Crystal Heat

7

Late at night in the safehouse, Worm bent over the board, trying out the steps of his plan, running it over and over so he could locate possible trip spots.

It was a simple plan: Whether it was raining or clear, Lylunda always went home the same time and the same way; her second turn took her through a short alley between two small manufactories, no windows, no foot traffic, lots of debris up against the walls. He could do the watcher there, roll the corpse into the debris, catch up with the woman, shoot a dose of Zombi into her, good stuff this time, walk her through the Wall and around to the safehouse, put her in the flikit, and take off for his ship.

He considered the four who guarded her. All other things equal, it’d be best to choose one of Baliagerr’s shifts. He was big, but he was also lazy and rather stupid.

Worm tapped on the second screen and began replaying the flakes that had Baliagerr on them, watching how he moved, where his eyes went.

When he was satisfied that he’d worked things out as much as he could, he began thinking about the date; he erased the recording from the second screen, called up the duty roster and picked out the days between now and Grinder’s Nameday when Baliagerr would be on duty. When to do it?

Not too close to the Nameday. According to Bug, Grinder was putting pressure on Lylunda to move into his house. Bug thought it was a great.idea; he liked her and bragged to Worm about how he was getting that idea across to her. If it was going to happen, it’d be a on the Nameday, that was as sure as anything Worm knew.

She was getting really fidgety. She didn’t show it much, but he could tell.

The snatch probably should be a night in that last week, though. Bug said the Warehouse all but shut down then, meant fewer people hanging about. One of the Baliagerr dates was five days before the Feast. That felt about right. “I’d better fix a backup date, though. Vlees is on the day before. No. He’s too spooky. He’d never let me get close enough to do him, not without more noise than’s safe. Day before that, Rodzin. He’s bored with this guard business, not paying much attention. Good enough. So nine days from now max, seven min. Then it’s done and I’m out of here.”

He leaned back, rubbed burning eyes. “Bokh! I’m-tired. No call tomorrow night. That’s good. Better go see Tank about the knife, he should know where there’s something good. And let Grinder know I’m shopping, keep him happy.”

Head thick with too much sleeping, Worm came yawning into The Tank. He collected beer and crackles at the bar and went to a table in a back corner with them, to sit in the shadows crunching and sipping and trying to wake up enough to keep up his front with Tank.

The sound of plucked strings drew him from his mind haze. He looked up. Dark and undefined hecause the lumins hadn’t been turned on yet, a figure sat on the stage at the end of the bar, tuning a small harp. That’s something new. Wonder what happened to Musha and his lot?

The lumins brightened slowly, catching glimmers from the sequins on the woman’s dress. She stopped tuning and started playing a simple melody that grew more complicated under her fingers as her form grew more and more defined, warm brown skin and glitter-ing white dress, opals in her ears, her nails painted to match.

“Time is a wheel,” she sang, her voice a rich, fluid contralto. He shivered with pleasure, pushed the glass aside and leaned forward, his eyes fixed on her.

Time is a wheel that steals our loves away

Lost and gone in yesterday

Time is the necromancer’s terrain

From the black plain of vanished years

He summons the pale dancer

She sways in swirls of moire silk,

His tears are opals in her ears

The pyrelights of dead suns burn

In the hollows of her eyes

Turn by turn

He treads with her a languid pavan

dead and gone, dead and gone.

Time is a while a whorl a wheel

It steals our loves away,

Buries them in yesterday.

As she sang, her words came alive for him; he was the dead dancer, called from his rest, star sprays shining in the empty eyes of his skull, his feet treading suns to oblivion. The image was so powerful that for a moment the room, the table, even his body vanished. Nothing existed except the dancer…

When the song changed to a wordless croon weaving around the harp’s mellow notes, he dropped into himself with a jolt and a shapeless grief from something without a name that had been lost.

She played with the melody a moment longer, then slid into a new tune, a rapid bubbly thing as if the harp were laughing.

“Howl, said the honeybear,” she sang. “Nose in the honeyjar, tail in the air…”

She leaned into the harp, rocking back and forth with the lilt of the song-and for the first time Worm saw the other side of her face, saw the drawing of a hawk etched in dark brown lines on the light brown skin. The description from the Kliu list flashed into his mind, the brand on her face and that gift for song. Digby’s agent. How long has she been here? Has she spotted the target and what’s she doing to do about it? What am I going to do about her…?

When the set was finished and the singer had retreated to the back rooms, Worm gulped down the rest of his beer and sat a moment longer at the table. Between recognizing the agent and the effect her song had on him, he wasn’t sure of anything any more-except that he’d better think real hard about moving up the snatch to this week and consign the old plan to The Harman’s deepest Hell.

“New singer. Known about her, I’d a been back sooner. How long you had her?”

“Three days now. Off the worldship. She was traveling standby-and-work-it, got bumped. Heard it’s Bug keeping you busy these days.”

Worm shrugged. “Likes my name, what it is.”

“Make sense. So what you want?”

“Bug was saying I need to get a Nameday present. I figure he’s got the dump on that, but I don’t wanna step on toes if you know what I mean.”

“Hunh. You been this way before.”

“Been and done and learned the hard way about overplaying it. Bug says a knife. I figure not fancy but nice. Who’s got?”

“Go see Old Henry. He has a shop in the Izar down by the Gate. Anything else?”

“Yeah. The singer. She do more’n sing?”

Tank let out a roar of laughter, slapped his hand on the desk. “Gonna have to lay down razor wire about that stage if this keeps on.” He coughed into his hand, gulped water from the jug on the shelf by his, head. “No, she don’t do. With the talent she’s got she don’t have to. Anything other than that?”

“Nah, guess that’s it.”

Worm left The Tank and walked back to his official residence, new plans whirling in his head.

10. A Day Late and a Synapse Short