Fool's Run (v1.1) by Patricia A. McKillip Read Free Book Online Page A

Put it into a museum? The Mole took to it as if he had come into the world playing it. As if it were the ghost of the music he’d been waiting to hear. Music is meant to be given away.”
    “Up to a point.”
    “No. Impose no limits and you’ll encounter no limits.” He appealed to Aaron, who was lounging against the wall behind him, wondering when Sidney was going to pick up his cards.
    “Isn’t that true, Aaron?”
    “Except for the FWG drinking laws and your own credit.”
    “Unless,” Sidney said complacently, “you own the bar.” He tossed a two-credit chip on the table between them and inquired of the patiently waiting Magician, “Are you in this game?”
    The Magician shoved his own chip forward. “It’s customary,” he commented, “to look at your cards before you bet.”
    “I’m gambling,” Sidney explained. He discarded, to Aaron’s eye at random, and swallowed beer. The Magician drew one. His face was at its leanest, its most clinical; Aaron could almost hear his brain working with ruthless precision to take Sidney’s money. Sidney ran his fingers down his nose and sipped beer again, his attention drawn fondly to his brilliant, smoothly running creation. The Magician’s eyes lifted, first to Sidney’s absent face, and then to Aaron, who met his gaze expressionlessly.
    The Magician’s head bent, all the reptilian intensity suddenly fled from his face. He laid his cards down, his voice struggling against laughter. “You’re an awful poker player, Sidney.”
    “What did I do?” Sidney demanded. “What did I do? You were reading my mind.”
    The Magician looked surprised. “It’s your body language. Every time you get a terrible hand you run your fingers down your nose and sip beer. When you get a good hand, you don’t move and I can feel you concentrate. It distracts me so much I’m having a hard time taking your money.”
    Sidney was silent. He spread out his cards with a sigh, and the Magician looked at them and laughed.
    “So,” Sidney said good-humoredly, “even your merciless streak has its limits.”
    “Apparently so.” He gathered the cards. Then his head turned toward the stage lights behind him.
    Aaron said, “They’re still off.”
    “One more hand?”
    “I’ll try to concentrate less audibly.” Sidney turned to add something to Aaron; his wrist receiver beeped before he could speak. He propped his head on his fist, listening. Aaron scanned the crowd, found the problem in an entrance not far from them.
    A man dressed in the rotting fabrics of the immense, eerie wasteland of the Sector dump had wandered into the club. He looked bewildered by his surroundings. The silvery glow in his eyes told Aaron what drug he needed. Aaron signaled the street patrol; a moment later they saw grey uniforms at the edge of the light spilling out of the door as Sidney’s bouncers talked the wanderer back into the street. Sidney leaned back in his chair.
    “Thank you, Aaron.”
    “It’s odd he strayed so far… They think the world beyond the dump is dangerous.”
    The Magician, about to deal, looked up incredulously from the cards. “You have talked to them?”
    “I’ve been in there a couple of times… It’s a weird place. They have their trails, their territories, their hiding places from people like me, from the world. You walk their paths around mountains, through valleys of junk, all the debris of another century… I’ve seen derelict planes there, even old cruise ships stranded on their sides. You rarely see anyone; you see a movement, a shadow, maybe a kid who hasn’t learned to hide fast enough. It’s always silent, dead silent, and you know you’re watched…”
    “How did you get someone to talk to you?”
    “Not everyone is afraid. Some are just eccentric old-timers who live in the dump because it’s more peaceful than the city. They don’t mind hearing news about the rest of the world.”
    “How,” Sidney asked simply, “did you find the courage to go