Nyles Jessan made another restless circuit of his sleeping quarters, pausing to watch the sunset outside the wide picture window. The window had been producing vistas of Khesat for him ever since he had taken up residence, and the sun tonight had been setting for a couple of Standard hours over the fountains and flowers of a Khesatan water garden.
As always, he spared a moment to admire the Professor’s artistry. The garden view didn’t have the almost painful reality of the room from the Summer Palace, but as a courtesy done for a guest it was impressive: the leriola blossoms floating on the long rectangular moon pool opened as he watched, while the upper edge of the sun slid below the faraway horizon.
He turned away from the window and began roaming again. He wasn’t in the mood for a moon viewing tonight, even if the moons and their reflections had been real.
The little holoprojector he’d carried as Crown Prince Jamil lay on the bedside table next to a porcelain vase holding a set of Khesatan reed flutes. Stretching himself out full length on the bedspread, he picked up the projector and turned on the last act of By Honor Betrayed. This time, though, the grandeur and majesty of the classic drama failed to move him. When he realized that he hadn’t followed two consecutive lines of the Farewell Soliloquy, he punched the Off button and killed the projection.
He sat up on the rumpled bedspread and—for lack of any other occupation—began pulling reed flutes out of the vase. They’d been produced by the Professor’s robots out of synthetic reeds, and only one of the lot appeared playable. He tried a note or two, found the tone adequate, and went on into the first bars of a half-remembered practice piece.
But even the fifth Mixolydian Etude failed to have the same soporific effect it had possessed in his boyhood. He shoved the flute back into the vase with the others, stood up, and began prowling the room once more.
His eye fell on the sable form of one of the Professor’s robots, standing in its niche by the door. Like a skilled organic servant, the robot wouldn’t speak until spoken to, or act unless it saw a need.
“Tell me,” he said, and saw a flash of crimson light behind the robot’s blank mask as the mechanism blinked into life. “What would you do if you couldn’t sleep?”
“I really couldn’t say, sir,” said the robot. “But if I may make an observation—”
“By all means.”
“I would say then, sir, that you are experiencing an excess of energy. Were you a robot like myself, I would recommend that you discharge it in some manner.”
“Well,” said Jessan, “I’m not a robot, but the suggestion has merit. You know the facilities here better than I do—is there anything special that you’d recommend to an organic sentient looking for something in the energy-discharging line?”
“As a matter of fact, sir, there’s a section of the base I believe you would find extremely interesting in that regard.”
“Is there?” asked Jessan. “Then lead on.”
In the darkness of his room, Ari lay awake in the huge bed. All his earlier sleepiness had vanished, as he should have known it would. Thinking about the Long Hunt might bring the comfort of knowing that short of death, few things in a thin-skinned galaxy could stop one of the Lords of the Forest—but the comfort, like the knowledge, always had a price tag attached.
The sigrikka he’d killed had turned out to be the biggest one ever brought down by a cub on the Long Hunt. Ferrda still had the polished jawbone, fangs intact, hanging on the wall in a place of honor. Ari carried his own memorabilia with him everywhere. The white scars on his left arm and along his ribs had shocked his mother into silence the first time she saw them—but Ari took pride in his hard-earned right to call himself a member of Ferrda’s clan, and he’d never thought of having the marks erased.
The hunt itself, though, he avoided thinking about as much as he could. He’d never been able to put his memories into compartments, the way some people seemed to. Always, the feeling of Issgrillikk going from life to death under his blow spread out to color the whole episode with the darkness of grief and regret.
Ari flopped over onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Why can’t I ever remember just the good parts? Even now, thinking of what he’d had to do for Issgrillikk made him feel the same slow-burning, helpless rage that had broken the sigrikka’s neck and then torn free the carnivore’s jawbone for proof of the kill.
At least that time he’d known the target and the reason for his anger—and if the sigrikka’s death hadn’t changed anything, nevertheless some kind of balance had been reached by it that would let him sleep at night. The only other time he’d felt as bad as that had been after his mother died, and the anger then had been a dark and frightening thing.
It hadn’t gone away, either. It only waited, quiescent, for a few days or weeks or months at a stretch, until something happened to stir it to life again, and he felt himself tensing to strike out blindly at the first person who gave him a reason. Not the least of his motives for joining Beka in her campaign had been the chance to drown that anger in blood and be done with it.
And I’m supposed to be the quiet, respectable one, he thought, with a humorless smile. If people only knew.
The carpet in Llannat’s room was dark green, and soft as wood moss. In the center of the room the Adept sat cross-legged, her eyes unfocused, her breathing slow and even. Deep in meditation, she sensed the currents of power moving through the asteroid base, and traced their luminous patterns with a clarity she had seldom before attained outside the halls of the Retreat. At length she perceived another presence that mirrored hers—and knew that somewhere on the asteroid base, a mind prepared itself for tomorrow in meditations like her own.
I’m not alone here after all, she thought, coming out of the trance. She rose to her feet, picked up her staff, and set out through the shadowed corridors toward the Entiboran room.
A pale, cold light was flooding the long chamber when she arrived, giving a bluish cast to the wainscoted walls. Outside the row of toll windows, a full moon was rising over the Entiboran hills. At the table, the Professor sat gazing out at the landscape he had created, bleak moonlight shadowing the folds of his white shirt and touching his grey hair with silver. A crystal decanter filled with dark liquid stood among matching glasses on a tray at his elbow. One full glass, untouched, rested on the table in front of him, and his fingers curled lightly around the fragile stem.
As she stepped into the room, he turned his face toward her. “You’re awake late, Mistress Hyfid.”
“I was meditating,” she said. “It seemed necessary.”
“So it is, Mistress.” He gestured toward the decanter. “Will you join me?”
“I’d be delighted,” she said, taking a chair at his right hand. “You’re awake late yourself. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow, and a long trip after that.”
“And it’s been many years since I was young?” he asked gently, pouring liquid from the crystal decanter into one of the glasses. Despite the shadows, she could see him smiling a little as he spoke. “True enough, Mistress. But I’ll last out the trip to Darvell, never fear.”
She took the glass he handed to her and sipped at the contents, a fiery distillate that made the Uplands Reserve she’d tasted on Nammerin seem crude by comparison. “And then?”
He shrugged. “As you said yourself, Mistress, reading the future is an uncertain thing. Does the brandy appeal to you?”
“Like satin and knives,” she said. “Entiboran?”
“Yes. I picked up a dozen bottles of it in the year I swore fealty to House Rosselin, and this is the last.”
She swallowed a mouthful of the fragrant, burning drink and watched a cloud glide past the face of the moon. The room dimmed, and then filled again with faint grey light. They sat in silence for a few minutes, until finally she looked away from the window and voiced the thought that had been in her mind since she began her evening’s meditations.
“Darvell gives me a very bad feeling, Professor.”
“You’d be a fool if it didn’t, Mistress. The Master of Darvell is a man to be reckoned with.” The Professor’s grey eyes, pale in the moonlight, met hers. “My lady wants him dead because of what he’s done—but you, I think, see what he may yet do.”
She nodded, slowly. “I get the Magesmell in my nose whenever I think about him.”
“There’s treason at work in the galaxy,” said the Professor. “Schemes within schemes. It wasn’t chance, you know, that brought an Adept into my lady’s crew.”
“I’m afraid you haven’t got anybody heroic here,” she said with a rueful smile. “I’m barely fair-to-middling with a staff on my good days, and the only Mage I ever met in the flesh was nearly the death of me.”
“The galaxy has always had all the heroes it needed,” said the Professor. “If it’s produced a Mistress Hyfid along the way, I’d say that it probably needs her as well.”
He looked out the window for a moment, and Llannat waited in silence until he turned back toward her and spoke again.
“All fighting is a matter of training and practice,” he said, “and I’ve used enough weapons in my time to know that robots and holograms make poor substitutes for a living opponent.” He pushed back his chair and stood up. “If a match between friends would amuse you, I could oblige.”
He gestured, and the shadows appeared to solidify and take shape within his hand. Llannat stared as the moonlight glimmered off the silver fittings of an ebony staff that hadn’t been there a moment before.
I should have known, she thought, and rose to her feet.
“Master,” she said, and bowed.
He shook his head. “No. I forswore sorcery long ago, when I gave my oath to House Rosselin. ‘Professor’ will do as well as any other name.”
Her voice came out in a harsh whisper. “Adepts don’t practice sorcery.”
“No,” agreed the Professor. “Adepts don’t.”
“Then that Magebuilt scoutship in the docking bay—”
“Was always mine. Yes.”
She stood looking at him for a long time, while the night clouds chased each other across the Entiboran sky. “Why?” she said at last.
His face, what she could see of it in the dim light, was sad. “What does it matter? The Magelords would flay me for a traitor, if they knew I still lived after all this time—but I found a world and a way of life deserving of loyalty, and gave my oath gladly to them both.”
“The word of a Mage?” she asked.
“My word,” he said. “Which is a somewhat different matter. House Rosselin has had no cause to regret accepting that oath from me—nor will it, while I live. Does that satisfy you, Mistress?”
She looked at him, a slight, grey-haired figure standing alone in a room full of memories, and inclined her head. “Amply, Professor . . . and I would be honored by a match between friends.”
Jessan turned and fired, then turned again and flung himself onto the ground. The aircar passed low overhead, firing as it came. He rolled, and fired up at its belly.
A long trail of smoke streamed out behind the aircar, but the vehicle kept on going and started up into a loop. At the top of the loop, it rolled upright to head back the way it had come, and went into a thirty-degree dive straight in at Jessan’s hiding place, with all its bow guns firing.
A blaster against an armored aircar, thought Jessan. I must be crazy. Weapon at the ready, he crouched on the cracked and tilted pavement behind a broken wall while the bulk of the aircar grew steadily larger against the dull red of the sky.
The armored craft loomed huge above him. He saw a single burst of light, brighter than any he had ever seen, and the aircar vanished. The sounds of battle grew dim, then stopped altogether, and the red sky faded to black.
The lights came back up again. Jessan blinked at the bare white room and lowered the mock blaster still ready in his hand. From somewhere overhead, a disembodied voice said, “Final score, four hundred sixty-seven of six hundred possible in two thousand, nine hundred and sixty moves. This gives you the overall rating of Walking Wounded. Would you like to play again?”
Jessan shook his head. “No,” he replied. “I think I’ll try to find a pot of hot sulg instead.” He put the weapon back onto the rack, toggled open the door, and went out.
Outside the game room, the dim lighting of the base’s night prevailed. He walked down the hall and took the turning that led to a small after-hours galley. The galley was no more than a wide spot in the passageway, but it was brightly lighted, with a dining booth, a snack dispenser, and a drink machine sporting a row of ten identical, unlabeled buttons.
“Somehow,” he murmured to himself, “I don’t think much of my chances of getting hot sulg out of this box.”
“I make them a thousand twenty-four to one against,” said a familiar voice behind him.
He half-turned, and saw Beka sliding into the other side of the booth. Looks like I wasn’t the only one awake after all, he thought. “Are you telling me that every combination produces a different drink?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t tried the whole thousand-odd to make sure. But so far, they’ve all been different—and some of them are damned weird, let me tell you. But I do know the combo that nets cha’a. Want some?”
“Sure,” he said. “And thanks.”
He cradled the resultant mug of steaming cha’a between his hands. During local night, a distinct chill tended to settle over the mostly empty base. “It’s late,” he said. “And you’ll be piloting tomorrow. What are you still doing up?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “So I decided to take a walk and do some thinking.” She sipped at her own mug of cha’a, and half-smiled at him through the steam. “What’s your excuse?”
“I was just over in the game room having a go at Deathworld,” he said. “The Professor’s got a better version here than any commercial one I’ve ever played, but I still get nailed in the same place every time. I know the solution’s got something to do with the pair of opera tickets, but I can’t figure out how to get past the door with the combination lock.”
“Violence isn’t an answer?”
“When I try violence, I get caught even quicker. But I have an idea for the next time I play . . . ”
He lapsed into silence. Beka sipped her cha’a for a while, then slid back the chair and stood. “Are you planning to open Deathworld back up?”
“Not right now.”
“Like to walk around a bit?”
He looked up from his cha’a. “Why not?” he said, after a moment. He put his mug down onto the table and stood up. “Lead on, Captain.”
Ari gave the pillow a disgusted punch and sat up in bed. “The hell with it.”
A red light blinked in the darkness, marking where the valet robot stood at rest by the door. “Yes, sir?”
“Is anybody else still awake?”
More lights blinked, and Ari caught the feint sound of electronic beepings as the robot and its series-mates conferred. “Yes, sir.”
“Good,” said Ari, swinging his legs over the side of the bed onto the carpet. “There wouldn’t be a night-robe of some sort around, would there?”
“One moment, sir,” the robot said, and trundled over into the closet. It came out again with a pair of soft shoes and a dark robe in the same thick-piled fabric as the enormous bath towels. “Will this do?”
“Admirably, and thank you.” Ari stood up, belted the robe around him, and slid his feet into the shoes. “Can you tell me where I can find whoever’s up?”
“I’m not sure, sir,” the robot said. “Lieutenant-Commander Jessan left his chambers some time ago for the game room. But according to the gaming log, the commander played only one round of Deathworld and then closed the room down.”
“So he’s still up,” said Ari. “Maybe I’ll run into him. What about the others?”
More blinking and beeping. “They appear to be wakeful as well, sir. Captain Rosselin-Metadi, for example, has been sighted in several locations by the maintenance units.”
“And the Professor?”
“I can’t say, sir,” the valet said. “He left instructions that he was not to be disturbed under any circumstances short of a threat to the physical security of the base.”
Ari shrugged. The Entiboran wouldn’t have made a very good late-night companion anyhow. “And what do your series-mates tell you about Mistress Hyfid?”
“I’m afraid, sir, that she is no longer in her room, and therefore she must have left it—though her valet did not see her leave.”
“Tell him not to overload his circuits worrying about it,” Ari said. “She’s an Adept. That means if she didn’t want anyone to notice her, they wouldn’t. Someday let me tell you about my younger brother who walks through force fields.”
After a pause, the robot said, “I thank you for the advice, sir. In addition, Mistress Hyfid, wherever she may in fact be, has taken her staff with her.”
“She’s an Adept,” said Ari. “She probably sleeps with the damned thing.”
He started for the door. “If you could show me the way as far as that game room you mentioned, I can probably handle the rest. From what you tell me, I’m bound to find somebody awake somewhere.”
His wanderings with Beka, Jessan realized, had brought him into a portion of the base that he didn’t recognize. Beka seemed familiar with it, though, and the Khesatan was content to follow her lead. She strode along the dim passages without speaking, her hands shoved into the pockets of her quilted jacket, its collar turned up against the chill. Finally, she gave him a sideways glance he couldn’t interpret.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” she asked. “I know why the Professor is with me, and I know what brings Ari into it—and Mistress Hyfid is an Adept, which means she has her own reasons for everything. But this isn’t even your quarrel, and you’ve turned down the chance to get out of it twice already.”
“Well,” he said, “for one thing, they burned down my clinic.”
She looked away from him, toward the floor. “That was my fault,” she said. “And I’m sorry—not that ‘sorry’ is going to do you much good.”
“What else could you have done?” he asked. “Besides, rendering aid to distressed spacers is in the Medical Service charter. Read the fine print if you don’t believe me.”
“I believe you,” she said. “I’m still sorry. You were proud of that place, weren’t you?”
“I never thought about it much,” he said. “But I suppose I was.”
She gave a soft laugh. “Nyls Jessan holding down a paying job. What would they say on Khesat if they knew?”
“The Professor’s been telling tales, I see.”
“Come on,” she said. “I grew up with galactic politics. Maybe there’s more than one family with a name like yours—but there’s only one family that counts.”
“Damn,” he said. “My secret’s discovered.How did I manage to give the game away?”
She smiled at him. “Tell me every Space Force medic has the royal bloodlines for the civilized galaxy on the tip of his tongue, and I’ll call you a liar to your face. And Crown Prince Jamil was too good to be anything but real. Which of your relatives was he, anyway?”
“Now that,” he said, “would be telling.”
“So why aren’t you doing something like that yourself right now—losing a few hundred credits at cards between teatime and dinner, instead of getting ready to go get slaughtered?”
He shrugged. “Because I got so good at cards that nobody would play with me, and the rest bores me out of my mind. Why didn’t you stay on Galcen and play Domina of Lost Entibor for the rest of your life?”
The humor went out of her face as he watched. “Because I spent seventeen years watching my mother die by inches every time she had to put on her damned tiara and be a prop for idiots to play sick little nostalgic games around. And I wasn’t going to let them do that to me. So I left.”
“On the first freighter out of Galcen?”
“Something like that,” she said.
She had stopped walking, and stood with one hand reaching out toward the lockplate of a door indistinguishable from any of the others along that stretch of corridor. “I had my pilot’s license—I got it the day I came of age, and the examiner knew better than to ask how I’d already managed to practice without being legally old enough—and I was good. Once people stopped asking questions about my name and let me show what I could do, I never had any trouble finding a job.”
Beka still hadn’t palmed the lockplate. She seemed uncertain about something, which wasn’t like her at all. Jessan raised an eyebrow. “What’s on the other side—more holoprojections? Or pit traps and deadfalls?”
She shook her head. “I’ll show you, if you’re curious.”
“Always,” he said. “My fatal flaw—next to talking to much, of course.”
She gave him a quick glance, and palmed the lock. The door slid open.
They entered a dim, unfurnished room. A few large cushions lay scattered about, and the floor itself felt springy under Jessan’s feet. In the far corner he spotted a pile of blankets, neatly folded.
“Your room?” he guessed.
She nodded.
“It’s not much like the others.”
“I don’t like fake scenery,” she said. “But watch.”
She pressed a wall plate near her hand, and all the lights went out, leaving the room in total, cavernous blackness. He heard a low humming noise—and then the ceiling split from side to side, like massive jaws opening to let in the stars.
The gap opened wider and wider as the walls rolled down, until the floor floated on the starry void like a tiny square of light. Jessan heard a distant keening like a high wind, and a cold breeze stirred his hair. Ventilation systems, he told himself, but he shivered anyway.
“This used to be the observation deck, I think,” said Beka. “But I sleep here when the ’Hammer’s docked.”
“I can see why,” Jessan said. “It’s beautiful.”
“It’s all I ever wanted,” she said. “My own ship, and the freedom of the stars, with nothing to hold me back . . . damn it, Nyls, why does everything always have to cost so much?”
Something in her voice drew his eyes away from the glory blazing above them both. He saw the silvery tracks of tears on her pale cheeks, and shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “It just does.”
He reached out a hand to touch her shoulder, and found that she was trembling. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish I could help.”
She put her hand up to grasp his wrist. “Then don’t go. Please.”
He bent his head and kissed her, and stood back a little, waiting.
She looked at him for a moment, her lean, angular features as unreadable as ever. Then he felt the warmth of her hands on either side of his face as she drew his lips back again to hers.