Free A Different Light by Elizabeth A. Lynn Page A

way to tell even where she went. There are places we still can't go, in the Hype."
    "The Maze."
    Miri raised her eyebrows. "Where did you hear about the Maze? Yes. Leiko must have told you. Most pilots won't go there."
    "Does it still drive people crazy?"
    "The Hype?" Miri smiled. "We're all a little crazy. It could. That's why we take the telepathic examinations. They like us to start out sane."
    "How old are you really?" he asked, against all custom.
    Miri smiled a cat smile, bent at the corners. "I was a student of Ilse Perse's the day the first Verdian ship landed on Terra. We went together to look at it."
    "That was three hundred years ago!"
    She nodded and glided away from him. Jimson thought, I think I believe her. Stars, am I drunk.
    He knew that a combination of organ transplants and antiagathic drugs could bestow, upon those able to buy them, a quasi-immortality. The treatments were expensive. He had heard, too, that the treatments sometimes resulted in dangerous side effects. He grinned into his drink. You could get paranoid, living so long. Mean and paranoid. Miri wasn't mean. Miri talked to him when he was lonely; Miri was nice.
    "What's the matter with you?" asked a voice at his elbow. It was Kay the loader, come from the other end of the bar to sit with him and keep him company. That was kind, too.
    "Have you ever noticed—" he started to say. But the thought tangled in his sodden head. Time is a cheat. For some people it moves too slow, and for others it moves too fast to bear. Miri Akt lives three hundred years, more than her share. I get a fraction of that in which to do my work. Why is that fair?
    It isn't fair, Alleca. It's just the luck. "I want another drink," he said to Rin.
    Kay said, "What's eating you?"
    "Everything." That was hardly explicit. He couldn't seem to talk. His tongue had gotten thick. "Leiko." That would do to start.
    "She gone yet?'
    "No. Two days. Day after to-tomorrow."
    "I know she was looking for a ship."
    "She found one. She and Ysao. S' Russell's ship." Rin put the drink in front of him. He tossed it back. By now he was too numb to taste it.
    Kay grinned at him. "You're really tying one on tonight. Maybe I shouldn't talk to you."
    "I don't mind."
    "Where's Leiko going?"
    Jimson frowned. The word—the name—sat on the tip of his numb tongue. "Dunno," he said finally.
    "Who's Russell?"
    "Russell O'Neill." He couldn't quite get his tongue around all the "1" sounds. Kay looked puzzled. "We were kids together."
    "What's he look like?"
    "Red hair," said Jimson promptly. He gazed around the room, trying to find something red as Russell's hair, so that he could show his new friend what his old friend looked like. "Like—" There was a man with red hair. Jimson pointed to him. Suddenly the redhead was standing in front of him. It was Russell. "Thisishim," Jimson said.
    "Damn right this is me," said Russell. He looked at Kay. "I know you. Kay. Were you doing a little prying? If so, you'd better not have learned anything. Or I'll hang your guts from the lamps."
    Kay said, "He didn't tell me anything, Starcaptain."
    "Was he talking to anyone besides you?"
    "I doubt it. To Rin, could be."
    "That's all right. Rin knows everything." Jimson felt fingers dig into his shoulder. "Come on, Jim. You're leaving."
    "Don't do that," Jimson requested. He tried to push the hand from his shoulder. It moved not an iota. He was half-pulled, half-lifted from the stool, and pushed across the room. Hands guided him through the door, and then he was slammed roughly up against the wall. It hurt, and the pain cleared his head. Russell was standing in front of him, swaying—no, it was he, Jimson, who was swaying—and there was green rage in his eyes. It was dark, and cold. Jimson shivered.
    "Wait here," said Russell. "Don't move. You understand?" He disappeared, and Jimson leaned unsteadily against the wall. The rush was gone. He was cold. Russell was angry at him. What had he done?
    "Jim, look at me."
    With