The January Dancer (23 page)

The Director held up a hand palm out. “One sec.” Then she closed her eyes. “No, no, no, darlings. Move Atreus 9-1-7 into High ’Cock Orbit. Low ’Cock ICC 3-2-9-1. ‘First come,’ dears. Do
not,
repeat
not,
land lighters from
Chettinad Voyager
…Because
Heart of Oak
is still on the designated landing grid, that’s why.
Where,
” and this was said with deadly sweetness, “are the tugs?” A pause. “I don’t care.
King Peter
is off the active field.
Heart of Oak
is still on it. I can’t land
Chettinad Voyager
with the field cluttered up that way.” Pulawayo sighed, rolled her eyes in mute appeal to beings unseen, and smiled at Bridget ban. “Sorry. New controller. Needed full attention.” She stretched her arms over her head and arched her back. “Ah, here’s the tea. I asked for Wenderfell, a very nice blend with a spicy aroma and an aftertaste of clove.”

The server who brought the tea on an elaborately chased silver platter was refreshingly thick-limbed and hairy. He poured a stream of iridescent tea into cups of near transparent china, painted on the outside with a colorful hunting scene from ancient times: an elderly guide pointing into the distance and a quartet of men in hip boots carrying double-barreled pellet guns. In the background, a flock of aboriginal ducks arched like a feathered bridge into the sky. On the other side, the cup bore a painting of a duck in flight, rendered in subtle colors. It was bleeding from a dozen wounds, and despair had been imposed somehow on its immobile features. The shimmering tea, swirling behind the translucent ceramic, gave it the illusion of desperate motion.

Pulawayo handed her the cup, contriving to touch hands as she did. Bridget ban took it and waited to see what all this portended. “You’re paraperceptic,” she said.

The Director seemed disappointed in the response. “Oh. Yes. Only duplex, I fear. Half my brain—the logical, calculating half, I hope”—she giggled—“is overseeing the space traffic controllers. The other half…Well, here I am. Do you like the teacups?”

Bridget ban thought there was also an element of calculation in the half-brain she was facing, but she said nothing. “Ye painted these cups yourself,” she guessed.

Pulawayo waved a hand. “Oh, it’s nothing. Just a hobby. You should see our export ware. But I’m such a silly. You were asking about the ’bushers. They matched trajectory with one of the treasure ships—and wasn’t
that
a pretty piece of work at high-v?”

“I know
what
they did. I’m trying to find out who they were.”

A blithe shrug. “They never said.”

Suppressing an exasperated retort, Bridget ban explained: “The, ah, ’bushers ne’er passed through Sapphire Point, so they must hae gone toward either Jehovah or Foreganger. If ye’ve no idea o’ their homeworld, at least tell me which direction they went.”

The Director waved her hand. “Oh, surely you can’t suspect Foreganger or Jehovah. Hijacking pirates isn’t Foreganger’s style, and Jehovah’s a turtle—keeps its head tucked in.”

“Of course not,” the Hound explained patiently, “but the phantom fleet must hae
passed through
one o’ them, and
their
STC could tell me where they went next. Now, I could be tossing a coin tae pick one, but I’d lose a fortnight running down and back, should I be guessing wrong. Those are twa of the busiest interchanges in this region o’ the Spiral Arm, and that’s a lot of straw to sift for one flotilla of needles. Unless,” she added sarcastically, “the ambushers fight a battle at each interchange to draw attention to themselves.”

The Director laughed. “Oh, of course. How silly of me. But…We don’t know which ramp they came off. They must’ve entered under heavy traffic, hiding themselves in a forest of arrivals. No beacons sent ahead. Incoming’s supposed to hail the port. Can’t always see ’em at high-v, y’know.” Pulawayo had reverted to choppy sentences, by which Bridget ban deduced that her paraperception was imperfect. When the Director split her attention and subvocalized, she could not frame complex sentences.

“Then, which road are they after
leaving
on?” the Hound asked with growing exasperation.

“Don’t know. Swung around…” Pulawayo held a hand up, said
waidasec,
and stopped the alternate conversation with a curt,
Handle it yourself, dear
. Then, “They swung around grabbing space like that ancient god, Tarzan. The aether strings are
still
rippling out that way. We thought they meant to circle around to the Silk Road entrances. But they never showed. All that confusion—do you know how many ships were in the sky at the time? And stealthed the way the ’bushers were—well…” She shrugged. “We lost them.”

“Ye lost them,” Bridget ban repeated. She could well believe in ’Cocker sloppiness, but this beggared the imagination. The Director was, as the Terrans were wont to say, “blowing smoke.” Bridget ban had listened to evasions spun by the best of them, and recognized all the symptoms. “I see. Is that a common problem around the Junction?”

The Director muttered,
No, no, no. I’m off-line,
then, “What do you mean?”

“Losing track of the traffic out in the coopers. Does that happen often?”

The elf’s face hardened as much as elf faces could. “We do well enough.”

“Ye noticed the battle itself, I’m sure. Ye must hae gotten
some
positional fixes. I can extrapolate origin and destination from those.”

“They changed vectors three times while we did track them, and might have done anything while they were in the black; so I don’t think the fixes we did get can help you.”

Bridget ban spoke as if to a child. “I’ll be judging what I can and can nae do. I need to review your transit records.” She was already proffering a memostick when the Director shook her head.

“Oh, dear. I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

This was more than evasion. This was obstruction. But the why of it eluded the Hound. Was Peacock protecting the phantom fleet? She began to suspect that if she did not obtain the STC records soon, she never would. At least, not the original records. The Director was, as the Terrans said, “playing for time.”

She flashed her badge once more. “I’m afraid ye’ve nae choice. League regulations. I ‘demand and require’ your information in the name o’ Tully O’Connor, Ardry of High Tara and president o’ the League o’ the Periphery.” Maybe the formal language would kick start the woman.

But the Director smiled sweetly. “And I’m
afraid
your ‘high king’ doesn’t mass much here. Peacock’s not a Member State.”

Bridget ban reared back. “Nae a Member? Ridiculous…” But her implant shook hands with the library aboard her ship and confirmed the fact. No agreement was on record. Was her gazetteer deficient? “The Treaty of Amity and Common Purpose was submitted one hundred and fifty metric years ago.”

“The Seanaid is still debating it. We don’t rush into things here. Oh…” She waved a hand. “It’s our
custom
to cooperate with the League. But we don’t cooperate because we’re
ordered.
We do it because we’re nicely asked.”

Bridget ban swallowed a sarcastic observation and forced a “please” through smiling teeth.

Pulawayo ran a finger along the back of the Hound’s hand. “I said
nicely
asked.”

Bridget ban finally understood what the Director wanted in exchange for cooperation. She was no stranger to bribery, even sexual bribery, but casual sex could still shock her. When she used sex, there was nothing casual about it. It was purposeful, deliberate, and well planned.

The Director misread the pause. “Are you exclusive to men?” she asked. “Because I’m seeing my surgeon later today. I’ve been feeling very male lately.”

Bridget ban greeted this announcement with astonished silence. She could not imagine this…
elf
containing a single manly impulse. One surge of testosterone and the vessel would shatter. For that matter, anything genuinely feminine would whistle through her as through an empty reed. Those who try to do two things at once, she decided, would seldom do either very well.

Foreganger or Jehovah? She could simply guess, but Jehovah was ten days’ journey and Foreganger closer to twenty. Better an extra day on Peacock to make certain, even if that meant snuggling with Pulawayo. Yet, what guarantee did she have that, even after the bribe, Pulawayo would cooperate? She could imagine an entire series of such delays—always immanently cooperative, never overtly a refusal—until finally a well-doctored set of records would be handed over with great fanfare, cooperative exclamations, and calculated deception.

She wondered if they thought they could doctor the records well enough to deceive a Hound. There were rumors that captains carrying illicit cargoes could “launder” their transits through Peacock Junction, and could drop off radar screens when the need arose. A Hound’s matter, if true, though not to her present purpose; but Peacock might well fear otherwise.

And so the Hound found herself at liberty until evening. The day was one of brilliant clarity. Polychromopolis, the planetary capital, lay in the monsoon belt and the dry season had just begun. The temperature was hot—at or above body temperature, and fans and parasols were common along the streets. Above, in a cloudless sky, a few high white streamers marked the tracks of jetliners and ballistic leapers headed for the antipodes. Below, the recently ended rains had painted the landscape in moist pastels. Flowers of brilliant yellow and orange and red lined the pedestrian walkways beneath the shade of broad, leafy trees. Some of the blossoms would have been known on Old Earth—assuming the origin myths were really true—but others were artifacts unknown to nature: exotic races of palm and orchid and rose and deodar, bearing those ancient names only through courtesy and the contribution of a few ancestral genes.

Passing her on the Embarcadero—the slidewalk from the Port into the main shopping district—were folk from all over the Spiral Arm. She saw pale, squat Jugurthans with their startlingly wide and out-turned noses; Chettinads in tartan kilts and turbans. There were sour-faced, girdled Jehovans muttering over their prayer beads; and gaudy trade-captains from the Greater Hanse whose jewels and rings and robes glittered in the late-morning sunlight. She heard the hooting accents of Alabaster, the flat twang of Megranome, and the nearly incomprehensible jibber-jabber of Terran pack peddlers. Peacock wasn’t a great interchange like Jehovah, but many travelers stopped here for pleasure and relaxation. It was the preferred vacation spot for this region of the Arm.

She noticed how heads turned and eyes flickered in her direction. A Hound? Here? Why? It was the uniform, of course. The concept of a uniform was alien to ’Cockers, perhaps a little perverted. Pulawayo had asked her to wear the uniform tonight.

She stepped onto the Esplanade, a lateral slidewalk traversing the main Portside shopping district known as Rodyadarava. She had no eye for the clothing stores—the Rift would fill with stars before she would prance about in the topless srong that the elves of Peacock favored; and judging by a pair of Jugurthan women passing by, a few sagging tourists might have profited by adopting the same attitude. But a tea shop at the corner of Kairthnashrad caught her eye, and she entered on a whim to seek refuge from the heat.

Inside, she encountered a medley of odors: a hint of vanilla, a suggestion of roses, the unmistakable aroma of Abyalonic holdenblum. On the far wall of the shop, a rack of bins was filled with teas of various colors: blacks and duns and ochres, but also more exotic shades that nature had never intended.

What,
she thought in a mood approaching panic,
if I only want a cup of tea?

Small round tables had been set up around the shop and on the little plaza outside. Some were at sitting level; others were tall and people stood at them, drinking and chatting. At this time of day, about half the tables were occupied by a mix of sixty-forty, locals to tourists. Two Chettinad traders, in matching kilts and turbans, pondered over a game board. They whispered to each other as Bridget ban passed by.

“Ah, Cu,” said the teakeeper behind the counter. “You have come for a cup of Pleasurepot? Our most famous blend.”

Bridget ban studied the rows of teas. “I’m…not sure.”

The teakeeper laughed. “A more meditative blend, then. I have Gray Thoughts, a private blend the Consortium makes for a colleague of yours; but I’m sure he’d not grudge you a taste of it.”

The Hound had been curious where the teakeeper had learned the form of address the Kennel used among themselves. She could also guess the name of the colleague: Greystroke would have found the name of the blend both amusing and irresistible.

The teakeeper went belowstairs and climbed back with a canister of plain metallic gray. Turning it, he showed her the embossing on the bottom: Greystroke’s personal logo. At her approval, the teakeeper took a carefully measured scoop of the leaves; filled a small, perforated ball; and prepared an infusion—discussing all the while the physics and chemistry involved. Bridget ban only wanted a drink, but the teakeeper would not hand the cup over until a mandatory amount of “steeping” had elapsed. “It’s different for each blend, you see.”

She didn’t see, and did her best to forget after she took the steaming cup away.

The Chettinads were playing shaHmat, and were in the mid-game. Some versions of the game were played in three dimensions. Some used computers and hundreds of pieces with fluctuating fighting qualities. Still others—called “chutes and ladders”—mimicked the superluminal creases of Electric Avenue and allowed game pieces to slipstream rapidly between designated squares. But the Chettinads were playing the true game, unadorned, handling finely carved wooden pieces across a nine-by-nine board of squares.

Red, whose turban was an intricate plaid of green, yellow, and red checks and lines, was engaged in Remour’s Offer. His emperor stood unmoved on the center square of his home row while his minions had pushed forward in a complex arrangement of mutual support. The flanking councilors and leaping hounds were in play on the princess side, although the fortresses still anchored the two ends of his line. The princess was in midfield with a good chance to marry the opposing prince. If White allowed that, his prince would become powerless in any attack on Red. Hence, he was playing McDevitt’s Refusal.