refugees from a defeated nation, but they had given up the properties they once held in Old Stockholm. On New Aberdeen, colony law prevented a newly emigrated family from owning land for at least six generations. Gretchen grimaced, thinking of how easy it would have been to get into university, or an Imperial calmecac school, if she could have claimed the landowner's right. A burden to be borne in good grace, whispered the voice of her mother. If you work and study hard, you can still succeed.
"Enough," Gretchen muttered and slung the duffel over her shoulder. It was almost as large as she was, but she was strong enough to carry the bag unaided – it was lighter than a hod of Ugaritic mud brick! The equipment case in her left hand was heavy too, but much easier to carry. She trudged across the broad floor, heading for the customs gate labeled MACEHUALLI. The line was longest there, with the "common" people queued up, much longer than the gates for nonhumans or landowners or those in military service. Suddenly anxious, she checked the inner pocket of her vest for the company papers and ID card. The thick heavy shape of the packet was comforting.
"Doctor Anderssen? Anderssen-tzin?"
Gretchen looked up, taking a firm grip on her bags. A thin, balding man with a short, neat beard was waving at her from the other side of the power fence. A flight jacket covered with patches covered narrow shoulders, and baggy combat pants hung on him like burlap sacks. He held up a hand-lettered sign marked with the Company's circle-and-moon glyph. Gretchen's eyebrows raised in surprise. The last message had not mentioned a guide or being met, just a kiosk number to pick up the ticket for the next leg of her journey. Ctesiphon station might be at the very edge of human space, but it was a convenient hub for travel along the frontier. Groaning to herself – leaving a line in the Empire was always a cause of dismay, since they never got shorter, only longer – she trudged over to the black warning stripe outlining the security fence.
"Yes?"
The man smiled, showing irregular smoke-stained teeth. "You're Doctor Gretchen Anderssen? The xenoarcheologist?"
"Yes," she allowed, not putting down the bags. "That's my name."
"Great! I'm Dave Parker, your new pilot. Come down to the Jaguar gate – they'll let you through."
"Why?" Gretchen began to walk, matching Parker's pace along the shimmering half-visible fence. "I don't have a military pass." Parker nodded, his head bent over a compressed tobacco stick. There was a hot spark and he took a drag.
"No," he said, blowing a fat ring of smoke, "but I do. Your mission's been upgraded, but we should talk about that later."
There was no line at the Jaguar gate, though there were two customs officers in pleated tunics and long white overcapes. Both men were copper-skinned, with slick dark hair. They were not Mйxica – Gretchen guessed they were from the old Shawnee lands. She bowed politely to both men, then waited quietly while Parker talked with them in low tones. There were no soldiers within sight, but Gretchen could feel a slow crawling sensation on her arms and neck. The gate was traditional, with heavy stonework and a huge, feathered Jaguar head jutting out of the apex. She was sure that if trouble occurred, the stone would answer with violence. The Imperials were very fond of traditional images that could move, speak, or strike.