Venus Time: 16:14, March 22, 2295

  ISV Polaris, Upper Atmosphere Descent

  The Polaris dropped through gold.

  Venus's clouds churned amber beyond the clinic's viewport, pressing against the hull like something alive. Jabari gripped the cot's edge as a jolt rocked the deck, his teeth clicking together hard enough to taste copper.

  Diego's voice crackled over the intercom. "órale, everyone strapped in? Atmospheric entry in thirty seconds. Se va a poner feo, pero—you know. Relax."

  "He says that every time, hey?" Jabari muttered.

  The clinic was two cots, a folding partition, and cabinets bolted to the walls with magnetic latches that rattled in the turbulence. Nikki's desk terminal sat in the corner, its screen casting pale light. A half-empty cup of black tea trembled beside it.

  Nikki pressed her fingers into his side, checking the tissue density on her scanner. The bruise from Brynhild's symbiote-limb had faded from purple to jaundice yellow over three weeks, but it still sang when he twisted wrong. "Healing well," she said. "Micro-fractures are sealed. Another few days and—"

  A bang from the corridor. Then a voice, high and panicked: "Doctor! Doctor Chakraborty!"

  "Corporal Liang." Nikki responded cautiously, nodding towards the door.

  A Constable stumbled through the clinic door with blood sheeting down his forehead and his colleague holding him upright by the belt. The man's face was split above the left eyebrow, a flap of skin hanging loose where he'd connected with something metal.

  "He went headfirst into the bulkhead frame," the Constable said. "Turbulence caught him mid-step. Medi-Vap didn't work fast enough."

  "Sit him down. Pressure on the wound." Nikki was already moving, scanner abandoned on the desk, her hands reaching for the trauma kit on the wall. She glanced back at Jabari. "Stay put for me. I haven't cleared you yet."

  She guided Liang onto the second cot, snapping on gloves as Liang groaned through his teeth. Blood dripped onto his black uniform's collar.

  "Corporal, follow my finger. Good. Pupil response is even. You're going to need sutures, but the bone's intact." She turned to the intact Constable. "Get me the dermal stapler from cabinet three—yes, that one! Hold his head still."

  Her back was to the desk. To the terminal.

  Jabari noticed it the way you notice a door left ajar.

  Her screen hadn't locked. Text glowed on the display. Formatted like a letter—formal header, body text, sign-off. The cursor blinked at the end of the last line, and the interface showed the composition toolbar of a Nucleus Watch messaging application mirrored to the desktop.

  The text on the screen read:

  {

  ?????? ??????? Natsukawa,

  ??? ?????????? ??? Jokull Diabolisk ??? ?????????? H?kon ??????? ????? ??????? ???? ????? ????, ??? ?????????????? ??????? ????????? ?????????? ?? ???? H?kon ????????? ???????? ??????? ? ?????????? ??????, ??? ? ???? ????????? ???????? ????? ????? Aether ???? ??

  ????? ?????? ??? ?? ????????? Dagny Fjeld ?????? ?????? ????????? ???? ?????, ?????? ?????? ???? ?????? Europa ?? ????????? ??????????

  ?????????? Dagny ????????? ??? ??? H?kon Skarn ???????? ??????? ?????, ?????? ?????? ??????? ?????? ???? ?????? ?????????? ??? ????????? ????????? ??? ????? ???? ????? ? ????????, ??? ? ???? ????? Xin ?????? ?????????? ???????? Rakshasa ????? —??? ?????? ???????? ???????

  ????? ????????,

  Nikki Chakraborty

  }

  The script was flowing, curved, dense with marks above and below the characters.

  Devavā?ī.

  Every Griot like Jabari learned to recognize all six psionic language families during foundational training. You didn't need to speak them, but you needed to know what you were hearing on a battlefield. Jabari could read Anansemka fluently, manage conversational Ordovox from his two years of missions in Europe, Earth. He could identify the others on sight. Full fluency of Devavā?ī, however, was Djinno territory. Rakshasa territory.

  Nikki was bent over Liang, stapler clicking. The Constable held a compress to the wound, face turned away. Neither of them could see him.

  Jabari leaned, like he was stretching his sore ribs. His eyes found the English words first, sitting in the Devavā?ī script like stones in a river:

  Natsukawa. Fuuka's last name.

  His pulse ticked up.

  H?kon.

  Another notch.

  Jokull. Dagny Fjeld. Europa. Skarn. Xin. Rakshasa.

  The Devavā?ī characters between them were dense, grammatically complex, mostly beyond him.

  He caught fragments: ????? meant heart or hearts, ??????? was weapon, and ???????? was something about compelling or urging…but the connective tissue, the verbs and subordinate clauses that would tell him who was doing what to whom, dissolved into script he couldn't parse fast enough.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  What he could parse was the sign-off.

  Nearby, Liang yelped. "Your fucking Buddha—it hurts—"

  "Almost done, Corporal. Hang in there for me." Nikki murmured. The stapler clicked again.

  Jabari's left wrist came up. The Nucleus Watch's camera interface was two taps away. He angled it toward the screen.

  Click.

  The holographic shutter confirmation blinked once and vanished.

  He dropped his wrist. Leaned back against the cot's backrest and let his face go slack—acting bored, half-asleep, the expression of a man waiting for a doctor to finish someone else's problem.

  "Finally…Buddha bless you, doctor. Buddha and all Ten of His Disciples bless you." Liang said as his wound got sealed, his pupils got checked again, and the other Constable hauled him out.

  "Make sure he lies down for at least an hour." Nikki peeled off her gloves, tossed them in the recycler, and picked up her scanner from the desk. Her elbow nearly brushed the terminal screen. She didn't look at it.

  "Sorry about that." She pushed her wire-rimmed glasses up her nose. "Where were we?"

  Jabari faced her. "You were telling me I'm healed."

  "Mostly. Let's see—" She pressed the scanner to his ribs one more time. "Swelling's down. Micro-fractures have sealed. You're cleared for full activity."

  "Full activity, hey?"

  "I'd say. You can swing that Moonstone Cutlass of yours without screaming." She gave him a look over her glasses. "Within reason."

  "Yo, doc, I rarely do anything within reason." Jabari managed a grin.

  "I've noticed." She powered down the scanner. "You're free to go. Try to stay in one piece on this planet."

  Jabari hopped off the cot. Rolled his shoulders. Flashed her a grin that felt like chewing glass.

  "Always do."

  He walked out of the clinic and didn't look back.

  The Polaris groaned around him. The hull vibrated with atmospheric resistance, and through every viewport the golden murk pressed close. He kept walking until he reached a junction where no one could see him, then stopped.

  He lifted his wrist. The photograph glowed on his Nucleus Watch. Devavā?ī script, blue-white against dark background. The English words sharp and clear.

  Natsukawa. H?kon.

  Dagny Fjeld. Somehow not Sigrun or the Brynhild they'd faced two weeks ago. A third person from that house he'd now learned to be wary of.

  Skarn. Rakshasa. Xin.

  And at the bottom: Nikki Chakraborty.

  He closed the image. Breathed out slow.

  The ship lurched again. Diego's voice returned: "Estamos cruzando la capa baja—about five minutes, people! Should smooth out after that. Bienvenidos a Venus!"

  Jabari slipped his hands into his pockets and headed for the cargo bay.

  Venus Time: 16:40, March 22, 2295

  Joint Force Encampment, Sulfur Valley, Northern Venus

  The heat hit Jabari the moment the cargo ramp lowered. Wet. Heavy. The air pushed into his lungs like warm cloth. His gray ballistic clothes stuck to his skin within a minute.

  Venus's cloud cover scattered sunlight into what looked like a sourceless amber glow. Gold on gold.

  The expedition poured onto the valley floor. Vanguard marines in white composite armor fanned out in pairs, rifles raised. Constables followed, looking considerably less confident. Diego stayed aboard, running post-descent diagnostics.

  "Those coolant lines? Took a beating during transit. Acid seals need recalibration too. This atmosphere eats titanium alloy pa' desayuno." His voice was directed at Xin, who stood at the base of the ramp with a toolkit slung over one shoulder and H?kon perched on the other. "Voy a necesitar tus manos on the software side, amigo. And those Riggers you mentioned."

  "I'll pull them together tonight," Xin said. "How long until this ship can fly again?"

  "Days. Maybe a week, depending on what the seals look like up close. Hay que ver."

  Xin nodded, already cataloguing on his Nucleus Watch. Jabari watched the Rigger's expression cycle through concern and thinking.

  H?kon looked excited on Xin's shoulder. His small head swiveled, scales shifting from their resting silver to a shimmering azure that contrasted the sky.

  "Pappa." His voice came out hushed. "Big Sky Fish land on gold world."

  "Yeah, buddy." Xin's voice softened. "That's Venus for you."

  "Every-thing gold." H?kon tapped his feet on Xin's dark olive shirt as his head tracked left, right, up. "Gold rocks. Gold sky. Gold dirt. Real gold, Pappa?"

  "Different kind of gold. Sulfur compounds, mostly."

  "Soul-fur," H?kon repeated solemnly, tasting the word, placing a tiny claw on his chin.

  Sigrun stood at the ramp's edge, Thermal Axe resting on her belt. Jabari caught the way her eyes swept the valley.

  "That's the city." she said.

  Through the golden murk, barely visible: a cluster of oriental structures breaking the flatness. Towers. Walls. The pulse of artificial light behind atmospheric haze.

  "Jin Syue. Twenty-three million people in there," Jabari said, stepping up beside her. "Biggest Imperium city on the planet."

  Sigrun's jaw was set, her eyes fixed on that distant shimmer. "So, a girl named Ume. Some scientist named Meiya. If we're lucky, they'll both be in there."

  "If. People on this planet usually aren't." Jabari quipped, but he was thinking about a photograph on his Nucleus Watch.

  Behind them, camp went up fast, and ugly. Volcanic grit crunched underfoot.

  Dilinur clutched her silver red Psi Fan in hand as she looked around the valley. The yurts were brought from Xing Hong's stores—round, sturdy, adapted to Venus's atmosphere with thermal lining and acid-resistant canvas. They went up in concentric rings around a central firepit, the perimeter marked with motion sensors and portable turret emplacements.

  "I suppose this will serve," she said, hands clasped around her folded fan, surveying the half-built camp. One could see she was unsatisfied. "For now."

  Thomas drove the first perimeter stake into the ground with a bionic fist, the metal ringing against volcanic rock. "We naming this place, Prefect? Or just calling it 'that spot where we parked'?"

  "Camp Yusuf." She said it without hesitation, as if she'd just pulled the name out of her pocket.

  Thomas raised an eyebrow. "Yusuf?"

  "A prophet who was thrown into a well by his brothers and emerged to rule a kingdom." She adjusted the cuff of her black silk robe. "I find the metaphor appropriate."

  Marcus, hauling crates of rations from the second Space Rover, paused long enough to nod. "I know the story. Genesis 37 of the Bible, the Story of Joseph. Betrayed, enslaved, but never broken."

  "A similar entry about Surah Yusuf exists in the Quran." Dilinur said, nodding at Marcus with a faint trace of a smile. "But yes."

  Iron Roach was somehow quiet. He'd been working since the ramp came down: hauling, hammering, stringing sensor wire. But when the last yurt went up and he stood at the camp's eastern edge, tools dangling from his belt, his cybernetic eyes behind the crimson sunglasses fixed on Jin Syue's silhouette and stayed there.

  Jabari drifted over. Casual. "You look like a man staring at an ex-girlfriend's house."

  Roach didn't move. "Spent two years stationed in that fancy cesspool. Back when I was still pretending to be a loyal Imperial officer." His voice was flat. "Acid Docks security. Worst posting they had."

  "And now you're back."

  "Didn't plan on it." Roach turned away from the skyline. "Seven districts. The Citadel for the prince. Golden Bazaar for trade. Lily Gardens for entertainment and everything you can whore. Jade Warrens for the middle class. Soot District for the poor. Acid Docks for cargo, smuggling, and anything the Imperium doesn't want to see. Temple Row for gods and ghosts."

  "And Rakshasa contacts," Jabari said.

  Roach gave him a look. "You know this rock's history?"

  "Did some Griot work on Venus. Before Mars." Jabari shrugged. "Temple Row came up in the briefings."

  "Then you know the Imperium doesn't run that city the way they run Chengdu. The Djinno population predates them by a century. Sanskrit next to Chinese characters on every fucking street sign. Temple bells beside Buddhist gongs." Roach's mouth pressed into a thin line. "Xing Hong's honest about what it is. Jin Syue pretends."

  "We're here for finding a way to defeat Skarn." Sigrun suddenly spoke.

  "Of course. Everything else's just distraction, am I right?" Jabari tilted his head.