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except that we have not been able to find any banshees.” He rose, draining his mug as he did so. “The day ages and we sit,” he said after he had set it back on the table. “If you would go off to the wild, you should do it soon. It will take time to cross the mountains, even by aircar, and it is not wise to stay out after dark.”
    “Oh?” Dirk finished his own beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Napkins did not seem to be part of a Kavalar table setting.
    “The banshees were never the only predator on Worlorn,” Vikary said. “There are slayers and stalkers from fourteen worlds in the forests, and they are the least of it. The humans are the worst. Worlorn is an easy, empty world today, and its shadows and its barrens are full of strangeness.”
    “You would do best to go armed,” Janacek said. “Or better still, Jaan and I should go with you, for the sake of your safety.”
    But Vikary shook his head. “No, Garse. They must go alone, and talk. It is better that way, do you understand? It is my wish.” Then he picked up an armful of plates and walked toward the kitchen. But near the door he paused and glanced back over his shoulder, and briefly his eyes met Dirk’s.
    And Dirk remembered his words, out on the rooftop at dawn.
I do exist,
Jaan had said.
Remember that.
             
    “How long since you rode a sky-scoot?” Gwen asked him a short time later when they met on the roof. She had changed into a one-piece chameleon cloth coverall, a belted garment that covered her from boots to neck in dusky grayish red. The headband that held her black hair in place was the same fabric.
    “Not since I was a child,” Dirk said. His own clothing was twin to hers; she’d given it to him so they could blend into the forest. “Since Avalon. But I’m willing to try. I used to be pretty good.”
    “You’re on, then,” Gwen said. “We won’t be able to go very far or very fast, but that shouldn’t matter.” She opened the storage trunk on the gray manta-shaped aircar and took out two small silvery packages and two pairs of boots.
    Dirk sat on the aircar wing again while he changed into the new boots and laced them up. Gwen unfolded the scoots, two small platforms of soft tissue-thin metal barely large enough to stand upon. When she spread them on the ground, Dirk could trace the crosshatched wires of the gravity grids built into their undersides. He stepped on one, positioning his feet carefully, and the metal soles of his boots locked tightly in place as the platform went rigid. Gwen handed him the control device and he strapped it around his wrist so that it flipped out into the palm of his hand.
    “Arkin and I use the scoots to get around the forests,” Gwen told him while she knelt to lace up her own boots. “An aircar has ten times the speed, of course, but it isn’t always easy to find a clearing big enough to land. The scoots are good for close-in detail work, as long as we don’t try to carry too much equipment or get in too much of a hurry. Garse says they’re toys, but . . .” She stood up, stepped onto her platform, and smiled. “Ready?”
    “You bet,” Dirk said, and his finger brushed the silver wafer in the palm of his right hand. Just a little too hard. The scoot shot up and out, dragging his feet with it and whipping him upside down when the rest of him lagged behind. He barely missed cracking his head on the roof as he flipped, and ascended into the sky laughing wildly and dangling from underneath his platform.
    Gwen came after him, standing on her platform and climbing up the twilight wind with skill born of long practice, like some outworld djinn riding a silver carpet remnant. By the time she reached Dirk, he had played with the controls long enough to right himself, though he was still flailing back and forth in a wild effort to keep his balance. Unlike aircars, sky-scoots had no gyros.
    “Wheeee,” he shouted as she closed. Laughing, Gwen moved in behind