Michael Flynn - Up Jim River

Méarana cleared her throat and continued to look down at the list in her hands. “Uh, gazetteers of the Spiral Arm. Communications with hotels. Maybe reserving rooms planet-side. She read a book by Mani Latapoori called Commonwealth Days: The Rise and Fall of Old Terra . You ought to like that one, Fudir. A novel by Ngozi dan Witkin titled The Greening of Hope . I remember dan Witkin from school. We had to read ancient literature, but what we read was…”

“Abandonment,” said the Fudir. “Everyone has to read that in forming school. It’s the classic novel of the Diaspora, a memoir of her grandparents. I didn’t even know she had written other books. Anything else?”

“Rimward Ho! The History of Lafrontera . And—these seem more scholarly— Compendium of Charters of the Gladiola Terraforming Institute. Monstrous Regiment: The Constitution of Boldly Go . Here’s one we ought to find locally: Customs of the’ Loon Tribes of Cliff na Mac Rebbe.”

“Ay-yi. How long was your mother at home?”

“She’s a fast reader; and if she already knew what she was looking for, she could have search-functioned these texts and been done in a blink.” Méarana unplugged her pocket memory. The Fudir nodded at the small box.

“The key to your code is in there?”

“Sure, but you’ll never find it.” She tossed it to him and he caught it one-handed. “So tell me that this has helped us find my mother.”

“The clues are somewhere in those texts.”

“You mean somewhere in the tens of thousands of screens that she read during her home leave. Yet, surely some of this—” She waved the hardcopy. “—maybe even all of this—was leisure reading. She did relax from time to time.”

“Did she? We’re not so certain of that. I don’t believe she ever did anything without purpose. She was the most intentional person I ever knew.” The scarred man consulted the clock. “Better lie down and get some rest. We’re space-lagged. Ship-time noon was four hours earlier than Preeshdad noon. I’ll wake you when it’s time to go on the prowl.”

“To find the jeweler who sold the medallion.”

“To go through the motions of finding him. The jewelist on Thistlewaite said only that the man who pawned it came from Harpaloon.”

“You make it sound hopeless.”

The scarred man grunted. “Good. I meant to.”

Harpaloon jewelers, called jawharries , were scattered throughout the town. So Méarana and Donovan compiled a list of shops courtesy of the municipal office, the Kennel chit, and a bit of buckshish under the table; and splitting the list between them, spent several days going from one to another. Not that they expected to find the’ harry who had sold the trinket; but someone might remember that Bridget ban had come asking, and someone might recognize the style or workmanship. It was worth the shot, though Donovan rather hoped that the shot would miss and Méarana would give up her hopeless hunt before it led them to where he feared it would.

They quickly learned that Bridget ban had indeed been asking after the pendant’s provenance. A few jawharries even mistook Méarana for her mother returned, remembering only the red hair and green eyes and the catlike grace in her step, and being greatly deceived on the number of years that underlay them. But they learned, too, only what she had learned then, which was nothing.

Until, as luck would have it, luck had them. Twice.

Or three times, depending on how one defined luck.

The first time was on the fourth day, when Donovan entered a small shop on Algebra Street. This tight-fit lane had been in Preeshdad’s earliest days its central street. Addresses still pegged east and west from it, although the main business district had long since wandered off to the newer parts of town and Algebra Street now sported slapdash boarding houses and brothels, saloons and small shops. The district was called alternately “The Kasper” or “The Liberties.” Donovan thought that in the dark of night the street might appear ominous, but in the bright afternoon it was merely shabby, and teeming with aimless humanity—ragged’ Loons, soi-disant Cuddle-Dong aristos, rough-trousered settlers in from the Boonlands, a sprinkling of more brightly-garbed touristas lured from the city center—all of them seeking bargains or thrills or forbidden pleasures, and hailed from all sides by the hawkers of each of them. The Kasper was strung out and tangled in a warren of streets: Aonsharad and Dhasharad to the east; Trickawall and Trickathanny to the west; but it seemed more crowded because the streets were tight and never straight for very long.

BOO SADD MAC SORLI, the sign announced in Gaelactic, pine jewelry, pawn, and pre-owned. Above this ran a line of gracefully curling symbols that might be a decorative border. Behind the shatterproof window sat displays of all the small, dispensable possessions of men and women who had found the need to dispense with them. Donovan wondered how many, driven to pawn such property, ever rebounded enough to redeem them.

“Donovan,” said the Fudir, “let me bukh with this dukandar.”

A local, pushing by in the throng, gave him a startled look and hurried on.

The scarred man shrugged. “Have at him. I’m tired of all the chaffering. This is the fourteenth shop on our list. I don’t think she’ll ever give up.”

We could simply tell her we’d gone to these places , the Sleuth pointed out. Why waste our time just because she wastes hers?

That would not be honorable .

You are in the wrong business for honor, Silky.

“We’re not in that business anymore,” Donovan reminded himselves.

Boo Sadd, summoned by the door chimes, proved to be a’ Loon: large nose, red hair, hazel eyes, and a dusky complexion against which freckles barely showed. If the approach of a possible customer pleased him, he concealed his joy admirably well. “Shoran , you wouldn’t be off your orbit, coffer, now would you?”

The Fudir smiled and chose to use a Valencian accent. “Ain’t no mover, me. Just a tourista. Got a question bout some jewelry, an’ mebbe you kin help me widdit.” He held out a hologram of Méarana’s medallion. “Guy sold it to me on Thistlewaite, said it come from here, an’…”

The jeweler’s eyes barely flicked to the image. “Ah, no, fendy,” he said, making a fluttery wave of his hand. “As lush, flowing streams on the parched plains of the Jazz, are Thistles in my poor dook. No Harpaloon hand made this. I grieve that I cannot help you.” His face revealed the depth of his grief.

The Fudir leaned on the edge of the counter. “You got a long mem’ry, friend, for such a quick answer. This woulda been a coupla years ago. If it ain’t Harpy work, mebbe you know where it come from. Not too much to ask, innit?”

Valency had famously been ruled by a line of tyrants of notable brutality and, consequently, most people felt an urge to cooperate when a Valencian asked politely in just that tone of voice.

The jawharry took the image in his hand and studied it. “Hard to tell, o best one, from such a poor reproduction. Do I know if the colors are true? No. May I proof the hardness? I cannot. I have seen work—kluzni, they call it—from the Cliff of Anne de Louis, far across the Jazz which… But… No. This is not Louisian work.”

“But you seen stuff like it? Import ware?”

“I recall now a coffer woman half a handful of years past who asked after something much like this. I will share with you what I am after telling her. My dook does not handle coffer work. Such things are harm . But at times it comes into the hands of assdikkas and they bring it to me so as not to pollute their fingers. Allow me to check…” He whispered into a microphone, studied the result, and whispered a few more parameters. After a moment, he swiveled the viewing stage so the Fudir could see the resulting holo. “These pieces, I am thinking, are like in craftsmanship to yours.”