At the Passenger Terminal, he found several score out-system techs mobbing the newly repaired terminal doors, crowding and shoving, and waiting for the yacht’s pilot to emerge. The Fudir continued around to the maintenance gate on the east side of the field. There, a large sign read ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE. WATCH YOUR STEP. He dismounted and chained the bicycle to the fence.
The Fudir exchanged friendly greetings with the watchman—he had made a practice of standing various low-level functionaries to their pints—and they discussed for a few minutes the latest lorry-bomb, which had demolished Handsome Jack’s party headquarters. “Ask me,” said the watchman, “that was Jack hisself done it. Settin’ up Little Hugh as the goat.” The man was a staunch Loyalist and when the Fudir pointed out that Hugh himself had given Jack quarters in Cargo House, answered, “The bitter to keep an oy an’ ’im.” The Fudir’s policy was never to argue with a man you’re going to ask for a favor, so he said that he had been sent to the Port to learn how many refugees the newcomer’s yacht could take.
The watchman did not ask to see an authorization. “She’s grounding in no more’n a dekaminute. Pilot-owner’s name…” He checked his manifest as he swung the gate open. “Ah, his name’s Qing Olafsson, sez here.”
The Fudir paused as he passed through the gate. “Qing Olafsson?”
“Aye. D’ye know him?” The guard seemed to think that all off-worlders knew one another.
The Fudir shook his head. “No.” But he frowned and fell into thought as he crossed the field to Inward Clearance.
A wooden bench had replaced the padded chairs in the waiting room at Inward Clearance and a clipboard with paper sheets had replaced the computer terminals on which tourists and businessmen had once registered their arrivals and departures. One smashed and blackened terminal bore a handwritten sign: OUT OF ORDER. The bench was empty and the Fudir set himself to await the pilot’s arrival.
Olafsson Qing. He didn’t believe in coincidence, bizarre or otherwise; not where that name was concerned. What business had They on a remote place like New Eireann? The Brotherhood should never have gotten mixed up with Them. The Great Game was best appreciated from a distance.
A slim, sallow-featured man was standing at the kiosk filling out the inbound forms. The Fudir, immersed in his thoughts, had not noticed him enter. Now he rose from the bench. “Slawncha,” he said, holding out a hand to Olafsson. “I’m from the ‘Welcome Wagon.’” That drew a blank look—or a blanker look: the Fudir had never seen such an unremarkable countenance. “I’ve come down from Cargo House. I suppose you’ve learned about our situation here while you crawled down from the exit ramp.”
“Yes,” said the other. “Terrible tragedy.”
The Fudir waited a moment for him to say something further, but Olafsson continued filling out the forms. If the name had suggested a possibility, the indifference confirmed it. Fellow feeling was not something looked for among Those of Name. It was a bad idea to bring oneself to their attention. Yet, the Fudir was in no position to be choosy about the rides he hitched.
“Then you ought to know we’ve got several hundred refugees who need a lift to Jehovah,” he said, “although they’d accept a lift to New Chennai or Hawthorn Rose, if you’re going that way.” Actually, there was only one refugee that concerned the Fudir, but if Olafsson wanted to take others, that was no matter. There was safety in numbers.
But Olafsson shook his head. “Sorry. I’ve very little room on board, and I’ve only come here to pick up a friend.” He had finished filling out his entry form and handed it to the clerk, who looked up startled from his damage lists and requisitions.
“Yer a quiet one,” he said, squinting at Olafsson. Then, noticing the Fudir also, he added, “Top ’o th’ morning there, Fudir.”
“And the rest o’ th’ day for yerself, Donal. This way,” he said to Olafsson. “I’ll take you out the back. The refugees outside the main terminal building will be all over you, begging for passage.” He thought if he gave Olafsson enough assistance, the man might feel more inclined to take him along as a favor. “Maybe I can help you find your friend.”
Olafsson glanced at the customs clerk, then at Fudir, and almost smiled.
They crossed town on foot, the streets being still too rubble-strewn for most vehicles. The Fudir walked his bicycle, explaining the delicate political situation, pointing out the progress already made. All this, the newcomer absorbed in unnerving silence. They had passed the shell of J. J. Brannon’s Mercantile Emporium before the man spoke.
“You said you were from Cargo House,” Olafsson said. “Do you work for the ICC?”
A peculiar and irrelevant question. “No, the United Front co-opted the building for its council. It was the only large structure still more or less intact. But the co-managers refuse to call it Council House. I’m taking you there to meet them.”
“Co-managers,” Olafsson repeated. “A tramp captain I passed coming in said there was a disputed leadership. Is this ‘United Front’ some temporary truce?”
“January’s a born pessimist. We’re hoping it proves more than that.”
The business district had been badly mauled by the Cynthians. Now jackhammers shook the pavement. Timbers crackled and broke and fell. Work gangs hauled debris away. Straw bosses hollered out directions. One man, apparently tired beyond endurance, covered with the gray dust of demolition, had sat himself down on the curbstones and was quietly weeping. His fellows continued to work around him, affecting to take no notice.
“By the gods,” Olafsson said after they had passed him by, “I could smash the bastards who did this.”
The Fudir turned and gave him a twisted grin. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
The road turned right and climbed New Street Hill toward Cargo House. A young boy on a bicycle, with the plain green pennant of the Front snapping on an antenna behind his seat, came spinning down the hill crying, “Make way! Make way!” The Fudir and Olafsson stepped to the side of the road.
“They’re gaining some of their spirit back,” the Fudir said, watching the boy out of sight. “We arrived just after the raid, Hugh and I did. You should have seen these folk then. They’d had the sand kicked out of ’em. We barely missed it ourselves—the raid, I mean. They tell me an ICC courier boat did arrive right in the thick of it, the poor bastard.”
Olafsson said nothing, and the Fudir thought, You’re a stunning conversationalist. They walked together in silence until they came to a stretch of road just below Cargo House itself where there was no one about and no houses nearby. “So, who is this friend you’ve come to find?” the Fudir asked. “You can see things are all confused here, but the Housing Council may have some records of his whereabouts, if he’s still alive.”
“His name’s Donovan.”
The name was a blow in his stomach, but the Fudir did not allow it to show. “Donovan, is it?” he said breezily. “Can’t be more than a couple thousand people with that name on New Eireann.” There was still the possibility of coincidence. Somewhere in the Spiral Arm there must be ordinary men named Olafsson Qing who had ordinary friends named Donovan.
“This one lives on Jehovah.”