Land of the Dead [Hardcover]

THE HOUSE OF FUMEIYO-IE

TOROSON ADVANCED FLEET BASE, IMPERIAL MÉXICA SPACE

A slim Nisei woman, her back straight as a sword blade, glossy black hair coiled at her neck, paused before a shoji-panel of laminate cedar and redwood. She took a moment to straighten the crisply starched cuffs of her dress whites, to tuck her cap under one arm, and to adjust the four tiny golden skulls on her collar tabs. Then, prepared, she placed two fingers against the door itself.

There was a quiet chime—the sound of a temple bell filtered through autumnal leaves—and the panel slid soundlessly to one side. The Imperial Méxica Navy Chu-sa stepped out onto a covered porch, walked down a flight of broad wooden steps and out into a perfectly manicured Tokuga-period garden. A glassite pressure dome vaulted overhead, half of the armored panels polarized against the glare of the twin primaries of the Michóacan binary. Her boots clicked on a curving stone bridge crossing a swift, silent brook—the recycled water clear as crystal, reeds and tadpoles wavering in the current running over mossy stones—and she passed beneath the rustling branches of a stand of hothouse aspen.

A tea house stood beneath the golden trees, ancient wood and paper walls meticulously assembled at the heart of the Fleet base, slate roof strewn with leaf litter. The newly minted captain knelt at the door and paused again—taking a measured breath—before drawing aside the old-fashioned panel of rice paper and varnished pine. The large interior room was quite barren. A tatami lay in the middle of the floor, a pale jute-colored island in a sea of gleaming dark fir planking. A man was kneeling on the mat, hands hidden in the folds of a plain civilian kimono. He lifted his head curiously at the sound of the opening door.

His thin face, pale and seamed from long exhaustion, was calm.

Then he recognized her and everything sure and composed about him disappeared in a jolt of surprise—delight—and then slowly dawning grief.

The woman removed her boots and padded across the spotless floor to the edge of the mat.

"Oh Sho-sa," the man said, shaking his head. "You should not have brought me the honorable blades. A fine gesture, truthfully, but—"

"I bear no swords," Susan Kosho said, kneeling gracefully and drawing a parchment envelope from the inner pocket of her uniform jacket. “The Admiralty tribunal has concluded its deliberations. You will not satisfy the Emperor’s Honor for the loss of our ship. As of only an hour ago, you are free to leave this place at any time you please.” She set down the envelope, touching the corners to align the rectangle properly between them.

“What is this?” Mitsuharu Hadeishi, recently captain of the ill-starred IMN Astronomer-class light cruiser Henry R. Cornuelle, eyed the parchment suspiciously. “This is not an orders packet.”

Kosho shook her head no, gaze politely averted from his, attention unerringly fixed on the hem of his kimono, which was frayed and showing a small tear. She wondered, seeing how shabby his clothing was, what had happened to the old manservant who had tended Hadeishi’s personal affairs aboard the Cornuelle. The rest of the crew—those who had lived through the disaster over Jagan—had scattered to the five directions. Even my feet, she thought, are on a strange road, every compass awry with the influence of the fates. With every step, a crossroads appears out of the darkness. . . .

“I have been retired?” Hadeishi’s voice was thin with distress.

“No.” Susan met his eyes at last. “You have been placed on reserve duty, pending the needs of the Fleet. Your record . . . your service jacket is . . . all references to the incident at Jagan have been removed. A compromise was reached—”

“But I have no ship,” he said, blinking, trying to take in the abrupt end of his career as a plain envelope pinched between thumb and forefinger. “No duty, no . . . no . . .”

He stopped, lips pursed, dark eyebrows narrowed over puzzled, wounded eyes. Susan could feel his mind whirling—imagined touching his brow would reveal a terrible, fruitless heat—and her own face became glacially impassive in response to his distress.

After a moment, Hadeishi’s eyes focused, found her, remembered her words, and his head tilted a little to one side. “What of the others? Or am I the only one small enough to be caught in the net of accountability?”

The corners of Kosho’s eyes crinkled very slightly. “Great care was taken that no Imperial agency be found at fault. The Fleet Book shows you fought the Cornuelle against vicious odds—”

Hadeishi stiffened, astonished. “Fought? Fought! I was taken unawares by a weather satellite network—our ship crippled, our crew decimated—our only struggle was to stay alive while repairs were underway and the ship kept her nose up!”

Susan nodded, saying. “Representatives of the Mirror-Which-Reveals-The-Truth mentioned this on several occasions—as a mark against you. But the Admiralty has no love for spies and informers, or for the clumsy Flower War priests who sparked the Bharat revolt. They would not let you hang for a botched Mirror project. Not when it meant a smudge on their own mantle!”

“But—”

“They cannot give you a ship, Chu-sa. Not with so many powers quarreling over the blame.” Susan frowned, then allowed herself a very small sigh. “Colonel Yacatolli fared no better—he’s been posted to a sub-arctic garrison command on Helmand—while Admiral Villeneuve was actually reprimanded, with a black mark struck on his duty jacket for failing to provide Cornuelle with munitions resupply—and Ambassador Petrel has simply left the diplomatic service.”

Hadeishi’s eyes flickered briefly with anger, before he snorted in cynical amusement.

“Did the tribunal assign any blame in this wretched turn of events?”

Susan nodded. “HKV agitators have been blamed for inciting the local population to rebellion against the Empire.”

“The—they are blaming the Europeans for this?” Astonishment flushed Hadeishi’s countenance with a pale rose-colored bloom. “There has not been a European resistance movement in extra-Solar space for nearly fifteen years! Not since—”

“I know.” Susan’s voice was gentle. “Nonetheless, the tribunal has declared a Finn named Timonen ringleader of the whole sorry affair—and he is conveniently dead, his body disintegrated.”

Mitsuharu snorted again, dismayed. “Do they even care what actually happened?”

Susan shook her head. “They are overjoyed with the Prince’s performance.”

“ The P— No, you make a poor, poor jest, Sho-sa. Not—”

Kosho—at last—let her properly impassive countenance slip, showing a flash of dismay. She dug into her jacket and produced a carefully folded tabloid. The busyink lay quiescent while Hadeishi unfolded the paper, before flashing alive with colorful diagrams, animated graphs, tiny low-res videos . . . all the appurtenances of modern news.

A sallow-faced youth with unmistakable Méxica features popped out, pockmarked walls visible behind his shoulder, smoke coiling away from hundreds of bullet holes, the glossy black of his Fleet shipskin spattered with blood, a heavy HK-45B assault rifle slung over one shoulder. The boy—he must have been in his late twenties, but he seemed much younger—was grinning triumphantly.

“The hero of the hour,” Kosho drawled, “savior of the legation, captor of the native ringleaders . . . Tezozómoc’s public image is shining and bright this week. Someone, somewhere, is very pleased with themselves for this bit of . . . editing.”

Hadeishi stared at the picture, impassive, eyes hooded, and then turned the tabloid facedown on the mat beside the parchment envelope. For a moment he pressed both palms against his eyes, head down,breathing through his nose. Kosho waited, wondering if her old captain would react as she had. I should have brought a sidearm, a ship-pistol, something . . . to stun him with. When he becomes violently angry. When he threatens to—

“All this . . .” Mitsuharu did not look up. “Our dead—our broken ship—the wreckage on the surface—my career—it was all for him? To polish his reputation, to give this dissolute Prince some respectability in the eyes of the public?”

“The Four Hundred families cannot allow a Prince Imperial,” Susan replied, voice carefully neutral, “to seem the buffoon, to be known as a wastrel, a drunkard, a party-addict . . . the Emperor is no fool. Even the least, most laughable member of the Imperial Clan must be seen by the general populace as a potentially terrifying warrior of unsurpassed skill. Particularly when Temple of Truth runs a popular weekly fea-turette detailing his latest lewd binge. . . .”

Hadeishi rocked back, eyes still closed, fists clenched white to the knuckle. Susan waited, feeling a tight, singing tension rise in the pit of her stomach. After ten minutes had passed, the man’s eyes opened and

his shoulders slumped. Hastily, Kosho looked away, giving her old commander the illusion of privacy, though they were no more than a meter apart.

“So I am the last, least fish caught in this flowery net.”

Susan did not reply, her gaze fixed on the rear wall of the tea house.

“And I am left with nothing.” There was the crisp rustle of parchment. “You are to await the plea sure of the Emperor,” he read, “should he have need of your service.” H...