Garth was there in seconds, cutting through the netting with his knife. Her clothes marked her as a foreigner, so her ransom potential might be low. He probably couldn't even get much for her clothes; cloth like that had no business being worn in Spyre. Oh well; maybe she had some adornments that might fetch enough to buy him food for a few weeks.
Just in case, he put a hand on her neckand felt a pulse. Garth cursed in astonishment. Jubilantly he slashed away the rest of the strands and pulled her out as a warning shot cracked through the air.
Unable to resist, he teased back the wave of black hair that fell across her face. The woman was fairly youngin her twentiesand had fine, sharp features with well-defined black eyebrows and full lips. The symmetry of her face was broken only by a star-shaped scar on her jaw. Her skin would have been quite fair were it not deeply sunburnt.
She only weighed twenty pounds or so. It was easy to sling her over his shoulder and run for the deep bush that marked the boundary of the disputed lands.
He pushed his way through the branches and onto private land. The preservationists pulled up short, cursing, just shy of the bushes. Garth Diamandis laughed as he ran; and for a precious few minutes, he felt like he was twenty years old again.
1
She wasbut was Chaison Fanning also among the living, or was Venera now a widow? That was it, she had been trying to get back to her husband, Chaison Fanning. Trying to get home
Sitting up proved impossible. The slightest motion sent waves of pain through her; she felt like she'd been skinned. She moaned involuntarily.
"You're awake? The thickly accented words had the crackle of age to them. She turned her head gingerly and made out a dim form moving to sit next to her. She was lying on a bedprobablyand he was on a stool or something. She blinked, trying to take in more of the long, low room.
"Don't try to move, said the old man. You've got severe sunburn and sunstroke, too. Plus a few cuts and bruises. I've been wetting down the sheets to give you some relief. Gave you water, too. Don't know what else to do."
"Th-thanks. Then she looked down at herself. Where are my clothes?"
His face cracked in a smile, and for a second he looked much younger. He had slab-like features, with prominent cheekbones and piercing gray eyes. Eyes like that could send chills through you, and from his confident grin he seemed to know it. But as he shifted in the firelight, she saw that lines of care and disappointment had cut away much of his handsomeness.
"Your clothes are here, he said, patting a chair or table nearby. Don't worry, I've done nothing to younot out of virtue, mind, I'm not a big fan of virtue, mine or anyone else's. No, you can thank arthritis, old wounds, and age for your safety. He grinned again. I'm Garth Diamandis. And you are a foreigner."
Venera sighed listlessly. Probably. What does that mean around here?"
Diamandis leaned back, crossing his arms. Much, or nothing, depending."
"And here is?"
"Spyre, he said.
"Spyre She thought she should remember that name. But Venera was already falling asleep. She let herself do it; after all, it was so cool here
When she awoke again it was to find herself propped half upright in a chair. Her forehead, upper body, and arms were draped with moist sheets. Blankets swaddled her below that.
Venera was facing a leaded-glass window. Outside, green foliage made a sunlit screen. She heard birds. That suggested the kind of garden
from a nearly invisible set of steps that ran up one wall. She scowled, but followed him up to a level area just below the top of the wall. If she stood on tiptoe, she could look over. So she did.
Venera had never known one could feel so small. Spyre was a rotating habitat, like those she had grown up in. But that was all she could have said to connect it to the worlds she had known. Diamandis's little tower sat among forlorn trees and scrub-grass in an empty plain that stretched to forest a mile or more in each direction. In any sane world, this much land under gravity would have been crammed with buildings; those empty plazas and tumbled-down villas should have been awash with humanity.
Past the trees, the landscape became a maze of walls, towers, open fields, and sharp-edged forests. And it went on and on to a dizzying, impossible distance. Diamandis's tower was one tiny mote on the inside surface of a cylinder that must be ten or twelve miles in diameter and half again as long.
Sunlight angled in from somewhere behind her; Venera turned quickly, needing the reassurance of something familiar. Beyond the open ends of the great cylinder, the reassuring cloudscapes of the normal world turned slowly; she had not left all sense and reason behind. But the scale of this town-wheel was impossible for any engineering she knew. The energy needed to keep it turning in the unstable airs of Virga would beggar any normal nation. Yet the place looked ancient, as evidenced by the many overgrown ruins and furzes of wild forest. In fact, she could see gaps in the surface here and there through which she could glimpse distant flickers of cloud and sky.