Radix

(He knows. Why try to lure me away—except to jooch me? Should I dump him now?) Sumner hurriedly told him about the courtyard. "It's wide open, so you can see me and I can see you."
Camboy thought about it a moment: (I know that place. It's perfect. Close enough to keep an eye on the hit, and if it's a setup, there's room to move.) "All right. We'll do it. To-night at midnight." He opened his drawer and took out some bills to pay for the kiutl on his desk.
"Don't bother," Sumner said indifferently. "That's just a sample. We'll do real business tonight." He turned and walked out, hearing as he left: (Nobody gives away muckel—unless there's plenty more. What a slimwit.)
Alone on the street, Sumner was elated. He stopped for a moment on the steps and beamed seraphically at the squat stone buildings around him. It was dark and the lux-globes on the corners were lit. Most of the shops were closed, and there were only a few merchants in their mushroom-colored longcoats striding down the avenue. Overhead the skyfires were waving, their ghostly sheets of green and yellow muted by the city lights.
A gap of five hours lay between him and his appointment with Camboy, and he decided to spend two or three of them in a cozy tavern. But as he stepped out onto the street he changed his mind. The kiutl was still with him. Though the street appeared virtually empty, his heightened senses picked out a crowd of churning minds that ranged the length of the avenue.
None of the thoughts he felt around him were distinct, but he knew they were there. He could hear their sibilant mumblings in the shadows of narrow alleys and in the dark-ened doorways on both sides of the street. Malefic, hissing whispers streamed through his mind as he traipsed down the avenue. The darkness seemed to heighten them, and soon he no longer pretended to be indifferent. He scuttled from corner to corner, trying to stay in the pools of light.
You 're acting like a drool-mouth, he told himself, want-ing to ease the apprehension coiling tighter in his gut. It's the kiutl. Just pimps and whores your mind's picking up. Nothing to wet your pants about. He forced himself to slow down to an easy amble. About five blocks ahead was a blaze of gold light. It was the center-city Mall and the northside of the Berth. The area was always crowded with students and peo-ple out for a good time. Two music halls, a theater, and a string of amusement stands circled the Mall. Gusts of laugh-ter and music breezed down the street. The wind carried the aromas of barbecued fish and fresh, steaming breads, and
Sumner forgot the mind-squabble in the shadows and quick-ened his step again.
From out of a cloister of shadows to his right, a bulky man swerved. He was half a block away and heading straight for him, arms swinging wide at his side. Sumner flinched but wasn't sure what to do. He didn't want to run wildly down the street, and there were no stores open to slip into. The man wasn't carrying a weapon, and he wasn't actually threat-ening him.
He had decided to stay calm and keep walking when a voice crackled in his mind: (If that jiggle-belly squeals, I'll crack his head—I swear I'll bust him open.)
Aow! Sumner pulled up. He turned to skip across the road, but it was too late. The stranger was shuffling urgently toward him, leaning close to the curb, ready to cut off his run.
Sumner dashed anyway, and the man lunged forward and caught him by the shoulder. Sumner spun around and nearly fell to the pavement. In the half-light from a lamp obelisk, he saw that the stranger had broad shoulders, a square nose, thin lips crusted like a lizard, and there, be-tween his flat eyes, the X-brand from a drone strap.
Sumner whined, backing off. He lurched into the street, his eyes fixed on the angry features of the dorga. His legs were stiffening, and in a moment he knew he was going to lose his nerve and freeze. The dorga came at him, and Sumner wobbled backwards. A screech and a squawling horn staggered him. A car yawing around the corner slashed by, missing him by inches and cutting off the dorga's advance.
"Clot-heads!" the driver yelled, but Sumner barely heard him. He had already pivoted and was scrambling down the street.
He raced toward the Mall until he was sure the dorga wasn't following him; then he stopped to gather his strength. The sudden rush of adrenaline sharpened the effect of the kiutl, and a distant roar of voices swept over him. The chat-tering was loudest toward the Mall, so he rounded a corner and slumped off into the shadows.
Sticking close to the walls, senses alert, he hurried from street to street until he had made it to the courtyard where he was to meet Camboy. His head was snapping with sounds, and though the night was
warm he was shivering.
This part of town was truly deserted, and gradually the static in his mind subsided. Feeling better, he climbed a series of fire ladders to the roof of an adjacent warehouse. From there he could look out over the city. To the south was the bay, splattered with the red and blue lights of the fishing fleet. The waterfront was dark and peaceful. A strohlkraft grumbled overhead. When its drone faded, another nightmur-mur followed—a freight train clanking along the curve of the bay, its boxcars empty, the bay lights winking through them. It was a sleepy, melancholy scene, and he lay back on the cool stones to rest. Above him the skyfires fluttered.
He was glad to be off the streets, glad to have gotten away from that dorga. He understood then that the kiutl was affecting him more profoundly than he had at first thought. Even now, as he lay face up, his body heat leaking into the stones below him, he could feel its strange chemistry in his blood. His heart was rattling and his leg muscles jumping with more than just dread-energy.
After he closed his eyes and breathed deeply for a few minutes, his muscles calmed down and a languid wonder composed him. His mind was empty. The sky above him had a weight, a reality he had never before experienced. It was holding him securely in place. And though it was keeping his eyelids pressed tight, he was grateful for its embrace.
Thoroughly at ease, he looked into the great space within himself and confronted the clouded presences drifting there. A wafer of light separated from the mistings and shimmered before him. It pulsed with his breathing and slowly coalesced to a scene.
It was a gullied, packed-dirt alley with rust-streaked walls. At the far end, under a boast of light, two men were struggling. It was a woeful fight. One man was already on his knees, trying to protect his neck. The other was slugging him viciously on the back of the head, again and again. The kneeling man keeled over, and Sumner glimpsed a wretched look on his face before the other man stooped over him and started plundering his pockets. When he was done he rose and turned, and a whine curled in Sumner's throat. It was the dorga he had just escaped.
He struggled to wake, but his efforts only drew him closer to the bigboned face. Helpless, he watched as the flat eyes and the dark, cracked lips flecked with spit loomed closer. A spasm of fear wrenched through him (Broke him open—damn chit-eater), and suddenly he was seeing and hearing inside the dorga's head.
(What've I got here?) He had crumpled bills, some change, and a few personal trinkets in his hand. The bills and change he stuffed in his pocket. The trinkets he gazed at, turning them over and over, considering them like a lune. (What're these fart-cutters?) Lodge-key, starter chip, dental floss dis-penser, and gold charm engraved: You will live as long as you love—Estella. (Pig-eyed chit-eater.) He threw away every-thing but the gold charm. (Wasn't worth the trouble. Got to knock somebody else now. Gotz! I should've slammed that fat boy coming out of Commerce. He'd a had something. Eat like that, got to have something.)
Sumner's insides jumped when he saw his own fear-stretched face in the dorga's mind. He snapped his eyes open. The smoky green skyfires hung overhead. He was back in his body, his fear a hot wire in his stomach. He still couldn't move. For a while he strained, trying to coax his muscles into action, but it was hopeless. The whole weight of the sky was on him. At last he submitted and just lay there staring up through the pressure to where lights were unfold-ing and vanishing across the blackness.