Michael Flynn - On the Razor’s Edge

“I wonder if dispassion is an improvement.”

Gidula leaned forward. “Listen, Gesh. We must kill men in this struggle—our brothers in the Abbatoir, even some Names. Best if we don’t hate them in the bargain. Hate makes personal what should be detached. Those have done, as you Terrans say, acts unworthy of their status, and so must be expunged, some of them. But the act is no more a matter of hate than would be the stomping of a cockroach.”

The Fudir swallowed a spiced tuna roll wrapped in a banana leaf. “I’m no cockroach,” he said. “I’d rather be hated.”

Gidula grunted. “You may get your wish. The Names have been aroused from their delicate slumbers and have begun to meddle in affairs not proper to their offices.”

“Oschous told me about the business at the pasdarm on Ashbanal. And two or three intervened on Yuts’ga.”

“And that was only overtly,” the Old One agreed. “There have been covert moves, as well. And Those have shown … disturbing capabilities.”

“They did seem to come and go rather abruptly,” the Fudir said dryly.

“And given what Those have revealed, what might yet remain occulted?” Gidula leaned forward, forearms on his knees. “That is why I urged an infiltration of the Secret City itself. Do you see why we must end this, Gesh? And end it soon? Before the real revolutionaries, like Oschous or Domino Tight, burn the whole tapestry and we lose the good with the bad—and before Those of Name escalate the struggle with their meddling and we lose … everything.”

Donovan took over from the Fudir and laughed. “One more enticement, eh? ‘Help us prevent a worse conflict!’ Those did this to me…” He ran a hand through the furrows of his head, over the headlands and ridges and tufts of woodland-hair where the plows of his tormenters had broken the soil of his mind. “Why should I care how badly your Confederation suffers? How can it suffer too much? ”

Gidula evinced no reaction. “Because,” he said in reasoned tones, “what has a shopkeeper on Henrietta or a schoolteacher on Delpaff done to merit slaughter? Ask yourself, who would suffer first and most of all should our cities burn? Why do you think we’ve labored these twice-ten years to keep the conflict tightly controlled? Why do you think we put boundaries to it?”

“Boundaries of straw,” Donovan retorted. “Why suppose they will stand one moment beyond the first hard blow?”

Gidula sucked in his breath and leaned back suddenly in his chair. “Ah. So. Wisdom dawns. You do remember—or some hidden part of you does.”

The response was unlooked for, and Donovan retreated in confusion. “Remember what?” He growled. And the Silky Voice, deep within, said, Some hidden part?

“How Padaborn’s Rising spun out of control. How whole city blocks were smashed in San Jösing and people whose only crime was rising early to go to work were scythed down because Padaborn rose too early for another purpose. You want to believe that the violence was inevitable, and not a misjudgment on your part.”

“Are you done telling me what I believe?”

“But Gesh, Gesh. A tumor can be carefully excised. There are medicines that invade the body and touch nothing but the malignancy. We can remove the malignant Names and not touch the benign ones, not touch the honorable neutrals, not touch the sheep.”

Donovan said nothing. His inner voices were silent. He bit into another light-meat and found the taste sour and the texture glutinous. “You almost had me, up to the ‘sheep.’”

Gidula lifted a hand, as if helpless. “Delicacy of nomenclature will not alter the facts. The great mass of men must be led—or driven. We propose they be led.”

“Are they to have no say in how they are governed?”

“Does it matter how they are governed, so long as they are governed well?”

“It matters a great deal. If it belongs to the people to choose a king, then it belongs to the people, if the king is become a tyrant, to remove and replace him.”

The Old One pressed his hands together and touched them to his chin, just below his lips. “That has the flavor of some ancient Terran sage. But tyranny travels with the fastest ship. Your League will feel the hand of the Ardry and his Grand Sèannad heavier on her shoulder now that your Ourobouros Circuit inserts its tentacles into each man’s world.”

“Enough,” said Donovan, rising. He started to turn, checked himself, faced the question he had been avoiding. “What happened to Ravn … and the rest?”

Sadness overcame the face of Gidula. “Alas, the Ravn is no longer with us.”

Donovan knew bleakness in his heart. He was not sure he had come to like his kidnapper, but he had certainly grown used to her sassy presence. There had been a mischievousness to her that he had found appealing. “She was always cheerful,” he said.

“Yes,” said the Old One, “but she was working on that and making great improvement. As for Oschous, he fled to Old Eighty-two, along with Big Jacques. Manlius and Dawshoo had already gone to the Century Suns by prearrangement. They intend to … What do you Terrans say?”

“Lie low.”

“Yes. Such a colorful ‘lingo.’”

“It’s a patois. A synthesis of a dozen different tongues. The ancient tongues—”

“Is it.” Gidula was not really interested. “Oschous told me that Domino Tight survived the assassination attempt—he was not clear how—and has agreed to enter San Jösing and set up safe houses. Everyone is recruiting new magpies. So the team we agreed would infiltrate the Secret City remains nearly intact. Like you, Big Jacques must recover from his wounds. We are going to make contact with Little Jacques, who will meet us on Terra.”

“On Terra.” The name went through Donovan like the slice of a sword and cut short all his thoughts.

“Why, yes,” said Gidula. “I thought I had told you. My offices are on Terra.”

“The Taj…,” whispered the Fudir, slowly sinking back into his seat. Oh, to see the green hills, to walk the holy soil of Vraddy and bathe in the sacred Ganga … To see Zhõgwó. And Vrandja, where the Yurpans lived; and Murka—and walk the fabled streets of Pree and Mumble, Vayshink and Ũāvajorque.

And Iracatanam Antapakirantamthe, the Capital of All the Worlds.

The Fudir fought to keep the emotion from his voice. “When,” he said, “do we arrive?”

“In four standard days. Ekadrina used you ill, and it wanted all this time to restore you. Work with Five. Get your strength and endurance back up.” He rose and took Donovan by the elbow and bowed him toward the door. “The time has come to bury all pretenses. You really must remember the way into the Secret City. It is essential to our plans, and I propose to do all in my power to aid your recollection.”

Somehow, that last was not a comfort to Donovan buigh.

Terra. The world from which once set forth the great star-captains of old: Yang huang-ti, Chettiwan Mahadevan, and all the rest—to conquer worlds and write their names in glory. Later generations, lacking their vigor, mocked their outsized exuberance. Glory? They could not have been serious! But mockery has always rung false and uncertain from the lips of those to whom no statues would ever rise.

The ships had gone out at first looking for life, confident that they would find it in abundance. They recited a mantra called the Prayer of Drake. But they found no answer to their prayer save the lichens of Dao Chetty or the worms of Yuts’ga, and some torpid seas soupy with eukaryotes. On a few scattered worlds, they discovered the indecipherable evidence that Others had once walked there in times forgotten. Where are they? Where are they?