Up Jim River Read online

  “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, méar 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.”

  “Her name is Lucia D. Thompson,” a new voice announced, high and reedy, but with subsonic echoes. “I knew her before she was knee-high.” Harper and Fudir both turned, and Donovan’s first thought was to wonder how someone so large could have walked so softly.

  His second thought was that “knee-high” for this one was not all that small.

  He was long and gangly, with prominent joints and a lugubrious expression. His legs were enclosed in power walkers and his eyes had the quality of a basset hound, save that they bulged slightly. His black T-shirt and shorts were devoid of any ornamentation—unless that darker patch against the raven cloth was the Badge of Night.

  The newcomer was as wizened as an old corn stalk. In his prime he would have been taller, but now he bent ever so slightly at the shoulders from the weight of the years on him.

  The Fudir leaned to the harper. “Be wary of this one,” he whispered.

  “Don’t be silly. I’ve known him since I was bread-and-buttered. Hello, Uncle Zorba.” And she stood a-toe and kissed him somewhere south of his chin.

  Zorba de la Susa, the greatest Hound of them all. Old? He should have been dust. That the harper—that Lucia—had known him from childhood and called him uncle was small comfort. On Appalachia’s Bangalore, children kept cobras as pets, and smiled at tigers. That didn’t pull the fangs or blunt the claws.

  The Tall Hound looked at the Fudir. “What are you doing in this man’s company,” Zorba said. “Do you know who he is?”

  “Aye. Maybe more so than does he.”

  The Hound’s laughter was like the first notes from a bagpipe. “Then, do you know what he is? You are safe here, if he’s abducted you.”

  “It was I who abducted him, Uncle.”

  “Ha! That may be a story worth telling. Cerberus?”

  “Yes, Cu.”

  “Did we ever catch that ‘fed agent? The one who called herself Olafsdottr?”

  “One moment…” His goggles flickered. “No, there’s no record of it.”

  “Well, that was years ago. She may have been sent off to fry bigger fish.” Zorba laughed again, but gave the Fudir a significant look.

  Donovan was moved to protest. “I was quite happy where I was, but your… niece… was ready to hare off across the Spiral Arm after her mother. I convinced her to come here instead. I thought you people would talk sense to her. When you’re finished, I plan to go right back to Jehovah.”

  “Right back to the bowl. Oh, don’t look away. The Ourobouros Circuit is a wonderful thing. We can get the answers to our queries in hardly any time at all.”

  “My mother…,” said Méarana.

  “Aye.” Zorba turned to Cerberus. “Have Bridget ban’s trip reports collated and sent to my office. You two, come with me.”

  “Cu,” said Cerberus, “you don’t have an office. You are Status Inactive.”

  De la Susa stopped in his tracks. “Am I? Don’t be a cow’s calf. Arrange it. And have someone make reservations at The Three Hens for dinner. My usual table.”

  Cerberus gave the Fudir a doubtful look. “For two? We can question this one while you and your protégé’s daughter dine.”

  Zorba laughed. “What do you suppose he can know after all this time? Nothing is more useless than an agent past his expiration date. What say you, Donovan? Have you any tales worth the telling that the Kennel ought to hear?”

  Careful…, said one of his voices.

  It’s a test, said the Sleuth.

  Of course, it’s a test. But a test of what?

  The Brute began to clench a fist. Zorba’s eyes narrowed. Cerberus reached under his desk.

  The Fudir seized control. “Sure, I’ve made my living as a seanachy these past uncounted years. A teller of tales. Why should I not tell tales here, as well? My fees are modest.”

  The two Hounds relaxed just the smallest amount. Donovan heard the distant click of safety catches being re-engaged. Yes. Was erstwhile Confederate agent Donovan as erstwhile as he seemed? His willingness to be debriefed was the test.

  Cerberus found an empty office that de la Susa could use. It contained a barren desk of opaque metaloceramic, a comfortable chair, and little else. De la Susa took the chair. The Fudir searched nearby offices and returned with two more. They sat around the desk and waited. The Tall Hound worked his lips for a few moments with a distant look on his face. A part of the Fudir wondered if the old cripple had lost the train of his thought.

  Zorba smiled at them and wheezed, “Well. Bridget ban’s daughter, and a master harper, no less. Just as well. Just as well.” He nodded. “Her mother’s trade was not for her.”

  The Fudir was uncertain how to respond to that and, from the tentative look in Méarana’s eyes, he guessed the harper was not sure, either. This was not the Uncle Zorba she remembered.

  “Perhaps I should begin that debriefing you wanted,” he suggested, starting to rise. “There’s no need for me to listen to this. I agreed to accompany the harper this far; but I’m for Jehovah by the next ship out.”

  But neither Hound nor harper was listening. De la Susa passed a hand over his face,
rubbed his cheeks. “Ah, she was ever too close-lipped for her own good, your mother was. We love one another like brothers here, but there is a certain amount of jealousy in the Kennel. Oh, yes. I’m sorry to say it, but it’s true. A certain jealousy. Brothers and sisters… But family rivalries can be mean. If she was on the trail of something big, she might keep it quiet lest others beat her to it. Some of us would, you know. And if the trail proves false, one doesn’t look as foolish. Better to scout things out alone.”

  The Fudir sat slowly. “In Terran, we call people like that ‘lone rangers.’”

  “Do you? What’s that in Gaelactic? Never mind. My earwig is a little slow. Maor aonarach, is it? Hah, that’s good.” His jowls shook as he chuckled. “Maor aonarach…” Then he sobered. “I don’t remember it that way when I was Status Active. A band of brothers back then. Though back before the Circuit, we mostly were on our own, now that I think on’t. So it may just be habit. ‘Lone ranger…’ Hah! But we only remember the best parts, eh? The best parts. No, Donovan, I want you to stay and hear this. No need to rush back to that place. Yes, Graceful Bintsaif, thank you.”

  A whippet-thin woman in powder-blue undress uniform and black choke-collar had entered with a pocket brain, which she handed over. A glance captured the room and all that was in it. “Ochone, sèan-Cu,” she said in a deferential voice. “This room has no armillary”

  De la Susa shook as he chuckled. “Yes, that was Cerberus’s little joke. He will receive a riposte in the ripeness of time. He is jealous, I think. ‘Old Three-Head’ doesn’t care for me hanging around the Kennel. I’m some sort of relic, a ghost at the banquet. He and I once… Ah, but those are times long gone.”

  “Cu,” said Graceful Bintsaif, “you are a treasure.”

  “Yes. A buried one. Ha-hah! Cerberus thinks I should be off on Peacock Junction shooting inoffensive ducks and drinking abominably flavored teas on some tropical verandah.”

  “I don’t like it here,” said Graceful Bintsaif. “There’s a meanness to this infighting. I wish I were back at the Rift.”

  The Old Hound grinned. “Not all duties are so easy as that one, eh? I suppose you have prepared an armillary for me.”

  The younger Hound bowed from the shoulder. “Aye, Cu. Games are not in me.”

  De la Susa grunted. “They should be. Your time here would pass more quickly.” He rose and gestured to Méarana with a sweep of the arm. “If you would follow Ban-Cu Bintsaif…? You, too, Donovan.”

  In the hallway, the harper leaned close to the Fudir and whispered, “This is the famous Kennel?”

  Donovan answered, “Don’t be deceived, harper. They show us a feckless face; but look in their eyes. The eyes are as hard as stones.”

  “But why the façade?”

  “A man’s greatest weapon is his opponent’s underestimation.”

  “But we’re come for their help. We have the same objective. How are we opponents?”

  “They like to keep in practice.” But if Donovan had understood the old man aright, there were those in the Kennel who were more interested in finding what Bridget ban had been up to than in finding the woman herself.

  The armillary was in a conference room. Graceful Bintsaif had activated it earlier and it now displayed a three-dimensional projection of the Spiral Arm, centered by ancient convention on Old ‘Saken. The projection would have been impossible to read had all the stars of the Arm been displayed; but only those connected by Electric Avenue were shown, and even so it was a dazzling display of diamonds and golden threads. The young Hound-instructor took the brain from de la Susa and inserted it into the armillary.

  De la Susa spoke into a phone. “From insert>Files>Sent from>Display”

  Immediately, several nodes on the network brightened, while others dimmed.

  “Add>Subordinate coordinates.” He turned to the harper. “These are worlds she mentioned having visited in her reports.” He leaned over the phone again. “By ‘Send Date’>Sequence.”

  Light ran through the display like a river, flowing from star to star. It rose from Dangchao Waypoint, through Die Bold and out the Peacock Shortway to the Junction. From Peacock Junction, Bridget ban had traveled the Silk Road through the great interchange at Jehovah and all the way to Harpaloon. After that, she had zigzagged across the Lafrontera District: down the Spiral Staircase to Dancing Vrouw and Bangtop-Burgenland; along the Grand Concourse to Siggy O’Hara and Boldly Go; out Gorky Prospect to Sumday and Wiedermeier’s Chit.

  “And the Chit is where she was last heard from?” asked the Fudir, in spite of himself. He gave the Sleuth a mental elbow in the ribs. The Sleuth did not have control of the tongue, but sometimes Donovan or the Fudir accidentally verbalized his thoughts.

  De la Susa sighed. “No, she returned to Siggy O’Hara. After that, we never heard from her. Most of Lafrontera is outside the Circuit, so at first we thought she had come back to Siggy O’Hara to use the Ourobouros station there, and we awaited the late arrival of drones or messages entrusted to passing ships; but… None came. It’s possible she sent a message by a ship that was lost through mishap.”

  That would be two mishaps at roughly the same time, the Sleuth pointed out. A Hound gone missing and her last message lost. The probability of that is…

  “Quiet,” said Donovan. “No one cares what the probability is.”

  The other three in the room turned to look at him, and Méarana said, “Don’t worry. He talks to himself sometimes.” Why this might be a reason not to worry, she did not say.

  The Fudir was sorry the witch was missing. After all these years, the anger no longer flamed. But the ashes were bitter and he was not about to spend his life looking for her.

  It’s obvious where we have to start, said the Sleuth.

  “Where the harper has to start,” Donovan muttered sotto voce. “It’s Jehovah for us.”

  You can’t be thinking of sending Méarana out there alone?

  “And why not?” he whispered.

  You know why not.

  It suddenly seemed very cold to him, and he shuddered like a drunk caught thin-shirted under a Harvest-month sky.

  “Are you all right, Fudir?” the harper asked.

  “Just old and decrepit,” he said. “Zorba, can you give her the reports of the Hounds who followed up on her mother’s disappearance?”

  “Ah, child,” the old man said to the harper. “How can you hope to find her where we have failed—even with this wreck of a man to help you.”

  “I’m not helping her,” Donovan protested once again.

  “‘Tis not so much ‘this wreck of a man’ but ‘the wreck of this man.’”

  The Tall Hound nodded. “Ah… I can see where that might matter.”

  “And I thought that—if we followed Mother’s itinerary—we may see things the others missed,” said Méarana. “I am her daughter, after all.”

  Zorba looked at her with sadder eyes. “A slim hope.”

  “When hope is all there is, it is enough.”

  The Aged Hound nodded, as if to himself. Then he said, “Graceful Bintsaif”

  “Yes, Cu?”

  “Give them the redacted reports that Greystroke and the others filed.”

  “Is that wise, Cu?”

  “Ask, ‘Is it useful?’” He turned to Donovan and the harper and extended the pocket brain. “Do not suppose we have neglected to visit these places.”

  “Yes…” Donovan accepted the brain and gave it to Méarana. “…but your reports can at least tell her which trails not to follow. And maybe they can convince her by the thoroughness of your harvest that there is little point to her gleaning.”

  The Old Hound rubbed his cheeks again with his hand. He glanced at Graceful Bintsaif. “You’ll tell Himself everything, of course.”

  “Of course.” The junior Hound bowed slightly from the shoulders.

  “Ochone! She’s the Little One’s spy, you know,” he added aside to the harper. “Oh, the old man is garrulous. He talks too much
. So she is my second shadow. Well, I will tell you this much. Bridget ban had picked up rumors. She never said where. But she was hunting something big. She said it could shield the League against the Confederation for aye. Or it could destroy us.”

  “In the wrong hands…,” said Donovan slowly.

  “Oh, aye. But consider it a warning. If such a power exists, it proved too much for a Hound. It would make short work of a harper and a drunk.”

  “You’re a blunt one,” said the Fudir.

  “Is it wise, Sèan-Cu,” said Graceful Bintsaif, “to lay such temptations before… layfolk?”

  The Fudir cackled. “No worries, sahb. I haven’t laid hands on absolute power in almost twenty years.”

  The restaurant called The Three Hens sits on a narrow side street just west of An Caislinn. It is entered by three short steps down into a small barroom and then through an archway into a larger dining room where the tables sit within vast wine barrels. The ceiling is vaulted stone, suggesting that this was once the cellar of a larger building and these had been its storage rooms.

  The restaurant takes its name from three clone-lines of poultry that, to this very day, have been nurtured and pruned for their flesh. What grows in the vats is not exactly alive, nor does it resemble much the images of hens that decorate the dining room. How long the lines will yield their harvests no one can say. Legend holds that they were started by Commonwealth “scientists” and will last forever. Yet there are aged and nearly unreadable images at the Taran Archives in which, in the background, one can make out a sign: The Four Hens. Nothing lasts forever.

  The meal is tasty, the smack of the poultry accented by subtle sauces, and the staff is attentive to de la Susa and his party.

  Donovan has told the Kennel what happened to the Dancer and a portion of what the Names had done to him afterward. He has said only that his ill-treatment had left him “disoriented.”

  Over Hunter’s Hen, fenneled potatoes, and glasses of Gehpari Mountain White, the scarred man does his best to forget the memories roiled by the debriefing. So he lets the Fudir tell of some scrambles in the Terran Corner of Jehovah. The Old Hound finds great amusement in the account of the rescue of Little Hugh O’Carroll. In return, he tells of his liberation of Hector Lamoy, the “Friend of Truth,” who had been sentenced to death on Chamberlain for a poem satirizing the Alish Bo Wanameer, the People’s Hope.