Michael Flynn - Up Jim River

She recalled that Sofwari had been doing genealogy. She studied the map now showing. “This map means that 7200 years ago, some woman named Taruna—Now, how could he know her name? Right. Someone he code-named Taruna lived somewhere across the Rift, and her descendants wound up on Old ‘Saken and a few other worlds, probably during the Cleansing, and from there later descendants emigrated and settled on still other worlds. The color codes seem to indicate where Taruna’s mighty chondrians appeared most frequently.”

Billy’s expression showed bewilderment. “But…who cares?”

Méarana thought about the way a drop of dye spread through a glass of water. “I think it shows patterns of migration and settlement.”

“We know him yet. Old Planets, numma one settle; then people walkabout other pless.”

“Billy, when they did ‘walkabout,’ they sometimes found people on the new worlds. Where did those people come from?”

The khitmutgar stammered a bit and Méarana said, “Look…See Lummila here? Her—what was the other term? ‘Little thread shapes.’ Her little thread shapes are 8100 years old, which means she lived Before Cleansing. But where are most of her descendants? On Venishànghai, other worlds in the Jen-jen, and on New Chennai, Hawthorne Rose, and Agadar. So the prehumans planted us on more worlds than the Old Planets. But the Old Planets rediscovered star-sliding first and started the Reconnection.”

“Okay, mistress. But was Dao Chetty cleansed Old Earth and settled poor Terries across the Rift.”

“That’s what everyone still believes, but…Well, never mind.” She copied the files to her own machine. She wasn’t sure why Mother had found this interesting. She wondered which of the “clanmothers” she herself descended from.

Billy hesitated, and shifted from foot to foot.

“Yes, Billy, was there something else?”

“I tingting me…What is you say, I think… maybe is got clue that dibby. Billy don’t know what, but maybe you see him the clue? Maybe say where mama-meri go?”

Méarana sighed, folded the projector fibers, and handed Billy his deactivated screen. “Maybe Greystroke can figure it out.”

Billy still did not move. “Billy says no wrong, you. But what mean him your mama when Greystroke find her, not her pickny-meri. What mean him you?”

Méarana’s lips thinned and she stood bolt upright. “Are you scolding me? How dare you lecture me on duty!”

The khitmutgar bowed his head. “Mistress Harp. Who know duty more than Billy Chins?”

“Sahb Donovan is waiting for a flight to Alabaster, and you have to go with him. Do you expect me to roam Lafrontera, to go into the Wild—alone?”

Billy gathered himself and stood to attention, touching his forehead with the back of his hand. “No, memsahb! Billy Chins go with! You better go-with man than Donovan.”

The announcement so surprised the harper that she sank slowly to her desk chair, strangely touched by the little man’s offer. “I thought Donovan possessed your life, and if you left him you would have to kill yourself.”

Billy shrugged. “Atangku much complex custom. You think mama-meri you go into the Wild, yes?”

“Yes, I think she went into the Wild.”

“And we go follow, we die that place?”

“Very likely.”

Billy spread his hands. “Then custom satisfied.”

Méarana laughed, but it was a sad laugh, a goltraí. She placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Does Donovan really beat you?”

Billy hung his head once more. “Should no speak budmash of master. Billy try the patience no few time.”

“There’s no excuse. I will speak to him for you.”

“No, no, lady harp. Big dhik. Such-much trouble. Silence better.” He bowed himself out of the room with his screen tucked once more under his arm. “Donovan,” he said at the door, “he take him the money from Those to give up hunt for mistress mother. I no serve man like that. Where you go, I go.” And then he closed the door softly behind him.

Méarana sat speechless at her desk for a time. That could not be! Surely, Billy was mistaken! That Donovan might give up the quest because it was hopeless, or because he could contribute nothing to it—those motives she could comprehend. But that he would do so for money seemed beyond even Donovan’s calculating nature.

Did it mean that he was not the man she thought he was?

No, it must only mean that Billy had misunderstood some comment of his. Perhaps he had vocalized one of those internal arguments of his, for she had no doubt that among the splinters of his mind were some mighty sharp slivers.

She began shutting down her screen and it reminded her that a file was open. The edition of Commonwealth Days that Hang had sent. She would have to remember to copy Donovan in the morning, although she wasn’t feeling particularly friendly toward Donovan just now. From curiosity, she entered the table of contents and saw that it was nearly three times longer than the edition she had already read. The Friesing Worlders had evidently intended a reference encyclopedia. Small wonder the Ladelthorpis had brought out an abridged popular edition! She had toyed earlier with the notion of a song cycle based on the tales, but this volume would make it a grand opera!

She saw it two-thirds of the way down the table of contents: “The Treasure Fleet.”

After that, she got no sleep at all.

They broke fast in their suite, a sparely furnished room, in keeping with O’Haran aesthetic norms. The walls were bare, save for a single print: an orange circle on white. On the counter, a trickle of water burbled across a bowl of small pebbles and into the recirculator. A tree the size of Donovan’s palm grew there. Everything was shining chrome, black lacquer, muted colors. Compared to the dense, dark décor of Dancing Vrouw, the riotous intricacies of High Tara, or the haphazard eclecticism of Harpaloon, the room exuded serenity and peace.

Which was just as well, for the scarred man furnished none. Seldom chipper at breakfast, he grew nettlesome when he found his plans inexplicably awry. He expected plans to go awry. It was in their nature. But he at least expected the glitches to be explicable.

“What do you mean, you plan to keep going?” he asked.

The harper was drinking her usual breakfast of black coff, known locally as kohii . “Boldly Go isn’t that far down the Concourse,” she said over the cup. “It was her next stop, and you can’t go planetside there anyway. Why should it bother you?”

“It doesn’t bother me. Only, it’s foolish; and I hadn’t thought you a foolish woman. Beside, it’s outside the Ourobouros Circuit. What if you get in trouble? What will I tell Zorba?”

“Tell him I released you from your promise.”

Donovan grunted. “I don’t think it works that way.”

Billy Chins placed a plate of freshly baked biscuits on the table between them and backed away. “Biscuits pliis sahb?” he said, cringing slightly.

“Did you look at the files I sent you last night?” Méarana asked.

The scarred man scowled, wiped his chin with the back of his hand, and looked at the clock. He raised his eyebrows.

The harper relented. “All right, you need your beauty sleep more than most. Look at them, and then we’ll talk.”

“Do biscuits pliis sahb?” Billy asked again.

Donovan turned to him and said, “Will you sit down and be quiet, boy?”

Billy ducked. “Yes, sahb. Billy sit him down jildy.” He took a seat at the table and picked a biscuit from the platter, though he nibbled it with no great sign of appetite. Méarana opened her mouth to say something, but Billy turned beseeching eyes in her direction and so she said nothing.