The January Dancer (10 page)

The chairman, who alone had not turned, continued to study the Fudir with steady gaze.

“Can you now?” she said.

“Do you know the story of the Twisting Stone?”

That drew the attention of the other committeemen, one of whom expressed his opinion in a snort. “We are layink now hope on altar of fable?”

“What means this fable?” another asked, but the chairman put her hand on his forearm.

“I tell you later, Dieter. Explain, Fudir. I know you have always a great mouthful of words, but this should be one of your better efforts. I was not happy that you called us out tonight. What should the rectors have taken alarm?”

The Fudir pressed his palms together and bowed over them. “Nandi, Memsahb. Certain things have I learned…”

But again one of the committeemen interrupted. “No pukkah, bukkin’ Standard,” he said, pointing at Hugh. “That fellah no fanty, him.” At that, all of them descended into the patois, words running too thick and fast for Hugh to follow. They began to shout at one another, all talking at once, gesturing, voices rising in pitch as well as volume. Hugh studied the room and its exits, thinking that he might need one soon.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the commotion died. Everyone was bobbing their head side to side and smiling. “Very well,” the chairman said. “We are agreed. New Eireann lies but two weeks down the Grand Trunk. The proposal may be a fantasy, but so is our Hope. If the one may win the other, it is worth the shot. And should it prove to be nothing, the cost is minimal. Sahb the Fudir, you will have your certificates at this time tomorrow. See Cheng-fu at the seal-maker’s duk
n. You know the man. We will secure you the vacancies you require. The rest is up to you.”

“Mgurk is one of us,” the Fudir told them. “He will do as we ask. The other, let it be the woman, Micmac Anne. She is at the edge of knowledge, and might guess too much too soon. We can be thankful that January did not know what he had; we can only hope that Colonel-Manager Jumdar has not yet discovered it.”

The chairman struck the table with her knuckles. “Bread and salt,” she called out. The Fudir bowed over his folded hands as a servant scuttled in bearing on a silver tray a plate of naan and papad. Then, when small cups of thick, creamy tea had been served out, they all rose but Little Hugh and faced the picture and, bowing over their hands, chanted in a rough unison, “Next year, the hajj upon Terra.”

The harper has grown steadily more impatient, and when the scarred man pauses for another drink, she strikes the table with the flat of her hand. “Is this to be all beginnings and no ends? Who is the Fudir? What is this story of the Twisting Stone?”

But the storyteller taunts her with his smile. “All things in their season, harper. You do not strike all your chords at once or it would be naught but noise. How can there
be
ends without beginnings? Besides there are more than seventeen different versions of that Twister story, and not all of them support the Fudir’s plans.”

“This Fudir, who was he? What was his interest in the Dancer? Why did he favor Little Hugh over Handsome Jack?”

The man looks into a distant corner of the room, and perhaps beyond it. “The Fudir cared nothing for either,” he says finally. “He told the Committee that the Dancer would regain them their lost Earth. He told Little Hugh that it would regain him New Eireann. What he told himself, he never told another; and that was the egg from which much later hatched. Perhaps he hoped to regain a world, too; or maybe his hopes were more modest than that.”

“You speak of him in the past tense. Is he one of those who died?” The harper’s fingers trace the beginnings of a goltraí, but the scarred man stops her.

“Don’t mourn him yet. There will be mourning enough when that time comes. After all, we are all dead men. Our younger selves have died, and yet we live. If some of them live on in my stories or your songs, why, that is the greater immortality. For now, ‘let them have their moment.’ Little Hugh escaped the assassin. The Fudir secured his
“ticket outta here.”
Perhaps the Committee had their moment, as well, for the Fudir was not to their taste, we think, and they may have been happy to see the back of him, fables and a madman’s chance notwithstanding.”

The harper considers his words while aimless notes drift off her strings. She wonders if the scarred man is making the whole thing up in the hopes of cadging more drinks. But if he is, what recourse has she? Against what other touchstone might she rub the tale to test it? Her one other source is gone. Finally, she asks, “Are all the players in place now? I’ve heard other names mentioned. When does this thing finally start?”

“Oh, the ballet is already begun. The dancers are whirling and turning, but they do not all step off at the first bar. What sort of dance would that be? Yet the
prima ballerina
is halfway to her goal. There is a
telos,
if you’ve been following. There is a direction. And it all lies implicit in January’s initial error.”

“January’s error…You’ve mentioned that before. What was it?”

“We need to bring another dancer in. You’ve met him before, but have forgotten him already.”

Na Fir Li exercised in the old Greek style, though he did not know that he did.

Sweat gleamed on his torso, his brow, his thighs, so that he seemed to embody the glittering blackness of the sky itself. He moved lithely from bars to rings to bags to weights across the gymnasium of
Hot Gates
in an intricate ballet impossible to remember save that the body had a memory of its own—which is just as well, because his mind was engaged, as always, on three or four other matters.

On the floor mat, Fir Li executed a series of motions that were half dance and half combat; pleasure and threat combined, though it was the dance that threatened. “Pup,” he said at the top of a twirling leap, “would you care to walk on the ceiling with me?”

Greystroke had entered quietly and was standing by the edge of the mat. Fir Li was the only person he knew who could be aware of his unannounced presence. “Aren’t you too old for that?” he mocked. “The swift-boats report a monoship approaching.”

“I can reduce the gravity in here, if you think the ceiling out of your reach.” The Hound whirled to rest in the center of the room and made a gracious bow. “You may strip, too, if you think it would help.”

Greystroke grunted and went to his master’s side in his coveralls. “In what combat do we pause to strip? The blue wall, then?”

“It offers fewer obstructions. Go!”

The two raced across the gymnasium floor toward the chosen wall. As they neared it, they leaped, as nearly simultaneously as made no difference, and landed feetfirst about halfway up. Two more steps up the wall and…the gravity grid won. Both men back-flipped to the floor again, landing on their feet side by side.

“I don’t recall raising that ceiling,” Fir Li complained. “Whence this monoship? Go!”

Another dash at the wall. Two, three, four steps up. Na Fir Li grinned whitely and touched the ceiling with the ball of his left foot before back-flipping once more to the floor. Greystroke did not quite make it and landed a split second later. Fir Li clapped him on the back.

“At least you landed on your feet, Pup. Some don’t. Perhaps when you are as old as I am, you will run higher.”

“It comes from the Galactic East.”

The Hound, who had bent into his cooling off exercises, paused and gave his full attention. “I knew you were saving a surprise for me. Excellent. I was growing bored since the little incident with the Cynthians. Your conclusion?”

“Cu, there is another crossing, farther east. One that has never been mapped.”

“The scientists say the Eastern Rift is too wide for a sustainable road. But never mind. The scientists are always right until they’re wrong.” He resumed his cooling down exercises. “Your reasoning?”

“As yours, Cu. The ULP has no worlds in that region of space and none of our ships have ventured there; so this cannot be one of our vessels returning. Further, I think it unlikely that a lost colony could have reachieved starflight since the Diaspora and yet remained out of touch until now. Radio signatures would foretell them, if nothing else. Of course,” he added slyly, “it could be a ship of the prehumans, hiding out in the wild east and returning now at last.”

The Hound snorted. “Ah, ‘the Great Returning.’ You don’t believe in that, do you?”

“Nor would I look forward to it if I did. Sequels always disappoint.”

“What of another nonhuman race, achieving starflight at last?”

“There is a first time for everything, I suppose. But for a nonhuman race to achieve starflight, one would first need a nonhuman race. There have been only the prehumans and us.”

“It’s a big Spiral Arm.”

“So it is, but it is far more likely that—”

“That there is another Crossing, that the CCW has recently discovered it, and has sent a ship to learn where it leads, which—fortunately for us—is into my lap. Now you see my wisdom in placing drones along that road?”

“A low probability, many thought…”

“There was great amusement in the kennel,” Fir Li said. “The old dog has lost his mind.” His laughter was very like a bark. “But of course it was far better to put the drones out there and never need them.”

Greystroke glanced at the chronometer. “The interceptors will have secured the stranger by now. We start the interview in about three days, after they get down here.”

The Hound smiled grimly, revealing another band of white. “The curse of Newtonian space. We slide across light-years in mere days, but a few million leagues reduce us to a crawl. Learn what you can while he is in transit. Are any competent inquisitors on the interceptor?”

Greystroke shrugged. “Your apprentice, Pak Franswa-ji.”

“So. He will have to do. Perhaps we have plucked only a merchant-adventurer. They talk readily enough, if the price is right.”

“In a monoship? More likely, a Confederate agent.”

Fir Li resumed his exercises. “They can be brought to talk as well. It is only the price that differs.”

Bones can be broken, whips and screws applied, and a man may wear such scars with honor, because he will know he bore the pain, and can brag, even if he broke on the other side of it, that he had endured as much as he had. But there is another sort of breaking and other sorts of scars, and they reduce a man only to an object of pity, because he cannot even recall what courage he showed before courage found its limit.

Greystroke reported at the Squadron staff meeting, attended not only by Fir Li’s kennel, but also by the naval officers and department heads. And so amid reports on stores, on fuel consumption, on disciplinary hearings, on traffic and customs, was one on a pithed man. The department supervisors looked away and the naval officers threw their heads back in a gesture of distaste. They knew such measures were used, but they liked to pretend they were not necessary.

“He was sent to contact an agent of theirs on Jehovah,” Greystroke said.

Fir Li was reading three other reports and discussing with the commodore ship dispositions for the coming metric week. “What name was he told to find?”

“‘Donovan.’ His contact is via the Terran Brotherhood.”

“Yes. Well, all Terrans are Confederate spies. Are the ship dispositions satisfactory, Leif?”

The commodore bowed his head, and suggested two changes. “Because
Shree Anuja
will leave the Squadron as soon as
Victory
arrives.”

“Positioning them for a quicker departure? Surely, the
Anujas
are not bored with this duty?” Several men and women around the table laughed. “Pup! What message was he carrying to this ‘Agent D’?”

Greystroke paused for effect. That na Fir Li was paraperceptic and could handle multiple information streams simultaneously was known to all.
Why keep the eyes from reading,
the Hound had once complained,
simply because the ears are hearing?
His interlocutors made a certain allowance for his seeming deficit of attention; but at the moment Greystroke wanted the whole thing.

His pause could have been measured in microbeats, but achieved its intent. Fir Li held a palm out to silence the commodore and the traffic control director (who had his other ear) pushed the reports forward, and balled his hands on the tabletop. “Am I going to like this or not?” he asked Greystroke.

“It could go either way, Cu. What do you call it when you pierce a mystery only to find an enigma behind it?”

“A delaying tactic by a subordinate. What was the man’s message?”

“That Those of Name wish Donavan to report on the detention of CCW merchant ships by ULP forces.”

The silence spread to the whispered side conversations around the table. Leif Commodore Echeverria blinked his large, owlish eyes. “But we aren’t…” The Hound hushed him.

“
They
have been detaining and impounding
our
ships,” Fir Li said.

“Cu, the
fact
is only that some ships have entered the Rift and there is no record of their return. The reason for this has yet to attain the lofty stature of ‘fact.’ It may be no more than faulty record-keeping; but now we learn that the enemy has the same concern. We never thought to ask how many of
their
ships disappear.”

“Or we learn that They wish us to
believe
they have the same concern,” said the Hound. “Couriers have been used before to spread disinformation.”

“Cu, which of the two evident paths should I follow?”

“Oh, the second, of course. You are not weaned for the first. For
that
task, I will call to Hounds.”

The other Pups smiled, and the commodore threw up his hands, looking for support among the rest of the management team. “Oh, that was clear!”

“Perhaps as clear as need be for one rotating out on the next duty cycle.” Fir Li had gathered the reports to him and his eyes, ears, and mouth parted company once more. “But, to humor you, Leif. My journeyman wishes a journey. We know that ships enter the Rift and do not return. The obvious explanation is that Those of Name have seized them. But as my Pup has pointed out, we do not yet know if they actually reach the other side. There may be some unknown hazard in the Rift itself. One way to learn that is to dispatch a man into the Confederacy. Greystroke-ji believes he is ready for that. He is wrong, but the confidence does him credit. The second way is to complete the courier’s mission for him. You
do
have his passwords, Pup.”

“Of course, Cu. And the encrypted bubble. I assume it contains the names of the missing Confederate ships and that Donovan possesses the dongle to decrypt it.”

“And that being the shorter journey,” Fir Li continued to the commodore, “and the one more likely to bear fruit, I have instructed him to pursue it.”

“But…” interjected Traffic Control, “but you told him to take the ‘second’ course before you knew which one he meant!”

Fir Li grinned and turned full face to Greystroke. “I knew. One who’d not dare
that
journey first is no Pup of mine.”

When Greystroke had reached the door to the boardroom, Fir Li stopped him with a word. “Pup?”

“Aye, Cu?”

“They send them out in pairs, so that if one is caught, the other might get through.”

Greystroke nodded. “Of the second courier, we learned nothing.”

“See that you do,” the Hound said as he read the report on sick call, “before he learns of you.”

Two days out along the Silk Road, near the approaches to Last Chance, Greystroke realized the full depth of his master’s humor. He had entered the pantry to make a cup of his favorite blend—a tea from the slopes of Polychrome Mountain on Peacock Junction, where the variegated soils and the judicious splicing of selected fruit genes had achieved the nirvana of teas. There, he paused and reflected.

One who’d not dare
that
journey first is no Pup of mine
.

Indeed. Had Greystroke’s mind numbered the two choices otherwise, his master’s orders would have sent him across the Rift into the CCW, in cold likelihood to his doom.

And, so, no longer a Pup of Fir Li.

He completed the preparations and secured the tea canister in the cabinet. Then he threw back his head and laughed.

Greystroke’s mobile field office,
Skyfarer,
was a comfortable vessel, streamlined for atmospheric flight, and as gray a ship as he was a man. Her name was unremarkable; her appearance, ordinary. A hundred thousand other private yachts possessed the same lines, the same colorings; some, indeed, the same registration number on the hull. And yet, beneath her ordinary exterior lay an extraordinary ship. Her sensors were of surpassing fineness; her Newtonian engines of matchless power. Her intelligence was more supple than that of many of the passengers—and prisoners—she had carried. Her alfvens could brake her unaided by any ground-based decelerators. She contained facilities for exercise and recreation, storage rooms, a refectory and library, a bay for the d
buggi, another for the collapsible flitter—but all of it so cunningly laid out that no interior volume was wasted.

More extraordinary still—and despite or because of this utilitarianism—her furnishings were richly decorated. No comfort had been neglected; nothing plain had been permitted. Art filled odd spaces; color emblazoned panels. The decor extended from the visual to the audible to the other senses. Intricate ragas and concertos played subtly over speakers. Incense burned; the larder bulged with the most savory of faux-creatures. Nor were the inner senses neglected: the library, both physical and virtual, was of unsurpassed variety. The most ordinary of fittings had been milled and chamfered and routed into elaborate vines and grotesques. Control knobs bore the heads of beasts. The ship’s interior was as ornate as its owner was not, as if every bit of ostentation that had been squeezed from his person had been applied to his vessel.

In this comfort, Greystroke spent the twenty-two metric days from Sapphire Point to Jehovah Interchange. He planned a brief respite at Peacock Junction to secure more of his preferred tea, but otherwise he settled into his shipboard routine. He read from Còstello and other favorite philosophers; he enjoyed—and sometimes participated in—simulations of great battles or great fictions; he sparred with the onboard intelligence in games of thought. He sparred, too, in his gym, which, while smaller and less well appointed than Fir Li’s, provided ample scope to hone his skills.