Michael Flynn: Up Jim River

The harper frowned. “You mean the Terrans had a machine to tell them if someone were acting suspiciously.”

“Oh, yes, memsahb. No budmash man kamin, if ‘AI’ say ‘he big dhik.’ Such machine, much wonderful.”

“Though more wonderful not to need them. What sort of age was it that they must automate the identification of hostiles?”

But the harper was spared another tale of the wonders of the Terran Commonwealth by the clack of the bolt unlatching. The Fudir pushed the door open and they walked down a short hallway into a broad, marble-floored lobby possessing a single desk at its far end. At the desk sat a small, dark, wrinkled man with baggy jowls and a pug nose, a race of men known as “sharpies.” He gave the impression that his skull had been exchanged at some point for one of a smaller size, so that the skin wrapping it now hung in folds. He looked up at their arrival and pushed a pair of spectacles back up a nose barely large enough to hold them.

“An affectation, the glasses,” the Fudir said. “The Hounds do nothing without intent.”

“Be quiet,” Donovan told himself.

“Since they can nae have the wonder-machines of the Commonwealth,” the harper said with sly humor, “they can nae be certain of screening all assassins. Yet, they put only a single elderly dark in the foyer.”

“Look over your shoulder,” said Donovan without turning.

The harper’s glance was swift and she made no visible response to the sight of the machine-gun nest over the doorway or the two Pups who sat within the enclosure. “How did you…?”

“A ‘murder hole.’ It’s what I would do. There are other eyes in this room, too. Depend on it. Nor would I discount the old clerk. I think he lies with that harmless mien of his. Remember the maze in the park. This is a world of twists and turns.”

The room was oval in shape, with the hallway opening at one focus and the desk at the other. Small onyx statues backlit in yellow stood in niches along the walls. Donovan guessed that these might be great Hounds of the past and noted that several niches were empty. A nice touch. There would be greatness to come, the empty niches said.

As they approached the clerk’s desk, Donovan realized that it was placed just a little off-focus and that the niches varied slightly in size. To an intruder standing in the other focal point, the perspective would be slightly off, as would be (were he so foolish as to bring a gun) his aim. This was definitely a room designed to kill any hostiles who entered.

The clerk’s spectacles flickered with transient lights and the scarred man recognized them as infogoggles. Donovan’s life had surely flashed before the man’s eyes. Different files on each pane of the goggles, he was certain. If the receptionist was not paraperceptic, able to read independently with each eye, the Kennel had missed a bet; and the Kennel never missed a bet.

The receptionist gave the harper a quizzical look and the Sleuth interrupted Donovan’s thoughts to suggest that the harper’s face may not quite match what they have on file. The one thing that can fudge the eigenfaces is bone growth , he explained with annoying delight. So if the dataface has only a childhood portrait of her —

Shaddap, suggested the Brute.

Quiet, all of you!

Shaddap some more.

“Can I help you?” said the receptionist Hound. His tone of voice suggested that it was not very likely that he could, but a slim possibility must be allowed for. He was dressed in a black, tight-fitting short-sleeved shirt, and the slack in his face did not extend to the muscles of his chest and arms. Around his neck, he wore the white collar of a Hound. “Duty blacks” did not present a very prepossessing uniform; but among the strutting, kilted, colorful throng that infested High Tara, the Hounds of the Ardry had nothing to prove. His desk placard gave him the office-name of Cerberus.

The Pedant roused himself. Cerberus. The three-headed guard dog of hell.

The Sleuth cried, Ah! His paraperception is likely tripartite .

“Then he’s not half the man we are,” the Fudir muttered.

The harper glanced at him, but Donovan remained mute while he gathered his scattered thoughts. “We need to see Himself,” she said in the momentary silence. “The Little One.” This was the title of the Master of Hounds, the Ardry’s right hand.

Cerberus raised his eyebrows, an impressive movement given how low they hung on the loose folds of his face. “Do ye now?” he asked. “One day, a visitor will come wanting to see some underling, and not the Big Dog; but that day is not today, I see. Well, ye can fill out a wee request form—’tis on the public network—and we’ll process it. Himself has an opening come Michealmas Eid.”

Neither the Fudir nor the harper was familiar with local holidays, but it did not sound to the Fudir as if that day were fast approaching.

“We need to see him today,” the harper said.

“Oh, and wouldn’t we all? What business would that be, if ye don’t mind my asking?” He subvocalized as he talked. Paraperception often included the ability to speak out of both sides of the mouth. Donovan, who had finally silenced his inner cacophony, was certain that Cerberus was alerting others within the Kennel. He glanced at the distance to the door, at the guard dogs in the murder hole above it.

“We’re looking for Bridget ban,” the harper said, “and we thought the Little One could tell us where she’d gone.”

“A Hound’s business is not for the vulgarly curious.”

The harper’s cheeks colored. “‘Tis more than vulgar curiosity,” she said with some heat; but the Fudir interrupted before she could turn things into an argument.

“Is Greystroke in?” he asked. “He’ll vouch for me.”

Pages of files flashed across Cerberus’s eye-screens. “Are ye sure, Donovan, that he would give ye a favorable report?”

A card on the table, that. But Donovan had been certain from the get-go that Cerberus had held it. “Is the Pup at Headquarters or not?”

“Greystroke is a Hound now,” Cerberus continued. “He has a Pup of his own; but he’s not here.”

The Fudir grunted. “How would you know it if he was?”

Something almost like a smile created a fold in the sharpy’s face. Grey-stroke’s ability to come and go unnoticed was legendary. “And why would ye expect us to be telling ye anything, you being a Confederate agent, and all?”

“I’m retired,” Donovan grunted. “The Names and I had a falling out, and I’m rather broken up over it.”

The Hound shrugged. He subvocalized and his glasses flickered as a record was updated. “The request forms are in the public network,” he said. “FOI 39584 dash XC.”

The Fudir turned to the harper. “It wasn’t wise to bring us along. They’ll never tell you anything as long as we’re with you. I should return to Jehovah. Or at least, step outside.”

The harper pushed to the fore. “What of Gwillgi? He came to me on Dangchao Waypoint, so I know your people were looking for my mother. I need to know what you’ve learned, so I can start looking myself.”

Cerberus nodded, a suspicion confirmed. He updated his files. This is what Bridget ban’s daughter looks like today. “And your name would be…?”

The harper stood up straighter. “Méarana of Dangchao.”

Cerberus grunted. “Harper, are you.” In Gaelactic, m é ar could mean by a shift of inflection either “swift” or “finger.” In this case, it was a pun and meant both.

“An ollamh,” the harper corrected him.

The guard dog tried not to look impressed. Master harpers were two-a-penny, his hangdog look said, no matter at how young an age. “‘Swift-fingers’ is an office name. I need your base name.”