"Yet, at the same time, I became aware of Lorimaar's activity here. He had already taken his first trophy, and word had come back to Braith and spread to us. Garse and I discussed the matter and determined to stop it. The situation is explosive in the extreme. If the Kimdissi should learn that the Kavalars are hunting mockmen again, they would gladly spread the news to all the outworlds. There is little love lost between Kimdiss and High Kavalaan, as you may know. We do not fear the Kimdissi themselves, who espouse a religion and a philosophy as nonviolent as the Emereli. Other Fringe worlds are more dangerous. The Wolfmen are always volatile and erratic; the Toberians might end their trade agreements if they learn that Kavalars are hunting their laggardly tourists. Perhaps even Avalon would turn against us, should the news go beyond the Veil, and we would be barred from the Academy. These risks cannot be taken. Lorimaar and his fellows do not care, and the holdfast councils can do nothing. They have no authority here, and only the Ironjades have even the slightest concern about events light-years away, on a dying world. Thus Garse and I act against the Braith hunters alone.

"Up to now, it has not come to open conflict. We travel as widely as we can, visiting each of the cities, searching for those who remain on Worlorn. Any we find we make korariel. We have found only a few– a wild child lost during the Festival, a few lingering Wolfmen in Haapala's City, an ironhorn hunter from Tara. To each I give a token of my esteem"-he smiled-"a little black iron pin shaped like a banshee. It is a proximity beacon, to warn a hunter who gets too close. Should they touch any wearing such a pin, any of my korariel, it would be a dueling offense. Lorimaar may rant and rage, but he will not duel us. It would be his death."

"I see," said Dirk. He reached up to his collar, unfastened the little iron pin, and tossed it on the table amid the remains of their breakfast. "Well, that's lovely, but you can have your little pin. I am nobody's property. I've been taking care of myself for a long time, and I can keep on taking care of myself."

Vikary frowned. "Gwen," he said, "can you not convince him that it would be safer if-"

"No," she said sharply. "I appreciate what you are trying to do, Jaan, you know that. But I understand Dirk's feelings. I don't like being protected either, and I refuse to be property." Her voice was curt, decisive.

Vikary regarded them helplessly. "Very well," he said. He picked up Dirk's discarded pin. "I should tell you something, t'Larien. We have had better luck in finding people than the Braiths have simply because we search the cities while they hunt the forests, hopeless slaves to old habits. They seldom find anyone in the wild. Up to now they have had no inkling as to what Garse and I were doing. But this morning Lorimaar high-Braith came to me in grievance because the previous day he had come across likely game while hunting with his teyn, and had been prevented from taking that game.

"The prey he sought was a man on a sky-scoot, flying alone above the mountains." He held up the

banshee-shaped pin. "Without this," he said, "he would have forced you down or lasered you from the sky, run you through the wilderness, and finally killed you." He put the pin into his pocket, stared at Dirk meaningfully for a minute, and left them.

"It's unfortunate that you had to stumble into Lorimaar this morning," Gwen said after Jaan had gone. "There was no reason for you to get involved, and I had hoped to spare you all the grisly details. I hope you will keep this confidential after you leave Worlorn. Let Jaan and Garse take care of the Braiths. No one else will do anything anyway, except talk about it and slander innocent people on High Kavalaan. Above all, don't tell Arkin! He despises Kavalars, and he'd be off to Kimdiss in a shot." She stood up. "For the present, I'd suggest we talk of more pleasant things. We have a short time together; I can only be your tour guide so long before I have to return to my work. There is no reason to let those Braith butchers spoil the few days we have."

"Whatever you say," Dirk answered, anxious to please but still shaken by the whole business with Lorimaar and his mockmen. "You have something planned?"

"I could take you back to the forests," Gwen told him. "They go on and on forever, and there are hundreds of fascinating things to see in the wild: lakes full of fish larger than either of us, insect mounds bigger than this building erected by insects smaller than your fingernail, an incredible cave system that Jaan discovered beyond the mountainwall– He's a born caver, Jaan. Still, today I think we should play it safe. We don't want to pour too much salt into Lorimaar's wound, or he and his fat teyn might hunt us both and Jaan be damned. Today I'll show you the cities. They have a fascination too, and a kind of macabre beauty. As Jaan said, Lorimaar has not yet thought to hunt there."

"All right," Dirk said, with little enthusiasm.

Gwen dressed quickly and took him up to the roof. The sky-scoots still lay where they had discarded them a day earlier. Dirk bent to retrieve them, but Gwen took the silver-metal tissues from his hands and tossed them into the back of the gray manta air-car. Then she got the flight boots and controls and chucked them in afterwards. "No scoots today," she said. "We'll be covering too much ground."

Dirk nodded, and both of them vaulted over the car's wings into the front seat. Worlorn's sky made him feel as if he should be coming in from an expedition instead of just setting out on one.

The wind shrieked around the aircar wildly, and Dirk briefly took the stick so Gwen could tie back her long black hair. His own gray-brown mop whipped around in mad convulsions as they raced across the sky, but thought had him too abstracted to notice, much less be annoyed.

Gwen kept them high over the mountainwall and bore south. The placid Common with its gentle grassy hills and meandering rivers stretched far away to their right, until the sky came down to meet it. On the distant left, when the mountains dropped off, they could glimpse the edge of the wilderness. The choker-infested areas were obvious even from this altitude – yellow cancers spreading through the darker green.

For nearly an hour they rode in silence, Dirk lost in his thoughts, trying to put one thing together with the next and failing. Until finally Gwen looked at him with a smile. "I like flying an aircar," she said. "Even this one. It makes me feel free and clean, cut off from all the problems down there. You know what I mean?"

Dirk nodded. "Yes. You're not the first one to say that. Lots of people feel that way. Myself included."

"Yes," she said. "I used to take you flying, remember? On Avalon? I'd fly for hours and hours, from dawn until dark that one time, and you'd just sit with an arm out the window, staring far and away with that dreamy look on your face." She smiled again.

He did remember. Those trips had been very special. They never spoke much, just looked at each other from time to time, and whenever their eyes met they'd grin. It was inevitable; no matter how hard he fought it, that grin had always come. But now it all seemed terribly far off, and lost.

"What made you think of that?" he asked her.

"You," she said, and gestured. "Sitting there, slouched, with one hand hanging over the side. Ah, Dirk. You cheat, you know. I think you did it deliberately, to make me think of Avalon, and smile, and want to hug you again. Bah."

And they laughed together.

And Dirk, almost unthinking, slid over in his seat and put his arm around her. She looked briefly into his face, then gave a small shrug, and her frown melted into a sigh of resignation and finally a reluctant smile. And she did not pull away.