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i need to speak to her privately, if I might.'
Dhival looks surprised. 'Fine. Just go back, then.'
Aiah finds the office and knocks on the open door, and Khorsa looks up from a
thick ledger. Splendid in her scarlet temple robes, she rises to give Aiah a
hug. At the touch of Khorsa's cool cheek on her own, Aiah feels a degree of
tension ebbing from her.
Khorsa looks at the pillow Aiah carries and says, 'Can I loan you a robe?'
'The pillow's camouflage. Actually I was hoping for some help.'
Khorsa draws back, looks at Aiah, and shows no surprise at all. 'Of course,
after everything we owe you. What do you need?'
'There are two Jaspeeri men following me. I want to evade them for a few
hours.'
Khorsa tilts her head and considers the problem. 'Evade how? I can send a
message to the Vampire clubhouse and have those two sent to a hospital, if
that's what you want.'
'No. That would only get people in trouble. All I'd like is to get out the
back way, if there is one, and for you to make certain I'm not being followed
till I get to the pneuma station.' Aiah reaches into her tote, pulls out the
full plasm battery. 'Can you or Dhival use telepresence technique?'
'I'm better at it than she is,' Khorsa said. 'But you don't have to give me
plasm. I can dip my own well.'
Finger-cymbals begin chiming from the temple. Aiah holds the battery out.
'Take it. It's too heavy to carry with me.'
Khorsa looks at the battery, reluctance on her face, then takes it in her
many-ringed hands. She looks back at Aiah. 'Dare I ask what this is about?'
it's very complicated,' Aiah says, hoping she won't have to make a passu out
of Khorsa, but the tiny woman keeps looking at her, and finally Aiah gives in.
'Those two are police,' Aiah says, i found out some things about their
department it involves corruption and now I want to get away from them for
a while.'
Khorsa absorbs this and shifts at once to practical matters. 'Do you need
shelter?'
'Oh no. Thank you. If I can get a few hours away from them, things will settle
themselves. I just need to know that no one is following me neither those
two, nor a mage.'
Khorsa nods, i'd best go into the temple and let them know that someone else
will have to beat the drum during the service. Wait here. I'll be back.'
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Khorsa puts the plasm battery on her desk and bustles out. Aiah takes off her
beige jacket and puts it into her tote, then takes out the blue jacket and
puts it on. She pins up her long hair, then pulls the floppy hat out of her
tote and puts it on.
A drum beats tentatively in the temple and Khorsa returns. She looks at Aiah,
reaches up to tug the hat brim more firmly into place, and then nods, if I see
anyone following,' she says, 'I'll give a signal. A red glow right in front of
your face. I'll try to make certain you're, not blinded, but I want you to see
it.'
Aiah nods. 'If they follow you, what will you do then? Will you need
protection?'
'I'll come back and attend the service. Then I'll go home, and I'll know that
they're better than I had reason to suspect.'
Khorsa purses her lips and looks thoughtful, i wish I could give you more
help.' The drum beats steadily now and Aiah can hear Dhival calling for
everyone to enter the temple. The worshipers begin clapping and chiming finger
cymbals as they file in.
'Might as well get started,' Khorsa says. She reaches behind the desk, opens a
small door, reveals a plasm connection and contacts. Khorsa produces a t-grip
from her robe pocket, jacks it into the connection, and then settles herself
into her chair.
The battery remains on her desk. Perhaps she means to return it to Aiah later,
or maybe she just wants the city's well because it gives her more flexibility.
'I'll scout the outside of the building first,' she says. 'If someone's
watching the back alley we may have to rethink everything.'
Khorsa closes her eyes in concentration, and Aiah uneasily shifts her tote
from one shoulder to the other. She can feel perspiration gathering under her
hat brim.
Music rises and falls, an invocation of Dhoran of the Dead. Aiah pictures it
spilling out into the street through the open windows, the Jaspeeri cops
looking up and wondering.
A laugh bubbles up from Khorsa's lips. 'They're both out front,' she says.
'They are looking very uncomfortable. What kind of cops are these? You'd think
they'd be more at home on the street.'
'Authority cops.'
'Oh.' Dismissively. 'No wonder.' There is another moment of silence. 'No one
in the alley,' she says. 'No one watching that I can see.'
Jump to it, girl, Aiah thinks. But her feet don't move, she stands in place
and looks at Khorsa and suddenly wants never to leave, to shelter here forever
amid the sweet smell of herbs, the music and chanting ...
It is Dhoran of the Dead they are invoking, she remembers, and thinks of the
barges trailing little wisps of ash as they move down the Martyrs' Canal.
Her legs jerk as if hit by an electric shock, and take her out of the room
faster than the speed of thought.
Down the stair, out the back hall. The tote bangs against her hip. She hits
the back door, pushes it open against resistance. Something clatters as the
door opens, and she steps out into an alley that smells of urine and rotting
food.
The alley is filled with broken glass, old furniture and piles of human feces.
Whoever lives here doesn't seem to be around at the moment, and Aiah darts
around the worst of the mess. The sound of chanting follows her like a
friendly memory. Once out of the alley she heads east in order to put several
streets between her and the Authority cops, and then turns north to the pneuma
station. The pneuma isn't really in this neighborhood, being almost a radius
away, but with brisk walking she thinks she can probably make it in ten or
twelve minutes.
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She crosses a street and marches halfway down the block before she recognizes
the big building coming up on her left, the old temple covered with stone
carvings, the vines and monsters that loom at her out of her childhood. The
porch before the steel doors is dusted with rice and other offerings.
Aiah slows as she passes, then dips a hand into her pocket, pulls out some
coins, and flings them at the steel door. They splash like the silver drops of
a fountain as they strike, a series of clean ringing sounds; and Aiah turns
her back on the place, laughs and runs onward.
She hopes Khorsa is amused.
No red lights appear in front of her face. There is a long, anxious wait on a
cold, empty pneuma station. A stray sad thought of Gil sticks like a lump in
her throat: he will return home to an empty apartment, to bills his salary
won't cover. She will have to send him money from her bank account, twenty or
thirty thousand, something that will pay for half the apartment.
She climbs aboard the pneuma once it arrives, and it takes her straight to
Gold Town InterMet, where she buys a ticket for Karapoor. Anxiety tingles
through her thoughts as she has to show her passport to the sleepy-eyed ticket
clerk to prove she can get into Karapoor there might be a watch out on her.
But the clerk doesn't even glance at the picture, punches the button on her
console, and Aiah's token spins down a gray metal slide into her hand.
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