Jo Clayton: Crystal Heat

The chair’s back curved up round her shoulders and head, a not so subtle reminder of the possibilities of backshooting. The composite wouldn’t stop a cutter beam, but cutters would bring peacer ’bots swarming and trigger a shut-off of the Node gates. Didn’t do much good if the shooter was a berserker intent on suicide, but it tended to discourage the less committed.

It’d been a while since she’d been along here. There were some changes, new signs on the restaurants and the other small shops on the lower floors of the buildings, but the broad squat structures with their complex of offices were much the same as always; there wasn’t a lot you could do with prefab office stock except stack it and paint it and maybe squirt a few curlicues about if that was your taste. I’m dithering, she thought. Jaink! Get your mind back on the job, Lylunda my girl. Almost there. Moving between the Chain and the door, that’s going to be the tricky time. Let’s see… how do we handle this…?

The Chair string clicked to a halt outside Jingko iKan’s building. She stepped down, moved at a heavy jog across the walkway, and reached the deeply inset door without any trouble, something that bothered her rather a lot. She wasn’t mistaken about Exinta, she was sure of that. But…

“Lylunda Elang,” she told, the small Blurdslang when he opened the shutter and blinked at her. “By appointment with Desp’ Jingko iKan.”

One of the Blurdslang’s large watery eyes slid to the left, then he thrust a hair-thin fingertip into a receptacle and the door slid open.

Lylunda glanced over her shoulder as she moved inside, but what she could see of the street was empty. She shrugged, walked at a brisk clip toward the lift tube, glad to shuck that bovine covet

“I’m carrying,” she said. “Block.”

Jingko iKan sat mantis still, his eyes expressionless as obsidian marbles, but the two short feathery antennae that served as eyebrows twitched into a nervous dance. He tapped a sensor with the tip of a polished claw, and a shimmercone sprang into being over the desk area. “You said it’s good.”

“Taalav crystal.” She reached up under the smock and jerked the packet loose, brought it out and laid it on the desk, a grubby wad of tape and blancafilm the size of her fist. She took a pin from the hem of her sleeve, pricked her finger, and dripped some blood on the seal.It shriveled and the packet began opening itself until it lay flat on the desk, exposing the thing it had contained.

The crystal was an intricate lacery of the clear resin secreted and shaped by a Taalav Gestalt. As it woke from its shielded sleep, it began a series of faint but exquisite chimes in response to the whispers of air that passed through its interstices; pulses of pale light flowed through the twists and turns of the shimmering threads.

Jingko iKan leaned closer, blew gently at it. As the crystal changed its song to something that was his alone, his dust lids slid over his eyes and his monkey face went momentarily slack. After a moment, though, he leaned back in his chair, sat rubbing the callus patches on his wrists together, using the skrikking sound to counter the spell of the crystal.

“Wrap it again,” he said. “I can do without that enchantment dulling my sense of what thing is worth. How hot is it?”

She refolded the film around the crystal, tucking the ends under without sealing them. “Cold as winter on Wolff. It’s unregistered.”

“You got through Kliu security?”

“Let’s just say I had help. And it’s not something I can repeat. This is part of my share of the deal. I’ve got another stowed away, a bigger weave. I thought one at a time would get a better price.”

He rubbed the calluses together once again, the skrikking this time filled with satisfaction. “That is truth. For sure, for sure. You do bring me such interesting items, Lylunda Elang. Hm. To get the most out of this little item will take some time. Are you pressed for coin?”

“I’m well enough, desp’ Jingko. Take what time you need.” She reached under the smock again, brought out a much smaller packet, unfolded it, and pushed the one-time flake it held across the desk. “The blind drop on Helvetia. Transfer the credit when you get it, less your commission and five perc over for expenses.”

“The expenses might be rather large. Security costs.”

“You and I both know what the total take is likely to be. With five perc of that you could buy your own army.”

“We’ll see. Yes, we will.” He lifted the packet with finicky care, rose from his chair, and moved two steps back. A curtain of darkness cut suddenly across the room, hiding him and the crystal.

Lylunda rubbed at the underside of her breast where the film and the tape had irritated the skin. She hadn’t told Jingko the exact truth. She had two more crystals, not one; they were tucked away in a lock box on Helvetia, the safest place she could think to leave them. It was a problem, when to get rid of them. She didn’t want to overload the market, but there could be a limit to the time in which she could get the best price. Prangarris expected to have his Taalav array established and producing within five years. If he succeeded, the rarity factor would be lost; people would still pay a good price for them, given their beauty and their charm, but not the world’s ransom they paid now.

The black curtain vanished and Jingko iKan settled into his chair again. “One other um… difficulty. I had an intrusion that tells me the Kliu know about this. About you.”

“Ah?”

His antennae twitched through a slow dance as he stared past her at the door. “Yes,” he said finally. “I was approached. Asked if you were one of my clients. Most annoying. They have no tact at all. And no common sense. If you’re worried about me, to turn a client would destroy my reputation and my earnings would stop. No mention was made of your having the Taalav crystals.”

“If 1 were worried, I wouldn’t be here, desp’ Jingko.”

“They will have approached others. I have informed OverSec that attempts on a client of the Market might be made. They also are annoyed, but it would be better not to have to call on them.”

“Hm. I’m going to be at the Marratorium for a few days. Better to find out here what’s coming at me. Easier to watch my back.” She got to her feet. “Take care, desp’.”

Hair flying, feet kicking through the intricate patterns of the voor tikeri, Lylunda sucked on the pelar pipe and danced to and away from Qatifa, the Caan she’d run across watching the knife cotillion at the Pertarn Darah arena. She’d shucked the neck-to-ankle cover of her disguise and wore her play clothes, a black-washed-to-gray T-shirt sliced to ragged fringe for the bottom six inches, some ancient cutoffs that she-hadn’t bothered to hem, plus a pair of supple footgloves with roughened soles to give traction for the dancing. The pelar bowl was tucked into the T-shirt’s pocket and bounced with her breasts so she had to keep her teeth clamped on the stem or she’d lose it. Now and then she grinned at Qatifa and blew a cloud of dreamsmoke in her face.

Qatifa’s plush fur was a dark chocolate brown with russet and occasionally gold glimmers when the light hit it in just the right way. It smelled faintly like cinnamon, was impossibly soft, and was matchless as a teaser against bare skin, at least in Lylunda’s view of such things. The Caan’s eyes were narrowed to slits against a puff of smoke, the light catching glimmers of gold in the darkness of her round blunt face.

When the music stopped, they elbowed back to the chip of a table they’d claimed, settled into the instruments of pain the Tangul Cafй had attached to the tables, mislabeling them as chairs. Qatifa rolled her tongue and cut through the noise with a whistle that brought the tiny jaje waiter scrambling over to them.