Chapter 14: Failure of Procedure Part 2

The imprint led Salu on a twisting path through the woods in a rather obvious attempt to shake off any would-be pursuers. It proved unnecessary. No one but some birds and those 'pigs' had noticed him. He wondered about those beasts again. Erlkandr was in a region of human space where you could ask a whole city's population where to get repir meat and only as many people as you had fingers on one hand would've ever heard of it. It just couldn't get into Salu's head that there were places—let alone whole astronomical regions—where people didn't didn't eat repir. Everywhere he had traveled the staple meats that came from animals that didn't fly or swim had always been: beef, mutton, sometimes veal, but always repir. So, he figured, the animal that filled the gaping hole left by repir had to be this new creature he had learned the existence of today: the jolly, grunting pig. Next time he'd find mystery meat in his meal he'd have to ask if it was pig.

By this time he had reached another wall where he spotted his next obstacle: a large tree with thick branches reaching up to a rectangular hole. There was probably meant to be a door in it but he couldn't see one, only another deep darkness.

At the foot of the tree he found the corroded remains of the stairs that once led up to the hole. Not rungs that had been fixed into the wall, but large stairs that were supposed to handle a descent amount of traffic. Although, considering how it lied there—fragmented and forgotten—it couldn't have been very good at that. Cheap materials? He wondered. Contractors would often indulge their instinctive need for cutting corners on projects that weren't crucial to the integrity of a habitat. Contrast that with the tree that had reached its limbs up to the empty door frame in probably the same time the stairs had given up on being stairs. What luck for his clients that he could climb well.

The tree made no protest; its branches more than able to withstand his weight. His chosen branch shook little when he got off it and into the door frame. Steadying himself he stared into the dark, his eyes quickly adjusting. Now he could see what he had already smelled halfway up the tree: thick, hardened layers of shit. Up on the ceiling the source: chittering, huddled masses of bats. He looked around and found the door lying on the ground to his right. Caked in excrement but still proudly a door. Unlike the stairs, it had resisted, and continued to resist, the call of entropy.

Carefully avoiding fresh patches of bat droppings, Salu trekked deeper into the derelict building. Aside from bats and their business he could spot nothing that betrayed the place's original function: only rows and rows of bare columns in a neat but boring showcase of humanity's understanding of geometry. Suffice it to say the sudden sight of light pouring in from above to illuminate a patch of vegetation and a few small trees was a pleasant one. The imprint didn't allow him the time to take it in, though, urging him further on instead.

More light up ahead, thankfully. It lit up an atrium of some kind with zigzagging staircases that led up and down the floors of the building. With the imprint steering down a floor, he was surprised to not only be greeted by vegetation, but deep water submerging the lower floors. Large fish occasionally broke with an undulating shimmer of their dorsal fins. A quick look up confirmed his suspicions: corroded metal frames that no longer held glass. Rain had collected in the basement and flooded the lower floors. The fish had probably been put there by the locals. Hab dwellers always let wildlife take the places they weren't using. It probably helped that these fish were good to eat.

Before Salu had the time to admire more of the derelict architecture repurposed into makeshift green dome, a small flight of birds suddenly taking off alerted him to the presence of a man in grey robes. At least, he thought it was a man.

The man was of a slender build, his choice of dress looking almost too large on his frame. Where his skin was not covered Salu saw a bluish pattern of stripes not unlike those of the Levtomani. A sister clade, perhaps? His eyes were a pale grey with blue sclera. A great white bush of hair like wool puffed out from his head. He looked at Salu and jerked his head backwards, which Salu took as a beckoning gesture.

As he approached the man, the imprint formulated a question. "Do you often fish here?"

"Yes, but they're not biting today." The correct answer.

He followed the man into one of the atrium's abandoned rooms and found himself stepping into the most potent privacy field he had encountered so far today. The man, who had been right in front of him, became a blur. Deeper into the room and more blurs appeared. Salu continued far enough for the blurs to focus into shapes that were recognizably human and... Alien. He could make out what he believed were two men, one woman, two shapes he wasn't certain of, and two pod-like heads swaying from side to side that belonged to the aliens. He could only see the heads, necks, front legs, and the first two humps of them. Beyond that their shapes simply faded out in the privacy field. There were 'official' names for these aliens. Too many to list, really. Many people had taken to calling them whatever their tongue's equivalent of 'longneck' was, making it all much easier.

"Were you followed?" a shape he took for an older, overweight man asked in a half muted and warbly voice. Even this close they were eerily out of focus, like his mind wanted to see an empty room where these people stood.

"I don't believe so."

"Good. Give us your report."

Salu regurgitated the message composed by Mlitohan earlier. The human shapes seemed to listen intently while the longnecks continued the slow swaying of their heads. He thought he could detect some subtle movements, indicating body language, but there was really no way for him to truly know.

"I see." The older man again. "Crossing into Kayaalid space is too much trouble for the great Shadowstar Company it seems."

"Your excellency, the administrative work on getting just one mercenary vessel approved for entrance is considerable." A younger male voice said, answering the other's frustration. "It involves the partial dismantling of weapons and, more importantly, a disclosure on all details of its mission, including all information pertaining to clients. As a major power they won't tolerate even a single warfare capable vessel under the command of an unknown party. It would be a threat to their rule."

"There are no Kayaalid naval vessels stationed in Ikkatfo 4 right now. There is nothing stopping them from going through that tunnel right now."

With the strength of the privacy field it was difficult to read facial expressions but Salu swore the younger man had to hold back to not sock his senior in the face. "The original strategy was sound, your excellency. Repeatedly engage the Mezhained in small skirmishes to waste their materials, then block them from entering Ikkatfo 4, forcing them to take a long detour that would drain them of their mosaic resource. Now that they're in Kayaalid space they can replenish all they've lost. Seeing as warfare isn't our area of expertise I suggest we leave the revision of the strategy to Shadowstar Company as they themselves suggested."

The crowd was hushed to silence. Salu thought he could feel the senior quietly boiling in rage at the impudent tone. Anticipating an angry outburst, he steeled himself, only to be surprised when the old man began to laugh heartily. "Right you are! Right you are!" he bellowed. "This old fool should keep to what he knows best. Thank the stars in the sky someone around here has the courage to defy me." The others grew painfully quiet. "Now, about that data leak." The old man turned to Salu. "Intermediary, what can you say about your meeting with the regional directors earlier? Did any of them strike you as suspicious?"

Salu thought for a moment. "The one named Taillon seemed paranoid. Said something about this being a 'treaty war'."

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"Did he now?" A deep noise stretched long rumbled from the old man's throat. "They must've discussed the data leak. How did he respond to that?"

"He wanted to take care of it himself. Seemed rather eager about getting who did it."

The old man nodded. "Yes, if I was leaking information I would get myself involved in the investigation. What better way to sabotage it."

"Our partners would like us to take care of this threat," the woman standing by the longnecks said. "They keep repeating they do not want their presence here to be revealed." It was likely she was acting as an interpreter through some manner of implant, but Salu wasn't sure. He wasn't the kind to know about things like that.

"We can take care of him, most certainly," the old man said. "Replace him with our own associate in the company, gain more control." He nodded, casually agreeing with the sinister course his thoughts were taking him. "He's paranoid. It might even lead to suicide. That is an option to keep in mind."

Salu suppressed his body language. Seeing this man decide another's fate as if he was looking over a menu sent chills down his spine. But he was the intermediary, he had to play the role of the observer who would have all he sees and hears disappear from his mind.

"Now for that ship," the old man said, continuing in the same nonchalant tone. "I take it the information feeds are accurate? The Mezhained hadn't covertly started its construction before they entered the tunnel?"

One of the indeterminate shapes spoke and handed a data sheet to the old man, who started studying it intently. In the dense privacy field the shape sounded female but Salu wasn't sure. "All footage from before tunnel entry show only the construction work on their main ship's new cylinder, afterwards there is a severe reduction in their resource materials consistent with the estimated mass of the new ship. It's likely they halted the construction of the cylinder thinking they could recoup their losses once they broke through the blockade and entered Kayaalid space."

"And they built that ship entirely in transit?"

"Ships that came through after them have complained of transit times lasting up to five standard Usormbaati hexadecadays. The Mezhained have shown the ability to build a new warship in similar time frames in the past, your excellency."

"Five hexadecadays to traverse the tunnel, and yet they exited before the estimated time. Travel time extended inside, but shortened outside..."

"Our sources in the Preservation Guild report no evidence of tampering with the entry point support spires," the shape said, anticipating her senior's questions. "They most likely manipulated the travel time from the inside."

This gave the old man pause. "Theoretically possible," he concluded. "Theoretically possible without violating the treaty." Salu detected a hint of bitterness from him. Bitterness that the Mezhained were his superiors when it came to the higher sciences.

"That's not all, your excellency. The ship's name..." She hesitated. "It's not from classical Mezhained. It's a transliteration from Yaviqaa, it means—"

"'The Threads of Causality'." There was a silence from the old man where dread and anger made their home. He stared so intensely at the data sheet that Salu expected two holes to burn through it. "He's mocking us. He named it that to mock and taunt us. He's telling us the Mezhained not only detected the juurinai error cluster, they're using it through that ship."

Restlessness from the longnecks. Feet stomped the ground, heads shuddered, and muffled ululations emanated from humps.

"Your excellency," the interpreter said flustered, "I cannot stress enough how our partners want to see that ship destroyed."

"That takes precedence over everything else," the old man said tersely. "Let us return and deliberate. Acolyte Oplutik, escort the intermediary out of here."

From deep within the privacy field the man that had guided Salu into the room trembled into existence. He gestured Salu to follow and without a word led him outside the derelict building.

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