The January Dancer (39 page)

Old ’Saken! the scarred man says. The very name is magic. Here was the world at the end of the ancient Via Dolorosa, where the bewildered detritus of Terra was cast off to live or die as best they could in the collapse of the Commonwealth of Suns. In the tumultuous and despairing first generation, the ultimate decision had been to live, and that had resulted in a certain lack of sentimentality. “Whatever it takes” was the motto of the first dynasty of presidents. In her long history, ’Saken’s refugee camps came under rough bosses, gave way to city-states, then organized in leagues and empires and shattered in civil wars. Her rough-and-tumble traditions linger in her civic religion, but the bond of fractious solidarity that arose among the exiles resulted finally in the largest world with a single planetary government. The Forsaken, as they call themselves, have a motto: “I against my brother; my brother and I against our cousin; my cousin and I against the world.”

Other worlds were settled by successive waves of deportees: Waius, Damtwell, Die Bold, Bandonope, and the rest, and some prospered (like Friesing’s World) and some did not (like the derelict worlds of the Yung-lo), but ’Saken always held to pride of place. That their ancestors had been the first deported argued that they had been especially important in the old Commonwealth. At least, the Forsaken argued so. If Jehovah is unworldly and Peacock indolent, if Die Bold suffers ennui and New Eireann desperation, a certain whiff of satisfaction, of even arrogance, has settled over Old ’Saken. In the heart of every Forsaken man and woman rests the suspicion that they were just the least bit better than those upstarts on Die Bold or Friesing’s World.

All of which could be very problematical when it came to tourism.

People across the Spiral Arm came to visit Old ’Saken. Obstreperous boozhies from the Greater Hanse; pesky Megranomers and their peskier children; Chettinads in their ridiculous garb; yokels from Jehovah; rubes from Gatmander; even jump-up so-called royalty from the so-called capital world of High Tara. They all wanted to see the First Field, where the landings had been, and other sites associated with the early days: Kong Town, Elsbet Bay, Raging Rock.

So there was a great deal of traffic on the Piccadilly Circus and it was not impossible, nor even very unlikely, that a trader or tourist chance-met on Die Bold would show up also on Old ’Saken. So the posse would, Bridget ban insisted, maintain the same identities, just in case.

The transit took only a single day, but the traffic on the ramp was heavy and intricately choreographed by local STC. After that, the magbeam network caught the two ships and gentled them down toward the legendary world where the Human Diaspora had begun. During the crawl, Bridget ban and the Fudir studied maps of Chel’veckistad, searching out the best and most plausible routes from the spaceport to the Dalhousie Estate in the Northbound Hills where Lady Cargo lived. “She’ll have it with her in the estate,” Bridget ban had said. “Question is, do we enter the grounds openly or secretly?”

“Or both,” suggested the Terran.

Greystroke and Hugh in the other vessel had agreed. A Krinthic merchant prince might have probable cause for calling on the chairman of the ICC and just enough social standing to pull it off. Hugh was able, after some research, to craft a plausible RFP involving a shipment of crater gems for Dalhousie Dew. The latter was an especially fine touch, since the hybrid fruit grew only in the soil of the Northbound Hills under direct control of Lady Cargo’s estate. The pricing was inevitably months out-of-date, but the proposal would at least get them a hearing with the estate manager and the master vintner.

“She will almost surely try to influence the terms of the deal with the Dancer,” Greystroke said. “Ringbao will use Fudir’s plan and we’ll compare notes afterward.”

The Fudir had suggested aural implants that would block Cargo’s direct voice, while repeating the sense of the words via simulation. He called it the “Odysseus Strategy,” after an ancient Terran god. Hugh had thought of a number of other possibilities—the actual vibrations in the air might carry the effect, the sense of the words might carry the effect despite the buffer—but as no one could see a way around those objections, they had decided to go ahead with the plan.

“If ye agree to a muckle bad deal,” said Bridget ban, “we’ll know the buffers are no help.”

“What matters,” the Fudir interjected, “is to scout out the security inside the grounds. We need to know where she’s keeping it, and what we’ll have to bypass to get to it.”

“Teach a Peacock pleasure,” Greystroke retorted.

“I don’t know why ye bait him so much,” said Bridget ban after the connection was broken.

“Getting him to react is the only way I know he’s there,” the Fudir grumbled. “He’s my jailor, gods take him. How should I feel about him?”

“Enough o’ that, now,” said the Hound. “Let’s go over the topography again. There’s a ravine near the north end o’ the estate that might provide an entrance.”

They were a day out of High ’Saken Orbit when Bridget ban picked up a Hound’s beacon.

“Yes, Grey One,” Bridget ban told the Pup when he had called with the same information. “We’re hearing it, too. Yellow Code. A ship in parking orbit. Fudir’s trying for a visual right now. I think it must be Grimpen. He told us at Sapphire Point he was going to the Old Planets. Wait, here’s the image. Aye, that’s Grimpen’s ship, alright, the muckle great wean. No, no answer yet…Give it a minute for the time lag.”

“According to the intelligence,” said the Fudir, “the other ship’s intelligence is on standby. Answers politely, but won’t comment on the owner’s whereabouts. Won’t even acknowledge that Grimpen’s the owner.”

“No, it would nae do so…”

“Cu,” said Greystroke. “Grimpen must have gone planetside. Ask his ship when he’ll be back.”

“Nay, the Grimpen is senior tae me, and his ship’ll nae accept my override. Yes,
Rollover?
Yes, I’ll leave a message. Tell your master that Bridget ban and Greystroke want to meet with him. Greystroke, if Grimpen came directly here from Sapphire Point, he’s been here for a metric month. Unless he stopped at Abyalon, or took a side trip to the Cynthia Cluster.”

“Which means he’s on the scent of something.”

“He was on the scent of something when he left Sapphire Point. But not the Dancer.”

Early the next morning, the Fudir put
Endeavour
into High ’Saken Orbit not too far off the Chel’veckistad beanstalk. From parking orbit, they could see the two other beanstalks peeping over the horizon. Bridget ban admired the flame-red aspect of the distant Kikuyutown-Chadley Beanstalk, which was just catching the sunset. “They’ve been around a long time, the Old Planets have. Someday Jehovah, Peacock, and the rest will have them, too.”

“Old Earth,” said the Fudir, “had a dozen of them. They were like a wall around the world. Twelve-Gated Terra, she was called. People came from around the old Commonwealth just to see them from space. It’s said that Earth’s day was lengthened more than a minute by the conservation of angular momentum. No one knows how many tens of thousands died when the Dao Chettians scythed them down. Now your oldest planets have two or three apiece, and you think it’s a marvel of science.”

“It’s not
science,
” said Bridget ban. “It’s
engineering
. Ancient superstitions have nothing to do with beanstalks.”

“And where do you think those engineering formulas came from? Someone had to think them up in the first place, right?”

“Losh,” said Bridget ban, “I’ll ha’ nae religious arguments here.”

The posse contrived to meet as if by chance in the Great Green Square, where Congress Hall and the PM’s Residence were must-see attractions. Both had been built over the course of several generations in the early years of Chu State, although they served now for the planetary government. They featured the tall, ornamented towers of that age. Giant mosaics of colored tiles, cleverly laid to use the angle of view from street level, turned the sharp-slanted roofs into murals. One showed an eagle fighting a snake; another showed a horseman charging across a snow-draped plain. There were spots on the Great Green, marked by low, railed platforms, from which each mural appeared as three-dimensional. Admission was monitored by a sullen young woman from Megranome, since no Forsaken would accept such a menial job.

Hugh took his turn and was delighted to see how the artist’s use of forced perspective caused the horseman to appear as if riding out of the very roof itself. He asked the guide how it was done and the Megranomer replied in a dull monotone that “tile-artists of the Cullen Era were masters of the geometry of optics” and that the horseman was “Christopher Chu Himself bringing word of the Brythonic attack to Boss Pyotr.” Hugh gathered that he was not the first ever to ask the question. Hugh wondered briefly who Christopher Chu Himself was before the girl called time on him and he stepped down from the platform to encounter “Kalim,” the manservant to “Lady Melisond.”

O happy chance!

Of course, it has all been carefully choreographed ahead of time; but Hugh had already encountered two other people he had met on Die Bold, so the usefulness of the charade was beyond question. “Reggie, meechee!” he cried for the benefit of onlookers. “I thought Lady Melisonde was going to Friesing’s World. I must tell
my straw
Benlever and we will have lunch together. Have you seen the tiled rooftops? An effect of the most amazing!”

The Fudir glanced at the galloping horseman on the roof of the PM’s Residence. “I wonder if he had his treachery already in mind.”

“Who?”

“Chu. You know this peninsula was called Chu State in the early days. There were four or five refugee camps here, south of the marshes.”

“Unified by Chu?”

“No, by someone called Bossman Sergei. There was a whole dynasty of ‘Bossmen,’ and the Chus were their majordomos.”

“You mean, like a
tainiste
?”

“More like glorified butlers. The story there”—he nodded to the rooftop—“is that Bossman Pyotr wouldn’t believe Chu’s warning about a winter attack; so Chu improvised a hasty defense along the Challing River and repulsed the Brythons. Afterward, the people demanded he become the new Bossman.”

“And it wasn’t like that?”

The Fudir shrugged. “It’s the official history, so it’s probably wrong. I don’t know that Chu planned to seize power from the beginning; but…Ah! Here’s Lady Melisonde.” He bowed from the waist. “Lady, see who I’ve found.”

Bridget ban wore an ankle-length gown of emerald-green edged in gilt geometries, and a matching pillbox cap with a half veil hanging across her face. She offered her hand, saying, “Ringbao! Top of the morning to ye!”

Hugh bowed and pressed the hand to his lips in the High Taran fashion. “And the rest of the day to yourself,” he replied, repressing his instinct to reply in the more vulgar Eireannaughta fashion.

Shortly, Tol Benlever had joined them and Kalim led them to the Green, where they claimed a table. Lady Melisonde ordered drinks from the dumbwaiter—four Ruby Roses—and shortly a machine of some sort rolled up to their table with flute glasses inserted in matching sockets.

They each took one and Melisonde said, “’Saken mechs are quite clever, don’t you think? They employ these automated servants for all sorts of menial tasks.”

“Whatever will the Terrans do for jobs,” murmured Kalim.

“Well, they don’t speak out of turn,” said Tol Benlever, with a significant glance at Kalim. When Lady Melisonde said, “Go,” and the autoservant left, he chuckled. “And they listen better than Terrans, too.”

“Ah, but a human waiter can anticipate your needs,” Ringbao pointed out. “I suspect that autoservant can only do what it’s told. And before you jape on that,
my straw,
” he added to Benlever, “may I remind you that cunning is to be prized wherever it is found.”

“Granted,” said the Krinthic trader. “Say, have any of you seen that nice Alabastrine woman we met on Die Bold? I think she was coming here, too.”

Three shakes of the head. “’Tis a grand, big planet, Tol, darling,” said Melisonde. “I much suppose we’ll run into her by and by.” She raised her glass. “Our mutual successes.”

They all drank. Hugh found the liqueur thick, almost syrupy, and with a distinct cherry aftertaste. “Not bad,” he said. “Though I’d not drink it in quantity.”

“You couldn’t afford it in quantity,” said Benlever. “It’s one of the ‘padded wines’ they make in the Dalhousie Valley here,” he added for the others’ benefit. “I’m to meet with their master vintner tomorrow to discuss a trade deal. We may sample enough there to satisfy even Ringbao’s refined taste. Haha!” The others chuckled and pressed him for details, but he smiled and touched the side of his nose to indicate that those details were a trade secret.

“What of your brother,” Kalim said to his mistress. He meant Grimpen. “You thought he might be here.”

“I’ve seen no sign of him, I fear. I wish that omadhaun had left word where he’d be staying. At least he didn’t do anything boorish to get his name in the news feeds.” She meant that Grimpen had not openly named himself a Hound to the authorities. Yet if he was “flying low,” he might be very difficult to find, nor desirous of being found.

“I can ask around,” said Kalim. “I have friends here. They may’ve seen him.” He meant the Terran Corner of Chel’veckistad.

Lady Melisonde nodded. “So long as you are back in time for my country drive. I do so want to see the Northbound Hills.”

They ordered a lunch of quagmire soup—a chowder of corn and seafood similar to the
chow pinggo
that Hugh had grown up with—and thick “glutton” sandwiches of fried black bread filled with fish, sausage, cheese, and tomatoes. To accompany the meal, they ordered a local beer called Snowflake. Then, having established for anyone listening their companionship, they broke up. Hugh went to arrange fallback lodgings under different names. Greystroke vanished into the crowd on the Green to look for signs of a populace already ensnared by the Dancer. And the Fudir slipped off to change clothes and plumb the Corner while Bridget ban set out to look for her “brother.”