Burning Bright

The voice was familiar, but Lioe couldn’t quite place it. She looked up, still frowning, and felt the frown dissolve as she looked up at Roscha. “I’ve been around,” she said. “Are you playing tonight?”

Roscha’s wide mouth widened further in a grin that showed perfect teeth and heightened the impossible cheekbones. “I hope so. I just got off work, and they told me there were still places left for tonight’s session.”

Lioe looked down at the little screen, juggling choices. Roscha was good, all right, but volatile; there had been moments in the first session when she’d amply justified Gueremei’s description of her as “difficult.” On the other hand, that volatility might make for a very interesting key character. “How would you feel about playing Avellar?” she said slowly. “The other real option is Jack Blue—Lyall’s open, too, but that doesn’t strike me as your style.”

“Avellar.” Roscha’s voice caressed the name. “Hell, yes, I’d like to play him—or her, if you’ll let me play the she-clone.”

Avellar, by Game convention, was actually a four-person clone, the survivors of a larger clone that had been partially destroyed some years before, in the clone’s childhood. It provided an explanation for the character’s limited telepathy; it also gave players who didn’t like crossing gender lines further options. Lioe shrugged. It made no difference in the context of the scenario; she was just a little surprised that Roscha, of all people, would choose not to cross gender. “If you want, sure,” she said. “I don’t have any problem with that.” She touched keys, and watched the program add Roscha’s name to the list of players.

“Great.” Roscha ran a hand through her hair, dislodging the strip of indigo silk that confined it, and impatiently rewrapped it, tossing the red curls out of her eyes. “I was wondering. I see you’ve eaten, but you’ve got some time before the session starts. Would you like to go down to the Water, and see the Beauties and Beasts?”

Lioe frowned, knowing she’d heard the term before, and Roscha said, “The Syndics’ parade, I mean. It’s well worth seeing.”

Lioe looked back down at the screen, at the two slots that remained. Both of them were important—she prided herself on never having written a scenario that included unnecessary characters—and she hated to think she would have to run them from a distance. On Callixte, of course, she had a list of people she could call at short notice, fellow players and session leaders who were glad to fill in in exchange for a rebate on session fees, but here she would have to rely on the club’s resources. She hesitated then, and touched keys on the workboard to find an outgoing communications channel. “I’d like that,” she said, “but there’s one thing I have to do first.”

“Sure,” Roscha said easily, and seated herself in the chair opposite, where the unfolded screen blocked her view of the other woman’s hands on the keys and controls.

Lioe nodded her thanks, her attention already back on the Game. When Kichi Desjourdy had been Customs-and-Intelligence’s representative on Falconsreach, she’d been known to sit in on Game sessions on a fairly regular basis. Lioe herself had relied on her as a player as well as an arbiter. Maybe, just maybe, Lioe thought, she could help me out now. Desjourdy was good; she’d be an excellent choice either for Jack Blue or Lyall. She touched the final sequence, one of Desjourdy’s private codestrings, letting her know it wasn’t business, and dispatched the package into the communications system.

Carnival had not taken over ordinary communications yet. A few thin images, a masked face, a dancing, six-armed figure, drifted across her screen, while the connect codes blinked behind them, and then the screen lit fully, driving out the last of the Carnival ghosts. Kichi Desjourdy looked out of the little screen, the office wall behind her distorted by its limited projection. Desjourdy herself looked normal enough, Lioe thought, but with Desjourdy it was sometimes hard to tell. The Customs-and-Intelligence representative had a round, rather ordinary face, with only the silvery disks of two triple datasockets set into the bone at the corner of each eye to set her apart from most net workers. At the moment, none of the sockets were in use, and Lioe, who had seen Desjourdy bristling with cords, was oddly grateful.

“Quinn,” Desjourdy said. “It’s good to see you. I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about you on the Game nets.” Her voice was clear and true, an elegant soprano, and Lioe was struck again by the mismatch of voice and face.

“Thanks,” she said. “That was sort of what I was calling you about.”

“Oh, yes?”

“I’ve got a session going tonight,” Lioe said, “and I’m short. I need a player I can rely on. Are you free?”

Desjourdy laughed. “I never know whether I should be flattered or not when somebody asks me like this. Is this for Ixion’s Wheel?”

“Yes.”