Michael Flynn - Up Jim River

“Parts of you,” she says, “that you thought you had lost, but who were always there, close by, waiting.”

“Was all that…,” says Donovan. “Was all that something that once happened to us? Was it memory, or imagination?” Had he really fomented a rebellion against some tyrant somewhere? Had they conditioned him out of the very memory of it?

The girl shrugs. “I know no more than you; but I would like to think that we will one day remember who we were.”

The first part , says the Sleuth. That was clearly symbolic .

Symbolizing what?

“The facets of a diamond,” the young man suggests.

Donovan stares at him and recognizes what he once was, a long time ago. And he knows that he cannot be that ever again. He has lost his youth.

“And is that not a gain,” asks the girl, “as well as a loss?”

“I think,” says Donovan, “that I will call you Pollyanna.”

“Call me what you will, so long as you call upon me when the box has been emptied out. Every man loses his youth one day. You need not lose your happiness.”

Méarana!

“If that is your happiness.”

The Pedant smacks the table. Remember the minion that changed.

And the dog that turned .

“And the man who kissed us on the riverbank,” says the Fudir.

He leans back in his chairs and considers. He can see it so clearly now and wonders why he has not seen it much earlier. Too busy mocking himself. Too busy fighting himself.

“We can’t stay here. It would be a betrayal. She is our daughter, after all.”

Finally, you admit it?

“Yes,” says the Fudir. “Her chin. Her age. Half of what she is. Though it frightens me.”

“It ought to,” Donovan comments. “We can’t let her go into the Wild, knowing what we know.”

Have you forgotten? We’ve been drugged. We lie helpless on some Gatmander cot .

Silky? Isn’t that your job? You’ll need this enzyme, and this one, to counteract it.

The Silky Voice summons glands into service. Enzymes race from their enclosures. Antibodies hunt down drug molecules, latch on, seize them and choke them tight, shove them out through sweat pores.

“As it pertains to him,” he hears a voice say, “there is a fever.”

And Donovan knows by this sign that he is near the farther bank of the river.

“There is still time,” says the young girl in the chiton.

Méarana had second thoughts about leaving Donovan behind, but her two companions assured her it was all for the best. “A man that sick can’t help us,” Teodorq told her as they rode the bumboat up to Blankets and Beads .

“We just go Wild look-look,” Billy added. “You see. Back no-long time. Sahb get good care meanwhile.”

But it was not whether Donovan received good care or bad that bothered Méarana, it was whether he received that care from strangers. And a friend was not measured by the good he could do you. “Maybe we could have waited a little longer.”

“Ah, no, memsahb! Port Captain say long time no more trade-ship.”

“What the little weasel means, babe,” the barbarian told her, “is this was his best chance to run out on his master.”

“You no say such, lack-wit! Mistress Harp need me now, not sick-man Donovan.”

“Quiet, the both of you.” She fell into a morose silence as the boat hurtled upward on Port Gatmander’s laser lift. Teodorq tried to pretend he was an old hand at this sort of thing, but every time the vessel shuddered, the Wildman grabbed for the edges of his seat. Billy saw this and snickered, though by his own admission he had himself ridden a laser lift only twice.

Méarana sighed once more. “I hope our luggage makes it.”

“No worry, memsahb. Dukovers handle luggage alla time. Cargo boat lift, yawn-yawn-time.”

Méarana once more tried to relax, but almost immediately the boat began docking maneuvers and the gyros spun the great, gray world of Gatmander into her viewport. Ah, Donovan. Sure, and it’s all for the best .

Blankets and Beads resembled more a small town in orbit than anything once called “ship.” Domes, spheres, apses, barrels, and tubes joined in a complexity of angles, connections, and fusions, like a mass of soap bubbles. The resemblance to a town was heightened by the whimsical outer structures by which the pressure vessels were decorated to resemble buildings of different eras in the long history of human habitation. The skin-style had been popular among shipbuilders a generation before, but had grown passé among the inner worlds. It survived now only among the thrice-used ships at the edge of civilized space.

She carried survey-class alfvens, for in the Wild she could expect no assistance from ground-based propulsion, and must pull herself along by the very strings of space. She also contained ffffg-imagers to analyze the berms of uncharted roads and probe for unmarked exits. It was a dangerous business, as the slightest miscalculation could take the ship into the subluminal mud to dissipate in a Cerenkov blink. Consequently, while her owners were tight enough with the ducat to outfit her with secondhand gear, they were wise enough to scrounge only the very best of secondhand gear.

The other reason for the trade ship’s size was that such vessels often embarked on voyages years in duration, and when they did so took along families and friends. She resembled a small town because on many occasions she was one. This left plenty of room for passengers on those shorter jaunts on better-established routes when only the crew was aboard.

Méarana, Theodorq, and Billy Chins were welcomed aboard by the cargo-master, if welcome it be called—a subtle if unwitting indicator of their status in the ship’s economy. The master’s name was Mart Pepper, who projected by his attitude a preference for less animate cargo. He checked each of them against a list, and gave them a chit directing them to their quarters. The chit would brighten or dim depending on whether they were on the proper path or not. It would also open and lock their cabins, debit their meals from their deposits, and so on.

As he handed each of them their chit, Pepper muttered in a wonderful economy of syllables, “Cap’n’ll bead-lighted tavya-come t’dinner-atse’n-point-five horae, metric,” although he did not communicate a very heartfelt delight nor even that the sentence was composed of more than a single, very long word.

Méarana said, “We’ll try to keep out of your way.” But even that, Pepper indicated by his grimace would not be far enough.

Their cabins were in Dome Three, encircling what appeared to be a village green. It featured bushes, a fountain, children’s playsets, and several dwarf maples. It was cleverly landscaped to appear larger than it was, and Méarana inferred the long-ago hand of a High Taran greensman.

There were a few other passengers already about on the green. One was a veiled woman with the grand title of Princess of the Farther Spaces from a small world on the farther side of the Burnt-Over District. She had negotiated a trade treaty with the League, had been suitably awed by what she had seen, and was returning with her eunuch and maidservant with a page full of promises.

“You pipple of the Farther Space,” she later complained to Méarana in a heavily-accented Gaelactic, “you tink because we pipple got no ray guns, we stupider than you pipple. But we know it when we getting poked up the butt.”

The fourth passenger was a thin, well-shaped man a little older than Méarana, dark-haired, long-nosed, with a dusky complexion, and garbed in a practical traveler’s coverall. He sat by himself on a bench by the fountains and, so intent was he on a reading screen, that he had created a bubble of privacy that Méarana was loathe to break.