Crystal Heat

3

As rain roared down outside, Worm ambled through the basement of the Warehouse. It was the first night this week he hadn’t had a job for Grinder and he was wondering if he should set a sono-pickup somewhere in here so he could keep better track of Lylunda as she-went in and out of the keph vault. The more data he had about her movements, the easier it would be to plan the kind of snatch that would spring him clear with the woman without getting him killed.

He’d been watching her every night for a week now. So far she’d left the Warehouse at the same time, taken exactly the same route until she reached her home area; sometimes she bought supplies for the fresher or the kitchen, sometimes she stopped to talk to people along the street; mostly, though, she just went into her room and stayed there.

Whenever she left the Warehouse, she had a guard. There were four of them, rotating the assignment between them. Baliagerr, Arkel, Rodzin the Shrink, and Vlees. Grinder’s men, all of them. Could be she’s hired her some protection after the miss at Marrat’s. Could be Grinder’s putting his mark on her. Maybe both. Grah! 1 hope not. That would mess things up so bad.… It was maybe a good thing Xman wasn’t here; he got impatient sometimes and rushed the job. Like he rushed it at the Market…

Feeling disloyal, Worm stopped thinking that way.

He heard a scrape on the stairs, and looked up. “Atcha, Bug. What’s doing?”

Bug negotiated the last stair before he looked up, his exo humming and clicking, his face intent as he watched where he planted his feet. “Hoy, Worm. Nothing on tonight?”

“What they say. Too much rain. You use a hand there?”

“Yoh, if you’ll just hold the door back till I’m through.” He palmed the lock, then moved aside to let Worm pull the heavy plug door out of its hole. “You a lock man, do you know about kephs?”

“This’n that. Hadn’t had formal schooling at it, but I ’prenticed to someone who knew ’m better’n most. How come?”

“You ever play Tac games?”

“Some. When I could get away to a Pit. My Fa, he put my brothers and me to working soon’s we could walk almost.”

“Gets boring, playing the keph all the time. If I don’t dumb him down, he whacks me. If I do, what’s the good of that? It’s not like I was really beating him. Whyn’t you come on down, we have a game or two? Daddo says things are going to be quiet a while now, so you got time.”

“Bug, don’t know if Grinder’d like that, me being new and an outsider and all.”

“No big deal, man. We’d be using the dedicated terminals he got me, and keph keeps the record of what you do in that room so Daddo can see it’s all right.” He managed a shrug, expression wiped from his face. “If you don’t wanna, though…”

“Hey, I just don’t wanna look up and see Krink and his crew coming round to stomp me.” He pulled a clown face, then looked fearfully over his shoulder.

Bug giggled. “Come on. Daddo got me a new ’un. It was in that box that you’n Keyket fiddled last night. So you and me, we can start off same level. Huh?”

“Why not.”

Worm slouched in the chair as he watched the boy loading the game into the machine; he was nervous about the keph picking up on some of the dainties he had scattered about his person, but only a little because he could always explain them as being part of his tools he’d brought along in case a job turned up after all. He had no intention of trying to plant anything in here. That would be just plain stupid.

He was tired from working nights for Grinder and days on his own business, snatching at sleep when he could find an hour or two free, sleep that often wouldn’t come because of the heat and the nearly intolerable humidity. Maybe with the rains it’d be better, but the season was too new for him to judge. This room was cool, the air clean with the comforting, familiar metallic smells that reminded him of his ship. For a moment he wanted desperately for the snatch to be done, wanted to be off this stinking, miserable mud heap and back in the clean clarity of the insplit. He winced away from the thdught of his Kinu Kanti and the filth she’d be collecting in that canyon where he left her.

The terminal pinged and he sat up, gathering himself so he could get through the game without turning Bug off him. The boy had access to his father’s plans and some of his thoughts and he’d be a good source if he-were handled right.