Dying of the Light

Chapter 7

"Dirk, Dirk, you cannot be serious. No, I do not believe it. All along I have thought, well, yes, that you were better than them. And you say this to me? No, I dream. This is utter folly!" Ruark had recovered somewhat. In his long dressing gown, green silkeen embroidered with owls, he looked more like himself, although he was woefully out of place amid the clutter of the workroom. He sat on a high stool with his back to the dark rectangular screens of the computer console; his slippered feet were crossed at the ankles, and his chubby hands held a tall frosted glass of green Kimdissi wine. The bottle was behind him, sitting next to two empty glasses.

Dirk was on top of a wide plastic worktable, his legs folded under him and his elbow resting on a sensor pack. He had cleared a space for himself by shoving the pack to one side and a stack of slides and papers to the other. The room was in incredible disarray. "I don't see what the folly is," he said stubbornly. Even as he spoke, his eyes were wandering. He had never seen the workroom before. It was about the same size as the living room in the Kavalar compartment, but seemed much smaller. A bank of small computers lined one wall. Across from it was a huge map of Worlorn in a dozen different colors, stuck full of various pins and markers. In between were the three worktables. This was where Gwen and Ruark pieced together the bits of knowledge they hunted down in the wilds of the dying Festival world, but it looked more like a military headquarters to Dirk's eyes.

He still wasn't quite sure why they were there. After Vikary's long explanation and the acrimonious discussion that had followed between Ruark and the two Kavalars, the Kimdissi had stomped down to his own apartment, taking Dirk with him. The time had not seemed right to talk to Gwen. But no sooner had Ruark changed clothes and quieted his nerves with a slug of wine than he insisted that Dirk accompany him back upstairs to the workroom. He brought along three glasses, but Ruark himself was the only one drinking. Dirk still remembered the last time, and he had tomorrow to consider; he had to be sharp. Besides, if Kimdissi wine mixed with its Kavalar counterpart the way the Kimdissi mixed with Kavalars, it would be sheer suicide to drink one after the other.

So Ruark drank alone. "The folly," the Kimdissi said after one sip of the green stuff, "is you dueling like a Kavalar. I say it, I hear myself, I cannot believe it! Jaantony, yes, Garsey by all means, and of course these Braiths. Xenophobe animals, violent folk. But you, ah! Dirk, you, a man of Avalon, this is beneath you. Think, I beg you, yes, I beg, for me, for Gwen, for you yourself. How how can you be serious? Tell me, I must know. From Avalon! You grew up with the Academy of Human Knowledge, yes, with the Avalon Institute for the Study of Non-Human Intelligence, that too. The world of Tomas Chung, the home base of the Kleronomas Survey, all that history and knowledge all about you, as much as is left anywhere except perhaps Old Earth or Newholme maybe. You are traveled, cultured, you have seen different worlds, many scattered folks. Yes! You know better. You must, no? Yes!"

Dirk frowned. "Arkin, you don't understand. I didn't pick this fight. It's all some sort of mistake. I tried to apologize, but Bretan wouldn't listen. What else am I supposed to do?"

"Do? Why, leave, of course. Take sweet Gwen and leave; get off Worlorn as soon as you can. You owe her, Dirk, you know it, truth. She needs you, yes, no one else can help. How do you help her? By being as bad as Jaan? By killing yourself? Eh? You tell me, Dirk, you tell me."

It was getting all confused again. When he had been drinking with Janacek and Vikary, everything had seemed so very clear, so easy to accept. But now Ruark was saying it was all wrong. "I don't know," Dirk replied. "I mean, I turned down Jaan's protection. So I have to protect myself, don't I? Who else is responsible? I made the choices and all that; the duel is set. I can't very well back out now."

"Of course you can," Ruark said. "Who is to stop you? What law, eh? No law on Worlorn, no, none. Utter truth! Could these beasts hunt us with a law? No, but is no law, so everyone is in trouble, but you don't have to duel unless you want to."

The door clicked open, and Dirk turned in time to see Gwen enter. His eyes narrowed, while Ruark beamed. "Ah, Gwen," the Kimdissi said, "come with me, talk sense into t'Larien. This utter fool intends to duel, truth, like he was Garsey himself."

Gwen came forward and stood between them. She wore pants of chameleon cloth (dark gray now) and a black pullover, with a green scarf knotted in her hair. Her face was freshly scrubbed and serious. "I told them I was coming down to run over some data," she said, the tip of her tongue flicking nervously over her lips. "I don't know what to say. I asked Garse about

Bretan Braith Lantry. Dirk, the chances are very good that he'll kill you out there."

Her words chilled him. Somehow hearing it from Gwen made it different. "I know," he said. "It doesn't change anything, Gwen. I mean, if I wanted to be safe, I could just be korariel of Ironjade, right?"

She nodded. "Yes. But you rejected it. Why?"

"What did you say in the forest? And later, again? About names? I didn't want to become anyone's property, Gwen. I am not korariel."

He watched her. Very briefly her face darkened, and her eyes nicked down to the jade-and-silver. "I understand," she said in a voice that was almost a whisper.

"I do not," Ruark said in a snort. "So be korariel. What is it? Some word only! Then you are alive, eh?"

Gwen looked at him, up on his perch on his stool. He looked faintly comic in his long gown, clutching his drink and scowling. "No, Arkin," she said. "That was my mistake. I thought betheyn was only a word."

He flushed. "All right, so! So Dirk is no korariel, fine, he is no one's property. It does not mean he must duel, no, utter not. The Kavalar honor code is nonsense, great high stupidness in truth. So, you are bound to be stupid, Dirk? To die and be stupid?"

"No," Dirk said. Ruark's words bothered him. He did not believe in the code of High Kavalaan. Why then? He was far from sure. To prove something, he thought, but he did not know what or to whom. "I have to, that's all. It is the right thing to do."

"Words!" Ruark said.

"Dirk, I don't want to see you dead," Gwen said. "Please. Don't put me through that."

The pudgy Kimdissi chuckled. "No, we will talk him out of it, us two, eh?" He sucked at his wine. "Listen to me, Dirk, will you do that much?"

Dirk nodded sullenly.

"Good. First, answer me this, do you believe in code duello? As a social institution? As a moral thing? Tell me, in truth, do you?"

"No," Dirk said. "But I don't think Jaan does either, from some of the comments he's made. Still, he duels when he has to. Anything else would be cowardice."

"No, no one thinks you are a coward, or him even. Jaantony may be Kavalar, with all the bad that is in that, but even I do not say he is coward. But there are different kinds of courage, no? If this tower caught fire, would you risk your life to save Gwen and maybe me? Garse too, perhaps?"

"I'd hope so," Dirk said.

Ruark nodded. "See then, you are courageous man. It is not needed, a suicide, to prove that."

Gwen nodded. "Remember what you said that night in Kryne Lamiya, Dirk, about life and death. You can't go off and kill yourself after that, can you?"

He frowned. "Damn it, this isn't suicide."

Ruark laughed. "No? Same thing, close enough. You think you will outduel him, maybe?"

"Well, no but-"

"If he drops his sword, sweat on his fingers, or such, will you kill him?"

"No," Dirk said. "I-"

"That would be wrong, yes, in truth? Yes! Well, to let him kill you, that is just as wrong. Even to give him the chance. Stupid. You are no Kavalar either, so point me not at Jaantony. Misgivings or no, he is still a killer. You are better, Dirk. And he has an excuse, something he thinks he fights for maybe, to change his people. A big savior complex, Jaan, but we will not mock at him, no. But you, Dirk, you have no reason like that. Do you?"

"I guess not. But damnit, Ruark, he's doing the right thing. You didn't look so good up there when he told you how the Braiths would have hunted you down except for his protection."

"No, and I did not feel so good either, no lie. That changes nothing. So I am korariel maybe, so the Braiths are worse than the Ironjades, so Jaan uses violence to stop worse violence, maybe. Is that right? Ah,

I cannot say. Tough moral issue, utter truth! Maybe Jaan's duels serve some purpose, eh, for his people, for us. But your duel is utter folly, serves nothing, just gets you dead. And Gwen stays with Jaan and Garse forever, until they lose a duel maybe, and then it is not so pleasant for her."

Ruark paused and finished his wine, then swiveled around on his stool to pour himself another glass. Dirk sat very still, Gwen's eyes on him, her patient stare heavy enough to feel. His head pounded. Ruark was confusing everything, he thought again. He had to do the right thing, but what was it? Suddenly all his insights and his decisions had evaporated on him. The silence lay thick over the workroom.

"I won't run," Dirk said at last. "I won't. But I won't duel, either. I'll go there and tell them my decision, refuse to fight."

The Kimdissi swirled his wine and chuckled. "Well, a certain moral courage is in that. Utter truth. Jesus Christ and Socrates and Erika Stormjones and now Dirk t'Larien, great martyrs of history, yes. Maybe the Redsteel poet will write something on you."

Gwen gave a more serious answer. "These are Braiths, Dirk, Braith highbonds of the old school. On High Kavalaan itself you might never be challenged to duel. The highbond councils recognize that offworlders don't adhere to then: code. But this is different. The arbiter will rule you forfeit, and Bretan Braith and his holdfast-brothers will kill you or hunt you down. By refusing to duel, in their eyes, you'll have proven yourself a mockman."

"Ican't run," Dirk repeated. His arguments were all gone suddenly; he had nothing left but emotion, a determination to face the dawn and see it through.

"You push away your only sanity, yes, in truth. It is no cowardice, Dirk. The bravest choice of all, think that way, to risk their scorn by flight. Even then, you face peril. Probably they hunt you, Bretan Braith if he lives, the others if not, you know? But you'll live, avoid them maybe, help Gwen."

"I can't," Dirk said. "I promised them, Jaan and Garse."

"Promise? What? That you'd die?"

"No. Yes. I mean, Jaan had me promise to be a brother to Janacek. They wouldn't be in this duel if Vikary hadn't been trying to get me out of trouble."

"After Garse pushed you in," Gwen said bitterly, and Dirk started at the sudden venom in her quiet tones.

"They could die tomorrow too," Dirk said uncertainly. "And I'm responsible for that. Now you say I should desert them."

Gwen stepped very close to him and lifted her hands. Her fingers lightly grazed his cheeks as she brushed gray-brown hair back from his forehead, and the wide green eyes stared into his. Suddenly he remembered other promises: the whisperjewel, the whisperjewel. And times long gone came flashing back, and the world spun, and right and wrong began to melt and run together.

"Dirk, listen to me," Gwen said slowly. "Jaan has been in six duels because of me. Garse, who doesn't even love me, has shared four of those. They've killed for me, for my pride, my honor. I didn't ask it, no more than you asked for their protection. It was their conception of my honor, not my own. But still, those duels were for me as much as this one is for you. Despite that, you asked me to leave them, to return to you, to love you again."

"Yes," Dirk said. "But– I don't know. I've left a trail of broken promises." His voice was anguished. "Jaan named me keth."

Ruark snorted. "If he named you dinner, you would jump into the oven, eh?"

Gwen just shook her head sadly. "You feel what? A duty? An obligation?"

"I guess," he said reluctantly.

"Then you've answered yourself, Dirk. You've told me what my answer to you must be. If you feel so strongly that you have to fulfill the duties of a shortterm keth, a bond that doesn't even have any reality on High Kavalaan, how can you ask me to discard the jade-and-silver? Betheyn means more than keth."

Her soft hands left his face. She stepped back.

Dirk's hand shot out and caught her by the wrist. The left wrist. His grip closed around cold metal and polished jade. "No," he said.

Gwen said nothing. She waited.

For Dirk, Ruark was forgotten, the workroom had faded to darkness. There was only Gwen, staring at him, eyes green and wide and full of-what? Promises? Threats? Lost dreams? She waited, all silent, and he fumbled over his words, never knowing what he would say next. And the jade-and-silver was cool in his hand, and he was remembering:

Red teardrops full of love, wrapped in silver and velvet, burning fiercely cold.

Jaan's face: high cheekbones, the clean square jaw, the receding black hair, and the easy smile. His voice, quiet as steel, always even: But I do exist.

The white ghost towers of Kryne Lamiya, wailing, mocking, singing bright despair while a distant drum sounded its low, meaningless booms. In the middle of it all, defiance, resolution. Briefly he had known what to say.

The face of Garse Janacek: distant (the eyes blue smoke, the head held stiffly, the mouth set), hostile (ice in his sockets, a savage smile at play behind his beard), full of bitter humor (his eyes snapping, his teeth bared in death's own grin).

Bretan Braith Lantry: a tic and a glowstone eye, a figure of fear and pity with a cold and frightening kiss.

Red wine in obsidian goblets, vapors that stung the eye, drinking in a room full of cinnamon and a strange fellowship.

Words. A new and special kind of holdfast-brother, Jaan said.

Words. He will be false, Garse promised.

Gwen's face, a younger Gwen, slimmer, with eyes somehow wider. Gwen laughing. Gwen crying. Gwen in orgasm. Holding him, her breasts flushed and red, the blush spreading over her body. Gwen whispering to him, Ilove you, I love you. Jenny!

A solitary black shadow, poling a low barge down an endless dark canal.

Remembering.

His hand trembled where it gripped her. "If I do not duel," he said, "you will leave Jaan, then? And come with me?"

Her answering nod was painfully slow. "Yes. I thought of it all day, talked about it with Arkin. We had planned it so he would bring you up here, and I'd tell Jaan and Garse that I had to work."

Dirk unfolded his legs from beneath him, and they tingled to the jabs of a hundred tiny knives as the sleep and the stiffness ran out of them. He stood up, and he was decided. "You were going to do this anyway, then? It's not just because of the duel?"

She shook her head.

"Then I'll go. How soon can we leave Worlorn?"

"Two weeks and three days," Ruark said. "No ship till then."

"We'll have to hide," Gwen said. "All things considered, it's the only safe course. I wasn't sure this afternoon whether I should tell Jaan my decision or simply leave. I thought maybe we would talk, then go up together to face him. But the duel business settles it. You would not be allowed to leave now."

Ruark climbed down off his stool. "Go, then," he said. "I'll stay, keep watch, you can call and I tell you what happens. Safe enough for me, unless Garsey and Jaantony lose their duel. Then I'd come quick, run and join you, eh?"

Dirk took Gwen's hands. "I love you," he said. "Still. I do."

She smiled gravely. "Yes. I'm glad, Dirk. Maybe it will work again. But we have to move fast, lose ourselves thoroughly. From now on, all Kavalars are poison to us."

"All right," he said. "Where?"

"Go down and get your things, you'll need warm clothing. Then meet me up on the roof. We'll take the aircar and decide after we're on our way."

Dirk nodded and kissed her quickly.

They were airborne over the dark rivers and rolling hills of the Common when the first blush of dawn touched the sky, a crimson glow low in the east. Soon the first yellow sun rose, and the darkness below turned to a gray morning mist that was fast dissolving. The manta aircar was open, as ever, and Gwen had pushed its speed to maximum, so the chill wind rushed about loudly, making it impossible to talk. While she flew, Dirk slept by her side, huddled up in a patchwork brown greatcoat that Ruark had given him before they left.

She woke him when the shining spear of Challenge came into sight ahead of them, by pushing gently against his shoulder. He had been sleeping lightly, uneasily. At once he straightened and yawned. "We're there," he said, unnecessarily.

Gwen did not answer. The manta slackened in speed as the Emereli city grew larger and nearer.

Dirk looked off toward the dawn. "Two suns are up," he said, "and look, you can almost see Fat Satan. I guess they know we've gone." He thought of Vikary and Janacek, waiting for him at the death-square, chalked on the street, waiting with the Braiths. Bretan would have paced impatiently, no doubt, and then made his odd noise. His eye would be drained and cold in the morning, a dead ember in his scarred face. Maybe he was dead as well by now, or Jaan, or Garse Janacek. Briefly Dirk flushed with shame. He moved closer to Gwen and put an arm around her.

Challenge swelled before them. Gwen took the air-car up in a sharp ascent through a bank of wispy white clouds. The black maw of a landing deck lit at their approach and Dirk saw the numbers as Gwen took them in. The 520th level, an airlot vast and immaculate and deserted.

"Welcome," a familiar tone said as the manta hovered and sank to the floor plates. "I am the Voice of Challenge. May I entertain you?"

Gwen killed the aircar's power and climbed out over the wing. "We want to become temporary residents."

"The charge is quite reasonable," the Voice said.

"Take us to a compartment then."

A wall opened, and another of the balloon-tired cars rolled out to meet them. In everything except color, it was twin to the one that had carried them during their last visit. Gwen got in, and Dirk began to load the vehicle with the luggage from the back seat of the aircar: a sensor pack that Gwen had brought along, three bags jammed with clothing, a package of field supplies for jaunts into the wild. The two sky-scoots, complete with flight boots, were on the bottom of the pile, but Dirk left them in the aircar.

The vehicle set off, and the Voice began to tell them about the various kinds of living quarters that it could provide. Challenge had rooms furnished in a hundred different styles, to make offworlders feel at home, although the flavor of ai-Emerel predominated.

"Something simple and cheap," Dirk told it. "A double bed and cooking facilities and a wet-shower will do."

The Voice deposited them in a small cubicle with pastel blue walls two levels up. It did have a double bed, which filled most of the room, plus a kitchenette built into one wall and a huge color viewscreen that filled three-quarters of another.

"Real Emereli splendor," Gwen said sarcastically when they entered. She set down her sensor pack and clothing, and fell gratefully onto the bed. Dirk stashed the bags he was carrying behind a sliding panel-closet, then sat by Gwen's feet on the edge of the bed and regarded the wallscreen.

"A wide selection of library tapes is available for your viewing pleasure," the Voice said. "I regret to inform you that all regular Festival programming has been terminated."

"Don't you ever go away?" Dirk snapped.

"Basic monitoring functions continue at all times, for your safety and protection; but if you wish, my service function can be temporarily deactivated in your vicinity. Some residents prefer it this way."

"Including me," Dirk said. "Deactivate."

"If you should change your mind or require some service," the Voice said, "simply push the button marked with a star on any nearby wallscreen, and I will again be at your command." Then it fell silent.

Dirk waited briefly. "Voice?" he said. No response. He nodded with satisfaction and went back to his inspection of the screen. Gwen, behind him, was already asleep, her hands cradling her head as she lay curled up on one side.

He wanted to call Ruark desperately, to find out what had happened at the duel, who had lived and who had died. But he did not think it would be safe yet. One of the Kavalars-or more than one-might be keeping Ruark company in either his quarters or the workroom, and a call could give away their location. He would have to wait. Before they had taken off, the Kimdissi had given them the call number of a deserted apartment two floors above his own, and told Dirk to try that number just past dusk. If it was safe, he promised to be there and respond to the buzz. If not, there would be no answer. In any case, Ruark did not know where the two fugitives had gone, so the Kavalars could not possibly force the information out of him.

Dirk was very tired. Despite his nap in the aircar en route, exhaustion weighed heavily on him, tinged with the dark colors of guilt. He had Gwen back at his side again at last, but he felt no exultation. Perhaps that would come later, when his other concerns had faded and they had begun to know each other once more, as they had known each other on Avalon seven long years ago. Yet that might not be until they were safely off Worlorn, away from Jaan Vikary and Garse Janacek and all the other Kavalars, away from the dead cities and the dying forests. They would go back inside the

Tempter's Veil, Dirk thought then as he sat and looked absently at the blank screen, leave the Fringe entirely, go to Tara or Braque or some other sane planet, maybe back to Avalon, maybe farther in than that, to Gulliver or Vagabond or Old Poseidon. There were a hundred worlds he had never seen, a thousand, more– worlds of men and not-men and aliens, all sorts of distant romantic places where no one had ever heard of High Kavalaan or Worlorn. He and Gwen could see those worlds together now.

Too tired to sleep, restless and ill at ease, Dirk began to play with the viewscreen, idly testing its capabilities. He flicked it on and punched the button marked with a query as he had the day before in Ruark's apartment in Larteyn, and the same list of services flashed before him in figures three times the size. He studied them carefully, to learn what he could learn. Perhaps he might pick up some bit of knowledge that could be useful, become aware of something that could help them.

The list included a call number for planetary news. He tapped it out, hoping that the dawn duel in Larteyn would have been noted, maybe as an obituary. But the screen went gray on him, and white letters flashed "Service Terminated" on and off until he wiped them.

Frowning, Dirk tried another sequence, for spaceport information, to check Ruark's data on the ship. This time he had better luck. There were three ships due within the next two standard months. The earliest, as the Kimdissi had said, would come in a little over two weeks from now, a Fringe shuttle named Teric neDahlir. What Ruark hadn't mentioned, however, was that the ship was outbound, coming from Kimdiss and headed on toward Eshellin and the World of the Blackwine Ocean and finally ai-Emerel, its point of origin. A week after that a supply ship was due in from High Kavalaan. Then there was nothing until the Shuddering of Forgotten Enemies returned, inbound.

There was no question of waiting that long, however; he and Gwen would simply have to catch the Teric neDahlir and switch ships on some other world farther out. Getting to the ship was going to be the biggest risk they faced, Dirk had decided. The Kavalars had virtually no chance of finding them here in Challenge, with an entire planet to search, but Jaan Vikary would certainly guess that they intended to go offworld as soon as possible. That meant he could be waiting for them at the spacefield when the time came. Dirk didn't know how they would deal with that. He could only hope they would not have to.

Dirk cleared the screen and tried other numbers, noting which functions had been shut down entirely, which had been stripped to a skeleton status-medical emergency service, for one-and which still operated at Festival levels. Often there was a city-by-city breakdown, which convinced him that they had chosen correctly in coming to Challenge. The Emereli had been determined to prove their tower-city immortal, and they had left nearly everything on in defiance of the cold and the dark and the coming ice. This would be an easy place to live. The other cities were in sorry shape by comparison. Four of the fourteen were entirely dark and depowered, and one of those had suffered so much erosion from wind and weather that it was already crumbling into dusty ruins.

For a time Dirk continued to punch buttons, but finally the game began to wear on him, and he grew bored and restive. Gwen slept on. It was still morning, impossible to call Ruark. He turned off the wallscreen, washed briefly in the waste cubicle, and then went back to the bed, flicking off the light panels. It was some time before he went to sleep. He lay in the warm darkness staring at the ceiling and listening to Gwen's faint breathing, but his mind was far away and troubled.

Soon everything will be good again, he told himself, the way things were on Avalon. Yet he could not believe it. He did not feel like the old Dirk t'Larien, Gwen's Dirk, the one he had promised himself he would become again. He felt, instead, as if nothing had changed; he labored on, as wearily, as hopelessly, as he had on Braque and the other worlds before it. His Jenny was with him again, and he should be full of joy, but he only knew a sick, tired feeling. As if he had failed her once again.

Dirk pushed the thoughts aside and closed his eyes.

When he woke, it was late afternoon. Gwen was already up and about. Dirk showered and dressed in soft faded garments of Avalon synthetic. Then the two of them went out into the corridors to explore the 522nd level of Challenge. They held hands as they walked.

Their compartment was one of thousands in a residential sector of the building. Around it were other compartments, identical to their own except for the numbers on the black doors. The floors and walls and ceilings of the corridors through which they walked were all carpeted in rich cobalt shades, and the lights that hung down at intersections-dim globes, restful, easy on the eyes-matched the hue.

"This is boring," Gwen said after they had walked for a few minutes. "The sameness is too depressing. And I don't see any maps, either. I'm surprised people don't get lost."

"I imagine they could just ask the Voice for directions," Dirk said.

"Yes. I forgot about that." She frowned. "What happened to the Voice? It hasn't had much to say lately."

"I shut it up," Dirk told her. "But it's still watching."

"Can you get it working again?"

He nodded and stopped, then led her toward the nearest of the black doors. The compartment, as he'd expected, was unoccupied, and opened easily at his touch. Inside, the bed, the layout, the viewscreen– everything was the same.

Dirk turned on the viewscreen, pressed the button marked with a star, then turned the set off again.

"Can I help you?" the Voice asked.

Gwen smiled at him; a thin, strained sort of smile it was. She was as tired as he was, it seemed. There were worry lines around the corners of her mouth.

"Yes," she said. "We want something to do. Entertain us. Keep us busy. Show us the city." Dirk thought that she spoke a trifle too quickly, like someone frantic to distract herself and take her mind off an unpleasant subject. He wondered whether it was fear about their safety he was hearing, or possibly concern about Jaan Vikary.

"I understand," the Voice replied. "Let me be your guide, then, to the wonders of Challenge, the glory of ai-Emerel reborn on distant Worlorn." Then it began to direct them, and they walked to the nearest bank of tubes, out of the realm of endless straight cobalt corridors, into regions more colorful and diverting.

They ascended to Olympus, a plush lounge at the very summit of the city, and stood ankle deep in black carpet while they looked out of Challenge's single vast window. A kilometer below them rows of dark clouds scuttled by, racing on a bitter wind they could not feel. The day was dim and gloomy; the Helleye burned and glowered as always, but its yellow companions were hidden by gray haze smeared across the sky. They could see the distant mountains from their tower, and the faint dark green of the Common far beneath them. A robowaiter served them iced drinks.

They walked to the centershaft, a plunging cylinder that cored the tower-city from top to bottom. Standing on the highest balcony, they held hands and looked down together, past other balconies in never-ending rows that dwindled into dim-lit depths. Then they opened the wrought-iron gate and jumped, and hand-in-hand they floated down in the gentle grip of the warm updraft. The centershaft was a recreational facility, maintained at a trace gravity that was hardly great enough to be called a gravity at all-less than.01 percent Emereli normal.

They strolled the outer concourse, a broad slanting corridor that spiraled around and around the rim of the city like the threading on some vast screw, so that an ambitious tourist could walk from the ground level to the top. Restaurants, museums, and shops lined both sides of the concourse; in between were deserted traffic lanes for both the balloon-tired cars and faster vehicles. A dozen slidewalks-six up, six down-formed the median strip of the gently curving boulevard. When their feet grew tired, they climbed onto a belt, then to a faster one, then onto one faster still. As the scenery slid by, the Voice pointed out items of particular interest, none of which were particularly interesting.

They swam nude in the Emereli Ocean, a freshwater pseudo sea that occupied most of the 231st and 232nd levels. The water was bright green crystal, so clean that they could see algae twisting in sinuous ropes on the bottom two levels below. It sparkled beneath panels of lights that gave the illusion of bright sunshine. Small scavenger fish darted to and fro in the lower reaches of the ocean; on the surface, floating plants bobbed and drifted like giant mushrooms done up in green felt.

They used power-skis to descend the ramp, a plunging, bracing flight over low-friction plastic that took them from the hundredth level all the way down to the first. Dirk fell twice, only to bounce back up again.

They inspected a free-fall gymnasium.

They looked into darkened auditoriums built for thousands, and declined to view the taped holoplays the Voice offered.

They ate, briefly and without relish, at a sidewalk cafe in the middle of a once-busy shopping mall.

They wandered in a jungle of twisted trees and yellow moss where the animal sounds were all on tape and echoed strangely off the walls of the hot, steamy park.

Finally, still restive and worried and only a little distracted by it all, they allowed the Voice to whisk them up to their room. Outside, they had been told, true dusk was settling over Worlorn.

Dirk stood in the narrow space between the bed and the wall as he pressed the buttons in sequence. Gwen sat just behind him.

Ruark was a long time answering, too long. Dirk wondered apprehensively if something terrible had happened. But just as he thought it, the throbbing blue call signal faded out, and the plump face of the Kimdissi ecologist filled the screen. Behind him, in a grayish pall, was the dirt of a deserted apartment.

"Well?" Dirk said. He glanced back at Gwen. She was chewing the edge of her lip, and her right hand was still, resting on the jade-and-silver bracelet that she wore yet on her left forearm.

"Dirk? Gwen? Is this you? I cannot see you, no, my screen is dark." Ruark's pale eyes flicked back and forth restlessly beneath lank strands of paler hair.

"Of course it's us," Dirk snapped. "Who else would call this number?"

"I cannot see you," Ruark repeated.

"Arkin," Gwen said from where she sat on the bed, "if you could see us, then you'd know where we were."

Ruark's head bobbed. He had just the slightest suggestion of a double chin. "Yes, I did not think, you are right. Best that I do not know, yes."

"The duel," Dirk prompted. "This morning. What happened?"

"Is Jaan all right?" Gwen asked.

"No duel," Ruark told them. His eyes still flicked back and forth, searching for something to look at, Dirk supposed. Or perhaps he was nervous that the Kavalars would burst in on him in the vacant apartment. "I went to see, but no duel, utter truth."

Gwen sighed audibly. "Then everyone is all right? Jaan?"

"Jaantony is alive and well, and Garsey, and the Braiths," Ruark said. "No shooting or killing at all, but when Dirk did not come to die on schedule, everyone got crazy, yes."

"Tell me," Dirk said quietly.

"Yes, well, you were the cause of the other duel being postponed."

"Postponed?" said Gwen.

"Postponed," Ruark replied. "They will still fight, same mode and weapons, but not now. Bretan Braith appealed to the arbiter. He said he had a right to face Dirk first, since he might die in the duel with Jaan and Garsey, so his grievance against Dirk would go unsettled. He demanded that the second duel be stayed till Dirk could be found. The arbiter said yes to him. A Braith tool, the arbiter, yes, agreed with everything the animals wanted. Roseph high-Braith, they called him, an utter malevolent little man."

"The Ironjades," Dirk said. "Jaan and Garse. Did they say anything?"

"Jaantony, no. He said nothing at all, no, just kept standing very still in his corner of the death-square. All the rest of them were running around, shouting and yelling and being Kavalar. Nobody else was even in the square but Jaan, no, but he kept standing there looking around, like he expected the duel to start any second. Garsey, now, he got very angry. First, when you did not come, he made jokes about you being sick, then he got very cold and silent for a time, quiet as Jaan was, but later he was a little less angry, I think, so he began to argue with Bretan Braith and the arbiter and the other dueler, Chell. All the Braiths were here, to witness perhaps. I did not know we had so much company in Larteyn, no. Well, I did abstractly, yes, but it is different when they come together all in one place. A pair of Shanagates came also, though not the Redsteel poet, so we were short three, you two and him. Otherwise, perhaps it was a city council meeting, everyone dressed up formally." He chuckled.

"Do you know what's going to happen now?" Dirk said.

"Do not worry," Ruark said. "You two. will hide and catch the ship, yes. They cannot track you down, a whole planet to hunt! The Braiths, I think, will not even look. Truth, they had you named a mockman.

Bretan Braith demanded it, and his partner spoke about old traditions, and others of the Braiths too, and the arbiter said yes, that if you did not come to duel you are no true man at all. So they will hunt you, maybe, but not with special purpose, you are now just another animal to kill, any other will do as well."

"Mockman," Dirk said hollowly. Oddly, he felt as if he had lost something.

"To Bretan Braith and those, yes. Garse, I think, will try harder to find you, but he will not hunt you like an animal. He swore that you would duel, duel Bretan Braith and then duel him, or maybe him first."

"What about Vikary?" Dirk said.

"I have told you, he said nothing at all, nothing."

Gwen rose from the bed. "You've only been talking about Dirk," she said to Ruark. "What about me?"

"You?" Ruark's pale eyes blinked. "The Braiths said you were mockman too, but Garse would not allow it. He talked very strong of dueling any who touched you. Roseph high-Braith waffled. He wanted to call you mockman as well as Dirk, but Garsey was very angry, and I understand Kavalar duelers can challenge arbiters who make bad decisions, though they are still bound to follow the decision, truth. So, sweet Gwen, you are still betheyn and protected, and they will only bring you back if they catch you. Afterwards, you will be punished, but it will be a punishment of Ironjade. In truth, they did not talk of you overmuch, many more words were spent on Dirk. You are only a woman, eh?"

Gwen said nothing.

"We'll call you again in a few days," Dirk said.

"Dirk, it must be a picked time, no? I am not always in this dust hole." Ruark gave another little chuckle at that.

"In three days, then, at dusk again. We've got to give some thought to how we're going to get to the ship. I figure that Jaan and Garse will cover the space-field when the time comes."

Ruark nodded. "I will think on it."

"Can you get us weapons?" Gwen asked suddenly.

"Weapons?" The Kimdissi made a clucking noise. "Truth, Gwen, the Kavalar is seeping into your blood. I am from Kimdiss. What do I know of lasers and such, violent things? I can try, however, for you, for Dirk my friend. We will talk of it when we speak again; now I must go."

His face dissolved, and Dirk blacked out the wall-screen before turning to face Gwen. "You want to fight them? Is that wise?"

"I don't know," she said. She walked to the door slowly, turned, walked back again. And then stopped; the compartment was so small that it was impossible to pace with any real vehemence.

"Voice!" Dirk said as sudden inspiration struck. "Is there a gun shop in Challenge? A place where we can purchase lasers or other weapons?"

"I regret to inform you that the norms of ai-Emerel prohibit the carrying of personal weaponry," the Voice replied.

"Sport weapons?" Dirk suggested. "For hunting and target practice?"

"I regret to inform you that the norms of ai-Emerel prohibit all blood sports and games based on sublimated violence. If you are a member of a culture where such pursuits are esteemed, please be assured that no insult is intended to your homeworld. These forms of recreation are available elsewhere on Worlorn."

"Forget it," Gwen said. "It was a bad idea anyway."

Dirk put his hands on her shoulders. "We won't need weapons in any case," he said with a smile, "though I'll admit that it might make me feel a little better to be carrying one. I doubt that I'd know how to use it if the time came."

"I would," she said. Her eyes-her wide green eyes-had a hardness in them that Dirk had never seen. For a single strange second he was reminded of Garse Janacek and his icy blue disdain.

"How?" he said.

She waved impatiently and shrugged, so that his hands slid off her shoulders. Then she turned away from him. "In the field, Arkin and I use projectile guns. To fire tracer-needles when we're trying to keep track of an animal, study its patterns of migration. Sleep darts too. And there are sensor implants the size of a thumbnail that will tell you everything you might want to know about a life form-how it hunts, what it eats, mating habits, brain patterns during various stages of the life cycle. Enough clues like that, and you can work out a whole ecosystem from the data that different species are reporting back. But you have to plant your spies first, and you do that by immobilizing the subjects with darts. I've fired thousands of them. I'm good. I only wish I'd thought to lug one along."

"It's different," Dirk said. "Using a weapon for something like that, and shooting a man with a laser. I've never done either, but I don't think they would be at all comparable."

Gwen leaned against the door and regarded him sourly from several meters away. "You don't think I could kill a man?"

"No."

She smiled. "Dirk, I'm not the little girl you knew on Avalon. In between then and now I spent several years on High Kavalaan. They were not easy years. I've had other women spit in my face. I've heard Garse Janacek deliver a thousand lectures on the obligations of jade-and-silver. I've been called mock-man and betheyn-bitch by other Kavalar men so often that sometimes I find myself answering to them." She shook her head. Beneath the broad headband pulled tight across her forehead, her eyes were hard green stone. Jade, Dirk thought inanely, jade as in the armlet she still wore.

"You're angry," he said. "It's easy to get angry. But I've known you, love, and you're essentially a gentle person."

"I was. I try to be. But it's been a long time, Dirk, a long, long time, and it's been building, and Jaan Vikary has been the only part of it that's been any good at all. I've told Arkin; he knows how I feel, what I've felt. There have been times when I've come so close-so damned close. With Garse especially, because in a very odd way he is part of me, and very much a part of Jaan, and it hurts more when it's someone who you care about, someone you could almost love if it weren't for…"

She stopped. Her arms were crossed tightly across her chest and she was frowning, but she stopped. She must have seen the expression on his face, Dirk thought. He wondered what it was.

"Maybe you're right," she said after a little bit, uncrossing her arms. "Maybe I couldn't kill anyone. But, you know, I feel as if I could sometimes. And right now, Dirk, I would very much like to have a gun." She laughed a small unfunny laugh. "On High Kavalaan, of course, I wasn't allowed to go armed. Why does a betheyn need a sidearm? Her highbond and his teyn protect her. And a woman with a gun might shoot herself. Jaan… well, Jaan has fought to change a lot of things. He tries. I'm here, after all. Most women never leave the safe stone of their holdfasts once they take the jade-and-silver. But for all his trying, and I do respect it, Jaan doesn't understand. He's a highbond, after all, and he's fighting other things as well, and for everything I tell him, Garse tells him something else. Sometimes Jaan doesn't even notice. And the small things, like my going armed, he says aren't Important. I talked to him about it once, and he pointed out that I objected to the whole practice of going armed, the whole big artifice of code duello, which is true. And yet-Dirk, you know, I did understand what you were saying to Arkin last night, about wanting to face Bretan even if you don't feel yourself bound by his code. I've felt the same way at times."

The room lights flickered briefly, dimming, then flaring back to full Intensity, "What?" Dirk said, looking up.

"Residents should not be alarmed," the Voice said in its even bass tones. "A temporary power failure affecting your level has now been rectified."

"Power failure!" A picture flashed through Dirk's mind, a picture of Challenge-sealed, windowless, totally contained Challenge-without power. He did not like the idea. "What's going on?"

"Please do not be alarmed," the Voice repeated, but the overhead lights gave the He to its words. They went out entirely, and for a brief second Gwen and Dirk stood in frighteningly total darkness.

"I think we had better leave," Gwen said when the lights came back on. She turned and slid open the wall panel and began to remove their bags. Dirk went to help her.

"Please do not panic," the Voice said. "For your own safety, I urge you to remain within your compartment. The situation is under control. Challenge has many built-in safeguards, as well as back-ups for every important system.",

They finished packing. Gwen went to the door. "Are you on secondary power now?" she asked.

"Levels one through fifty, 251 through 300, 351 through 451, and 501 through 550 are on secondary power at present," the Voice admitted. "This is no cause for alarm. Robotechs are repairing primary power as quickly as possible, and other standby systems exist in the unlikely event that secondary power should fail."

"I don't understand," Dirk said. "Why? What's the cause of the failures?"

"Please do not be alarmed," the Voice said.

"Dirk," Gwen said calmly. "Let's go." She went out, a bag in her right hand and her sensor pack slung over her left shoulder on a strap. Dirk picked up the other two bags and followed her out into the cobalt-blue corridors. They hurried toward the tubes, Gwen two steps ahead, the carpets swallowing the sounds of their footfalls.

"Residents who panic are more likely to harm themselves than those who remain within the safety of their own compartments during the duration of this small inconvenience," the Voice chided them.

"Tell us what's going on and we might reconsider," Dirk said. They did not stop or slow up.

"Emergency regulations are now in effect," the Voice said. "Warders have been dispatched to conduct you back to your own compartment. This is for your own protection. I repeat, warders have been dispatched to conduct you back to your own compartment. The norms of ai-Emerel prohibit…" The words abruptly began to slur, and the bass voice rose and squeaked and became a grating whine that clawed briefly at their ears. It ended in a sudden shuddering silence.

The lights went off.

Dirk stopped for an instant, then took two steps forward in the thick darkness and bumped into Gwen. "What?" he said. "Sorry."

"Quiet," Gwen whispered. She began to count off the seconds. At thirteen, the hanging globes at the cross corridors came on again. But the blue radiance was a dim ghost glow, barely enough to see by.

"Come on," Gwen said. She began walking again, more slowly this time, treading carefully in the blue gloom. The tubes were not far ahead.

When the walls spoke to them, the voice was not the Voice.

"This is a large city," it said, "yet it is not large enough to hide you, t'Larien. I am waiting in the lowest of the Emereli cellars, the fifty-second sublevel. The city is mine. Come to me, now, or all power will die around you, and in the darkness my teyn and I will come hunting."

Dirk recognized the speaker. He could hardly be mistaken. On Worlorn, or anywhere, it would not be easy to duplicate the twisted, rasping voice of Bretan Braith Lantry.