A flexible coil of thin insulated wire, badly balanced on a narrow shelf, slipped out. Mischa caught it before its attachments clattered on the floor. She sat back on her heels, holding the lock leads. Outside, the lights flickered again, casting a quick streak of gold past the shop's window curtains. The radiance caught on the tips of the paired electrodes. The light faded, and the shop was scarlet and ebony once more.
Mischa placed the cold electrodes against her temples. They attached themselves, pushing fibers into her skin; they drew her out, and sent her along the thin silver wires. She could feel the resonances of the man sleeping in the room behind the shop. His recorded essences formed a barrier; the lock should open only to him.
Mischa did not like being forced so close to anyone; with the lock recording on one side and the merchant on the other, she could perceive him better than she had ever been able to perceive any ordinary person, anyone but Chris or Gemmi. The usual faint aura took shape, clarified, solidified. Wanting to fling the contacts away and leave, Mischa touched the wall of a simulated consciousness, and reached out for the true being. She became a channel for thoughts; she could not shield herself. They washed in, unaltered, amplified, but she took them and molded her own patterns to fit, and ran up against the barrier. It resisted, yielded, but did not open. She shifted and tried again, racing through the spaces of several independent variables. Mischa struggled to stay afloat and aware in an inundation of hidden, half-controlled fears and desires.
The barrier shuddered and dissolved; the lock on the hidden compartment fell open. Mischa pulled away the sticky contacts and threw them down. She was dripping with sweat, but steady.
The secret drawer slid open to gentle pressure. Mischa lifted out one of the fist-sized leather sacks that filled it.
The stones, poured into her palm, glowed as though ready to erupt with light and heat. Each was all colors, one at a time. They shifted and moved in her hands like living things.
Mischa put the first bag under her jacket. The others were filled with set stones, but set stones worth stealing. She took as many as she could comfortably and unobtrusively carry in her inner pockets. At the bottom of the drawer lay a flat black box with a pebbled leather surface. She opened it slowly.
Even in the darkness the eyes glittered out at her. The size of a fingernail, or a thumbnail, or the entire exposed area of an eye, they were small multicolored multifaceted concavoconvex discs that fractured light through the planes of precious stones or reflected it from polished metal. The opaque iris enhancers had openings for the pupil, but many of the even minimally transparent ones were a single expanse of decoration. In a person's eyes they turned the world different colors or broke it into pieces or turned it upside down. They were hand-made, hand-designed; no two pair were alike. One pair was pink roses with an effect of three dimensions. Another held spirals that could drink a soul. Mischa shut the box and kept it.
Since the eyes were not displayed, they must be contraband, smuggled in past the Family of the gate without duties or taxes. And that meant, in turn, that Mischa was almost safe in taking them; the theft could not be reported to security, and the merchant had little other recourse. She was almost sorry to steal from a man who cheated the Lady Clarissa's people.
The drawer stuck when she tried to close it. She eased it out and pushed again. It squeaked against its runners. She froze, but behind her the merchant came groggily awake, broadcasting the desire to pretend he had heard nothing. He was indecisive and afraid, and without being aware of the cause, upset by the remnants of Mischa's intrusion into his mind.
Mischa heard him get up; his attempted silence was marred by his weight. Even on tiptoe he sent vibrations through the floor. Mischa moved back and waited beside the curtained doorway. In a moment the naked shopkeeper peered out, his blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Only the needler in his hand made him dangerous. When he reached for the light switch Mischa grabbed his wrist. For all his slothful appearance, he was strong, but he had no training and no practice. Mischa got the needler away from him and kicked it across the room.
"Lie down."
He made a sound of protest. Mischa flicked out the blade of her knife. The sound silenced him, and he lay down quickly, still clutching his blanket. Mischa took it away and cut strips from the woven synthetic.
"You can't do this." His voice squeaked in the middle of a word.
"Okay," Mischa said.
As she twisted the slices of blanket he gathered himself. "Come on," Mischa said. The sarcasm in her voice seemed to keep him still more than any real warning might have. She tied his wrists behind him, made him bend his knees, and tied his feet to his hands.
"My arms—"
She ignored him, but he took a quick breath. Mischa grabbed his chin and pulled his mouth shut. The clack of his teeth was louder than his single croak.
"I lose my temper so easy it makes me mad sometimes." Mischa did not like to frighten people more than absolutely necessary to keep them from forcing her to hurt them. She was a thief, not a terrorist.
The jeweler blinked, trying to see her, trying to find any way to identify her in the dark. Mischa opened the hidden drawer again and used one of the small suede sacks to gag him. He struggled when he realized what it was. Mischa grinned, but waited until she was sure he would not choke on the leather, vomit, and suffocate himself.
The shadow in the doorway was paler now. The lights flickered more often, almost regularly. Mischa waited, holding the door ajar, and slid outside between two washes of light. She left the shop closed but unlocked. Eventually a customer would come in, or the jeweler would work the gag free.
Mischa was drenched with sweat, but the residual weakness had disappeared and she felt good for the first time in much too long. She headed home, laughing quietly. The exhaustion she felt was a satisfying kind, the result of long vigilance and a good job, and knowing, not just hoping, that nothing her uncle or Stone Palace or the Families could do to her could destroy her.
Chapter 6
Entering his newly finished rooms for the first time, Subtwo allowed a sense of well-being to flow around him. The environment lessened the tension under which he had struggled since arriving on earth. In his rooms were no velvet tapestries, no embroidery, no rough-worked stone. The lines were straight and the angles square. His apartment consisted of pleasing rectangular shapes and volumes. The proportions were geometrically and aesthetically perfect.
The walls and floor and ceiling were formed of white plastic, Subtwo's desk module held a three-dimensional representation of a complex mathematical function (the only decoration he needed or wanted), and the spare shipboard computer was already installed. He had access to anything and everything he had ever needed before.
Throughout the remodeling, Subtwo had worked with Blaisse's steward: Madame had executed his wishes with flawless efficiency. Subtwo admired her abilities and appreciated the speed and ease with which the transition had been accomplished, yet now that he was physically comfortable again, he was not settled in his mind. It took him much thought and analysis to realize that his unease resulted from having no more work to do with Madame.
He wished others of his people would ask to have their rooms changed so he could feel justified in requiring her presence. He could not understand their preference for plush and velvet.