Sakama leaned back on his cushions with a sigh and a grimace. “You may leave, Captain,” he said. He waved a hand in dismissal. “Perhaps another will come from Xenos, who knows more and can say more.”
As Daniel turned to return to the door with the same measured stride that brought him to the Governor, he heard the counselor with the data unit say morosely, “Perhaps. But even if it’s very soon, it may be too late!”
CHAPTER 13
The alley was too narrow for even the three-wheeled cyclo which’d brought Hogg and Daniel to the produce market where they’d lounged by the well curb, taking in the sights and waiting. Latticed wooden balconies built out from the upper stories almost met overhead. The passage kinked to the left some thirty feet from where they stood at its junction with the road to the harbor.
“Can’t say I like it,” Hogg muttered. In his loose garments and broad-brimmed hat he could’ve passed for a local man, at least after the shadows got a little longer. “Could be six guys waiting right round that corner to teach you not to fool with the local women.”
“That’s why you’re with me, Hogg,” Daniel said equably, shrugging in the gray cape he’d donned over his 1st Class uniform when they left the market. His Whites and glittering medals were the lure with which he’d trolled the market. He’d smiled faintly but he hadn’t spoken except to murmur apologies when bumped, and he’d avoided eye contact, particularly with women.
After one pass through the market, he and Hogg settled to wait. They hadn’t needed to wait very long.
Daniel glanced around. There was traffic on the main road, but nobody paid special attention to the two of them. Whistling a snatch from “Abel Brown the Spacer,” he stepped into the alley. “I’ll drink your wine and eat your pies, I’ll screw you blue and black your eyes. . . .”
“And her husband may be home waiting for her and her not knowing it,” Hogg said.
“Quite true, Hogg,” Daniel agreed, pausing to listen before stepping under the first of the louvered balconies. He heard muted voices from within the house, but there was nothing of concern to him.
Shopping was women’s work on Todos Santos, but there were many men in the produce market: stall-keepers, servants, and the bodyguards accompanying women of high station. There were also a few young men who, like Daniel, avoided contact with both the crowd of shoppers and with one another. Those fellows were all well got up, but none of them had a costume as vivid as RCN Dress Whites. A billet with written instructions had dropped from a puffed sleeve into Daniel’s lap before he’d been half an hour in the market.
“You know, master,” Hogg continued, “there’s professionals here in San Juan too. They’re a whole lot cheaper than having your dick sewed back on might be.”
Daniel passed an inset doorway on the left. He heard the balcony above him creak as someone’s weight shifted, but nobody spoke. He and Hogg were past the bend in the alley now.
“Tell me, Hogg,” Daniel said in a low voice as they proceeded. The third doorway, the note said. That would be the one to the right, beneath a second-story balcony. “When you were growing up on Bantry, did your family buy meat at the Servants’ Store?”
Hogg snorted. “Not unless Pap was too hung over to walk his snares,” he said. “And after I turned six or so, not even then. Who’d want to eat chicken when the tree hoppers were fat on nuts?”
He chuckled and added, “And aye, I understand. Who knows? The maid what passed you the note didn’t look half bad herself.”
Daniel stopped at the third doorway. It ought to be the right one, but . . . The note didn’t say, Knock, or Whistle or whatever, and there wasn’t an eyeslit in the heavy panel. Which was odd unless—
He looked up. There was a giggle from the balcony; a trap door in the balcony floor opened inward. Daniel caught a glimpse of lace, then a bundle of sticks dropped down unraveling as it fell. It was a ladder of battens hung on cords.