from within. She pried at the seal, scraping for the wires, but the opening was too narrow. Then, distantly, she heard a voice shout something indistinct: Tremoth’s securitrons had figured out where she’d gone. There was no time left for finesse. She sighed, sliding the knife back into its sheath, and depressed the lock release. Instantly, the alarm wailed, a strident, two-toned siren, loud enough to hurt the ears, and the door swung outward, letting in a wedge of bright blued light from the piazzetta’s artificial suns. She blinked, blinded, but stumbled out onto the harder tile, blinking hard to clear her sight. Green clouds danced in front of her, obscuring all but the vaguest shapes; from a distance, she heard someone shout, and then the shrilling of a securitron’s whistle. She swore, ‘pointer manners forgotten, turned blindly to her right, where the maze of shops should begin, and felt someone grasp her left arm just above the elbow. She turned instinctively into the hold, her right hand coming up in the proper counterblow, and that too was blocked and held.
“My,” a too-familiar voice said in her ear, “haven’t you made a mess of things.”
CHAPTER 9
Heikki let herself be drawn away from the whooping alarm and the confused shouts, stumbling on suddenly uneven tiles. Then she was pushed through a door into darkness, and then through a second door into the subdued lights of a side tunnel. A hand snatched at her turban, pulling it loose, and Galler said, “Must you wear precinct clothes? You stand out like a sore thumb.”
“I work in the precincts,” Heikki said, and grabbed back the strip of cloth. Her sight had cleared now; they stood in one of the deliveryways that ran between the blocks of shops, the passage empty now except for neatly flattened and stacked piles of used packaging. She folded her turban as small as possible, grimly aware that Galler was right, her clothing was conspicuous, and then, changing her mind, wound the strip of cloth around her waist in imitation of a fashionable nuobi. It would help hide her own belt, with its many pockets, too. She shook her head vigorously, then ran her fingers through her tangled hair, trying to shape it into something resembling a style. Galler frowned, and fumbled in the pockets of his well-cut jacket until he produced a length of black ribbon. Heikki glared, but took it, and bound her hair into a short tail, then stooped to fasten all the clasps of her shift. That closed the walking slits, narrowing the skirt to a fashionable silhouette, and Galler nodded grudging approval.
“Better, anyway,” he said, and glanced over his shoulder. “Come on.” He started down the deliveryway without looking back.
Heikki made a face, but followed, enough in control of her temper to recognize necessity. “What the hell were you doing there?”
Galler glanced back, a cherub’s smile playing on his lips. It was an expression that rarely failed to drive Heikki to attempt homicide. This time, however, she controlled herself with an effort, and repeated her question.
Galler’s smile broadened. “Waiting for you.”
“And if you knew I was going to be there,” Heikki said, her voice thin with anger and the need to suppress it, “why did you let me run myself into that trouble?”
Galler shrugged. “I needed to. Did you, by any chance, pick up the disks that were in my machine?”
Heikki’s jaw dropped, and then she closed her mouth firmly over her first response. He had known she would do it, he had known—had assumed, after twenty years of almost no contact between them—that she would take the time to steal his disks, and, worse, he had been right. “No,” she said deliberately. “Are you crazy? Why would I do a thing like that?” She was savagely glad to see his face fall.
“It would have been useful—” Galler began—betrayed, Heikki thought, into an unguarded utterance?—and then cut himself off. He said, with an attempt at his earlier manner, “Oh, well, I suppose it doesn’t matter. You always were too honest, Heikki.”
“Not a family fault, I see,” Heikki murmured, and was rewarded by a single angry glance before Galler had himself under control again.
“But profitable, you must admit.” They were almost at the end of the deliveryway, and he took a deep breath, stepping out onto the main street.
Heikki followed, grateful for the crowd of pedestrians that swallowed them instantly. This was one of the major markets, specializing in gems; the pedestrians were uniformly well-dressed, the professional dealers in expensive, casual clothes mingling with and deliberately indistinguishable from the tourists who moved slowly along the promenade, stopping now and then to gawk at the merchandise displayed on the shops’ window screens. There were corporate hacks as well, but not so many of them, and most of them wore their uniforms with a difference that suggested they were of sufficient rank to ignore the house rules. A bit above my usual company, Heikki thought, automatically matching her pace to that of the people around her.
“What now?” she said under her breath, and smiled blankly at her brother.
“We catch a jitney at the end of the plaza,” Galler answered, and Heikki frowned.
“Not here—?” she began, and realized her mistake almost as soon as she had spoken.
“Traffic restricted,” Galler answered. “They’re worried about crime, want to cut off the escape routes.” He took her arm in what seemed to be a polite gesture. The grip bit hard, and Heikki suppressed a curse. “Don’t look back.”
Heikki did as she was told, her mouth setting briefly into an ugly grimace. Obeying the pressure on her arm, she slowed before a display of jewelry, cage-coronet and bracelets and heavy collar, set with flawed PDE crystals. Even in the imperfect reproduction of the window, the crystals flared blue and white, strikingly beautiful against the black metal mesh that formed both backing and setting.
“The mesh is an energy damper—lavanite, I think,” Galler said. “Otherwise there’d be a danger of random discharge injuring the owner or his or her companions.”
I do know that, Heikki thought, irritated, and then realized that they were within earshot of another couple. She smiled sweetly and said, “One wouldn’t want that, of course. Just think of the insurance.”
Galler’s lips twitched—as much in surprise, Heikki thought, as in amusement—but he answered with commendable steadiness, “No, the liability would be high.”
The stranger couple had moved away. Heikki kept her smile as she said, “What’s going on, Galler?”
“Securitrons,” her brother answered tightly. “Behind us, coming up the street.” He turned away from the window, his hand still linked lightly, urgently through her elbow, drawing her on up the street. Behind them, Heikki could hear exclamations and the shrill peep of a whistle, and fought down the urge to run.
“What in the world—?” a strange voice exclaimed, quite close by, and Galler drew Heikki into the relative shelter of a shop entrance.
“Robbery?” he called over his shoulder, and a moment later they were joined by a well-dressed man whose face, close up, was a little too hard for his fine suit. A carrycase was slung over one shoulder, apparently idly, but then Heikki saw his knuckles go white on the strap. A jewel courier, she guessed, and made herself look anywhere except at the case. On the street, pedestrians scattered to either side of the main travelway, tourists’ voices rising in immodest alarm as they tried to crowd against the shop windows and entrances. The merchants had locked their doors at the first hint of trouble. Heikki could see a frightened face staring through a peephole almost level with her shoulder. Then the securitrons swept by, a dozen of them riding two-man hoverfans, a dozen more on foot. Heikki stared in genuine astonishment—all this for me? or for him, she added silently, certainly, and could not help glancing at Galler. On her other side, the jewel courier whispered something that might have been a curse.
“What is the name of—?” someone else began, and remembered belatedly where she was.
And then the procession had swept past out of sight, whistles shrilling again to clear the intersection. Heikki allowed herself a soundless sigh of relief, and looked at Galler, who silenced her with a pressure of his hand. All around them, voices rose in worried speculation, here and there a voice demanding petulantly or in genuine fear to be taken home at once. Only she and Galler and the courier were silent, and she saw the courier eyeing them sidelong, the hard eyes narrowing.
She pitched her voice high, aiming for the fashionable squeal she found intolerable. “What could that have been about?” she cried. Galler gave her an irritated look, but the jewel courier looked away, his suspicion visibly easing. “I think we should leave, right now.”
