Michael Flynn - The January Dancer

Eventually, they shook hands all around and Dent said that the contracts would be sent around to Benlever’s hotel by the evening for his legal staff—meaning Hugh—to look at. Afterward, they were given a tour of the winery—except for the padding room, where the proprietary paddings, or “blends,” were added to “thicken ’er up.”

When the tour was drawing to a close, Benlever said, as if in passing, “I was told that Lady Cargo has the most extensive collection of prehuman artifacts this side of Jehovah.”

“Oh, perhaps in whole Spiral Arm,” said Dent.

“Is it open to the public? I was told in the City that she sometimes hosts viewings.”

“Once a month…Ah, that is being local month by Splendid Moon, roughly one case of days.”

Hugh leaned toward Benlever and murmured, “A case of days in dodeka time is just under three metric weeks.” Benlever nodded.

“Next viewing on Thirdsday,” Dent said helpfully.

“Pity,” said Benlever. “I’ve business on Abyalon that will not wait.”

“Business involving Hollyberry jellies, let me guess,” said the vintner.

“Is my business so transparent, Ringbao? Haha. I don’t suppose, since I’m here right now, I couldn’t get a peek at them? I recently acquired a prehuman artifact myself, and I’d be interested in how it prices out.”

“Is specialty market. Would you like to speak to Lady Cargo herself?”

“Is she in residence?”

“ Soglass. I take you to her.” Dent turned and Greystroke and Hugh followed him along a crushed stone path to the rear of the Big House. Hugh leaned close and whispered, “Is this too easy?”

Greystroke nodded. “Be alert.”

Radha Lady Cargo was a short, wizened woman who wore a wraparound dress of bright patterns that left one shoulder bare. Hugh guessed her age at a hundred and twenty, past her prime, but holding up very well. But what he noticed most of all was not the mature body, but the intelligent eyes. He had looked into enough faces to know when there was someone looking back.

After some polite introductions, she bowed graciously and personally led them through the room she had set aside for the artifacts.

“There is simply no price on such things,” she said as she showed them from case to case. “This item, found on Megranome, seems to be part of a control circuit; but what it controlled, who will ever know? See the corrosion here? Not even the prehumans built forever.” Greystroke asked some questions about provenance and Hugh made occasional notes in his handy. He was surprised at how the old woman’s eyes lit as she described her collection. She really took joy of it. He had imagined someone grimmer, more jaded.

“What of the Ourobouros Circuit?” Greystroke asked. “Your most famous acquisition.”

“Yes,” she said. “Poor Chan was never able to make it work; and yet it seemed to be whole.” Her lips curled a little at that and Hugh wondered at her brief and secret amusement. There’s something there, he thought. Something important about the Circuit. And then… They couldn’t have gotten it working, could they? That would be the biggest news the League ever saw.

Or “the best-kept secret in the Spiral Arm.”

He glanced at Benlever to see if Greystroke had noticed that smile; but the Pup’s face betrayed no sign of awareness.

“We keep that in its own room,” said Lady Cargo and she spoke into her wristband. “Visitors coming.” Hugh pondered that, as well.

There was a large man standing outside the door and Lady Cargo paused a moment to ask him some inconsequential question about household maintenance. Hugh noticed that the discussion lasted long enough for a discreet light inset into the woodwork of the door to change from red to green before Lady Cargo said, “This way,” and led them into the room.

It was a broad room with perhaps a score of people working at desks. Interfaces winking and scrolling, low susurrus of voices over headsets. Lightboards on the wall with commodity prices from a hundred worlds flashing in turn. Among them, Hugh thought, must be the forecasted price of padded wines and crater jewels. In the center of the room, a chair fastened to the floor faced down a broad aisle clear of all obstructions to the famous Ourobouros Circuit. In form, it resembled a wreath, the wires twisted and twined around one another in a complex pattern incomprehensible to the eye.

“They say,” Lady Cargo informed them, “that a part of it wraps through a dimension that we cannot sense. It never seems the same twice.”

“I’m surprised you keep it in a working office,” said Tol Benlever, glancing around at the muted activity in the room. “This is your trade desk, is it not?”

“One of them. We maintain such rooms on numerous worlds. There’s no secret that I plan to adopt the Circuit as a corporate symbol—the ungraspable intricacies of trade networks connecting the worlds of the Periphery. Fitting, I think. So there’s no reason why my people cannot enjoy the sight of it. ’Spodin Della Costa, would you take a seat?”

She meant Hugh. He lowered himself into the chair, shifted his weight. “Quite comfortable,” he said.

“Now stare at the Circuit. Try to follow the twists and turns of the wiring.” Some of the traders had paused in their work to watch, with grins on their faces.

Hugh shrugged and focused on the wreath. He picked an arbitrary starting point and tried to follow the path of the Circuit.

Benlever asked, “Are they optical wires?” But his voice seemed to echo from far away.

The wreath started to spin. Hugh blinked.

“Optic,” he heard Lady Cargo say, “ceramic-composite, metal. It’s a chimera, of sorts.”

The wreath seemed to approach him and the light blue wall, visible through the center of the wreath, receded into the distance. The lighting seemed to change. The wall acquired a reddish tinge while everything in the foreground, illuminated by an unreal ghostly glow, lost all depth. A two-dimensional figure moved across his field of view and Hugh felt his shoulder violently shaken.

He moved, and colors, shapes, lighting, and perspective snapped back to normal.

Now the people at the trade desks were laughing and even Lady Cargo smiled openly. “A fascinating illusion, isn’t it?” she said. “It was the one thing Chan Mirslaf learned before he gave up. It’s almost hypnotic. We find it useful for meditation. It relaxes.”

Hugh blew out his breath. “The far wall seemed to be twenty leagues away.”

Lady Cargo straightened and her smile vanished. “Please don’t touch it, ’Spodin Benlever.”

Greystroke had gone to the back wall and was bending close to the artifact. In answer to Lady Cargo’s command, he held his hands up and away from his body. “Fascinating, indeed,” he said, turning away. “Well, I don’t want to keep your people from their work. Unless, it means I receive a better quote from Vintner Dent, haha!”

Lady Cargo led them from the Trading Desk to her own private office, where she offered both a glass of padded wine and dismissed her aides, who had followed along like a cloud of gnats.

“Well,” she said, putting her now empty glass back on the sideboard. “Do you have it? Have you got it?”

Greystroke held a hand up to forestall any question from Hugh. “You mean the artifact I obtained?”

“Don’t play foolish games. I appreciate your effort, and you were quite right to bring it to me. But please don’t try to extort a price. You’re entitled to a generous finder’s fee, of course, and compensation for your troubles; but I do have legal title to it.”

“What makes you believe,” Greystroke said carefully, “that the artifact I obtained is the same one that you have apparently lost.” And Hugh thought, She doesn’t have it, after all! But he kept his face controlled.