Crystal Heat

1

Lylunda Elang rode the shuttle along the linktube that led to Marrat’s Agency node, contriving to look bored and mildly stupid, as if she were a low-level worker in an office like the one she was planning to visit. She was short and broad across the shoulders and to her sorrow across the hips as well, with a round guileless face that had proved its worth more than once. The neat small waist she was proud of, she’d concealed under a loose tunic that hung in soft gray folds from the elaborate tucks of the smocking, the looseness concealing the Taalav crystal taped beneath her left breast. She’d brushed in temporary coloring to hide the white streaks at her temples, pulled her coarse; springy hair into a tight bun that tugged up her eyebrows and gave her a look of continual astonishment.

So far she hadn’t seen any faces she knew. And she was happy about that. She didn’t want anyone recognizing her before she reached the broker’s office and shed the crystal.

She stared out the window by her seat, past the ghost images of the other riders reflected in the glass, watching the pewter glitter of the translucent tube walls slip quickly by. Though you could see nothing worth looking at, she was glad of the windows, being uncomfortable hurtling along in a capsule she didn’t control without access to the outside, however illusory such access might be.

After a short while, though, she used the mirroring effect to study the other riders. Innocuous as they looked, this was Marrat’s Market and any of them could be predators or scam artists.

The shuttle had twenty rows of seats, four seats in each row with a narrow central aisle passing between the middle pair. She was sitting on the left side in the first row, and there was no one in the seat beside her. The rest of the capsule was about half full. The others riding with her seemed to be shift workers heading for their jobs, some sleepy, dozing in their seats, some staring at nothing, a few busy with notepads; they were mostly an assortment from the Cousin worlds, though there was also a pair of Tocher femmes chattering in Tochri gutturals and a lanky Lommertoerkan male immersed in whatever it was he was reading off his sheet screen.

A small wiry man sputtered awake, met her eyes in the window mirror before she had time to blank her gaze. He took this for an invitation, grinned at her, and moved up to the seat beside her. “Haven’t seen you before. Me, I’m Exi Exinta, I work at the Nut Tree, it’s a food place over on the Barter Strip. Lots of people who work the AgentNode eat there. Be seeing you?”

She gave him a bovine look, blinking slowly as if she had to take time to process the words. “All right,”.she said finally. Then she turned away to stare out the window again.

Exi Exinta shifted-nervously in his seat; after another stretch of silence, he got up and went back to where he’d been sitting before. Lylunda kept the apathetic look, but she wondered about him. His had been a very nice performance, but alarms were going off inside her. It wasn’t the first time she’d trotted out this persona, and she knew well enough what reactions it got. Moving in on her showed a kind of blindness on his part, as if he thought that she’d be so flattered by the attention she wouldn’t question the reasons behind it.

She was annoyed because it meant she had to drop deep into the role she was playing; if you were supposed to be dull and self-absorbed, you couldn’t let an experienced op catch you peeking. There was something else to worry about. This could be a double up. Mr. Ex-the gall of the man, playing that kind of names game-Mr. Exi Exinta might be the throwaway, the one she was supposed to watch while his partner got inside her boundaries and dropped the sack over her head.

Which brought up another problem. She must have tripped an alarm that her ship’s sensors missed because the Kliu tagged Dragoi just before she ’splitted with Prangarris and his catch. Probably got enough for an ID. Were these two or maybe three working a standard scam, or were they setting her up for a snatch? Marrat’s OverSec ran a tight Pit, stomping hard on industrial spying and any physical violence beyond the drunk fight and the one-on-one duel, but they weren’t set up to guard against the one-off, the quick snatch and scamper.

When the shuttle sighed to a stop and the exit slid open, she walked out, moving with a heavy stolidity meant to underline her lack of curiosity about the world around her. She climbed aboard a chainchair, tapped in her destination, and went clanking off, tensely aware that Exinta was behind her and that she still hadn’t identified his partner. If he had a partner.

The chair’s back curved up round her shoulders and head, a not so subtle reminder of the possibilities of backshooting. The composite wouldn’t stop a cutter beam, but cutters would bring peacer ’bots swarming and trigger a shut-off of the Node gates. Didn’t do much good if the shooter was a berserker intent on suicide, but it tended to discourage the less committed.

It’d been a while since she’d been along here. There were some changes, new signs on the restaurants and the other small shops on the lower floors of the buildings, but the broad squat structures with their complex of offices were much the same as always; there wasn’t a lot you could do with prefab office stock except stack it and paint it and maybe squirt a few curlicues about if that was your taste. I’m dithering, she thought. Jaink! Get your mind back on the job, Lylunda my girl. Almost there. Moving between the Chain and the door, that’s going to be the tricky time. Let’s see… how do we handle this…?

The Chair string clicked to a halt outside Jingko iKan’s building. She stepped down, moved at a heavy jog across the walkway, and reached the deeply inset door without any trouble, something that bothered her rather a lot. She wasn’t mistaken about Exinta, she was sure of that. But…

“Lylunda Elang,” she told, the small Blurdslang when he opened the shutter and blinked at her. “By appointment with Desp’ Jingko iKan.”

One of the Blurdslang’s large watery eyes slid to the left, then he thrust a hair-thin fingertip into a receptacle and the door slid open.

Lylunda glanced over her shoulder as she moved inside, but what she could see of the street was empty. She shrugged, walked at a brisk clip toward the lift tube, glad to shuck that bovine covet

“I’m carrying,” she said. “Block.”

Jingko iKan sat mantis still, his eyes expressionless as obsidian marbles, but the two short feathery antennae that served as eyebrows twitched into a nervous dance. He tapped a sensor with the tip of a polished claw, and a shimmercone sprang into being over the desk area. “You said it’s good.”

“Taalav crystal.” She reached up under the smock and jerked the packet loose, brought it out and laid it on the desk, a grubby wad of tape and blancafilm the size of her fist. She took a pin from the hem of her sleeve, pricked her finger, and dripped some blood on the seal. It shriveled and the packet began opening itself until it lay flat on the desk, exposing the thing it had contained.

The crystal was an intricate lacery of the clear resin secreted and shaped by a Taalav Gestalt. As it woke from its shielded sleep, it began a series of faint but exquisite chimes in response to the whispers of air that passed through its interstices; pulses of pale light flowed through the twists and turns of the shimmering threads.

Jingko iKan leaned closer, blew gently at it. As the crystal changed its song to something that was his alone, his dust lids slid over his eyes and his monkey face went momentarily slack. After a moment, though, he leaned back in his chair, sat rubbing the callus patches on his wrists together, using the skrikking sound to counter the spell of the crystal.

“Wrap it again,” he said. “I can do without that enchantment dulling my sense of what thing is worth. How hot is it?”

She refolded the film around the crystal, tucking the ends under without sealing them. “Cold as winter on Wolff. It’s unregistered.”

“You got through Kliu security?”

“Let’s just say I had help. And it’s not something I can repeat. This is part of my share of the deal. I’ve got another stowed away, a bigger weave. I thought one at a time would get a better price.”

He rubbed the calluses together once again, the skrikking this time filled with satisfaction. “That is truth. For sure, for sure. You do bring me such interesting items, Lylunda Elang. Hm. To get the most out of this little item will take some time. Are you pressed for coin?”

“I’m well enough, desp’ Jingko. Take what time you need.” She reached under the smock again, brought out a much smaller packet, unfolded it, and pushed the one-time flake it held across the desk. “The blind drop on Helvetia. Transfer the credit when you get it, less your commission and five perc over for expenses.”

“The expenses might be rather large. Security costs.”

“You and I both know what the total take is likely to be. With five perc of that you could buy your own army.”

“We’ll see. Yes, we will.” He lifted the packet with finicky care, rose from his chair, and moved two steps back. A curtain of darkness cut suddenly across the room, hiding him and the crystal.

Lylunda rubbed at the underside of her breast where the film and the tape had irritated the skin. She hadn’t told Jingko the exact truth. She had two more crystals, not one; they were tucked away in a lock box on Helvetia, the safest place she could think to leave them. It was a problem, when to get rid of them. She didn’t want to overload the market, but there could be a limit to the time in which she could get the best price. Prangarris expected to have his Taalav array established and producing within five years. If he succeeded, the rarity factor would be lost; people would still pay a good price for them, given their beauty and their charm, but not the world’s ransom they paid now.

The black curtain vanished and Jingko iKan settled into his chair again. “One other um… difficulty. I had an intrusion that tells me the Kliu know about this. About you.”

“Ah?”

His antennae twitched through a slow dance as he stared past her at the door. “Yes,” he said finally. “I was approached. Asked if you were one of my clients. Most annoying. They have no tact at all. And no common sense. If you’re worried about me, to turn a client would destroy my reputation and my earnings would stop. No mention was made of your having the Taalav crystals.”

“If 1 were worried, I wouldn’t be here, desp’ Jingko.”

“They will have approached others. I have informed OverSec that attempts on a client of the Market might be made. They also are annoyed, but it would be better not to have to call on them.”

“Hm. I’m going to be at the Marratorium for a few days. Better to find out here what’s coming at me. Easier to watch my back.” She got to her feet. “Take care, desp’.”