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'Yes, Sharrow,' he smiled. 'In the name of what?' She just stared at him. He
shook his head. 'There's not really anything you respect or care about enough
to use as an oath, is there?' He smiled. 'Except perhaps yourself, and that
wouldn't sound right, would it?' He took a step backwards, letting go of the
door. 'Like I said, I'll think about it.' He pulled his cloak closed. 'Where
can I contact you?'
She closed her eyes with a look of despair. 'The Log-Jam, with Miz,' she said.
'Ah, of course.' He turned to go, facing the giant open-cast mine on the dark
hillside. Then he stopped and turned back, the rain blowing about him. He
nodded behind him at the mine. 'See that, Sharrow? The open-cast? Mining an
ancient spoil heap; sifting the already discarded, looking for treasure in
what was rubbish . . . maybe not even for the first time, either. We live in
the dust of our forebears; insects crawling in their dung. Splendid, isn't
it?'
He turned and walked away along the bank of an old tailings pond. He'd gone
another few paces when he turned once more and called out, 'By the way; you
were very convincing about one thing . . . until you took the radiation scar
off.'
He laughed and strode off towards the half-consumed spoil heap.
4 Log-Jam
Like a lot of Golterian oddities, the Log-Jam was basically a tax dodge.
Jonolrey, Golter's second largest continent, lay across Phirar from Caltasp.
The same root word in a long-lost language that had provided the name for the
ocean of Phirar had also given the region of Piphram its name. Once
Piphram had been a powerful state, the greatest trading nation on the planet,
practically running the world's entire merchant marine. But that had been long
ago; now it was just another entangledly autonomous patchwork Free Area, no
less prosperous or gaudy than any other part of the world.
The administrative capital of Piphram, which by sheer coincidence happened
actually to lie within the area its contract covered, was the Log-Jam.
Sunlit land slid under the small jet, flowing green and brown beneath its
forward-weed wings as it throttled back and adjusted its position in the
centre of the conical glide-path.
Sharrow watched Dloan at the plane's controls; he sat in the pilot's seat of
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the hired aircraft, studying its instrument screens. He'd flown the plane
manually for take-off and ascent from Regioner, and had wanted to land it too,
but the Log-Jam had had too many bad experiences with people trying to land on
Carrier Field, and insisted on autolandings. Dloan was going to make sure it
went all right.
Zefla, in a seat across from Sharrow, was fiddling with the small cabin's
screen controls; channel-hopping to produce a confused succession of images
and background sound bursts.
Sharrow looked out of the window at the cloud-dappled land moving smoothly
underneath.
'-alked to Doctor Fretis Braäst, moderator of the Huhsz college at Yadayeypon
Ecclesiastical School.'
`Well, yes
,' Zefla said, turning up the sound. Sharrow glanced up at the screen to see a
well-groomed male presenter talking to camera; behind him, on the studio wall,
was a gigantic, slightly grainy hologram of her own face.
`You're a star, kid,' Zefla said, smiling dazzlingly. Dloan turned round to
watch.
Sharrow scowled at the screen. `Is that the best photo they could get? Must be
ten years old; look at my hair. Ugh.'
The blow-up of Sharrow's face was replaced by a live holo of a trimlooking
elderly man with white hair and a white beard. He had twinkly eyes and an
understanding smile. He was dressed in a light-grey academic gown with
discreet but numerous qualification ribbons decorating one side of the collar.
`Doctor Braäst,' said the presenter. `This is a terrible thing, isn't it? Here
we are, about to start the second decamillenium, and your faith wants to hunt
down and kill - preferably put to death ceremonially, in fact - a woman who
has never been convicted of anything and whose only crime appears to be having
been born, and being born female.'
Doctor Braäst smiled briefly. `Well, Keldon, I think you'll find that the Lady
Sharrow does have a string of convictions for a variety of crimes in Malishu,
Miykenns, dating-'
`Doctor Braäst,' the presenter gave a pained smile and glanced down at a
screenboard balanced on his knee.
`Those were minor public order offences; I don't think you can use
fifteen-year-old fines for brawling and insulting a police officer as an
excuse for-'
`I beg your pardon, Keldon,' the white-haired man smiled. `I was just trying
to keep things totally accurate.'
`Well, fine, but to return to-'
'And I'd remind you that the whole issue of the use of such Passports is not a
Huhsz tenet; this is a civil process with a pedigree over two millennia old;
what we are told - and what we have to accept - is that this is a civilised
response to the problem of assassination and the potential for disruption it
implies.'
`Well, I believe a lot of people would say that all assassination ought to be
illegal-'
Perhaps so, but it was found that its codification caused less disruption than
extra-legal actions.'
`Well, well; we aren't here to discuss the history of legal . . . legal
history, Doctor; we're talking about the fate of one woman you seem determined
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