On the Razor's Edge

by Michael Flynn

  “Which part of Secret City is unclear? I chose the Revolution to expunge the Names entirely. Now I find that I have been fighting the Committee at the behest of the Old Guard.”

  “Wait! The Revolution is supporting the Old Guard?”

  “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.”

  Eglay Portion and the other magpies joined him and looked out on the moonlit river. The Major Moon was high overhead now, and the Minor Moon was closing the distance. “What?”

  N
umber Five shook the stalk of a plant, and seeds like those Padaborn had used sprinkled the floor of the tunnel. “There is a line of these plants from here to the river. Now look at the river’s edge. The stones run along the edge. So…”

  “North-south,” said Eglay Portion, “versus east-west. The map grid.”

  They returned to their place and opened the grid on Eglay’s tablet. It was populated now with a nearly complete network of tunnels beneath the surface map. “Third grid from the north.” Eglay turned to Pyati. “Because the river runs north to south. And … fourteen grids from the river. That puts our goal … Right there!”

  The blue-and-greens overhung the map like so many boughs. Pyati said, “Many buildings there, sir. Which one? We won’t get but one chance.”

  “Office district…,” said Eglay. “Only skeletoned at night. The Mayshot Bo … The Gayshot Bo … That’s one thing we’ll change when we rectify the regime. No more dilettante government … Hai!” He turned and picked up the circuit of the comm. unit. “The Gayshot Bo. The Ministry of Technology. He wants us there tonight.”

  They stood and Pyati shook the cloth, scattering the objects; but the bangle he put in his left calf-pocket. “One,” said Eglay Portion. And the man turned to him with an inquiry on his features. “Padaborn placed much trust in you, and it was not mislaid.”

  “Thank you, Lord Eglay. I wondered at the time why he drilled us so on these object-messages. He knew. Oh, he thought many layers deep. He put some trust too in you, sir.”

  “In me!” That startled Eglay Portion. “I was ready to maim him in what was supposed to be a fair fight at the Iron Bridge.”

  “Nishywah. I know only what he told me. May he not have mislaid that trust.”

  Eglay looked into the faces that surrounded him and saw that their loyalties were beyond question. How many others teetered on the brink? He suddenly realized that, had he wanted, Gesh could have assumed control of the Revolution itself. “Do you have an extra brassard?”

  Pyati nodded to Two, who pulled a blue-and-green armband from his scrip. Eglay Portion removed Gidula’s comet and replaced it with his own rose-on-tan. He fastened the Padaborn colors just below them but wound the one through the other, there being no time for a proper cantoning. When he had finished, he bobbed his head at the others and without another word set off at the trot down the tunnels that led toward the Gayshot Bo. The others followed, their feet falling in silent unison.

  * * *

  Zanzibar Paff had once been an important man. He had been the Bountiful Name. But the burdens of supply and distribution had proven irksome. He had preferred being important to doing anything important. More and more of it he had delegated to assistants and minions, until one day the upstarts—he could never bring himself to call them by their own self-important name—had suggested that he delegate the Name along with the duties.

  He preferred to roll with the punch and make the best of the deal. And so the Bountiful Name had become the Contemplative Name, a comfortable fig leaf. (He could not possibly become Nameless!) He had moved into a smaller Residence with a smaller staff, hard by the White Gate, perhaps the better to contemplate matters, and bided his time. He saw how others in his situation bided insufficient time and, like quick-burgeoning weeds, were mown down when they sprouted too soon. When his old colleagues fomented the Shadow War, he was content to watch from the sidelines. Time enough to join the winning side when once that side became clear.

  The Contemplative Name resumed his contemplation of his bedmates. Three chubby sheep personally selected from his Estate, cheeks red from repeated usage. The man lay now in exhausted slumber, but the two women were still ready. They had learned early that they had better be. The Contemplative Name took a tablet from the salver by the bedside and swallowed it down with Atwah Spring Water. “Wait for it, darlings,” he told the two women, and they giggled most dutifully.

  The bed was spacious; the room, elegantly furnished. The moiré-weave carpet was from Onxylon near the Makrass Marsh; two of the paintings were originals by Bayard from the Old Bhaitry Renaissance.

  In the middle of his penetrations, he felt a prod in the back, and he rolled off his sweet cushion to condemn to death whichever minion had dared interrupt him.

  But it was a horrid dwarf of a man dressed in a Shadow’s shenmat. Someone’s clown? But Zanzibar Paff’s mind was befuddled by his brain’s ecstasy, and he had no opportunity to speak, for a dart pierced his neck and he lost all feeling.

  Little Jacques hushed the two women with a finger to his lips. They crawled aside and huddled together, and he knelt beside Zanzibar Paff and whispered in his ear, “This is the price you pay for neglecting your duties and the traditions of your offices. Blink twice if you understand.”

  The eyes stared back at him full of hatred, but they did not blink. So Little Jacques shrugged and with a swipe of his sykes-knife opened the man’s throat from jaw to jaw and let his life drain across the furrows of the satin sheets onto the fabulous Onxylon carpet.

  One of the women began to cry, so Little Jacques shot her in the mouth. The pop awakened the man, and he too opened his mouth to cry out in surprise. He was close enough at hand for the sykes-knife. And that left one.

  The second woman had raised no alarum. She closed her eyes and whispered, “Please…” Then, open eyed, “Please, what will the Protectors do if they find me alive and him dead?”

  Little Jacques understood and made the mercy shot a quick kill. Then he pulled his comm. and used the clicker feature to transmit the code: “Sixteen.” That meant himself. “Target-one moved; three collateral.” He checked his to-do list to see who was next, left an incendiary device on timer, and slipped quietly out of Zanzibar Paff’s pleasure room.

  * * *

  Alexander Gomes-Park had once been called the Industrious Name. Now, he was simply Gomes-Park once more and his once-trusted underling bore the title. I do the work, the man had pointed out the day of the coup, why not bear the Name?

  Such impertinence might have earned him the same reward as it had two of his predecessors, whose stains had never been fully expunged from the marble flooring. But he had not come alone to the office to make his observation. A half dozen of the abominable Committee had accompanied him. Outside the door, Protectors held Protectors at gunpoint while the succession was debated.

  Gomes-Park had already heard rumor of the disappearances of Names insufficiently attuned to the Tides of History, and he had no desire to float off with that tide. So he had instead removed his medallions and placed them cheerfully around his underling’s neck. The joy in your throat today, he had murmured, will one day choke you.

  In any case, managing industrial performance on a thousand worlds was beyond any man’s ken. Quotas would never be met, no matter how many storm-workers were sent, no matter how many medals and awards celebrated achievements, no matter how many managers were disciplined. All that happened was that books were cooked and awards became as meaningful as the output figures they celebrated. He had learned that the best results came from doing nothing and cutting his pattern to match the cloth. Since doing nothing better suited his temperament, it was easier to postdate the plans and secure success post facto.

  Industrial output had actually improved, but what did that matter when it was not seen to improve by his efforts?

  Still, he had enjoyed retirement, which he spent in martial exercise and in oil painting. He was enjoying the perfumes of evening in his rose garden and adding tinctures of colored oils to the pattern he had created on the still surface of his water basin when the ground gave way behind and to his left and a Shadow and two magpies emerged from the hole.

  There was a moment of surprise on all parts. But though he had been out of office these past years, Gomes-Park sensed immediately that this was no social call, and whipped with his left hand the metal stylus that he used for finely adjusting the oiled shapes. It pierced the throat of the first magpie, severing the left carotid artery. The remaining two
broke to either side of the narrow garden.

  Gomes-Park never depended solely on his Protectors. He pulled a flechette gun from his purse and fired a pattern into the darkness where one of the shapes had fled. One moment was sufficient to put the dog-whistle to his lips, a second moment to blow it, but he really needed three and was not granted them.

  A spinning star ripped into his left temporal lobe, immobilizing him long enough for the mercy blow, which was delivered with professional competence.

  Big Jacques clicked “Eleven” on his comm., then added, “Target-Three moved. Less Magpie Four.” The target should not have been up and about at this hour, least of all dallying in the rose garden. A restless night perhaps. The Protectors would be here in a moment, so he hefted the incendiary packet and whicked it high above to land on the roof of the Residence. Then he whispered the wounded Number Seven to him and they retreated to the tunnels. On the way, he paused to admire the colored oils the target had been scribing—because with a squad of Protectors on its way it was a ballsy thing to do. He almost wished the old man had had time to finish it.

  He pulled the brassard from Four’s arm in passing, and set an explosive charge in the rubble where they had broken through from the tunnels. Damn bad luck. Now the Protectors would learn of the tunnels, though the pocket-bomb might delay matters for a time.

  * * *

  Hayzoos Peter, the Powerful Name, was on his link. “Yes,” he said as his striker dressed him, “I can see the fires from my window. All are in the Residences. Do you know which…?” He paused, listened, nodded. “All but two are Old Guard…? Wonderful. The Protectors will think we are breaking the Treaty of Comity. It isn’t any of our people who…?” He listened some more. It was because he was good at listening that he had been able to assemble the Names Renewed, remove the decadent Old Guard, and reinvigorate the Confederation. It just takes a while. It takes a while. Steering the CCW was like turning the great pleasure vessel Gung Höng Hoy. For a long time, the reef would continue dead ahead.