“Very likely.”
Billy spread his hands. “Then custom satisfied.”
Méarana laughed, but it was a sad laugh, a goltraí. She placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Does Donovan really beat you?”
Billy hung his head once more. “Should no speak budmash of master. Billy try the patience no few time.”
“There’s no excuse. I will speak to him for you.”
“No, no, lady harp. Big dhik. Such-much trouble. Silence better.” He bowed himself out of the room with his screen tucked once more under his arm. “Donovan,” he said at the door, “he take him the money from Those to give up hunt for mistress mother. I no serve man like that. Where you go, I go.” And then he closed the door softly behind him.
Méarana sat speechless at her desk for a time. That could not be! Surely, Billy was mistaken! That Donovan might give up the quest because it was hopeless, or because he could contribute nothing to it—those motives she could comprehend. But that he would do so for money seemed beyond even Donovan’s calculating nature.
Did it mean that he was not the man she thought he was?
No, it must only mean that Billy had misunderstood some comment of his. Perhaps he had vocalized one of those internal arguments of his, for she had no doubt that among the splinters of his mind were some mighty sharp slivers.
She began shutting down her screen and it reminded her that a file was open. The edition of Commonwealth Days that Hang had sent. She would have to remember to copy Donovan in the morning, although she wasn’t feeling particularly friendly toward Donovan just now. From curiosity, she entered the table of contents and saw that it was nearly three times longer than the edition she had already read. The Friesing Worlders had evidently intended a reference encyclopedia. Small wonder the Ladelthorpis had brought out an abridged popular edition! She had toyed earlier with the notion of a song cycle based on the tales, but this volume would make it a grand opera!
She saw it two-thirds of the way down the table of contents: “The Treasure Fleet.”
After that, she got no sleep at all.
VIII. MONSTROUS REGIMENTS
They broke fast in their suite, a sparely furnished room, in keeping with O’Haran aesthetic norms. The walls were bare, save for a single print: an orange circle on white. On the counter, a trickle of water burbled across a bowl of small pebbles and into the recirculator. A tree the size of Donovan’s palm grew there. Everything was shining chrome, black lacquer, muted colors. Compared to the dense, dark décor of Dancing Vrouw, the riotous intricacies of High Tara, or the haphazard eclecticism of Harpaloon, the room exuded serenity and peace.
Which was just as well, for the scarred man furnished none. Seldom chipper at breakfast, he grew nettlesome when he found his plans inexplicably awry. He expected plans to go awry. It was in their nature. But he at least expected the glitches to be explicable.
“What do you mean, you plan to keep going?” he asked.
The harper was drinking her usual breakfast of black coff, known locally as kohii. “Boldly Go isn’t that far down the Concourse,” she said over the cup. “It was her next stop, and you can’t go planetside there anyway. Why should it bother you?”
“It doesn’t bother me. Only, it’s foolish; and I hadn’t thought you a foolish woman. Beside, it’s outside the Ourobouros Circuit. What if you get in trouble? What will I tell Zorba?”
“Tell him I released you from your promise.”
Donovan grunted. “I don’t think it works that way.”
Billy Chins placed a plate of freshly baked biscuits on the table between them and backed away. “Biscuits pliis sahb?” he said, cringing slightly.
“Did you look at the files I sent you last night?” Méarana asked.
The scarred man scowled, wiped his chin with the back of his hand, and looked at the clock. He raised his eyebrows.
The harper relented. “All right, you need your beauty sleep more than most. Look at them, and then we’ll talk.”
“Do biscuits pliis sahb?” Billy asked again.
Donovan turned to him and said, “Will you sit down and be quiet, boy?”
Billy ducked. “Yes, sahb. Billy sit him down jildy.” He took a seat at the table and picked a biscuit from the platter, though he nibbled it with no great sign of appetite. Méarana opened her mouth to say something, but Billy turned beseeching eyes in her direction and so she said nothing.
“I need to get out,” she said abruptly, pushing herself from the table. “I need air and trees and brooks; or I need cities and bustle. Something beside hotel apartments and liner staterooms and recycled air and water and artificial miniature streams in a damned porcelain bowl!” She strode across the room to where her harp rested on one of the chairs.
The other two stared at her openmouthed. Donovan shuddered as the Fudir took control. “Alabaster,” he said, “is plenty outdoors. Ever see the Cliffside Montage? It’s out in the Prehensile Desert past Luriname. The prehumans carved the side of an entire butte into the most intricate shapes and figures. It’s the farthest of all their artifacts from the Rift.” He fell silent as it became clear Méarana was not listening.
He tried another tack. “Boldly Go isn’t safe. The matriarchs are always looking for fresh blood, and have been known to kidnap women touristas and ‘adopt’ them. Without a Circuit Station, you couldn’t call for help.”
“I can take care of myself,” she said, picking up the harp. She began to prowl the room, playing.
“Away, away on the Rigel Run [she sang]
And off through California.”
“What’s that you’re singing?” said Donovan.
“A song I’m working on about people who heaped together all their most precious treasures…
All we are and all we hope to be
Are outward bound, for hope can never die…
“and they set off to find a refuge from their oppressors in far-off California.
Our green, familiar world is fading into time…
“You said something like that yesterday. Time is distance; or distance, time. It’s just fragments of song for now. I can’t decide whether it is a goltraí, a sad song of exile and farewell…
So farewell to ye, all of ye, grand treasure fleet,
You carry our hopes far awa’.
We’ll hold ourselves true to ye, never submit…”
“Treasure fleet,” said the Fudir. “You’re building a song on Hugh’s teasing question?”
“California,” whispered Billy Chins.
Donovan turned to him. “Do you know what that means? California?”
But the khitmutgar shook his head. “No, is sounding nice. Californ-ya.” He rolled out the syllables. “What means it, the word?”
Méarana shrugged. “A place of hope, perhaps; which would make it a geantraí. It could be both, maybe. The sadness of exile followed by the triumph of hope.”
Donovan threw his napkin down on the table. “You live in a fool’s world, harper. I know what your hope is, what your ‘California’ is. But, hope dies! It must. Because it hurts too much while it lives.” And he strode out of the room and slammed the door to his sleeping quarters.
Billy ate another biscuit, stuffing the thing whole into his mouth, and chewing as he began to clear the table. On his way to the kitchenette, he paused and swallowed. “All bungim waintim?” he said open-faced to Méarana. “You pack him, the luggage?”