The air below deck was rank with chi, the sweat of marines, the vague cabbage stink of the Guildsmen’s “nutrients.” She tied her kerchief around her mouth, fighting the familiar nausea. The Lotusman led her down a long hallway pocked with doors, into what she presumed was an infirmary.
The light was low, tungsten buzzing inside amber housings above her head, the faint rumble of the engines pitching a tent behind her eyes and helping to stoke her growing headache. A long cot stretched along her right-hand side, racks of strange lead-gray apparatus lining the walls. Gauges and dials and lengths of pipe snaking down the wood and into the flesh of the figure on the cot. There was a sheet of opaque gauze draped over the bed like a mosquito net; the figure behind it was only a silhouette swathed in what she presumed must be bandages. The stink of antiseptic hung in the air like smoke.
The figure shifted as she entered, making the pipes and cables plugged into his flesh quiver obscenely; the shadows of metal serpents writhing on the gauze.
“Kitsune Yukiko.” Formal tone, his voice stronger than it had been since the accident. She couldn’t see the face, but she recognized Kin nonetheless. “Thank you for coming.”
“How do you feel?” Yukiko kept her voice neutral, conscious of the Lotusman and its Sendoku hovering by her side.
“They tell me the fever has broken. The infection is not bad. It is a good thing the antibiotics in my pack lasted as long as they did.”
“. . . Hai. It is.”
“I wanted to thank you.” She could almost feel his stare through the curtain between them. “For keeping me safe. Wandering alone in the wilderness all that time could not have been easy. I am indebted to you.”
Kin had tilted his head slightly when he said the word “alone,” a subtle underscoring for her eyes only. Yukiko’s glance flickered to the Lotusman beside her.
She nodded, “Think nothing of it, Guildsman.” Cold. Distant. A good ruse.
She covered her fist with her palm and gave a small bow. Turning to leave, she refused to spare another passing glance for Kin. Better for the Guild to think they were simple strangers. Less trouble for him. Less trouble for her.
“Kitsune Yukiko.” The metallic rasp of the Lotusman’s voice pulled her up short at the doorway.
“Hai?” She glanced at it over her shoulder.
“The Kyodai also wishes to speak to you.”
“What is a Kyodai?”
“The rank and file of the Guild are called ‘Shatei,’ ” Kin explained. “Little brothers. The ones who look after us are ‘Kyodai.’ Big brothers.”
Yukiko looked at the Lotusman in its suit, those cold eyes of impassive glass.
“What does it want to speak to me for?”
“It was not my place to ask.” The Lotusman turned, walked out into the corridor. It motioned to the door at the end of the hallway. “Come.”
Kin’s voice was a whisper, so low she could barely hear it.
“Be careful, Yukiko-chan.”
Yukiko checked the tantō in her obi, then walked from the room.
The Kyodai’s quarters were opulent, trimmed in brass and stained teak. A small crystal chandelier in the ceiling swayed with the ship’s motion. Maps covered the walls: countries she had never seen, studded with small red pins and long arcs of black. A thick carpet woven with intricate designs lay on the floor, and Yukiko kept her eyes fixed on it as she entered the cabin. The weave pictured a multitude of arashitora silhouettes, solid black against a backdrop of pale blue. Shadows moved beneath the swinging bulbs, reaching out across the floor toward her.
“Kitsune Yukiko,” said a voice, thick and buzzing. Yukiko glanced up to the squat figure behind the low table. The Kyodai was fully suited, bloated belly sheathed in yards of glittering metal, fat fingers encased in elaborate gauntlets. If nothing else, the trim of the skin marked it as a senior Guild member. Extravagant gothic flourishes decorated its spaulders and cuirass, scrolled around the faceted, glowing eyes. Breath hissed through the filters on its back, punctuated by the occasional burst of chi exhaust. A stubby matt-black iron-thrower lurked in a holster on its belt.
“Guildsman,” she answered, eyes returning to the floor. She did not kneel. “Leave us,” the Kyodai ordered.
The Guildsman at Yukiko’s side touched two fingers to its forehead, rasped,
“The lotus must bloom,” and clanked out the door.
“Do you like it?”
Yukiko glanced up at the Kyodai. It nodded to the carpet beneath her feet. “Very pretty, sama.” She used the term of respect, hoping to impress. “Morcheban,” the Guildsman mused. “Taken from a gaijin castle last summer; spoils of the glorious war. It seems some of the barbarian aristocracy have a fondness for Shiman folklore.”
Yukiko couldn’t tell beneath the helmet, but she thought the Guildsman might be smiling. She found the smooth insectoid lines and empty, glowing eyes of its mask unsettling, so turned her gaze earthward and remained mute.
“I am Kyodai of this vessel. You may call me Nao. You are Kitsune Yukiko, daughter of Kitsune Masaru, the Black Fox of Shima.”
“Hai, sama.”
“It would trouble you, then, to learn that your father is in prison.”
Yukiko glanced up to the impassive mask.