“You got it,” Reamer called back, waving. Becker had forgotten the flitcycle so Reamer climbed back on it and proceeded to put as much distance as possible between himself and the pile of junk with the squashed androids at the bottom.
Reamer was thinking hard as he bombed through the back streets, trying not to make a clear path to the nano-market and his kids. Despite his customarily mellow attitude, education from the school of hard knocks had taught him a healthy amount of street-smart paranoia. Damn the red hair anyway. Between that and his height, he sort of stood out, and anyone who had seen him riding with Becker was likely to identify him to Kisia Manjari. Neither he nor his kids would be safe now. Even if nobody had spotted him on the way to Becker’s ship, the nano-market was a hive of gossip and it wouldn’t lighten Kisia Manjari’s purse by much to find out that Becker had spent quite a bit of time at Reamer’s booth. The nice, anonymous life he had built for himself and the kids, not attracting attention, not violating laws but at the same time not possessing anything anyone else would want enough to hassle them for it, was now totally blown. Well, these things happened. It was time, maybe. The important thing was to get the kids to safety and also to let Baird, Giloglie, and Nadezda know about the horns.
Reamer’s heart settled back down in his chest when he saw his children working the crowd as usual, sizing up prospects for the Ogonquonian Ornaments with the same expertise they used to determine who could be tempted by the rocks and minerals in their own booth.
“Come on, Deeter, Turi, we have to pack up and get out.”
“But, Daddy, -we’ve paid in advance for our space for the season,” Turi, his little business manager, objected.
“Baby, haven’t I told you there’s things more important in life than money? Now hop to it!”
He was thinking fast about where they would go from here. The authorities were only nominally clean, even in these reform days. Kisia Manjari’s guardian, the count, was a man of vast influence and many of the security patrolmen were in his pocket. They were far more apt to frame Reamer on some charge and detain him at Kisia s convenience than they were to be helpful. It was all fine when the Lady and her uncles and Delszaki Li had lived here but without their physical presence …
Reamer suddenly remembered the little story Becker had told of going to the pleasure house and running into Khetala. Reamer had had a similar encounter with her himself, for similar reasons. But she was one of the Lady’s people, one of the children Acorna had saved from the mines. Khetala would know what to do about the horn. She could help him and the kids escape Kezdet, too. She wouQ help them. She had to.
The eyes of every person in the pavilion were focused on the opening. The flap spread wide. Dancing stopped although the band played on. Then, abruptly, the band stopped, too, and Liriili, horn uncovered, strode through the crowd gathered outside, then the crowd inside, and stepped up onto the bandstand, where she appropriated the tiny amplifier. “I am calling an emergency council session in the fli-zaar’s pavilion immediately. Meanwhile, all prep crews of all space vessels are to report to their ships and prepare for takeoff, and all other crew members are on standby. Commanders of the ships and all emissaries, envoys, and ambassadors will please attend the council meeting now.”
Then she strode off, a great number of the white-skinned Linyaari following her, or leaving the party behind her.
Grandam, apparently undeterred by affairs of state from reminding people of their social graces, led Acorna down from the heights of the grazing platforms and she herself went to the bandstand and picked up the amplifier. “My children, those of you whose presence is not required elsewhere, please remain and dance with your loved ones as long as you may. There is still much good food on the platforms and many of you have not yet met Khornya.”