Michael Flynn - Up Jim River

“There you are!” “Where were you?” “Oh! Master no bandon Billy!”

Billy threw himself at the Brute’s feet and grabbed hold of his ankles. That woke the scarred man and Méarana could see the Brute cast one last glance in her direction before he sank beneath the sand of Donovan’s awareness. The scarred man looked around the room in anger. “What the devil is going on?”

“That would be my question,” said Greystroke.

Hugh took both the harper’s hands in his. “We were worried about you. In case… You know.”

“So you didn’t run out this time, Donovan?” Greystroke said to the scarred man.

“In case we were followed here from Harpaloon?” Méarana said to Hugh. “Not likely.”

“Nor impossible. There are fossil images in the berms of the Roads. A clever man can follow a ship, and from the blue-shift know where she had exited. So…”

“So,” said Greystroke to both the harper and the scarred man, “isn’t it time you told us everything and handed the job back to the professionals?”

“Before the Confederate catches up with you?” added Hugh.

Donovan swatted Billy Chins on the side of the head. “Stop that now, or I really will set you free! A life spent groveling is not worth living.”

Billy Chins released Donovan’s ankles and scrambled to his feet. “So sorry, master. I no serve you good? I still serve you?”

“Serve me, if you must. But do it on your feet! What am I doing out here?”

“You were sleepwalking,” Méarana told him.

“Well,” said Greystroke, “what’s your answer?”

Donovan nodded to Méarana. “It’s her answer to give.” To the harper, he added, “It’s the smart move. I’ve told you that from the beginning.”

“I know. But… The ‘professionals’ searched for two years and gave up the hunt.”

Little Hugh stuck his chin out. “Greystroke and I have not. And we never will until we know where and how she…” He paused, and finished in a different voice. “Until we know.”

“Then you ought to understand. I can’t sit on Dangchao and simply wait.”

“Remember the jawharry on Harpaloon,” said Hugh.

“I do. And that’s one of the reasons I can’t quit. I owe her something more than quitting.”

Hugh suppressed a smile. “Scared you on instead of off?”

Donovan shook his head. “We’re all tired. It’s the middle of the night—and nights on the Vrouw are uncommonly long. Let’s sleep on it and in the morning…” He left unsaid what the morning would bring.

Everyone returned to their rooms. When Donovan turned to close his door, he found Greystroke in the room with him. He bobbed a finger. “Heel-and-toe, right?”

“I walk in your footsteps.”

“You know it. So, get this over with.”

The Hound walked to the work desk by the wall and sank into its chair. He waved Donovan to the reading chair in the corner.

“She doesn’t understand,” Greystroke said when they were both settled. “She doesn’t know how dangerous it is.”

“‘It is the young who catch the gliding snake.’”

Greystroke cocked his head. “Stop being the inscrutable Terran.”

“A Terran proverb. The young do dangerous things in innocence.”

“So, what’s our excuse? Never mind. This is no longer just nosing around Lafrontera. It’s not just taking ordinary chances on raw settlement worlds or staying in posh hotels like this one at Kennel expense. It’s not a bleeding lark!”

“She knows that.”

“Does she? There’s an agent of Those of Name nosing around. That’s not a mob of’ Loonie simpletons. That’s… Fates take it! She’s her daughter!”

“Then maybe you understand why she won’t give up.”

Greystroke opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and crossed his arms. “When I remember twenty years ago…” His eyes lit briefly on the hologram on the vanity mirror. “Ah, well…” He fell silent for a time. “You’ll stay with her?”

“I promised Zorba.”

“No, he promised you . I know how he operates. But I don’t want you in this only because your personal skin is threatened. A man like that is too likely to disappear once he thinks he safely can. And where would that leave hen”

“There are other men,” Donovan observed, “who cannot abandon her because they have not stepped forward in the first place.”

Anger flashed briefly on the Hound’s bland countenance. “She came to you,” he pointed out. And Donovan wondered whether the anger was over his jibe or her choice.

“Don’t worry it, Hound,” Donovan said. “It all lies in how the gods decide.”

“The gods,” said Greystroke, “are merely despotic. But behind the gods sit the Fates, and they are deadly.”

“How could she go to you or to the Ghost for help? She needed someone… unencumbered.”

Greystroke snorted and looked inward for a time before he pulled a brain from a pocket and tossed it to Donovan.

The scarred man caught it on the fly, looked at it, looked at Donovan.

“It’s one of my private codes,” the Hound explained. “If you ever need me, encrypt it with that and send a message to the Kennel. They’ll forward it over the Circuit to wherever I am. Rinty and I will come as quickly as we can.”

Donovan said nothing, but looked at the Hound.

Greystroke colored and looked away. “We have to be on Yubeq shortly. On assignment.”

“That wasn’t a ruse?”

“No. We really were going your way.”

Donovan studied the pocket brain, turning it over and over in his fingers. Then, abruptly, he clenched his hand around it. “Why?”

“Why do you think?” He nodded toward the hologram. “Twenty years ago, the four of us were partners. I don’t like you; and you don’t like me. (Please. Spare me the wheedling Terran excuses.) But among the four of us, you and Rinty had a bond; and now he and I have one. And we were all bound to her , of course. But between you and me is the missing link. Just answer me one thing. Tell me you will not abandon her.”

Now it was Donovan’s turn to anger. “Do you think I would do that?”

Greystroke’s silence was eloquent.

Finally, Donovan waved a hand, and the Fudir answered, “No, sahb. I do no such a thing.”

“Because if you do…”

“Yes, I know. You’ll defend Méarana to the last drop of my blood. My beard is on fire, and you come to warm your hands at the blaze.”

Greystroke put his hands on his knees and pushed to his feet. He looked away. “I used to think that perhaps I… But no, I needed but one look at her.” His glance was iron. “You and I agree on one thing, at least. We both wish it were someone else going with her.”

Donovan temporized. “What more risk can there be than what we saw on Harpaloon? Bangtop, Siggy O’Hara, and the other places… I am as capable as the next man of booking passage on throughliners and rooms in hotels. And once we reach the Chit and the trail peters out, perhaps then she will give it up.”

Greystroke seemed about to speak; but shrugged and turned away.

After the door had closed, Donovan continued to sit in the reading chair, looking nowhere in particular, and turning Greystroke’s pocket brain over and over in his hand. He glanced at the hologram, noted that it was out of place and wondered if it had been Greystroke or Hugh who had fingered it. “I am become cane in the sugar-mill,” he said, reciting a proverb of his people, “and a bit of straw in the waves of the sea.”

In the morning, Greystroke and Little Hugh were gone, and their rooms as if no one had ever slept there. Méarana found herself oddly distraught by their absence. In their company, she had not felt so alone in her quest. Billy hardly counted at all, and Donovan had proven less than she had expected—although in another sense, he was more. Yet, a man can accomplish very little if he is of two minds about it, and Donovan was seven—or ten, if she had understood the Brute correctly. The Hound and his Pup had given her briefly the illusion that she had more allies in her quest, and indeed the greater illusion that they would lift the burden of her quest from her.