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.