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“skeleton” where their particular timber was required. Others lashed a continuous stream of bearers, burdened with massive tree trunks felled in the ever more distant forest, toward the timber shapers’ tools. Uul dropped from illness or exhaustion everywhere he looked, only to be trampled to death by those behind them. Some took quick, passing gobbets of flesh from the often still-moving dead.
    Kurokawa was sickened, but enthralled. Such discipline! Such symmetry! Such simple, mechanical grace! Grik industry was driven by a living Grik machine. When a part broke down or wore out, it quickly and automatically replaced itself with another! He felt himself on the very cusp of some profound revelation concerning the most fundamental nature of things. He was a naval officer but also an engineer, and the complexity of machinery had fascinated him even as a child. Here, however, was a machine that appealed to him in an almost spiritual way, not because it was complex but because of its almost perfect simplicity. He still considered himself piously devoted to his emperor and had utter faith in Hirohito’s divinity, but he felt close to some sort of personal . . . reformation.
    He paused a moment, peering into the immense basin. The labor underway down there was of another sort entirely, utilizing completely different materials and techniques. It was also, of necessity, using a lot of his own men. They were the overseers in this case, each with a team of translators and runners, but as miserable as the working conditions were on the expanding plain above, it was pure hell down in “the Hole.” Some of his precious men had actually died just from the heat! He didn’t consider them “precious” for their own sakes. As far as he was concerned, most were traitors. If that were not the case, he would still have the mighty battle cruiser Amagi at his disposal. They had failed in their duty to him and the emperor by allowing her destruction at the pathetic hands of—
    He forcibly calmed himself, taking deep, flared-nostril breaths. He’d begun to realize that his tantrums accomplished little. They terrified and intimidated his men but had no effect on the Grik. Besides, he always felt drained after they ultimately ran their course. Better to hold the hatred in, let it help fuel him. In any event, what made the treachery of those who died of something as ridiculous as heat even more egregious was that Amagi ’s survivors were “precious” only as an irreplaceable resource. Their value was reckoned in respect to what they knew, by what they could do for him to elevate his prestige and secure his position. There were too few of them left as it was, and after the last “culling” following their defeat at Baalkpan, he had fewer than four hundred. He needed to use them sparingly, but he did need some for this . . . and other ambitious programs. He grimaced and resumed his leg-slapping stroll.
    Another man carefully paced Kurokawa, trying to stay just slightly behind but close enough to hear any possible word that might pass his true commander’s lips. He was taller, slimmer, and unlike Kurokawa, who always wore the dark blue, increasingly elaborate uniform made by the finest Grik tailors, his was white, and still genuine Imperial Navy issue. The man’s name was Orochi Niwa, and he’d recently rocketed from the rank of a lieutenant of Amagi ’s small SNLF (Special Naval Landing Force) contingent to “General of Hunters” in the army of the Grik. Regardless of his new rank and the . . . army . . . he served, he was fully aware who—literally—owned his life. He had no illusions that Kurokawa liked him or even really trusted him; Kurokawa would sacrifice him without remorse if he perceived the slightest reason or advantage. The only purpose for his exalted status was that Kurokawa knew he himself couldn’t actually be everywhere at once, and he’d instituted far too many “projects” to personally oversee. Besides that,