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can t come with you, but I ll give you a not authorizing you to use my contact
on Helvetia, that sh uld help g the exchange. She got to her feet, moved
across to the writing table, took a sheet of paper and wrote.
 Favor for favor, Ing. Razor gave me Setzumero here to handle my take.
ingra took the paper, got to her feet.
Shadith could feel her uncertainty, her fear; the t gurtsa understood at  last
what was happening, that she was leav-ing everything she d known, leaving it
behind forever.
 There s nothing we can do till tonight, she said.  Be careful,
Ing. I don t think you ve got a problem, but I can t read Wargun s mind.
I don t know what he knows. Just be careful.
Ingra stared at her; the t gurtsa s face was drawn, pale, her tough
cheerfulness was drained out of her. She nod-ded and left.
Shadith grimaced.  Gods! she said.
 She ll be fine, Shadow. Given time.
 Time. Shadith shook her head, crossed to the longchair and stretched out on
it.  Arel was not pleased, she said.  He ll do it, but he s going to
paitsch all the way to University. She plucked fretfully at the worn silk
upholstery.  Six hours to kill, maybe more. Sar! Kikun....
 Sleep, Shadow. You need the rest. I ll wake you when it s time.
 How can I sleep?
He came and knelt beside her, took her hand and began smoothing his dry soft
fingertips across and across her palm.  You can sleep, yes oh yes, you are
exhausted, Shadow, let it go, let go ... sleep....
4
day 9, hour 21
Rohant met them behind the House.  He s in?
 Went straight here after he left you.
 Where s the egurtsa?
 On the boat watching the owner, making sure he doesn t get ideas.
 Couldn t have been easy shedding her.
 She s not liking me much, trusting me less. Wasn t hard.
He looked at the back of the building. It was flat stone from street to eaves,
no windows, no airslits, nothing but a metal-capped garbage chute and a heavy
door at the top of a narrow flight of stone steps.
Kikun was at the door, bent over the lock. He straight-ened, stepped away.
Page 129
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
 Yours, Shadow. Two bars, here ... he reached up trapped the wood,
bent, tapped it beside his knee,  and here. No electronics, but
there s a guard, sitting. He s dozing. Too much noise and he wakes up and
we ve had it.
see. She climbed the stairs, leaned against the door and reached: man, bored,
drowsy, but not quite asleep.
She probed about the lower regions, found a rat colony, brought them swarming
up from the basement and sent them leaping at the guard. Apparently he had a
morbid fear of rats. He went running off as if fifty smok-ing devils were
on his tail.
Shadith took the braincrystal knife carefully from its sheath, inserted the
blade into the crack between door and jamb. She held her breath,
pressed down, stopped her hand. The top bar was severed.
Keeping the blade carefully turned away, Kikun s small hands steadying her,
she knelt. When she was braced, she slid the knife into the crack, pushed
down, stopped her hand. The bottom bar was gone. She eased the knife back into
her boot, got to her feet, and pulled the door open.
The hall inside was narrow and filled with ancient building smells, moss and
must, with a flavoring of gar-bage and old farts. Shadith twisted her face
into a comic grimace.  Makes wearing these things worth it, she
murmured. She inserted the gas filters in her nostrils, pulled the clear hood
over her head.
Farther inside the guard was still screaming and half a dozen other people
were yelling at him, trying to get him quiet.
 Sar! What a hoo-ha. Go get  em, Kikun.
As soon as Rohant was in, she touched a gluepip to the severed bars, pressed
the pieces together. In the dim light there was little sign of tampering. When
she turned round, the noise had stopped and Kikun was coming back  Let s go,
she whispered.
##
They went up the narrow stairs at the back of the House, Shadith first, her
senses reaching before her to warn them of servants or anyone else there.
Twice she touched Kikun s arm and he tossed a gas grenade ahead of them,
taking out a handmaid and an insomniac wan-derer.
##
Goyo don t like change, Ingra said. I d bet my life he ll have the same room.
She grinned rather nastily, then said, well, make that your life. The big
room, second floor front, north side. There are peepholes, she said,
and a runway along the back of the rooms. Sometimes the Chu-pey lets clients
go in there and watch. Mostly it s for times when the clients get too rough
and need to be cooled down. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]