to dissipate and the purple shadows crept between the stalls, the vendors would break down their displays and motor away, to set up the next day in another part of the city.
As Sula walked past on her way to her apartment, the rifle in its case under one arm, vendors called her attention to cheap women’s clothing, baby clothes, shoes, stockings, scarves, rubbery Bogo toys, inexpensive dolls, cheap puzzles and games. There were bolts of fabric, foils of music and entertainment, sun lotion and sun hats, and knit items—unseasonable in the heat—alleged to be made from the fleece of Yormak cattle, and sold at a surprisingly low price.
Despite the heat, the market was thronged. Tired and hot, Sula elbowed her way impatiently through the crowd to her doorstep. A glance to one side showed that One-Step wasn’t in his accustomed place. She entered the building, then heard the chime of a hand comm through her apartment door and made haste to enter. She put the rifle case down, snatched up the comm from the table and answered, panting.
Casimir surveyed her from the display. She could watch his eyes travel insolently over her image as far as the frame would permit.
“Too bad,” he said. “I was hoping to catch you in the bath again.”
“Better luck next time.” Sula switched on the room coolers, and somewhere in the building a tired compressor began to wheeze and faint currents of air to stir. She dropped into a chair near theju yao pot, and holding the comm in one hand, began to loosen her boots with the other.
“I want to see you tonight,” Casimir said. “I’ll pick you up at 2101, all right?”
“Why don’t I meet you at the club?”
“Nothing happens at the club that early.” He frowned. “Don’t you want me to know where you live?”
“I don’t have a place of my own,” Sula lied cheerfully. “I sort of bounce between friends.”
“Well.” Grudgingly. “I’ll see you at the club then.”
She had time to bathe, get a bite to eat, and work for a while on the next issue ofResistance, the one with the schematics for Sidney’s do-it-yourself rifle. Then she dressed, dabbed Sengra on her throat, and trotted out of the apartment, the rifle case still under her arm. The sun was low in the viridian sky and the heat rose in waves, but the Textile Market was still thronged. People felt safe in such numbers, she thought, even though if she were a Naxid looking for hostages, she’d think of a park or an open-air market first thing.
One-Step stood in his usual place, wearing baggy shorts and a scarred leather vest. “Hey One-Step,” Sula said.
A brilliant smile blossomed on his face. “Hello, beauteous lady. How are you this lovely evening?”
He smelled as if he hadn’t bathed for a few long hot summer days, a fact she did her best to ignore. “Do you know a man named Julien? A friend of Casimir’s?”
The smile vanished at once. “One-Step advises you to stay away from such people, lovely one.”
“If I’m supposed to stay away from him, you’d better tell me why.”
One-Step scowled. “Julien’s the son of Sergius Bakshi. And Sergius is the boss of the Riverside Clique. You don’t get any worse than Sergius.”
Sula nodded, impressed. Sergius was not only a clique leader, he’d cheated the executioner long enough to have a grown son. Few of his kind stayed alive that long.
“Thanks, One-Step.”
One-Step looked bleak. “You’re not going to follow One-Step’s advice, are you? You’re going out with Julien tonight.”
“He’s not the one who asked me out. Good night, One-Step! Thanks!”
“You’re making a mistake,” One-Step said darkly.
Sula negotiated the crowds at the Textile Market, then ducked down a sun-blasted side street, trying to keep on the shady side. The heat still took her breath away. She made another turn, then entered the delightfully cool air of a block-shaped storage building built in the shadow of the even larger Riverside Crematorium. She showed her false ID to the Cree at the desk, then took the elevator upstairs and opened one of Team 491’s storage caches. There, she stowed the rifle case alongside the other rifle cases, the cases of ammunition and grenades and explosives and body armor.
For a moment she hesitated. Then she opened one of the cases, withdrew a small item and pocketed it.
Casimir waited by his car in front of the Cat Street club with an impatient scowl on his face and his walking stick in his hand. He wore a soft white shirt covered with minutely stitched braid. As she appeared, he stabbed the door button, and the glossy apricot-colored door rolled up into the car roof. “Ihate being kept waiting,” he growled in his deep voice, and took her arm roughly to stuff her into the passenger compartment.
This too, Sula remembered, was what it was like to be a clique member’s girlfriend.
Sula settled herself on apricot-colored plush across from Julien and Veronika, the latter in fluttery garb and a cloud of Sengra. Casimir thudded into the seat next to her and rolled down the door, Sula called up the chronometer on her sleeve display.
“I’m three minutes early,” she said primly, in what she trusted was a math teacher’s voice. “I’m sorry if I spoiled your evening.”
Casimir gave an unsociable grunt. Veronika popped her blue eyes wide and said, “The boys are taking us shopping!”
Sula remembered that too.
“Where?” she said.
“It’s a surprise,” Julien said, and slid open the door on the vehicle’s bar. “Anyone want something to drink?”
The Torminel behind the controls slipped the car smoothly from the curb on its six tires. Sula had a Citrine Fling while the rest drank Kyowan. The vehicle passed through Grandview to the Petty Mount, a district in the shadow of the High City, beneath the Couch of Eternity where the ashes of the Shaa masters waited in their niches for the end of time. The area was lively, filled with boutiques, bars, cafes, and eccentric shops that sold folk crafts or antiques or old jewelry. Sula saw Cree and Lai-own on the streets as well as Terrans.
The car pulled to a smooth stop before a shop called Raiment by Chesko, and the apricot-colored doors rolled open. They stepped from the vehicle and were greeted at the door by a female Daimong whose gray body was wrapped in a kind of satin sheath that looked strangely attractive on her angular body with its matchstick arms. In a chiming voice she greeted Casimir by name.
“Gredel, this is Miss Chesko,” Casimir told Sula in a voice that suggested both her importance and his own.
“Pleased to meet you,” Sula said.
The shop was a three-level fantasy filled with sumptuous fabrics in brilliant colors, all set against neutral- colored walls of a translucent resinous substance that let in the fading light of the sun. Gossamer Cree music floated tastefully in the air.
A Daimong who designed clothes for Terrans was something new in Sula’s experience. The shop must have had excellent air circulation, or Chesko wore something that suppressed the odor of her rotting flesh, because Sula didn’t scent her even once.
Casimir’s mood changed the instant he entered the shop. He walked from one rack to the next and heaved out clothing for Sula or Veronika to try on. He held garments critically to the light and ran his hands over the glossy, rich fabrics. Veronika’s were soft and bright and shimmered; Sula’s were satiny and tended to the darker shades, with light accents in the form of a scarf, lapel, or collar.
He’s dressing me as a woman of mystery,Sula thought.
His antennae were rather acute.
Sula looked at herself in the full-length video display and suspected his tastes were fairly good as well— though she was forced to admit that she couldn’t be certain herself; her own dress sense was so undeveloped that she wasn’t sure of her judgment.
She found that she enjoyed herself playing model, displaying one rich garment after another. Casimir offered informed comment as she changed outfits, twitched the clothing to a better drape, and sorted the clothing into piles of yesses, maybes, rejects. Chesko made respectful suggestions in her bell-like tones. Shop assistants ran back and forth with mountains of clothing in their arms.
It hadn’t been like this with Lamey, Sula remembered. When he walked into a shop with Gredel, the assistants knew to bring out their flashiest, most expensive clothing, and he’d buy them with a wave of his hand
