deny.
One of Lamey's boys drove Gredel from the rendezvous to her mother's building. Gredel took the stairs instead of the elevator because it gave her time to think. By the time she got to her mother's door, she had the beginnings of an idea.
But first she had to tell her mother about Lamey, and why she had to move in with Caro. “Of course, honey,” Ava said. She took Gredel's hands and pressed them. “Of course you've got to go.”
Loyalty to her man was what Ava knew, Gredel thought. She had been arrested and sentenced to years in the country for a man she'd hardly ever seen again. She'd spent her life sitting alone amid expensive decor, waiting for one man or another to show up. She was beautiful, but in the bright summer light Gredel could see the first cracks in her mother's faзade, the faint lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth that the years would only broaden. When the beauty faded, the men would fade, too.
Ava had cast her lot with beauty and with men, neither of which would last. If Gredel remained with Lamey, or with some other linkboy, she would be following Ava's path.
The next morning, Gredel took a pair of bags to Caro's place and let herself in. Caro was asleep, so far gone in torpor that she didn't wake when Gredel padded into the bedroom and took her wallet with its identification. Gredel slipped out again and went to a bank, where she opened an account in the name of Caroline, Lady Sula, and deposited three-quarters of what Lamey had given her.
When asked for a thumbprint, she gave her own.
When Gredel returned from the bank, she found Caro groping with a shivering hand for her first cup of coffee. After Caro took the coffee to the bathroom for the long bath that would soak away the stale alcohol from her pores, Gredel replaced Caro's wallet, then opened the computer link and transferred some of Caro's money, ten zeniths only, to her new account, just to make certain that it worked.
It worked fine.
I have just done a criminal act, she thought. A criminal act that can be traced to me.
Whatever she may have done before, it hadn't been this.
After Caro's bath, she and Gredel went to a cafй for breakfast, and Gredel told her about Lamey being on the run and she asked if she could move in with Caro so that he would be able to send for her. Caro was thrilled. She had never heard of anything so romantic in her life.
Romantic? Gredel thought. It was sordid beyond belief.
But Caro hadn't been in the sultry little room in the Lyone quarter, the smell of ammonia in her nostrils while Lamey's sweat rained down on her. Let her keep her illusions.
“Thank you,” she said. But she knew that once she was with Caro, it wouldn't be long before Caro would grow bored with her, or impatient, or angry. Whatever Gredel was going to do, it would have to be soon.
“I don't know how often Lamey's going to send for me,” she said. “But I hope it's not on your birthday. I'd like you and I to celebrate that together.”
The scowl on Caro's face was immediate, and predictable. “Birthday? My birthday was last winter.” The scowl deepened. “That was the last time Sergei and I were together.”
“Birthday?” Gredel said, in her Earth accent. “I meant Earthday, darling.” And when Caro's scowl began to look dangerous, she added quickly, “Your birthday in Earth years. I do the math, see, it's a kind of game. And your Earthday is next week-you'll be fifteen.” Gredel smiled. “The same age as me, I turned fifteen Earth years just before I met you.”
It wasn't true, not exactly-Caro's Earthday was in three months-but Gredel knew that Caro would never do the math. Might not even know how to do it.
There was so much Caro didn't know. The knowledge brought a kind of savage pleasure to Gredel's mind. Caro didn't know anything, didn't even know that her best friend hated her. She didn't know that Gredel had stolen her money and her identity only an hour ago, and could do it again whenever she wanted.
The days went by and were even pleasurable in a strange, disconnected way. Gredel thought she finally understood what it was like to be Caro, to have nothing that attached her to anything, to have long hours to fill and nothing to fill them with but whatever impulse drifted into her mind. Gredel felt that way herself-mentally, at least, she was cutting her own ties free, all of them, floating free of everything she'd known.
To save herself trouble, Gredel exerted herself to please Caro, and Caro responded. Caro's mood was sunny, and she laughed and joked and dressed Gredel like a doll, as she always had. Behind her pleasing mask, Gredel despised Caro for being so easily manipulated. You're so stupid, she thought.
But pleasing Gredel brought trouble of its own, because when Lamey's boy called for her, Gredel was standing in the rain, in a Torminel neighborhood, trying to buy Caro a cartridge of endorphin analog-with Lamey's businesses in eclipse, she could no longer get the stuff from Panda.
When Gredel finally connected with her ride and got to the place where Lamey was hiding-he was back in the Terran Fabs, at least-he had been waiting for hours, and his patience was gone. He got her alone in the bedroom and slapped her around for a while, telling her it was her fault, that she had to know that she had to be where he could find her when he needed her.
Gredel lay on her back on the bed, letting him do what he wanted, and she thought, This is going to be my whole life if I don't get out of here. She looked at the pistol Lamey had waiting on the bedside table for whoever he thought might kick down the door, and she thought about grabbing the pistol and blowing Lamey's brains out. Or her own brains. Or just walking into the street with the pistol and blowing out brains at random.
No, she thought. Stick to the plan.
Lamey gave her five hundred zeniths afterward. Maybe that was an apology.
Sitting in the car later, with her bruised cheek swelling and the money crumpled in her hand and Lamey's slime still drooling down her thigh, she thought about calling the Legion of Diligence and letting them know where Lamey was hiding. But, instead, she told the boy to take her to a pharmacy near Caro's place.
She walked inside and found a box of plasters that would soak up the bruises, and she took it to the drug counter in the back. The older woman behind the counter looked at her face with knowing sympathy. “Anything else, honey?”
“Yes,” Gredel said. “Two vials of Phenyldorphin-Zed.”
She was required to sign the Narcotics Book for the endorphin analog, and the name she scrawled was Sula.
Caro was outraged by Gredel's bruises. “Lamey comes round here again, I'll kick him in the balls!” she said. “I'll hit him with a chair!”
“Forget about it,” Gredel said wearily. She didn't want demonstrations of loyalty from Caro right now. Her feelings were confused enough: she didn't want to start having to like Caro all over again.
Caro pulled Gredel into the bedroom and cleaned her face, and then she cut the plasters to fit Gredel's face and applied them. She did a good enough job at sopping up the bruises and swelling so that the next day, when the plasters were removed, the bruises had mostly disappeared, leaving behind some faint discoloration, easily covered with cosmetics. Her whole face hurt, though, and so did her ribs and her solar plexus where Lamey had hit her.
Caro brought Gredel breakfast from the cafй and hovered around her until Gredel wanted to shriek.
If you want to help, she thought at Caro, take your appointment to the academy and get us both out of here.
But Caro didn't answer the mental command. And her solicitude faded by afternoon, when she opened the day's first bottle. It was vodka flavored with bison grass, which explained the strange fusil-oil overtones Gredel had scented on Caro's skin the last few days. By mid-afternoon, Caro had consumed most of the bottle and fallen asleep on the couch.
Gredel felt a small, chill triumph at this. It was good to be reminded why she hated her friend.
Next day was Caro's phony Earthday. Last chance, Gredel thought at her. Last chance to mention the academy. But the word never passed Caro's lips.
“I want to pay you back for everything you've done,” Gredel said. “Your Earthday is on me.” She put her arm
