The January Dancer

by Michael Flynn

  But one curious consequence of the lamination was that the images of passing ships were trapped, for they moved always at the speed of light and so the deeper into the shoulder one peered, the older and slower those images were. There were ships that had passed by centuries before whose fossil images were only now reaching this point. With luck and skill and with instruments of exquisite fineness, one could sometimes tease these images from the blur of countless others. It had become something of a hobby with Greystroke. He had secured a picture of City of Chewdad Roy just as it was breaking up along Sweet Love Road to New Tien-ai. He had captured another of the Great Fleet that the Second Tyrant of Gladiola had launched against Ramage. Once, but only once, and this was years before, he thought he had seen a prehuman ship, an odd, misshapen vessel unlike any other he had ever seen. But those images, thousands of years old, were like pictures left too long in the sun, bleached and faded and indistinct. They had had millennia to sink through the shoulders of the road and now wafted pale and ghostlike across the Newtonian flats.

  The ancient god, shree Einstein, the scarred man says, has not forbidden that two things might happen at the same time; but he has clouded men’s minds in such a way that they can never know that they have. There is no universal time, nor even absolute space. Even if one clocks off the revolution of the galaxy, as men once clocked off the revolution of Old Earth, that motion seems different from different parts of the Spiral Arm. The Constant Clock on Friesing’s World is no more than an agreement and ships and worlds synchronize with it through complex incantations prayed to Lorenz and Fitzgerald and Rudolf.

  So if synchronicity has any meaning on worlds so far apart, Greystroke left the Rift at about the same time that the Fudir rescued Little Hugh in the back alleys of the Corner, and was still en route when the Brotherhood arranged to smuggle the pair off-planet. A cargo was booked on New Angeles for delivery on New Eireann, realistic certificates of competency were provided to Hugh and the Fudir, Mgurk dropped from sight in the Corner, and a debilitating substance was introduced into the mulligatawny consumed by Micmac Anne in the Restaurant Chola. The stomach cramps might not have prevented her from shipping out with the others, but the frequent and odious diarrhea proved too great an obstacle for her shipmates.

  So it was that January was two hands short with departure imminent. Maggie B. could move up to Number One and Tirasi was qualified to sign the articles as astrogator; but that still left a hole for an instrument tech. There were worlds from which he could have departed shorthanded—January thought that Maggie and Bill between them could cover all three berths, and Malone could double up on the scut work—but Jehovah was a stickler for the literal interpretation of texts, legal texts no less than others.

  What joy then, when two properly certificated individuals presented themselves and signed the articles! Maggie B. and Bill Tirasi interviewed the one—his cert named him Kalim DeMorsey—and judged his skills acceptable for system tech. Nagaraj Hogan examined the second man—one Ringbao della Costa—but this consisted mostly of verifying that he could lift or move objects of the required mass. Little more was required of a deckhand, and it gave his mate, Malone, someone to look down on.

  “The berths are only for this one transit,” January warned the two with his cherubic smile. “But good work, Ringbao, can earn you the berth regular. Be here—awake—at oh three hundred Sixday morning, or else.”

  Or else New Angeles could not depart on time; but January judged that such a threat would have little leverage over either man, and so he left the consequences ominously unspoken.

  Once outside the hiring hall, Little Hugh spoke up. “So it’s a common laborer, I’m to be?”

  “Deckhand,” the Fudir told him. “Or do you hide skills under your bushel?”

  “I’m a schoolteacher.”

  “Wonderful. Wide scope for that on a tramp freighter.”

  “And I do a fair job at running a guerilla campaign.”

  “Same objection. What’s your complaint? This will sneak you back to New Eireann without fanfare.”

  “No complaint. I’ve done scut before. But I noticed you wound up as a deck officer.”

  The Fudir shrugged. “I prayed to Shree Ganesha and was answered.”

  Hugh snorted in derision. They turned their steps down Greaseline Street along the Spaceport’s boundary fence. At the far end of the Port, nearly to the horizon, a heavy lifter was pushed skyward on a pillar of light. Nearer by, a crew in dark green coveralls and straw terai-hats struggled over a balky tug pulling a ballistic commuter flight toward the passenger terminal. “Put a little more prayer into it!” the crew chief exhorted them. “Line it up, line it up. Insert the pin…Oh, God bless it! Back it up and let’s try it again, my brothers…”

  The Bar stood at the corner of Greaseline and Chalk. From the outside, the black building was broad, featureless, and multistoried (in both senses of the word). Behind it, the Terran Corner lay like construction debris left over from the Bar’s erection. Dwelling upon dwelling filled the low land and jostled up the slope of Mount Tabor—despite its name, a steep but unimpressive ridge. “I never knew that about Terrans,” Little Hugh said, pointing to the hodgepodge of buildings. “That they lived in such wretched conditions.”

  The Fudir grunted. “Oh, you didn’t.”

  “No. There was no Corner on New Eireann…”

  “Even we aren’t crazy enough to want to live there.”

  O’Carroll said nothing until they reached the doors of the Bar. There was no sign to mark it. The Elders reasoned that for those who knew, no signs were needed; while for those who did not, the lack might save them from falling into evil ways. “Are all Terrans like you?” O’Carroll asked as he grasped the door handle.

  “Kalim DeMorsey is from Bellefontaine on Redmount Araby. We eat Terrans for breakfast there.”

  “No, I’m meaning in truth…”

  The Fudir gripped him by the arm and his hand was like a vise. The other door swung open and a skinny, pale-faced man in green spiked hair staggered out, glanced at them incuriously, and went his way. “When you wear a mask, boy,” the Fudir said when they were alone, “that is the truth. And ditch that flannel-mouthed accent of yours for the duration.”

  Little Hugh pried the Fudir’s fingers off his arm. He bowed from the shoulders. “So sorry, signor.” And he brushed his chin with his fingertips.

  Inside the Bar, talk still raged over the unknown fleet that had passed through Jehovah Interchange a few days earlier. As in all such cases, the very lack of information manured the conversations (in both senses), and the number of origins, destinations, and purposes of the fleet had increased until it exceeded the number of speculators. The Fudir approached the Bartender, who bore the unlikely name of Praisegod Barebones, and passed him a Shanghai ducat. “Greet God, friend ’Bones. Private room 2-B?”

  “God bless you,” the Bartender replied. “Not 2-B; it’s taken. You can have 3-G.” He glanced at Little Hugh. “So. Changing anatomical preferences?”

  “It’s not like that—and you never met me before today.” Another ducat appeared by magic, and disappeared the same way.

  “Would that I never had.”

  “We need a wake-up call for an oh three hundred departure.”

  “So. Is the Transient Hostel filled?” ’Bones passed him the key to the room. “At least, you leave Jehovah’s World a better place than you found it.”

  That puzzled the Fudir and he paused before leaving. “How’s that?”

  “Why, by leaving it, God willing, you improve it.”

  The Fudir laughed and gave the Bartender another ducat “for the widows and orphans.”

  He led Hugh to a small room on the fourth floor of the building. “This isn’t a hotel, strictly speaking,” he told him. “But public drunkenness is a crime—they call it a ‘sin,’ but it amounts to the same thing—and they provide rooms to ‘comfort the afflicted.’ They think of it as a sort of hospice.”

  The corr
idor was dimly lit; the doors anonymous save for the number inscribed on each. From behind one door, they heard a woman’s voice crying, “Oh, God! Oh, God! Don’t stop!”

  “She must be praying,” Little Hugh suggested.

  Room 3-G was small, containing only a bed, a small stool, and a table. They threw their carryalls on the bed, which complained at the sudden weight. The floor was swept, however, and the walls were clean and brightly colored and decorated with tranquil scenes depicting sundry Jehovan provinces. Little Hugh looked around. “Not what I expected.”

  “Why?”

  O’Carroll did not answer. He pulled the curtain aside from the window. “Ah so. Lovely view of the Corner,” he remarked. “So picturesque.” He studied the slum for a moment longer. “And have those people no pride in themselves?”

  “No, sahb,” the Fudir answered, sitting on the bed and then leaning back with his hands locked behind his head. “We very lazy fella. You much buddhimn to see so.”

  Little Hugh let the curtain drop. “You can turn that blather on and off whenever you want. Why can’t they?”

  “Don’t make assumptions to suit your conclusions.”

  The younger man returned no comment, but explored the room. As the room was only two double-paces each way, and most of that was occupied by the bed and the writing table, this was accomplished by no more than turning his head. He sat on the stool and opened the drawer. Inside he found a tablet with letterhead embossed with a hologram of the building and reading, Greetings from the Peripherally Famous Bar of Jehovah! A rather grim illo for such a cheery salutation. “So who gets the bed; or do we take turns?” He found an envelope of condoms underneath the tablet.

  “These rooms weren’t planned with double occupancy in mind,” the Fudir said.

  Hugh held up the condoms. “Weren’t they? What hypocrites.”

  “You’re letting your assumptions outrun your conclusions again. What do you know of Jehovan doctrines? As it happens, they celebrate beauty as the greatest good, and hold the human body as beautiful. God is Love, they say. It’s irresponsible procreation they regard as a sin.”

  Hugh dropped the envelope into the drawer and shoved it shut. “So.” He folded his arms and stretched his legs out, and this was sufficient to nearly touch the door. “Tell me how this Twister will help me reestablish the legitimate government in the Vale.”

  “You want reassurance? You’ve been willing enough to come this far without it.”

  The younger man managed to shrug without changing his posture. “Let me see…Assassin in the alleyway. Check. Terran criminal gang. Check. Lost in a tangled warren of hallways and tunnels. Check. Committee of Seven, with power of life and death. Check. Up to now, Fudir, I don’t see where my being willing has mattered very much.”

  The Fudir closed his eyes. “If you don’t want to go back, you can stay here. I thought I was doing you a favor.”

  “Fudir,” said Little Hugh, “if I thought you were doing me a favor, I’d be out that door.”

  The Terran opened his eyes and looked slantwise at the other. “Aren’t you too young to be so cynical?”

  “You’re using me to get off-planet. That’s fine. You’re probably only a step or two ahead of the rectors—”

  “Five steps. What am I, an amateur?”

  “—so I can see what’s in it for you. Me, I vowed to return to the Vale, so I’ve got it to do. But I’d like to know if that will mean anything more than another hopeless go-round with Jumdar. Set me down in the Southern Vale and I’ll have the guerilla up and running in a metric week—and Jumdar’s spy satellites and air-cav will shut it down in another. I’m as willing as the next man to make a heroic but doomed gesture—the New Eireann influence, I suppose—but you promised me something a cut above hopeless.”

  “Fair enough,” the Fudir said. “Have you ever heard the story of the Wish of the Twisting Stone?”

  “No. A bedtime story? Really?”

  “They tell it on Old ’Saken and a slightly different version on Friesing’s World, and other variants circulate on Die Bold and Abyalon. All in and around the Old Planets, you see. Once…”

  “…upon a time…”

  “…there was a prehuman king whose scientists presented him with the Twisting Stone, saying it would grant him one wish. ‘Cutting to the chase,’ as we Terrans say, the king brandished it like a scepter and said that he wished only to be obeyed.”

  “Isn’t it supposed to be three wishes?” Little Hugh suggested.

  The Fudir propped himself up on his elbows. “Once the wish for obedience is fulfilled, what other wish can matter? In most versions, two prehuman kings struggle to possess it. ‘Stonewall,’ ‘Hillside,’ ‘Cliff’…The names of the kings vary from one world to another, so maybe there were more than two; but that doesn’t matter. Whichever finally gains possession finds himself obeyed without question. So if we gain you the possession of it…”

  “I’ll find myself obeyed on New Eireann. Charming. You know what I think?”

  The Fudir hesitated. “What?”

  “That prehuman fathers chastised their children by hitting them with bricks, and that’s how the story of a stone conferring the power of obedience got started.”

  The Fudir lay back down again. “Maybe it’s the wildest of fables. But isn’t it worth a two-week trip to find out? Did you have something better to do with your time?”

  “How do you know what January found was this Twisting Stone?”

  “In the stories, the stone is never the same shape twice. January said that the artifact he found changed its shape imperceptibly, like a very slow dance.”

  “I’d think that a folk that could make stones twist could also make them dance without them being the same stone.”

  “And as long as he had it, his crew followed his instructions. When he gave it away, they reverted to their normal squabbling.”

  O’Carroll snorted. “You mean the crew we’re shipping out with? Wonderful. Why’d he give it away, then?”

  “Because he didn’t know what he had. He thought the crew had finally pulled together because of the common danger they had faced on the world of the Vault, and they’ve now fallen back into old habits. He doesn’t connect it with having the stone and not having it. And you won’t tell him any different.”

  “Oh, believe me, I wouldn’t dream of telling him anything like that. Who has it now?”

  “Jumdar. She promised January that the ICC would auction it off and January would get a percentage of the profit.”

  “Ah! So, Jumdar possess sigil of absolute obedience, and you and I go overthrow her. Everything now clear…”

  “Don’t give me that Venishànghai crap. She doesn’t know, either. Or at least we hope she hasn’t learned in the meantime. She and January both think it’s an art object, potentially valuable because it’s prehuman; but that’s all. Any further questions?”

  “No, a quixotic quest for a magic token seems about the right way to end the day. One thing does occur to me, though.”

  The Fudir raised an eyebrow to the question. “What’s that?”

  “If this gadget, or whatever it is, gives its owner such power, then why are you helping to gain it for me?”

  The Fudir snorted. “There go your assumptions outracing your conclusions again. Not everyone yearns for power. Some of us yearn for justice. You were ill-used; and the ICC are crooks. That’s enough for me. Come on, there’s room on this bed for two even without intimacy.”

  “No thanks,” O’Carroll said. “Harder beds than this floor greeted my back when I was on the run.”

  “Have it your way,” the Fudir said, turning his face to the wall. “Just remember you’ll be stowing cargo most of the morning, starting at oh three hundred.”

  An Craic

  “A stone scepter that compels obedience to its holder?” The harper allows incredulity to speak for her.

  “So the Fudir thought at the time. A flimsy notion built from half-believed myths.
He might not have crossed the Spiral Arm to check it out; but New Eireann wasn’t that far from Jehovah, so what the hell? If he was wrong, what was lost but a little time?”

  “Another short, hopeless civil war among the Eireannaughta?” the harper guesses at other losses. She leans forward over the table and adds in a harder voice than she has used up to then: “But what matter is that if absolute obedience might be won?”

  “Don’t be a fool, harper. Little Hugh was going back to the Vale. Nothing could have stopped him short of death. He had promised on his father’s name. So the only real question was when he would return, and how.”

  “That’s two questions.”

  “No, because the when dictates the how. Had the Dancer been a myth, it would have made no difference to what happened. But if it were true after all, there needn’t be blood at all.”

  “No. Only blind obedience. I’d rather see the blood.”

  “Yes, so long as it’s someone else’s.”

  The shot tells. The harper falls silent and her fingers touch idly the frame of her clairseach. Ideals in the abstract may be held abstractly, but the devil is always in the details.

  “None of which,” the harper says at last, “tells us why the Fudir decided to help Hugh.”

  The man leans back into the alcove and laughter emerges from shadows even as he recedes into them. “You don’t get answers this soon in a tale, even if you had the question right.”

  “This is an intermezzo then,” she says, “a bridge.” She plays an aimless conjunction of music, a strain that summarizes what has gone before and promises newer tropes to come after.

  “If you wish,” the scarred man says. “But there is a notion that nothing ever happens on a bridge, and that is wrong. People jump off them.”

  The harper places her instrument once more upon the table and the silence, now that her fingers have ceased their continuo, is louder than her music had been. “Now you mock,” she says. “Word games. Do you mean that O’Carroll trusted the Fudir too much?”