The January Dancer (28 page)

“I’ll be careful.” Greystroke finished his goblet of black wine and set it down. “I have a proposal to make.”

The Fudir, who had not touched his meal for some minutes, picked up his fork. “And what proposal is that?”

“I go with you to the Hadramoo, and you help me take the Twisting Stone from the Cynthians.”

Hugh choked again on his wine. “Three of us,” he said when he had recovered, “against an entire barbarian horde?”

Greystroke considered the matter. “We could use one or two others,” he admitted.

The Fudir grinned around a mouthful of food. “No, the Pup’s right, Hugh. We’d never take it by main force. We’ll have to go by stealth and trickery. And who better than a thief, a guerilla, and the man that no one sees?”

At Jehovah, Greystroke left his ship in parking orbit and he and his two deputies took the bumboat planetside. There, he sent them to secure lodging at the Hostel while he reported to the Port Captain.

Because they were on the Pup’s ducat, Hugh took a three-room suite at the Hostel, and he and the Fudir spent an hour preparing lists of supplies they would need for the Hadramoo venture. Hugh laid out a work structure breakdown and schedule with budgets and resources. He calculated the demand rate of three people for water, food, air, and other necessities, multiplied by the likely lead times for resupply at various ports of call, and applied a safety factor. He even included reasonable stocks of weaponry and ammunition. They planned to talk their way in and talk their way out, but it was just possible they might have to fight their way one direction or the other. He was in his milieu, and the Fudir was impressed.

“I was being groomed for a planetary manager position,” Hugh reminded him, “long before I took up the guerilla’s trade.”

When they were satisfied with the plan, the Fudir told Hugh to head over to Greengrow Street. “That’s where the wholesalers and outfitters have their entrepots. Do you know how to find it? Get a positioning wristband. No, don’t depend on the ’rickshaw drivers. They’ll take you three ways around the barn. Don’t worry about the cost. The Kennel has deep pockets. But don’t buy anything until I get there. These Jehovan
duk
ndars
will cheat you blind and short you on your change just for the practice. You may be an assassin, but you’re too honest a man to deal with the likes of them.”

Hugh saved the list and slid the stylus into its sheath. “And what will you be doing the while?”

“I’ve business in the Corner to attend to, for the Pup.”

“He trusts you not to run off on him?”

“We’ve an understanding. Apparently, ships have been disappearing in the Rift. Greystroke’s boss thought the ’Feds were impounding them for some reason. Then they learned from a courier that the ’Feds have been losing ships, too, and wanted this Donovan to investigate.”

“That’s all?”

“The courier may have been a ruse. Greystroke wants to find out if they really have been losing ships or they just want the League to think they have. He needs Donovan to decrypt the data bubble and he needs me to find Donovan.”

“It all sounds…complicated.”

“Agents don’t walk around announcing themselves. It’s what Greystroke plans to do with him afterward that might make Donovan uneasy about surfacing. He dropped out of the Game years ago.”

“Now you’re going to pull him back in. A friend of yours?”

The Fudir made a face. “We’ve shared a room. Listen, you have two ears too many, and too much in between them for your own good. Sometimes it’s better not to know things. Wait for me in the lobby. I have to dress proper for this venture.”

Hugh had purchased a wristband from the Hostel’s notions shop and had just shaken hands with the positioning network when the Fudir stepped out of the lift tube. He had changed into a dhoti of pale blue checks and stripes and had smeared across his forehead a broad band of charcoal and, above it, a tripunda of bhasma. The desk clerk called out, “Hey, you! Boy! What you do up in residence? You fella no mess voyagers! Prenday?” The Fudir turned a cold eye on the man, but Hugh intervened, saying, “It’s all right. He’s with me.”

Whether that raised the clerk’s estimate of the Fudir or lowered it of Hugh was a fine point. After they had exited the Hostel, the Fudir said, “You big man, first chop. Make poor chumar-man pukka.” Hugh turned a puzzled eye on him, and the Terran switched to Gaelactic. “I don’t need your endorsement to be a man.”

“Should I apologize, then?”

The Fudir’s jaw clenched. “No,” he said. “But it grates. Let’s go. Chel-chel.”

They parted company at Greaseline Street. The Fudir crossed the street and slipped into the Corner, while Hugh continued toward Greengrow, where he made the rounds of the portside outfitters. He noted the goods available against his list, and jotted down the nominal prices and the sources. At Shem Kobaurick and Son, Armorers, he found a display of crescent-shaped ceramic knives with micron edges, imported all the way from Raven Rock, and he paid three-quarters the asking price for it. It was more than he ought to have paid—as a onetime economics minister, he had some grasp of markups—but he was content. It was not the
duk
ndar
’s tale of his crippled daughter that swayed him, but that he wanted the knife and wanted it badly, and the merchant knew this the way he knew his own heartbeat. Kobaurick threw in a scabbard for the knife that fit snugly under the armpit. A hideaway
sica
would not make one spit of difference if it came to the touch in the Hadramoo, but he felt infinitesimally more confident knowing that he had it.

The Fudir met him by Undercook’s Emporium, looking somewhat the worse for having passed through the Corner. He explained the cut on the cheek as a difference of opinion regarding the possession of certain shekels entrusted to him by the Seven. The jingle of coins in a purse can be heard at greater distances and by keener ears than physics and biology presume, and while the Memsahb had sent Bikram and Sandeep to escort the money, the scuffle had been a near-run thing. “But that dacoit-chief,” the Fudir said, “he got his feet all tangled up in a bhang
-man’s broom handle.” He laughed. “Oh, that was a pinwheel! The boys and I stripped him naked and split his purse three ways to teach him how fleeting are the wages of theft. And I shoved—Let’s say I left him the broom handle so he’d watch his step more carefully in the future.” He clapped O’Carroll on the shoulder. “Chop and chel, boy! Let’s fetch those supplies. I love it when me spend other man his money—and the Kennel, he have deep pockets.”

Afterward, Hugh and the Fudir repaired to the Bar to wait for the Pup. Praisegod, cleaning glasses and trying in a desultory manner to proselytize an Alabastrine woman standing at the rail, saw them enter and his eyebrows rose incrementally. “So,” he said when the Fudir had ordered two long ales, “the sinful universe wouldn’t have you?”

“I’ve been sent back here to do my penance,” the Fudir admitted. “But don’t worry. I’ll be going to hell shortly.”

“A journey so long in progress deserves at last to find its end,” Praisegod allowed. “How did you find New Eireann?”

“Same as always. One week down the Grand Trunk Road, just past Gessler’s Sun.” But then, on second thought, he dropped the banter and told the Bartender how things stood on that unhappy planet.

The Bartender grew solemn at the news. “May God turn His merciful face toward them.”

“Better his face,” said the Fudir, “than what he’s been showing them lately.”

“I’ll hear no blasphemy, friend. I’ll beg alms in my Brotherhouse and urge other houses and the Sisterhood to do the same. Thus shall the glory of God shine forth from our hearts and become a beacon to others.”

The Fudir turned away, but Hugh laid a plastic slip on the bar. “Here’s my personal chit. Throw it in the pot with the rest. They need building materials and tools, not food. Craftsmen, they have, but willing hands will not be turned away. Clothing, too. Don’t send money. Without goods to chase, the money inflates.”

The Bartender did not look at the amount before the chit disappeared. “God bless you.”

Hugh took the two ale-pots from the Fudir’s hands and carried them to a table near the back wall, where there was a sort of niche. He did not look back to see if the Terran added a contribution of his own.

“It was the least you could have done,” the Fudir said when he joined him a moment later. “After all you’ve done
to
’em, you may as well do something
for
’em.”

By now, Hugh had gotten used to the man’s provocations, and he tried not to let the barb affect him. Yet the sharpest barbs are those that have a point; and he drank from his ale in silence for a few minutes. When he spoke, it was deliberately to another subject. “Did you finish your errand for Greystroke?”

The Terran nodded. “Aye.”

“Will you be taking the Pup to Donovan before we leave for the Hadramoo?”

The Fudir made a face. “Finding the Dancer is more important.”

“I’m rather inclined to think you’re right,” said Greystroke, who was sitting at the table’s third side.

The Fudir shook his head. “I wouldn’t mind learning how you do that.”

Greystroke spread his hands. “There are disadvantages. The waitress doesn’t seem to know I’m here.”

“The question of the missing ships is important, but not urgent,” he continued while Hugh waved down a passing server. “I’ll explain to Fir Li when we pass through Sapphire Point. As for Donovan, I can find him whenever I want.”

The Fudir pressed his lips together. “Can you?”

Greystroke pulled a silver shekel from his scrip and tossed it off his thumb to the Fudir, who caught it in midair. He looked at it, looked at the Pup.

Greystroke said, “You gave that shekel to a one-eyed beggar by the Fountain of the Four Maidens.”

The Fudir studied the coin, rubbed it between thumb and fingers, then slapped it on the table. “You’re robbing beggars now?”

“I
was
the beggar. Profitably so, I must say. You Terrans are generous to your own, I’ll give you that. I was a sweeper, too—though I lost my broom later in a scuffle.”

A server came with a pot. Greystroke took it from her, and picked the shekel off the table. “No change,” he said, handing it to the server, and indicating the Fudir with an inclination of his head, added, “He’s paying.”

“I thought you had business with the Port Captain,” the Fudir said.

“Oh, that was just a formality. All the data was in the hailing drone. I was in and out before you two had reached Greaseline Street. You’ll be glad to know,” he said to Hugh, “that Jehovah’s preparing a relief armada. Two Hanseatic Liners are in port and their captains volunteered to evacuate the stranded tourists and orbital workers. A cohort of Jehovan rectors will be sent to police New Down Town until League militia arrives. Odd thing is, they should already have…Yes, madam, what is it?”

This last was addressed to a tall, full-faced woman of light peach complexion and short silver hair who had approached their table. “You’re Kalim DeMorsey,” she said to the Fudir. “You shipped out in
New Angeles
when I took sick. The Alabastrine woman at the bar pointed you out to me.”