Michael Flynn - Up Jim River

“They were the ships of exile. Did you expect joy?”

“Donovan, I think… Look.” She flipped open her comm into a holostage and showed him the image she had captured in the late afternoon sun. “Look at the Cones. Awesome enough to think they were tombs. But if they really were landers… Look at the hills. They have that same conical shape. Maybe…”

Donovan tore his gaze from the image. “What?”

“Maybe an entire fleet once set down there. And still rests there. I think the shrogo covered them in soil, and chance has disrobed only the southernmost three. There may be hundreds more of them buried out there.”

But Donovan had no eye for the hills. He brushed a tear and took the imager from her. The Cones floated above the table, as if lifting off. “Ah, will you look at that, then.”

“What? The bird?”

“No, on the bulkhead above the bird’s nest.” He upped the zoom. “Do you see it? That is the Great Burst of the old Commonwealth of Suns. Tsol in the center and the Seven Colonies around it. Of course there were more than seven before the end. There may have been seven hundred. Ah, those were storybook times, indeed, when even their wreckage is magnificent.”

“Magnificent? It’s all burnt and rotted and corroded, but… If the’ Loonies’ ancestors came in those ships, then they are Terrans, too.”

“We all are. But what does ancestry matter if you don’t remember—and persecute those who do?” Donovan’s eyes closed and his lips moved silently. “Hundreds, you think? Well, you can’t be the first to notice the resemblance, but no one is ever going to dig there until the movers and the moosers cut the throat of the last’ Loon. Sometimes, I think ‘Saken had the right idea.”

Méarana expressed surprise. “The ‘Forsaken’ dismantled their landers in the early days and used the material to build their settlements. They paved over First Field two hundred years ago and redeveloped it. Sentiment is not their forté. I thought you said the remembering mattered.”

A certain ferociousness passed across the Fudir’s face. “I’d rather see the past paved over than birds nest in it.”

The harper refrained from extending the sympathetic hand that she knew would be rebuffed. “Sometimes,” she said, “it’s the ancestors who neglect the descendants.”

The Fudir looked at her. “Do they.”

“And what did you find, Donovan, out among the jawharries?”

The scarred man stared at his whiskey. After a time, he heard the silence and his head rose. “Donovan, he no got nothing.”

Méarana’s sigh was long and weary. “So the medallion is a dead end. We must find Mother’s trail some other way. Perhaps the package…”

The Fudir parted his lips as if to speak; but a voice called out, bluff and hearty: “Is this a private party or can anyone join?”

Méarana made the package disappear and the scarred man turned to snarl at the newcomer, but paused in shock and instead cried out, “Hugh!” And it seemed as if the wind had blown away the clouds of ten thousand years and the bright sun of delight shone through his face unfiltered.

It was only for a moment before the face closed in again; and though the smile remained, it was a sorry thing to that which it had come before. Yet the harper was glad to have seen it, if only just this once.

The man pumping hands with the Fudir was solidly built. He had a square jaw and dusty-red hair. His left cheek bore a scar now only faintly visible. “You must be Little Hugh O’Carroll,” she said, extending her hand.

“I must be,” said the Ghost of Ardow, bowing low and kissing the back of her hand, “for no one else wants the fookin job.” He pulled out a seat on the left side of the table. This was the third time luck had had them, depending on how one counted luck. “An’ how do ye fare, Fudir? Still keeping ahead of the law?”

“I’ve retired,” said Donovan. “The law ran out of breath from the chasing of me.”

“Ah, it’s a sad thing, not to be wanted, even by the likes of the Jehovah proctors.”

“Donovan has told me so much about you,” the harper said.

Hugh grinned infectiously. “Nothing too bad, I hope.” He pointed a finger at her. “An’ you, if I had to guess, I’d say you are Little Lucy.”

The harper covered her face. “Oh, no! No one’s called me that for ages.”

“Sure, not too many ages! Fudir,” he said turning, “how can you drink that fuel oil? Let me buy you a porter.” He twisted in his seat and signaled to the waitress with his fingers. “Fudir and I,” he told Méarana, “used to ‘pal’ around in the old days. Did I say that right? ‘Pal?’ He must have told you about it? The last time I saw him, he cold-conked me and left me on the front stoop of a tenement in a Chel’veckistad slum. I haven’t paid him back for that one yet.”

“No charge,” muttered the Fudir.

Hugh laughed. “You haven’t changed.”

A number of emotions chased themselves across Donovan’s features. After a handful of beats and behind a faint smile, he said, “You’ve aged well. Run any guerillas lately?”

“Two. No, three.” Hugh laughed at their reaction and, reaching inside his tunic, pulled out a badge. “All in a good cause,” he said. “I’m a Hound’s Pup now, and there are two tyrants and a pirate king who won’t be breaking the Ardry’s Peace now.”

Donovan took the badge from him and the golden glow faded as it passed from Hugh’s hands. He handed it to Méarana. “I left you in bad company. You’ve been corrupted.”

“Oh,’ t isn’t so bad as all that. I was a little older starting than the Kennel liked; but my Oriel training in planetary management gave me a leg up on the admin skills, and the civil war on New Eireann gave me a leg up on, well, the operational skills. Beside which, I was motivated.”

“How?”

“They promised me my first assignment would be to hunt you down.”

The Fudir grunted. “If you find me, let me know.”

At the jest, Méarana did lay a hand on his shoulder, but only briefly. “But you didn’t,” she said, passing the badge along. “You went on an adventure with my mother.”

Hugh nodded and fell silent, fingering the scar on his cheek. “Aye, so I did. Into the Rift… By then, the betrayal no longer hurt as much. No, don’t tell me it was all for the best, old friend. From what I hear, it was. But that doesn’t really matter, now does it? Sometimes… I think about those days. Amir Naith’s Gully, sliding with January and his crew—whatever happened to them, I wonder—or the Restoration of New Eireann, or…’ On to the Hadramoo!”’ He pumped his fist. “Remember that?” He sighed. “Ah, but it can never be that way again, can it?” And there was something in his eyes that was sad and distant.

“I know,” the Fudir said quietly. After a time, with something of his old spirit, he added, “And as long as you’re not hunting for me, I wish you good luck. What’s your office name? Not Little Hugh. You don’t work for Clan na Oriel any more, so you can’t use one of their names.”

“I’ll still be Hugh where you and I are concerned. But for Kennel work, I’m ‘Rinty’”

“Rinty. Who’s your doggy?”

The waitress came by and set four mugs on the table. Hugh paid her. “Greystroke,” he said.

“Greystroke!” The Fudir laughed and slapped the table. “There never was a man as good as he was at blending in. Where is he now?”

“Right here,” said Greystroke, who sat at the table’s fourth side. He handed the badge back to Hugh, picked up one of the mugs, and smiled at Donovan.

The scarred man shook his head. “I wish I knew how you did that.” He took a drink of his own. “Did I not tell you, harper? He is so ordinary that no one notices him.”