Crystal Heat tst-3

by Jo Clayton

  “Why should I believe you? And don’t call me Herred. My name’s Bug.”

  “All right, Bug. I’m a smuggler and a jojing good one with a nice rep. Good enough to buy a ship and fly it on my own. Why in Jaink’s Seven Hells would I want to hang round here? Think I’m after your father? Not hardly. I’m not going to say more about that because it’s none of your business.”

  “Bo da, so what’d you do you had to run back to tit?” His voice was easier now; he’d let it go high, light, and what his peers would no doubt consider girlish. She didn’t smile. Very carefully she didn’t smile. This was his way of showing capitulation without actually admitting he’d accepted what she’d said.

  “Some people want to know where my last cargo went and they’re the types to ask the hard way. I’d rather not, thank you very much.”

  He brushed his hand across the board, tapped a sensor, and the chair hummed around. “Would you tell me about some of the things you’ve seen?”

  “I don’t think Grinder would like that.” She grinned at him. “Sure, Bug.”

  “I can’t leave here, can’t take the pressure shifts. He doesn’t want me to even think about it.”

  “Bo da, I know. And you’d better shut down the shield. It’ll make him real nervous if he doesn’t know what’s happening.”

  “You didn’t see me. You couldn’t ’ve.”

  “You were really smooth, Bug, but we both know he’s watching. And we both know you wouldn’t talk like this if he could hear it. So put us back on show and let’s get started going over Lerdo’s lines.”

  2

  When Lylunda left the warehouse’s cellar, the sun was down and the sky a sullen black with clouds blocking light from the moon and stars, though there was no smell of rain in the air, as if those clouds were waiting for the month to turn before they let down the water they carried. She was tired, but pleased at the way things had worked out. Once his resistance was gone Bug had turned heartbreakingly eager for her approval and ravenous for the things she could teach him, as if he wanted to swallow them all in one day.

  Krink walked beside her, escorting her to the apartment house on Saltoki Street, his presence setting Grinder’s mark on her. She glanced at him and swallowed a smile. He hated this. He’d loathed her since the time he’d tried to corner her down by Milk Alley and she got him a good one in the family jewels. It was an accident, she was flailing all over the place trying to fight him off, but he always thought she’d done it deliberately. She knew better, but she was smart enough to stay out of his way until she got off Hutsarte. She wondered why it was Krink that Grinder had chosen for this escort; surely there were others. Hm. Things under the surface between those two men. And she was being shoved in the middle. She didn’t like that. People in the middle got tromped by both sides.

  When they turned the corner into Saltoki Street, Krink swore, grabbed her shoulder, and stopped her. “I don’t like this.”

  The street was empty, none of the usual shoppers out; even Halfinan Ike was gone from in front of Lester’s cutlery. A short distance beyond Okin the Baker’s shop a line of dark figures in robes that swept the ground walked in silence, unlit torches in their hands. Aptzers. Temple enforcers.

  “I think you should go to Grinder’s,” he said and started to turn her around. “This isn’t the first Sermoi they’ve held along here, they’ll start emptying the houses soon for the Confessio, maybe this time, maybe next.”

  She pulled free. “I know the drill, Krink. It’s not something you forget. I’ll take my chances tonight.”

  “Grinder won’t like it.”

  “He’ll just have to live with it. I’m too tired to make nice. I want my bath and some sleep and I’m going to get them.”

  She heard chimes as she keyed open the door to her room. The first thing she saw when she stepped inside and turned on the lights was the comset installed by the window. She tugged the door shut and sighed. “So much for locks,” she said. “Just as well I get this into my head right now. Where Grinder wants to go, he goes.”

  She, crossed to the, corn, tapped it on. Acid in her voice, she said “Greetings, oh, mighty Grinder-jun. And how may I serve you?”

  Grinder scowled at her. “That mouth of yours will get you skinned one of these days, Luna.”

  “Could be.”

  The scowl lightened. “Just wanted to say you did good today. Bug’s happier than I’ve seen him in a long time. Want you to come to dinner tomorrow night. Meet my other kids.”

  It was phrased as a request, but she knew her options well enough. There weren’t any. “Thank you, Grinder. What time?”

  “Krink will be over to pick you up round six. It’ll still be light then, give you some time to walk round the garden.”

  “Um. Grinder, if it’s all right with you, could you send someone else? No no, don’t get yourself revved up, he did his job just fine, no problems. The thing is, I don’t like being around him and he loathes me. You push him too hard, you might lose a handy tool.”

  The eyes that had gone flinty for a moment softened, and he smiled. “Always thinking. Maybe I want to push him.”

  “Uh-huh. Ba da, you’ll do what you want, you sure haven’t changed in that. I’m just asking find some other poor fool to do your levering, huh?”

  “A’ right, I’ll do it this once. Dodo’ll bring you. You’n Bug break off early, you hear? Get your hair done. Wear something nice.”

  After his image faded, she touched off the com and then dropped into the chair, shaking and nauseated, sweat popping out on her face, running down her back. She started to swear, then snapped her mouth shut. That was Grinder’s corn. Everything she said here, maybe even everything she did would be picked up and recorded. What she’d said to Bug applied to her, too. Grinder might pretend a sentimental attachment to her and say all the right words, but he wasn’t about to trust her.

  I’m a fool, she thought, I shouldn’t have come back. I thought I knew how things worked here, but I’d forgotten a lot of it and I didn’t know about Grinder. Jaink!

  A loud cry from outside broke into her thoughts. She tapped off the light, moved to the window, and looked out. The hooded Aptzers were standing in a circle in the center of the street. Their torches were lit now and cast red shadows on the walls and the pale ’crete pavement.

  One of the Aptzers lifted his voice hi the Call; he had a powerful tenor trained to cover distance. “0 Beloved,” he sang. “Surrender your wills to the tenderness of Jaink. Search your hearts and know that you have sinned.”

  A second Aptzer took up the Call when the first was done. “0 Beloved,” he sang. “How easily you forget that which Jaink requires of you. Search your hearts and know that you have failed Him.”

  When the third sang the 0 Beloved, Lylunda sighed and moved away from the window. At least she could manage a bath, though it seemed sleep was going to be more elusive. They were going to keep that up till dawn. The only good sign was that they hadn’t brought the drums, so the harrowing itself would happen another time, the scourging and purging, the bonfire of vanities and the public confessions.

  The Lekats of the Izar would come out, though there were few who paid more than lip service to the Behilarr god. They would play the Aptzers’ games, invent confessions, lay their clothes and ornaments on the burning piles, let themselves be cuffed to the whipping posts, do anything they had to in order to survive. They’d learned long ago the costs of rebellion. The Behilarr controlled the water and the food; if they shut off the mains and closed the gates, the Izar died.

  3

  “Don’t know if you remember me, Lylunda. Amalia Eskurat?”

  “Forget the prettiest girl on Babalos Street?” Lylunda bowed, touching her fingers to lips and heart, her face carefully blank. Jaink! She’s younger than me, but she looks a hundred years old and all of them hard.

  “That’s kind of you. Perhaps it was true, once. You look tired. Has Grinder been working you too hard?”

  Lylunda
grimaced. “How I look comes from 0 Beloveds chanted the whole night under my window. I maybe managed three hours’ sleep. I’m giving serious consideration to moving into the keph vault’s Overnighter.”

  Amalia nodded. “Not a bad idea. Come “walk with me, I’ll show you around.”

  She moved slowly along the flags of the walk in the arcade that ran round the outside of the court. “See the names on the doors? There’s mine. Grinder’s generous. When one of his women gets pregnant, he moves her in here. And the apartment is hers for the rest of her life. Some of the others have gotten married and brought their husbands here. He doesn’t mind. You’ll meet most of them at dinner. It’s like in a palace, you see. Everyone comes to dinner when Grinder says he wants it formal.”

  When they reached the back of the garden, Amalia opened a door and gestured Lylunda through. She stepped into a smaller garden with graceful, dark-leaved minikuna trees, their long withes blowing like hair in the evening breeze. By each tree there was a small grassy mount with a flat stone on top. Each stone held a small urn. Amalia walked to one, stood looking at it. “My daughter,” she said. “She killed herself when she was seven. I don’t know why. She was always a sad child.”

  Lylunda shivered at the flatness of the woman’s voice, a gray hopelessness she’d never felt, no matter how tight things got. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “No matter. It’s been five years now. Life keeps on in spite of everything. I come here so I can tuck her away for the night. Not really, of course, I know that, but…” Her voice trailed off. “We’d better get back now. She’s the only child here, you know. The rest were mothers. Once you give Grinder a child, you belong to him even after you’re dead.”

  There was no change at all in her voice, the same soft sad murmur, but Lylunda knew she was being warned to walk very carefully or she’d find herself trapped the way all these women were. As she moved through the door, she set her hand on Amalia’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze to let the woman know she’d gotten the message.

  4

  The days that followed slid past with little to divide one from the next, even the Harrowing of the Izar. She missed most of the Harrowing, having moved into the Overnighter, a room opening off the kephalos’ terminal chamber, no bigger than a closet with a basin and a toilet and a narrow, lumpy cot that made sleeping an endurance sport. Except for meals she spent her time with Bug and did her best to avoid Grinder and his men, though he insisted she dine at his house at least twice a week.

  After three weeks, the Aptzers retired to the Temple, satisfied with the havoc they’d wreaked on the guilty. The Izar came to life slowly, warily, like a wounded animal checking itself for more hurts. Lylunda moved back to her room on Saltoki Street.

  She was getting restless. No one had come after her, not that she’d noticed. And Grinder would probably have mentioned it if someone on Star Street started making snuffling noises pointed in her direction. Maybe the Kliu hadn’t got onto her world of origin. She didn’t talk about it much in the Pits, only in a blue mood when she was high on pelar. Jingko iKan knew where to find her but he was no chatterer. It’d take more than a dollop of Kliu gold or a threat or three to pry his mouth open. Maybe she’d broken her back trail effectively when she came here.

  “You be coming to dinner tonight?”

  “Don’t think so, Bug, everything I own is starting to smell, so I’ve got to do a wash and my hair’s so gungy, if I leave it much longer it’s going to rot and fall off.”

  “Don’t you like us?”

  “It’s not that. Truly, Bug. I just need some time to catch up on all the stuff I couldn’t do because of the Harrowing.” She made a face, looked around the long narrow room, and sighed. “Button things up for me, hm? I’ve got to get some air.” She laughed at the face he made, gently tapped his cheek as she turned to leave.

  There’s another problem, she thought as she climbed up the stairs to the double doors that locked the vault away from the main part of the warehouse. She tapped the code into the keyplate and waited for the door to slide open. I think he’s getting the notion of pimping for his father. Away to keep me here. Ba da, can’t even trust Bug.

  She glanced up at the landing m front of Grinder’s office. He was leaning on the stair rail, watching her. With the weight of his regard heavy on her shoulders she left the warehouse and walked briskly along the street, stepping over the drunks and ignoring the beggars. At least half of them were watchmen anyway, with Panicbuttons in their pockets to warn of security raids or challengers to Grinder’s rule or even the chance stray from straighter regions of the Izar.

  Grinder’s notions-ba da, they scare me. So far I’ve managed not to see what he’s getting at, and Jaink be blessed, he hasn’t pushed me on it. But with Bug starting up… I think its about time I went somewhere else. Or I’ll end up in an urn in that poor sad garden.

  When she reached her home street, she stopped at Okin the Baker’s shop for a fresh loaf of bread, traded sass with his oldest daughter, a fine freckled girl with a plain face but lively eyes and a livelier mouth, got a ready cooked bird, a cup of noodle soup, and a dollop of tuber salad from Sutega’s Take Out next door, declined Halfman Ike’s offer to sing her a song if she showed him her legs, and went laughing to her doorway, feeling better about things.

  A man stepped from the street as Lylunda fitted a key into a lock. She swung round to face him when his shadow fell on the door, her hand going to the belt where the stunrod couched.

  “Elang-mun Lylunda?” He wore a black leather vest with brass buttons and a round badge pinned high on his shoulder, the sigil of the courier service drawn with blackened silver wire set into the white ceramic surface.

  “Courier? Whose?”

  “The Anaitar of the Erzain. Hizuffi-jaz Gautaxo.” He bowed, touched his fingers to his brow and mouth. “And you are Elang-mun Lylunda?”

  Her father. Not only her father, but the top cop of the Behilarr secret police. She’d known his name, but not what he did. He knows about you, Meerya said, the words almost lost in her struggle for breath. He’s very important so he can’t acknowledge you, but he asks about you all the time. It was him paid for your schooling. He did love me, you know. And he held you when you were a little thing. But she didn’t tell me who he was or what he did. Anaitar of the Erzain. Expeditor of the Question.

  Lylunda’s face went tight; she took the key from the door, held it in her hand as she moved away. He stepped aside as she got close to him, followed her from the recessed doorway and into the street where his guards were waiting. A short distance off Halfman Ike had parked his wheeled box against a light pole and was juggling two of his knives. And she recognized one of the layabouts from near the warehouse. She turned to face the courier and the two guards who stood a short distance off; no one from the High City ventured into the Izar alone. “Yes. So?”

  He bowed again, handed her a paper folded three times and sealed.

  She broke the seal and read what was written.

  One finds it necessary to summon you and speak with you. The Courier will bring you to the Erzainzala where speech is possible without ears to hear. There is no question of arrest or detention. You will be returned to your residence when the interview is complete.

  She tore the note in half, tore it again and again until it was reduced to small fragments. “Hold out your hand. You’d best see he gets these back. I’m to come with you?”

  “If you will, Elang-mun.”

  “I need to put my purchases away.”

  “We will wait, Elang-mun. Though it would be best not to linger.”

  “Yes. I can see that.”

  5

  In the office wing of the Erzainzala, Lylunda sat with her head against the cushions of the comfortable chair, her eyes closed as she listed to the horrible bland noise no one with ears could call music. In this small waiting room there was nothing else to do. She tried not to think of the look on Grinder’s face when she called him to let him know w
hat was happening. He smoothed it out and said with a genial smile that he knew she wouldn’t buy herself loose with his business and he wanted to hear what this was about as soon as she got back. Come over to the house, he said, and tell me exactly how it went.

  She was sweating. She pushed back the hair that was sticking to her face. If I go in Grinder’s house, chances are I won’t come out again. Joj’ the house! If 1 go back through the Izar’s gate, I won’t see free air…

  “Elang-mun?”

  Who else, taik? She got to her feet, followed the young woman down a short corridor and into the side door of a large corner office.

  The man had the broad body and big head of a highbred Jaz, with dark hair still and the perfect silver streaks above his ears that marked his caste. She stared at him and knew her mother hadn’t lied. This was her father; neither of them could mistake that. Her face was a female image of his.

  He glanced at her then looked at the pile of fac sheets on the desk in front of him. He took up the first, lifted his head again. “You are Lylunda Hang. Daughter of Meerya Elang.”

  “Yes.”

  “Read this. I acquired it. It was not sent to me.”

  She took the sheet, glanced down it. Her name. Her description. Description of her ship. A short summary of her activities for the past five years. Jaink be blessed, they’d missed a few things that would make her unwelcome in just about any stratified culture, let alone here. A request from the Kliu Berej to the Dukkerri of Hutsarte that she be sought for and, if found, turned over to the Kliu for unspecified crimes against the economy.

  She returned the paper to the desk and waited.

  “You’re cautious,” he said. “Good.” He tapped a sensor, dropped the sheet into a sudden hole in the top of the desk, and watched it reduced to its constituent atoms. “To this point special notice has not been taken of that request. The minimum was done as a courtesy, government to government. Official records were searched without result and the Kliu so informed. If they are persistent and reach the right official, there might be difficulties. Should an order come from the Duk’s desk, I could not ignore it.” He hesitated. “I find you interesting,” he said finally. “If the world and life were different, I’d like to spend a while talking with you. As it is…” He tapped the sensor board. “Alert Eketari,” he said, then turned back to Lylunda. “Your connection with Grinder Jiraba makes it imperative that you get away immediately. I will see to that.”