Dying of the Light

Kavalar. Do not force me to be Jaantony Riv Wolf high-Ironjade Vikary.'

Dirk stood up. 'I'm not sure what you mean,' he said. 'But I think I can be cordial enough. I certainly have nothing against you, Jaan.'

That seemed to be enough to satisfy Vikary. He nodded slowly, and reached into the pocket of his trousers. 'An emblem of my friendship and concern for you,' he said. In his hand was a black metal collar pin, a tiny manta. 'Will you wear it during your time here?'

Dirk took it from his hand. 'If you want me to,' he said, smiling at the other's formality. He fixed it to his collar. 'Dawn is gloomy here,' Vikary said, 'and day is not much better. Come down to our quarters. I will rouse the others, and we can eat.'

The apartment that Gwen shared with the two Kavalars was immense. The high-ceilinged living room was dominated by a fireplace two meters high and twice as long, and above was a slate-gray mantel where glowering gargoyles perched to guard the ashes. Vikary led Dirk past them, over an expanse of deep black carpet, into a dining chamber that was nearly as large. Dirk sat in a high-backed wooden chair, one of twelve along the great table, while his host went to fetch food and company.

He returned shortly, bearing a platter of thinly sliced brown meat and a basket of cold biscuits. He set them in front of Dirk, then turned and left again.

No sooner had he gone than another door opened and Gwen entered, smiling sleepily. She wore an old headband, faded trousers, and a shapeless green top with wide sleeves. He could see the glint of her heavy jade- and-silver bracelet, tight on her left arm. With her, a step behind, came another man, nearly as tall as Vikary but several years younger and much more slender, clad in a short-sleeved jumpsuit of brown-red chameleon cloth. He glanced at Dirk out of intense blue eyes, the bluest eyes that Dirk had ever seen, set in a gaunt hatchet face above a full red beard.

Gwen sat down. The red beard paused in front of Dirk's chair. 'I am Garse Ironjade Janacek,' he said. He offered his palms. Dirk rose to press them.

Garse Ironjade Janacek, Dirk noted, wore a laser pistol at his waist, slung in a leather holster on a silvery mesh-steel belt. Around his right forearm was a black bracelet, twin to Vikary's-iron and what looked to be glowstone.

'You probably know who I am,' Dirk said.

'Indeed,' Janacek replied. He had a rather malicious grin. Both of them sat down.

Gwen was already munching on a biscuit. When Dirk resumed his seat, she reached out across the table and fingered the little manta pin on his collar, smiling at some secret amusement. 'I see that you and Jaan found each other,' she said.

'More or less,' Dirk replied, and just then Vikary returned, with his right hand wrapped awkwardly around the handles of four pewter mugs, and his left hand holding a pitcher of dark beer. He deposited it all in the center of the table, then made one last trip to the kitchen for plates and ironware and a glazed jar of sweet yellow paste that he told them to spread on the biscuits.

While he was gone, Janacek pushed the mugs across the table at Gwen. 'Pour,' he said to her, in a rather peremptory tone, before turning bis attention back to Dirk. 'I am told you were the first man she knew,' he said while Gwen was pouring. 'You left her with an imposing number of vile habits,' he said, smiling coolly. 'I am tempted to take insult and call you out for satisfaction.'

Dirk looked baffled.

Gwen had filled three of the four mugs with beer and foam. She set one in front of Vikary's place, the second by Dirk, and took a long draft from the third. Then she wiped her lips with the back of her hand, smiled at Janacek, and handed him the empty mug. 'If you're going to threaten poor Dirk because of my habits,' she said, 'then I suppose I must challenge Jaan for all the years I've had to suffer yours.'

Janacek turned the empty beer mug in his hands and scowled. 'Betheyn-bitch,' he said in an easy conversational voice. He poured bis own beer.

Vikary was back an instant later. He sat down, took a swipe from his own mug, and they began to eat. Dirk discovered very soon that he liked having beer for breakfast. The biscuits, smeared over with a thick coating of the sweet paste, were also excellent. The meat was rather dry.

Janacek and Vikary questioned him throughout the meal, while Gwen sat back and looked bemused, saying very little. The two Kavalars were a study in

contrasts. Jaan Vikary leaned forward as he spoke (he was still bare-chested, and every so often he yawned and scratched himself absently) and maintained a tone of general friendly interest, smiling frequently, seemingly much more at ease than he had been up on the roof. Yet he struck Dirk as somehow deliberate, a tight man who was making a conscious effort to loosen; even his informalities-the smiles, the scratching-seemed studied and formal. Garse Janacek, while he sat more erect than Vikary and never scratched and had all the formal Kavalar mannerisms of speech, nevertheless seemed more genuinely relaxed, like a man who enjoyed the restrictions his society had laid on him and would not even think of trying to break free. His speech was animated and abrasive; he tossed off insults like a flywheel tossing sparks, most of them directed at Gwen. She tossed a few back, but feebly; Janacek played the game much better than she did. A lot of it gave the appearance of casual, affectionate give-and-take, but several times Dirk thought he caught a hint of real hostility. Vikary tended to frown at every exchange.

When Dirk happened to mention his year on Prometheus, Janacek quickly seized on it. 'Tell me, t'Larien,' he said, 'do you consider the Altered Men human?'

'Of course,' Dirk said. 'They are. Settled by the Earth Imperials way back during the war. The modern Prometheans are only the descendants of the old Ecological Warfare Corps.'

'In truth,' Janacek said, 'yet I would disagree with your conclusion. They have manipulated their own genes to such a degree that they have lost the right to call themselves men at all, in my opinion. Dragonfly men, undersea men, men who breathe poison, men who see in the dark like Hruun, men with four arms, hermaphrodites, soldiers without stomachs, breeding sows without sentience-these creatures are not men. Or not-men, more precisely.'

'No,' Dirk said. 'I've heard the term not-man. It's

common parlance on a lot of worlds, but it means human stock that's been mutated so it can no longer interbreed with the basic. The Prometheans have been careful to avoid that. The leaders-they're fairly normal themselves, you know, only minor alterations for longevity and such-well, the leaders regularly swoop down on Rhiannon and Thisrock, raiding, you know. For ordinary Earth-normal humans-'

'Yet even Earth is less than Earth-normal these past few centuries,' Janacek interrupted. Then he shrugged. 'I should not break in, should I? Old Earth is too far away, in any event. We only hear century-old rumors. Continue.'

'I made my point,' Dirk said. 'The Altered Men are still human. Even the low castes, the most grotesque, the failed experiments discarded by the surgeons-all of them can interbreed. That's why they sterilize them, they're afraid of offspring.'

Janacek took a swallow of beer and regarded him with those intense blue eyes. 'They do interbreed, then?' He smiled. 'Tell me, t'Larien, during your year on that world did you ever have occasion to test this personally?'

Dirk flushed and found himself glancing toward Gwen, as if it were somehow all her fault. 'I haven't been celibate these past seven years, if that's what you mean,' he snapped.

Janacek rewarded his answer with a grin, and looked at Gwen. 'Interesting,' he said to her. 'The man spends several years in your bed and then immediately turns to bestiality.'

Anger flashed across her face; Dirk still knew her well enough to recognize that. Jaan Vikary looked none too pleased either. 'Garse,' he said warningly.

Janacek deferred to him. 'My apologies, Gwen,' he said. 'No insult was intended. T'Larien no doubt acquired a taste for mermaids and mayfly women quite independently of you.'

'Will you be going out into the wild, t'Larien?'

Vikary asked loudly, deliberately wrenching the conversation away from the other Kavalar.

'I don't know,' Dirk said, sipping his beer. 'Should I?'

'I'd never forgive you if you didn't,' Gwen said, smiling.

'Then I'll go. What's so interesting?'