She accessed the Records Office computer – her back door was the legacy of an earlier job processing refugees from the ring, before she'd volunteered to get herself killed leading partisan forces – and checked the protocols for acquiring ration cards. Given her level of access, they should be easy enough to subvert.
And then she had another thought. Thus far her group had been selling her own property out of the back of a truck, a business that was irregular but legal. But once the ration came into effect, selling cocoa and coffee off the ration would be against the law. The team wouldn't just be participating in informal economic activity, they'd be committing a crime._
People who committed crimes needed protection. Casimir was going to be more necessary than ever.
"Damn it," she said.
Macnamara failed to procure a large stash of food. Police were already in force at the market, and foodsellers had been told not to sell large quantities. Macnamara wisely decided to avoid attracting attention and bought only quantities that might be considered reasonable for a family of three.
The announcement of rationing had been made while Sula slept and the food marts were packed. Tobacco had not been included, but Sula couldn't hope for everything. Citizens were given twenty days to report to their local police station in order to apply for a ration card. The reason given by the government for the imposition of rationing was the destruction of the ring and the decline in food imports.
The news also announced that certain well-established Naxid clans, out of pure civic spirit, had agreed to spare the government expense, and would instead use their own means to manage the planet's food supplies. The Jagirin clan, whose head had been temporary interior minister during the changeover from the old government to the new, the Ummir clan, whose head happened to be the Minister of Police, the Ushgays, the Kulukrafs… people who, even if some of them hadn't been with the rebellion from the beginning, clearly found it in their interest to support it now.
The Naxids, Sula thought, had just created a whole new class of target.
Naxids were placed in every police station to monitor the process of acquiring ration cards, and the Naxids wore the black uniform of the Legion of Diligence, the organization that investigated crimes against the Praxis. All members of the Legion had been evacuated from Zanshaa before the arrival of the Naxid fleet, so apparently the new government had re-formed the Legion, probably with personnel from the Naxid police.
Another class of target, Sula thought.
A shimmering layer of afternoon heat stretched across the pavement like a layer of molasses, thick enough to distort the colorful canopies and displays of the Textile Market that set up in Sula's street every five days. Early in the morning, vendors motored up with their trailers or their three-wheelers with the sheds built onto the back, and at dawn hour the sheds opened, canopies went up, and the merchandise went on sale. After sunset, as the heat began 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 passed, vendors called her attention to cheap women's clothing, baby clothes, shoes, stockings, scarves, and inexpensive toys for children. There were bolts of fabric, foils of music and entertainment, sun lotion and sun hats, and items – unseasonable in the heat – alleged to be knit 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. She entered the building, then heard the chime of a hand comm through her apartment door and made haste to enter. She 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 began to stir. She dropped into a chair, and holding the comm in one hand she began to loosen her boots with the other.
"I want to see you tonight," Casimir said. "I'll pick you up at 21:01, 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 accounts of her delivery company. Then she checked the Records Office computer for Casimir's friend Julien, and discovered that he was the son of Sergius Bakshi.
Sergius was someone she'd heard of as the head of the Riverside Clique. She hadn't realized that he'd cheated the executioner long enough to have a grown son.
Sula left the apartment, negotiated the crowds at the Textile Market, then ducked down a sunblasted 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 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. "I hate 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 part about being a cliqueman's girlfriend, 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.