lasercannon on the forward hood and pulse-tubes on the rear.
She put their metal manta down between the two cars, and they vaulted out onto the roof. When they reached the bank of elevators, Gwen turned to face him, her face flushed and strange in the brooding reddish light. 'It is late,' she said. 'We had all better rest.'
Dirk did not question the dismissal. 'Jaan?' he said.
'You'll meet him tomorrow,' she replied. 'I need a chance to talk to him first.'
'Why?' he asked, but Gwen had already turned and started toward the stairs. Then the tube arrived and Ruark put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him inside.
They rode downward, to sleep and to dreams.
Chapter 2
He got very little rest that night. Each time he started off to sleep, his dreams would wake him: fitful visions laced with poison and only half remembered when he woke, as he did, time and time again throughout the night. Finally he gave up. Instead, he began to rummage through his belongings until he found the jewel In its wrappings of silver and velvet, and he sat with it in the darkness and drank from its cold promises.
Hours passed. Then Dirk rose and dressed, slid the jewel into his pocket, and went outside alone to watch the Wheel come up. Ruark was sound asleep, but he had the door coded for Dirk, so there was no problem getting in or out. He took the tubes back up to the roof and waited through the last dregs of night, sitting on the cold metal wing of the gray aircar.
It was a strange dawn, dim and dangerous, and the day it birthed was murky. First only a vague cloudy glow suffused the horizon, a red-black smear that faintly echoed the glowstones of the city. Then the first sun came up: a tiny ball of yellow that Dirk watched with naked eyes. Minutes later, a second appeared, a little larger and brighter, on another part of the horizon. But the two of them, though recognizably more than stars, still cast less light than Braque's fat moon.
A short time later the Hub began to climb above the Common. It was a line of dim red at first, lost in the ordinary light of dawn, but it grew steadily brighter until at last Dirk saw that it was no reflection, but the crown of a vast red sun. The world turned crimson as it rose.
He looked down into the streets below. The stones of Larteyn had all faded now; only where the shadows fell could the glow still be seen, and there only dimly. Gloom had settled over the city like a grayish pall tinged slightly with washed-out red. In the cool weak light the nightflames all had died, and the silent streets echoed death and desolation.
Worlorn's day. Yet it was twilight.
'It was brighter last year,' said a voice behind him. 'Now each day is darker, cooler. Of the six stars in the Hellcrown, two are hidden now behind Fat Satan, and are of no use at all. The others grow small and distant. Satan himself still looks down on Worlorn, but his light is very red and growing feeble. So Worlorn lives in slow-declining sunset. A few more years and the seven suns will shrink to seven stars, and the ice will come again.'
The speaker stood very still as he regarded the dawn, his boots slightly apart and his hands on his hips. He was a tall man, lean and well muscled, bare-chested even in the chill morning. His red-bronze skin was made even redder by the light of Fat Satan. He had high angular cheekbones, a heavy square jaw, and receding shoulder-length hair as black as Gwen's. And on his forearms-his dark forearms matted with fine black hair-he wore two bracelets, equally massive. Jade and silver on his left arm, black iron and red glowstone on his right.
Dirk did not stir from the wing of the manta. The man looked down at him. 'You are Dirk t'Larien, and once you were Gwen's lover.'
'And you are Jaan.'
'Jaan Vikary, of the Ironjade Gathering,' the other said. He stepped forward and raised his hands, palms outward and empty.
Dirk knew the gesture from somewhere. He stood and pressed his own palms against the Kavalar's. As he did, he noticed something else. Jaan wore a belt of black oiled metal, and a laser pistol was at his side.
Vikary caught his look and smiled. 'All Kavalars go armed. It is a custom-one we value. I hope you are not as shocked and biased as Gwen's friend, the Kimdissi. If so, that is your failure, not ours. Larteyn is part of High Kavalaan, and you cannot expect our culture to conform to yours.'
Dirk sat down again. 'No. I should have expected it, perhaps, from what I heard last night. I do find it strange. Is there a war on somewhere?'
Vikary smiled very thinly-an even, deliberate baring of teeth. 'There is always a war somewhere, t'Larien. Life itself is a war.' He paused. 'Your name: t'Larien. Unusual. I have not heard its like before, nor has my
'Baldur. A long way off, on the other side of Old Earth. But I scarcely remember it. My parents came to Avalon when I was very young.'
Vikary nodded. 'And you have traveled, Gwen has told me. Which worlds have you seen?'
Dirk shrugged. 'Prometheus, Rhiannon. Thisrock, Jamison's World, among others. Avalon, of course. A dozen altogether, mostly places more primitive than Avalon, where my knowledge is in demand. It's usually easy to find work if you've been to the Institute, even if you're not especially skilled or talented. Fine with me. I like traveling.'
'Yet you have never been beyond the Tempter's Veil until now. Only in the jambles, and never to the outworlds. You will find things different here, t'Larien.'
Dirk frowned. 'What was that word you used? Jambles?'
'The jambles,' Vikary repeated. 'Ah. Wolfman slang. The jambled worlds, the jumbled worlds, what you will. A phrase that I acquired from several Wolf-men who were among my friends during my studies on Avalon. It refers to the star sphere between the outworlds and the first– and second-generation colonies near Old Earth. It was the jambles where the Hrangans saturated the stars and ruled their slaveworlds and fought the Earth Imperials. Most of the planets you named were known then, and they were touched hard by the ancient war and jumbled by the collapse. Avalon itself is a second-generation colony, once a sector capital. That is some distinction, do you think, for a world so very far in these centuries ai-shattered?'
Dirk nodded agreement. 'Yes. I know the history, a little. You seem to know a lot of it.'
'I am a historian,' Vikary said. 'Most of my work has been devoted to making history out of the myths of my own world, High Kavalaan. Ironjade sent me to Avalon at great expense to search the data banks of the old computers for just that purpose. Yet I spent two years of study there, had much free time, and developed an interest in the broader history of man.'
Dirk said nothing but only looked out again toward the dawn. The red disc of Fat Satan was half risen now, and a third yellow star could be seen. It was slightly to the north of the others, and it was only a star. 'The red star is a supergiant,' Dirk mused, 'but up there it seems only a bit larger than Avalon's sun. It must be pretty far away. It should be colder, the ice should be here now. But it's only chilly.'
'That is our doing,' Vikary told him with some pride. 'Not High Kavalaan, in truth, yet outworld work nonetheless. Tober preserved much of the lost force-field technology of the Earth Imperials during the collapse, and the Toberians have added to it in the centuries since then. Without their shield no Festival could ever have been held. At perihelion, the heat of the Hellcrown and Fat Satan would have burned off Worlorn's atmosphere and boiled its sea, but the Toberian shield blocked off that fury and we had a long bright summer. Now, in like manner, it helps to hold in the heat. Yet it has its limits, as does everything. The cold will come.'
'I did not think we'd meet like this,' Dirk said. 'Why did you come up here?'
'A chance. Long years ago Gwen told me that you liked to watch the dawn. And other things as well, Dirk t'Larien. I know far more of you than you of me.'
Dirk laughed. 'Well, that's true. I never knew you existed until last night.'
Jaan Vikary's face was hard and serious. 'But I do exist. Remember that, and we can be friends. I hoped to find you alone and tell you this before the others woke. This is not Avalon now, t'Larien, and today is not yesterday. It is a dying Festival world, a world without a code, so each of us must cling tightly to whatever codes we bring with us. Do not test mine. Since my years on Avalon, I have tried to think of myself as Jaan Vikary, but I am still a
