Burning Bright

by Melissa Scott

  “It looks good,” Gueremei said, and Lioe jumped at the sound of her voice. An instant later, one of the printers whirred to life, spat a piece of paper, and Gueremei retrieved it. “I’ll get you some players, then.”

  “Thanks,” Lioe said. Her eyes were on her screens before the door closed behind the other woman.

  Most of the relationships in the Game were familiar, formalized; everyone who played knew the characters and their backgrounds, and the pleasure of a session came from seeing how well a player could perform within those constraints. About half the characters on Ixion’s Wheel were drawn from someone else’s scenarios: Harmsway and Gallio Hazard from Ambidexter’s sessions of five years ago; Avellar from an old, old session that everyone had said was wonderful, but no one had used; Lord Faro and Ibelin Belfortune from a session she herself had played on Demeter a few months before, whom she had salvaged from certain death because their templates were more interesting than her players had been capable of making them. The rest–the telekinetic Jack Blue, unofficial leader of the prison population; the Rebel technician Galan Africa, who hated blood telepaths, with good reason; the research scientist Mijja Lyall, part of the prison staff, living in fear that someone would discover her own low‑level talent and transfer her to the experiment–were her own creations, but she had been careful to tie them to familiar places and characters within the larger Game. She studied the numbers for a moment longer, balancing skills and quirks and basic numbers, then touched the keys that dumped the templates to the system. A light flashed, confirming her choice, and she turned her attention to the setting.

  She had a good library with her, settings she’d laboriously compiled through her years of travel, walking through the various cities on all the worlds she visited with her palmcorder in her pocket, waiting for just the right combination of light and space, of architecture and atmosphere and attitude, that would make a perfect place in some Game. Ixion’s Wheel had been harder to find than most, and she had had to transform her stored images more than usual, to get the harsh world suggested by the planetary statistics.

  Frowning a little, she pulled her shades from the carryall, plugged the datacord into the socket on the temple, and touched the keys that opaqued the heavy lenses and displayed the image directly in front of her eyes. She touched more keys, and the statistics for Ixion’s Wheel hung in blank space: a hot planet, desert‑dry except for sparse bands of grassland to the north and south. The prison complex lay just south of the dry line, in the softer desert; the port lay to its north, just far enough away from the complex to seem unreachable. She had already pulled images for the prison–mostly from government buildings on Ardinee, a cheerless place if she’d ever seen one–but the port was less defined. And there wasn’t much time; she would have to fall back on her old standby for hot planets, images taken on Callixte itself, her home base.

  She pulled that file, let it open, the images blossoming in front of her eyes. Plain, flat‑fronted buildings painted in sweeps of shocking pastels floated against a multitude of skies. She picked a dozen buildings at random, pulled a port‑and‑city blank from a general pattern file, and began fitting the buildings into the open spaces of the map. A town, a port town, took shape behind the shades, outlines only at first, as she moved the buildings like the pieces on a chessboard, shuffling them for maximum effect. She rotated the image until she was seeing it edge‑on, to view the skyline; then, as satisfied as she would be with this set of images, touched the controls to fill in the rest of the buildings. She chose a sky as well, the hot, thunder‑hazed blue of Callixte’s summer, and was pleased with the vivid splash of the painted walls against that metallic background. She replaced that sky with a storm, and watched the light bleed away into an ominous luminosity, the ramparts of cloud looming over the low roofs. It was good, an effect to be stored for later, but the first sky was the one she wanted now. She recalled it, and filled the empty space around the town with a generic grassland. It would do–nothing unique, and maybe not as good as some of her efforts, but it would do.

  “That’s very nice,” Gueremei said, and Lioe jumped.

  “I didn’t hear you come in.” She worked the toggle that cleared her shades, then dumped the cityscape to the main library.

  “Sorry,” Gueremei said, not sounding particularly repentant. “I’ve got a cast for you.”

  “Thanks,” Lioe said, and held out her hand for the disk. Gueremei slid it across the table, and Lioe slipped it deftly into the last reader.

  “You should be pleased,” Gueremei went on. “I had to turn some people away. I’ve pulled you a good group, though, if I do say so myself. Roscha’s a handful, sometimes, but she’s a damn fine player, and she likes the scenario outline. I think she’ll behave. Savian’s a Republican, of course–” She stopped abruptly, bit off a laugh. “But so are you. I’d forgotten.”

  “That’s all right.” Lioe smiled, and did her best to hide the excitement welling up in her, making her movements too quick and clumsy.

  “So you’ll be used to the style,” Gueremei went on, as though the other woman hadn’t spoken. She came around the curved side of the table, leaned over Lioe’s shoulder to strike a chord of keys. “This is what I’ve done.”

  A secondary window bloomed in front of the main datatree, displayed a double list of names. Lioe stared at it blankly, matching unknown names to the characters opposite. Roscha–Jafiera Roscha, who could be a “handful,” according to Gueremei–would be playing Galan Africa: not a bad part for a troublemaker, Lioe thought. At least there should be enough meat in it to keep her happy. Savian, Peter Savian, the other Republican, would play Lord Faro–and a name seemed to leap out at her from the foot of the list: Audovero Caminesi, cast as the telekinetic Jack Blue.

  She highlighted the name with a touch, and looked up to see Gueremei nod.

  “He volunteered,” she said, “and I like his style. You said you’d met.” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was oddly formal. “Does this meet with your approval, Na Lioe?”

  “It looks fine to me,” Lioe answered, and swept the disks she had prepared for the players into an untidy stack. “Bring them in.”

  Gueremei nodded, stepped back to work the door controls. The door sagged open, and at her gesture the players filed into the room, carryalls and cased Gameboards in hand. Lioe looked up from her screen to watch them file in and take their places at the players’ seats around the curved side of the table. A big bearded man came first, followed closely by a slimmer, hard‑faced man with the silver disks of implant lenses gleaming in both eyes. They sat side by side, the bearded man grinning at something, and a young man in a supportchair followed them in. His thin wrists were heavy with jeweled bracelets, and there were more jewels in his ears. The silver‑eyed man pushed one of the chairs away from the table, and the other eased his supportchair into the new space, murmuring thanks under his breath. A handsome, hook‑nosed woman with an expensive Gameboard followed him, and then Vere, still in his steward’s uniform, as though he’d come directly from Newfields. He glanced at Lioe with a smile that hoped for recognition, and Lioe grinned back at him, grateful for something like a familiar face. The striking red‑haired woman behind him raised an eyebrow at the sight, her dark blue eyes, the color of the sea seen from near orbit, flicking up and down in insolent assessment. Lioe cocked an eyebrow at her, still smiling, and was rewarded by a faint, betraying flush of color: not used to someone taking up her challenge, Lioe thought, and filed the notion for later use. A slim man, with Asian eyes and implanted hsai spurs on both wrists, followed her, bony face expressionless. Lioe’s attention was caught by the spurs– is he hsaia, jericho‑human, or adopted, or does he just admire the hsai principle of kinship?–but pulled her thoughts sternly away. Politics had no place in the Game. That was only seven, and Lioe frowned. It would be hard to eliminate any of the characters–easier to be rid of two than one–and she glanced sharply at Gueremei, then back at the cast list. All the names were
filled, so they were still one short.

  “I’ve decided to sit in myself,” Gueremei said. “I play under Fernesa–Gameop’s privilege.”

  A mixed favor, Lioe thought. Gueremei would be good–you didn’t get to be a Gameop without being at least a double‑A player–but it was also a little unnerving, having her on‑line for the first session. “Suit yourself,” she said aloud, and Gueremei settled herself in the remaining chair.

  “All right,” Gueremei said, not loudly, but all attention shifted instantly to her. “This is Quinn Lioe, everyone, who wrote the Frederick’s Glory scenario some of you played last week. Na Lioe, let me introduce your players. Peter Savian–”

  That was the bearded man, sitting so close on her right that he could extend a hand, Republican‑fashion. Lioe murmured a greeting, met and matched the pressure of his grip, and saw a new amusement gleam for an instant in his dark eyes.

  “–Kazio Beledin–”

  The man with the implant lenses touched his forehead, a formal gesture that went badly with his crumpled, brightly dyed and patched shirt and dock‑worker’s trousers.

  “–Alazais Mariche–”

  The hook‑nosed woman nodded very seriously, her fingers playing over the controls of her expensive equipment.

  “–Vere you know, and Serenn Imbertin–”

  “ Dit–everyone calls me Imbertine,” the young man in the supportchair said. Lioe nodded in acknowledgment, wondering if the chair were a permanent necessity. It was hard to tell–he was thin, certainly, but not wasted–and it was none of her business, in any case.

  “–Garet Huard–”

  The man with the hsai spurs looked up from his Gameboard to nod a greeting. He didn’t have a hsai name–most adoptees used some hsai forms–and Lioe wondered again what the connection was.

  “And Jafiera Roscha,” Gueremei finished.

  Lioe nodded to the redhead, startled again by the contrast between the woman’s striking beauty and the aggression in her face.

  “It’s good to meet you,” Roscha said, her voice low and unexpectedly musical.

  “Thanks,” Lioe said. She looked around the table, feeling the familiar excitement building in her, and said, “Na Gueremei has outlined the scenario to you, I assume?” Most of them nodded, but she continued anyway. “This is a Rebellion/Psionics variant, set on the prison planet of Ixion’s Wheel. Baron Vortex has, unknown to anyone until now, been running a secret research project in the prison complex, trying to find a way to bring psis of all types under his personal control. You are all part of that project, either as prisoners or as part of the prison staff. One of you, however, has an ulterior motive: you have come to rescue an old friend and antagonist, now a prisoner, and in order to escape yourself you will all have to work together.” She smiled then, and most of the players grinned back, even Roscha softening slightly, caught up in the preliminaries of the Game. “Assuming no one wants to back out, I have casting disks and the scenario supplements.”

  No one did. Lioe felt her smile widen even as she tried to control it, and looked down at the display to check the cast list a final time. She dealt the disks around the table, and slid the session supplements after them. Huard, with his hsai spurs, would play the key role, Royal Avellar, potential if distant claimant to the Imperial throne; she wondered for a moment if he were really jericho‑human, and if he was, what it would do to his play. Savian would play Lord Faro, Beledin the half‑mad vampire Ibelin Belfortune–a good choice, given the visible chemistry between the two men–and Vere would play Jack Blue. Imbertine and the hook‑nosed woman, Mariche, would play Gallio Hazard and Desir of Harmsway–not easy parts, requiring a lot of coordination, and Lioe hoped they had played together before. Roscha would play the technician Africa, and Gueremei would play Mijja Lyall. That was an interesting choice–Lyall was superficially a minor character, but could become pivotal if played right–and Lioe gave a little nod of approval. She fiddled with her own controls as the players slid disks and supplement boxes into their Gameboards, and linked the boards to the VDIRT table’s main systems, bringing the prison complex into focus just above the tabletop. She kept it dim, the outlines vague and colors dulled, but she saw her players glance warily at it, assessing the setting. Savian ran a fingertip along the ridge of bone below one eye–there was a scar there, Lioe saw, faint as a thread against his brown skin–and studied the displays on his screen. Mariche busied herself with a pull‑out input strip, typing something into her Gameboard, her face still and intent as she studied the shifting numbers.

  “Is everything clear?” Lioe said at last, when the first flourish of activity slowed, and there were nods and mumbled agreement from the players. Even Roscha looked almost eager. Lioe glanced at her main boards a final time–everything was ready to go, all the linkages in place and the libraries on line–and looked back at her players, excitement coursing through her. This was what made the Game worthwhile, all of them gathered for the one purpose of playing her scenario–She put the thought aside and said, “Then let’s go.”

  She reached for her own shades, settled the temples on her ears. The broad double screen, dipping almost below her cheekbones, stayed black for a moment, and then she adjusted the controls so that she was watching her players through one completely transparent lens and watching the Game they would create in the other, darkened lens. Savian lifted a half‑helmet, settled it very deliberately on his head. The matte silver backing hid eyes and nose, but his mouth, framed by the neatly trimmed beard, remained visible and expressive. Most of the others wore shades similar to her own; bands of black or grey plastic covered half their face, turning them into icons of justice. Imbertine leaned back in his chair, hands caressing the bright stones of his bracelets. Looking more closely, Lioe could see the thin cables that connected each one to the sockets of his Gameboard. She smiled to herself, unable to resist prolonging the moment, then touched her controls to bring a scene slowly into shape in the players’ view. The buildings of the prison complex, blank grey walls, a single row of slit‑windows visible just below the tops of the buildings, grew more solid in the air above the tabletop. The same image was reflected in her shades. She touched controls again, and wind swirled around the buildings, driving great sheets of sand against the prison’s force dome.

  “Welcome to Ixion’s Wheel.”

  Evening, Day 30

  High Spring: Ransome’s Loft,

  Old Coast Road, Newfields,

  Above Junction Pool

  Ransome sprawled in his chair, caught in his web of images that all but blocked out the cityscape spread out below the loft windows. A solitary firework burst into a flower of golden rain–someone on the far side of the Water getting a head start on Storm–and he watched it fall and fade into a last trail of sparks, ignoring the dancing images. Most of them were Game nets–he was trying to do what Chauvelin wanted–but his heart wasn’t in it. There was nothing new in the Game, had been nothing new for years, only the same sterile repetitions, theme and variations all gone stale with overuse. His eyes stole to the image sitting alone to the left of his chair, a direct feed from one of his dataspheres. The last of the tiny stone heads looked back at him, a faint, sly smile on its carved mouth. Idly, he reached into a secondary control space, flicked on the controls that would allow the Imani Formstone Works to produce copies of his originals. The head looked back at him, caught now in a maze of numbers and guidelines. It had taken him most of the morning to find a workshop that would admit it could do the job in the time required–and the hefty surcharge, twice what the job should actually cost, was the only reason the shop manager had agreed at all. But the ambassadorial accounting system had accepted the charges, and he was left to deal with the Game. Voices babbled from the floor speakers, no channel given priority; Ransome made a face at the noise, but did not bother to adjust the tuning.

  A light flashed in communications space, and at the same time an identifying glyph crackled in the air overhead. Ransome sighed, recognizi
ng the image–knowing too well that the caller was the kind who did not give up–and muted his images with a wave of a gloved hand. With the other hand, he reached into the main control space to connect himself with the communications channel. “What the hell do you want, Sanci?”

  “About fucking time, Ransome.”

  There had been no delay. Ransome sighed again, shoved the familiar face–sharp chin framed by a short and tidy beard, eyes always slightly narrowed, as though he were looking into a bright light–to one side of the Game net images. “What do you want?”

  “Have you been tracking the Game nets–the Old Network, by any chance?” Sanci smiled. “You might want to tune in.”

  “I doubt it,” Ransome said.

  Sanci’s smile widened, and Ransome realized the other man was tracking his net hookups. “Someone’s playing with your toys.”

  “What channel?”

  “The mainline feed out of Shadows.”

  Ransome shoved Sanci’s image farther to his left, reached into control space to fiddle with the icons hanging there. He opened a connection to the Old Network, not even thinking of the costs. Shadows was easy to find, its distinctive icon flashing to signal an interesting session in progress, and he brought it on‑line, feeding the image into a small space directly in front of his eyes. Figures moved in an unfamiliar, cell‑like room, altogether too like Jericho’s prison system. He reached for the session precis even as he recognized two of the templates. Lord Faro was an old favorite, and so was Ibelin Belfortune, and if they both were there… He flicked the precis into prominence, skimmed quickly through the screen. Desir of Harmsway’s name seemed to leap out at him.

  “Who’s running this?” he said aloud, and felt rather than saw the malice in Sanci’s look.

  “I knew you’d be interested in this one. And it’s not a fill‑in‑the‑background session, either. That’s Ixion’s Wheel you’re looking at.”