Ships went forth to terraform and settle. New worlds incubated, farther from the menacing Rift: Jehovah and Peacock and New Chennai; High Tara and Hawthorn Rose; Valency and Alabaster and far-off Gatmandar.
Until, after a thousand years of splendor, a millennium of effort, the Old Planets settled back to enjoy a well-earned rest.
And so there was in the spirit of each Die Bolder something of the refugee’s despair, something of the youthful rush of rediscovery, something of the querulous satisfaction of old age; and something too of the insecurity of the epigone. Visitors from the rawer worlds of the League often perceived in them a false humility; but there was nothing false about it. Behind their every triumph lay the suspicion that it had been surpassed in the old Commonwealth of Suns, and that they were at best only second best. It took something of the heart out of everything they did and put something heartfelt into their humility.
It was four days inbound from the coopers to Die Bold itself, during which time the Hound and the Pup agreed not to announce themselves officially, nor even to admit they were traveling together. They did not know that the phantom fleet had been bound here, nor that the fleet would expect pursuit, but until then Greystroke would be a merchant from Krinth named Tol Benlever and Bridget ban would be Julienne Melisond, a lady of the court. And because Hugh would be more convincing as Greystroke’s factotum, Bridget ban took the Fudir to play the role of her manservant. The two swapped ships during the layover on Jewel-of-the-Giantess, a transshipment station orbiting the second gas giant in the outer reaches of Die Bold’s system. There was sufficient bustle and coming-and-going so that no one noticed that some people left in a different ship than brought them. Julienne Melisond stopped for the spectacular view of the double rings that the Jewel provided, while her man, “Kalim,” chatted with the servants and kitchen staff. The Krinthian merchant was little seen, as befitted a merchant prince, but his representative, “Ringbao,” was everywhere, discussing trade opportunities and inquiring after recent events with other traders and with Die Bolders outward bound.
That night Bridget ban told Greystroke that she planned to send the Fudir into the Corner of Die Bold once they were down. “Terrans are everywhere,” she said, “and what one knows they all know; but they’d sooner spit than trust an ‘eetee.’”
“An ‘eetee’?” Greystroke asked.
“It’s what they call anyone who is not a Terran.”
Greystroke propped himself on his elbow and ran his hand along her flank. “Do you trust him to come back?” he murmured. “I’d hate to lose him, now that I have him.”
“He wants the Dancer as much as you and I. Beside, I’ve programmed aimshifars into the livery I gave him. If he bolts, we can always find him through the anycloth.”
Greystroke chuckled. “Using a bolt to find a bolt. Droll. Very well, Cu. I cannot deny you.”
Aye, thought Bridget ban sadly, drawing him close. Ye cannae.
Èlfiuji was capital of the Kingdom and the largest city on Die Bold, a soaring metropolis hard by Morrigan’s Ford on the River Brazen. The ford had given the city its original rationale, but had long since faded to irrelevance. Thopters and whirlies now buzzed between the towers and the New Royal Bridge arced across the treacherous currents, indifferent to the age-long absence of royalty.
Hugh made the rounds of the traders’ clubs near Port Èlfiuji in the Mercantile Loop, where he engaged in idle chatter over light snacks and strong drinks. Merchants, he found, came in three sorts. First, there were the fat, confident ones, comfortable in their wealth, who enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh and for whom no contract was so dry or so technical that it could not provide an occasion of sin. The second sort, more vulpine, were those on the make. They were all in the air, for all their wealth was in the venture itself, and their first failure would be their last. Since “Ringbao” lacked the standing to speak with the “merchant princes,” and the “paper tigers” could spare no time to speak with him, he sought out the third sort.
These were the “reps,” and gossip was their stock in trade. They came to buy and sell—mostly to sell—but they also knew when and how to turn off and simply chat with chance-met strangers. Not that selling was ever far from their minds, but men and women of their school believed that “establishing a relationship” was the key to selling, and they never blew another off as of no account. “You never can tell,” they would tell one another, “when a shabby stranger might prove a wealthy customer.”
Krinth was outside the immediate region, off to the Galactic West, where the suns packed closer and the night cast shadows, and so as a rep for “Tol Benlever,” Ringbao attracted considerable interest. What had Krinth to offer that might sell dearly here? What did Krinth desire that might be bought cheaply here? Hugh had been thoroughly prepped by Greystroke and what he didn’t know, his implant told him; and what his implant didn’t know, he simply made up.
“I hear it’s dangerous out there,” said a rep for a Gladiola firm that made entertainment simulations, “and a man’s life isn’t worth a demi-ducat.”
“No more dangerous than it is here,” Hugh replied, seeing an opening. “On Jehovah, I heard that some planet out that way had been attacked by barbarians.”
He was sitting in a high, wing-backed chair, facing three other reps around a low table of hors d’oeuvres. A woman representing Obisham MC, and feeling very good about herself for having already met her quota, said, “New Eireann, I was told.”
“The bandits, they came outta the Cynthia,” added a thin man with a Megranomic accent.
“There,” said Hugh, “you see. I heard Die Bold itself was scouted by a fleet of warships no more than four, five metric weeks ago.”
“When was that in local time?” asked the Obisham rep. “Waiter, how long are four metric weeks here?”
The man replenishing the tray of cold meats and cheese shook his head. “Please, got no head numbers, missy, please. I ask.”
“Terrans,” the woman said as the man scampered away. Hugh wasn’t sure what she meant by that. It wasn’t as if she’d known the conversion factors.
“For all I know,” he said, “that fleet is still around, maybe waiting for a fat merchant to waylay. Think they’re the same bunch as hit New Eireann?”
The thin man waved a hand, which held a wedge of some dark, grainy sausage impaled on a wooden pick. “Naw,” he said. “Them Cynthians is more disciplined than that bunch was. Couple of the ships fired on each other, can y’ believe it! I was inbound transfer at the Giantess when they passed through. And didn’t that startle the traffic folks up yonder! Die Bold’s JPCG cutters—that’s Joint Planetary Coast Guard, babe,” he added to the Obisham rep—“they can take the price of a raid out of your hide, so mostly the pirates lay off the Old Planets. But still, JPCG was taken by surprise, and didn’t like it one stinkin’ bit.”
“If the fleet’s not still lurking up in the coopers,” Hugh said, “where’d it go?”
Shrug complemented shrug.
“I think it broke up,” the fourth man said. He was a man of ruddy, almost orange complexion, and wore his hair lime-white and pulled into spikes, a fashion popular on Bangtop-Burgenland, although he himself repped for Izzard and Associates out of the Lesser Hanse. “I heard that some ships took the Long March down to the Cynthia, some took the Piccadilly to Friesing’s World, and the rest went the other way round the ring to Old ’Saken.”