The crowd moved without ever agreeing on a direction.
Koldin stopped at its edge.
The market did not look patrollable. It looked geological.
Defort stood beside him.
“So.”
“Yeah.”
“You got a plan?”
Koldin studied the first row.
“One column at a time.”
“That’s your plan?”
“You have a better one?”
“No.”
“Good.”
A yinglet vendor, an energetic fellow with bright white fur and light red eyes who wore nothing but a pair of pants and a straw hat noticed Koldin looking, and immediately lifted both hands toward a pile of enormous green fruit.
“Meneer! Lyk! Goede lyk! Kijk!”
The lyk-melons were magnificent.
Each was nearly the size of Koldin’s torso, their dark skins striped with pale yellow and wet from being washed. One had been cut open to display translucent pink flesh packed around black seeds. Juice ran from it onto the table.
Koldin slowed despite himself.
The vendor saw weakness.
“Very sweet. Cold inside. Good for zhe heat.”
Koldin looked at the melon.
He liked lyk. Almost everyone did. The flesh was mild and watery and one could eat until one's stomach objected while obtaining something approximating a meal and a drink at once.
The problem was transporting one. He imagined carrying the thing through the market for the next several hours.
“No.”
“Half?”
“No.”
“Quarter?”
Koldin continued walking.
Behind him the vendor called another price.
Defort caught up.
“You wanted it.”
“It was too big.”
“You could've made me carry it.”
“I considered it.”
“Fuck you.”
They entered the first aisle. For the next hour they worked through the market systematically.
Koldin took one side and Defort the other, never far enough apart that one could not reach the other quickly. They walked slowly. The speed mattered. People noticed uniformed men who hurried. Slow movement implied observation rather than pursuit.
Koldin watched hands.
Defort watched faces.
Children ran between them. Old women pushed past them without apology. Merchants attempted to sell them things while they were plainly working. A man tried to demonstrate a mechanical vegetable slicer to Defort and nearly removed the end of his own finger. Two adolescent humans were gambling with painted tiles behind a fabric stall and concealed the game so badly that Koldin chose not to notice it.
Nothing happened.
A pair of men argued over the price of a bicycle frame.
Nothing happened.
Somebody dropped a stack of ceramic bowls and immediately blamed another person.
Nothing happened.
A drunken woman slept beneath a table while her sister sold spices above her.
Nothing happened.
Everywhere there existed the possibility of an incident and nowhere did the possibility fulfill itself.
They changed aisles. Then changed again.
The sun moved overhead but beneath the patched awnings there was only a changing quality of brightness. Heat accumulated in the fabric until the air smelled baked. Koldin’s shirt adhered beneath his webbing due to the moisture in the air. His hand pads were completely covered in a dense layer of sweat, and he could feel his foot pads suffering the same if he focused on that.
By the time they reached the food stalls he was hungry again.
They stopped near a woman working over a broad iron pan beneath a canvas roof stained black from years of smoke. Steam rose around her. Kelp noodles simmered in a shallow broth while shellfish fried beside them.
Koldin ordered a small portion.
The woman folded the noodles and shellfish into yesterday's newspaper and drove a disposable wooden fork through the top. A politician stared upward from beneath the oil stains with one eye obscured by a fried clam.
Koldin paid and carried it to a narrow standing table.
Defort sat in front of him removed something from his chest rig. It was a sandwich wrapped in waxed paper, one of the same ones Koldin saw a while ago.
Koldin stared at him. The sight still bothered him.
“What? You already saw this when I joined up with you.”
“Nozhing.”
“Better place than the satchel.”
“Your magazines will smell like mustard.”
“Only one of them. The other doesn't have mustard.”
Defort began unwrapping it.
Koldin set his food down and took the remaining bottle of water from his haversack. He turned it once in his hand.
The cap required an opener. His right hand moved automatically toward his pistol holster.
Defort saw it.
“No.”
Koldin stopped.
“What?”
“Give me that.”