Michael Flynn - The January Dancer

To Hari, Bikram, Sandeep, Yash,

and the rest of the gang down in Old Chennai

A Harper

The Scarred Man

Amos January — captain of the tramp freighter New Angeles

Micmac Anne — his Number One

Maggie Barnes, Bill Tirasi, Johnny Mgurk, Slugger O’Toole, Nagaraj Hogan, Mahmoud Malone — crew of New Angeles

Handsome Jack Garrity — a Certain Person on New Eireann

Little Hugh O’Carroll — The Ghost of Ardow, assistant manager of New Eireann, a.k.a. Ringbao del la Costa, Esp’ranzo

Sophia Colonel Jumdar — commanding the 33rd IC Company Regiment

Major Chaudhary — her second in command

na Fir Li — a Hound of the Ardry, commanding Sapphire Point Station

Greystroke — Fir Li’s senior Pup, a.k.a. Tol Benlever

the Molnar khan Matsumo — chairman of the Kinlé Hadramoo, Cynthia Cluster

the Fudir — petty criminal in the Terran Corner of Jehovah, a.k.a. Kalim de Morsey

the Memsahb — leader of the Brotherhood of Terra on Jehovah

Olafsson Qing — a courier from the Confederation of Central Worlds

Bridget ban — a Hound of the Ardry, a.k.a. Julienne Lady Melisonde

Grimpen, Gwillgi — Hounds of the Ardry

Donovan — a sleeper agent of the Confederation of Central Worlds

Konmi Pulawayo-Schmidt — STC Director on Peacock Junction

Fendy Jackson — leader of the Brotherhood of Terra on Die Bold

Radhi Lady Cargo Dalhousie — Chairman of the Interstellar Cargo Company

the Other Olafsson — a Confederate shadow agent

Bakhtiyar Commodore Saukkonen — commanding, vanguard, 3rd ICC Peacekeeper Fleet

Barflies, pirates, merchants, traders, rebels, ’Cockers, sliders, servants, thieves, Terrans, and sundry lowlife

South-Central District, United League of the Periphery

Two-dimensional projection of the South-Central Spiral Arm, United League of the Periphery. Not all systems and clusters are on the same level and the connecting roads are not always proportional to the travel time required.

The Old Planets use dodeka time, based on multiples of twelve, while the rest of the Periphery uses metric time, based on multiples of ten. Both systems are based on the heartbeat. In addition, planetary governments also use local times.

Everything in the universe is older than it seems. Blame Einstein for that. We see what a thing was when the light left it, and that was long ago. Nothing in the night sky is contemporary, not to us, not to one another. Ancient stars exploded into ruin before their sparkle ever caught our eyes; those glimpsed in glowing “nurseries” were crones before we witnessed their birth. Everything we marvel at is already gone.

Yet, light rays go out forever, so that everything grown old and decayed retains somewhere the appearance of its youth. The universe is full of ghosts.

But images are light, and light is energy, and energy is matter; and matter is real. So image and reality are the same thing, after all. Blame Einstein for that, as well.

The Bar on Jehovah needs no other name, for it is the sole oasis on the entire planet. The Elders do not care for it, and would prefer that the Bar and all its patrons drop into the Black Hole of ancient myth. But chance has conspired to create and maintain this particular Eden.

The chance is that Jehovah sits upon a major interchange of Electric Avenue, that great slipstreamed superhighway that binds the stars. Had it been a small nexus, some bandit chief would have taken it. Had it been a large one, some government would have done so. But it is the Mother of All Nexi, so none dare touch it at all. A hundred hands desire it, and ninety-nine will prevent the one from taking it. Call that peace.

Consequently, it is the one Port in the not-so United League of the Periphery where a ship’s captain and crew can rest assured in their transient pleasures that cargo, ship, and selves are safe. The Bar is thus an Eden, of sorts. There, one may take the antidote to the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for a man in his cups seldom knows one from the other. The Elders know a cash cow when they see one, even if the cow looks a lot like a serpent and money is the root of all evil.

She has come to Jehovah because, sooner or later, everyone does. The Spiral Arm is a haystack of considerable size and a particular man a needle surpassingly small, but Jehovah is the one place where such a search might succeed, because it is the one place where such a man might be found.

She is an ollamh, as the harper’s case slung across her back announces. She is lean and supple—a cat, and she moves with a cat’s assurance, not so much striding as gliding, although there is something of the strider in her, too. The Bartender watches her wend the pit of iniquity with something like approval, for no one carries a harp in quite that way who cannot make it weep and laugh, and frighten.

As she crosses the room, she gathers the eyes of all those conscious, and even a few fallen comatose turn blind gazes in her direction. She has eyes of green, and that is dangerous; for they are not the green of grass and gentle hillsides, but the hard, sharp glass-green of flint. Her hair is the red of flame, complementing the color of her eyes; but her skin is dark gold, for the races of Old Earth have vanished into a score of others, and what one is has become, through science, a projection of what one would be. Yet there is something solitary about her. Her heart is a fortress untaken; though from such a fortress who knows what might sortie?

When she reaches the corner the men sitting there drag the table and their less mobile mates aside and make a place for her. She does not ask permission. None of her kind do. Minstrel and minnesinger; skald, bard, and troubadour. They never ask, they simply appear—and sing for their supper.

She opens her harp case and it is a clairseach , as those watching had known it would be: a lap harp of the old style. She plays the cruel metal strings with her nails, which is the only true way of playing. The truest songs have always a trace of pain in their singing.

In self-mockery, she plays an ancient tune, “A wand’ring minstrel, I,” to introduce herself and display the range of her music. When she sings of the spacefarers, the grim jingle of the Interstellar Cargo Company runs underneath the freewheeling melody: mockery in a minor key. When she sings of the Rift, the notes are empty and lost and the melody unremittingly dark. When she sings of Old Earth, there is unrelieved sorrow. When she sings of love—ah, but all her songs are songs of love, for a man may love many things and anything. He may love a woman, or a comrade. He may love his work or the place where he lives. He may love a good drink or a good journey. He might get lost—on the journey, or in the drink, or especially in the woman—but what is love without loss?

Matters are different for women. They generally love one thing, which is why the love of a woman is like a laser while that of a man is like a flood. The one can sweep you away; the other can burn you clean through. There is One Thing that the harper has loved and lost, and the memory of it aches in all her songs, even in the cheerful ones; or especially in the cheerful ones.