The rear door to the Mountain Dragon creaked open and Domino Tight released the safety catch on the teaser he held unholstered in his lap. A bilaterian, like many Shadows, his left hand oft worked independently of his right.
The light from the wall lamps blotted out and the entry to the booth was eclipsed by a presence. Domino Tight reengaged the safety catch. “G’day, Jacques. When did you blow in?”
“Since three days,” said Big Jacques, finding a bench to sit upon, which he angled to take in the room. “You be a hard man to track down, Domino Tight.”
“I should be an impossible man to track down,” he answered. “What brings you?”
Big Jacques rumbled. One always knew when he was about to essay a joke, for he laughed peremptorily at his own wit. “Why, my ship done brought me.” Then, unable to contain himself, he slapped the table, causing the accouterments to dance. Domino Tight snatched his schooner up before it could topple, and returned a smile as broad as the humor.
There is a stereotype held in the minds of most, even of those moderately keen, of an inverse relationship between the size of the body and the size of the mind. Big Jacques knew that and played to the stereotype. The duller his opponents believed him, the greater the edge he had in playing them.
“We missed you at the facemeet on Henrietta,” Jacques added. “You shoulda seen it. Dawshoo told us the Cause was lost and we should just give up. I think he said that so we’d all cry up nay. You shoulda seen old Gidula’s face! And Dawshoo’s too, when half the room started to walk out.”
“Hunh. Dawshoo’s a galah.” Domino Tight took a pull from his schooner while Jacques signaled to the tavern-keeper for a drink of his own. “I’m going to guess,” Tight said when he put the schooner down, “that Oschous rallied the troops.”
“Oh, he did, for sure. That face of his would have gone white if it hadn’t been all covered with red fuzz. Dawshoo oughta watch his back. There may be some discussion on who should lead us, once the Names are ousted. My money’s on Oschous.”
“Gidula, I think. Oschous actually believes in the Cause. That’s not good for a revolutionary.”
Jacques rumbled once more. “Near as I can figure, I’m doing pretty much the same crap I was doing before. Just a different target list, is all.”
“So, why one and not the other?” Domino Tight asked from genuine curiosity. He had never decided whether Big Jacques had hidden depths or no depth at all.
“Oh, the quality o’ the targets, of course. Takes more skill, more practice, more craft. ‘The knife grows dull when the target is soft.’ You move your man here yet?”
“Not yet. Pendragon’s on-world protecting him.”
“The hell, you say! How did he know we were going to move the Talker?”
Domino Tight shrugged. “‘Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.’ Just makes it a bigger challenge. The target’s night soil; just a matter of time.”
Big Jacques nudged him with a forefinger. “There. Y’see? ‘A bigger challenge.’ But you may as well fold the play. If Pendragon’s mother-henning your target, he’s probably figured why he was in the cross-hairs in the first place. Whole point of moving our man into the Comm Center is that they don’t know we done it.”
“Oh, half a dozen cadre move up the ladder if the top dog’s capped. Might not be obvious which we wanted moved. Tell me, Jacques. We chance-met here, or have you looked me up ’cause we’re cobber?”
“Bone homey, we call it where I come from,” said Big Jacques. The tavern-keeper brought him a large stein of uncertain content. The big man grumbled about something he called a demitasse and tossed it off in a single gulp. “Nah, just a call of the courtesy,” he continued when the tavern-keeper had gone off to draw five more steins. “I’ll be sending magpies out and your guys might cross paths with mine. Don’t want no misunderstandings.” He handed the smaller man a bubble case. “That’s got the dance card for our FOFs. The identifier changes randomly, but that’ll keep your guys in sync so they can know Friend or Foe. I’d appreciate the same info from you, ’cause while my main interest is that your boys don’t pot my boys, I don’t really want mine potting yours, either.”
“Bad for morale,” said Domino Tight.
Both Shadows took a moment to download the codes through their own intranets. “Who’s your date, Big Guy, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Ekadrina Sèanmazy.”
Domino Tight’s magpies had been whispering the latest intel in his left earwig. He touched pause. “Ekadrina? She’s on-world?”
“Not yet. She went to Ashbanal for the pasdarm. But she’ll be stopping here to check with Pendragon on her way to Dao Chetty. She may have sent some of her magpies on ahead. You ain’t seen any taijis drifting around have you?”
Domino Tight shook his head. “That … could send things up a gum tree. Ekadrina is a big bite to chew on. You have the teeth for it?”
Jacques grinned wide. “Who else you think could take her?”
“Oschous.”
“Might could be. But we don’t put our brains on the block. Gidula too, in his prime; which you might have noticed, he ain’t. Maybe Dawshoo; and notice the ‘maybe’.”
“Manlius?”
“Not even a maybe. Only one who thinks he could is Manlius.”
“There was Geshler Padaborn once,” mused Domino Tight, “but she took him down in the end.”
Jacques finished another stein. He smiled, as if to himself. “Sure, after he was already a prisoner, and had escaped her cordon.”
Domino Tight nodded. “Speaking of the pasdarm, how did that play out? Which one retired, Epri or Manlius?”
“You have a way of asking things … Don’t know. Message packets ain’t caught up yet. I come here direct from Henrietta, but Oschous, Dawshoo, and them went to Ashbanal to collect Manlius. Which reminds me. They’ll be looking you up soon. Big play coming, and you’re the man for it. Or one of them. Seven Shadows in the play.”
“Seven!”
“And our flocks too, I guess.”
“What’s the play? I suppose you already know, being in the Inner Circle and all.”
“Yeah, I got it writ down somewhere. I’ll let you know.”
Domino Tight grimaced. “Well, I always did like surprises. Who else is in? Can you tell me that?”
“Oh, beside you and me, there’s, lessee…” He counted on his fingers. “My copain, Little Jacques—I hit ’em high, he hits ’em low—Oschous himself, Ravn, Manlius … Oh, and Padaborn.”
“Padaborn!”
“Yeah. Padaborn’s back. Showed up on Henrietta just after most of us left, courtesy of your old friend, Ravn Olafsdottr. She tracked him down over in the League, bagged him up, and brought him back.”
The curly-haired Shadow finished his schooner. “How … interesting. Ekadrina know?”
Jacques grinned. “That’s the problem with the Long Tall One. You never know what she knows.”
“Padaborn…” said Domino Tight. “The greatest of the Shadows … He’ll give the Cause a new life.”
“If you believe in the Cause.”
“Well, if Ravn could bag Padaborn and haul his sorry ass back over this side of the Rift, he isn’t half the man he used to be.”
“Way I hear it, he’s four or five times the man he used to be. But they tell me he knows the way in.”
“In where?”
Big Jacques gazed at the ceiling with pursed lips. Domino Tight made a sour face.
“Oh. By the way,” Jacques added, “you know someone in the Secret City, doncha?”
Domino Tight nodded. “Tina Zhi. She works in the Gayshot Bo.”
“Yeah, those smoochin’ good looks of yours draws ’em in like a landing grid, especially the geeka girls in the Tech Ministry. She knows her way around there, don’t she? The Secret City? Maybe has maps and floor plans and crap. Knows where each of the Names lives. Staff sizes.”