"I can see that. You two know each other, then?" Jael tried not to show her disappointment. She had rather liked the notion that this bird was her own personal discovery.
Ar turned to face her directly, giving her a first clear look at his eyes. She was stunned speechless. Deepset in his almost triangular face, they looked like clear crystal orbs, shining with a pale inner light. He seemed to have no irises, whites, or pupils. But as she gazed, half-aware of her rudeness, she realized that his retinas—or whatever took the place of retinas—were visible. They looked like tiny purplish puffs of steel wool, or glitter, nested at the backs of his eyes. She was suddenly aware of his amusement, and she blushed. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"
"Don't mention it. Everyone does it." Ar's lips straightened, then crinkled. "Actually, I'm considered to have quite lovely eyes on my own world."
She couldn't tell if he was being serious or teasing. "Oh. Yes, well I . . ." And she realized that she had no idea what they had been talking about, before she'd glimpsed his eyes.
Ar turned toward the bird. "I'm sorry if I sounded as though I have some special intimacy with Ed, here. I've only met him twice before, and I've been in this environment quite a few times." He extended a long-fingered hand toward the bird. Ed prodded at his finger with his golden beak.
"He doesn't show up every time, then?"
Ar rocked his head from side to side. "No, I think the environment senses when he might be good medicine for whoever has come in." He was silent a moment. "After all, this is a generated environment. Even though it doesn't feel that way."
"Yes," Jael said. She had almost forgotten. That meant, of course, that Ed was a construct, as well. Somehow she found that thought disappointing.
"Ed feels real to me, though," Ar continued. "I think he's a copy of an actual bird mated to an evolving intelligence program. It looks as if he's taken something of a shine to you. That's probably why he was teasing you about his name. Isn't that right, Ed?"
The bird drew his head back and snapped his beak at the air, as though trying to catch invisible insects. He gave no sign that he had heard.
"Come on, Ed," said the Clendornan. "You like Jael, don't you?"
The bird bit at the air with finality, then cocked his head and squawked wordlessly. Jael frowned. He hopped closer to her. "Jayl?" he murmured. He opened his beak and closed it gently around her wrist. "Gwawk."
Jael was moved by the gesture; she regretted that he was only a machine thing. "I wish you were a real bird," she murmured wistfully.
Ed squawked and fluttered his wings violently. He launched himself into hovering flight and banged among the branches, screeching, "Awwk—reeel—REEEL—awwwwk!" He lighted on a higher branch and glowered down. "Hurrrrt—hurrt feeeling! Ed reeel! Rarrk!" He fell silent and gazed mournfully down at them.
"I'm sorry, Ed!" Jael said in surprise. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings! I didn't know you were real. Can I make it up to you?"
The bird hopped back down, with a flutter, to his previous perch. "Okk-kay," he squawked. "Okk-kay! Made up-p. Like Jayl—like Jayl."
"Does that mean you'll come see me again—next time I'm here?"
Ed dipped his beak. "Be here. Ed be here. Bye, Jayl! Bye, Ar!" And with a flutter of color, he was gone.
Jael blinked in amazement. Hesitantly, she raised a hand as if to wave farewell. She looked at Ar, suddenly embarrassed by her gesture.
"Sensitive guy, I guess," he said. "Would you like to see some of the other environments? They can be pretty interesting, too."
Jael considered the offer dazedly. The artificiality of this setting came home to her suddenly, along with a feeling of restlessness. She shook her head. "I don't think so. Not right now." She hesitated, not knowing what to say, just knowing that she suddenly felt uncomfortable being around this stranger, and she wanted to leave. "Um . . . bye, I guess." She squeezed the controller in her right hand.
The rainforest dissolved in a grey fog.
Chapter 16
Ar
REMOVING THE helmet, she rubbed her eyes. The gloom of the lounge seemed unreal to her now, after the environment. But one thing that brought her back, with a jolt, was the sight of the Clendornan removing a helmet from his head and looking awkwardly in her direction. Of course. He's still here.
For a moment, she didn't move a muscle. She'd left the environment because she had wanted to get away from him. Or did you just panic because you didn't know what to say?
Ar rose and walked toward her. He paused, resting a hand on the back of the second seat over from hers. His gaze, clear and luminous even in the gloom, met hers. "I'm sorry if I upset you. I didn't mean to. But I wasn't sure . . . how else to . . ." He hesitated, a strange, soft gargling sound coming from his throat.
"I beg your pardon?" she murmured, puzzled.
He seemed embarrassed. His voice sounded as if he were underwater. "How to introduce myself. Since you're new here, I mean. And since, when I followed you into the system, it didn't keep me out—"
"You figured you were invited in?" Jael asked in sudden irritation.
"Yes, well, I . . ." His breath went out with an animal-like sigh. "The system is supposed to know . . ."
Jael frowned; she wondered why she had felt that moment of annoyance. She tried to think of another reply.
Ar's head was tipped, his mouth flattened. "Well, as I said, I'm sorry. I won't do it again." His eyes dimmed. "I just wanted to apologize. I'll be going now." He started to walk away.
She drew a breath. "Wait."
He stopped, turned.
Jael felt dizzy, her head full of uncertainty. "I'm . . . sorry, too. It's okay, really. I guess if the system thought I didn't want privacy, then . . . it wasn't your fault . . ."
When she couldn't finish her thought, he said in a steadier tone, his voice like smoothly sanded wood, "I understand you've had—ah, a difficult beginning here."
She shook her head. "Come again?" Suddenly she understood, and as the full realization unfolded, she stared at him in horror. The entire spaceport knows about me, that I killed Mogurn! Everyone knows.
"Well, I . . ." he murmured apologetically, as though he'd read her mind. "The authorities are not always as discreet as one might wish. Yes, if that's what you're thinking, most of us know that you brought your ship in after . . . defending yourself . . . against your captain." He took a long, whispering breath. "It is, if I may say so, both an alarming and an inspiring story."
Jael could not answer. Her worst possible fears were confirmed. Everyone knew. Everyone was watching her.
"And I sense your unease with this subject," he murmured. "Again, I am sorry."
She looked away and spoke hoarsely. "If you know all about it . . . then there's no need . . ."
Ar's voice quavered again, drawing her attention back. "Please—I do not know all about it. Nor can I read your thoughts, as perhaps you fear." Jael tensed, as he voiced precisely her fear. The Clendornan shook his head slowly. "I can sense emotions only, and that I cannot help doing. But I do so—I suppose you would say, analytically. I perceive that there is pain, for example. But in merely knowing that, I can neither peer into your soul to know your secrets, nor can I, unfortunately, do much that might alleviate the pain."
Jael felt a thickness in her throat. "Yes? Well, I'm not looking for a counselor, anyway."
"No no no, I did not mean that." Ar's breath came in a long sigh. "I am sorry, I should not have said—"
"Well, you did say it!"
Ar drew himself up; his angular head seemed slightly off balance atop his shoulders. "Let me put it differently, if I may," he whispered. He hesitated for several long moments, then said, "I . . . do not fly solo. I must find a rigging partner before I can fly again. And therefore . . ."
Jael held her breath, frowning.
"Well—I do not seek a partner only. I am in need of a friend, as well. And I thought . . . I sensed a . . . resonance, if you will." And his breath sighed out, and he st
ood very still, looking down at her with his luminous, liquid eyes.
"Well . . ." Jael cleared her throat. She didn't know what to say to that. Didn't this, this Clendornan, know what an emotional wreck she was? She felt a flush of weakness; she thought of the pallisp, and how much she had wanted that thing, did want it, even now; and she thought of Mogurn, and just the memory of the man made her sick, but the main thing she remembered was, I killed him, I killed a man. She rested her head back in her chair, fighting a wave of nausea.
Ar was watching her expectantly, waiting for her to finish her reply. There seemed so much to say, so much to get straight in her mind. "I—I guess I could use someone to talk to, if that's what you mean," she murmured at last.
The zigzag in his lips deepened.
She rose, unsteadily, and stuck out a hand. "Glad to meet you—Ar." The Clendornan gripped her hand gently; his fingers wrapped nearly all the way around hers. She forced a smile. "So, did you have anything special in mind? Can we maybe get out of this dungeon for a while?"
* * *
Ar did have an idea, but he was hesitant about launching straight into it before they had time to get to know each other a little better. Jael assured him that the last thing she wanted to do was sit around making small talk, if there was any chance of getting out of the rigger hall for a while. Ar thought a moment, then agreed. His idea required permission from the police—but when he accompanied Jael to the station and explained, Commander Gordache granted the okay with a bored wave of his hand.
"You'll need a warmer-vest," Ar said, leading her to the other end of the spaceport building, through yet another underground tunnel. "It can get pretty cold outside. But we'll be in a transport bubble, so it's really just for safety."
A half hour later, they'd checked out the necessary equipment and started across the open spaceport in a transport bubble. It was an aircar, but so tiny and light that it felt like little more than a floating air pocket; the canopy was just a transparent forcefield that enclosed them like a soap bubble. Despite the icy winds gusting across the field, Jael felt toasty. "Where exactly are we going?" she asked, peering around at the ramps filled with parked spacecraft. She could not see Cassandra, which was probably just as well.
Ar pointed into the distance, far beyond, the field. "See the second peak to the right of that tracking tower? That's it. It'll only take a few minutes to get there."
"You've been there before?"
Ar's eyes shone. "Oh, yes. It's my favorite spot on Lexis. I've been waiting for an excuse to see it again."
Jael took a good look back at the mesa-top spaceport. As the bubble accelerated out beyond the edge of the mesa, she glimpsed a hoverrail train climbing the side of the cliffs from a spur line far below, disappearing into a tunnel near the top. The ground transport facilities were all embedded in the upper part of the mesa. Lexis was a world of substantial wealth, but from this vantage point, the outlying land from the spaceport looked like a wild frontier.
The bubble sped away from the mesa, and she sat back and enjoyed the view. Ar's hands were in constant motion, pointing out sights to her. The transport bubble knew where it was going and didn't need their help getting there. Jael felt her stomach drop as they began rising toward the distant peak. She gasped, looking down. "It's beautiful!" A ruggedly contoured valley was visible far below, half blanketed with snow. From a settlement nestled in the valley, whiskers of smoke curled into the air.
"It gets better," Ar said.
They flew on, steadily gaining speed.
* * *
The peak seemed to rotate in space as they approached it in a curving sweep from the southeast. It was a tremendous work of stone and wind, sculpted by the ageless forces of nature with a seeming indifference to gravity. Like an up-stretched arm, it seemed to speak of the earth's own primitive desire to reach to the sky. As they circled its cliffs, Jael clung to her seat, peering breathlessly down over the tumbled slopes. It was impossible not to feel that at any moment the bubble of their transport might burst and dump them, like seeds from a pod, onto the rocks far below. She was embarrassed by her nervousness. After all, there was nothing here that she could not envision in a rigger-net, and she was a skilled and fearless rigger, wasn't she?
The bubble zoomed closer to the ice-sheeted rocks, creating a dizzying illusion of imminent impact. The bubble cut to the left and slowed dramatically; then it shot upward, as if making for the summit, and suddenly shifted again into forward motion and glided terrifyingly close to a sheer red-stone cliff. It hugged the tortuous contours for twenty seconds, before rising to meet a ledge near the top of the cliff. Seemingly abruptly, the bubble came to rest, perched upon the ledge. Jael's breath caught in her throat. They were practically among the clouds, perched in an aerie where birds would scarcely dare to fly.
For the first few moments, she was terrified. They seemed so precariously perched that the slightest puff of wind could send them tumbling. "Really, we're quite well secured," she heard someone saying, as though in a fog, and eventually she focused on Ar's words, something about "gravity anchors." She nodded to show that she believed him, even as she struggled to make her eyes and her mind absorb the reality. Finally she drew a slow, deep breath and began to enjoy herself.
The view was astounding: mountain peaks contesting for dominance against the sky, ravines and wilderness valleys etched with barren rocks and snow, with ridges and tufts of winter trees. There was no sign of civilized life. The inhabited valley was out of sight behind the peak. They might have been thousands of kilometers from the nearest intrusion of society. Graceful arcs of cirrous clouds drifted high over the peaks. One towering summit was shrouded by a white mist that seemed to have gathered at that peak and nowhere else. In the other direction the sky was an astonishing cerulean blue.
"It makes me feel like an angel," Ar said softly, his breath whispering in and out beside her.
Jael's eyes widened at the image, but she didn't speak; she was too moved by the grandeur. She suddenly was conscious of being alone here with a man, an alien man whom she hardly knew, experiencing such an unexpected depth of wonder. It seemed . . . odd. She thought wistfully of Highwing. This was a place he would enjoy, would know how to love properly with dragon dignity and magical wonderment. She sighed silently. It was no good wishing for a friend who would never, could never, be here with her.
"Jael, would you like to really see it?"
She turned her head slowly, reacting to Ar's words.
Ar was gazing at her, his dear eyes almost ethereal with a luminous presence that seemed somehow to reach out to her across an enormous gulf. She shivered; and he smiled, in his cracked and crinkled way, and she realized that he was waiting for her to respond. "If you think it's beautiful now," he murmured, "it's possible to make it come even more alive in your mind. It can give you visions to rig by, visions you'll never forget. Would you like to try?"
The meaning of his words was slow in penetrating. "Well, I . . . don't know . . ." she murmured, as she felt the first tug of apprehension.
The Clendornan gazed back out over the mountains. "It's breathtaking just as it is, isn't it?" he said softly. "There's no need to do anything differently, if you don't want to. Look down in that valley." He pointed. Sunlight had just broken through a cloud to blaze into a series or ravines where snow seemed to be glittering in the air. "See those puffs of snow? We just missed seeing a slide, I think. I'll bet no one has ever been down there on foot, at least no one of your race or mine. It's pure wilderness, and so close to the spaceport."
Jael peered in the direction he was pointing and felt a tug of regret, wondering, despite her instinctive fear, what he'd been planning to offer. She was astonished at the trust she already felt toward him. He seemed to have no intention of forcing anything upon her, and she found that greatly reassuring.
Ar's eyes sparkled as he scanned up and to the right, where something—a dark speck—was moving along the face of an impossibly steep slope. "Let's see if we
can get the magnifier on that," he said, touching one of the controls. There was a sudden distortion in the bubble as the forcefield produced two circular lens effects, one in front of each of them. Moving her head, Jael could see the magnified image of the mountainside swimming beyond the lens. After a moment, she located the dark speck, enlarged. It was a four-legged animal, perhaps a kind of mountain goat. But this high? It was impossible. Surely there was nothing for it to graze on at this altitude.
"I think it's a marten's centaur," Ar said.
"A flier? It looks like a goat to me. And a pretty brave one at th—" She interrupted herself, as something began to unfold on the animal's back. She gaped in astonishment as the animal stepped off the side of the mountain, wings spread wide. It began a graceful looping flight high over the rocky slopes. Jael lost it in the magnifier, but she could still see it unmagnified as a tiny black speck in the air. "What's it doing all the way up here?" she murmured in amazement.
"Prowling for hawklyn eggs, probably," Ar said, flicking off the magnifier. "They're superb hunters."
Jael nodded, astonished. She looked back at her new friend. "Ar? What was it you were going to suggest?"
Ar drew something from his jacket pocket and placed it on the narrow console between them. It was a small polyhedron of some sort, made of a glass or crystal as clear as his eyes. It was mounted on a base, with tiny controls.
Oh no . . .
Ar touched one of the controls. "It's just an enhancement device, to let the emotional effect accumulate. I'll set it at a low—" His expression changed, his mouth flattened as he noticed Jael's reaction. "Do you not want me to do this?"
"I just . . ." Jael drew a deep breath, struggling to push down memories of the pallisp, and the fear. But surely this was nothing so powerful as the pallisp. Probably more like . . . "Ar, is this—is this a dreamlink device?"
"A dreamlink—?"
"A synaptic . . . augmentor?"
His head tilted slightly. "In a manner of speaking. But it's an extremely gentle device. You will retain full control of your . . . thoughts."
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