"I'm going to leave no later than noon tomorrow." He said, coming to enfold her in his arms. "And you're right, that doesn't give us much time." ,
It was the first time she could recall him failing to read her thoughts, and she suspected it was deliberate. He bent and kissed her with a single-minded dedication that she couldn't resist. They had their own bedroom now, and they used it.
Sometime past midnight, he lay back exhausted and fell into a typically heavy Gen sleep. She reveled in it for a while, and then got up, took a snack plate from the refrigerator, and went to the lab.
As she'd suspected, Jarmi was there, having slept the late afternoon away and found herself too wakeful to laze in bed all night. "Hungry?" asked Laneff.
"You know me by now, don't you?" asked Jarmi investigating the plate. "Oh, yum, real food!" she said, tasting the nut bread. "Here, I've got some hot trin tea. Let's eat!"
They took the tea and nut bread to Jarmi's desk, set across the end of one workbench, and Laneff said, "Tomorrow, I'm finally going to get a sample of that other drug Shanlun had Digen on when I gave him K/A! They call it kerduvon around here. We're going to have to figure out how to analyze the stuff, but if we can, maybe we can figure out what caused Digen's death. Did the cadaver tentacles arrive?"
"Yes, they're in the refrigerator. I'm afraid there isn't much I can help with on those selyn conductivity tests!"
"Don't worry. I'll be back to start them as soon as Shanlun leaves in the morning. Meanwhile, you're going to have to do an analysis on this kerduvon sample, at least find out what kind of trouble it'll give in the chromatograph."
"It'll muck up the column for sure."
"I'll figure on repacking the column and make some extras."
Licking honey off her fingers and tentacles, Laneff got to work analyzing Azevedo's yield of the afternoon. Jarmi puttered around awhile and finally fell asleep on a cot they'd had brought into the lab. Just before dawn, Laneff had some preliminary results: Azevedo's yield had been immeasurably close to the theoretical yield for the equations. And it was nearly pure.
When she told Shanlun as he was dressing, she let her dismay show clearly. He threw back his head and laughed. "I know what you mean. It's enough to make anyone wish to be an endowed channel!" Then he sobered. "Well, at least now we know the secret. And all that's left is to teach it to Jarmi!"
CHAPTER 10
NEED
The noon sun beat down on the courtyard. Laundry hung on sagging lines in sunny corners. Bedding lolled out of windows like heat-struck tongues. The cacophony of colors dazzled the eye, and the riotous play of swarms of children numbed the ear. A buff-clad man leaned out a window, beating a dusty rug, sending clouds of dog hair into the light breeze. A woman who was fixing a bicycle in one shady spot yelled as a group of children waded through her tools playing Sime~Gen wars and laughing in high shrieks.
Laneff stood in the cool of the main doorway with Shanlun. They were waiting for his car to be driven up from wherever it was stored. The gypsies in the surrounding buildings, Laneff had discovered, were "real." And they accepted the Rathorites with a respect bordering on awe. No outsider ever penetrated this deep into the courtyard. Looking at the spectacle, smelling the heavy odor of their cooking, Laneff could understand why nobody would want to.
"You said Mairis is on this side of the ocean now. How will you find him?"
"Read the newspapers. I can read languages I can't even speak, and we have friends all over. All I have to do is find a certain tribe, and they'll get me in to see Mairis."
"I don't understand! You're going to wander around the countryside until you find this gypsy tribe you've never met before and just tell them to sneak you past the tightest security cordon this continent has seen since the time of Kishrin the Eighth?"
"Before I went to Digen, I was trained by the Company. Gypsies do not wander around at random. And they leave clear sign for their own to follow. Finding them will be easy. Getting to Mairis may be harder. I don't want to announce myself to the whole Tecton, so only Mairis is to know I'm alive."
Privately, she doubted Mairis would go along with that. "The other thing that worries me is that message from Yuan that Azevedo got this morning." The development had delayed Shanlun's departure by a few hours. Yuan's first refuge had been destroyed before he got there, so he'd gone on to his second choice, sending a message by a stray gypsy. Now, Shanlun was to be the first of Azevedo's regular messengers to call on Yuan.
"Look, Yuan's place is right on my way, and I can carry a message from Yuan to Mairis. Azevedo insists Yuan has a right to know of the baby—and your success."
Laneff didn't quarrel with that. And Azevedo was right that Yuan really could use the encouragement. "The Distect hideouts are all targets right now. It's dangerous to stay overnight with Yuan!"
"True. But Mairis is also a target."
Laneff had no idea why the Rathorites were so supportive of Yuan and Mairis both. When she asked Jarmi, the Gen had answered that Azevedo had been around ever since she'd met Yuan. It'd never occurred to her to question it. To Laneff, the Rathorites were gypsies that were nuttier than most gypsies, and there was no way to> fathom their motives. Yet it Was obvious that something deep in their way of life was congruent with Digen's dream of Unity—and Yuan's: Sime and Gen living together without fear or distrust. And to that end, they unquestioningly took all sorts of risks.
With a shudder, she turned into Shanlun's arms. "There are so many dangers!" But she held back the plea Don't go!
At that moment, the car nosed through the archway from the street and crept down the narrow alley between gypsy-occupied buildings into the courtyard, scattering children and weaving politely through laundry lines. It drew up before the door, a pale-beige jalopy lacking one fender and with a rack of empty chicken cages on the top. The front cargo compartment was tied down with hemp rope that dragged under the car. One shattered side window was taped, but the tires were new.
The Sime woman driving it got out. Laneff knew her as a Rathor instructor. "Shan!" said Laneff shocked. "You're not going Ito drive that halfway across this continent, are you? You'll never make it!"
He laughed," as did the driver. Shanlun said a few placating words to the driver in their dialect and told Laneff, "Selitta wouldn't give me a run-down car, Laneff!"
Laneff closed her mouth over her outrage and just looked at him. He laughed again and tugged her toward the rear of the car. "Start it up, Selitta!"
She got in while Laneff was treated to a view of the engine compartment. The engine housing was clean, and much smaller than the fittings had originally been designed for. Obviously new. The selyn battery was likewise of the latest design, and a spare battery also shimmered brightly with packed selyn. As Selitta started the Laneff zlinned the smooth clean running of the engine.
"Good!" called Shanlun. "Now run the jiggler."
Another, smaller selyn-powered motor coughed to life, producing noise and vibration such as the car had displayed on entering the court. Now the selyn fields wavered like those of a truly decrepit car.
"See? It's a disguise. The brakes and bearings are all new, but disguised. It's Selitta's specialty."
As the woman stopped the motor and got out, Laneff apologized. "It's a great disguise!"
Shanlun picked up a patched and stained canvas bag filled with his things and tossed it into the dirty-looking back seat of the car. His costume, like the bag, was worn and tattered-looking, fringes missing here and there. Nothing was left of the crisply formal First Companion in Zeor who had stood beside Mairis throughout the funeral ordeal. With his white-blond hair combed down over his forehead and the oddly gypsy mannerisms he could adopt in a moment, not one reporter would recognize him even if he were standing beside Mairis.