Mei unstraps her arm and leg and wipes the back of her hand on the sling. 'You can't wipe it off,' he says, shaking his head and pinching his chin
ruefully. 'It's already entered your blood.'
She rolls out of the sling and pushes pugnaciously close, ready to block or punch. 'What've you put in me?' she asks hotly.
His creamy smile does not flinch. 'A mild euphoric-this time.' He points a finger at her nose, and she hops backward.
In midstep, the haptic drug swells into her brain, and the edge of her anger dulls. She hears the plash of rivulets and small waterfalls from somewhere among the giant trees, and the cedary cinnamon of the tree smoke expands her sinuses. This eases the thumping of her heart, and she regards the Commonality agent with calmness and dignity.
He doesn't appear as threatening now that she is standing. He's slender,
almost frail, a shimmery wraith in silken, flouncy green chemise and white baggy
slacks cut at midshin to display crimson-trimmed black socks and slippers. When he moves, his terrene body drifts with balletic ease in the lighter gravity, and he seems nearly insubstantial.
'What do you want from me?' she asks.
'I want you to sit down.' Sitor Ananta closes his eyes sleepily, and she does not retreat when he slides closer, his blue fragrance cool, bitingly sweet, the frosty spice of a rocky snowfield. The scent jumps through her blood, reminding her whole body of the last time she sensed this precise olfaction, among the runout rubble of the avalanche that buried her family. The stabbing exactitude of the scent punctures the strength in her knees, and she sags, almost falling backward. He steadies her arm, and she sits down on the mossy flagstone, her face jarred loose of all emotion.
Sitor Ananta squats beside her, his pug profile close to her ear. 'Softcopy has refused to forward the credits for Shau Bandar's revival,' he whispers.
'That's a lie.' She leans away from him but cannot quite find the strength to stand. 'I was with him when he spoke with Bo Rabana. Softcopy agreed to fund him.'
'Think back.' Sitor Ananta allows himself a gloating grin. 'You left without any formal agreement. Bo Rabana has been overriden by executives who don't want to pay steep unauthorized expenses. Shau Bandar will be treated now like any other corpse in Soils. They will cremate him. Do you know what that is? It's the archaic practice of incinerating the body at temperatures hot enough to reduce the bones to powder.'
Mei struggles to her feet and staggers backward from the agent, nearly tripping on a root coil. 'Stay away from me,' she mumbles, a numbing weariness soaking her. 'I know what you're doing. You're poisoning me.'
'Nonsense.' He leans against a lux stanchion and crosses his arms. 'I'm acquainting you with me. With my ways. I am very persuasive. I was created to be. With my skills I can pretty much have my way with the rubes of Solis. But I don't underestimate their rote stubbornness at defying the Commonality. Even with my olfacts, I cannot hope to just walk out of here with Mr. Charlie.'
'Why do you want him so badly?' She draws a deep breath of the floral air, trying to flush her lungs.
'Perhaps I will tell you sometime.' He shoots her a cunning look. 'For now it is enough for you to know I want him, and you must do nothing to obstruct me from having him. If you help me, I will provide the credits for Shau Bandar's revival.'
'Get away from me,' Mei says, raising her voice. 'I don't want to talk to you anymore.'
'Fine.' Sitor Ananta stands erect and shows his palms with mocking formality. 'I'm sure we will find each other again in the courts and lanes. Soils is a small place.'
Mei watches him retreat among the piers of buttress roots, and as his sapphire scent fades in the green, birdloud air, the helpless weariness she feels passes and anger thrums into place.
Through the sparkling morning of the Fountain Court, Exu and Hannas Bowan hurry. They are the dyad lot- selected to serve as the reception agents for today's foundlings, and they are late. Yet even in their haste, they are careful never to disrupt their synchronized grace. Exu strides in strict lockstep with Hannas as they bicker in their humclick speech: 'My other concerns are just as vital as dealing with foundlings. Not more vital, Hannas. I said just as vital.'
'You didn't review the file. That's what all this protesting is about, isn't it, Exu?'
'There wasn't time.'
'Tsk, Exu. This one's interesting. It's a Maat approach. Closest in twelve years. And-you'll appreciate this even more-it's a big credit reception. Crates of psyonic core units to be sold off. Can't have them in here, right? And then there's an archaic brain that-'
'A brain, Hannas? I take it you mean a human brain?'
'Yes, an archaic human brain, my heartsong. You should have reviewed the file. It's fascinating.'
'How was I to know this wasn't going to be the usual monkey troupe?'
'It is a monkey troupe, Exu. There they are.' She directs his attention to three figures gawking at the rainbows among the electrostatically shaped veils of water in the Fountain Court. They are terrene humans, the stocky, long-armed
aboriginals that Exu derides as monkeys. Two women and a man or a morph. 'He's a morph,' Hannas says, reading the quizzical cant of her mate's head. 'He's the Commonality agent who is going to purchase the psyonic core units for full
market value.'
'What?' Exu looks at the slight and simian shape of the agent. 'Why is he paying so much?'
'You should have viewed the file, dear. Just follow me.' She climbs the polished chalcedony stairs to the fern- trellised estrade overlooking the rainbow crests of the Fountain Court.
