On the Razor's Edge

by Michael Flynn

  And so a little reserve grew in her resolve. She was no longer quite so intimate with the Ravn, did not follow her around as before or hang over her shoulder. Perhaps Ravn was relieved by this, though nothing showed in her demeanor. It would not be accurate to say that Méarana acceded to the stopover at Dao Chetty. Her consent was neither requested nor required. But she did agree, if only to maintain the fiction that she and Ravn were partners in this enterprise and she was not simply a stage prop. Ravn, whether she saw the need for the charade or simply did not care, accepted Méarana’s agreement with grave thanks.

  And so Méarana spent the next two months composing goltraí in the lounge where Ravn had once so fruitlessly imprisoned her father. In the hidden room where the smuggler had died, Méarana found traces of the blood that had splashed there: stains painted in difficult corners and angles. She thought how easily her father could have died. She thought how easily the Ravn could have bought herself time by slamming the door and shutting Father and Froggie together. The laments played without a title in Méarana’s mind and ran from there down to her fingers and so out to the strings.

  She tried as well to compose a tune to depict her mother hastening after her, but it would not cohere. In the night, when the strings were stilled, a thin sliver of doubt would stab Méarana: There was no pursuit. Bridget ban had weighed the costs and the benefits and had written her daughter off as lost. It was a relic of her childhood, was this cold fear, a piece of an age when her mother would disappear for weeks or months at a time and the daughter would wonder if she would ever come back.

  And that led to a fresh, new thought. Had Méarana initiated the play with Ravn as much to test her mother as to rescue her father?

  * * *

  In the Triangles, space had so configured itself that a cluster of priceless sunlike stars lay cheek to jowl, each a mere dozen light-years or so from the other. This had once mattered a great deal, as the first starships had gone the Hard Way, across the Newtonian flats. The Hard Way was a long way, though longer for those left behind than for those setting out, but it was doable at the margins. First steps are larrikin steps, and these suns lay where a child might stumble eagerly toward them. As the old song ran:

  A dozen lights from star to star.

  Thusly arranged the Triangles are:

  From Sol to Dao Chetty

  To Vraddy to Sol.

  Dao Chetty to Old 82,

  From Delpaff to Bhaitry

  And thence to New Vraddy

  ’Tis only a short way to go.

  Oh, it might be more than a dozen, or less, but “fourteen-point-three lights from Bhaitry to New Vraddy” does not scan. Afterward, the discovery of the tubes had made flatland distances irrelevant. It might be 14.3 light-years “as the crow flies,” but who flies with the crows anymore? Distances were measured in days, now, not in years. And sometimes, at long, long intervals, ships drifted in from the Newtonian flats, bearing their cargos of ancient spooks, after journeys far longer than their crews.

  The old home-stars from which we once set forth.

  That line resonated with poets of a certain bent, those for whom the glamour of forgotten pasts conjured emotions of loss and regret, of faint distant bells and twilight languor and ruins seen by moonlight. But Méarana gazed upon the skies of Dao Chetty not because she was seized with nostalgia but because somewhere in that firmament her father sat seized. Ravn flagged the star for her on the view screen while they lazed into co-orbit with the way station: Tsol. An undistinguished star—bright, but no brighter than others nearby—sixteen degrees north of the equatorial line, and just south and east of a brilliant marker star called Arctors. It was not even the closest sun to Dao Chetty. That honor belonged to Epsidanny, which lay farther east near a trio of markers called Reckless, Nan Ho, and Denrō, the last named of which was also known as the Serious Star because it was the brightest in all the sky.

  Méarana regarded Terra’s sun with the same affection and longing that the ancients had felt on contemplating Ur of the Chaldees, which is to say none at all. Her father, she knew, felt different. Once upon a time, everyone had lived there. But that was a fact, not a feeling, and she knew it only as a place from which she must rescue him. Once upon a time, everyone swung in trees in some African valley. No point getting all choked up over it.

  * * *

  Ravn docked at Tungshen Waising, a vast habitat built into and around a dwarf planet situated sunward of the primary ramps off the superluminal tubes. It could barely handle the traffic, and the throngs that moved through it were a focused lot, rushing to make the bumboats, or other liners bound elsewhere, or to arrange layovers while they awaited connections.

  Dao Chetty was the capital of the Confederation and like any center of power she attracted a multitude of people eager to wet their beaks in her nectar. From harmless touristas to would-be bureaucrats; peddlers and purchasers of influence; messengers, merchants begging relief, immigrants and visitors, emissaries of sector and planetary governors, Shadows, rebels, boots, assassins, spies and saboteurs. This was the honeypot of the Confederation, the thunder-mug of the Central Worlds. Here docked the great liners and humble yachts, the ominous warships of the Fleet, the stealthy ships of the Lion’s Mouth, and the bristling survey vessels of the Kazhey Guk-guk bringing word of worlds at the farther edge of settled space.

  Tungshen herself boasted docks and maintenance yards, freight transshipment and passenger transfer, residence quarters for the staff, and—to maintain the ever-percolating transients—hosted entire cities of hotels and gardens and restaurants and theaters within her bosom. Ravn and Méarana put up at a hotel in the Seventeenth Sector called the Four Great Heavenly Kings. It would take several days to find Domino Tight, keepers of safe houses being by design not easily found, and he would need several days thereafter to climb up to the coopers, so they had might as well be comfortable in the interim.

  Méarana was surprised at Tungshen’s dowdy appearance. Little enough had she glimpsed of the Confederation during her slide through it, and she supposed its age ought not have surprised her. The Triangles had been the heart of the old Commonwealth of Suns, but it seemed as if little had been refurbished since then.

  It was less the antique feel—the red and gold lacquer, or the translucent panels and low ceilings, styles and skins—than it was the general air of dishevelment. Dirt snuggled in corners, rust peppered surfaces, ad hoc repairs had become permanent by the sanction of passing time. On the way from the customs clearance to the hotel she noticed a crew of technicians consulting small pocket-sized manuals and arguing over the precise meaning of the text, so it did not surprise her to learn that some subsectors of the habitat had been sealed off and abandoned in place.

  “It wants shwee to keep these things up,” Ravn commented when Méarana mentioned the matter.

  Méarana’s earwig told her that shwee meant “liquid, water, juice,” which seemed less than informative, but Ravn explained it was slang for chin-chin, or money.

  “Money like tourist,” she said while they waited in queue to check into the hotel. “Come to Dao Chetty. But unlike tourist, money never leave Dao Chetty. Names build new palace, not maintain old habitat. Tungshen always muddle through—Commonwealth tech down in the bone—so each cycle, squeeze budget more. Someday … Who knows. Maybe, squirt shwee where needed, not where wanted.”

  That was dangerous talk. Méarana looked around the lobby, where hundreds were lined up in front of the kiosks. “Should you be talking like this?”

  Ravn laughed. “Too much talk-talk in lobby. No one overhears anything. But do not talk so when we stand near kiosk.” She glanced at her identity card. Méarana had learned that Shadows kept caches of documents, credits, equipment—called “spookers”—secreted about the Confederation. When she had worried about being detected here at the capital system, Ravn had laughed at her fears. It was the boast of the Deadly Ones that their false documents were finer even than the official ones.

  “We
move like leaves bloowing through autumn forest. We are coolorful, yays, but there are too many leaves. Even with clayver machines, the Names and their minions cannoot sieve every datastream for the whisper of us. Even when I coontact my sweet Dominoo, what is one more call-worm amoong all the rayst?” Then, dropping the accent, “Merchants with secrets, families with secrets, agents with secrets … All messages sent in code. How they find pea under so many mattresses? Hush, now, while I speak with this infernal device.” She glanced again at her identification card to remind herself of which regional accent to affect and began to jabber with the kiosk in a patois too fast for Méarana to follow.

  * * *

  They were ahead of the standard clock and wide awake in early sector morn. Not that it mattered. The spectrum lamps might brighten and dim to the spin of the capital far below, but the habitat never really slept. Ships arrived at all hours, and there must always be someone ready to welcome them, service them, kiss up to the powerful among them, and separate the rest from their wages. Ravn went to find the nearest message center.

  “There is only slight risk,” she told Méarana. “Poor Ravn must use code known to both Domino and me, and what is known to two is known to too many. But even if intercepted, decoding yield only allegory. Sweet Domino kens the sooth of the allegory. We are high up here, and even light wants seven hours to creep down to capital and another seven to haul sorry-ass answer back up. Slow conversation, yes? Much nicer have Ourobouros Circuit like you have in League. Oh, well. Someday we have. Not to worry, sweetling. Ravn returns soon.”

  And with that, the harper was abandoned in a semisumptuous suite in the middle of a strange and hostile realm. She wandered through rooms whose tatterdemalion furnishings even when new would have seemed spare. Holopictures on the wall displayed alien people and scenes: a hard-faced woman striking an absurdly formal pose, Shadows riotously caparisoned facing off in a pasdarm. Even the landscapes appeared subtly foreign, as if there were nationalities of flowers and races of trees.

  She tried some audiobooks. (The earwig was no help in reading text.) But the style of the recitations struck her as bombastic and strident. Statements sounded like questions. Tonal cadences gave narrative the stridency of argument.

  The music was not much better. She had left her harp concealed aboard Sèan Beta lest it mark her as alien. But the modalities of the Confederation seemed wanting in subtlety and listening to them soon palled. Like their clocks and their rods, they divided their scales into twelve increments, and the ratios of their tones sounded irrational.

  And so, after an impatient time, she took herself to the café restaurant on the primary mezzanine. There she ordered a green tea and sat on the open patio to watch the passing stream of humanity on the concourse outside the hotel.

  She saw foxes and sharpies and feys; skin tones from coal-black to pasty-white; eyes and noses of sundry shapes and in virtually all combinations. She even saw a few like herself: golden skinned and red of hair. She couldn’t tell if their eyes were green. Absurdly, the sight made her feel less alone, even though such folk were found on a great many worlds. The mix was different: more foxes, fewer sharpies, no Jugurthans at all—and once she saw a close-clustered group in veiled, ankle-length gowns who clacked as they scurried by.

  But the bustling masses seemed somehow different from a similar crowd of Leaguesmen. At first, she could not say why and thought it was the styles of clothing—drabber and more uniform than that to which she was accustomed—but it eventually came to her that they had the gait of a beaten people. They shuffled more than strode. They walked with heads more nearly bowed. These were a people thoroughly domesticated. The sheep, Méarana remembered.

  Exceptions stood out. Men and women in baggy suits, moving with purpose and puffed with importance. She guessed them functionaries coming to or going from the capital. A plumpish, pale woman with head erect and searching eyes, who locked gazes for a moment with Méarana. A squad of boots tramping across the public square in cadence. A tall, black woman in resplendent red and black robes adorned with the yin and yang. This one strode with a thick quarterstaff in her hand, and was accompanied by several younger men and women wearing her livery on black body stockings. Others quickly stepped aside to clear her path. Many bowed, though she deigned no notice.

  A Shadow of the old school.

  Méarana was suddenly thankful that Ravn Olafsdottr was not sitting with her on the patio café, for Ravn was at least overtly with the rebellious Shadows and this one, to all appearances, was not. The harper ducked her head to her tea. The tall woman was just passing through Tungshen like everyone else. She was not searching for Ravn, nor would she recognize the harper as an outlander. But even so, it was best not to catch her eye.

  When Méarana raised her head to peek, the Shadow was gone. But there was a man sitting at the table with her.

  Méarana started, but he only smiled and raised a glass. “Hard night? You should drink something stronger to get your juices flowing.” He spoke Manjrin with an odd accent: vowels clipped and final consonants bitten off as if by his large, even teeth. His t’s seemed to come from the middle of his mouth.

  “This serves well enough,” the harper told him, and sipped again at her tea. Was this an intrusion, or did strangers share breakfast tables here?

  “I’m outward bound,” he said, “toward Habberstap. I have a Confederal legacy for the tax farm at Bowling Brook. I’m to be the Shearer of the Postdown Flock.”

  Méarana did not understand what that meant, only that it meant that he was trying to impress her with his minor importance.

  “How nice for you.”

  “Where are you heading to?”

  The harper searched for an answer, wondered at the intent of the question. Was he really a minor official heading to his posting? Or was he a secret policeman grilling a suspicious stranger? “Henrietta,” she said on impulse.

  The man nodded. “I thought I heard a frontier accent in your voice,” he said, to show how clever he was. “First time to the capital?”

  “Ah, yes.”

  “Pretty impressive sights.”

  “I … haven’t been down yet.”

  “Booked on a later shuttle, hey? I’m waiting for my outbound flight, so we’ve both got a couple of hours to kill.” He laid his hand on her arm. “What say we gang up on those hours and kill them together?”

  Méarana did not understand what he meant until his hand moved to her thigh. “I’d say there are some pretty impressive sights to see up here,” he added.

  Nearby boulevardiers smiled over their cups and croissants. A few made signs with their hands wishing her copulatory success. Evidently, this sort of cold accosting was not unusual here, which eliminated the gelding knife as an appropriate response.

  “No,” she said in a low voice, so only the man could hear.

  “What? But…”

  Méarana used her sky-voice, throwing it so that it seemed to come from over the man’s left shoulder. “She said no!”

  He turned to look, saw nothing, and the harper tried to bolt, but the man held tight. He squeezed, hard. “You gene-tampered tease!”

  Another voice interrupted. “Excuse me, but that is my seat.”

  Fool me twice, shame on me. The man ignored the new voice—until a thick finger tapped him authoritatively on the shoulder. Méarana saw the plumpish woman she had noticed earlier among the passersby. Not plump at all, now that she could see closer up, but simply wide and solid of body. Her hair was a wool cap of tight black curls; her cheeks, a rose-red. But there was something in her eye that seemed familiar.

  The importunate man tossed off the last of his drink. “Sorry, ladies,” he said. Rising, he muttered, “All the good ones are taken.”

  The strange woman sat herself down and took one of Méarana’s hands in her own. “Work my play, darlin’,” she said. “Smile a little.”

  “That man—”

  “—saw you sitting alone. Round hereabouts, unless you wear the
veil, that means you’re available. Easily available. It’s the way they think out here. Not a one of them can imagine a solitary reason not to indulge their pleasures at any opportunity. They eat when they’re hungry, the drink when they’re dry, they—”

  “I get the picture.”

  “I don’t know if you do. Because they can’t imagine a refusal, either. Easy indulgence of the senses impairs the reason. It’s how they keep the sheep sheepish.”

  “Who are you?” demanded Méarana.

  “Just the kindness of strangers, ma’am.”

  “No. Strangers don’t do kindness, not in the Confederation, not in the Triangles, and certainly not this close to Dao Chetty.” She stopped.

  The plumpish woman raised her eyebrows. “What is it?”

  “Your Manjrin has an accent. It’s faint, but it’s definitely there.”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake.”

  “And you’re letting it show on purpose, aren’t you? It’s Megra—”

  “Oh, I don’t think one should speculate overmuch…” She cocked her head as if listening to something, then said, “Best I be going. Listen to Auntie Gwen: You will be visited tonight by a spirit of things to come. Say nothing to anyone.”

  With that, “Auntie Gwen” rose from the table and, with unhurried steps, left the patio. Though there was no rush to her movements, she vanished in moments among the surging crowd.

  Ravn Olafsdottr sat at the table. “Ooh, you nooty girl!” she scolded. “I said to stay poot. You should not be a wooman aloone.”

  “Oh,” said Méarana offhandedly, still thinking about her strange visitor. “I have a guardian angel.”

  * * *

  Guardian angel. Why not say Hound, for that was surely “Gwen’s” profession. The League maintained agents within the Confederation, and Méarana’s mother must have somehow gotten word to them to intercept her at points near Terra. She marveled for a time over the coincidence before she realized that coincidence was not in it. Mother knew Ravn was taking her to Terra. Why pursue when the destination is known? Agents were likely watching at the transfer points at New Vraddy, Bhaitry, and Old Eighty-two as well as at Terra herself.