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 Labaki needs to see you about the Nameday feast. Come to dinner tonight, you
can talk to her afterward.
 All right. I have to go home first, get cleaned up, and clear away some stuff
that needs doing. Dinner around eight?
He scowled at her, but it d been his choice to make this public, and her
response had been clever enough to maintain the distance between them.
 Eight, he said and went back inside.
As Worm gathered in the hairu, he thought, I was right. He going to put the
move on her any day now and she knows it. Doesn t like it much either. Any
bets she isn t thinking of blowing off this whole business and hitting for the
split? Which reminds me. Some-thing I shouldda done a while

ago. Got to get outta here.
He shook the hairu, cast them into the kaxa, and swore as the numbers cleaned
four of his five stakes off the board.  My luck s took a walk. Maq, any
rea-son I got to hang round here letting you lot walk off with my coin?
5
Cursing the horde of sticky, crawling insects and the corrosive sap of the
vines that oozed out at the lightest touch, ate at his wholesuit and etched
the clear plastic of the goggles, Worm wriggled through the fecund growth on
the island and managed to crawl beneath the camoucloth without touching it.
The darkness meant he had to use the helmet light to find his way to the ship,
which brought more hordes of fliers crashing into him. The wholesuit was
sealed and he couldn t smell the stench he knew had to be out there, but the
thought of it was enough to start his stoniach churning.
He forced himself not to hurry, but it seemed forever before he
found the markings on the maintenance hatch. He took the rod of memory
plas from his pouch, twisted it, and waited until it finished extending to its
full length and extruding rungs like thorns from the sides.
The hatchlock was simple, but once he had it solved, he didn t try
opening the slide until he d sprayed the area to clear it of spores and
other contaminants and temp-bonded the sticktight to the hull.
He spread a sheet of waldoplas over the clean spot, sealed it in place,
then pushed the door back.
Working through the plas, he broke the temp-bond, stripped the shrinkwrap off
the sticktight, reached inside, and pressed the flat patch against the wall
until he felt the brief heat as it glued itself in place and took on the
coloring of its surroundings. It wouldn t activate its beacon until the ship
had dropped into the insplit; until then it was just a bump on the wall
and as near undetectable as anything he d worked with and it would go
back to being a lump the moment the ship surfaced into real-space.
Getting out was faster than getting in.
An hour later the flikit was back in the shed, he d shucked the wholesuit and
run at through the steril-izer, and was in the fresher of the safehouse,
playing the hand-held needle spray over his body, washing away even the memory
of all that creeping, crawling life.
6
Bug glanced slyly at Worm, who was froWning over the situation his players
were in and trying to decide how to extract them.  What you getting Daddo for
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his Nameday feast?
Worm blinked.  Huh? I m supposed to get him some-thing?
 You don t hafta, but he likes it if you do.
 Ha! Fa s like that, too, but he s never satisfied whatever you get. What
would your Daddo think was the right kind of present?
 Time s up. My turn. Doesn t have to be anything special, just show you took
time to think about him. He likes knives. If you could find one that looked a
lit-tle bit different....
Worm contemplated developments on the screen.  You are seriously evil, Bug.
How am I going to get my men out of that bind? He going to be expecting
ev-eryone over to his house that day?
 In and out. Some stay for dinner, some just come in and give the gift. Bug
frowned at the screen.
With Worm s hands hidden behind the workshield around the sensorboard, he
couldn t watch the setup;
he had to catch the small changes as they showed up on the mosaic so he could
get ready to counter
Worm s move.
7
Late at night in the safehouse, Worm bent over the board, trying out the steps
of his plan, running it over and over so he could locate possible trip spots.
It was a simple plan: Whether it was raining or clear, Lylunda always went
home the same time and
the same way; her second turn took her through a short al-ley between two
small manufactories, no windows, no foot traffic, lots of debris up against
the walls. He could do the watcher there, roll the corpse into the
de-bris, catch up with the woman, shoot a dose of Zombi into her, good stuff
this time, walk her through the Wall and around to the safehouse, put her in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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