Burning Bright

The hallway ended abruptly in a softly lit lobby, walled on three sides with multiscreen virtual-display-in-real-time wallboards. Only four of the screens were displaying the broadcast bands, and two of those showed the same session, but telltales glowed green on a few of the others, and the couches opposite those boards were occupied by people whose faces were hidden behind the mirrored mask of their shades. Telltales flickered on the temples of the shades, too, indicating that they were tuned to a narrowcast from one or more of the wallboards. There were smaller, lower-resolution VDIRT tables scattered around the rest of the lobby, but not many of them were occupied yet. They would be busy later, Lioe knew, when the main tanks filled up and Gamers needed to kill a few hours between sessions. That is, if Shadows was like every other club in human-settled space. She glanced one last time at the session playing on the screen overhead—it was a Court Life variant, familiar iconography identifying Count Danile and the Lady Hannabahn, but it was impossible to follow the scene without the direct-line voice feed—and turned her attention to the checkroom that controlled access to the club’s session rooms. A young man was sitting behind its counter, Gameboard balanced in front of him, but he looked up quickly as Lioe approached.

“Can I help you, pilot?”

“I hope so. Do you do temporary memberships?”

“We do.” The young man touched keys on a terminal tucked out of sight below the lip of the counter. “It’s forty reala week—we have a ten-day week, you know—and you get all privileges except priority for limited-access sessions.”

“So I can run sessions, if anyone’s interested,” Lioe said.

“Yes, no problem.” The young man consulted his terminal again. “Can I get your name?”

“Quinn Lioe.”

The young man looked up sharply. “The Lioe from Callixte?”

“That’s right.”

“I admire your sessions a lot.” His clear complexion was slowly turning a delicate pink, and Lioe watched in fascination. “We just got a good tape of the Frederick’s Glory session, downloaded from MI-Net a couple of days ago. It looks wonderful.”

“Thanks,” Lioe said.

“Are you going to be running any sessions while you’re here?” the young man went on.

“I hope so,” Lioe answered. “I was wondering who I should talk to about it.”

“The night manager,” the young man said, and touched keys on a different machine. “She can help you—and we’re having a slow week right now, with Storm coming up.”

“Storm?” Lioe had heard the term half a dozen times since landing, hadn’t had the chance to ask what was meant.

“Yeah. It’s our fifth season, lasts twenty days, about. There’re so many big storms every year about this time that it makes more sense for things to shut down. So we hold Carnival.” A tone sounded softly under the counter, and the young man turned away to touch some hidden control. The door to the inner rooms swung open.

Lioe turned, her idle question already forgotten, and found herself facing a tall, greyhaired woman, who held out her hand in greeting.

“Na Lioe? I’m Aliar Gueremei, ditLia.”

Lioe murmured a greeting, and clasped the fingers extended to her. Gueremei was weather-beaten, as though she’d been in space, but more so, her brown skin crossed with a web of fine lines and faint, bleached freckles. She wore coarse workman’s trousers, but with an expensive-looking and impractically wide-sleeved jacket over it, clasped at the waist with a circle that glittered with tiny iridescent disks. Even if sequensa were less expensive on Burning Bright, where the shells were seined and cut into tiny perfect shapes, they would never be cheap, and Lioe found herself revising her assumptions about Shadows and Burning Bright’s Gamers.

“Come on into the back,” Gueremei went on. “I know your work, from the nets, and I’m delighted you thought of coming here. Can I ask where you heard the name?” She palmed open the door as she spoke, and gestured for Lioe to precede her into the inner hallways.

“The steward on the inbound shuttle—orbiter, I mean—recommended you,” Lioe said, “and then of course your name is good on the Game nets.”

Gueremei nodded, though whether in agreement or thanks Lioe could not be sure. “Were you looking to run sessions while you were here—how long are you staying, anyway?”

“Probably about five days,” Lioe answered. “The ship I was piloting for is down for repairs, recalibration of the sail fields. And, yes, I would like to run a session or two.”

Gueremei nodded again. “I’ll be frank with you,” she said, as she led the way quickly through a maze of corridors. “We’d be very interested in your running something here. I’ve seen your Frederick’s Glory scenario—and the Callixte board summaries, of course, the ones that went with the award—and a couple of others, and I’m very impressed.”