The January Dancer

by Michael Flynn

  “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 The pricing was inevitably months out-of-date, but the proposal would at least get them a hearing with the estate manager and the master vintner.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 t
he 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.”

  The Forsaken Archives on Udjenya Street, two blocks off the Great Green, was an impressively large building and bore a motto across its facade in a script and language that Hugh did not recognize—most likely one of those tongues, now forgotten, spoken by some of the original deportees. He supposed the motto was imposing and inspirational to anyone who could read it.

  “I’m working for Kungwa Hilderbrandt, the Valencian historian,” he told the senior archivist, showing him some official-looking papers that Greystroke had printed up on board Skyfarer. But the archivist barely glanced at them. He didn’t care about outworlders, not even famous outworld historians. Still, one must be hospitable. So he put on what Hugh supposed was meant as a welcoming face and waited.

  “Scholar Hildebrandt is tracing the genetic versions of the prehuman legends, and—”

  “What the devil is a genetic version?”

  “Why, as surely you know, different versions of the prehuman legends are circulating on different worlds. Scholar Hildebrandt believes these are all ‘descended with modifications,’ as he puts it, from original versions. For example, there is a version of the Tale of the Two Toppers on Megranome that he has shown to be elaborated from a passage in the Tale of the Awkward Kitchen-maid.”

  Hugh had managed to glaze the archivist’s eyes. However much he did not care about outworld scholars, he cared even less about their research. His job was to preserve and protect the documents and media in his care. About their contents, he did not give a fig.

  “And so, I would like to read the oldest compendium of tales in your collection.”

  “Oh, would you?” the man asked, so loudly that others in the vestibule turned and looked. “What is it with you outies? One after another, you come parading in here; and do you want to see the Articles for State? No. The Trans-Oceanic Pact? Couldn’t care less. The Collected Letters of Genghis John Chu? No, you want to read old fairy tales. Bozhemoy! You expect us to let you handle the oldest and most fragile papers we have? No one touches those. No one. I don’t care how big you are!”

  Somewhat startled at this tirade, Hugh said, “No, no, goodsir. I don’t need to handle the originals. I’m only interested in the matter. Surely you have scanned images…?”

  “Of course, we have scanned images. We’re not a bunch of noovos, like some planets I could name, but won’t.”

  “And I’m not really very big.” Hugh said this with his most disarming smile. He knew that his musculature, toughened by the hard months “in the wind” on New Eireann, made him seem bigger than he was.

  The archivist grunted. “No, not you. It was the first one. He was a regular Nolan beast. Sign here.” He handed Hugh a light pen and Hugh entered his supposed name and homeworld and scribbled a signature. There had been seven individuals in the past month who wanted to view Document 0.0037/01. “Which was the big guy?” he asked curiously. Only two names were off-world: Elriady Moore of Ramage and Keeling Ruehommage of Wiedermeier’s Chit.

  The archivist sniffed and looked at the screen. “That one,” he said, tapping Moore’s name. “Why?”

  “He’s a field researcher for a rival scholar. I bet I can describe the other outworlder for you. Coal-black skin, bright yellow hair, blue eyes. Thin as a rail.”

  “A-yuh. That’s her. Sweet young thing, too.”

  “Alabaster accent?”

  “Alabaster? Nah. She’s from the Chit.” He pointed again to the screen, as if he had never heard of false names and feigned identities. “They sound like Megranomers.”

  Hugh thanked the archivist, who gave him a code and directed him to a reading room. On the way there, Hugh pulled a disposable handy from his pocket, called the base-camp number, and said, “Look for a large man named Elriady Moore.” Then he dropped the handy into a shredder and continued to the reading room.

  “For all the good it did us,” he complained later that night to Greystroke. “The oldest versions of the prehuman legends. Handwritten, if you can imagine it, on paper. The annotation states that they were collected by a self-appointed commission during refugee times. Oh, that must have delighted those folks who had lost their homeworld! Academic researchers!”

  They were in Greystroke’s hotel room at the Hatchley, several blocks off Great Green, and Greystroke had ordered up in-room meals. Hugh had plugged his memo stick into the hotel room’s ’face to show them the download that was the fruit of his labors. “It may have been a way to keep sane, by continuing the routines of their past lives.”

  Greystroke grunted. “No, the camps needed sanitation, not sanity. I begin to wonder if Fudir’s Commonwealth was worth saving, if that’s the way their exiles behaved.” He walked over to the screen as he ate. “Funny-looking squiggles. We should’ve known they’d not have used Gaelactic back then. What language is it?”


  “I didn’t want to ask the archivist. I was a scholar’s field researcher. I should have known the languages. I downloaded a copy, thanked him, and left. The Fudir looked at it before he and Bridget ban went off for their drive. He thinks it may be Brythic or Roosky. Those were two of the groups that were settled here. He says the Vraddy and the Zhõgwó used very different writing systems. He’ll take a shot at reading it when he gets back.”

  “Well, getting more background on the Stonewall mythos may be useful, but it needn’t get in the way of our main task. Bridget ban followed up on your call. Grimpen was staying in Eastport near the beanstalk base. And Fudir’s friends around the Corner said he went camping in the hills. Bought a full rig at an outfitter’s—thermal bag, tent, cooker, maps, and compass—the works.”

  “Question is,” said Hugh. “Did he find what he came for and decide to take a little vacation; or was he still looking when he drove to the trail-head?”

  The Fudir had pulled the ground car off to the side of the road, where there was a scenic overlook, and now stood beside Bridget ban while she studied the valley below with a pair of high-resolution scanning binoculars. The Fudir tried to keep a map of the Dalhousie Valley spread flat on the ground car’s hood against the blustery winds that blew on the hilltops. Open beside the map was an ecological gazetteer of the region that he had found in a second-hand bookstore in Chel’veckistad. Now and then, for no particular reason, he would point to a passing bird and then flip through the book and Bridget ban would pretend to follow its flight with her binoculars. They operated on the theory that if they could see the Dalhousie Estate from here, the Dalhousie Estate could see them. For the same reason, the Fudir really did annotate a small notebook with avian observations. He recognized some of the birds from Jehovah and other worlds he had been on, but there were some that seemed unique to this world. All part of the grim carelessness with which these worlds had originally been seeded. He wondered if the Yung-lo worlds had failed because something vital had been missing in the original terraforming.