On Rickety Thistlewaite
Michael F. Flynn
There is an ancient Terran word: rickety. It is not clear to scholars what this word meant exactly, but that it applied to Thistlewaite was undoubted. "Rickety Thistlewaite" had been its appellation from the beginning, from the days before even the First Ships set down. At least, if you can depend on their legends, which like everything else there, are shaky. The planet's nature can be seen in its propensity to earthquakes. Somebody had talcumed the seams of her plates and they slip and slide with greasier abandon than they do on more gritty worlds. "As sturdy as a Thistlewaite skyscraper" is a proverb on half the planets of the Periphery, and believed earnestly enough by the Thistles themselves that they build none—and so the proverb does double-duty. What can be more sturdy than something unbuilt, runs a Thistlean joke. A building never erected can never fall down. Ha, ha. But the Thistles have developed a keen sense of balance along with their mordant wit, and a fatalistic conviction that nothing can ever be done that will not eventually fail.
The harper and the scarred man have come to Thistlewaite in search of the harper's mother. That is simple enough for a story. They will not find her there; but they may begin the finding of her there, for it was the last world to which she had been assigned before vanishing on a personal quest. Bridget ban—the vanished mother—was a Hound of the Kennel, and a Hound of the Kennel could be many things and anything: spy, assassin, savior, ambassador, planetary manager; and without pity or remorse when what had to be done had to be done. The one thing they are not supposed to be is missing for three years. She had left a note; she had left a trinket; and she had left. "Out to the edge. Fire from the sky. Back soon," read the note. But it is now a bit longer than soon, and the daughter has grown impatient.
Lucia Thompson—the daughter—goes by the office-name Méarana, which means both fingers and, through a slight shift in stress, swift. She is an ollamh, as the harper's case slung across her back announces. She is lean and supple, with eyes of the hard, sharp glass-green of flint. Her hair is the red of flame, but her skin is dark gold.
The scarred man uses the name Donovan buigh, at other times the officename of The Fudir, but no one knows his true name, least of all himself. His face is shrunken, as if it has been suctioned out and all that remains of him is skin and skull. His chin curls like a coat hook, and his mouth sags across the saddle of the hook. His hair is white, and there are places on his skull, places with scars, where the hair will never grow back. His eyes rove in constant motion.
The fingers of the harper have pried him most unwillingly from his bottle to join this feckless venture. He does not think that they will find Bridget ban, or that she will be alive if they do. Yet at one time, years ago, he had loved her, and a part of him yearns for her still. So he is of two minds about the entire quest; indeed, of more than two minds, for Donovan buigh is a man of parts. Like the demon, Legion, he contains multitudes. His quondam employers had shattered his mind like glass, hoping that by isolating different elements of the espionage art in different loci of the brain they could create a well-oiled team of specialists. What they had gotten was a quarreling committee.
The Kennel has given up the search, Méarana had told the scarred man after tracking him down to the Bar on Jehovah to enlist his reluctant help.
And why should you succeed, he had replied, where the professionals have failed?
Because a daughter may see a thing that even a colleague would miss.
A thin reed from which to fly hope's banner. It was no more substantial than a Thistlewaite skyscraper.
Jenlùshy Town had sat on the epicenter of the great thistlequake, and two-thirds of the country had been knocked about like jackstraws and flinders. Collapsing province-towns, mountain landslides, floods, and fires had swallowed two-thirds of the District Commissioners, along with half the dough-riders. The One Man, the Grand Secretary, and five of the Six Ministers had perished in the collapse of the Palace. In a state as highly centralized as the Jenlùshy sheen that was the equivalent of a frontal lobotomy.
Bridget ban had been sent to oversee the restoration of sanitation, of water and utilities, of housing and roads, of public order. The late Emperor—the One Man—had clearly lost "the approval of the sky," and so she chose for his replacement a Warden named Jimmy Barcelona who had been Chief of Public Works Unit for Capital District. At her suggestion, he selected the office-name of Resilient Services and for his regnal theme, "a robust and reliable infrastructure." It rang less gloriously than most regnal themes, but was surely apropos, all things considered.
It is their intention to make inquiries in the Terran Corner—for Terrans, like the Third Monkey, will seldom say anything, though unlike the first two, they see and hear everything. The Fudir is a member of the Terran Brotherhood and perhaps they may speak to him. He believes Bridget ban learned something during her assignment on Thistlewaite that set her off on her final quest. To find what that something was will be the first step to finding her.
But no man may do business in Jenlùshy without the One Man's permission. Certainly, no one can go about making a nosy nuisance of himself without what the Terrans call a "heads up" to the head man. Normally, obtaining an audience with a Thistlewaite emperor was a long, laborious, and expensive affair. The recovery from the 'quake was still in its final stages, and Resilient Services had better things to do than put on a show for Peripheral touristas. Donovan had counted on this as yet another delay to the harper's journey, although he had by then given up on dissuading her entirely.
But if the visitor was the daughter of the very Hound who had placed the emperor on the Ivy Throne, doors swung open with disconcerting ease.
The Grand Secretary had insisted on a certain formality of dress. Happily, the harper had brought with her several bolts of Megranomic anycloth; so the morning of the audience, she consulted Benet's Sumptuary Guide to the Spiral Arm and programmed the material through the datathread to assume the chosen color, cut, and texture.
The harper wore a leine of pure white linen with fitted sleeves, and intricate red geometric embroidery at the neck, cuffs, and hem. It was bloused though a leather crios at the waist, in the pouches of which were placed the tools of the harper's trade. Over this she had thrown a woolen brat in bright green with gold borders. She wore it like a shawl fastened at the right shoulder by a large golden brooch depicting a snake entwining a rose. She walked unshod and the nails of her feet and hands matched the color of the embroidery of her leine. Her red hair fell free, to indicate her unwed status, but she wore a silver ollamh's circlet at her brow.
The scarred man wore Terran garb, and if fewer eyes caressed him than caressed the harper, it was because he was moon to her sun. He dressed in a dark yellow sherwani over embroidered jutti and matching kurta paijamas. His sandals were plain and of brown leather with golden crescents on the straps. The scars on his head were decently covered by a skull-cap, and across his shoulder he had thrown a gharchola stole. Gold lac-bangles adorned his wrists and ankles, and rouge had reddened his cheeks. When he wanted to, the Fudir could cut a figure.
In the anteroom to the audience chamber, the Fudir bowed to the Grand Secretary, and said, in a croak resembling Thistletalk, "This miserable worm prays that these poor rags do not find disfavor in the eyes of noble Grand Secretary."
That worthy went by the name of Morgan Cheng-li and was known therefore among the backroom staff as "Jingly" in a play on both his name and the sound of the coins that so often crossed his palm. His frog-like mien— pigeon-chested, eyes bulged, cheeks blown out—gave the impression that he had held his breath for a very long time.
At the appointed time, the Assistant Palace Undersecretary of Off-World Affairs escorted them into the throne room. "Rags?" the harper whispered in Gaelactic as they proceeded down the hallway. "After all the work I put into this wardrobe?"
"Self-deprecation is mandatory here," the Fudir said. "You should see officials defer for places at a banquet table."
"Och. Mother and I hold to a faith that values humility, but that sort of servility smacks of unseemly pride."
Donovan interrupted and said, "Hush, both of you. And remember what we told you. Don't mention that your mother has vanished. She came from the sky; and if she's vanished into the sky—."
"Then she's lost the Approval of the Sky," the harper returned wearily. "I know. I know."
Donovan turned to her. "And through her, the emperor she appointed. Tell them your mother's gone missing and it's tantamount to a call for revolution. And don't think old Frog-Face back there won't lead it, either."
The throne on which Resilient Services perched was fashioned of solid gold. The stiles had the form of climbing ivy and from them on thread-like wires hung leaves of artfully tarnished copper. This gave them a greenish cast and, when movement caused them to sway, they tinkled like wind-chimes. Under the throne, for some age-long and forgotten reason, rested a large stone. The high back, rearing above the yellow-robed emperor, bore four ideograms: the motto of the sheen.
"Behold the August Presence," the Voice of the Sheen cried out. "Behold the Resilient Services Reign, who provides the sheen with robust and reliable infrastructure!"
Now there's a battle cry to rally the troops, said the Brute. The scarred man's splintered mind contained a variety of shards. His former employers had believed that their agent might have need of ruthless physical action.
It works for them. The earthquake destroyed so much. The silver tongue of persuasion was also a useful skill. But the Brute and the Silky Voice did not much like each other.
The Fudir scolded them both. Quiet. We're not here to mock their customs.
"Who," the Voice demanded, "approaches the August Presence?"
The Fudir bowed, sweeping his arm to the right and holding his left over his heart. "I hight Donovan buigh of Jehovah, special emissary of the Particular Service to the Court of the Morning Dew. My companion hight the ollamh, Méarana of Dangchao, master of the clairseach."
The emperor had gone, first pale, then flushed. "Ah. So," he said. "You much resemble my illustrious predecessor, and . . . I had thought she had returned to resume her duties." He clapped his hands and a servant struck a hanging gong. "Bring forth the crumpets and scones!"
Underlings and flunkies scurried about in apparent confusion, but in short order a table was set up in the center of the hall, dressed with cloth, napkins, and fine bone-china cups, and surrounded by three soft-backed chairs and a silver tea service on a gravity cart. A tray of biscuits, ceremoniously escorted, was placed on the table, and the visitors were shown to their seats. The emperor stood and descended from the Ivy Throne, shedding his yellow robes of state and handing them to the Assistant Deputy Undersecretary for Wardrobe.
Beneath his cope, the emperor had been wearing a simple day suit: a cut-away cloth coat of dark blue possessed of brass buttons over a plain buff waistcoat and matching pantaloons. His feet were shod in riding boots with golden spurs; and at his throat was gathered a stiffly starched cravat. He took the seat at the head of the table and, with a flick of his wrist, dismissed his ministers and staff. These scurried to the walls, where they stood in various poses pretending to converse with one another, though alert always to a summons from the Presence.
"Tea?" the Presence said, holding a cup under the samovar.
He proceeded through the ceremony with meticulous detail. One lump or two? Cream? Scone? Jam? Each motion practiced; each stir a precise radius and number of revolutions.
The Fudir supposed this was the Thistle equivalent to the Terran ceremony of bread and salt. More elaborate, of course, in that mad and fussy Thistle fashion.
When all had been served by the emperor's own hand, Resilient Services intoned formally, "We shall now make small talk."
The Fudir stepped into the momentary silence. "How stand matters since the great thistlequake, your imperial majesty? Recovery proceeding apace, I hope?"
"Oh, yes. Quite, thank you," the emperor responded. "And for duration of High Tea, you call me 'Jimmy.' Port Tsienchester not yet fully operational; but perhaps by end of Sixmonth. You." He pointed at the harper. "I mistake you for another. She, too, from Kennel. She give mandate to rule. How I curse that day."
"My mother," said the harper.
"Ah." The emperor looked to the Fudir.
"I have been charged to escort the daughter to her," the Terran said.
"Why do you curse the day my mother made you emperor?" the harper asked. "She made you emperor of one of the Fourteen States."
"That curse." Jimmy turned a little in his seat. "See sigils over throne? Love-heaven. Person. Protect. Heaven-below. Man who love heaven-sky will protect empire. But heaven perfect. Never fail, never fall. Heavenbelow, Sheen Jenlùshy, should be imitate that perfection. Never does. But if emperor love heaven good enough, everything fine below, too. Never fail, never fall. One Man must be regular as sky. Move in orbit, like planet. Go here, go there. All same ceremony, all same word. All pest black-fly ministers buzz round me. Buzz, buzz, buzz. Do this, do that. All 'veddy propah.' No mistake. Mistake in heaven-below cause mistake in heavenabove. Very bad. Calf still-born. My fault. Stumbled over sunrise prayer. Bandit rob exchequer in Bristol-fu. My fault. Did not make proper ablution. All universe connected through dough. Everything affect everything. Mountainslide in Northumberchow Shan . . . "
"Your fault," said the Fudir. "We get it. I can see cosmic oneness has its drawbacks. If you forget to clip your toenails, who knows what horrors might be unleashed?"
The emperor shook his head. "Only here in tea ceremony is emperor become Jimmy again." He turned abruptly to the harper. "Tell me of homeworld, Mistress Harp."
"Dangchao Waypoint? Well . . . It's a dependency of Die Bold. Mostly open prairies on Great Stretch continent, where we raise Nolan's Beasts—a breed of cattle. A few big towns."
"You have harp with you, mistress? Of course. Ollamh never far from instrument. You bring with tomorrow. Play songs of far away Dangchao."
Méarana put her cup carefully on its saucer. "Well . . . Donovan and I have some business to conduct . . . "
"Oh, no," said Resilient Service. "I must insist."
And there was something hard in the way he said it that caused the harper to hesitate and glance at her companion.
"I had planned to visit the Corner," the Fudir said. "Best if I go in alone. You can entertain the emperor while I do that."
"Yes," agreed the emperor of the Morning Dew. "You do that."
The next morning, as Méarana prepared for her command performance at the palace, the Fudir prepared to enter the Corner of Jenlùshy. For this, he did not dress as he had for the palace. Indeed, he barely dressed at all. Around his waist he tied a simple blue-and-white checkered dhoti. On his feet, sandals. His upper body, he oiled.
"Easier to slip out of someone's grip," he said with a leer. Save for secreting various weapons in unlikely places, that completed his toilet.
The harper looked him over before he departed. She pointed to the dhoti. "How do you bend over in that thing?"
"Very carefully. Be sure to keep the emperor happy. I think he's a little taken with you. But remember: no hint of anything wrong 'up in the skies.' "
"How many times will you tell me that, old man? Just be careful in the Corner. The concierge told me it's a dangerous place."
"Full of Terrans. You be careful, too. There aren't any Terrans in the palace, but that doesn't mean it isn't dangerous."
"I long to see fruited plains of your home world," the emperor said after Méarana had played a set of Dangchao songs from the Eastern Plains. "To ride like wind chasing Nolan's Beasts with lasso and bolo. To drive herd to market in—how you say? Port Qis-i-nao? No, Port Kitch-e-ner." He pronounced the alien sounds with great care. "Oh, life of Beastie boys, live free under stars."
Sometimes Méarana wanted to slap the emperor of the Morning Dew. He confused song with life. Life on the plains, under the stars, driving the herd to the knocking plants for shipment to Die Bold, was dirty, tiring, bonebreaking labor that stole sleep and health and even life itself. Beastie boys fared better in song than on the plains.
"Play again song of Dusty Shiv Sharma," said the emperor over cups of Peacock's Rose tea; and he warbled with a bad accent, " 'best Beastie boy o'er alla High Plain.' "
Dusty Sharma had been a real "beast-puncher" a hundred and fifty metric years ago; but he had been called "Shiv" because he carried a hide-out knife in his knee boot. Historians said he would not have been a pleasant man to meet, even when sober; but he had been so encrusted with legend that the real man was unrecognizable.
Instead, she played a jaunty tune that evoked what the Dangchao beastpunchers called the Out-in-back. Of "the splendor o' the mountains, a-rearin' toward the sky" there could be no musty historians' doubts.
After the session, as he bade her good-bye, Jimmy said, "I wish you play here forever."
And so matters ran for several days. Méarana would play songs of the Periphery and engage in "small-talk" with the emperor, and the Fudir would nose around various eddies of the city asking after the activities of Bridget ban. The journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step, but it seemed to the harper that neither she nor Donovan were advancing the search for her mother by so much as even that single step. Anxiety enhanced impatience. The days were distinguished only by the particular songs she sang, and the precise lack of information with which the Fudir returned each evening.
Because Resilient Services had discovered the relaxing properties of her harp, he had bid her remain for his afternoon Council and play gentle suantraís while he reviewed the reports the dough-riders had brought in. No decision in Sheen Jenlùshy was ever final until ratified by the emperor: not the death sentence to a murderer meted out in Wustershau, not the mei-pōl festival to be held in Xampstedshau, not the list of candidates proposed from the 7th Dough for the imperial examinations. Each must be reviewed with the Six Ministers, a decision rendered, and the triplicate copies apportioned.
The suantraí was supposed to induce drowsiness in its hearers. Méarana thought her playing superfluous. The problem was not to relax, she thought, but to stay awake. The emperor invested her with a title—Invited Minister for Harmonious Meetings—and gave her a brooch to wear.
During the second such meeting, while Méarana plucked long-mastered melodies from the strings, Cheng-li presented a petition to the emperor by the Minister for All Things Natural Within the Realm. "He prays his daughter be granted yin, and not sit for examinations."
Resilient Services did not even glance at the petition. "Denied," he said.
The Minister flushed and muttered, "But all ministers granted this."
Cheng-li slapped the table. "Filial impiety! Five blows!" And the Eater of Beef, who stood by the wall with a long cane of slapstick, stood to attention.
But Resilient Services, looking up from yet another report, said, "Belay that, please. Imperial grace." Cheng-li bowed in submission, and the Minister threw himself on the carpet and blubbered his thanks.
"I was frightened," the harper later admitted to the Fudir, when that worthy had emerged from the Terran Corner slightly scathed and greatly enlightened. "At least, a little," she added. They had met in the Fudir's room at the Hotel Mountain Glowering. Méarana sat in the comfortable sofa while the scarred man examined his face in the mirror.
"What? Of our young emperor?" The Fudir applied a healing stick to the cut over his left eye, wincing slightly at the sting. "The Council has a quota of decisions to overrule, so none of the district commissioners start feeling above their place. If they can't find cause, they'll overrule at random. And the emperor can overrule the Council, which is what you saw him do today. He even overruled Jingly."
"Not so much frightened of him as for him. His slightest whim is instantly obeyed. And the others grovel before him. It can't be good for a man to have others grovel to him."
"Better perhaps," said Donovan, "than for the ones who grovel."
"There was one set of reports . . . Did you know there is a second, independent hierarchy whose only purpose is to monitor the behavior of the regular officials and report any 'non-harmonious words or acts'?"
The Fudir dabbed at the other cuts he had suffered. "The Bureau of Shadows," he said. "It could be worse."
"Worse, how?"
"They could be shadowing the common people. If a government is going to snoop, they may as well restrict their snooping to one another. The system could be brought to perfection if the first set of officials were then restricted to monitoring the second. How soon can you break off these afternoon tête-à-têtes?"
It took a moment for the last comment to register. Méarana sat up. "You learned something!"
"The jewelmonger Hennessi fu-lin remembers the necklace your mother gave you. He bought it in pawn from a man of Harpaloon. The man never came back for it, so he sold it to your mother."
"The Kennel told us Mother reported in from Harpaloon. Was she following the necklace?"
"It seems so. It's not much, but it's more than we had. We'll leave for Harpaloon tomorrow evening on the regular shuttle."
That night, in what little sleep the harper found, her mother lurked, always just out of reach.
There were no public clocks in Jenlùshy. The right of proclaiming the Hours was reserved to the emperor. Within the palace complex stood a single cesium clock of unimaginably ancient vintage. It did not match Thistlean hours, having been calibrated long ago to the tock of a different world, but the Sages of the Clock would note the time displayed and perform a ritual called the Transposition of Times, and determine when each new local hour began. Uncounted people on uncounted worlds spent their workday "watching the clock," but on Thistlewaite there were workers actually paid to do so. The Voice of the Sheen would then, to trumpet blast and gongs, announce the Hour from the parapet of the imperial palace, and the cable channels would carry her word throughout the sheen.
Méarana heard the trumpets as she made her way down Poultry Street, a narrow lane with subtle aromatic reminders of its original inhabitants. Méarana said a word equally pungent and quickened her pace, for the trumpet meant that she would be late for her command performance. She tolerated Donovan's eccentricities on most things, but the packing of her baggage was not among them and that she had done herself.
White Rod was as pale as his wand of office when Méarana finally appeared. Trembling, he led her into the throne room, where Resilient Services sat alone at High Tea, to all appearances sorely vexed. Méarana thought she would play a suantraí to sooth the man's palpable anxiety. She waited for White Rod's underling to pull her chair out for her. Instead, underlings hesitated, emperors rose, and guests sat in fits and starts. Apparently, custom required He Who Serves the Tea to sit last of all; but because the tea had already been poured before Méarana's entrance, harmony was now broken. She did not see why this mattered at all, least of all that it mattered so terribly, but she supposed that now a two-headed calf would be born somewhere for which her lateness could be blamed. She was a Die Bolder, born and bred, and a devotee of causality. Concatenation struck her as absurd.
You would think that a harper would know all about harmony, the emperor told her when that quality had been restored. It was an elliptical rebuke, with a great deal of opprobrium in the ellipsis. "It is a terrible discourtesy with which to end my visit," she replied.
The emperor of the Morning Dew sat back a little in his chair. Today he wore a dinner jacket of bright green, done up with contrasting red embroidery, with a ruffled cravat at his throat. On his head, he had placed a white powdered wig bearing a long pigtail down his back. "End visit," he said, as if examining the phrase for possible alternative meanings.
"Yes. Donovan and I leave on the evening shuttle to rendezvous with the throughliner Srini Siddiqi. My mother awaits me."
"Ah. Your mother. Yes. Play me," he said as he poured a second cup of tea and, using a silver tongs, dropped a lump of sugar in it, "song of your mother."
Hitherto, the emperor's requests had been for songs of faraway planets, of romance and distance. The harper played Mother as a geantraí: a jaunty tune that conjured her in the moment in which Bridget ban strode across the decks of Hot Gates like the queen of High Tara. Somehow, though, as her fingers wandered across the strings, a goltraí crept in: a keening lament as heartbreaking as all the losses of the world. By then, she had been transported by her own music, as sometimes befell when the harp took charge and the strings played her fingers rather than the proper way round.
The emperor's sob startled her from her trance and, realizing what she had done, she transformed the music once more into geantraí, pivoted by progressions out of the seventh mode and lessening his black bile with the eighth. When she had finished, she laid her hand flat against the strings to still them; though it seemed to her that they still wanted plucking and vibrated softly even so.
"I did not mean to upset you, Jimmy," she said.
"No, no, quite all right. Chin-chin. Emperor should be upset now and then. Tedious business, remaining always in balance—always in harmony." A quick smile and with a nod toward the harp.
Méarana played more, but the emperor seemed unwontedly distracted.
When the session drew to a close, Méarana said, "This worm trembles that she must leave so soon."
Jimmy laid a hand on her bare arm. "Do not go," he said with eyes as wide as sorrow. "How else I hear such distant places? Duty pin me to Jenlùshy like butterfly to board. You stay here. Be empress. Bring songs of places I never see."
Méarana slid her arm gently from his touch. She adjusted the green shawl around her shoulders. "I cannot. I would be a prisoner here."
"In chains of gold," he told her. "In velvet bands."
"Ochone! Are chains of gold chains no less? I must go. It is a geasa upon me."
The emperor of the Morning Dew slumped a little in his seat. "Obligation. Yes, I understand. You must find her."
She said nothing for a time, stroking the strings of her harp, but without striking them, so that they only murmured but did not speak. "How did you know?"
The emperor gestured elegantly toward the harp. "Such sorrow come only from death or loss. And death not drive you across Spiral Arm."
Méarana closed her eyes. "No one has heard from her in three metric years. Many search, myself most of all."
Jimmy Barcelona lifted his teacup to his lips and his eyes searched the courtiers who lined the walls out of earshot, engaged in faux conversations. "Then," he said, dropping his voice, "I, too, search. I go with you . . . "
Méarana had expected the invitation to stay; but not the offer to go. "Ye . . . Ye cannae," she said, falling into her native accents. "Jenlùshy needs you. Mother selected you because of your expertise in infrastructure. You must stay here and rebuild the Morning Dew so that it can survive the next thistlequake."
But Jimmy dismissed that with a wave of the hand. "Never build so strong but Thistlewaite stronger. This miserable worm, engineer. Lay pipe. Estimate building loads and construction costs. Bridges . . . Was happy build bridges. Never ask for this."
The harper touched the strings of her harp. "No one ever does," she said quietly, running her fingers down the cords.
"I give orders. Modify systems; implement fault tolerancing and redundancy; increase reliability of infrastructure. Ministers . . . make up numbers to please me, and always build as always. One day, all come down again. No. Better one seek Bridget ban across whole Spiral Arm. There, perhaps, success."
To maintain the harmony of heaven-below by trying to impose the regularities of astronomy on the behavior of humans was very nearly the definition of madness. And yet mystics throughout the ages, from astrologers to computer modelers, had sought it. They forgot that even the heavens held surprises.
Jimmy Barcelona at least could see the futility of his efforts, even if he was not quite clear on why they were futile. Méarana almost told him that her quest was no less futile, but that was something she had not yet told even herself.
And so she spoke truth to power. "Ye maun seek Bridget ban for her sake, not because you want to shuck your ain responsibilities."
Power didn't like to hear that. "If purpose same," whispered the emperor, "what matter, different motives? Keep smile. We pretend talk small nothings. Courtiers cannot hear. Listen. If Bridget ban lost, approval of sky lost, too. So order in heaven-below, in Jenlùshy, not maintain, and all become chaos above."
"That's absurd, Jimmy!"
"This Thistlewaite. Nothing absurd. You know Garden of Seven Delights?"
"What? Yes. Donovan and I have eaten there several times. The food is . . . "
"Listen. Garden have back door. I come tonight, at Domestic Entertainment Hour. I come in front, lock door on entourage, run out back. You wait by back door with fast flitter. Rent most fast in whole sheen. I come out back door, jump in, and you 'light a shuck for Texas,' as your friend say. We take shuttle." At this point he relaxed and sat back in his chair. "Then you, me, your Donovan, we fly across sky, go . . . maybe Texas, maybe find Bridget ban."
"That's impossible."
The emperor smiled. "But then maybe Invited Minister for Harmonious Meetings not leave Jenlùshy."
"I told you. We already have berths booked."
The smile broadened. "I think of this long time since. Minister need One Man's permission before leave sheen. Suppose I no give."
The harper studied Jimmy's open, friendly smile and saw implacable purpose between her and her mother. She took her napkin and dabbed at her lips. High Tea was coming to an end and the servitors were gathering to take down the café table and set the throne room back to rights. "I must confer with my friend."
The emperor, too, glanced at the approaching staff. "No time. No confer. Decide."
Méarana took a deep breath, exhaled. "Second night hour. Behind the Garden of Seven Delights."
"With most fast flivver. Now," he rose from the table and raised his voice a bit so others could hear. "No need more play. Tomorrow, come back, sing of . . . High Tara."
Méarana rose, showed leg in a graceful bow, and swept up her harp case. "Your worship commands; this worthless one obeys." And she slung the case across her shoulder and strode for the door.
She wondered what Donovan would say about this latest development; but she thought she could guess.
"Have you gone mad?" Donovan demanded.
The sleek Golden Eagle flivver floated up Double Moon Street on a cushion produced by the magnetic field in the paving. "You better hope not," the harper said. "I'm driving." To the west, the Kilworthy Hills had darkened, but their highest peaks still caught the un-set sun from over the horizon and flashed a brilliant white and grey.
"Kidnapping the emperor? Tell me that's sane."
"It's not a kidnapping. It's his idea."
"Then you don't know Thistlewaite. He may be the emperor, but 'Custom is king of all.' "
"Donovan, listen to me. He may be subject to custom—that's what he wants to escape—but he's certainly capable of keeping the two of us here under lock and key and demanding I play escapist music for him every afternoon for the rest of my freaking life! And then how would I find my mother?"
"Uncle Zorba told me to keep you out of trouble. I guess he didn't think you'd be the one starting it."
"I suppose the emperor would let you go. You have no songs for him."
A part of the scarred man's mind flashed with anger and Donovan chuckled. Was that you, Fudir? Insulted that she expects you to abandon her? I'm shocked.
The Fudir told him what he could do with his shock.
<This is dangerous>, said Inner Child.
We needn't smuggle Jimmy off-world, the Silky Voice suggested. We need only spirit Méarana from the emperor's clutches.
Ah, said the Brute. You take the fun outta everything, sweetie.
It would not need much, whispered another voice. A slight tap on the temple and she'll wake up on the shuttle halfway to Harpaloon.
<The emperor wouldn't like that>, Inner Child pointed out.
Donovan said nothing aloud. Brute, do you think you can do it without injuring her?
No problemo.
Yeah? Do you want to tell Zorba we cold-conked his god-daughter, or should I? said the Fudir. If we stiff the emperor, he'll seal the borders. And even if we make it across somehow, Snowy Mountain would be happy to hand us back.
Somehow? said Donovan. Where was there ever a border you or I found uncrossable?
Alone, and not with a na?f of a harper in tow.
And not, said the Sleuth, who had been silent until then, with a pause for debate at every juncture.
Méarana shook his shoulder. "Fudir. We're there."
The scarred man gathered his thoughts and looked around the service alleyway. The paving here was not magnetized and Méarana had switched over to ground effect, which blew the litter about in swirls. Cans clattered; paper flapped. The narrow lane was unlit, and what illumination spilled across the roofs from Gayway Street did little to lift the shadows. On the right, dust bins stood by each door along the back walls of the Gayway shops. On the left, a stone wall enclosed the residential lots. The emperor had made a good choice for his abduction. Except for the Garden, the other shops were closed up for the night. Blocked from the Garden, his entourage would be forced to run to the far ends of the block to reach the alley, by which time the flivver would be long gone.
"You're going to do it, aren't you?" said Donovan.
"Of course, I am," said Méarana. "It's our only way to get off this planet." Then, realizing that the question was not meant for her, she favored him with a searching look. "You don't have to do this, you know."
"Don't worry about me," said the Fudir. "I promised Zorba that I'd watch out for you."
"I'm not without resources. Mother taught me a trick or two."
"Actually, he said he'd hunt me down and kill me if anything happened to you."
Méarana laughed. "Uncle Zorba is a great kidder."
The Fudir said nothing. Zorba was not that great a kidder. He raised the flivver's gull-wing, and hopped into the alley. The ground effect was just enough to keep the chassis above the paving. "Keep the turbines at hover." Then he crossed to the utility door of the Garden of Seven Delights, ready to hustle the emperor into the waiting vehicle.
Where do you think they'll be? asked the Sleuth.
"Shut up," Donovan explained.
He heard the distant blast of the trumpets from the palace walls, and pole-speakers about the city carried the Voice of the Sheen's announcement of Domestic Entertainment Hour. Clever timing, thought the Fudir. Most of Jenlùshy would be indoors with their visors active, watching the evening installments of their favorite shows.
Shortly after, he heard the whine of flivvers pulling into the restaurant's parking lot on the Gayway side of the building, followed by the hiss and chunk of doors rising and closing. "Get ready," he told Méarana.
He heard the front door slam, rapid footfalls approaching, then the utility door flew open and Jimmy Barcelona rushed out into the alley. The Fudir pushed a large dust bin in front of the door to impede pursuit and took the emperor by the elbow and hurried him toward the car.
At which point, a dozen men dressed in black rose from the surrounding shadows and leveled stingers at them.
Yes, said the Sleuth, that's where I thought they'd be, too.
The Fudir cast about for an escape route, torn between Inner Child's impulse to run and the Brute's impulse to fight. Donovan, who had been stung more than once in his career, raised the scarred man's hands. The Silky Voice wept over their failure. Pulled thus in half a dozen directions, the scarred man remained motionless at their average.
Inside the flivver, the harper sat with her hands clenched on the control yoke. Rage dueled with sudden relief in her features. Her hands moved a fraction and the turbine's pitch subtly increased. Donovan, who knew the capabilities of man and machine, thought it a desperate ploy, but one with a hair's-breadth chance of success. Cut losses, abandon allies.
It's what he would have done.
But the flivver's whine dropped into silence. Méarana turned open-faced to the Fudir and the scarred man read her fears writ there.
Flivvers approached from either end of the alley and came to a rest, neatly boxing them in. The doors of the one facing them arched open and Morgan Cheng-li stepped forth, followed by White Rod bearing the Yellow Cope.
"Ah, majesty," said the Grand Secretary. "This worm abases himself for interruption of such clever evening entertainment, but Monthly Tattoo waits August Presence on parade ground." He showed leg and, with a sweep of the arm, invited Resilient Services to enter the flivver. Jimmy Barcelona slumped and he looked at Donovan, and then at Méarana. "What I say? This Thistlewaite. All plans fail."
Two of the Shadows led Resilient Services to the flivver where White Rod waited.
By this time, the harper had come to stand beside the scarred man. "Are you all right?" she asked him in a whisper.
The Fudir did not know what to tell her. That he had frozen when fast and decisive action might have been most necessary? That it was just as well that they had not escaped because he would not be reliable in a pinch? The sum of his parts was less than the whole he had once been. Donovan answered for him. "No worries," he said. "Hush, here comes Jingly."
The Grand Secretary bestowed a slight nod and sweep of the arm. "You should not have indulged him," he said in Gaelactic. "He is needed too much here."
"He threatened to hold me captive if I didn't," the harper said.
A wave of a jeweled hand. "That is contrary to the Treaty of Amity and Common Purpose. Fourteen States all signatory to League Treaty. You think we want Hounds come here, tear down prison to free you?"
Donovan did not know if The Particular Service would go that far; at least not for his sake. Though they might for Bridget ban's daughter.
"You spy on your own emperor?" he said.
Jingly looked surprised. "Of course! You know 'Shadows'? Provincial Surveillance Commissions watch over Provincial Administrative Commissions. Yang, yin. Each official, each prefect, each dough-rider has shadow. Shadows report harmony to Imperial Censor."
"Yes, I know that."
"So. Who need harmony more than emperor? All balance depend on him. I say 'balance,' but no word in Gaelactic mean same."
"I understand."
"No," said Jingly. "You not understand. Only Thistles understand. Our star is central star of whole universe. Microwave 'walls,' same distance, all direction. Heavy burden, balance whole universe on shoulders. No man have such strength. Often bend, sometimes break. Like today. No one man manage all. But all Morning Dew, all Thistlewaite unite in this. All share burden; all help emperor. Like today."
Behind him, White Rod placed the Yellow Cope on the emperor's shoulders and bowed him deferentially toward the waiting car.
"You go now," said Jingly. "You not come back Jenlùshy."
Méarana bowed and Donovan bowed and, rising, she saw behind the yellow-garbed August Presence, the trapped eyes of Jimmy Barcelona, who had wanted of all things only to build bridges.