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.
A Protector opened the door to admit another Protector, a söng’aa by rank. The latter was clad in battle dress rather than the ceremonials worn by the door wardens. Not exactly a Shadow, not exactly a boot, but partaking somewhat of the nature of both, the Protector’s countenance revealed nothing behind his goggles and comm. mandible. “Sir,” he said without preamble, “Shadows on the rooftops, and in the alleyways. All through the Residences.”
“Ours or theirs? Chestli,” the Powerful Name said to an aide, “warble Prime over at the Abattoir. Find out if Sèanmazy and her people have gone rogue. And let’s move away from the terraces and windows, shall we?”
The civilian group moved toward the suite’s door.
“Shall I order the bolt tanks warmed up, sir?” asked the söng’aa.
“Not yet. I remember the shambles my illustrious and ever-mourned predecessor made of the Official Quarter during Padaborn’s Rising.” The Committee had kept the man as a sop to the Old Guard, but he had never stopped scheming, and Hayzoos had finally tired of the charade. “If these are Shadows run amok, we may still be able to contain it. Söng’aa, are there reports from elsewhere in the city?”
“One stray report, sir, from the Office Quarter, near the Gayshot Bo. Possible Shadows. No confirmation; also no fires or explosions in that quarter. Sir, this was never supposed to touch the boots or the Protectors, let alone the Names.”