Dr. Sonnerstein nodded his assent to the plan we whittled down after a spirited half hour’s palaver.
Handing him a page from my notebook and a pen, he hastily scribbled the following:
“A sandwitch urgently needs her familiar”
No signature was necessary, he would understand.
Stopping a rampaging urchin boy in trou-sans-knees, we deposited the note along with a few choice coins and instructions to deliver it directly to Tepic. He would know what to do.
“Watcha mate, what’s up?” the fox-tailed boy asked, looking up from his fishing.
“Gotta letter fer yer, from the bloke lives up the hill from the Gut” the ragged boy replied, holding out the now rather rumpled note. Tepic took it from him, read it carefully several times, digesting the import, then folded it and put it in his pocket – no sense wasting good paper.
“Here, you take over here, they’s biting fine, i gotta go do some stuff!” he said, handing his makeshift rod and line to the other boy, and slid away from the Docks into the shadows…..
“Mr Arnold?” Tepic asked as he looked around for the cat and then followed his nose. “Whatcha doing hiding behind the tub?”
“It’s the one place no one would look for me. Gil didn’t even know you had a bath here two days ago, said that everyone bathed in the canals..”
Tepic shrugged, “Say, yer lady Doctor is wantin ter see you…”
The cat had felt the string tug again and again for days, and frowned, “How do you know?”
Tepic sat down and explained the note, and then about the automaton which had gotten run over by a tram. “I ain’t seen one of em before, smalish it were, though lots smaller once the tram had hit it… but the outside kinda looked like the outside of that dinosaur one. It were small enough ter get in here, if it were lookin for yer…”
Arnold grimaced. If even Tepic thought that they could get in here now then he was in trouble.
“Might be a good idea ter scamper ter Mondrago fer a bit, see yer lady?”
“How am I supposed to get there with everyone trying to kill me?”