Fool's Run (v1.1) Read Free

first time I heard you in—where was it? That place that looked like a morgue, with coffins for tables.”
    “Oh. The Marble House.”
    “Yes. The cuber with the heart-pins all over her hair.”
    The Magician nodded, his face growing reminiscent. “The cuber with the face of gold… She played with us for two years, until you hired us.”
    “Why did you let her go?”
    “I couldn’t keep her. She was too good… Last I heard, she was doing a Sector tour with Alien Shoe.” He swallowed beer, still remembering. “She was young, too young to be that good. By the time I met her, she’d played in bands all over South Suncoast Sector. She came north on impulse, she said. She walked in off the street, sat in with us, and I wouldn’t let her go. She was the best cuber I’d ever played with… Now I think Nova might be good enough for her. But—” He stopped the thought abruptly, drank more beer instead. Sidney finished the sentence for him.
    “But you’re only a club band.”
    “I’m not complaining,” the Magician said mildly. “What other club owner would put up with my playing all night, and then pour me beer for breakfast?”
    “Think nothing of it,” Sidney said graciously. “But if you could consider making a habit of this, I’ll sell tickets.”
    The walls flickered around them at the changing hour. The chartreuse heated to a vibrant orange that caused them both to duck over their beers.
    “Lord,” Sidney said painfully. “I had no idea what goes on here at this time of the morning.”
    The Magician swallowed most of the second beer, then stretched, pleasantly groggy. “I’d better check the stage, make sure everything is off.”
    “Take your body-wires off,” Sidney suggested; the Magician felt the neck-ring then, and freed himself, methodically rolling wire as he crossed the floor.
    He covered the piano. The Nebraskan, his lanky, drawling sound man, had put everything else to rest. He stood a moment, frowning at the clutter, expecting to see something, but not remembering what. He touched the piano, reassured by a familiar curve. Then he leaped down from the stage, joined Sidney, who was washing their glasses. Sidney wiped them, put them in place, then glanced fondly over his domain, readied for another night.
    “But first,” he murmured, reminding himself, “a message from the Underworld.”
    The Magician stared at him, felt the hair lift at the nape of his neck. He saw it again: the twisted rings, light and dark, journeying soundlessly in and out of the Earth’s shadow. The intimation shuddered lightly through him: a psychic quake. Then it was over, past, and he could speak.
    “The Underworld,” he whispered. “That’s what I was doing while I played.”
    “What?”
    “Watching it.”

TWO
    Jason Klyos glared at his reflection on the bathroom wall. Eleven years in this floating pretzel and you’re still trapped in the same damn mirror. When are you going to break out of here, Klyos? When? He touched a com-light beside the mirror and ordered, “Coffee. Hot and fast.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    He leaned closer to the mirror, studied the capillaries in his eyes. His dark hair was receding year by year like a slow tide. Up here, it didn’t matter. Up here—
    The com signaled, two gentle, musical tones. He slapped at it irritably. “What? Speak.”
    “Sir, Jeri Halpren.”
    Jase grunted, wondering what he had done to deserve Jeri’s voice before he had had his coffee. Jeri Halpren was the Underworld’s FWG-appointed Rehabilitations Director; he had fake hair, fake teeth and he snapped awake in the morning full of missionary zeal, which he strove to impart to Jase before his own brain had crawled out of dreams. I remember, he thought. I’ve been putting him off. Three meetings delayed. Something to do with… art?
    The face in the mirror looked martyred, as if its owner had stepped into something noxious.
    “Sir,” Jeri Halpren said reproachfully. “You promised you’d see me this