The January Dancer

by Michael Flynn

  Bridget ban turned away from her study of the estate. “There is a steep ravine on the northeast side,” she said, “which they don’t seem to watch carefully.”

  The Fudir shrugged. It was a wealthy estate, not a prison. The guards were to fend off importunate visitors, not a determined infiltration. There would be fences, burglar alarms, possibly patrols and surveillance cameras. There were unlikely to be trip wires, dead lines, or even motion sensors. The guards would not want to scramble after every fox or rabbit that ran across the grounds.

  “There’s an interesting bird,” said the Fudir. “A double-bellied nap-snatcher.”

  Bridget ban turned her binoculars on the approaching ornithopter. Two guards in gray uniforms.

  “Twenty-four minutes response time,” said the Fudir with a touch of contempt.

  “Try to be polite. We don’t want them to make any special note of us.”

  “Yes, yes, missy. No more’n they already have. Remember, this road is outside the estate bounds. We’ve every right to be here.”

  Bridget ban said nothing to answer the obvious. She lowered her binoculars and waved at the approaching guards. “Tally ho!” she called. The Fudir shook his head.

  The ornithopter set down a dozen double paces off, on the road. That this would block any traffic coming up the mountain from either direction seemed not to bother them at all. There were certain advantages to working for the biggest corporation on the planet, if not in the entire Spiral Arm. The ICC did not own the government of Old ’Saken, but it might fairly be said that they rented it.

  “The top o’ the marnin’ to ye, darlings,” Bridget ban said to the two men who approached. The senior—he had stripes on his sleeve—lifted his cap just a little. It was more like pushing it back a little on his head. His partner, a shorter, darker man, remained a step behind him and kept an eye on everyone. He’s participated in too many simulations, the Fudir thought.

  “May I ask what you are doing here, ma’am?” the senior guard said.

  “Why, birding, to be sure, Sergeant.”

  “Corporal, ma’am,” but the Fudir could see he was a little pleased at the virtual promotion. “Why the interest in the estate?”

  “What estate?”

  The Fudir thought that might be carrying innocence too far. “The Dalhousie Estate, ma’am,” the Fudir said, pointing to the map. “You remember I told you. The wine-makers.”

  “Oh, losh, Reggie. I’ve no interest in architecture. You know that.” She glanced into the valley at the complex of buildings. “Which one is it? The whole thing? My. Not as big as the palace complex on High Tara, but a nice enough country lodge.”

  “And you would be…?”

  “Julienne Lady Melisonde,” said Bridget ban. “I’m Second Assistant Lady-in-Waiting to Herself, the Banry Keeva of High Tara.”

  The corporal was writing in a small notebook with a light pen. “Uh-hunh. Sounds real important.” He looked at the Fudir.

  The Fudir jerked a thumb at Bridget ban. “I’m with her.”

  The guard gave him a suspicious look. “You’re a Terry.”

  “Yeah, but I’m housebroken.”

  The guard turned to Lady Melisonde. “You gotta watch letting them run their mouth, lady.”

  They showed him their identification cards. The guards had probably seen High Taran cards before, however little importance the court was given this far from the center of the League. If he was impressed, he did a good job concealing it. He tried to look at the bird book open on the ground car’s hood without being obvious.

  “I heard on Die Bold,” Lady Melisonde said, “that the Friesing’s woodleafsinger had recently been introduced here, quite by accident. I was wondering if you had seen one.”

  The guard’s face showed that he did not know one bird from another, but he answered politely enough. “No, ma’am, I have not. But you might want to try the Rolling River Nature Reserve, out on the peninsula.” By which he meant, far away from the Dalhousie Valley.

  As the two guards returned to their ornithopter, the shorter one, who had remained mute until now, said to the Fudir, “You pukkah fanty, sahb?” And he made a Brotherhood sign with his fingers that the Fudir recognized.

  The other guard swatted him on the arm. “What I gotta tell you about bukkin that lingo, pal? You speak Gaelactic when you’re on duty.”

  The next morning, Greystroke and Hugh went to keep their appointment with the master vintner to discuss the proposed contract. In the ground car along the way, Hugh mentioned that the deal could be a profitable one if it ever were carried out. Greystroke reminded him that it was only a ruse to gain access to the estate. Hugh sighed. “I know. But it really is a sweet deal.”

  A half league past Chel’veckistad city limits, they left the traffic grid and switched over to manual control. Hugh, who was driving, fussed a little bit with the unfamiliar control panel and at one point swerved into the opposing lane. “Sorry,” he said. “On New Eireann, we used the other side of the road.”

  The countryside was a pleasant one of gently rolling hills terraced into vineyards. The landscape was open, warm and dry in the soft morning sun. The land rose, and the road switchbacked up to the crest of Moaning Mountain and down the other side into the Dalhousie Valley. Hugh whistled at the sight of the cliffs and the distant bright blue flashing river. Greystroke made no response and Hugh glanced to the passenger seat on his left, just to assure himself that the Grey One was still there.

  A few moments passed, and Greystroke said, “You couldn’t possibly have thought I jumped out the window on one of the turns.”

  Hugh grinned and said nothing.

  The estate entrance was an elliptical arch made of granite and shuttered by a wrought-iron gateway. The old Dalhousie corporate logo carved into the keystone was still used by the ICC for their wine-and-spirits division. They showed their passes to the guards, who wore the uniform of the 17th Peacekeepers, ICC Civil Police company.

  “Take the first right-hand turn, honored sirs,” the guard said. “The winery is the large stone building at the end. Yellow granite. You can’t miss it.”

  They thanked him and drove through. “I don’t get it,” Hugh said. “If Lady Cargo has the Dancer, why does everything on ’Saken seem so normal?”

  “Two reasons,” Greystroke said. “One: you can’t improvise your way into power. There are logistical details to work out. Sometime soon, I expect, the ICC will buy commercial time for a ‘must-see’ spectacular show. They’ll want as many ears as possible listening at the same time up front. Remember, if someone out of earshot—maybe across the sea in Sinkingland or up on Jubilee Moon—learns what’s going on and disapproves vehemently enough, they could lob a missile directly on old Lady Cargo’s head. I don’t care how persuasive that stone is. It can’t sweet-talk ballistics and a targeting computer.”

  “What’s the other reason?”

  “Why bother? If the ICC and its policies are already well thought of here—the government’s not exactly in her pocket, but they do snuggle closely—why impose your will? To tell everyone to eat their vegetables? I understand power corrupts, but I hardly think Lady Cargo cares what simulations people experience or what they cook for dinner.”

  Hugh nodded. The reasons made sense, but it seemed to him that Cargo had had the Dancer long enough that some move should already have been made. “Pup?” he said.

  “What?”

  “Suppose there has been a broadcast of some sort, and we listened to it, and we were ordered to forget we had heard it. How would we ever know?”

  They pulled into the visitor lot by the winery and Hugh deactivated the motor, which spun down with a slight whine and the ground car settled onto its pylons. Greystroke opened his door. “We wouldn’t,” he decided.

  The negotiations with Bris Dent, the winery’s business manager, were tough but straightforward. Naturally, Dent proposed terms more favorable to Dalhousie Wines. “We expect price of our wines, which are unique in t
his quarter of Arm, to rise on Krinth and so shipment will be more valuable relative to crater gems. Krinthic crater gems to be dropping by two percent.”

  Tol Benlever waved his hand. “You cannot possibly know that, ’Spodin Dent.”

  “Our economic models best in all Spiral Arm. Find case where we are being wrong more than one, two points, Acts of God excepted. These price movements almost certain. You still make good profit when you resell wine on Krinth.”

  Hugh said, “Then you’d not object to making those terms a futures option rather than a straightforward price.”

  “No, not at all.”

  Eventually, they shook hands all around and Dent said that the contracts would be sent around to Benlever’s hotel by the evening for his legal staff—meaning Hugh—to look at. Afterward, they were given a tour of the winery—except for the padding room, where the proprietary paddings, or “blends,” were added to “thicken ’er up.”

  When the tour was drawing to a close, Benlever said, as if in passing, “I was told that Lady Cargo has the most extensive collection of prehuman artifacts this side of Jehovah.”

  “Oh, perhaps in whole Spiral Arm,” said Dent.

  “Is it open to the public? I was told in the City that she sometimes hosts viewings.”

  “Once a month…Ah, that is being local month by Splendid Moon, roughly one case of days.”

  Hugh leaned toward Benlever and murmured, “A case of days in dodeka time is just under three metric weeks.” Benlever nodded.

  “Next viewing on Thirdsday,” Dent said helpfully.

  “Pity,” said Benlever. “I’ve business on Abyalon that will not wait.”

  “Business involving Hollyberry jellies, let me guess,” said the vintner.

  “Is my business so transparent, Ringbao? Haha. I don’t suppose, since I’m here right now, I couldn’t get a peek at them? I recently acquired a prehuman artifact myself, and I’d be interested in how it prices out.”

  “Is specialty market. Would you like to speak to Lady Cargo herself?”

  “Is she in residence?”

  “Soglass. I take you to her.” Dent turned and Greystroke and Hugh followed him along a crushed stone path to the rear of the Big House. Hugh leaned close and whispered, “Is this too easy?”

  Greystroke nodded. “Be alert.”

  Radha Lady Cargo was a short, wizened woman who wore a wraparound dress of bright patterns that left one shoulder bare. Hugh guessed her age at a hundred and twenty, past her prime, but holding up very well. But what he noticed most of all was not the mature body, but the intelligent eyes. He had looked into enough faces to know when there was someone looking back.

  After some polite introductions, she bowed graciously and personally led them through the room she had set aside for the artifacts.

  “There is simply no price on such things,” she said as she showed them from case to case. “This item, found on Megranome, seems to be part of a control circuit; but what it controlled, who will ever know? See the corrosion here? Not even the prehumans built forever.” Greystroke asked some questions about provenance and Hugh made occasional notes in his handy. He was surprised at how the old woman’s eyes lit as she described her collection. She really took joy of it. He had imagined someone grimmer, more jaded.

  “What of the Ourobouros Circuit?” Greystroke asked. “Your most famous acquisition.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Poor Chan was never able to make it work; and yet it seemed to be whole.” Her lips curled a little at that and Hugh wondered at her brief and secret amusement. There’s something there, he thought. Something important about the Circuit. And then…They couldn’t have gotten it working, could they? That would be the biggest news the League ever saw.

  Or “the best-kept secret in the Spiral Arm.”

  He glanced at Benlever to see if Greystroke had noticed that smile; but the Pup’s face betrayed no sign of awareness.

  “We keep that in its own room,” said Lady Cargo and she spoke into her wristband. “Visitors coming.” Hugh pondered that, as well.

  There was a large man standing outside the door and Lady Cargo paused a moment to ask him some inconsequential question about household maintenance. Hugh noticed that the discussion lasted long enough for a discreet light inset into the woodwork of the door to change from red to green before Lady Cargo said, “This way,” and led them into the room.

  It was a broad room with perhaps a score of people working at desks. Interfaces winking and scrolling, low susurrus of voices over headsets. Lightboards on the wall with commodity prices from a hundred worlds flashing in turn. Among them, Hugh thought, must be the forecasted price of padded wines and crater jewels. In the center of the room, a chair fastened to the floor faced down a broad aisle clear of all obstructions to the famous Ourobouros Circuit. In form, it resembled a wreath, the wires twisted and twined around one another in a complex pattern incomprehensible to the eye.

  “They say,” Lady Cargo informed them, “that a part of it wraps through a dimension that we cannot sense. It never seems the same twice.”

  “I’m surprised you keep it in a working office,” said Tol Benlever, glancing around at the muted activity in the room. “This is your trade desk, is it not?”

  “One of them. We maintain such rooms on numerous worlds. There’s no secret that I plan to adopt the Circuit as a corporate symbol—the ungraspable intricacies of trade networks connecting the worlds of the Periphery. Fitting, I think. So there’s no reason why my people cannot enjoy the sight of it. ’Spodin Della Costa, would you take a seat?”

  She meant Hugh. He lowered himself into the chair, shifted his weight. “Quite comfortable,” he said.

  “Now stare at the Circuit. Try to follow the twists and turns of the wiring.” Some of the traders had paused in their work to watch, with grins on their faces.

  Hugh shrugged and focused on the wreath. He picked an arbitrary starting point and tried to follow the path of the Circuit.

  Benlever asked, “Are they optical wires?” But his voice seemed to echo from far away.

  The wreath started to spin. Hugh blinked.

  “Optic,” he heard Lady Cargo say, “ceramic-composite, metal. It’s a chimera, of sorts.”

  The wreath seemed to approach him and the light blue wall, visible through the center of the wreath, receded into the distance. The lighting seemed to change. The wall acquired a reddish tinge while everything in the foreground, illuminated by an unreal ghostly glow, lost all depth. A two-dimensional figure moved across his field of view and Hugh felt his shoulder violently shaken.

  He moved, and colors, shapes, lighting, and perspective snapped back to normal.

  Now the people at the trade desks were laughing and even Lady Cargo smiled openly. “A fascinating illusion, isn’t it?” she said. “It was the one thing Chan Mirslaf learned before he gave up. It’s almost hypnotic. We find it useful for meditation. It relaxes.”

  Hugh blew out his breath. “The far wall seemed to be twenty leagues away.”

  Lady Cargo straightened and her smile vanished. “Please don’t touch it, ’Spodin Benlever.”

  Greystroke had gone to the back wall and was bending close to the artifact. In answer to Lady Cargo’s command, he held his hands up and away from his body. “Fascinating, indeed,” he said, turning away. “Well, I don’t want to keep your people from their work. Unless, it means I receive a better quote from Vintner Dent, haha!”

  Lady Cargo led them from the Trading Desk to her own private office, where she offered both a glass of padded wine and dismissed her aides, who had followed along like a cloud of gnats.

  “Well,” she said, putting her now empty glass back on the sideboard. “Do you have it? Have you got it?”

  Greystroke held a hand up to forestall any question from Hugh. “You mean the artifact I obtained?”

  “Don’t play foolish games. I appreciate your effort, and you were quite right to bring it to me. But please don’t try to extort a price. Y
ou’re entitled to a generous finder’s fee, of course, and compensation for your troubles; but I do have legal title to it.”

  “What makes you believe,” Greystroke said carefully, “that the artifact I obtained is the same one that you have apparently lost.” And Hugh thought, She doesn’t have it, after all! But he kept his face controlled.

  Lady Cargo pointed at Greystroke. “You, sir, are a Krinthic merchant-trader—my people have checked your bona fides with House Kellenikos—but this man…” And now the bony finger was aimed at Hugh. “This man, you hired elsewhere. On Die Bold? Let me suggest to you that it was Ringbao della Costa who presented you with the artifact.”

  Greystroke bowed, extending his arm gracefully. “You are wise beyond your years, lady.” Hugh, thinking furiously, wondered what was going on. The Pup was improvising over this unexpected development.

  “You took it from Gronvius, didn’t you, Ringbao? No need to prevaricate. Gronvius was a traitor, and deserved to die. But what you took from him—or what he sold you—was my property.”

  Hugh thought, Gronvius? Aloud, he followed Greystroke’s lead. “I did not know him by that name.”

  “It doesn’t matter what Todor Captain Gronvius called himself. He was a renegade. You see, when I said prehuman artifacts are priceless I didn’t mean you couldn’t sell them. Oh, no. They can command stiff prices in the right places. This temptation proved too much for Captain Gronvius and others in the squadron escorting the artifact. He mutinied, and fled with the statue. He tried to hide on Die Bold, but our detectives tracked him down. Witnesses described his two companions. One of them was you.” She produced a printout of the Die Bold police sketches.