Burning Bright

Sanci sneered, but said nothing. Ransome hesitated, wanting to lie, to deny that he would follow this scenario now that it had been brought to his attention, but knew that Sanci would recognize the truth—knew too that Sanci would probably try to trace the taps, and blocking him was hardly worth the trouble. But I’ll be damned if I’ll thank him for this. “Good-bye, Sanci,” he said instead, and flicked away the other man’s image. The movement cut the communications channel as it sent the bearded face spinning, so that it turned end over end three times before it disappeared.

The gesture had done something to soothe his feelings, but Ransome was still frowning when he sat up fully. The image-shell shifted with him, so that he looked down at the narrowcast from Shadows as though it were a desktop screen. He banished the rest of the images with a quick gesture, brought up the sound until he could follow the dialogue in the little world that hung in the air in front of him. One did not forget the Game, not when one had spent as much time in its worlds as he had done, but one did get out of practice. He scowled at the characters, reading the iconography of clothing and Face/Bodynumbers, and reached into control space to tap the session leader’s display bar. In the Game, Belfortune and Lord Faro whispered together, fearful of interruption, and a familiar figure moved through the hall behind them, deliberately eavesdropping. Avellar…

He studied the string of glyphs and numbers that bloomed along the base of the main image, skimmed quickly through the overlapping screens to confirm what he suspected. The overall shape of the Game was almost as familiar to him as the layout of his studio, and it was easy to see where this scenario would fit into the whole. It was ostensibly a Rebel scenario, but it was tied both to the Psionics variant and the Rival Claimants offshoot of the Court Life Game— and all of that done through Avellar and Desir of Harmsway, who was my character, and the situation between them was my invention—Ransome reached out to expand the image, drawing out the details. Some of the players were old friends, old rivals in the Game—Peter Savian he’d known for years, and Kazio Beledin; Imbertine was another familiar name, as was Roscha, though he’d never met the latter off-line. But they were players, not session leaders: it was the leader who’d chosen to play with these characters— my characters, and it should have been my Game. This Lioe’s got nerve… He rolled the name over in his mind, recalling the little he’d heard. She was a notable-in-the-making, or so everybody said, a pilot out of the Republic, off Callixte, which was a good introduction in the Game… and her first name was Quinn, Quinn Lioe. He hesitated for a moment, running down the list of friends who still followed the Game and who would give information, and reached into control space to open another line. The Game session still swam in front of him, the characters murmuring to each other, and he pushed it aside to make room for the new image.

A disk of static appeared, a hazy oval that flickered through so many colors so quickly that the eye could only read it as grey: the system had made contact. “Hally?”

A face took shape, forming from the disk itself, so that it became a mask hanging in space, a face thin and rather fine beneath the canalli weathering. Earrings gleamed in both ears, and a fine chain—a datawire, Ransome guessed—ran from one particularly elaborate stud to a jewel-rimmed socket at the inner corner of his right eye. The iridescent strand seemed to glow against his pale brown skin. “Ransome?” Thin, delicately arched eyebrows rose in surprise, then contracted into a frown. “I’m watching a Game,” Hally Ventura said, and broke off, seeing the face in his own screens.

“From Shadows?” Ransome asked, and was answered by a brief, lopsided smile.

“That’s right. So what do you want to know about her, I-Jay?”

“What do you know?”

“About what everyone does. She’s been a name on Callixte, everyone says a notable-to-be. And she’s a pilot, union pilot, also works out of Callixte for that. Angele up at the port says her ship’s in for repairs, and she’s come to play. People’ve been at her to quit space, go into the Game full time, but she’s not been interested.”

“Piloting’s a good job,” Ransome said. “I’d think twice before I quit.”

Hally shrugged. “She’s very, very good at the Game.” His eyes shifted, looking at something outside his own display. “Look, I-Jay, I want to watch this session. Was that all?”

“I just thought, if anyone knew anything, it would be you,” Ransome said, and was rewarded by a quick smile: the apology was acceptable. “Thanks, Hally.”