Fox Snare, page 10
I narrowed my eyes at her. “So all that stuff about Jasujeong being in a strategic location is hot air?”
“It is strategic,” she conceded. “It sits on top of a major Gate nexus. That alone would be enough to have the Thousand Worlds and Sun Clans vying over it. But the dreadnought is the real prize, and what makes Jasujeong unique.”
I digested this. I didn’t like having something this important kept from me when it came to a mission I was supposed to be an integral part of. Had Seok known and purposely left me in the dark, or had he been ignorant as well?
I was getting distracted by a side issue. Whatever Seok had or hadn’t known, he wasn’t aboard the Haetae. I had to make the most of the situation.
“Then my job,” I guessed, “is to show up and destroy the Sejong-Daewang so no one can have it?”
“The minister of defense believes the ship has much to offer us as a historical artifact,” Miho said. “Lost technologies that can help us build better ships, bigger cities. But the Sun Clans ambassador feels differently. If it were up to her, the ship would be cindered to prevent anyone from tipping the balance of power.”
As she spoke, I made two piles of almond cookies, one for the Sun Clans and another for the Thousand Worlds. I laid a spoon in between, to represent Jasujeong and its dreadnought.
Miho’s quirked lips suggested that she’d figured out why I was playing with my food.
“This isn’t the kind of thing that the Thousand Worlds government is going to let me decide,” I said, “ ‘Bearer of the Dragon Pearl’ or not.” The Thousand Worlds government didn’t have an especially high opinion of me as a person, let alone as a fox spirit. Making me a Domestic Security agent had been a last-resort stopgap as far as they were concerned.
“No, it’s not.”
“How were they planning to stop me from destroying the ship?” All evidence suggested that they didn’t trust my better nature.
“Well,” Miho said with a touch of wry humor, “they weren’t planning on telling you about it.”
I picked up one of the Thousand Worlds cookies (or so I had labeled them in my head) and pulverized it. Crumbs dusted the table. Something didn’t add up. “It would be very easy,” I said, “for me to accidentally vaporize a ship I didn’t know was there!”
“The minister of defense is hoping to have removed it before we get there. Without, I might add, the Sun Clans ambassador realizing what happened.”
“Sounds like a great way to start a peace treaty,” I said sarcastically.
“Regardless, the Sejong-Daewang won’t be a factor by the time we arrive. So you see, there’s no need for you to worry about it.”
Miho smiled impersonally at me, and I knew I was dismissed. I took one last cookie for the road and headed out.
Only after I’d left the room did I realize that Miho had never said how she felt about preserving the ship.
We reached Asa-Achim, the station that orbited Jasujeong, in the middle of the night, ship’s time.
I stole a glimpse of the station during our approach. It was a vast cylindrical structure with an outer shell and an inner one. The outer shell rotated to simulate gravity, a design that a number of older stations and bases used. Modern stations relied on artificial-gravity generators instead.
I was awake to see it because Ensign Hak had told us the ship’s ETA ahead of time. Besides, I was used to keeping odd hours thanks to the rigorous training regimen of my childhood. My friend Jee always looked horrified when I told him about being roused by my parents in the middle of the night to run evacuation drills. At the time I had known that my life might someday depend on my preparedness.
So I was at the airlock with Ensign Hak, in the dress version of my cadet’s uniform, wide-awake despite a tiny complaining voice in the back of my head that observed I’d only gotten half my allotment of sleep. I remembered what Captain Chaewon had said about the honor of tigers everywhere riding on this. I couldn’t afford any more screwups.
I was hardly the first to arrive. Captain Chaewon stood to the side like a dignified statue. She wouldn’t be accompanying us to the station, but she was seeing us off.
Next to the captain stood Dragon Councilor Gwan, their apprentice Haneul, Assistant Minister of Defense Yang Miho, and Min, in that order.
Haneul looked as tense as I felt. I overheard Gwan murmuring to her, “Remember, your behavior reflects on me.” No wonder Haneul was stressed all the time. Min, on the other hand, yawned openly, unfazed by the gravity of the mission.
A voice came over the intercom. “Station Asa-Achim gives you permission to board.”
The hatch opened and the ramp extended into the station. At first all I saw was a surfeit of light, tinted golden like the sunlight on the planet where I’d grown up. Nothing like the sterile white light aboard the Haetae, which I had gotten used to over time.
One by one we trooped out into the station’s docking bay. I tried not to stiffen at the assault of unfamiliar smells. Sweat, grease, dirt, rust—those I knew. But mingled with these were curiously gardenlike fragrances, as of flowers and nearly ripe fruits.
For that matter, the docking bay itself troubled me. The proportions seemed wrong, as though the place was too wide, the ceiling slightly too low. The decorations included installations of the flowers I had smelled, perfuming the air and leaving a snowdrift of pink-white petals everywhere.
“Move forward,” Ensign Hak hissed at me, and I was jolted out of my trance. “Good-bye and good luck!”
I could tell from the slight hesitation that she had almost said Good hunting, as though this were a military mission. I hoped that wasn’t a bad omen.
As I began moving obediently, the realization hit me. This station—or this part of it, anyway—hadn’t been built by people from the Thousand Worlds. The architects must have come from the Sun Clans. I only had the faintest clue what Sun Clans architecture looked like, but it was the only explanation that made sense. This was a jointly held station.
I caught sight of the Sun Clans ambassador at the head of the welcoming party with her entourage. She couldn’t have been anyone else. Her layers of robes were embroidered with the same five-petaled blossoms that grew, incongruously, in the docking bay. Accompanying her was a sturdy person in a practical gray uniform that I didn’t recognize as either Sun Clans or Thousand Worlds. Pirate? I wondered, but that seemed even more unlikely.
“I’m Ajin,” said the person in gray, “currently administrator of this station. I welcome you all aboard. Follow me.”
Ajin had a dry voice almost devoid of emotion. But they smelled honest, if first impressions were good for anything, and I instinctively liked them. Maybe it was Ajin’s military bearing.
Of course, my uncle had also had a military bearing, and I had liked him from the moment I first met him, and that hadn’t turned out well.
As we walked, Min dawdled until we were side by side, taking advantage of the group’s disorganization.
“Hello?” I said in an undertone, wondering what she wanted. I liked Min, but trouble followed her wherever she went. Then again, the same could be said of me, despite my best efforts.
“I’ve been trying to find you! Where have you been?”
Busy with my duties, because I have things to do, unlike some people. But I stopped myself from saying that. As occupied as I’d been on the ship with classes and routine maintenance tasks, I was hardly essential personnel on a mission like this, and I knew it. I consoled myself that standing around and smiling politely at people would at least be easy, if boring.
“You need to—”
At that point, I became aware that the diplomat to my left was shooting us curious glances.
“Is there something wrong with the accommodations?” the diplomat asked.
“Nothing wrong,” Min said quickly. “Just catching up with a friend, that’s all. Sebin—”
I couldn’t very well quicken my step and walk ahead of her, given that she was much more important than I was. Instead, I mumbled an “Excuse me” and dropped back to bring up the rear. The smell of her frustration wafted back to me, but she resumed her walk.
The halls of the station gave me the same sense of alienness, and it was difficult to lower my guard. I realized with alarm that someone was piping in music, and the sounds, too, were alien. My family hadn’t been particularly musical, but the Matriarch had sometimes allowed us to listen to recordings of solo singers accompanied by the gayageum, a traditional plucked zither, and occasionally also the piri, a traditional wooden flute. This music featured some kind of Sun Clanner stringed instrument, which someone had mentioned was called a biwa, but beyond that I knew nothing useful. Pretty, in a melancholy sort of way.
With a start I realized that Ajin had been speaking, although I had been too distracted by the disconcerting sights and sounds and smells to pay attention to the chatter up front.
“You might be interested in the music,” Ajin was saying.
“The performer is one of those rare people of both Thousand Worlds and Sun Clans heritage, and she has made it her life’s mission to learn instruments from both sides and perform in a multiplicity of styles.”
All too soon we arrived at a banquet hall. This reminded me of the reception that Haneul and I had crashed back on Station Ssangyong, and yet it, too, was alien. Trees in large pots had been arranged around the hall’s perimeter, featuring more of those five-petaled pink flowers.
The decor didn’t resemble anything I’d seen in the Thousand Worlds. The five traditional colors that we favored were black, red, blue, green, and yellow. Here, everything from the wallpaper to the tablecloths was in gentle pastels—pinks and lavenders and soft sea greens. The very colors discomfited me.
The music was louder here, although not so loud that it made it difficult to understand conversation. It came from speakers arranged around the hall. With my keen hearing, I could pinpoint the location of each and every one.
More than anything else, though, the smells overwhelmed me. Unfamiliar fruits and vegetables, meats in strange sauces, and . . . that wasn’t raw fish, was it? At least the rice was familiar. Mingled with them were Thousand Worlds dishes, from sautéed bracken fiddleheads to mandu dumplings, and, of course, gimchi.
The only incongruous thing were the guards, dressed in utilitarian gray uniforms similar to Administrator Ajin’s. They circulated in a pattern that I recognized was meant to maximize coverage of the area, rather than being as random as it might look at first glance. One of them, perhaps trying for festive cheer, had a spray of blossoms tucked behind his ear.
“After a long journey,” Ajin said, gesturing expansively at the banquet laid out for us, “the least we can do is offer you the hospitality of the station.”
It was the middle of the night, so I was hardly hungry. I couldn’t imagine that anyone else was, either. Well, maybe the Sun Clans delegation was. I had no idea how their timekeeping worked.
“We’re honored,” the Sun Clans ambassador said with a radiant smile. “To be honest, I’m famished.”
Whether or not she was telling the truth, we understood the cue. I trailed after Min, feeling superfluous. I would much rather have joined the gray-uniformed guards circulating through the hall than be cadet-shaped eye candy. But Captain Chaewon had made my role clear, and I was determined not to disappoint her.
While Min struck up a conversation with some Sun Clans guard, who looked just as uncomfortable as I felt, I made a show of picking up a plate and dishing some food onto it. I told myself that none of it would be poisoned, which was probably true. Besides, my family had taught me that tiger spirits were immune to most toxins. I knew it was unlikely anyone was watching me all that closely, but I made a point of picking up things I didn’t recognize to show I wasn’t afraid.
You didn’t prepare me for this, I thought at my long-ago family. Only now did it occur to me that neither my grandmother, the Matriarch, nor my parents, nor my aunt Sooni, had ever specified exactly who our enemies were. I’d simply gone along because I hadn’t known any better.
Well, I thought glumly, it’s not like I’m going to see any action on this mission. I looked around at the milling guests and guards. To be honest, I expected the hardest part of my job would be concealing my boredom with the song and dance of negotiations and people talking everything to death. None of my training was going to do me any good here. If I was lucky, there might be a firing range or a rec room where I could keep in fighting shape, assuming that wouldn’t jeopardize the peace talks.
It turned out that the real problem with the mystery food wasn’t its taste. I tried one of the rolls of vinegar rice, raw fish, and seaweed with a dab of some green spicy substance and discovered I liked it very much, to the point where I wondered if the recipe was a state secret. (But really, if the fish was raw, how much of a secret could its preparation be?)
No—the real issue was that I had no idea how to eat some of the tantalizing foodstuffs. At least the utensils were the same spoon and chopsticks that we used in the Thousand Worlds. I had heard that some nations used different ones, but I found such a thing difficult to picture. Imagination isn’t my strong point. The Sun Clans had dumplings similar to our mandu, which someone let slip were called gyoza.
Some of the other delicacies, however, stumped me. Was I supposed to eat the slippery seaweed salad with rice, or by itself? Was it okay to use the green spicy paste on other foods, or was that strictly for use with the raw fish? Was sucking down the delicious noodles okay, and should I drink the broth directly from the soup bowl?
After fifteen minutes, I realized that no one was paying attention to my manners. Or if they were, mine weren’t notably worse than those of the other people in the delegation. Min, for instance, happily slurped her noodles, so I decided to follow her lead.
I was starting to relax and pay attention to the conversation rather than the food and the awkwardness of being among strangers. I’d had to get over my insular background before—I’d been raised on the Matriarch’s estate, and the only visitors she allowed were family—when I joined the Space Forces, but in fact, I had only traded one family for another, that of the Haetae and its crew. I hadn’t actually spent much time around anyone else.
I’d lost track of Min again. Thankfully, she wasn’t hard to locate. After scanning the room, I spotted her over by the gyoza. She moved around a lot. Apparently, she had more of an appetite than I did. Then again, I imagined that the Bearer of the Dragon Pearl could keep her own schedule. Stay up all night (ship’s time) playing video games and wake up at noon. Maybe she hadn’t gotten a proper dinner the way I had.
Other than Haneul, who was following the dragon councilor like a faithful if resentful shadow over on the other side of the banquet hall, Min was the only person close to my age. I was so focused on her, and so confounded by the elegant but alien surroundings, that I almost jumped out of my skin when the Sun Clans ambassador floated up next to me.
“We haven’t been introduced, Cadet,” she said in very good Hangeul. Certainly much better than my nonexistent Nihongo, the major language of the Sun Clans. “I imagine you know who I am.”
I was instantly wary. “Of course, Ambassador.”
“You’re the tiger cadet, aren’t you?”
It discomfited me that she knew that about me, even though every single person on this diplomatic mission would have been vetted three times over. She probably had a dossier on all of us. I wondered what mine said.
“That’s correct, Ambassador,” I said at my politest.
“What do you think of the peace mission?”
She was certainly direct. I would have appreciated the quality in anyone else, anytime else, but right now I felt put on the spot. “It will be good for both our nations.” A rote response, and I doubted it convinced her.
The ambassador began to say something when she was interrupted by the blare of alarms. The soothing music—I’d already developed a taste for it—and the gentle, sunlike light were replaced by flashing red lights like a bloody tide.
“What—” I began to say, realizing I had no idea where the exits were, or what the evacuation protocols were for this station. No one had briefed me on them.
I couldn’t tell whether the Ambassador had blanched, or whether that was a trick of the light.
Before either of us could get out another word, a tremendous concussive explosion thundered from outside the banquet hall. More sirens went off. A shock wave passed through the hall and swept the dishes with their delicacies off the tables.
I shifted into my tiger form and knocked the ambassador down, no doubt a diplomatic gaffe in itself, although I only intended to protect her from any flying shrapnel. She made a muffled sound of protest, quickly stifled. Perhaps she realized what I was trying to do.
Above the shrieks and tumult, I heard Ajin’s bellow: “Everyone follow the path lights to the escape pods! The station is no longer secure. I repeat, the station is no longer secure.”
We’re under attack, I thought, stunned. I had a moment to wonder why the explosion hadn’t taken out the banquet hall itself—surely the most decisive way to snuff out the peace talks. But there was no time to think, or to investigate.
I shifted back into human form and rolled off the ambassador.
“Go,” she cried. “My people will escort me.” Indeed, two Sun Clans guards, their eyes wild, were already advancing toward her.
I saw the lighted paths that Administrator Ajin had referred to, presumably leading to the escape pods. I hesitated, glancing back at the chaos. People were shouting, gesticulating, fighting. I had no idea what was going on.
Then Min and her bodyguard caught up to me. “Come on, Sebin!” she hissed, grabbing my arm.
Another explosion thundered. That decided the matter. I wouldn’t be of any use if I stayed here. I would follow the administrator’s orders. “This way!” the bodyguard shouted. Together, she, Min, and I sprinted toward the pods.
