The January Dancer (44 page)

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.