The January Dancer

Geantraí: The Call of Dooty

Die Bold, like the other Old Planets, is a place where the future was born but whence, like an ungrateful child, it has departed to seek its fortune elsewhere on the Periphery. The Old Planets have been left like aged parents in an empty nest, remembering what things had been like when the future was young.

Like any whelping, the future had been delivered amid pain and blood and cries of anguish, despite it having been, in some sense, a Caesarean birth. In those days, so the stories ran, they really had been Terrans and really had remembered Terra herself, and not just, as now, the memory of that memory. Cast across the Rift, mingled with strangers, they had huddled and despaired and fought with one another and slowly built something new from what wreckage they had saved.

Die Bold was old enough to have a history. Scattered and quarrelsome refugee camps had grown into cities, burned in civil wars, grown again upon the ruins. Conquerors came and went; old arts informed new renaissances; knowledge lost was rediscovered—or its merest memory vanished forever. Archives conserved by loyal priesthoods were cracked and archaic tongues deciphered, and humanity cruised once more along Electric Avenue. Die Bold explorers arrived at Abyalon. A ship of Old ’Saken encountered one from Friesing’s World already in orbit at Bandonope. Megranome found bustling industry on Waius; sustenance farmers on Cynthia; and naught but desolation on the nameless worlds of the Yung-lo Cluster.

Ships went forth to terraform and settle. New worlds incubated, farther from the menacing Rift: Jehovah and Peacock and New Chennai; High Tara and Hawthorn Rose; Valency and Alabaster and far-off Gatmandar.

Until, after a thousand years of splendor, a millennium of effort, the Old Planets settled back to enjoy a well-earned rest.

And so there was in the spirit of each Die Bolder something of the refugee’s despair, something of the youthful rush of rediscovery, something of the querulous satisfaction of old age; and something too of the insecurity of the epigone. Visitors from the rawer worlds of the League often perceived in them a false humility; but there was nothing false about it. Behind their every triumph lay the suspicion that it had been surpassed in the old Commonwealth of Suns, and that they were at best only second best. It took something of the heart out of everything they did and put something heartfelt into their humility.

It was four days inbound from the coopers to Die Bold itself, during which time the Hound and the Pup agreed not to announce themselves officially, nor even to admit they were traveling together. They did not know that the phantom fleet had been bound here, nor that the fleet would expect pursuit, but until then Greystroke would be a merchant from Krinth named Tol Benlever and Bridget ban would be Julienne Melisond, a lady of the court. And because Hugh would be more convincing as Greystroke’s factotum, Bridget ban took the Fudir to play the role of her manservant. The two swapped ships during the layover on Jewel-of-the-Giantess, a transshipment station orbiting the second gas giant in the outer reaches of Die Bold’s system. There was sufficient bustle and coming-and-going so that no one noticed that some people left in a different ship than brought them. Julienne Melisond stopped for the spectacular view of the double rings that the Jewel provided, while her man, “Kalim,” chatted with the servants and kitchen staff. The Krinthian merchant was little seen, as befitted a merchant prince, but his representative, “Ringbao,” was everywhere, discussing trade opportunities and inquiring after recent events with other traders and with Die Bolders outward bound.

That night Bridget ban told Greystroke that she planned to send the Fudir into the Corner of Die Bold once they were down. “Terrans are everywhere,” she said, “and what one knows they all know; but they’d sooner spit than trust an ‘eetee.’”

“An ‘eetee’?” Greystroke asked.

“It’s what they call anyone who is not a Terran.”

Greystroke propped himself on his elbow and ran his hand along her flank. “Do you trust him to come back?” he murmured. “I’d hate to lose him, now that I have him.”

“He wants the Dancer as much as you and I. Beside, I’ve programmed aimshifars into the livery I gave him. If he bolts, we can always find him through the anycloth.”

Greystroke chuckled. “Using a bolt to find a bolt. Droll. Very well, Cu. I cannot deny you.”

Aye, thought Bridget ban sadly, drawing him close. Ye cannae.

Èlfiuji was capital of the Kingdom and the largest city on Die Bold, a soaring metropolis hard by Morrigan’s Ford on the River Brazen. The ford had given the city its original rationale, but had long since faded to irrelevance. Thopters and whirlies now buzzed between the towers and the New Royal Bridge arced across the treacherous currents, indifferent to the age-long absence of royalty.

Hugh made the rounds of the traders’ clubs near Port Èlfiuji in the Mercantile Loop, where he engaged in idle chatter over light snacks and strong drinks. Merchants, he found, came in three sorts. First, there were the fat, confident ones, comfortable in their wealth, who enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh and for whom no contract was so dry or so technical that it could not provide an occasion of sin. The second sort, more vulpine, were those on the make. They were all in the air, for all their wealth was in the venture itself, and their first failure would be their last. Since “Ringbao” lacked the standing to speak with the “merchant princes,” and the “paper tigers” could spare no time to speak with him, he sought out the third sort.

These were the “reps,” and gossip was their stock in trade. They came to buy and sell—mostly to sell—but they also knew when and how to turn off and simply chat with chance-met strangers. Not that selling was ever far from their minds, but men and women of their school believed that “establishing a relationship” was the key to selling, and they never blew another off as of no account. “You never can tell,” they would tell one another, “when a shabby stranger might prove a wealthy customer.”

Krinth was outside the immediate region, off to the Galactic West, where the suns packed closer and the night cast shadows, and so as a rep for “Tol Benlever,” Ringbao attracted considerable interest. What had Krinth to offer that might sell dearly here? What did Krinth desire that might be bought cheaply here? Hugh had been thoroughly prepped by Greystroke and what he didn’t know, his implant told him; and what his implant didn’t know, he simply made up.

“I hear it’s dangerous out there,” said a rep for a Gladiola firm that made entertainment simulations, “and a man’s life isn’t worth a demi-ducat.”

“No more dangerous than it is here,” Hugh replied, seeing an opening. “On Jehovah, I heard that some planet out that way had been attacked by barbarians.”

He was sitting in a high, wing-backed chair, facing three other reps around a low table of hors d’oeuvres. A woman representing Obisham MC, and feeling very good about herself for having already met her quota, said, “New Eireann, I was told.”

“The bandits, they came outta the Cynthia,” added a thin man with a Megranomic accent.

“There,” said Hugh, “you see. I heard Die Bold itself was scouted by a fleet of warships no more than four, five metric weeks ago.”

“When was that in local time?” asked the Obisham rep. “Waiter, how long are four metric weeks here?”

The man replenishing the tray of cold meats and cheese shook his head. “Please, got no head numbers, missy, please. I ask.”

“Terrans,” the woman said as the man scampered away. Hugh wasn’t sure what she meant by that. It wasn’t as if she’d known the conversion factors.

“For all I know,” he said, “that fleet is still around, maybe waiting for a fat merchant to waylay. Think they’re the same bunch as hit New Eireann?”

The thin man waved a hand, which held a wedge of some dark, grainy sausage impaled on a wooden pick. “Naw,” he said. “Them Cynthians is more disciplined than that bunch was. Couple of the ships fired on each other, can y’ believe it! I was inbound transfer at the Giantess when they passed through. And didn’t that startle the traffic folks up yonder! Die Bold’s JPCG cutters—that’s Joint Planetary Coast Guard, babe,” he added to the Obisham rep—“they can take the price of a raid out of your hide, so mostly the pirates lay off the Old Planets. But still, JPCG was taken by surprise, and didn’t like it one stinkin’ bit.”

“If the fleet’s not still lurking up in the coopers,” Hugh said, “where’d it go?”

Shrug complemented shrug.

“I think it broke up,” the fourth man said. He was a man of ruddy, almost orange complexion, and wore his hair lime-white and pulled into spikes, a fashion popular on Bangtop-Burgenland, although he himself repped for Izzard and Associates out of the Lesser Hanse. “I heard that some ships took the Long March down to the Cynthia, some took the Piccadilly to Friesing’s World, and the rest went the other way round the ring to Old ’Saken.”

“Was the winners heighed for Old ’Saken,” the thin man said.

“Didn’t one stay behind?” the woman asked.

“One of its officers, I heard,” said the Gladiolan. “A Gat. He asked for asylum or something.”

“If it please, missy,” said the waiter, who had returned. He looked at a sheet of scratch paper on which some figures had been scrawled. “Is four metric weeks one-punkt-six case doozydays. Which be thirty-eight days straight up.” He bobbed several times and scuttled off.

“Doozydays,” said the Gladiola man. “Why can’t the Old Planets use metric days like everyone else?”

The Megranomer grinned at him. “Why cain’t the rest of the Periphery use doozydays? Twelve makes more sense than ten. More divisible, d’ye see.”

The woman for Obisham Interstellar frowned. “What did he mean—‘thirty-eight days straight up’?”

Hugh hid a grin. The waiter had meant Terran days, but he saw no reason to enlighten his chance companions.

The Fudir had not been to the Corner of Èlfiuji in many years and found that he did not know it as well as he once had. The patois was a little different; and the smells and foods and noises, a trifle exotic. Much depended on the mix of ethnicities that had been settled here during the Great Cleansing. There was more wealth here than on Jehovah and the people moved with less of the edginess that marked the Jehovan Corner. Yet one hand knows the other and a few grips were enough to gain him access to the Brotherhood’s clubhouse where he met with Fendy Jackson.

“Had I known thou wert coming, Br’er Fudir,” the man said, “I had prepared a finer welcome.” He was tall, with a vulpine face and a wiry beard that covered all and fell to his chest. “How fareth our sister, the Memsahb of far Jehovah?”

“She doth well, Fendy.” The Fudir and his host sat on soft hassocks in a richly carpeted room draped in gossamer curtains of red, gold, and black. To the side, a servant prepared tea and a bowl of chickpea paste. “And happy she was to see the back of me.”

Fendy Jackson struck his breast with his fist. “May her loss be my gain. What service dost thou ask of our fellowship, Br’er Fudir? What hath brought thee to my miserable porch?”

“A complex story, I fear me. But at the end of it lieth the Earth, free once more.”

The Fendy paused with his teacup half raised to his lips, and the servant, too, in the act of handing a second cup to the Fudir. “Is’t so?” the Fendy asked. “A tale long told, but with no such ending yet. But there stood once a city there that it is in me to visit. It is an obligation that my grandfather’s grandfather longed to meet. How might we see such an end?”

“It is a matter of utmost delicacy that must be plucked from any number of grasping fingers. Thou knowest the story of the Twisting Stone? There may float a bean of truth in the pot of legend.”

“‘The man one day older is a man one day wiser.’ The prehumans left much behind them, though more in fancy than in fact.”

“Thou hazardest nought. I risk the search. If nought lieth at the end of it, how art thou diminished?”

The Fendy considered these words while he tore off a piece of bread, dipped it in the hummus, and handed it to the Fudir. “How might our brothers and sisters aid thee?”

“There is a man,” the Fudir said around the mouthful. “In himself, he is nothing. But some few weeks ago a fleet passed through Die Bold. Seven ships, we believe. Perhaps eight. They fought. Who they were and where they went are matters of interest. But it is said that one ship remained behind, or perhaps only this man; and him, we seek.”

The Fendy ate for a time in silence while behind him a monkey screeched in a brass cage. Then he inclined his head and the servant hastened to him and they bent their heads together in whispers. A wave of the Fendy’s fingers sent the man from the room.

“I have put the question out,” he said. “An answer may return on the echo. Meanwhile, be thou my guest and I shall call in women who know a little of the rock sharky and we shall dine on sweetmeats and dates.” He clapped his hands. “I am miserable that I cannot offer thee better than these poor inept dancers; but they do not oft stumble, and should one catch thy fancy…” He made a fig with his fist.

The Fudir bowed where he sat. “Thou art too generous, Fendy. I deserve not such largesse, but will for thy honor accept it; though from the dancing women’s comfort, I beg exemption.”

The Fendy’s thick red lips split his beard in laughter. “Oh, ho! Oh, ho! That madness cometh betimes to all men. May thou regainest soon thy sanity!”

While they dined, they spoke of matters affecting Terrans. Those of the Kingdom fared moderately well compared to some worlds. “But in the Pashlik, Fortune turned her face from us. The last Pash but one—Pablo IV Alqazar, that was—seized all the wealth of the Corner of Chewdad Day Pashlik to pay off his debts—and he was a man of costly habits. Then he expelled all our people, lest they demand it back. The son discovered that money was not a thing to have, but a slave that one sends forth to labor. Hah-hah. Now, the grandson seeketh to woo us back, and some hath chanced it for the sake of the dime; but for the most part their children have found a home with us here.”

“We live on the sufferance of others,” the Fudir said. “Never will we be safe entire ‘until the lions ride back on the wave,’ and we have our own world once again.”

The dancing girls, as promised, did not stumble much, although considering in how many directions they shook their bodies, it was a marvel that they did not. The Fudir wondered in which cultures of ancient Earth their dance had originated.

Most likely, he knew, it was an amalgam of several. During the Dark Age, the songs and legends of the Vraddy, of the Zhõgwó, of the Murkans and others had been blended by folk themselves deliberately commingled. Only the most painstaking scholars could tease the threads apart, and even then not to their certain knowledge.

Yet, the dancing was sensuous and rousing, and the sweetmeats and caesodias pleasing to the palate. The dancers wore petal skirts and halter tops, midriffs ill-concealed by sheer taffeta veils—except for the boys, of course, who wore only white cotton sirwals. The Fudir found his pulse quickening to the rock beat, the tinkling zills, and the undulating bodies of the dancers, so different from the syncopated and coordinated vradanadyam on Jehovah. One dancer in particular swayed around his hassock, plucking a date from the salver and placing it between his lips, only to whirl away laughing.

The Fendy’s servant returned several times during the dance to kneel and whisper in the Fendy’s ear. That worthy would stroke his beard listening and nod and the man would scurry off once more. The Fudir did not grudge patience. The phantom fleet had a long head start and dashing off at random with incomplete information would not close the distance.

When the dance was ended and the pipes had stilled and the panting dancers had departed, the Fendy, with a gracious wave of his hand, turned over to the Fudir a flimsy bearing the notes his man had collected from the whispers of the Corner. “This one,” he said, gesturing with a nail, “may be he whom thou seeketh. But there be further news, O Seeker, to interest thee.” A smile emerged from the forest of his beard. “Know that thou art also sought. One hears the Fudir of Jehovah asked for in low places about the city, in brothels and in bars.”

The Fudir grunted. “They know where to look for me, then.” He thought Hugh or Greystroke might be trying to get in touch.

“Ah, thou art the soul of wit,” said his host. “She soundeth quite anxious to find you.” Again, he allowed the smile to show.

Bridget ban? Images of flesh and petal skirts whirled in his mind.

“Ah surely, the madness has you.” The Fendy laughed. “May fortune fly with you on your quest. On each of your quests, haha! You could have had a dancer here tonight; but perhaps you will find another Dancer later. You and this Alabastrine woman.”

The Fudir had already joined his host in the laughter; but the last comment brought him up short. An Alabastrine woman?

Hugh took the Tigrine Avenue tube to Alkorry Street, where he departed the capsule to find himself in a neighborhood of narrow buildings and narrower byways. Most of the windows were dark or dimly lit through yellowed shades, and Alkorry Street itself lurked in permanent shadows. The Tigrine Line was elevated in this part of the City and so the rows of apartments had that look of dimness that evenfall only accented and daylight could not dispel.

On Venishànghai, people lived on the outside—the evening pramblo around the streets, greeting friends and neighbors, the dining ’frescos, the liveliness of the pyatsas—and went home only to sleep. Here, everyone seemed to huddle inside, like they were hiding, like the whole planet was a planet of vermin-boys. They must emerge sometimes, he thought, but only to work, not to live.

He shouldn’t judge everyone by the standards of his homeworld. Die Bolders might live as lively as anyone—but indoors; though “lively, but solitary” seemed a contradiction to him. Yet, if he had not spent so much of his childhood in hiding, would Die Bold strike him as grimly as it did?

He consulted his wristband. The Mild Beast was around the corner on Raggenow Way. According to the Terrans, their quarry could be found there almost every night. A Gat, they had said, and was that not a stroke of luck, for Hugh had heard the unmistakable Gatmander accent in the Hatchley Commonwealth years before.

He wondered what else the Terrans told the Fudir. He had seemed troubled on his return.

Raggenow Way was a gloomy side street lined on both sides by red-stone apartment buildings whose sameness was only heightened by the small tokens of differentiation. Each was precisely five stories tall; each possessed a broad stone staircase leading a half flight up from street level to the main entrance. Each had a passage under the staircase to a garden-level apartment half a flight below street level. But the moldings and cornices were slightly varied in pattern: geometric here, floral there; and the stairs were flanked by different cast-stone beasts perched on their concrete newel posts: lions, eagles, bears, and so on. Hugh wondered why they’d bothered.

The buildings were separated by narrow airyways. Reflexively, Hugh glanced down each as they passed, and noted iron grates blocking them. Back gardens, he thought, or car parks in the rear.

Stolid. That was the word to describe Die Bolders. They were not going anywhere, at least not anymore; but neither would they be moved from where they were.

He stopped before a wooden sign bearing the likeness of a Nolan’s Beast. The “blackface” bull wore a wreath of flowers girdling its horns and a look of unlikely benevolence on its features. The public house—they called it a “local” here—occupied the garden level and the entrance was underneath the main stairs. On New Eireann, the pubs had flaunted themselves. But then, if this were a local, the locals undoubtedly knew how to find it.

Inside, the taproom was low-ceilinged and raftered with black oak; but whitewashed between the beams, so the overall impression was not as oppressive as it might have been. The musty smell of beer mixed with the sharp metallic tang of whiskies. The haze of various leaves and smoldering lemongrass dubars hovered cloudlike just below the ceiling. On the farther side of the room, four men around a manual piano were singing something about “The Brazen Boatman.” They had not agreed upon a key beforehand, but such an agreement was of obviously little concern.

A few heads glanced his way when he entered, but only for momentary scrutiny. Yes, thought Hugh, a very private people, even in public. He found an empty table and sat there until a barmaid came by, cleaned it, and took his order. The men’s choir shifted to a different song, this one involving Dusty Shiv Sharma, “the best Beastie boy o’er all the High Plains.”

Hugh settled in, watching for anyone with the bearing of a ship’s officer and the peculiar rhythm of Gatmander speech. He saw a plaid-turbaned Chettinad sharing a booth with a local businessman and two capable-looking hired women. Shortly afterward, a tall, thin Alabastrine woman entered from the street and took a position foot a-rail at the bar. Everyone else had that dough-faced, rather wistful look of the Die Bolder born. Hugh drank his stout with some satisfaction. A Gat would stand out in this crowd.

Two mugs later, a short, burly man entered the Mild Beast and received a few nods of recognition from others. His skin had the appearance of leather, both in color and in texture and his clothing had the nondescript look of castoffs, but Hugh could see the darker spots on the fabric where insignia had once been sewn. Hugh’s suspicions were confirmed when the newcomer faced the barman and said, “With regard to the rum unto me, there is an occasion of thirst.”

Without turning, the Gat lifted a glass of rum high and said to the room at large, “Die bold!”

The locals lifted their own drinks in turn and “Live bolder!” rumbled in a dozen throats, above which the Alabastrine could be heard piping “Leaf boolder!”

Hugh emptied his mug in a single long swallow and carried it to the bar. Hugh could see that the Gat watched his approach in the mirror, and his hand crept near the open flap of his jacket. Hugh placed the mug on the bar. “Draw black,” he said. When the barman had filled it, Hugh lifted the mug to the stranger. “Far Gatmander.”

The Gat looked him over and the skin of his face tightened. “Not far enough.” He shot back the rum and thrust the empty glass straight-arm to the barman, who filled it without taking it from the spacer’s fingers.

“Not many outlanders here,” Hugh said. “Would you like to join me?”

Leather-face grunted. He shifted the glass to his left hand and held the right out as before, beckoning with his fingers until the barman put the rum bottle in their grip. “The invitation as it regards myself is acceptable,” the Gat said.

Hugh led him back to the table. “My name’s Ringbao,” he said, not entirely lying.

The Gat gathered glass and bottle into his left hand and held out his right, which Hugh took briefly. “The name as it pertains to me is Todor,” he admitted, taking his seat. He poured another glass and lifted it to eye level. “It shows a pretty color. And”—he sipped—“a prettier taste.”

“What brings a Gat all the way to Die Bold?” Hugh asked.

Todor gave him another look and let the silence lengthen before he said, “A ship,” in front of another sip of rum. This time, he set the glass down on the table half empty. “With regard to the years upon me, there have been many,” he said.

Meaning he wasn’t born yesterday, so get on with it. Hugh nodded. “We heard you were with the fleet that passed through Die Bold a month ago.”

The other grunted again and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked around the table. “We,” he said.

“Myself and a few friends.”

Another sip. “And regarding the information, what will be paid by you?”

“What is your price?”

The Gat drew in his breath. “A ticket. Passage to Gatmander.”

Hugh knew that the Kennel had deep pockets, and passage on a Hadley liner would not be the greatest expense the team would incur. “Done,” he said.

Todor sighed and looked down at his large, gnarled hands, which played with the glass of rum. “On Gatmander, far Gatmander,” he sung, more off-key than even the quartet drinking around the piano, “on the very edge of skies…” He blinked and looked away for a moment. Then he added, “And maybe it lies far enough. Aye, far enough. Beyond the reach of Radha Lady Cargo.”

Hugh nodded. Suspicions confirmed. “Company cops after you?”

Todor glanced briefly at the door. “Soon enough. There was a bauble she wanted and the thought was in me that she oughtn’t have it. There was talk, there was black mutiny, and ship fired upon ship. But as regards the commodore, there was an occasion of success; and obedience and remorse overcame the unruly, save only those ships that severed all communication and fled. The commodore’s ship was wounded, but the prize was his, and perhaps by now, Lady Cargo’s. Here’s to hope,” he added, raising his glass, “that the ship of the commodore foundered on the ’Saken road.”

Hugh reached out a hand. “Come with me. My friends need to hear this, too.”

Todor drew back suddenly and stared at him narrow-eyed. One could almost hear the creak of leather in that squint. “And for why with respect to you should there be unto me an occasion of trust?”

“Because we mean to take that ‘bauble’ back.”

“Do you?” Todor drank a swallow directly from his rum bottle. “Against Cargo House itself?”

“We were ready to take the Hadramoo,” Hugh said mildly.

The Gat shook his head. “As it pertains to you, there is an occasion of madness. By now it’s too late, and a man ought to increase, not decrease, the distance to Old ’Saken. Not that it will matter in the end.”

“Oh?” said Hugh. “And why not?”

Todor laughed. “The best-kept secret in the Spiral Arm…All right. As regards myself, what matter whether you command or Lady Cargo—when Gatmander ears lie far from your voice and hers alike? For the price of the transit, the story will be told. And well damned be all of you.” He stood again and Hugh stood with him and they left the Mild Beast together, climbing the short flight to the dark, deserted street.

Hugh paused to consult his wrist strap for directions and Todor seized the moment to lift the rum bottle to his lips.

The bottle exploded, and for a mad instant Hugh thought, That is powerful rum! But his instincts preserved him and he dove for cover behind a dustbin, pulling Todor to the ground with him, just as a second shot struck the bricks. “It wasn’t a trap,” he said to the Gat. “I swear I didn’t lead you into a trap.” But he saw that, as regarding Todor, there was no occasion for assurance. The bullet that had shattered the bottle had continued into the mouth and out the back of the head, and amid the blood, brain, and bone that spattered the wall where he had stood was whatever else he had been prepared to tell.

A third shot struck the dustbin, penetrated, and rattled about inside. Hugh wanted to shout that he was not one of the ICC renegades. But he knew the assassin would take no chances. Whatever secret Todor had been killed to preserve might easily have been revealed already to his companions. Hugh shivered. It had taken weeks for the assassin to track his man down. Those companions could include everyone inside the Mild Beast.

Hugh pulled from his jacket the knife he had purchased on Jehovah. The sica did not seem much. It was an assassin’s weapon, not very useful for defending a position; but it was all he had. He frisked Todor’s body and found a small caliber handgun. He weighed it in his hand, thought about it, then he pressed it into the dead man’s hand, curling the finger around the trigger. He found a trash bag that had missed the dustbin and propped the arm on it so that the gun could be seen around the corner.

He peered into the darkness, seeking the sniper’s position. Todor had stood thus, had lifted the bottle so, and the bullet that had killed him had come from…He saw the building across the street, the slight flutter of drapes, the open window on the second floor. …from there. But the killer had most likely shifted. An assassin who stays too long in one place is a fool…usually a dead fool.

Hugh put himself in the assassin’s mind. He must make sure of Todor and his companion, but he wouldn’t come out the building’s front entrance. Hugh had no gun, but the assassin wouldn’t know that. So, he’d go out the back to the alley behind. The airyways were blocked, so he’d have to go to one corner or the other. Not to Alkorry Street, which was farther and brightly lit, but to the left. And coming around that corner would give him a clear shot into the space behind the dustbin.

Now the only question was whether the sniper would expect astuteness of his quarry and so outguess the guesser. But one could reason oneself into paralysis in that manner, and paralysis, he knew, was the one fatal strategy.

There is this paradox of those who live on the edge, and that is that one may keep his life only by putting it at hazard. He must, as an ancient maxim had it, “desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.” Or, in the words of an older maxim, “He that would lose his life, the same shall save it.”

He was already running on cat feet across the empty street when he heard the shot whine off the paving. It had come from the direction of the main street. Hugh hunched over, dove for a shadowed airyway, and vanished into it. Stupid! he told himself. There had been two of them. The first to cover the Mild Beast; the second to block the way to the transit station. But he was sure there was no third man. Anyone positioned at the other end of the block would already have had a shot behind the dustbin. He listened, but heard no footsteps. The second man was either uncommonly silent or he was maintaining discipline.

The airyway was blocked like all the others. Hugh studied shadows, saw a deeper darkness in the ambit of the stairs, and melted from the airyway to crouch in its protection. From there he could slip through the garden-level passage under the stairs and up the other side. That put a stone staircase between him and the second sniper and he could move, with care, to the next building. Then, down again through the passage, and up, and that put him just at the corner.

There, he waited, either for his quarry to come or for the second shooter to move into a better position.

He listened.

The breeze was steady, channeled by the rows of buildings on either side of the street, but not strong enough to lift more than dust. A stone rattled from a careless kick. Hugh smiled grimly. The assassin likely thought he faced only a couple of drunks from the Beast, one of them—if he were in communication with the second man—last seen cowering in a blocked airyway two doors up the block.

He felt a presence approaching: stealthy, but not too much so. He readied himself, exhaled softly, emptied his mind, waited for the moment. A figure stepped around the corner with an air rifle already shouldered, a bead already hunting for the space where Todor lay with gun extended, and Hugh sprouted from the very pavement like a spartos from a dragon’s tooth, inhaling broadly as he did. He seized the gunman’s mouth in his left hand and ran the sica across his throat with the right, then pushed him forward to stumble and fall onto the street.

Hugh reached for the air rifle, but a bullet sang on the paving and he withdrew once more into the shadows. The second assassin was coming—he could hear the soft, rapid footsteps—and he had no intention of allowing Hugh to get to the fallen weapon. Of little use, now, his sica. He would get one throw, but the curved blade was not a good throwing knife and was unlikely to deal a death blow.

Then he heard the distinctive pop-pop-pop of a handgun followed by the clatter of a weapon sliding along the cobblestone paving. He risked a look and saw the other shooter sprawled in the center of the road and, in the stairwell to the Mild Beast, the Alabastrine woman checking the load in her weapon.

“Coom,” she called in a loud whisper, “my goon is noot so soondless as theirs. Roon.”

And so, they did.

Neither of them spoke until they had reached the transit station. The Alkorry Street platform was nearly deserted and here, well above street level, the breeze flowed unimpeded. Three young men dressed with feathers in their hair had congregated at the east end trying alternately to look tough and to keep the feathers from taking flight. Two hired-women stood by a kiosk near the center of the platform discussing in low tones their clients of the night and advertising for additional sales. Both groups eyed the newcomers—possible customers, possible prey—but one look was all they required to keep their distance.

Hugh regarded the ebony woman warily. He distrusted coincidence. What usually popped out of the machina was seldom a deus, and in his line of work surprises were seldom welcome.

Yet, the woman had saved his life.

“I didn’t have time to thank you, back there,” he said.

“That’s ookay,” she said, smiling like a skull. “I have my dooty, as do you. I have a message that you moost take to the one who calls himself Tool Benlever and to the Foodir. ‘Patience wears theen waiting for your dooty.’”

Hugh shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“It is noot needful that you do. Joost tell them what I have said.”

“Who are you?”

“You may tell the soo-called Tool Benlever that my name is Ravn Olafsdottr, and that name is surety for what I have toold you. Now goo.” She pointed west with a toss of her head. There, a string of lights foretold the arrival of a train of capsules. When Hugh looked back, the Alabastrine was gone. He shivered. The Other Olafsson had appeared at last.

When the train pulled up he entered an empty capsule and keyed in the address of the hotel where “Benlever” and “Melisond” were staying. The system would shunt the capsule to the proper lines and bring it to the nearest station. The doors hissed closed and the train slid forward gathering speed. Through the window he saw the hired women welcoming two men who had stepped off another capsule. Then the train was sliding high over the rooftops with nothing but the night beyond them.