Old Mars

He tilted his head and left, having comprehensively dissed a professor. Under other circumstances, Sally would have found it humiliating: the glyph on the building he’d pointed out was roughly translatable as Veterinary Science. Of course, it also meant Engineering Malfunctions and Their Remedies.

“Tom was kidnapped by veterinarians?”

The building itself was old enough that it had high, arched windows, filled with foam-rock aeons ago. Most of it was included in the later dome, but a tower reared high above, a smooth stone cylinder that flared outward at the top like a gigantic tulip.

“Ah,” Teyud said. “Yes. A straightforward entry has limited possibilities. But there are alternatives available.”

“What alternatives?”

“There are advantages to being of the Thoughtful Grace genome, which compensate for the increased caloric intake necessary.” She frowned in thought and ate another flower. “In your terms … I am owed favors and have serious mojo with the local Coercives in the service of the Despot.”

“They’ll intervene?” Sally said, surprised and pleased.

“Not directly. But … off the books.”

“I would have preferred a high-altitude insertion with directional parachutes,” Teyud said a few hours later. “There is a small but calculable risk of the airship’s being spotted.”

“No,” Sally said; that was less impolite in Demotic.

The blimp was very nearly silent; the engines were panting—literally—because they’d pulled it into a position upwind and were now drifting with the breeze quietly and slowly toward the Scholarium. Zar-tu-Kan passed below the transparent compartment in the belly of the dirigible, less stridently bright than a Terran city from the air, a mystery of soft glow and points of light. It was cold, well below zero, but the robes and undersuit were near-perfect insulation. Only the skin across her eyes was exposed, and that only until …

Teyud extended a case unclipped from her belt. Sally winced slightly but bent forward. The lid snapped open, and tentacles swarmed out and webbed around her face. The optical-beast pulled itself out of the case with a sticky plop and settled firmly; it only weighed a couple of pounds, and it felt like the slightly tacky play-goo kids used. Everything went blank, and there was a slight sting at her temples as the fine tendrils plugged into her veins. Another sting at the corners of her eyes, and a sensation like blurs of static and a very brief headache as even finer filaments integrated into her optic nerves.

Then everything went brighter, like an overcast day. Teyud glowed very slightly; the animal sensed ambient heat as well as magnifying light.

“Functioning,” she said.

If she looked anything like Teyud, she was now giving a fair imitation of a Bug-Eyed Monster from an ancient magazine cover; the optic the Thoughtful Grace wore turned the upper part of her face into a smooth bulging surface like the eyes of an insect … which was more or less what it was. This was Imperial-era military tembst, and Teyud had said there was a very slight possibility it would kill Sally when she tried to use it, despite her providing a blood sample for prior authorization.

Too small a probability for serious consideration, was the way she’d put it.

The intercom whistled, then said: “Coming up on target. Prepare to deploy. I express a desire that random factors eventuate in a favorable pattern.”

Satemcan whimpered slightly as Teyud picked him up, and he clamped on to her harness with both paw-hands. Sally checked her equipment; her sword was across her back, in that cool-looking position that meant you had to be careful to not slice off your ear when you drew. She wore a native dart pistol, after a bit of an argument from Teyud. Her own Colt had a much higher rate of fire—it didn’t depend on a chamber generating methane. On the other hand, shooting someone with a bullet didn’t drop them instantly, and it was much louder.

Cables uncoiled from the roof of the assault transport’s ceiling. Sally clipped one to her harness and gripped it in her gloved hands.

Down below, the dome of the Science Faculty glowed like an opal beneath the moon—Phobos was up here, a third the size of Luna from Earth, and Deimos crawled past it. The airship’s props whirred briefly as it corrected course.

“Deploying … now!”

The transparent doors beneath them opened, and her weight came onto the harness. The cable dropped away, coiling into space, and dangled as they approached the swelling top of the tower. Teyud’s head moved, calculating.

“Now,” she said, and squeezed the release.