Michael Flynn - Up Jim River

And Donovan looks it over and plumps a pillow with his fingers. “I have never seen a more agreeable cell.”

That they are aboard by something stronger than an invitation the harper cannot deny. Bars may be made of silk and chains of solid gold, as she had told Jimmy Barcelona. But if more than an invitation, it is less than an incarceration. They are not Greystroke’s prisoners. Not exactly .

Certainly, the Hound wishes to sup at the banquet of their knowledge, meager feast though it be. And why not? They fare on the same quest, and by all appearances she would get the better of the bargain. The Hound and his Pup cannot know less than she at this point .

Not for the first time, she wonders if the scarred man might not err in playing a lone hand. Some Hounds might weight self-interest above all; but surely not Greystroke and Little Hugh! Of the three that she had always suspected, they are the other two. But she had gone to Donovan because of who he was, or who she thought he might be, and what sort of fool consults a specialist only to ignore his advice?

Donovan would not have the Kennel find what her mother sought before he decides whether they can be entrusted with it. Fair enough. But it raises the finer point of whether Donovan can be entrusted with it .

And on that she has a single datum. When it had come to the test, when Donovan had once held absolute power in his hands, he had opened those hands and allowed it to float away .

Her own desires are more dangerous. While Donovan seeks what Bridget ban sought, she seeks Bridget ban. For that finding, the harper might well sacrifice the whole of the Spiral Arm .

Billy Chins insisted on waiting service on Donovan, hovering behind his master’s chair, anticipating his every whim. If Donovan took but a single sip, his glass was replenished. If he but expressed a desire, the object of it appeared on his plate. And should those whims not be forthcoming, Billy would enquire anxiously after them. In consequence, Donovan’s plates were, like the Dagda’s cauldron, never empty.

Neither could Donovan carry a burden from one room to another save that Billy wrested it apologetically from his grasp and bore it for him. “Aggressively servile,” is how the scarred man described him. It became a sort of game: Donovan trying to accomplish some small task unaided, and Billy endeavoring to thwart those efforts. Little Hugh thought it all great fun.

To celebrate the breaking of orbit, Greystroke prepared a dinner of sable tiger fronted by a medley of vegetables. The tiger was graced with a sauce of sea-grapes and zereshik barberries and was accompanied by a black wine pressed of slipskin girdiana.

During the postprandial drinks Donovan raised the question that had been in the back of his throat since the confrontation in Tchilbebber Lane.

“‘We have you surrounded’?” he said.

Greystroke swirled his wineglass before taking a sip. Hugh laughed aloud. “The’ Loons were between Greystroke and me.”

“Still, two against twenty…,” Méarana suggested.

Hugh set his own glass on the table. “I noticed the two of you ready to take them on.”

“The harper was supposed to run for help,” the scarred man said. “But she didn’t. And it wasn’t even her fight.”

“When it is twenty to one,” says Méarana, “it is my fight.”

“How noble.” The scarred man sneered. “When it is twenty to one, I usually find a reason why it’s not.” He gathered the sardonic looks of the others, sighed, and glanced at his servant. “But blood calls to blood. I am a Terran. It was foolish of you, harper, to stand with me.”

“You’ve called me a fool more than once,” she replied. “Why carp at proof?”

The scarred man turned to Greystroke. “What I’d like to know is where you hid the amshifars. You were too much on the spot.”

Greystroke waved his hand. “Oh, they were in the beer, of course. You pulled that clothing trick once before.”

That the ship was thoroughly bugged was a proposition that compelled assent through reason alone. Empirical proof was not required. When Billy Chins “kill big-big cockaroacha” in Donovan’s stateroom, the smashed listening device was mere anticlimax. The harper and the scarred man communicated therefore using Méarana’s code, but not so often as to pique Greystroke’s curiosity. It was a conceptual code, not easily broken without “Rosie’s Thesaurus.” But it was imprudent to wave red flags at bulls.

175.10 and 854.12, he advised her. Slow and steady. The trail is two years cold. How could there be urgency? Privately, he hoped that the colder the trail, the less inclined Méarana would grow to pursue it.

And what of Bridget ban? asked the Silky Voice. Will you abandon her?

She is past abandonment.

You don’t know that , the Sleuth pointed out. There are no clues. There is no evidence .

And so no reason to suppose her still among the quick. No word for almost two years.

The absence of evidence , the Sleuth insisted, is not the evidence of absence .

He was answered by the toll of a distant bell that echoed in the timeless dark within his head.

«Fear» shivered him, and Inner Child swept the room anxiously.

Stop that, Child, the Brute grumbled.

You know the real reason , the Fudir told them all. The trail points into the Wild. To Ōram or Eḥku or some other, more nameless world. Worlds where the jungle has crept over all, where treachery and cruelty await the occasional “dude” from the Periphery. What hope is there of finding her out in the Wild?

“None. But that’s not the real reason at all,” Donovan answered. “The real reason is that you and I would die out there.”

“Who will die?” Méarana asked, and Donovan realized that he had spoken aloud. Billy Chins, who was folding clothing, looked up in sudden alarm.

But Donovan only shook his head. “Mostly people that you’ve never met.”

The ship’s day following, Hugh came upon Méarana in the ward room, drinking of Greystroke’s tea and reading from Greystroke’s library. He poured a mug of his own from the samovar and sat across the table from her. The harper tracked him from the corner of her eye.

“We enter the Silk Road early tomorrow,” the Pup said eventually.

Méarana laid the viewpanel on the table, screen side down. She picked up her tea and sipped. “Is everything… What do they say? ‘In the groove?’”

“Oh, yes. Greystroke is a road scholar and certified superluminal pilot. We usually have a small ceremony when we enter the roads. A dinner, some toasts. Perhaps you would play for us.”

Méarana dipped her head. “I would be honored.”

“That’s all right, then.” He reached out and lifted the viewscreen. “What have you been reading?”

That Greystroke’s dibby had not been tracking the files she and Donovan read was beyond credibility. Hugh had to know when he walked in exactly what file she had up; and that meant his question was intended for something other than information.

“An odd story,” she said. “Some scholar has discovered that everyone on the Old Planets is descended from only twenty-seven different ancestresses.”

“So you don’t spend all your waking hours trying to trace your mother…?”

Méarana looked away. “How could I? Until we reach the Vrouw I’ve no hope of learning anything new.”

“It’s a hopeless search. You know that, don’t you?”

“All searches are hopeful, or there would be no search. That’s why I’ll find her and you won’t.”

Hugh shook his head slightly, perhaps in admiration. “I think you’re wrong, but I rather hope you’re not.” He looked again at the view screen. “Only twenty-seven?” he said. “How can that be? Millions were transported during the Clearances.”