Crystal Heat

1

Worm leaned closer to the mirror, drew his fingers along his face; his skin was getting the orange peel texture it always did when the beard-inhibitor was nearing the weak end of its life span. Sama sama, the cloud cover and makeup should do the trick They say rainy season’s about due. Wish it would rain, clear some of this crap out of the air. He worked over his face until he had the look he wanted, an ivory white mask with a small curvy mouth painted pink, a pink flower stenciled onto his right cheek, another above his left eye. He eased the pewter wig onto his head and combed it out until it flowed in deep waves about his face and down his back.

He took the dark blue robe with the silver embroidery from its wall hook, slipped his arms into the sleeves, and stood for a moment simply enjoying the cool sensuous feel as the draft from the window blew the heavy silk against him. His father and his brothers didn’t understand how it made him feel and he’d never dare tell them, but they were happy enough to use his talent for impersonation in their schemes.

He sighed, finished dressing, and went out.

The apartment’s front door and the one that led into the weedy untended back yard were both plasteel with a thin veneer of local wood, the wood cracking and shrinking away from the hard gray core. Despite their appearance they were solid and sturdy, as were the frames into which they fitted. And the locks were better than the usual junk that builders put on rentals. They wouldn’t keep Worm out for more than a minute or two, but once he’d worked them over, they’d do. The furniture sagged, the carpet was a dust trap and had long ago lost any pattern it might have started out with, the facilities in the fresher and the kitchen were hardly adequate, but there was a storage shed in the yard that he could rent along with Me rooms; it was large enough to house the flikit and sturdy enough to discourage idle curiosity. And the back end of the yard was the Izar Wall, so he was close to where he needed to be. The place would do.

He counted out the first month’s rent,for the rooms and the shed, his hands in dainty white leather gloves that the landlord eyed with a covetous leer. Then:he added two more plaques. “I am not to be disturbed,” he murmured in the high, light voice he affected when in this role. “I desire peace and solitude for my meditations.”

“Of course.” The landlord’s voice was so carefully free of innuendo that he might as well have shouted his thoughts.

“I will be bringing my possessions tomorrow in the evening. Late, I think.”

“Would you be wanting a serviteur?’I have a couple I rent now and then. Or I could point you to the tot shop doWn the street.”

“There is no need. Possessions bind the soul, so I travel with few.”

“Right, then. I’ll leave you to it. The keypacs are on the table there. Anything you need, you know where I live, give a bang on my door.”

“I thank you for your courtesy.”

On the next night, Worm opened locks for Grinder, then hurried home, packed his surveillance equipment, and transferred it to the newly hired rooms. He rode a jit out to the landing field, tramped across the wasteland to the place where he’d left the flikit, brought it to the yard, and maneuvered it into the shed. After he set the, new lock on the shed’s door, he dragged himself over to his official residence and collapsed on the bed as the sun came up red and furious, half lost in barren clouds.

Worm sat naked in a chair he’d covered with a sheet because he didn’t want to think of the diseases that might live in its cracks and crannies. The EYEscreen hummed subliminally on the table before him. The room was hot and steamy because he needed an open window, so he couldn’t run the conditioner. He wiped his hand on a towel, slipped it into the control glove and began moving the EYE in small back-forth, up-down movements to bring back the skill that lay dormant in his nerve paths.

When he was ready, he sent the EYE zipping out the window, over the Izar Wall, then took it through the,streets, gliding along in the shadow of the eaves where its faint shimmer was no longer visible. His father would skin him by inches if he let anything happen to that EYE. It was a bit of spoil from one of Mort’s first jobs, and his father was sentimental about it. Besides, military EYEs with wide-spectrum viewers and built-in ice needlers whose poison was capable of dropping a Kirrgen giant were expensive and not all that available even at the darkest end of the Gray Market.

He spent almost an hour crossing and recrossing the Izar, making sure the preacher types had really cleared out. He was sick of listening to complaints about them. Got so it was all Keyket would talk about. Besides, having them about meant that the woman bedded down at-the Warehouse and there was no possibility of getting at her while she stayed holed up like that.

He stopped the EYE under a window ledge of the building across from the Warehouse and waited for Lylunda Elang to emerge. The sun was oozing through banks of heat clouds, half of it already behind the horizon, and the light over the Izar was the bloody red of burner elements. The street was nearly empty; even the whores had gone inside to eat and talk and wait for dark when it would be cool enough to bring the customers back.

When Lylunda stepped into the street, Worm sent the EYE after her-and quickly discovered that he wasn’t the only watcher. One of Krink’s thugs, a local called Baliagerr, strolled along beside her, making no attempt to hide what he was doing although he kept far enough away so that she didn’t see him.

When she stopped in the entry of a rooming house to key herself in, Worm debated sending the EYE in with her. By the time she got the door open, he’d decided that was a bad idea and set it hovering beside a dormer window on the house across the street. A short time later he saw her standing in a window, watching the sunset. Her room was third floor, corner.

“Right. Now let’s have a” look at the neighborhood.” He sent the EYE exploring the area around the rooming house, paying close attention to possible places of concealment and the foot traffic, flaking the data transmitted so he could study it later. When his eyes blurred from fatigue and his glove hand started to shake, he pulled the EYE back to base and went home to see if Grinder’s Exec had left him a call.