Crystal Heat

9

The Privacy Cell in Digby’s ship was a little bigger than a ciciset but not much, with the instrumentation completely insulated from outside contact. Shadith disliked the place intensely, but she had no illusions about OverSec’s intrusion into the outer areas of the ship.

Luck had kissed her today and she wasn’t about to waste time accepting its gift.

She keyed the scramble, beginning the recording with an explanation of the cover she’d arranged for the investigation. “I’m-going to have to stay until I finish this, though it shouldn’t take that much longer. In the meantime, I found a name for our smuggler and a reason for the Kliu’s being locked out of the Market. Lylunda Elang. Smuggler, apparently rather well known, though I haven’t come across her before. Find out all you can about her, especially about her home-world. The Kliu tried to Zombi her and missed. I suspect she headed for the deepest cover she could find, probably that homeworld.

“After I locate Adelaar’s apprentice, I’ll be taking the girl to University. I’ll check in with you there to see what you’ve come up with.”

She ejected the flake, sealed it into a drone, and started the canister on its way to its target. “Over to you, Digby. Now I go back to talking my way round the Nodes, keeping the cover tight.”

Shadith shuffled into her room at Mimarose, dropped into her chair, and tugged her boots off. She stretched out, wriggling her toes and groaning with the pleasure of letting her body relax. “Romance is dead,” she said aloud and giggled. “Triddas never mention how boring this is and what your feet feel like at the end of the day.”

She yawned, unclipped the notepad from her belt, and began scrolling through the list she’d bought from the Hub. There were two, no three small crewbangers that she hadn’t hit yet, on the Circle only by courtesy. She tapped a fingernail on the pad’s screen, frowning at the entries. Do them first, then try the Contractors?

Or leave them till the Labor Halls had refused to talk to her? They had that habit. She clicked over to the other list. Three Contract Labor Companies, each with its own niche. Factory and lab lineworkers. Techs. Unskilled for the low-end work where convict labor was cheaper than ’bots and easier to replace if it broke.

“If I were doing this by the numbers, I should have hit them first. Gahh.” The almost year she’d spent under Contract was not one of her happier memories, and facing down junior execs determined not to talk was a job she’d rather postpone forever. “Time is, Shadow my girl. Tomorrow morning. Well, at least I can have myself a nice drench in the fresher and a good long sleep.”

She pushed herself onto her feet and reached for the closure on her tunic.

The corn bonged.

Working at the closure with one hand, she tapped on the speaker. The screen was blank. “Shadith here. Who’s this?”

“Shadow, you know my voice.” Bisa. As close to whispering as she could get. Not that OverSec would let that stop them if they wanted to know who she was. “Want to talk.”

“Now?”-

“Yes. Outside where I work.”

Shadith rubbed at her eyes. “All right. Give me time to get there.”

“Don’t drag it. Twenty minutes and I’m gone.”

The shell was night-black and mostly invisible behind the gathering clouds; rain was scheduled for the next hour so most of the Circle was empty, the usual strollers either back in their ottotels or in their hutches or inside the shops waiting for the next flux of customers. The holoas flickering across the facades had gone dark. The only lights left were the pole lamps marching along beside the chainchair line. Shadith stopped the chair short of the Tav, crossed to the sidewalk and started along it.

“Over here.”

She followed the voice into a narrow alley, her reach identifying the woman and establishing that she was alone.

Bisa was standing in a shallow doorway. “Tell me the name of the client,” she whispered. “I have to be sure.”

“All right.” Shadith leaned closer, murmured in the woman’s ear, “Adelaris.”

“That’s the right one. Come on. She wants to see you.” Bisa moved from the doorway and started off along the alley, heading away from the Circle, into grubby shell slums where the argrav diminished rapidly enough to make walking difficult. The Nodes were, after all, just large irregular chunks of rock, mauled a bit here and there, shaved and prettied up where the customers were. The back blocks that only workers saw were a lot less appealing and the farther away from the business center, the worse conditions got.

Mirik was waiting by a rookery with a grubby pot-house tucked into one corner; she led them inside, knocked on a hatch. -

It opened to show the corroded face of an ancient bawd who tapped a bony finger on the ledge. “Pay her,” Mink said. “Two minims.”

Shadith dropped the token on the ledge, took the key the old woman pushed at her. “So?”

“We go upstairs now. We’ve just bought an hour in one of the kips.”

“Just a moment. Don’t say anything yet.”

Mirik moved to the table beside the bed, reached inside her blouse, and pulled out a gadget that looked as if she’d crumpled together an assortment of miniature sensor boards and plugged in chips at random. She spread it on the table, touched it on.

Shadith felt the vibration at the edge of her senses that told her they were under a privacy cone. She raised her brows, decided Adelaar was probably right about wanting the girl back. “Why all the caution?” she said.

“You didn’t read your rules, did you.” Mirik sounded amused. “Conspiring to divert the services of a laborer under Contract is a large nono.”

“I see. However, as long as compensation is paid…”

“It’s one of those things… urn Shadith, is it? Illegal till the offer is actually on the table.”

“Adelaar was afraid you’d be depressed enough to contemplate suicide.”

Mirik sighed. “I was close to that some four months ago when I woke up and found that miserable gila had hopped it and left me broke and alone. I felt such a damn fool. You won’t believe this,” she sighed, “but I didn’t know what he was doing till I was with him on his ship and we were ’splitting for here. All he wanted was a bedwarmer and an ear for his brags. If I hadn’t been so wiped from his thumping me about, I’d have walked out the lock. It was when the Governors sold me into Contract with Kapal Banish as Unskilled Labor that I got mad. That pulled me out of the glooms. Turn your head a moment. Ah. Yes. You’re a friend of Aslan, aren’t you. I had that mark of yours described to me. Does the Patron really want me back?”

“Yes. She thought a year on University would be a good idea, then you return to Adelaris and work off the debt. Another sort of Contract Labor, I suppose.”

“At least it’s my choice this time. All right. What do we do now?”

“How much do you owe?”

“Almost as much debt as that gila left me with. And Kapal Banish is pulling everything it can get to extend the Contract. They know about Adelaris and my training and they’re putting on a lot of pressure to get me to violate copyright. In the meantime I do security maintenance and programming at Unskilled pay. What with Kapal’s interest charges and the cost of my food and the air I breathe and the hole, I sleep in, I manage to clear something like a minim every two weeks. Since they’re guaranteed a twenty percent profit on the money they put out to pay my debts, I should be clear sometime around my hundred and fourth birthday. As of this morning, profit included, my contract’s worth two thousand gelders. You’d better include around a hundred more to meet other claims they might dream up. Since I’m officially labeled Unskilled, there’s one trick they can’t pull. They can’t up the prices for losing my services. It’d mean a hefty head tax and a fine for misrepresentation.”

“Two thousand? That’s all?”

“It’s plenty when you’re flat with no hope in sight.”

“Ah, yes. Are there any buyouts you know about?”

“Around two weeks ago, there was this brain-wipe case. A broker handled it, took him outMarket.”

“Know the broker’s name? I was thinking it might be better to go that route rather than fooling around on my own.”

“You’re probably right. Actually, she handled both of the buyouts. I don’t think she’s really female, but she’s certainly not male, so it’s easiest to say she. Elegant creature. Not a Cousin, some species no one seems to know. Her name’s Ruxalin and she has an office on the Barter Strip in the AgentNode. Urn. I’ve got to get back. Mind waiting here till I’m well away?”

“No problem. Don’t forget your privacy projector. I imagine there are some open slots you should refill.”

Mirik grinned. “You’re so right. I don’t want more expense on my poor little head.”

Shadith strolled beside Bisa, her mind busy with Mirik’s bit of information about the brain-wipe felon as they moved through the rough narrow streets, walking carefully to avoid losing their footing.

“So it works out nicely.” Bisa patted a yawn, threading her fingers through her hair. “Herm didn’t want me to have anything to do with this. He likes your singing and your songs, but you scare him, Shadow. He has his little nest here, and he feels safe in it. You bring in echoes of the outside.”

“You all right with it?”

“Chali can cool him down. Why are you doing this kind of work? With your gift…”

“Put it down to perversity, Bisa. Or just wanting some adventure while I’m still young. Digby offers that. I can write and sing anywhere, any time.” Bisa’s yawn triggered a yawn in her. “At this moment, though, what I want to do is get some sleep.”