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Bolivar shrugged, and they swung together toward that blank white wall beyond
the silver bubbles lying in a row along the platform's edge. They seemed
eagerly expectant, and a puzzled anger shook him.
How had Roxane and Bolivar gotten here? Terrans were rare in the halo and not
very welcome. His parents, the official am-bassadors for Earth, had known
nothing of them. Did they really hope to restore the skyweb? Roxane's cool
beauty set an ache in his heart, and he knew no answers.
Yet here he was, in the game at last. He had waited so long and dreamed so
much that the moment seemed not quite real, but he was here to win. He caught
his breath and turned from them and found the three aliens.
Lilith, Wing, and Vreeth.
Serpentine Lilith was nearest, her narrow snake head as high as his own, her
long unreadable eyes sweeping the line of wait-ing players. Wing next, the
flying triangle, floating now above the level of the platform, watching
everything with that belt of small bright eyes around her central crown.
Finally Vreeth, lion-like, silver-sleek, crouching. Her great yellow eyes were
fixed on him, so intense that he wanted to turn away.
The destroyers of Starsearch? Killers of Gibbon's brother? He shivered, and it
took an effort to break free of Vreeth's unearthly stare.
Turning the other way, he started when he found the black robot beside him.
Friday once, his tutor and almost a friend through all the years since
Runesong had gone away. It stood rigid now, brightly black, more mechanical
than humanlike, great lenses blankly fixed on that white wall above the
platform.
A clue to his puzzle? The aliens had repaired its malfunc-tion, named it
Nexus, brought it here to play. Why?
Two more players stood beyond the robot, waiting silently. One was something
angular, bipedal, its limbs and segmented body darkly red and sleekly
gleaming. Its eyes were bulging hemispheres, huge and purple-blue. It stood as
motionless as Nexus, watching that wall.
The other was something black and glistening, shapeless as a giant amoeba. It
floated a little off the floor, but a thick black flap had reached to anchor
it to the platform. As he watched, another lump swelled out of it, stretched
up, thinned to become a delicate black tendril that wavered inquisitively
toward the wall.
"Silence!"
The quicksilver servos had lain still before the players. Now they all moved a
little forward, lifted off the platform, and chanted in unison.
"Attend! The judges of the game!"
High on the white wall beyond them, a long patch was glow-ing brighter. It
dissolved as he watched, or seemed to, opening a wide window that was
curtained at first by a haze of flashing diamond points. He watched them thin
and swirl away until they revealed the judges.
The Keeper of Truth. Two stern eyes and the hard gray ridges around it that
made a sort of face, yet nothing like a human face. The colorless eyes looked
down upon the players, down upon him, coldly probing, showing no feeling he
could guess.
The Mistress of Passion. A crown of horns, washed in waves of yellow flame.
Three great eyes, triangular and red, buried in heavy folds of black-scaled
flesh. For an instant he thought he saw sadness in them, but that was
nonsense. How could such a creature share or sense any emotion?
The Speaker of Wisdom, too old to feel at all. The deep-sunk eyes beneath that
shaggy thatch closed for an instant and opened again, looking straight at him.
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Or was that piercing stare illu-sion?
Beneath the window, the wall shimmered and dissolved again. A dark archway
opened. Nebo came out of it. Gigantic, green-scaled, half reptilian, he
shambled across the platform to sit at a white stonelike bench. How did he
belong here?
"Players, attend! The judges speak."
Their voices seemed to come from everywhere, crashing loud against the wall,
rolling back to ring in his helmet. Or was the echo more illusion? He doubted
that the room contained air to carry actual sound.
"We congratulate the nine of you. You have been found eli-gible to play in the
ancient Game of Blade and Stone. Before you can enter, however, you must have
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