The January Dancer

Suantraí: The Speed of Space

If a story begins in many places, the scarred man says, it will also continue in many places. Little Hugh and the Fudir, on their unwilling way to Jehovah, were caught up in a web of lies and deceits and, worst of all, of truths.

Little Hugh was a romantic, but only when it suited. When the circumstances warranted, he could be as cold-eyed a realist as anyone. Hadn’t he proven as much in the Glens of Ardow? It was only through the tear of sentiment that his vision blurred. And hadn’t he proven that, too, in the Glens of Ardow? If anyone could be called a cold-eyed romantic, it was Little Hugh O’Carroll. So his kidnappers took him farther and farther from New Eireann in more ways than one. His tenure there seemed to grow unreal, like time spent in Faerie, and his sulks gradually dampened, although what replaced them was not at first evident. It was better to dwell on the exigencies of the present, the realist in him declared, than on the injustices of the past; and he came to this epiphany while the sun of New Eireann was still visible to the ship’s telescopes. He borrowed a kit from Olafsson, and the ship’s intelligence even tailored him a set of coveralls. Thereafter, he began to explore the boundaries within which he had been so suddenly and involuntarily circumscribed, and that included the human boundaries.

The Fudir, he thought he had plumbed, but the doubts were always there, beneath the surface, for the Fudir was a doubtful man. The Terran seemed genuinely pleased that Hugh was aboard; but did the pleasure grow from friendship, or from something else? It was hard to tell. With him, there might be no difference between the friendship and the something else.

But Olafsson was another matter. He was the anti-Fudir, as displeased with Hugh’s presence as the Fudir was pleased; as remote as the Fudir was companionable; as simple as the Fudir was complex. And where the Fudir was a petty criminal, with all the scrambler’s swagger and carefree independence, Olafsson was a lawman, single-minded in his duty, humorless in its execution.

There was some game about between Olafsson and the Fudir. Hugh caught enough snatches of conversation to know that the Pup was interested in a man named Donovan, perhaps the man at whose trial the Fudir was to testify. But the Fudir contrived always to have Hugh about when Olafsson was present. This made the one reluctant to ask, gave the other an excuse not to answer, and produced no little unease in the heart of the third.

The Pup conducted a fine simulation of hospitality, and was so unobtrusive that half the time Hugh hardly knew he was about. Yet, he had shown himself on Eireannsport Hard capable of sudden and violent action. That made more sense than Hugh liked. As the Ghost of Ardow, who knew better how deadly the unnoticed man could be? Therefore, Hugh slept but lightly as the ship crawled toward the Grand Trunk Road. The airlock was uncomfortably close by, and the solution to “three’s-a-crowd” stunningly obvious to anyone sufficiently ruthless.

It was not until two days out of New Eireann that Hugh and the Fudir found themselves for the first time alone. They were in the refectory breaking fast when Olafsson was called to the saddle to deal with the entry onto the Grand Trunk Road. The Fudir had programmed the kuchenart to produce a vile Terran sauté of rice, potatoes, onions, green chilies, mustard, curry, and peanuts whose pungent odor the air filters struggled to overcome.

Hugh began to say something about the Dancer, but the Fudir cut him off with a sign. He fingered his ear and rolled his eyes toward the pilot’s room. Hugh nodded and brushed his lips.

Sighing, he rose from the table and went to the sideboard to brew more tea. The Fudir seemed disinclined to discuss either the Dancer or their current predicament, at least while Olafsson might be listening—and Olafsson might be listening at any time. “Did I ever tell you,” he said, “that for my first seven years I didn’t have a name?”

The Fudir grunted and looked up from his breakfast. “And now you have too many of them.”

Hugh took that as a sign of interest. “I was what they called a vermbino. I ran the streets with a gang of other boys, stealing food or clothing, dodging the pleetsya and the feggins, searching out bolt-holes where we could sleep or hide. The shopkeepers had guns, and we were nothing to them. Worm-boys. Now and then, they’d form…hunting parties. Oh, it was great fun dodging them, and the prize for winning was that you got to live and do it again the next day. That’s why Handsome Jack could never find the Ghost. Not when being found has been a death sentence almost from birth. I grew pretty good at it. Not all of us did.”

The Fudir shoveled a spoonful of the masala dosa into his mouth. “Did you ever know your parents?” he asked around the potatoes and onions.

“Fudir, I didn’t even know I had parents. I didn’t know what parents were. Then, one day—there were only three of us left by then in my…my pod—I tried to rob a man in the market along the Grand Canal. He was a lean man and carried a purse that he wore on a belt around his robe. So, I ran past him, slicing the belt on the fly, and grabbing the purse as it dropped. I was halfway to the alley when he called after me. He said…”

Hugh paused over the memory.

“He said, ‘Wait, you did not get it all.’ I turned and stared and he was stooped in the street, gathering some ducats that had spilled from his purse and was holding them out to me. Well, as I learned to say later, ‘time was of the essence.’ There were several people on their handies calling the pleetsya, and two others who had pulled knives of their own, though whether to restore the money to its owner or take it for themselves, I don’t know.”

“The nature of every animal,” the Fudir said, “is to seek its own interest; and if anyone or anything—be it mother or brother, lover or god—becomes an impediment, we will throw it down, topple its statues, and burn its temples. I don’t understand the man with the purse; but I understand the men with the knives. It was a mistake to stop and turn. You lost lead time.”

“Yes.” Hugh dropped into silence and studied his past as if from the outside, trying to recognize the vermbino as himself. He seemed to float in memory above the scene on the Via Boadai, looking down on everything: the men with knives, the passersby frozen in anticipation, the robe with his hand outstretched, most of all the vermbino poised in flight. “I don’t know why,” he said. “To this day, I don’t know why. But I ran to him, to the robe, I mean; and he threw his arms around me, warding off the two knife-men, and he said…He said, ‘Would you like to have a name?’” Taken by surprise at the immediacy of the recollection, at the echo of that voice in his memory, Hugh turned away.

“And that was your first name. What did he call you?”

“Esp’ranzo, the Hopeful One. I thought he must have seen something in me to give him hope.”

“Your initiative,” the Fudir guessed. “Your daring, your survivability. He may have been a priest of the Darwinists, naturally selecting you because you had survived.”

“No, I asked him once, years later when I brought him a beneficio from my father; and he said that he had the hope before he had the boy.”

“And your father was della Cossa.”

“Della Costa. Shen-kua della Costa. He came to the home where the robes kept several boys like me and he lined us up and walked back and forth in front of us, and then he crooked his finger at me. He took me to the family compound, and they dressed me up in red quilted clothing, put golden rings on my fingers, and had a feast where they toasted me with wine and tea, as if I had just been born.”

“And so you became Ringbao della Costa. And later…”

“There were office-names. Those, I usually chose myself. I was Ludovic IX Krauzer when I was deputy finance minister on Markwald, Gessler’s Sun. I was Slim—just ‘Slim’—when I was education minister on Jemson’s Moon, Urquart’s Star.”

“And now you’re Hugh O’Carroll.”

He didn’t answer the Fudir, and the silence lasted while he steeped the tea ball. He waited for the Fudir to make some reciprocation, but the Terran had evidently not had a childhood, or at least not one that he wanted to talk about. Finally, the urgent call of the boiling water drew him back to the sideboard, where he prepared a cup. “Olafsson’s taking his time,” he said over his shoulder, but the Fudir made no reply.

The odor of the steeping tea was quite savory. The Eireannaughta were great tea-drinkers when not on the creature, but this smooth and fragrant flavor was something Hugh had not encountered before. Surely these leaves had been born on Peacock Junction or at least on Drunkard’s Boot. He brought the cup to his companion, who took a sip and scowled.

“It isn’t the real thing,” he said, indicating the cup with his hand but the passage to the pilot’s room with a toss of his head. “It smells funny. Why don’t you watch what you’re doing?”

Hugh nodded. Message received. Olafsson wasn’t a real Pup, and Hugh should be careful around him. The Fudir had hinted early on that the ship might not be Olafsson’s. He returned to the sideboard and made a cup for himself, using the last of the leaves in the canister. Of all his names, he decided, he liked Esp’ranzo the best.

He wondered what had led the Fudir to suspect Olafsson’s authenticity. Did he know Pups so well as to sniff out a false one? And what sort of person would dare such a pretense? Someone well north of harmless. Yet, the Fudir had gone with Olafsson willingly, so it must be something he had learned since boarding.

But if Olafsson was a fraud, there was no trial and the Fudir too was being abducted—for what purpose, the Terran either did not know or would not say.

Good fortune, then, that Voldemar had decided to press Hugh on board. The Fudir at least had someone with him to back his play.

When he upended the canister to tap the last of the leaves into the tea ball, Hugh’s fingers discovered an embossing on the bottom. Perhaps the logo of the tea-smith? Idle curiosity revealed a blank shield with a broad diagonal brushstroke across it. In ribbons above and below, writing that he could not make out. He turned the canister to catch the light at an angle, and the Fudir, attracted by the action, left the table and joined him.

The writing was Gaelactic. An Sherivesh Áwrihay. “The Service Particular.” Underneath the shield, a motto: Go gowlyona mé. “I would serve.” Hugh shook his head, and when the Fudir reached for the canister, he relinquished it.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” the Terran muttered; then continued in a whisper. “The Particular Service is the Kennel, the Ardry’s dogs.”

“So,” said Hugh aloud. “Then the blend is what it appears to be?”

The Fudir tossed the empty canister back to Hugh. “Either there’s more like that in stock, or that’s the end of it.”

Either Olafsson really was of “the Particular Service,” or his masquerade ran to such fine details as this. Hugh grunted. His companion was given to fits of subtlety; but the simplest explanation was that Olafsson really was a Pup.

What bothered the Fudir the most and, in more reflective moments, amused him the most was that it had been at his own suggestion that Olafsson had masqueraded as a Hound’s Pup. It had been meant only to make his removal from New Eireann more palatable—to Hugh, to the Eireannaughta, not least to himself. Now, it seemed, the Confederate agent pretending to be a Pup was likely a Pup pretending to be a Confederate agent pretending to be a Pup. Oh, there was recursion for you!

Now that he knew, much of what he had noted in passing made sense. He had thought this ship a hijacked vessel; but that it was in fact a Pup’s field office was the simpler explanation. And Olafsson’s evident sympathy for the Eireannaughta…A true servant of the Confederacy would have felt indifference, or perhaps a mild satisfaction at a Member State’s misfortune.

The real question was whether he was better off in the custody of a false Pup or of a genuine one. The Kennel was reputedly less ruthless than Those of Name; but that did not make them especially merciful, and it seemed to him that a Hound’s Pup would take a dimmer view of someone who had served the Names than a ’Federal courier would.

But Olafsson, genuine or not, wanted Donovan—and the Fudir was inclined to let sleeping Donovans lie. He was afraid, a little, of what might happen should the long-dormant agent be aroused. But so long as he was aboard Olafsson’s yacht, he was safe. Whether League Pup or Confederate courier, Olafsson needed him, and needed him agreeably hale—at least, until they reached the Corner.

After that, his options would open up.

Greystroke did not mind the Fudir’s evident complacency. The traitor knew he was in no immediate peril. Donovan was a door, and the Fudir was the key and, like all keys, must be kept carefully, at least until the lock was turned. Once Greystroke had learned from Donovan whether CCW ships had also been disappearing in the Rift, he could decide what to do about both men. There was some benefit to allowing a known agent to remain in place. Much could be learned by observing who he met and what he did. But there were advantages also in cauterizing a wound.

It was his other passenger who puzzled the Pup. O’Carroll, having shaken his initial distress, had resigned himself properly to the Fates, and seemed now to watch his companions with detached amusement. Greystroke did not know the reason for either the amusement or the detachment. There was, to put the matter Eireannically, something funny about his amusement.

One evening, as the ship slid down the Grand Trunk Road, Greystroke tracked O’Carroll to the library and invited him to spar in the exercise room. O’Carroll put the book he had been scrolling on standby. “I doubt I’d be much of an opponent,” he replied.

“Really? I was told you were a fighter.”

“Not that sort. Turn your back, and I can cold-conk you with the best of them. But I don’t brawl.”

“Hmm, yes. A guerilla fighter. Major Chaurasia told me you conducted a brilliant campaign against the government of New Eireann.”

“He lied.”

“It wasn’t brilliant…?”

“It wasn’t against the government. I was the government; Handsome Jack was the rebel. You shouldn’t listen to Chaurasia. When the ICC showed up, they took the rebel side. And their factor was hip deep in the original coup.”

“Ah. They do play a rough game.”

“History is written by the winners,” O’Carroll said. “Isn’t that what they always say? New Eireann never had a history before. I hope she never does again.”

Greystroke understood what he meant, but it was his intention to probe at the secret that the Fudir and O’Carroll so evidently shared. And for an introspective man like O’Carroll, that meant putting him on the defensive. “Washing your hands of it, eh? I don’t blame you.”

Anger flickered briefly on O’Carroll’s face. Or was it a grimace of pain? “I used to think it was important that I won,” he said. “Then I could write the history. After all, from a cosmic perspective, my position was right.”

“And ‘right makes might’?”

A brief smile—and that was a grimace of pain. “You’d think so. It certainly makes you unwelcome. But the gods don’t care. No, what it comes down to is this: Handsome Jack was shady and he wanted to dip his beak in the revenue stream and the Clan na Oriel ran an honest administration. But down in the bone, the difference between Jack and me was not worth the life of a single Mid-Vale farmer.”

“Whereas between either of you and the Cynthians…”

“Oh, gods, yes! That was a fight worth making—if there’d ever been a chance to make one. Nothing like slaughter to lend perspective.”

Greystroke reached for another chair and sat down across the reading table from O’Carroll. “So, you don’t want to spar?”

“Not that way.”

Greystroke started and recalled that the younger man had been trained in reading people by the famiglias of Venishànghai. He decided to try another angle. “What book is that you’re reading?”

“Fou-chang’s Illustrated Gazetteer of the Spiral Arm.” Hugh turned the screen so the Pup could see.

“Tribes and Customs of the Hadramoo,” Greystroke read the chapter title. “They’re a nasty lot,” he agreed. “So, what will you do now?”

O’Carroll turned both hands palm up. “Contact the Home Office, I suppose, and see if they have a position for me. That’s if they haven’t torn up my contract. Always opportunities for a Planetary Manager.”

“Or for an experienced guerilla leader.”

O’Carroll laughed. “Yes. Well, they’re both interesting work, though the retirement plan is better in the one.”

“You don’t sound very confident. About getting your contract renewed, I mean.”

“By now, The O’Carroll Himself—she’s a hard woman with no sense of humor—will have gotten the quitclaim from the ICC and vacated our contract rights. I wish I knew why it’s called a ‘golden parachute.’ The Fudir tells me it’s from an old Terran language, but he doesn’t know what it means, either. Well, legal documents are full of terms from old dead languages. But the Home Office can’t have been pleased with me fighting the hostile takeover. So, maybe I’ll find myself ‘at liberty,’ and go off with the Fudir to the Hadramoo.” He laughed a little bit at that.

Greystroke did not so much as blink. Off to the Hadramoo! the passing bicyclist had cried as Fudir had led him up New Street Hill. He glanced again at the screen O’Carroll was reading. No, the man did not expect renewal. Off to the Hadramoo? Were they mad? Or planning a career move…? He tried to imagine the two men as pirates. Fudir, he thought, could pull it off, but not Hugh. Piracy required a certain degree of thoughtlessness. “Yes,” he ventured, “Fudir said something about that.”

“He told you, did he?”

“Only in passing. He said that once he’s done giving his testimony, he plans to go to the Hadramoo and…” By artfully slowing his cadence, he left a hesitation at the end for O’Carroll to fill.

“And get that fool statue back from the rievers.” O’Carroll laughed and shook his head.

Greystroke concealed his satisfaction. His perplexity was another matter. “You didn’t reach New Eireann until after the Cynthians had gone. How could they have taken his…”

“Oh, it wasn’t his. He went there to get his hands on it, but the pirates beat him to it. He was going to smuggle me back on-planet, and I would get him into Cargo House. That was our quid pro quo. He’s a romantic; a believer in fables.”

Greystroke recalled what he had overheard when he met with the Committee of Seven on Jehovah.

Perhaps the Fudir was right about the Twisting Stone…

He understood now. The Fudir had been planning to steal this statue—the Twisting Stone?—to sell to some wealthy art collector on Jehovah who had commissioned the theft. Such petty criminality was hardly worth a Pup’s effort but, technically, inter-system crime fell within the Kennel’s jurisdiction, and who knew? Shake a tree, and low-hanging fruit might drop in your lap. Greystroke had been born on Krinth, where Fate ruled all, and the random concatenations of the universe always worked to an end. As a youth, he had thrown the yarrow stalks, rolled the urim and the thummin, cast the horoscope, spattered the rorshacks, and always the runes had yielded a meaning—or could have a meaning read into them—but what it came down to in the end was that if you didn’t shake the tree, you’d never get the fruit.

“A believer in fables…?” he prompted.

“Oh, the statue is a prehuman one, and has a tale associated with it.”

“They all do. It must be very valuable.”

“Sure, and it was. January—he was the tramp captain we shipped with. He found it way out in the back of beyond, if you can believe him—oh, maybe a dozen fortnights ago. But he had to trade it to Jumdar in exchange for ship repairs and a percentage of the eventual price. The barbarians took it from her.”

“Are the Kinlé Hadramoo art lovers, then?” Greystroke asked.

O’Carroll flipped his hands. “They do love splendor; but from what I’ve been told, this Dancer is not very splendid. January said it looked like a sandstone brick, when it wasn’t twisting itself into a pretzel.” O’Carroll laughed. “There was a replica of the Ourobouros Circuit in the vault—a much prettier prize, if you ask me, though a man might get dizzy looking at it—but the rievers didn’t take it.”

“Well, a replica isn’t valuable like an original. The ICC must have adopted the Circuit as a corporate symbol. I’ve seen copies of it in several of their facilities.”

“Considering what they paid House of Chan, they had to do something with it. Isn’t Lady Cargo a collector of prehuman artifacts?”

“I’ve heard that she has a private museum on Dalhousie Estates.” And Greystroke suddenly flashed on the Molnar, garish in his jewels and mascara, repeating the ICC factor’s boasts. They “would settle things in Cynthia, now that they had the Twister.” So the barbarians had not grabbed the statue in passing. They had gone to New Eireann intending to snatch it. The Molnar had thought it a weapons system, and must have been greatly disappointed to find only a statue, and an unlovely one, at that.

Yet, why should the ICC factor have made such a boast? Greystroke could not imagine that the unruly clans of the Cynthia Cluster would submit to ICC dictates simply because Sèan Company held an impressive art collection.

The mystery deepened that evening, when the intelligence alerted him to a whispered argument between the Fudir and O’Carroll. It had begun in the library and resumed when the Fudir had followed the younger man to his room. There, he had turned on the player, setting a round of Drak choral singing to high volume. The intelligence dutifully subtracted the music, and though it was unable to reconstruct most of the argument, the fragments it did recover were enough to reveal the gist of it. The Fudir was angry that O’Carroll had mentioned the Twister to Greystroke, and O’Carroll seemed amused at the anger.

’Tis but a fable, the Oriel manager had said.

We can’t take that chance. If it’s true, and the Cynthians learn—

—a matter for the Hounds—

And No! the Fudir had cried, incautiously overriding the intricate motet with which he had tried to blanket the words. Olafsson’s no Pup. He’s a Confederate agent! If this fell into Confederate hands, it would doom the League.

Greystroke considered that comment—and the Fudir’s loyalties—for some time before retiring.

The next day, Greystroke hosted a meal for his two passengers, during which he laid some of his cards on the table. The meat was a filet of Nolan’s Beast, a form of bison peculiar to Dangchao Waypoint, a dependency of Die Bold, and simulated by the intelligence from the protein vats. But the savor of any meat lies in the sauce, and that Greystroke had prepared himself from a roux of elderberry and mango from his own reserve. He served a black wine with the meal—Midnight Rose—and offered with it a toast: “On to the Hadramoo!”

The Fudir did not lift his glass. Instead, he gave O’Carroll a venomous glance. “Hadramoo’s not the healthiest place for travel,” he grumbled.

“Perhaps not, but certainly a place from which to recover stolen goods.”

The Fudir indicated O’Carroll. “He told you about January’s Dancer.”

“Some. The ship’s library filled in a bit more. King Stonewall’s Scepter. Do you really think it confers the power of obedience?”

“He does,” said O’Carroll, hooking a thumb at the Terran.

“But if it is true,” Greystroke said, fixing the Fudir with his glance, “it’s too dangerous to remain in the hands of the barbarians. Sooner or later, one of them may read a book.”

“Small risk of that,” said the Fudir, “but even more dangerous for you to have it.”

“Meaning the Confederacy. Have you forgotten your duty?”

The Fudir drew himself up stiff in his chair. “Dao Chetty oppresses my homeworld. I don’t want your reach to cross the Rift. Does that sound foolish and sentimental to you, Olafsson? Well, I’m foolish and sentimental.”

“He is,” agreed O’Carroll, but the Fudir stifled him with a glare.

“It does sound foolish,” Greystroke admitted, “to say such things to my face.”

“I might have led you to Donovan,” the Terran continued. “He dropped his coat years ago, but I might have led you to the man who could have led you to…But no matter. Whatever business you had with him, I will not permit you to go after the Dancer.”

Greystroke had relaxed into his seat at this tirade; now he permitted himself a smile. “You will not permit me? Do you think your permission would mean much to Those of Name?”

“Well,” said O’Carroll mildly, “he’d have my help.”

Greystroke blinked at him, then allowed himself a hearty laugh. “All right,” he said when he had wiped the amusement from his eyes. He was satisfied now about the two men. “Let me ease your mind.” And he reached into his pocket and brought forth his badge. The opal glowed a bright yellow.

The Fudir gave it only a glance. “I know a tinsmith in Bitterroot Alley who can cobble a better badge than that one.”

“May I?” said O’Carroll. Greystroke allowed him to handle the badge and the opal faded to a smoky gray.

“By the Fates,” Greystroke said, “the criminal mind is a slow one! Didn’t you wonder how I could masque myself as a Pup so quickly?”

“My mind was paralyzed,” the Fudir confessed, “at the terror of the Names.” Hugh choked on a swallow of wine and coughed it out. He handed the badge back to Greystroke. “I believe him,” he told the Fudir. “I think he really is a Pup.”

The Fudir pursed his lips. “You were very convincing,” he told Greystroke, “as a Confederate agent…Alright, so you’re a Pup. What should we call you? Not Olafsson, I hope.”

“My office-name is Greystroke.”

“So. And what happened to the real Olafsson?”

“Does it matter?”

“Not really; but what about the Other Olafsson? They travel in pairs, I’ve heard.”

“I’ve been watchful. There’s been…little sign of him.”

“Probably won’t be more than that until it’s too much.”

“I’ll be careful.” Greystroke finished his goblet of black wine and set it down. “I have a proposal to make.”

The Fudir, who had not touched his meal for some minutes, picked up his fork. “And what proposal is that?”

“I go with you to the Hadramoo, and you help me take the Twisting Stone from the Cynthians.”

Hugh choked again on his wine. “Three of us,” he said when he had recovered, “against an entire barbarian horde?”

Greystroke considered the matter. “We could use one or two others,” he admitted.

The Fudir grinned around a mouthful of food. “No, the Pup’s right, Hugh. We’d never take it by main force. We’ll have to go by stealth and trickery. And who better than a thief, a guerilla, and the man that no one sees?”

At Jehovah, Greystroke left his ship in parking orbit and he and his two deputies took the bumboat planetside. There, he sent them to secure lodging at the Hostel while he reported to the Port Captain.

Because they were on the Pup’s ducat, Hugh took a three-room suite at the Hostel, and he and the Fudir spent an hour preparing lists of supplies they would need for the Hadramoo venture. Hugh laid out a work structure breakdown and schedule with budgets and resources. He calculated the demand rate of three people for water, food, air, and other necessities, multiplied by the likely lead times for resupply at various ports of call, and applied a safety factor. He even included reasonable stocks of weaponry and ammunition. They planned to talk their way in and talk their way out, but it was just possible they might have to fight their way one direction or the other. He was in his milieu, and the Fudir was impressed.

“I was being groomed for a planetary manager position,” Hugh reminded him, “long before I took up the guerilla’s trade.”

When they were satisfied with the plan, the Fudir told Hugh to head over to Greengrow Street. “That’s where the wholesalers and outfitters have their entrepots. Do you know how to find it? Get a positioning wristband. No, don’t depend on the ’rickshaw drivers. They’ll take you three ways around the barn. Don’t worry about the cost. The Kennel has deep pockets. But don’t buy anything until I get there. These Jehovan dukāndars will cheat you blind and short you on your change just for the practice. You may be an assassin, but you’re too honest a man to deal with the likes of them.”

Hugh saved the list and slid the stylus into its sheath. “And what will you be doing the while?”

“I’ve business in the Corner to attend to, for the Pup.”

“He trusts you not to run off on him?”

“We’ve an understanding. Apparently, ships have been disappearing in the Rift. Greystroke’s boss thought the ’Feds were impounding them for some reason. Then they learned from a courier that the ’Feds have been losing ships, too, and wanted this Donovan to investigate.”

“That’s all?”

“The courier may have been a ruse. Greystroke wants to find out if they really have been losing ships or they just want the League to think they have. He needs Donovan to decrypt the data bubble and he needs me to find Donovan.”

“It all sounds…complicated.”

“Agents don’t walk around announcing themselves. It’s what Greystroke plans to do with him afterward that might make Donovan uneasy about surfacing. He dropped out of the Game years ago.”

“Now you’re going to pull him back in. A friend of yours?”

The Fudir made a face. “We’ve shared a room. Listen, you have two ears too many, and too much in between them for your own good. Sometimes it’s better not to know things. Wait for me in the lobby. I have to dress proper for this venture.”

Hugh had purchased a wristband from the Hostel’s notions shop and had just shaken hands with the positioning network when the Fudir stepped out of the lift tube. He had changed into a dhoti of pale blue checks and stripes and had smeared across his forehead a broad band of charcoal and, above it, a tripunda of bhasma. The desk clerk called out, “Hey, you! Boy! What you do up in residence? You fella no mess voyagers! Prenday?” The Fudir turned a cold eye on the man, but Hugh intervened, saying, “It’s all right. He’s with me.”

Whether that raised the clerk’s estimate of the Fudir or lowered it of Hugh was a fine point. After they had exited the Hostel, the Fudir said, “You big man, first chop. Make poor chumar-man pukka.” Hugh turned a puzzled eye on him, and the Terran switched to Gaelactic. “I don’t need your endorsement to be a man.”

“Should I apologize, then?”

The Fudir’s jaw clenched. “No,” he said. “But it grates. Let’s go. Chel-chel.”

They parted company at Greaseline Street. The Fudir crossed the street and slipped into the Corner, while Hugh continued toward Greengrow, where he made the rounds of the portside outfitters. He noted the goods available against his list, and jotted down the nominal prices and the sources. At Shem Kobaurick and Son, Armorers, he found a display of crescent-shaped ceramic knives with micron edges, imported all the way from Raven Rock, and he paid three-quarters the asking price for it. It was more than he ought to have paid—as a onetime economics minister, he had some grasp of markups—but he was content. It was not the dukāndar’s tale of his crippled daughter that swayed him, but that he wanted the knife and wanted it badly, and the merchant knew this the way he knew his own heartbeat. Kobaurick threw in a scabbard for the knife that fit snugly under the armpit. A hideaway sica would not make one spit of difference if it came to the touch in the Hadramoo, but he felt infinitesimally more confident knowing that he had it.

The Fudir met him by Undercook’s Emporium, looking somewhat the worse for having passed through the Corner. He explained the cut on the cheek as a difference of opinion regarding the possession of certain shekels entrusted to him by the Seven. The jingle of coins in a purse can be heard at greater distances and by keener ears than physics and biology presume, and while the Memsahb had sent Bikram and Sandeep to escort the money, the scuffle had been a near-run thing. “But that dacoit-chief,” the Fudir said, “he got his feet all tangled up in a bhangī-man’s broom handle.” He laughed. “Oh, that was a pinwheel! The boys and I stripped him naked and split his purse three ways to teach him how fleeting are the wages of theft. And I shoved—Let’s say I left him the broom handle so he’d watch his step more carefully in the future.” He clapped O’Carroll on the shoulder. “Chop and chel, boy! Let’s fetch those supplies. I love it when me spend other man his money—and the Kennel, he have deep pockets.”

Afterward, Hugh and the Fudir repaired to the Bar to wait for the Pup. Praisegod, cleaning glasses and trying in a desultory manner to proselytize an Alabastrine woman standing at the rail, saw them enter and his eyebrows rose incrementally. “So,” he said when the Fudir had ordered two long ales, “the sinful universe wouldn’t have you?”

“I’ve been sent back here to do my penance,” the Fudir admitted. “But don’t worry. I’ll be going to hell shortly.”

“A journey so long in progress deserves at last to find its end,” Praisegod allowed. “How did you find New Eireann?”

“Same as always. One week down the Grand Trunk Road, just past Gessler’s Sun.” But then, on second thought, he dropped the banter and told the Bartender how things stood on that unhappy planet.

The Bartender grew solemn at the news. “May God turn His merciful face toward them.”

“Better his face,” said the Fudir, “than what he’s been showing them lately.”

“I’ll hear no blasphemy, friend. I’ll beg alms in my Brotherhouse and urge other houses and the Sisterhood to do the same. Thus shall the glory of God shine forth from our hearts and become a beacon to others.”

The Fudir turned away, but Hugh laid a plastic slip on the bar. “Here’s my personal chit. Throw it in the pot with the rest. They need building materials and tools, not food. Craftsmen, they have, but willing hands will not be turned away. Clothing, too. Don’t send money. Without goods to chase, the money inflates.”

The Bartender did not look at the amount before the chit disappeared. “God bless you.”

Hugh took the two ale-pots from the Fudir’s hands and carried them to a table near the back wall, where there was a sort of niche. He did not look back to see if the Terran added a contribution of his own.

“It was the least you could have done,” the Fudir said when he joined him a moment later. “After all you’ve done to ’em, you may as well do something for ’em.”

By now, Hugh had gotten used to the man’s provocations, and he tried not to let the barb affect him. Yet the sharpest barbs are those that have a point; and he drank from his ale in silence for a few minutes. When he spoke, it was deliberately to another subject. “Did you finish your errand for Greystroke?”

The Terran nodded. “Aye.”

“Will you be taking the Pup to Donovan before we leave for the Hadramoo?”

The Fudir made a face. “Finding the Dancer is more important.”

“I’m rather inclined to think you’re right,” said Greystroke, who was sitting at the table’s third side.

The Fudir shook his head. “I wouldn’t mind learning how you do that.”

Greystroke spread his hands. “There are disadvantages. The waitress doesn’t seem to know I’m here.”

“The question of the missing ships is important, but not urgent,” he continued while Hugh waved down a passing server. “I’ll explain to Fir Li when we pass through Sapphire Point. As for Donovan, I can find him whenever I want.”

The Fudir pressed his lips together. “Can you?”

Greystroke pulled a silver shekel from his scrip and tossed it off his thumb to the Fudir, who caught it in midair. He looked at it, looked at the Pup.

Greystroke said, “You gave that shekel to a one-eyed beggar by the Fountain of the Four Maidens.”

The Fudir studied the coin, rubbed it between thumb and fingers, then slapped it on the table. “You’re robbing beggars now?”

“I was the beggar. Profitably so, I must say. You Terrans are generous to your own, I’ll give you that. I was a sweeper, too—though I lost my broom later in a scuffle.”

A server came with a pot. Greystroke took it from her, and picked the shekel off the table. “No change,” he said, handing it to the server, and indicating the Fudir with an inclination of his head, added, “He’s paying.”

“I thought you had business with the Port Captain,” the Fudir said.

“Oh, that was just a formality. All the data was in the hailing drone. I was in and out before you two had reached Greaseline Street. You’ll be glad to know,” he said to Hugh, “that Jehovah’s preparing a relief armada. Two Hanseatic Liners are in port and their captains volunteered to evacuate the stranded tourists and orbital workers. A cohort of Jehovan rectors will be sent to police New Down Town until League militia arrives. Odd thing is, they should already have…Yes, madam, what is it?”

This last was addressed to a tall, full-faced woman of light peach complexion and short silver hair who had approached their table. “You’re Kalim DeMorsey,” she said to the Fudir. “You shipped out in New Angeles when I took sick. The Alabastrine woman at the bar pointed you out to me.”

The Fudir blinked and remembered. “Micmac Anne,” he said, introducing her to the others. “January’s First. How is the old bastard? I thought he’d turn straight around and go back for another load of refugees.”

“That’s what I came to ask you. When I saw you, I figured he was back. How is the ship holding up? Maggie B. didn’t let it go to pot, did she?”

“January left New Eireann several days ahead of us,” the Fudir said.

Micmac Anne shook her head. “Then he would have been here by now.”

“And the authorities would already have known about New Eireann,” said Greystroke. “That’s what I was starting to say. Maybe he went somewhere else instead.”

“No,” said Anne. “He’d have come here. He’d have come for me—and maybe for Johnny, too. But he’d have come here.”

“Maybe he was delayed,” said the Fudir. “New Eireann was pretty badly wrecked. If some of the food he took on turned out to be bad, he may have had to turn aside at Gessler’s Sun or…”

Anne shook her head. “That old ship is always breaking down. He’ll show up sooner or later, and Hogan will have a big mouthful of excuses. Gessler’s Sun Cut-off is a one-way slide down to the Lower Tier. He’ll be months coming back the long way round. What’s this about New Eireann?”

They told her about the Cynthian raid and the devastation they had left behind. “We’re planning to chase after them,” Hugh said, earning disapprovals from his two companions.

But Anne treated the comment as a joke. “You won’t have far to go,” she said. “Xenophanes, out of Foreganger, came in, day before yesterday,” Anne said. “Her captain told me that a Cynthian fleet was swissed in an ambush off Peacock Junction, oh, a fortnight ago.”

“A fortnight…” Hugh exchanged looks with the others.

“The timing’s right,” the Fudir said.

“And how many Cynthians fleets can there be?” asked Hugh.

“More than you might think,” said Anne. “There’s always a couple of them out cruising; though they don’t normally venture as far as the Grand Trunk.”

After Anne had gone, Greystroke pursed his lips. “We’d have to pass through Peacock Junction anyway.”

The Fudir frowned over his balled fists. “Seems someone else wants the Dancer.”

“Not necessarily,” Greystroke said. “The ambush may have been fortuitous. No one around Peacock would have heard yet about the rieving of New Eireann.”

“Don’t jump to a conclusion, Pup,” the Fudir said, “You know how those people like to brag. Someone could have known of the Molnar’s intentions beforehand. Another Cynthian clan, maybe. They let him do the hard work, then waited on his return path to seize the fruits.”

Greystroke nodded. “In which case, they have the Dancer now. But it’s more likely the Dancer is flotsam out in the Peacock coopers.”

“That’s not even a needle in a haystack,” said Hugh.