Michael Flynn - On the Razor’s Edge

“Why? Is that unprecedented? Gidula has targeted the Committee—and the abdicators among the Old Guard. The abdicators fall first—and this will convince the Protectors that the loyalists have broken the Concord, and may induce them to attack the Committee themselves. Think what a propaganda coup it will be when Gidula reveals that Padaborn himself fought to restore the Old Guard, especially if Padaborn is too dead to deny it.”

“Why is Gidula doing this?” said Donovan. “He told me the tapestry must be repaired, not destroyed.”

Domino Tight shrugged. “Gidula told many different people many different things. Some of them may have been true. Some of them may have been what Gidula wanted to be true. My special friend does not know.”

“Then confusion may be precisely what Gidula is counting on! The Old One has goals of his own and whether the Names fall or rise are small matters to him, so long as there is confusion. This will not stay within bounds; this is not another of your pasdarms. If your special friend has Méarana in her Residence, that puts her in a potential kill space … How long before the Hounds arrive?”

Domino Tight looked away. “As soon as we were in her Residence, Tina Zhi dispatched a thermal bomb to the apartment. She had seen Hounds, and acted reflexively before I could brief her. I do not know if any survived.”

“How long before the Hounds arrive?” the Fudir insisted.

“If they have a fast ship … They would be no more than a day and a half behind Gidula, so … by morning. Do you think they will come for you?”

“No. But they’ll come for Méarana. Now, I’ve left the messages for Pyati to find. You can call your lady friend by name the second time. Yes, I figured that part out. I need to disappear from here and I need to rescue Méarana from there, and what better way than that your friend should take me from here to there. Then we need to reach the Offices, clandestinely. We’ll be safe there. For a while.”

“One thing more.” Domino Tight unfastened his locator from his belt and flung it far out across the river. He followed it with Donovan’s own. “Being the only person to share a secret with Gidula makes my shoulder blades itch.” And then he called upon Tina Zhi.

Pyati wept uncontrollably when he and his team returned to the assembly point. He fell to his knees and beat his chest alternately with each fist while tears streamed down his cheeks. Padaborn’s other magpies keened antiphonally. The others found them in this state when they returned two by two.

“Silence, fools!” Gidula hissed. “Sound may echo from this tube as from a trumpet…”

“Sir,” said Pyati, “our Shadow is perished. Would you the traditional mourning deny us?”

“Perished!” Gidula said. His countenance expressed shock. “How?” The others began to mutter. Manlius said, “Ill omen.” Dawshoo looked stunned, “Are we discovered?” Oschous said nothing but watched Gidula carefully. Big Jacques looked into the dark recesses of the tunnel with his lamp, “Where is Domino Tight?”

Gidula gestured them all to silence. “No, Dawshoo, we are not discovered. Or we won’t be if we keep our voices down. One Padaborn! How do you know your master is perished?”

Pyati wiped his nose on his sleeve and picked up a roll of cloth and a note screen. He thumbed the note screen and handed it over to the Old One. Eglay Portion peered over one shoulder, Oschous Dee peered over the other. “Lord Domino left this,” the magpie said. “He explains how to mislead a Protector patrol Padaborn into the river dove—and drowned. Lord Domino, having failed his charge, committed spookoo. He too into the river consigned himself. Oh, if only we had by our master’s side remained!” He and his companions began to weep again but, acknowledging earlier advice, shed more quiet tears.

Gidula read the apologia that Domino Tight had left and, when he finished, Oschous took it from him, and it gradually made the rounds of the gathered Shadows.

“I don’t like this,” Manlius Metataxis said. “Maybe we should fold the play.”

Gidula’s head whipped round. “No! We have come too far to hesitate now. This chance will not come to us again. We can end this war. We can end it tonight. We can…” And he paused for a moment and worked his throat in sorrow. “… we can avenge Geshler Padaborn.”

“Padaborn!” said Oschous in a hoarse whisper, and a sykes-knife six thumbs long sang from its scabbard.

“Padaborn!” echoed Eglay Portion, matching the gesture. It was well-known that the ancient sykes-knife was never to be used with any thought of mercy in a fight.

Soon enough, a steel forest waved in the air, and whispered cries of, “Padaborn!” lifted from every pair of lips. Gidula smiled and joined them. Not that they expected an old man like him to participate in the personal mayhem the knife implied. But ever the traditionalist, he added, “Deadly Ones! To the blood, and to the bone!”

Eglay Portion, whose own magpies had been left to stand watch aboard Gidula’s slider, volunteered as brevet section leader over Section Padaborn. Then, after the others had dispersed on their assignments, he held a hand out to Pyati. “Let’s see it.”

Pyati, instantly dry eyed, unrolled the cloth on the floor of the tunnel and found wrapped in it: an ankle bangle, the inner mechanism of a comm. link, three smooth river pebbles, fourteen seeds of some plant, and a green ribbon. Pyati studied the array with pursed lips and said, “Good news. But not entirely clear.”

Eglay squatted with them. “What is it?”

“It is what Terrans call ‘ñēymōlai’ or ‘message of objects.’ A code Terrans use. He signaled us beforehand that two messages would be left: one public, one private.”

“I caught that. But … What does it mean?”

Pyati shook his head. “Ñēymōlai are not easily read, but a bangle always means a Terran, and you can see it is whole.”

Eglay nodded. “Yes, and…?”

“Well, sir. How many Terrans are in the play? Only one, and this says he is whole.”

Eglay Portion sank back on his heels, and his breath hissed out. “I … see. Clever. But the objects cannot have fixed meanings. Too much would depend on what objects were available.”

“Right, sir. Terrans always have bangles on them, but context changes meaning.”

Eglay deduced that since the objects had been jumbled together in the cloth their order did not matter. “What means this board?” He picked up the guts of the communicator and turned it around in his fingers. No enlightenment came. “And the pebbles?”

“Repetition of an object,” said Number Two, “strips particular meanings and makes it a mere tally.”

“So. Three stones and fourteen seeds are but three and fourteen?”

Number Three picked up the ribbon. “He told us on a field exercise that the Colors of Old Earth had various meanings. In the Red–Yellow–Green scheme, Red means ‘stand, stop, hold fast,’ or suchlike instruction. Yellow is ‘take care, proceed with caution.’ Green—”

Eglay Portion finished the leap. “Green means ‘go, come, proceed.’”

“You have it, sir.” Pyati examined the green ribbon. “He wishes us go somewhere. Proceed to … where?”

Number Three said, “Why, to three-fourteen, surely! Is that a code for one of our target sites?”

Eglay shook his head. “And neither is fourteen-three. And why stones and seeds ?”

Pyati said, “Told you, sir. Repetition—”

Number Five cried, “I know!” He had been pacing while the others debated. Now he stood framed in the entance to the tunnel. “Look out there.”