The January Dancer (15 page)

Yash did not leave his post while the runners gathered and brought him the harvest, but continued to monitor the market. At a few quick signals, his people could vanish.

The sliders thinned out, anxious to catch the next ferry up. The bum with the pita must have finished, for when Yash glanced that way again, he was gone. A hand signal:
Hutt! Hutt!
If the market thinned too much, his collectors would stand out too prominently, should any Pursers be about.

Finally, the take was complete. Yash counted it quickly and inconspicuously, then divided it into four equal parts, giving the other three to Bikram, Hari, and Sandeep. “By different routes,” he reminded them. On the other side of the hole in the back wall of the handi duk
n, a wonderful array of options presented itself.

Yash himself took to Jasmine Way, which wound crook-legged past the Mosque of the Third Aspect with its prominent rooftop observatory and where “the Submissives” prayed standing with their faces turned to the sky. There, a bare-chested man squatted in a ragged dhoti and Yash dropped a dinar in his cupped hands, careful to pull it from his own scrip and not from the bundle hidden under his blouse. Dividing the take into four parts ensured that all would not be lost if a courier were robbed or arrested—much of a much, in Yash’s opinion—but it also ensured against a pettier form of thievery: The four parts must still equal one another when they were delivered to the Committee of Seven.

Yash’s path to the Seven was not straightforward, but the starting point and ending point were fixed, and there were certain theorems in topology, unknown to Yash, that could be solved by a man learned in such things. Thus, as he made his way past the Fountain of the Four Maidens, through the narrow colonnade beside Ivan Ngomo’s pastry-duk
n, and even up Graf Otto’s Stairs, of which none but those born to the Corner know, Yash did not particularly remark the variety of men he chanced upon: beggars, holy men, idlers gazing in display windows, a customer at a knife-kiosk, a man signaling in vain to an auto-rickshaw, a messenger brushing briskly past him only to turn back sharply at some forgotten task. Yet, a closer inspection might have noted a curious resemblance of feature among some of them.

The Seven—who were now six in number, one having found it safe to emerge from the wind—had expected four knocks upon their door, as each runner arrived. The fifth took them by surprise. Eleven knives slid quietly from their sheaths, Bikram being ambidextrous, and the Memsahb nodded to Sandeep, who was closest to the door.

The heavy wooden portal was thrown open and bounded against the wall and—

There was no one there but an old sweeper garbed in a grimy dhoti tucked up at the waist, and brushing with a hand-jharu at the leaves that littered the outer colonnade. He blinked at the sudden opening of the door and pushed erect. “Ah,” he said easily and with none of the deference expected of custodians. “Those of Name greet the Seven of Jehovah.”

And he smiled with all his teeth.

The Seven were disturbed by this unexpected advent. “It’s been long since the Secret Name has called on us,” said the memsahb chairman. Yash and his crew had been dismissed and only the Committee now sat. The courier looked around the room with studied disinterest. He seemed more at ease than he should have—there were the lime pits by the Dunkle Street ghauts, after all—but those of the Confederation were an arrogant folk and even their servants strutted like masters.

“So long that ye have forgotten your duties?” the courier asked. He styled himself Qing Olafsson, but no one in the room supposed it his true name. Years of silence—and now two had come in as many weeks, each bearing the same office-name. The Memsahb knew some unease over this, as of raindrops quickening before a coming storm.

“Dere gifs no dooty,” one of the Committee said. But the Memsahb placed a hand on his arm and he fell silent. Qing thought her a hard woman, and all the harder for her pale appearance. White hair, white skin—she wore a white chiton, too. Such a hue betokened something soft and gentle, like snow or cream, not this hard-edged ceramic.

“What my colleague means,” she said in a grandmotherly way, “is that our homeworld is your hostage.”

“And thus your obedience more assured,” Qing answered, and he noticed how eyes narrowed and lips pressed. No more than two of them might be willing servants of the CCW, he thought, had willingness any weight.

“But not our love,” said another member.

A shrug did for the old proverb. Let them hate, so long as they fear.

And what was asked was a simple matter, a mere nothing. No betrayals were required; no deaths demanded. “I have an ears-only message for Donovan,” he said. “You need only point me in his direction. A handshake, an introduction, that is all.”

“An’ why air ye needing this Donovan?” asked another council member. “Sure, he swims deep, and does not surface for trifles.”

Qing smiled. “That is a matter between him and the Secret Name. Best if none know what is to pass between us.”

The Memsahb placed her hands in a ball on the table before her and leaned slightly over them. “There is a problem.”

“I am grieved to hear it. Does this problem come with a solution, or must the Secret Name speak with the Dreadful Name?”

Oh, they flinched at that! And some looked to the door. Couriers oft traveled with companions should their messages be ignored. If the servants of the Secret Name were the Confederacy’s eyes and ears, those of the Dreadful Name were its hands and fists.

“Tscha!” said a dark-haired woman who had not spoken previously. “What are we owink to League? We live in corners, like rats. Tell him of Donovan.”

The Memsahb had not turned to look at the speaker, one of those Qing had previously noted as genuinely sympathetic to the Confederacy. Now she said, “Yes. Donovan lives deeply, as I’ve said. His world is tangent to ours at only one point: a petty scrambler. He uses this man to contact us, and we use him. There may be further links in the chain. This man—he calls himself the Fudir—may only know someone who knows someone.” She smiled with a tight horizontal smile. “I understand contact is more secure that way.”

And indeed it was. One cannot betray a man unknown. Qing shrugged. “If it is a tangle of yarn and Donovan is at the other end, thy duty is to hand me the loose strand that leadeth to him. Where may I find this ‘Fudir’?”

“That’s the problem,” the Memsahb told him. “He’s gone off-world. A small misunderstanding between him and the Jehovan rectors. He’s ‘in the wind,’ we say, and set no date on his return.”

“And where might this wind have blown him? Those of Name have little patience. The longer the path to Fudir, the longer the path to Donovan, and the shorter our patience. It is only the end of the skein that matters. Thou art of no account. The Fudir is of no account. Other links are of no account.
Thou art nothing
; Donovan is everything. The sooner thou sendest me on my way, the sooner I cease to vex thee, and thou may’st return to thy petty thievery and scrambles.”

“If we are servink Names faithfully,” the dark woman said, “they allow us return to Terra?”

Qing waited without speaking.

Finally, the Memsahb bobbed her head. “He’s gone to New Eireann.”

“A small world,” Qing said, “yet big enough. There is no Corner on New Eireann, but a man in hiding finds no shortage of holes.”

“He has gone with another, the former Planetary Manager, overthrown by the ICC.”

Another of the Seven spoke up. “Dey hope to find…”

But the Memsahb cut him off again. “The Fudir always has his plans, but they do not interest
shree
Qing, here. But however hard the Fudir may be to find, the return of the O’Carroll of Oriel will surely create a storm, and at the epicenter of that storm, you will find what you seek. O’Carroll will lead you to the Fudir; the Fudir will lead you to Donovan—or to the next link leading to him.”

The Memsahb seemed to derive some amusement from this. The courier had heard the ancient and obscure Terran phrase—
make him jump through hoops
—but there was no help for it. A metric week out and another back; but with no firm date for this Fudir’s return, waiting here would take longer. The Fudir must be sought where he had gone.

Qing decided that the Seven knew no more than they had told him. He rose and bowed over his folded hands, as Terrans were wont to do, though it was a shallow bow to indicate his estimate of their status. “I thank the Memsahb for her assistance in my task and assure her that the Secret Name will learn of her devotion to the Guardians of Terra.”

“Guardians!” said the first man in a voice of contempt.

“You are tellink them of our help,” said the second woman, “and our yearnink.”

Qing said, “The Powerful Name undoubtedly has His reasons for what He does or refrains from doing. Wise men are merely thankful for His wisdom.” He bowed again, this time a sardonic nod of the head, and was out the door.

When the Seven hurried to the door and threw it open, the colonnade was empty. There was no sign of the courier, neither straight ahead, nor to the left, where the portico turned and ran down a flight of covered stairs to another level. Crisp leaves rattled across the paving in the autumnal breeze. A hand-broom stood propped against the balustrade.

“Dat makes two,” said Dieter. “How many more messengers have the Names sent?”

“May he never come again,” said another, who spit on the paving stones.

“Fool,” the dark-haired woman scolded him. “Cooperation is our only hope of beink allowed to return.”

The Memsahb shook her head almost imperceptibly. “No, perhaps the Fudir was right about the Twisting Stone. Longer chances have won the game. Come. Back inside. There are still the accounts to review, and it grows chilly out here.”

Greystroke emerged after they had gone and, brandishing his anycloth, became once again a pilgrim seeking the Mosque of the Third Aspect, to be guided unwittingly out of the Corner by helpful Terrans. As he hurried off down the covered stairs, he wondered what the Memsahb had meant by “the Twisting Stone.” There was something familiar there, a passing phrase, a similar term; but it did not come clear to him.

At Graf Otto’s Stairs, he paused. He was being watched—an odd feeling, one he was unaccustomed to. But the sound of footsteps echoed his own. He bought a kebab from a street vendor, and took the moment to gaze idly about. He did not expect to see anyone, and his expectations were granted.

The Other Olafsson,
he thought. The Seven had mentioned a previous visitor. The second courier’s duty was to monitor the first, and if he failed to carry out his mission, execute him and take his place. The servants of the Dreadful Name were quite as skilled as any Hound, and more so perhaps than even a senior Pup.
Interesting
, he thought. If the Other knew that he was not in fact Olafsson Qing, he might never reach his ship alive.

He quickened his pace, and turned an unexpected corner, reconfiguring his anycloth as he did into a different pattern and cut. He wore once again the brocaded kurta of a prosperous duk
ndar-merchant.

Shortly after, he heard the footsteps again.