The January Dancer

Geantraí: This Too is a Home

It was not easy to surprise the Fudir, the scarred man says, but Little Hugh O’Carroll managed it now and then. In that early hour of the morning, he managed it for the last time.

Hugh was sitting on the stoop just outside the ragged hotel tossing nuts to the equally ragged birds. The Fudir froze at the sight of him. Hugh looked up.

“Ready?” he said.

The Fudir pointed to the nuts. “You give them those things and they’ll come to expect it. They’ll circle the doorway waiting and shit on the people going in and out.”

Hugh looked along the street. “And that would be different?”

“You sit out here alone and you’re bait for every thief in the Fourteenth District.”

“It’s too early for thieves. They like to sleep in. How do you plan to get into Watkins Naval Yard?”

The Fudir ran his hand along the fringed anycloth he wore, took a tassel between his fingers, wondering what to do about this latest complication. “What were you waiting for out here?”

“You. I know you haven’t given up on liberating Terra. But now the Kennel folks have a new reason to give the Dancer to the Ardry.”

“By me, a new reason to keep it from him. I like his reign; I wouldn’t like his rule.”

Hugh nodded. “And that means you have to go in without the others.”

“‘Others.’ That would include you. But I don’t think you’ve given up on your own plans.”

Hugh shook his head. “I’m not going back to New Eireann.”

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

Hugh stood and brushed at the knees and seat of his trousers. “Let’s go and save the galaxy. Unless you want to eat breakfast first.”

“You’ve grown a bit since we first met.”

“I’d hate to think otherwise. Only the dead never grow. You and me, Fudir, we’ve been through a lot since Amir Naith’s Gulli. We were in this together almost from the beginning. It’s only right that we’re together at the end. Just you and me.”

“I know. That’s what makes this so hard.”

And with that, like a black mamba striking, he poked Hugh in the brisket with his bunched fingers, bending him double, and followed it with a blow to the side of his head.

Hugh collapsed and the Fudir caught him before he struck the steps, eased him back to a sitting position, and replaced the bag of nuts into his hands. He felt the neck for a pulse. He stood and studied the unmoving figure bleakly. It was difficult to know how hard to strike.

There was a man watching from the pedestrian walkway across the city rail that ran down the center of the public way. He was slouch-shouldered, with a hangdog look. His clothing seemed slept in and none too new before that. “You mess this man,” the Fudir told him, “and some people in that building will hunt you down and kill you. That’s if you get away from me.”

“I believe you,” the man said, holding his palms up. “Just minding my business, me. You got a ruby or two? I’m powerful thirsty.”

The Fudir studied him. “Don’t go anywhere yet.”

When neither Hugh nor the Fudir appeared in the morning to plan their infiltration of the Watkins Yard, Bridget ban went to fetch them.

“They’re nae in their rooms,” she reported.

The three Kennel agents looked one to the other. Grimpen said to Greystroke, “You trusted him.”

Bridget ban said, “They may only have stepped outside for the air.”

“Air’s worse outside,” Grimpen said. He rose like an uplifted mountain range. “I’ll look.”

When Large-hound had left the room, Greystroke turned on Bridget ban. “What was the purpose of all that cuddling if not to keep his leash short?”

Bridget ban had no answer. She turned away and looked into a corner of the room, her thoughts all in turmoil. “Maybe Hugh went looking for the Fudir,” Bridget ban suggested.

Grimpen came back in carrying Hugh over his shoulder. “If he did, he found him.”

The others jumped to their feet in alarm. “Is the wean a’right?” said Bridget ban.

Grimpen deposited his burden on the sagging couch and straightened his limbs. “He’s not dead, but he’s taken a bad blow to the head. He’ll have a headache when he comes to.”

“He’ll have more than a headache,” Bridget ban told him. “He liked the Fudir. He thought he was a nice old man, underneath that bitter act.”

Greystroke’s face was grim-set. “The bitterness was no act. The nice old man was. The Terran word is ‘bonded.’ It’s something to beware of, Bridget ban.”

“Aye? An’ ye’ve lost yer lead to the Donovan, haven’t ye?” Then she straightened. “The Other Olafsson! Maybe she snatched the Fudir so she could find Donovan and carry out the mission.”

But Greystroke said, “No. Hugh would have tried to stop her and the Ravn would have killed him. The Fudir is Donovan. I suspected it when he didn’t keep the sex straight of his next contact. After I followed him into the Corner of Jehovah, I knew. And he knew I’d puzzled it out. But he wanted out of the Great Game. He’d been hiding from the ’Feds, hoping they would never call on him. We had a silent agreement.”

“Wonderful,” said Grimpen. “The problem with silent agreements, Pup, is that they’re no different from silent disagreements.”

“I’m no fool, you great lump of flesh! The Red-hound and I programmed aimshifars into the clothing we gave him. We can track him through the anycloth. Bridget, where is he now?”

Bridget ban had already been studying her wrist strap. “Nearly out of range o’ this mickle thing. Let me…Ah, there I have it. Sou’-sou’west. Half a league.”

Grimpen grunted. “Not much of a head start, then.”

“Not heading toward the Navy Yards,” said Greystroke. “Nor the Corner. I thought he would have bolted there like a rat to its hole. What’s his plan?” He activated his wristband. “Synch with me, Bridget. I’ll find him and bring him back. No, both of you stay here. It was my error; it’s my corrective action.” He checked the charge on his teaser and tucked it into his waistband.

Greystroke hurried through the streets of the Fourteenth District wondering how he could have miscalculated so badly. What would Fir Li say when he graded the exercise? It was no excuse to say that the stakes had escalated from the routine task he had originally been set. He had failed at that, too. He should have minded his own assignment, left the Dancer problem to Bridget ban, and taken Fudir prisoner back to Sapphire Point. He had allowed ambition to seduce him.

The wristband told him that the Fudir had gone to the right, and he slipped around the corner onto a street even less inviting than the one the hotel was on. The morning sun barely warmed him, as if it too avoided these decaying tenements.

Few people were about. Lost souls with nowhere to go, and no idea how to get there. He paid no attention to them, or they to him. If they noticed him at all, they saw another early morning wraith living out his defeat.

As he passed an alleyway, the direction indicator on the wristband flipped. Greystroke drifted back to the opening and looked down a dead-ended cobblestone passageway lined with trash barrels, dustbins, and odds and ends of discarded appliances. Drainpipes ran from roofs five stories above to gurgle their burdens nowhere near the sewer grates. But the weather had been dry this season, so the pools of water were small and survived largely because the sun did not venture into this narrow lane.

Greystroke moved silently down the alley, looking behind each dustbin and trash can as he passed. The aimshifars reported that the Fudir was deeper in, but Greystroke did not discount the possibility of a confederate—or even a Confederate.

But there was no one. And when he came at last to the spot where the locators in the anycloth proclaimed the Fudir to be, he found a smelly, ragged man wearing clothing far too good for him, who was slug by slug putting himself outside of a bottle of white spirits. When he saw Greystroke suddenly before him, the derelict shrieked and raised his hands, saying, “I never touched him! I swear it! I never touched him!”

Few organizations are sufficiently feudal as to subsist in complete self-sufficiency, and this is especially so for those that are themselves military service organizations. External suppliers can be increased or decreased as the volume of business requires; whereas the same functions performed by cadre would require full-time expensing and general administrative overhead.

And for the most menial work, who better than Terrans? They work cheap, when they work at all, and with sufficient supervision will actually get the job done. That is because they are paid for performance rather than for their time. Slacking off only delays payment.

One service farmed out by ICC Peacekeeping Navy Yard Number Three—called Brisley Watkins Yard, after some forgotten hero—was victualing, for which Heybob Brothers—a local Terran firm—had low-balled the bid with the usual financial cunning of their people. At least, so the Yard Captain had reasoned. The Terrans, for their part, saw an opportunity for an easy ruby. If the prices they charged Watkins Yard were low, the cost of the provisions were lower still, and a dip of the beak went, as it always went, to the Terran Brotherhood—for the good of the Corner, the eventual liberation of the homeworld, and the more comfortable lives led by the Vanguard of the Struggle.

One way to keep costs down was to hire laborers by the day in the morning call-out at the hiring hall. Drivers and other skilled workers must be lured with wages and benefits, and were permanent employees; but day labor did not carry overhead when there was no labor that day.

The Fudir who presented himself at the Hall did not appear nearly as old as the Fudir who had traveled all the way from Jehovah. Certainly, he had no problem lifting the heavy sacks of potatoes and rice and beans. Besides, a particular hand-clasp and the passage of a wad of rubies had ensured him a spot with Heybob’s morning victualing run—along with a promise to Himself and the Forsaken Committee of Seven that nothing ill would rebound on Heybob from whatever scramble the Fudir planned to carry out.

If there were anything known as “base security,” it had been largely forgotten by the guards at Watkins Yard. The routine is the ally of the unexpected, and it had been a long time since there had been an enemy of the ICC on Old ’Saken. The goods lorry pulled into the Yard with a wave of the hand and the driver parked behind the Yard Refectory. The Terrans “schlepped” the vegetables into the storerooms, singing a work song about carrying sheaves that the Chief Victualer and his petty officers thought wondrously droll. “I hain’t rejoicing, was I doing that scut work,” the Fudir overheard one of them say.

Nobody at the gate bothered to count the number of laborers in the goods lorry when it left, let alone compare it to the number who had entered.

Terrans go everywhere and no one makes much remark. Thus, the Committee of Seven had a decently accurate map of the Yard from the observations of those who had previously been inside. The Fudir had memorized this map and knew exactly where Commodore Saukkonen had his office. The next problem was to transform a ragged Terran laborer into someone who looked like he might actually belong in a Navy Yard. For that, the Fudir slipped into a supply shed and emerged wearing a maintenance coverall of dull black, and carrying under his arm a “cliputer” and a paperboard tube such as those in which engineering flex-screens are kept. Armed in this fashion, he could go almost anywhere on the Yard without being questioned.

He paused and slipped into his ears a pair of the buffers that Greystroke had fabricated en route from Die Bold. The theory was that he could still hear what was said, but the voice would be so distorted by the micro-intelligence that the Dancer’s effect would be nullified.

The theory had yet to be tested, of course.

Walking across the Yard, he traced out the cables linking the buildings with the practiced eye of an instrument tech. Those would be the secure channels, less vulnerable to intercept. Private voice calls and proprietary data went by “hard wire.” He whistled the song about the sheaves as he located the bundle from 3rd Fleet HQ, narrowed it down to the commodore’s office, and followed it to a junction box. Waiting for a moment when no one was nearby, he unscrewed the cable and let it dangle so that the contact was intermittent.

He returned to the headquarters building at a slow hurry and walked boldly inside. “This where the comm link complaint came from?” he asked the petty officer at the desk. He waved the cliputer at her. “Got a ‘right-now-and-I-mean-it’ repair order while I was heading for the mess. Says…Commodore’s office. That’s 145?”

“Right down the end of the hall,” the young woman told him. “Wait. You have to sign in. Security.”

The Fudir kept a straight face while scrawling a randomly chosen name into the register. “What time you off-duty, ma’am?”

“You’re a bold one,” she answered with a smile.

“‘Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense,’” he told her, “‘but good men starve for want of impudence.’”

She laughed. “I don’t expect you’ll starve,” adding, “I’m off in nine ares.”

The Fudir did not miss a beat. ’Saken used dodeka time, and an are was forty-eight minutes Earth-standard, or slightly more than a half hora in metric time. He gave her his best smile. “Maybe I’ll see you then? By the Refectory?”

The Fudir proceeded down the hall, content that the receptionist harbored no suspicions. Bold knaves thrive indeed, he thought.

The plaque on Room 145 read BAKHTIYAR COMMODORE SAUKKONEN, VANGUARD SQUADRON, 3RD PEACEKEEPER FLEET. Following the protocols he had observed earlier, he knocked once, opened the door, and stepped inside.

“Sah!” he said, touching his cap. “Is this where…” He pretended to consult his cliputer. “You have an intermittent system connection?”

Saukkonen regarded him with calm, liquid-brown eyes. He was a broad man, wide in the shoulders and with large hands. His desk was a marvel of disarray. It was foolish to form an opinion of another man, especially a man of power, from a single glance; but the Fudir thought that, under other circumstances, he might have liked Saukkonen.

Of course, if he wanted to rule the galaxy, that would count against him.

The commodore’s gaze shifted over the Fudir’s shoulder. “Is that one of them?”

And the Fudir heard a voice say, “He is; and my particoolar prize.”

The sentence was not even completed before the Fudir had run to the door; but two black arms wrapped around him like iron bands. “Noo, noo,” whispered Ravn Olafsdottr, “do noot flay so soon after we meet.”

The Fudir relaxed in her grip and waited his moment. “So,” he said to the commodore, “you’ve sold out to the Confederacy!”

The commodore smiled like a bear. “Hardly. Which is he?”

“He calls himself thee Foodir,” said Ravn.

Saukkonen reached below his desk and his hand emerged with a sand-colored brick. It was bent into a quarter arc, like a live actor taking a bow.

“Listen to me, Fudir,” said Saukkonen. “You are a bold and competent man, and I need bold and competent men, so I am asking you to throw in with me and work in my Special Squad.”

The Fudir felt no desire to do any such thing. He smiled broadly and said, “Of course, sah.”

But Saukkonen frowned and shook his head. “You hesitated. Ravn, check his ears.”

The Fudir felt his head turned roughly and the buffers plucked ungently from his ears.

“Now,” said Saukkonen, “let’s try that again. Fudir, will you join me on my Special Squad?”

“Of course, sah,” the Fudir said, surprised that the commodore would even ask. Even as he spoke, a part of him knew he had been compelled. Yet he felt that his agreement was entirely rational and the use of the Dancer wholly unnecessary, almost an insult. He favored his new boss with a questioning look.

“Oh, yes,” Saukkonen said. “It’s more seamless when the subjects don’t know. Then, they only think they’ve changed their minds. Leftenant Olafsdottr, for example, does not approve of my plan, but she will help me carry it out with every fiber of her being. Won’t you, Leftenant?”

“With every fiber, sah!”

“You see? I haven’t sold out to the Confederacy. I’ve only recruited a Confederate to work for me. Oh, don’t worry, Specialist Fudir. You haven’t become a zombie. You still have your own will. It’s only that you also have my will. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, but there are no two ways about this! Haha.” He hefted the brick. “Together, we can move with the same purpose, with a minimum of debate and compromise.”

The Fudir nodded. It made sense. “And what is that purpose, if I may ask, sah?”

The commodore stroked the Twisting Stone, which now had the aspect of a screw. His smile bespoke contentment. “The Periphery grows weary of the constant vigilance needed against the Confederation. It is time we put an end to it, so the children of the border—of Abyalon, of Megranome, of all the Old Planets—may sleep peacefully at night. I will take the Mighty 3rd across that trackless waste and strike Those of Name and Bring Them Down!”

The Fudir’s heart swelled with those words. He could fairly see the ships lifting, the Names cowed, Terra free! “Yes!” he cried. Terra free. How absolutely marvelous that this man would lead the charge!

Beside him, the dreams of Lady Cargo paled. Yet, this was far too grandiose for military contractors. Peacekeepers were usually hired to separate belligerents, interdict aggressors, patrol an exit ramp, or maintain order in the aftermath of catastrophe. Seldom could they go up against a planetary government, and never at any sort of profit. Saukkonen, of all men, should know how mad a scheme it was. Even with the Ourobouros Circuit, how did he imagine the “Mighty 3rd” would fare against the entire might of the Confederation of Central Worlds? He had barely escaped from his own flotilla when they had cut communication with the flagship.

“I’m a humble man,” Saukkonen said. “I have always followed my orders honestly and to the best of my abilities. But lately, it has grown on me that this is not enough. Honor and ability demand more of me than that.”

The Fudir saluted him. “Yes, sah!” And in a flash, he knew. And he knew what he must do.

And he dreaded it almost as much as servitude.

He turned to Lieutenant Olafsdottr. “What say you, Ravn. Will you help our Leader destroy you own Confederation?”

“Of course.”

“But you don’t like it.”

The Confederate shrugged. “We do what we must, not what we like.”

“I know how you feel,” the Fudir said. “I’m also of two minds about the project. Do you understand me? But the Fudir is utterly convinced.”

He saw the light in the Ravn’s eyes, the understanding that she was free to act where the commodore’s instructions ran not to the contrary.

“Hear me, Donovan,” she said in the harsh birdsong of Confederal Manjrin. “‘Your duty past is your duty now.’”

Donovan grinned at her. No matter how enslaved the execrable Fudir may have been to the commodore’s will, the slumbering Donovan had not been affected. He turned to Saukkonen and said, “I’m ready to do my duty, sah!”

As Saukkonen briefed him regarding the proposed raid, Donovan found himself falling more and more in sympathy with it. He had never had much love for Those of Name and thought bringing about their downfall a good thing. Saukkonen has not reduced Donovan to obedience, he thought, but that does not reduce the persuasive power of his voice. He knew he must act quickly, without warning, lest he soon become a willing ally on this gallant but foolhardy mission.

His chance came when Saukkonen asked for suggestions. Ravn told him the Confederate fleet dispositions and suggested alternate routes into the Central Worlds, but the commodore disagreed. “Sapphire Point, it must be.” And Ravn and Donovan assented.

“But, Bakhtiyar,” Donovan said, “if you take the entire fleet across the Rift, the ’Feds will shoot first, not open a discussion. Missiles will be launched before you can win over the master of each enemy corvette, and you cannot persuade shrapnel.”

Commodore Saukkonen pursed his lips and cocked his head at the Dancer, which he held cradled in his arm. “True,” he said. “True. What do you propose?”

Donovan rose and began to pace. “One may succeed where many fail. A small courier ship may slip across the Rift and escape notice. Is that not right, Ravn?”

“Obviously,” the blond woman said without now a trace of accent. “I’ve done it myself.”

“And if this courier carried the Twisting Stone with him, he could undermine authority on selected worlds; soften them up for the Mighty 3rd. Then, when you swoop in to disarm them, they will be agreeable. Is that not a better plan?”

Saukkonen’s brow knit and his eyes lost their limpid clarity. “It sounds…I think…Yes. It may be a good idea, at that.”

Ravn nodded enthusiasm. Donovan’s own heart swelled with pride that his commander had so complimented his proposal. Quickly now.

His pacing brought him behind the commodore’s chair and fast as a black mamba striking, Donovan reached over his shoulder and seized the Dancer, which slid like a bar of soap from the man’s fingers.

He nodded to himself. Another suspicion confirmed.

“Don’t move, Commodore,” he said, and with those words he felt the power course through him. Saukkonen sat back in his chair, his eyes full of fear and bewilderment.

“Don’t worry, Bakhtiyar. I bear you no ill will. I only need your service. As you’ve already agreed, I will invade the Confederacy for you. A fleet is too big a thing for an invasion; but a single man…Yes? Call the field and order a courier ship fueled and provisioned for me. The swiftest ship you’ve got. Survey class alfvens. Supplies for a seven-week journey. Will you do that for me?”

“Of course,” said Saukkonen, already reaching for his comm. “Why wouldn’t I?”

In a sane universe, Saukkonen could have suggested several reasons why he shouldn’t agree; but the universe hadn’t been sane since Maggie Barnes shifted the backhoe on a nameless world off Spider Alley.

While Saukkonen gave brisk orders on the comm, Donovan took Ravn aside and spoke so the commodore could not hear. “I will take the Stone across the Rift to Those of Name. Along the way, I will investigate the reasons why our ships have disappeared there. When you contact your handler, you may tell him that League ships have also disappeared and they suspect the Confederacy of seizing them.”

Ravn nodded her head once, sharply. “Yes, they would readily believe that.”

“Tell them it may be a wise thing to call a joint commission to discuss the issue.”

“Excellent,” cried Ravn Olafsdottr. “Our master will be pleased with you.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” Donovan told her, “until you’re sure of who our master is.”

Donovan found it quite eerie to cross the hard to the ship that had been readied for him. Everyone he encountered bent immediately to do his bidding. Some indeed because Saukkonen had given orders obeyed in the normal course of naval affairs. But also ’Saken STC, which agreed without question when he asked for an immediate lift window and priority scheduling for the microwave boosts. It would be a long, hard crawl to the Abyalon Road. After that…Well, Hanseatic Point was closer, but he knew he would go to Sapphire Point for the crossing. He wondered why he should attempt the more closely patrolled crossing. Then, he remembered that Grimpen had informed Fir Li of the ICC’s trans-stellar communicator, and laughed.

He also found it exhilarating to be free of the muddled cocoon of the Fudir. He had worked long and hard to build that persona, to make it more than a mask. But he had learned that while he might forget about the Game, the Game would not forget about him; and the life of a petty thief and scrambler in the back alleys of Jehovah, while it did have its charms, was rather more circumscribed than Donovan was used to. Sleep well, Fudir, he said. Until I have need of you again.

In the run-up to the Abyalon Ramp, when ’Saken had red-shifted behind him, his thoughts drifted to the Fudir’s quondam companions and he wondered, though only for a brief moment, what had become of them.

“Perhaps I should have tracked them down and told them to forget everything,” he said to the Stone. (Well, it would be a long transit, and he needed someone to talk to.) “But that would have been very hard. If they forgot the chase for the Dancer, they would have wondered how they wound up together in a seedy hotel in Chel’veckistad.

“I know,” he told the Stone. “It would have been easier to tell them to kill each other. Maybe I should have done that, but…” But all those years wearing the Fudir had softened him. He would miss Bridget ban tonight. He would miss Little Hugh’s companionship. He would even miss sparring with Greystroke. It bothered him that he would have killed them, had that been convenient. Killing strangers was far easier.

Saukkonen and the Raven had taught him a little of the limits of limitless power. If someone knew the Stone was being used on him, it was more difficult to impose one’s will. One must guide the conversation in such a way that commands not only seemed natural, but seemed the subject’s own ideas.

“That must be why the legends persisted,” he told the Stone. “I could have told Saukkonen to forget he ever had you; but I could never track down everyone who had ever known he had it. Even if I had the Ourobouros Circuit, I might cover ninety, ninety-nine percent of them. But there would always be a few who were missed. And they would remember, and they would write down the legends.”

The days ran by and he entered the Abyalon Road at last. There had been a few radioed messages. From Saukkonen, he thought; perhaps from Bridget ban, or Hugh. But he had not responded to them. Now that he was off-planet, his control was weakening. The commodore, in particular, must be wondering what madness had come over him. Perhaps he was begging in these messages that Donovan not start a war with the Confederacy. Ravn—had she escaped the Yard or not, once her allegiance to Saukkonen had faded? If she had, she would be confident that Donovan was doing the right thing, because it was what Donovan would have told her whether he had the Dancer or not. And if she hadn’t escaped, then it didn’t matter.

“Bridget ban knows how the game is played,” he told the Stone. “If her own weapon was turned against her, she’ll learn to live with it. And perhaps be less vulnerable the next time. And Hugh…Well, it was time he grew up some more.”

Yet he could not conjure their faces without seeing a look of betrayal on them.

It was not until he was in the groove—“in the fookin’ groove,” he heard the ghost of Slugger O’Toole say—on the Palisades Parkway, that he sat down to have a serious talk with the Stone.

Behind him, on Old ’Saken, the ICC household troops turned out in such numbers that even the Forsaken Planetary Manager took alarm and called out the civil police. “We can’t have private justice, now, can we?” he asked in those oh-so-reasonable tones with which the Forsaken irritated the people of Die Bold and Friesing’s World.

Killers fleeing Die Bold justice, the tellies cried. But they had only crude sketches of Hugh and Ravn to go by, and Hugh remained secluded in an insect-infested hotel in the Fourteenth. Lady Cargo had a vague recollection that “Ringbao” had been accompanied by another man but she could not for the life of her recall what he looked like.

They were aware of Grimpen, too; but again, except for his size, his particulars were not specific, nor were they entirely sure he was connected with the others. ICC detectives rousted a great many large men in Chel’veckistad, and some of those large men did not take the rousting well. There was a near-riot in the fashionable Third District, and that is what triggered the PM’s intervention.

The shootout on the Great Green with the willowy blond-and-black woman left three dead, none of them the suspect, and opened the civil police to charges of recklessness. Greystroke believed that Ravn had deliberately fired behind her to create civilian casualties that could be blamed on the police; but he could not prove it, then or later, and in any case the ’Fed agent disappeared.

Once, while shopping for groceries, Bridget ban encountered one of the ICC guards who had questioned the Fudir and her on the hillside overlooking Dalhousie Estates. There was nothing to connect her with the Die Bold killings, but the ICC was now suspicious of anyone who had been near the compound.

But it was the subordinate, the Terran, whom she ran into. She saw that he recognized her, and her arms full of groceries at the time. But he only shook his head and said, “You were with him,” and passed on by. After that, however, only Greystroke ventured forth from their rooms.

The waiting game grew tedious, especially for Hugh, of whose face a rough approximation had been broadcast planet-wide. But even Greystroke and the Hounds found themselves chafing after two and a half weeks.

There was a common room at the hotel, and it had a ’visor for the use of the residents. Bridget ban and her people had been avoiding it, for fear of being influenced by the Dancer. But after they had read of Saukkonen’s firing by Lady Cargo and his consequent defiance, it became clear that neither of them had the Dancer. The Fudir must have carried it off to liberate Terra. They were discussing how they might penetrate the Confederacy, when another resident pounded on the door of Bridget ban’s room and hollered, “Ya gotta see this!”

It was not a ruse. Most residents of the Fourteenth were themselves people who did not want to be found, or who had simply lost themselves. Strangers in their midst were carefully ignored.

The ’visor was broadcasting a continuing story—“breaking news,” in the local dialect—and it was not clear at first what had triggered “the emergency cabinet meeting” or “the order to all vessels to stand down” or even “the hope for a peaceful resolution.” Surely, no rievers would ever dare a planet like Old ’Saken! Perhaps it was Megranome? There were small systems in contention among the Old Planets. Piracy, raids, annexations, coups de main, but there had not been a trans-stellar war since the affair between Valency and Ramage on the far side of the Silk Road.

“Here are the visuals once again,” the newsreader announced. “The ships emerged from the Abyalon road at are-four, Chelvecki time.”

Against the stellar backdrop, cameras on revenue cutters hunted and tracked and locked on.

“Ah,” said Greystroke. “That’s Justiciar. And Victory. And, and Argos. And—” He could not contain himself and whooped for joy. “And that’s Hot Gates herself!”

The cutter’s angle of view widened, jittered, then adjusted for the relative velocities of the tracked ships. It was the entire Sapphire Point Squadron.

Bridget ban could not believe it. Fir Li had abandoned his station!

Grimpen smiled. “I’m glad Dark-hound reads his mail.”

“It’s time,” Donovan told the Twisting Stone, “that you and I had a heart-to-heart talk. Should I call you ‘Stonewall’? It’s the name we best know you by. You’re no scepter, are you? You are the Big Cheese himself.”

The Stone made no answer.

“How long were you imprisoned before January’s ship happened to break down? Not as long as the legends say, that’s for certain. But then, you—or your rivals—had a hand in those legends. It was your folk who uprooted the old Commonwealth of Suns. Dao Chetty never had the bones to do something like that. You told us, and we believed it—only you couldn’t get that elusive hundredth percent.

“It must have been a long, tedious wait for you. How many other ships have slip-slid right past you? But then, how can we measure the patience of a rock?

“Excuse me, of a ‘silicon-based lifeform.’ Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I think carbon has more fun. We certainly get around more.”

He looked at the courier ship’s calendar. “I suppose Sapphire Point is unguarded by now. To secure a trans-stellar communicator? Yes, even Fir Li would take that chance. Did Grimpen notify Fir Li on his own, or did he come within your range during one of his jaunts? No, sending notice was proper Kennel procedure. You’re just taking advantage of it. Hanower and her partners are still patrolling Hanseatic Point. Too many questions, and I don’t have the paperwork.

“This way, we can slip right across St. Gothard’s Pass, no questions asked. Into the Rift. That must have been one honey of a war, Stone, to have wiped out so many suns. I hope none of them were Commonwealth Suns. I don’t mean to sound testy, but I hope they were all yours, or your rivals’, and you were all pretty much wiped out.

“But there must be something left. Something in the Rift, or you wouldn’t be trying so hard to get back there. And no ships would be missing.

“Well yes, it was obvious you were trying to reach the Rift, that you were the prime mover in all this. Do you know when I was certain? Not when January gave it up to Jumdar so easily. Oh, I can see now why he did. January wasn’t going toward the Rift, and Jumdar would have sent it straight to ’Saken, so you, hmm, ‘nudged’ him. It can’t be easy for a rock like you to work your will on the old carbon-based noodle.” He tapped himself on the head, and wondered if he was altogether himself. “You can nudge us, but you haven’t the words to command us.”

That struck him as funny. He would have to ask the Fudir about it the next time they met.

When he had grown serious once again, he said, “No, what convinced me at last was how easily Saukkonen let me have you. You realized that I had a better chance in a monoship—not of entering the Confederation, but of being ambushed and taken by your friends. So you ‘switched horses.’”

Donovan paused and shook his head. “The more I don’t want to do this, the more I know I must.” He placed the Stone in the copilot’s chair and sat facing it, not touching it. “I can’t let you do it, you know. I can’t let you bring it all back. The old legends are fun to read, but they would have been a horror to live through.”

Donovan left the Stone where it was—it was not, under the circumstances, a flight risk—and climbed belowdecks to the equipment locker. Old King Stonewall was trying to drive him crazy, but he didn’t know if any part of the courier ship was out of range.

He should just give up and take the Stone into the Rift. That would be the path of least resistance.

Until, something came out of the Rift. The people of sand and iron. Weaker maybe, but with undivided leadership this time. No rivals to kill each other off, or imprison each other on far-off planets.

He sighed and climbed back up the ladder to the flight deck. Perhaps if he didn’t actually touch it. There seemed to be some need for organic contact. Perhaps they could only work through organic beings. Wasn’t there an old legend about Anteus and Hercules? But the touch of the Stone was so soothing.

The irresistible object, he reminded himself. It’s trying to seduce you. “I’ve been seduced by prettier ones than you,” he told the Stone.

He found a manipulating arm in the cargo bay. It was not a very large one of its kind, and he spent several hours—having grown unaccountably clumsy with the tools—to detach the outer portion. Then he carried it back to the flight desk.

He checked the settings on the pilot’s console.

Still right in the groove.

Unless that was only what King Stonewall wanted him to think.

He used the arm extension to pick up the Twisting Stone.

It was extremely valuable. There were collectors who would pay him handsomely for it.

He carried it to the airlock and set it inside.

It was a priceless relic of a long-gone people. Hell, it was a long-gone people…

The folk of sand and iron.

He closed the inner lock. Hesitated. Began to open it again. Then, with a curse, hit the pneumatics.

The pins shot into place and the air pumps began to evacuate the chamber. Donovan aborted the cycle. He wanted the chamber full of air.

When the outer lock swung open the air puffed out, taking the Twisting Stone with it.

“After all,” said Donovan, “this too is a home.”

It was two weeks down the Palisades Parkway from Hanseatic to Sapphire Point. For most of that time, Donovan watched the Twisting Stone tumbling away from the courier ship, maintaining the same forward velocity, but now with a lateral component. Now and then, he kicked up the magnification to keep it in view.

Donovan was traveling well under local-c, so the Stone passed through the first few lamina with no ill effect. But then it hit a layer of space whose local-c was less than its net velocity and in a wink it was gone. The ripple in space-time was minor. The next ship to pass would not even notice it.

Donovan continued to stare at the viewer, long after the impact site had fallen behind his craft. Then he resumed the pilot’s seat, checked that he was still in the groove, and wept.