Dying of the Light

'The ecosystem-it's forming and dying, all at the same time. Ecology was a forgotten science in the Fringe for a long time. Even now the outworlds boast less than a dozen trained eco-engineers between them. When the Festival came, Worlorn was seeded with life forms from fourteen different worlds with almost no thought as to the interaction. Actually more than fourteen worlds were involved, if you want to count multiple transplants-animals brought from Earth to Newholme to Avalon to Wolfheim, and thence to Worlorn, that sort of thing.

'What Arkin and I are doing is a study of how things have worked out. We've been at it a couple years already, and there's enough work to keep us busy for a decade more. The results should be of particular interest to farmers on all the outworlds. They'll know which Fringe flora and fauna they can safely introduce to their homeworlds, and under what conditions, and which are poison to an ecosystem.'

'The animals from Kimdiss are proving particularly poisonous,' Janacek growled. 'Much like the manipulators themselves.'

Gwen grinned at him. 'Garse is annoyed because it looks as though the black banshee is heading toward extinction,' she told Dirk. 'It's a shame, really. On High Kavalaan itself they've been hunted to the point where the species is clearly endangered, and it had been hoped that the specimens turned loose here twenty years ago would establish themselves and multiply, so they could be recaptured and taken back to High Kavalaan before the cold came. It hasn't worked out that way. The banshee is a fearful predator, but at home it can't compete with man, and on Worlorn it has had its niche appropriated by an infestation of tree-spooks from Kimdiss.'

'Most Kavalars think of the banshee only as a plague and a menace,' Jaan Vikary explained. 'In its natural habitat it is a frequent man-killer, and the hunters of Braith and Redsteel and the Shanagate Holding think of banshee as the ultimate game, with a single exception. Ironjade has always been different. There is an ancient myth, of the time Kay Iron-Smith and his teyn Roland Wolf-Jade were fighting alone against an army of demons in the Lameraan Hills. Kay had fallen, and Roland, standing over him, was weakening by the moment, when from over the hills the banshees came, many of them flying together, black and thick enough to block out the sun. They fell hungrily onto the demon army and consumed them, one and all, leaving Kay and Roland alive. Later, when that teyn-and-teyn found their cave of women and established the first Ironjade holdfast, the banshee became their brother-beast and sigil. No Ironjade has ever killed a banshee, and legend says that whenever a man of Ironjade is in danger of his life, a banshee will appear to guide and protect him.'

'A pretty story,' Dirk said.

'It is more than a story,' Janacek said. 'There is a bond between Ironjade and banshee, t'Larien. Perhaps it is psionic, perhaps the things are sentient, perhaps it is all instinct. I do not pretend to know. Yet the bond exists.'

'Superstition,' Gwen said. 'You really must not think too badly of Garse. It's not his fault that he never got much of an education.'

Dirk spread paste across a biscuit and looked at Janacek. 'Jaan mentioned that he was a historian, and I know what Gwen does,' he said. 'What about you? What do you do?'

The blue eyes stared coldly. Janacek said nothing.

'I get the impression,' Dirk said, continuing, 'that you are not an ecologist.'

Gwen laughed.

'That impression is uncannily correct, t'Larien,' Janacek said.

'What are you doing on Worlorn, then? For that matter'-he shifted his gaze to Jaan Vikary-'what does a historian find to do in a place like this?'

Vikary cradled his beer mug between two large hands and drank from it thoughtfully. 'That is simple enough,' he said. 'I am a highbond Kavalar of the Ironjade Gathering, bonded to Gwen Delvano by jade-and-silver. My betheyn was sent to Worlorn by vote of the highbond council, so it is natural that I am here too, and my teyn. Do you understand?'

'I suppose. You keep Gwen company, then?'

Janacek appeared very hostile. 'We protect Gwen,' he said icily. 'Usually from her own folly. She should not be here at all, yet she is, so we must be here as well. As to your earlier question, t'Larien, I am an Ironjade, teyn to Jaantony high-Ironjade. I can do anything that my holdfast might require of me: hunt or farm, duel, make highwar against our enemies, make babies in the bellies of our eyn-kethi. That is what I do. What I am you already know. I have told you my name.'

Vikary glanced at him and bid him silent with a short chopping motion of his right hand. 'Think of us as late tourists,' he told Dirk. 'We study and we wander, we drift through the forests and the dead cities, we amuse ourselves. We would cage banshees so they might be brought back to High Kavalaan, except that we have not been able to find any banshees.' He rose, draining his mug as he did so. 'The day ages and we sit,' he said after he had set it back on the table. 'If you would go off to the wild, you should do it soon. It will take time to cross the mountains, even by aircar, and it is not wise to stay out after dark.'

'Oh?' Dirk finished his own beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Napkins did not seem to be part of a Kavalar table setting.

'The banshees were never the only predator on Worlorn,' Vikary said. 'There are slayers and stalkers from fourteen worlds in the forests, and they are the least of it. The humans are the worst. Worlorn is an easy, empty world today, and its shadows and its barrens are full of strangeness.'

'You would do best to go armed,' Janacek said. 'Or better still, Jaan and I should go with you, for the sake of your safety.'

But Vikary shook his head. 'No, Garse. They must go alone, and talk. It is better that way, do you understand? It is my wish.' Then he picked up an armful of plates and walked toward the kitchen. But near the door he paused and glanced back over his shoulder, and briefly his eyes met Dirk's.

And Dirk remembered his words, out on the rooftop at dawn. Ido exist, Jaan had said. Remember that.

'How long since you rode a sky-scoot?' Gwen asked him a short time later when they met on the roof. She had changed into a one-piece chameleon cloth coverall, a belted garment that covered her from boots to neck in dusky grayish red. The headband that held her black hair in place was the same fabric.

'Not since I was a child,' Dirk said. His own clothing was twin to hers; she'd given it to him so they could blend into the forest. 'Since Avalon. But I'm willing to try. I used to be pretty good.'

'You're on, then,' Gwen said. 'We won't be able to go very far or very fast, but that shouldn't matter.' She opened the storage trunk on the gray manta-shaped aircar and took out two small silvery packages and two pairs of boots.

Dirk sat on the aircar wing again while he changed into the new boots and laced them up. Gwen unfolded the scoots, two small platforms of soft tissue-thin metal barely large enough to stand upon. When she spread them on the ground, Dirk could trace the crosshatched wires of the gravity grids built into their undersides. He stepped on one, positioning his feet carefully, and the metal soles of his boots locked tightly in place as the platform went rigid. Gwen handed him the control device and he strapped it around his wrist so that it flipped out into the palm of his hand.

'Arkin and I use the scoots to get around the forests,' Gwen told him while she knelt to lace up her own boots. 'An aircar has ten times the speed, of course, but it isn't always easy to find a clearing big enough to land. The scoots are good for close-in detail work, as long as we don't try to carry too much equipment or get in too much of a hurry. Garse says they're toys, but…' She stood up, stepped onto her platform, and smiled. 'Ready?'

'You bet,' Dirk said, and his finger brushed the silver wafer in the palm of his right hand. Just a little too hard. The scoot shot up and out, dragging bis feet With it and whipping him upside down when the rest of him lagged behind. He barely missed cracking his head on the roof as he flipped, and ascended into the sky laughing wildly and dangling from underneath his platform.

Gwen came after him, standing on her platform and climbing up the twilight wind with skill born of long practice, like some outworld djinn riding a silver carpet remnant. By the time she reached Dirk, he had played with the controls long enough to right himself, though he was still flailing back and forth in a wild effort to keep his balance. Unlike arrears, sky-scoots had no gyros.

'Wheeee,' he shouted as she closed. Laughing, Gwen moved in behind him and slapped him heartily on the