Up Jim River

AN AISTEAR

The scarred man and the harper booked passage on Dragomir Pennymac, out of Hadley Prime bound for Hanower and Dancing Vrouw by way of High Tara. She was the sort of liner called an “Eighteener,” after her complement of alfven engines, and she bore three thousand souls, passengers and crew. She was pushed out of High jehovan Orbit onto the crawl, and Space Traffic Control’s network of magnetic particle beam projectors juggled her steadily upward, handing her off from this platform to that, building her velocity; hurtling her up past the orbit of Ashterath and into the arms of the giant projectors tapping off Shreesheeva, the superjovian in the outer reaches of Jehovah Roads. By that time, Pennymac had achieved a sizable fraction of light speed, and was homing for a hole in space.

The Fudir explained the process to the harper one evening in the aft passenger lounge called Devi’s Delight, a large room done up in a décor suitable for those impecunious enough to travel below Eight-Deck. Holograms of scenery on Beth Hadley surrounded them; but adjacent panels clashed and the overall impression was of an incompetent landscapes The harper and the scarred man dined on plates of overcooked vegetables and a filet of something that very much resembled the flesh of swine.

“The ancient god Shree Einstein,” the Fudir explained, “decreed that nothing could move through space faster than the speed of light. He did this, so it is said, to imprison mankind on the Home World of Terra.”

The harper was less interested in how they would get to High Tara than in what they would do once they got there; but the hunt for Bridget ban could not begin until then. She sighed. “And why would Shree Einstein do such a thing?”

“He foresaw, so it is said, the overthrow and degradation of Terra by her colonies and thought to prevent that by preventing star travel itself.”

“‘So it is said…’” She allowed skepticism to show.

The Fudir shrugged. “Shree Einstein spoke with such gravity that the very nature of matter responded. But the trickster god, Shree Maxwell, set loose his demons. Unlike the word of Shree Einstein, which is univocal and lovingly draws everything toward ultimate unity, the words of Shree Maxwell are bipolar, and may repel or attract. Plasmas ran from star to star at his command, creasing the very fabric of space into superluminal folds when the universe was a cosmic egg, no bigger than my hand might hold. And it was through these roads that mankind spread across the Spiral Arm.”

The crook of the harper’s mouth expressed her skepticism. “But Shree Einstein decreed that nothing could move faster than light. Can one god then overrule another? If so, what sort of mewling half-gods can they be?”

The Fudir bobbed his head from side to side in the Terran yes. “And so it was. But Shree Einstein also decreed that space cannot exist without matter; and so space itself is no ‘thing.’ And ‘no thing’ can travel faster than light. It is what we Terrans call a ‘loophole.’ The plasma loops create holes in space itself, and these deceive Shree Einstein, since what falls into the creases cannot be seen from the Newtonian flats. Thus, we escape his ire by escaping his notice. Within the creases, ships like Pennymac must still move more slowly than light, but ship and light alike are carried along by the speed of space.”

“Awa’ wi’ your parables.” The harper turned her attention to the meal, but it was not such a meal as to merit much attention; and so after a moment she said, “I’m not one for theology, but my mother was skeptical. She believed there could be at most one god, and all the others were but wise men of the past who had been ordered and guided by the Divine Wisdom. She liked to cite the ancient prophet Ockham, who said you should not worship more gods than necessary; and one was quite enough, thank you.”

The scarred man began to laugh, only to stiffen with the smile half-formed. He held this terrible rictus for a moment before he shuddered and his features took on a sharper and more vulpine look. The edges of his lips pulled away from his teeth in a manner not at all comforting. It was not the smile that he had started to make.

“You will have to forgive friend Fudir,” he said. “He was a chartsman himself in the long ago and thinks everyone finds the theology of superluminal travel as fascinating as he does.”

“Ah…” The harper sat back and stared at her companion. She had seen these sudden mood shifts before. Now she understood what lay beneath them. “You must be Donovan.”

The smile was cold. “Yes. The others ‘may’ be, but I am the one who ‘must’ be. I am the hule prote, the prime matter from which all of them were formed. But let me tell you: the Fudir will dance three ways around the Bar before he gets through the door, so I have taken the tongue from him to explain something that he will not; namely, that you are on a fool’s errand, and your search will end in failure.”

“Well,” said the harper, “aren’t you the little bluebird of happiness.”

“Mock on, harper. Optimism is the child of ignorance.”

“I’d wish my harp with me. There is a goltraí coming on and my fingers itch to play you.”

“Oh, what a cacophony that would be! In which mode might we seven harmonize? Pay attention. The Spiral Arm is home to only two sorts of men: those who have paid attention and those who are dead. Your mother was a Hound, sought diligently by other Hounds. Do you suppose that your flailing can succeed where their craft has failed?”

“Perhaps.” The harper pushed the remains of her meal away from her. “And for two reasons. The first is that a daughter may know her mother more thoroughly than any colleague, and so see her where other eyes have failed.”

“But she vanished on a Hound’s business, not a mother’s. If she has contacted neither you nor the Kennel, it means she cannot; and where a Hound is concerned, ‘cannot’ means she is dead. Accept that.”

“No.”

“Your denial is insufficient refutation. I cannot see your mother falling to any mere quotidian disaster. There are very few things in the Spiral Arm that can effect the disappearance of a Hound, and one of them is a Confederate courier.”

“And the second reason,” the harper continued unperturbed, “is that her colleagues have abandoned the hunt. Were there even a hint of ‘Federal involvement, can you doubt they would have pressed matters to the limit?”

“Can you be so sure they have not? Do not discount Those of Name. Their ears are keen, their arms are long. Do you know the Weapon of the Long Knife? They may strike from stars whose very light has yet to reach us. They may strike with no more than a word spoken into the right ear or a coin dropped in the right palm. But the Fudir is a sentimental fool. Somewhere in the cockle of his heart rests a mustard seed of affection; and you have watered it, a little, over the past few days. Like a stone embedded in a pane of glass, it is a weak point. It is there he can break, and we with him. The nostalgia you awakened for your mother has turned his head. And that is a mistake, for a man looking backward can blunder into unpleasant surprises before him. And as little as I care for him, his well-being is tied inextricably to mine. We will take you so far as the Kennel. On that we have agreed. There, the Hounds will also explain how hopeless a task you have undertaken. If after that you insist on pressing the chase, you will do so without our help.” Donovan scowled and shook his head vigorously. “Without our help,” he said again.

The scarred man stilled briefly. His smile faded like the embers of a fire, and the cast of his features changed once more. Where Donovan might be called “cold,” the Fudir seemed merely “devious,” a mien almost friendly in comparison. He was a fox to Donovan’s wolf. But there was no humor now in the set of his mouth or eyes.

“I hate him.”

The harper did not ask who he meant. “He’s afraid. I understand why.”

“No. You don’t. You can’t understand, unless you have a mind like shattered glass—and had endured the shattering.”

She looked into his ever-shifting eyes. “You’re afraid, too.”

“You’re a fool. We all are. Except Brute, who’s not smart enough to be afraid.”

“Yet, you wanted to help me.”

He shrugged. “It’s not like some of us could stay home.”