Up Jim River

AN AISTEAR

There is a Terran custom called atangku. The term means something like “obey, be submissive,” with overtones of “be contained in another.” It means, in short, “to moose.” The practical form it takes is that saving another’s life is much like taking it, for the savior takes ownership of the life and the one saved devotes himself thereafter to paying rent. It is thus that Donovan has acquired, in the person of Billy Chins, his very own servant.

The scarred man is not pleased with this turn of events. What need has he of the burdens of ownership? Yet, when he attempts to dismiss Billy, the man falls to his knees on the bricks of Tchilbebber Lane. If the Beloved of Heaven will not have him, his life is worthless and his only recourse is to destroy it!

This strikes Little Hugh as a bit excessive; but Donovan gauges the promise meant, and a part of his mind entertains dismissal for no better reason than to exercise such power. To hold another man’s life in one’s hand is an intoxicating thing; and the temptation is correspondingly strong to take a good stiff drink. Donovan studies the soft pendulous lips, the basset eyes. A man of little use in a fight; but perhaps other talents lie buried.

“Lady Harp be go offworld,” he warns the man. “No kambak Harpaloon.”

“No like kambak here.” And Billy takes the sandals from his feet and claps the dust from their soles. “I go with thee, hutt, hutt. I serve the Child of Wonder. I cook. I wash your clothes. I unfasten your sandal straps. You never unplis of Billy Chins. You see.”

Donovan glances at Little Hugh, who is smiling into his hand. He sighs, knowing defeat from long acquaintance. “Okey-doke,” he tells Billy. “You-fella come by early-early Plough-and-Stars, all bungim wantaim. No kambak you forget hankie. Cart luggage b’long us, too. We travel jildy, this man’s ship.” And he indicates Greystroke, who conceals his delight over the additional passenger.

Méarana also assures the wretch. “No more’ Loons where we are going, Billy,” she says. “You’ll be safe with us.”

Outwardly, Greystroke’s vessel is as forgettable as the man himself. Her lines, her name, her colors, even her registration number are unremarkable.

Inwardly, it is a different story. All the flamboyance squeezed from Greystroke’s persona has been lavished there. Fluted and spiraled columns frame the doorways; murals swarm in the spandrels. Control knobs wear the heads of beasts. Colorful flowers blossom from clay pots and planters; and the odors of champa flower and kyara wood delight the nose.

After Méarana has seen her stateroom and admired the chatterchuff pillows—and the taffy and lace and the bathroom!—she shows all to Donovan as if she herself had decorated it. “Now, this,” she says in mild rebuke, “is first class!”

And Donovan looks it over and plumps a pillow with his fingers. “I have never seen a more agreeable cell.”

That they are aboard by something stronger than an invitation the harper cannot deny. Bars may be made of silk and chains of solid gold, as she had told Jimmy Barcelona. But if more than an invitation, it is less than an incarceration. They are not Greystroke’s prisoners. Not exactly.

Certainly, the Hound wishes to sup at the banquet of their knowledge, meager feast though it be. And why not? They fare on the same quest, and by all appearances she would get the better of the bargain. The Hound and his Pup cannot know less than she at this point.

Not for the first time, she wonders if the scarred man might not err in playing a lone hand. Some Hounds might weight self-interest above all; but surely not Greystroke and Little Hugh! Of the three that she had always suspected, they are the other two. But she had gone to Donovan because of who he was, or who she thought he might be, and what sort of fool consults a specialist only to ignore his advice?

Donovan would not have the Kennel find what her mother sought before he decides whether they can be entrusted with it. Fair enough. But it raises the finer point of whether Donovan can be entrusted with it.

And on that she has a single datum. When it had come to the test, when Donovan had once held absolute power in his hands, he had opened those hands and allowed it to float away.

Her own desires are more dangerous. While Donovan seeks what Bridget ban sought, she seeks Bridget ban. For that finding, the harper might well sacrifice the whole of the Spiral Arm.

Billy Chins insisted on waiting service on Donovan, hovering behind his master’s chair, anticipating his every whim. If Donovan took but a single sip, his glass was replenished. If he but expressed a desire, the object of it appeared on his plate. And should those whims not be forthcoming, Billy would enquire anxiously after them. In consequence, Donovan’s plates were, like the Dagda’s cauldron, never empty.

Neither could Donovan carry a burden from one room to another save that Billy wrested it apologetically from his grasp and bore it for him. “Aggressively servile,” is how the scarred man described him. It became a sort of game: Donovan trying to accomplish some small task unaided, and Billy endeavoring to thwart those efforts. Little Hugh thought it all great fun.

To celebrate the breaking of orbit, Greystroke prepared a dinner of sable tiger fronted by a medley of vegetables. The tiger was graced with a sauce of sea-grapes and zereshik barberries and was accompanied by a black wine pressed of slipskin girdiana.

During the postprandial drinks Donovan raised the question that had been in the back of his throat since the confrontation in Tchilbebber Lane.

“‘We have you surrounded’?” he said.

Greystroke swirled his wineglass before taking a sip. Hugh laughed aloud. “The’ Loons were between Greystroke and me.”

“Still, two against twenty…,” Méarana suggested.

Hugh set his own glass on the table. “I noticed the two of you ready to take them on.”

“The harper was supposed to run for help,” the scarred man said. “But she didn’t. And it wasn’t even her fight.”

“When it is twenty to one,” says Méarana, “it is my fight.”

“How noble.” The scarred man sneered. “When it is twenty to one, I usually find a reason why it’s not.” He gathered the sardonic looks of the others, sighed, and glanced at his servant. “But blood calls to blood. I am a Terran. It was foolish of you, harper, to stand with me.”

“You’ve called me a fool more than once,” she replied. “Why carp at proof?”

The scarred man turned to Greystroke. “What I’d like to know is where you hid the amshifars. You were too much on the spot.”

Greystroke waved his hand. “Oh, they were in the beer, of course. You pulled that clothing trick once before.”

That the ship was thoroughly bugged was a proposition that compelled assent through reason alone. Empirical proof was not required. When Billy Chins “kill big-big cockaroacha” in Donovan’s stateroom, the smashed listening device was mere anticlimax. The harper and the scarred man communicated therefore using Méarana’s code, but not so often as to pique Greystroke’s curiosity. It was a conceptual code, not easily broken without “Rosie’s Thesaurus.” But it was imprudent to wave red flags at bulls.

175.10 and 854.12, he advised her. Slow and steady. The trail is two years cold. How could there be urgency? Privately, he hoped that the colder the trail, the less inclined Méarana would grow to pursue it.

And what of Bridget ban? asked the Silky Voice. Will you abandon her?

She is past abandonment.

You don’t know that, the Sleuth pointed out. There are no clues. There is no evidence.

And so no reason to suppose her still among the quick. No word for almost two years.

The absence of evidence, the Sleuth insisted, is not the evidence of absence.

He was answered by the toll of a distant bell that echoed in the timeless dark within his head.

«Fear» shivered him, and Inner Child swept the room anxiously.

Stop that, Child, the Brute grumbled.

You know the real reason, the Fudir told them all. The trail points into the Wild. To Ōram or Eḥku or some other, more nameless world. Worlds where the jungle has crept over all, where treachery and cruelty await the occasional “dude” from the Periphery. What hope is there of finding her out in the Wild?

“None. But that’s not the real reason at all,” Donovan answered. “The real reason is that you and I would die out there.”

“Who will die?” Méarana asked, and Donovan realized that he had spoken aloud. Billy Chins, who was folding clothing, looked up in sudden alarm.

But Donovan only shook his head. “Mostly people that you’ve never met.”

The ship’s day following, Hugh came upon Méarana in the ward room, drinking of Greystroke’s tea and reading from Greystroke’s library. He poured a mug of his own from the samovar and sat across the table from her. The harper tracked him from the corner of her eye.

“We enter the Silk Road early tomorrow,” the Pup said eventually.

Méarana laid the viewpanel on the table, screen side down. She picked up her tea and sipped. “Is everything… What do they say? ‘In the groove?’”

“Oh, yes. Greystroke is a road scholar and certified superluminal pilot. We usually have a small ceremony when we enter the roads. A dinner, some toasts. Perhaps you would play for us.”

Méarana dipped her head. “I would be honored.”

“That’s all right, then.” He reached out and lifted the viewscreen. “What have you been reading?”

That Greystroke’s dibby had not been tracking the files she and Donovan read was beyond credibility. Hugh had to know when he walked in exactly what file she had up; and that meant his question was intended for something other than information.

“An odd story,” she said. “Some scholar has discovered that everyone on the Old Planets is descended from only twenty-seven different ancestresses.”

“So you don’t spend all your waking hours trying to trace your mother…?”

Méarana looked away. “How could I? Until we reach the Vrouw I’ve no hope of learning anything new.”

“It’s a hopeless search. You know that, don’t you?”

“All searches are hopeful, or there would be no search. That’s why I’ll find her and you won’t.”

Hugh shook his head slightly, perhaps in admiration. “I think you’re wrong, but I rather hope you’re not.” He looked again at the view screen. “Only twenty-seven?” he said. “How can that be? Millions were transported during the Clearances.”

“The author meant that everyone on the Old Planets has at least one of these women as an ancestor, not that they had no others.”

“How can he know that? People were too busy surviving to track their ancestries.”

“He claims to have discovered an old Commonwealth fact: certain genes he calls sinlaptai are passed on from mother to daughter. They change a little bit with every generation. By counting the number of changes he can tell us how long ago the clan-mother lived.”

“Really…!”

“And by studying their distribution within the Old Planets he can learn where these clan-mothers lived.”

“Sinlaptai.”

“He says it’s an ancient term meaning ‘little thread shapes’ or ‘mighty Kondrians.’”

“Oh. Which are they, ‘little’ or ‘mighty’?”

“Both, somehow. He doesn’t say where Kondria is, either. Maybe the mighty Kondrians discovered the little thread shapes. I think he expected his readers to know the term.”

“Which means…,” said Hugh, holding his tea cup in both hands and sipping from it. “…you aren’t one of the readers he expected. What is his name?”

“Umm…” Méarana took the screen up again and back-scrolled to the title. “Sofwari. D. J. Sofwari, it says here. But if you’re asking why I’m reading it, the idea of twenty-seven clan-mothers intrigued me. I’ve been thinking on a song cycle.”

“Don’t tell me. Let me guess. Twenty-seven stanzas.”

“It’s a technique called ‘brute-think.’ Pick something at random and play with it until an idea occurs to you. I found this a few years ago, in a random search. I go back to it now and then and see if my muse has come up with something.”

I am become as duplicitous as the Fudir, Méarana chided herself. If the Hounds backsearch the household gods on Dangchao, they’ll find the record that it was accessed; but they’d not know if it was Mother or I who read it.

“Fudir’s engrossed in a story book called Commonwealth Days. Fairy tales. He’s chasing a dream far longer lost than your own, Méarana.”

“I haven’t lost my dream, Hugh. I’m still holding it.”

Hugh rose from his seat and gathered up his tea cup. “Lucy, be careful of relying too much on the Fudir. He’s a man who uses people.”

“Why, fash it, mon!’ Tis no small thing to be useful! Many men live their entire lives without achieving so much! He tricked you into leaving New Eireann during the Dancer affair; but that was best for everyone, yourself included.”

“Do you suppose that makes it better?”

“I heard the story from his own lips… Perhaps you should hear it there as well.”

“The problem with stories,” said Little Hugh O’Carroll, “is that life never ties up so neatly. Some ends are always loose.”

The Pup fell into a pensive mode, standing with cup in hand. Méarana studied him with a terrible intensity that eventually drew his attention back from the depths to which it had descended. “What?” he said.

“Nothing. I was looking for a man from a story.”

When they slid onto the Silk Road, Greystroke held the promised ceremony, and after dinner, Méarana played a range of music: ancient tunes by Paxton of Terra; the gentle “Fanny Poer” by the legendary blind harper O’Carolan; the savagely sarcastic “On, Ye Heroes, On to Glory!”; the elegiac song cycle “Green, Oh, Green” by Galina Luis Kazan of Die Bold. But most of all, she played snatches of tunes from the Dancer cycle. She chose passages of camaraderie—among Greystroke and the Fudir and Little Hugh—hoping with her strains to ease their strains. If she could not mold them into what they once were, she could at least remind them of what that had been.

Greystroke was a master of indirection, and this was true no less of his interrogations than of his appearance. Hugh was a bit more direct, as only an assassin can be; but he had learned during the guerilla on New Eireann how to lie low and wait things out. The Fudir knew this, and knew something about lying low himself. He spent his time reading Commonwealth Days, then passing on to Rimward Ho! and then to Customs of the’ Loon Tribes, all of which Greystroke had in his ship’s library.

“It appears that Donovan has given up the search for your mother,” Greystroke told Méarana one day in the refectory.

“Oh, he was never looking for her,” the harper allows. “He was only looking after me. It was an agreement he reached with Uncle Zorba.”

Greystroke’s lips quirked. He had some experience with agreements with Zorba de la Susa. “So Donovan is your chaperone? Your bodyguard? You know of his disability…?”

“About two-sevenths of it.”

If the precision puzzled Greystroke, he made no sign. From the samovar, he poured a cup of Gray Thoughts, a blend made especially for him by the tea masters of Peacock Junction. “I noticed you the other day with a medallion. I wonder if I could see it?” He carried the cup to the table and sat across from Méarana.

The harper hesitated only a moment. Donovan had been correct. Greystroke could sneak up on you in more ways than one. She pulled the medallion from under her blouse and handed it, dangling from its chain, to the Hound.

He studied it closely, tracing the abstract shapes on the obverse with his finger.

“Rude,” the Hound said after a moment, “but not without craft. This is the souvenir your mother brought back from Thistlewaite, the one you showed Gwillgi?”

“Aye.”

“But you and Donovan were making inquiries on Harpaloon, not Thistlewaite.”

“Mother told me that she bought the piece on Thistlewaite, but it had come from Harpaloon.” Méarana blushed. “I thought as long as we were there, I could find some matching pieces.”

O Vanity, thy name is Woman! What sort of person, in search of her missing mother, would pause to shop for jewelry? Surely, one who would blush to admit to it! That the same individual might also blush to lie to a League marshal only equivocates the sense. Hounds are always sniffing around after scents, but what they flush is not always what they think it is.

“It isn’t Harpy work, though…,” Greystroke ventured.

“No, none of the jawharries…”

“…it comes out of the Wild.”

“What?”

“Isn’t that what Jawharry Boo Zed told Donovan? Enjrun or Ōram or Eḥku, he wasn’t sure of the name.” Greystroke shrugged. “Somewhere out in the Burnt-Over District.”

One may also flush from anger. “Mother bought me that piece!” the harper said and reached for it as if it were Donovan’s throat.

But Greystroke paused and ran his fingers over it. Had he felt the writing on the back? Donovan thought it derived from the old Tantamiž script, though he had not yet identified the alphabet. But the Hound only grunted. “It’s broken off. The red stone once projected below the rim of the disc. Was it always thus?”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Méarana said, blushing.

“It looks a bit like a tornado.” He held it up to the light. Méarana could see the writing on the reverse when the light caught it. “The artisan brought out the grain of the gem to make it look like it’s whirling.” He handed it back to her and Méarana stuffed it quickly inside her blouse. “A red tornado in a black disc,” Greystroke mused. “On my homeworld, Krinth, tornados sometimes blacken the sky. And I’ve heard of white tornados on Ogilvy’s World—funnels of snow and ice that screech down from the arctic—and can flash-freeze a man in a moment’s passage. Maybe a red tornado is a hot one, volcanic.” He laughed, though not entirely with humor.

“I never thought it was representational,” Méarana said. “I took it as symbolic.”

Greystroke shrugged. “Every symbol represents something. Your mother’s last gift to you… I can see why you’d want to learn all you could about it.”

“No,” said Méarana, “you’re wrong. It’s her latest gift, not her last.”

Greystroke’s lips parted, but he changed his mind. He hadn’t come to crush a young woman’s illusions. Besides, Zorba would one day watch the recording of this session and judge how his protégé’s daughter was treated. “The Friendly Ones decree,” he told her. “But until we know Schoedinger has cut the thread, all possibilities remain.”

The “cold comforts of Krinth” were proverbial across the Spiral Arm. But he had meant to console her, even to encourage her in his own fashion, and of the three, he had been the one most selflessly in love with Bridget ban, and that should count for something. “Thank you,” she said.

Greystroke rose, but paused and turned back. “Oh,” he said. “I nearly forgot. One of the jawharries was murdered. I thought, maybe, you would want to know.”

A cold hand stroked Méarana’s heart. “Who…?”

Greystroke held a hand to his ear, consulting his dibby “We picked it up on the newsfeed as we crawled upsystem… Ah. Here it is. A woman named—oh, by the Owl!—En… wel… um.”

“Enwelumokwu Tottenheim,” Méarana answered. The numbness spread. “Enwii.”

“Yes, that’s the one. At Côndefer Park. Another’ Loonie attack, apparently. Like what nearly happened to that poor Chins devil. They scrawled irredentist slogans on the shop walls. The Marshal of Preeshdad said there had been a string of incidents recently. I’m sorry.” He offered her a small kerchief from his sleeve. “I didn’t know you felt so about her.”

“No, it’s not that,” Méarana cried. “We only spoke a few minutes; but the woman was so terribly cheerful and friendly.” Hound’s business? Enwii had said. That’s a magnet for trouble. I don’t want to be involved.

Violence was common in Preeshdad, and jewelry shops were tempting targets… Maybe it was inevitable that one of the places they had visited should be attacked. But Méarana shrank from Greystroke, suddenly wary of who he was and what he might do in pursuit of a prize for the Ardry. She did not believe in coincidence.

And neither did Donovan when she told him about it.

He went immediately to the’ face in Méarana’s stateroom and found the Preeshdad marshal’s report readily accessible. “The prick,” he said. “He wants us to know about it.”

“Why? Was it a warning? Did he and Little Hugh…?” “What? No. Greystroke can be guilty of a great many foul deeds. Terrifying you counts as one. But he’ll never wear the Badge of Night.”

Méarana sat and leaned over her folded hands. “None of you want me to find Mother. You keep throwing obstacles at me. You keep trying to discourage me. You, Greystroke, Little Hugh. They spread doubts about you. You spread doubts about them. You keep secrets from me.” “What secrets have I kept from you?” “Ōram,” the harper said distinctly. “Eḥku. Enjrun.” Donovan closed his eyes. Greystroke really can sneak up on you. “That caracan,” he said. “That son of a whore.”

“I guess I wasn’t supposed to hear about those places.” Donovan looked around the room. “Should we invite Greystroke and Hugh to sit in personally, or is it enough that they can listen when the mood strikes them?”

“At least Greystroke…”

“If the Gray One were really interested in finding Bridget ban, he’d be out looking himself, not trying to find out what we know. By the gods, I hope he did hear that!” He struck the table hard with both fists. The ’face jumped and a Friesing’s World death hoot fell off its hook on the wall and clattered to the floor.

Billy Chins came scurrying in from the common room, his face creased in anxiety. “Why such shout-shout? Is master want Billy?”

The scarred man rubbed his face and for a moment all was silence. Then he pushed to his feet and walked over by the door, where he picked up the fallen instrument. He played a few notes in the horrid and unnatural intervals of the Qelq-Barr Mountains, then placed the hoot once more on its hooks, but it fell again to the floor. This time Billy Chins rushed to retrieve it and held it defensively in his hands.

The Fudir turned to Méarana. “Greystroke had a reason for trying to frighten you. No, stay, Billy. You deserve to hear this.” He returned to his seat and tapped the screen.

“The Preeshdad Marshal said this Tottenheim woman was savagely beaten. But I saw the morgue photos on the upload, and there was nothing of the savage in it. It was a careful and methodological beating, designed to extract the maximum of information. Kaowèn, it’s called.”

“Kaowèn? Maximum information? Enwii didn’t know anything! She had a—”

Donovan put a finger to her lips. “And now Those know she didn’t know anything.”

“Those?”

Donovan seemed to withdraw into himself. “Something is following us.”