Michael Flynn - Up Jim River

“Unnatural?” said Méarana.

“Not naturalized.” Donovan poised his pen, then hesitated.

“What’s wrong? Did you forget the chit reference number?”

“It’s in the back of my mind,” Donovan complained. “But the Pedant is still in a snit, so he’s not letting it out.” He pulled the lanyard by which the chit hung under his blouse, and read the glowing number off the back side.

When he turned the forms in, the Clerk said, “You haven’t entered an Alien Identification Card Number for the Usage Log Request.”

“I can’t enter the Card Number until you process the Identification Request.”

The Clerk gave him a patient look and handed back the second form. Then, taking the first form, he went to a form reader and inserted it in the scanner.

“What name did you ask after?” the harper asked him.

“Julienne Lady Melisonde. That was the name she used when she and I were scouting the Dalhousie Estates on Old ‘Saken. It’s a shot in the dark. If it works…”

It did. A Julienne Lady Melisonde “of the Banry’s Court” had entered East Cape Circle with High Taran papers nearly three metric years before, exited later that same day. Alien Identification Card Number, thus and so. Donovan copied that onto the second form and handed that one again to the Clerk, who slid it through the reader.

“How did you know…?” Méarana asked.

“‘The whisper of a beautiful woman can be heard farther than the roar of a lion.’ But it was the only other name of hers I knew. And it was one that Gwillgi might not have known of. She used it for just that one scramble. Ah, here come the payoff…” He wagged his green card. “Unnatural Aliens have to deposit funds with a Hansard bank to prove they will not become a burden on the public purse during their stay. Then they use the cards for purchases, hotels, meals, entry swipes to public buildings… This list…” Which he took from the Clerk’s hand. “…should tell us where she went, who she contacted… Here we go… Ah! She went to two places. The Gross Schmuggery—that’s the jewelers’ bourse—and the Planetary Tissue Bank.”

Méarana took the sheet from him and read it. “The jewelers’ bourse. So she was still trying to trace the medallion. But why the Tissue Bank?”

The Director of the Planetary Tissue Bank was a broad-chested man named Shmon van Rwegasira y Gasdro. He was coal-black in complexion, so that his eyes and teeth seemed to float in the air just before his face. He shook hands in the brusque and hearty Hansard fashion and ushered them into an oppressively comfortable sitting room paneled in dark woods and decorated with serious leafy plants on tall column pedestals. Bookcases alternated with pen drawings of vaguely anatomical aspect. He called for a pot of kaff and engaged them in chatty conversation until it arrived. The supreme virtue of the Hansard was comfort, which they called gemoot , and van Rwegasira was a past master of it.

When fellowship had been brought to a proper pitch, the Director asked them what had brought the Kennel to the Tissue Bank. Donovan said, “We are investigating the activities of Julienne Lady Melisonde of High Tara. She came to the Tissue Bank on 17 Herbsmonat, 1176, local. In metric time…”

But the Director waved off the conversion. His holoscreen already displayed the calendar. “Yeah-well… I remember her. It’s unusual for outworlders here to come. To receive two such visitors in quick succession is unheard of.”

“Two,” said Donovan. He exchanged a glance with Méarana. “Who was the second?”

Van Rwegasira pursed his considerable lips and ran his finger down the screen that hovered before him. “That one was, umm. Yeah, here it stands. The other was named Sofwary of Kàuntusulfalúghy.” He looked up and blinked owlishly. “They are not in trouble, are they? You are not hunting them down to, ah….” His grin was at once appalled and fascinated. The Kennel had a reputation in popular culture.

“No. Just the opposite. They may be in danger, and we must warn them.”

The Director looked troubled but nodded. “The Tissue Bank maintains the samples of nearly all residents in the Eastern Cape Circle, as well as of three other Circles with whom we have contracts. This provides to our government a resource-value, both for the health care—for cloning replacement tissues via retrogression to sternly status—and also for the law enforcement—for the matching with the crime scene traces. Our cross-tabulation keys are the finest of their kind and the archives have sometimes been used by regswallers —how do you say it? Rights-wallahs? Lawyers?—yeah-doke, by lawyers, to establish correctly the property-inheritance. Since only five years there stood the well-famous case of the False Hubert of Miggeltally, who claimed rights to the van Jatterjee commercial empire and we…”

Donovan interrupted the public relations speech. “But what of this Sofwari and Lady Melisonde? What was their purpose in coming here? Did they come together?”

Van Rwegasira blinked several times, shook his head. “No. Professor Doctor Doctor Sofwari came on the third of Leafallmonat and spent here six weeks with our dibby manager, making many visits. Genealogical research, by my notes. That is the searching for the ancestors.” The Director shrugged, as if to ask what madness outworlders might be capable of.

“And what of Lady Melisonde?” said Méarana.

The Director worked his lips as he studied his logs. “She appears the same purpose to have had. Mina—she was then my dibby manager—has here that Lady Melisonde was after Sofwari asking. She provided to her a copy of his analysis.” Van Rwegasira looked up from his reading. “That was improper, yeah? We have not the authorization one man’s work to give another. Mina was reprimanded for the infraction, naturally.”

“Then, you’ll not show it to us?” asked Méarana.

“That is another pair of boots! Always, we cooperate with the authorities. I will have a brain immediately filled.” He subvocalized and a light appeared on his holoscreen. “Now, stand there other matters in which we may the Kennel serve? No? Then I will say what a pleasure this has been? Perhaps…” And this he added with exaggerated diffidence. “Perhaps I may mention this service to my colleagues?”

To enhance his prestige among his friends. Donovan imagined him subtly scoring points. As I explained to the agents of the Kennel when they consulted with me… He removed his cap so that the Director could see his scars. “That would not be wise, sir.”

The Director was too dark to go pale, but his eyes widened ever-so-slightly, and he nodded. “Yeah-doke,” he said. He ran a finger across his lips. “No word to any over this.”

“In fact, it would be a good idea to erase any record that this visit even occurred.”

“Of course.”

“It is for your own safety.”

Rwegasira was now plainly sweating. “Yeah-well.”

Departing Dancing Vrouw, the harper finally achieves her wish. She and the scarred man and their servant travel first class on the Hansard liner , Gerthru van Ijebwode, Hanower to Siggy O’Hara. A splendid ship, it sports that combination of fashion, comfort, and social vanity for which the Greater Hanse is justly famed: Never has cloth so flattered human form; never has palate been so sumptuously pleased; never have manners and status been flaunted with such deadly purpose .

The appointments are luxurious, and even steerage would excite envy. Decor favors the ornate fashions of the Hanse. Serious portraits and scenes of nature and sport alternate with shelves full of knickknack and scrimshaw. Among the more bookish folk of Ramage or Hawthorne Rose, the Hansards are accounted unspeakably vulgar; but a Hansard merchant prince can buy or sell half of Ramage and take Hawthorne Rose as pocket change; so what do they care?