Kerestel nodded, reluctantly. “All right,” he said, and then made himself sound more enthusiastic. “And good luck with the Game.”

It was those efforts that made him worth working for, even if he was getting old and querulous. “Thanks,” Lioe said, and retreated to her cabin to collect her belongings.

It didn’t take her long to pack: her jump bag was easily large enough to hold a couple of changes of clothes, plus her Gameboard and the thick plastic case that held the half‑dozen Rulebook disks. She seized a hat at random, this one black, with a wide brim, shrugged on a jacket–her favorite, heavy blue‑black workcloth with a flurry of Game pins across the lapels–and tapped into the local comnet to find a taxi‑shuttle to take her across to the customs station. Kerestel was nowhere in sight when it arrived, and she hesitated, but called her good‑byes into the shipwide intercom. There was no answer; she shrugged again, caught between hurt and annoyance, and pulled herself through the transfer tube to the taxi.

The landing check was strict and time‑consuming. The officer on duty went over her papers with excruciating care, and ran the Rulebooks through a virus scan twice before grudgingly allowing her to carry them onto the surface. She made the orbiter with only minutes to spare, and collapsed into her seat, resolved to sleep for as much of the descent as possible.

She woke to the unfamiliar noise of air against the orbiter’s hull, sat up in her harness to see fire rolling across the viewport. The orbiter bucked and fought the sudden turbulence, and then they were down into the atmosphere. Servos whined underfoot and in the cabin walls, reconfiguring wings and lifting surfaces, and the orbiter became a proper aircraft, banking easily against the heavy air that held it. The engine fired, a coughing explosion at the tail of the taxi, and the craft steadied further, came completely under control. Lioe released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, and craned her head to look out the viewport again.

“We’ll be landing at Newfields in about fifty minutes,” the steward said, from the front of the cabin. “It’s day thirty of High Spring, the end of High Spring–that’s day ninety‑four of our four‑hundred‑day year. Burning Bright has a twenty‑five‑standard‑hour day, and you should program your chronometers accordingly. If you are keeping Greenwich Republican time, the GRTC factor is eighty‑eight B‑for‑bravo one hundred fifty‑two. Ground temperature is twenty‑three degrees. If you need any assistance, or further information, please feel free to ask. Your call buttons are on the cabin wall above your head.”

No one seemed to respond, and Lioe turned her head back to the window. Clouds flashed past beneath them, thin wisps that only partly obscured the glittering water. Burning Bright was mostly water; the main–the only–landmass was largely artificial, the new land built on the inner edges of the giant atoll’s original islands, guarded from floods by a massive network of dikes and storm barriers. The city of Burning Bright–city and planet shared a name; the two were effectively identical–was one of the great engineering achievements of the nonaligned worlds: even in the Republic, and even in Foster Service schools, Lioe thought, you learn that mantra. And it was pretty much true. In all the time she’d spent in space, piloting ships between the Republic and the nonaligned worlds and HsaioiAn, she’d never been anyplace that was at all like Burning Bright.

“Can I get you anything?”

Lioe looked up to find the steward looking down at her, balancing easily against the movement of the orbiter, one hand resting on the back of the empty couch beside her. She shook her head, but smiled. “I can’t think of anything, thanks.”

The steward nodded, but didn’t move. “I couldn’t help noticing your pins.”

Lioe let her smile widen, grateful she hadn’t had to set up this encounter herself. “I saw yours, too.” She glanced again at the pair of Game pins clipped just below the company icon: one was the triangle‑and‑galaxy of the Old Network, but the other was unfamiliar. “Local club?” she asked, and was not surprised when the steward shook his head.

“Actually, it’s a session souvenir,” he said. “It was a Court Life variant, run by Ambidexter about five years ago.”

“I think I saw tapes of that,” Lioe said, impressed in spite of herself. The steward didn’t look old enough to have been playing at that level five years ago. “That was the one that featured Gallio Hazard and Desir of Harmsway, right? The one that really made Harmsway a Grand Type.”

“That’s right.” The steward glanced quickly around the cabin, then lowered himself into the couch next to her. “I’m Vere–Audovero Caminesi.”

“Quinn Lioe.” They touched hands, awkward because of her safety harness.

“You wouldn’t be the Lioe who wrote the Frederick’s Glory scenario,” Vere said.

“As a matter of fact, I am.”

Vere grinned. “That was a great session. There’s been a lot of talk on the net about it; I’m still trying to find someone at the club who’ll run it. Are you going to be doing any Gaming while you’re here?”

The conversation was going just the way she’d hoped it would. Lioe said, “I was hoping to. I don’t know the clubs, though.”

Vere spread his hands. “I can give you some names, if you’d like.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

“There are really only three clubs that are worth your while,” Vere said, lowering his voice until she could just hear him over the noise of the engines. “Billi’s in the Old City, Shadows under the Old Dike in Dock Road District, and the Two‑Dragon House, in Mainwardens‘.” He grinned suddenly. “I think Shadows is the best of the lot–it’s where I play, so take it for what it’s worth.”

Lioe smiled back. “What’s the setup like?”

“They’re all about the same, really,” Vere answered. A chime sounded from farther forward in the compartment, and he lifted his head to look over the seatbacks for the source. Lioe followed the direction of his gaze, and saw a call light flashing above one of the seats. Vere grimaced, and pushed himself to his feet, but leaned down to finish what he had been saying. “Shadows has newer machines, but they’re not state‑of‑the‑art. Billi’s was that maybe four, five years ago. Two‑Dragon is pretty standard stuff, a little older than Shadows.”

“Thanks,” Lioe said, and Vere smiled down at her.

“Don’t forget me if you run an open session.”

“I’ll keep you in mind,” Lioe said, and meant it. She would be needing good players, if she managed to persuade a club to let her lead sessions, and anyone who could play for Ambidexter was good enough for her. It was just a pity Ambidexter himself was no longer in the Game.

She turned her head to the viewport again, was startled to see how far the orbiter had dropped. The water was no longer just a blue haze, had gained a crumpled texture, and flecks of white dotted the metallic surface. Burning Bright City was just visible in the distance, if she craned her neck, but mostly hidden by the orbiter’s nose. The craft banked sharply then, showing her nothing but the brilliance of the sky, and when it steadied onto the new heading, Burning Bright lay spread out beneath the orbiter’s wing. It seemed very small at first, an island split in three by a forked channel, but then the orbiter banked again, losing altitude, and she began to make out the smaller landformed islands that made up the larger masses. Most of them were thickly settled, furred with brick‑red buildings, light glinting occasionally from solar panels and interior waterways. Only the high ground at the outer edges of the islands remained relatively uncrowded. She frowned idly at that, wondering why, and the speakers crackled at the front of the cabin.

Vere said, “I’ve just been informed that we are starting the descent to Newfields. We should be on the ground in about fifteen minutes.”