RAINBOW RUN by John F. Carr & Camden Benares Read Free Book Online

other urbodes in the complex.
    I was sitting alone, thinking about Lyonella and the possible implications of what she had said to me when Mirall interrupted my musing by saying, "Rathe, you have a visitor."
    I knew it wasn’t Errox because Mirall would have said his name. Could it be Lyonella? I felt both lust and apprehension about the possibility. I looked up as Mirall ushered Kahalyton into the room and left. I rose to greet him.
    Kahalyton smiled and clasped both my hands in his. We exchanged nods and sat down. "You're a hard man to find, Rathe. I had to get some help to learn your whereabouts."
    "Didn’t Errox tell you where I am?"
    "That one! We do not talk. I'm sure he would be displeased to find me here. Someday when I've drunk my fill of jarva, I will tell you all about him."
    I didn’t want to wait. I was desperate to know more about Errox, but not badly enough to risk driving my visitor away. After two days among Mirall's gray shadows, I craved significant conversation and stimulating companionship
    "Why did you move?" Kahalyton asked.
    "I felt uncomfortable at Ural's."
    He nodded sagely. "Running into Ural's personality is like falling face down on a slidestrip. I can’t see why Errox finds her attractive, but I’m certain they deserve each other."
    I nodded in agreement.
    "How are you getting along here, Rathe?"
    "Better. At least I can come and go on my own," I said, proudly holding up my right arm to show my wristlock.
    He started in surprise. "How did you come by that Rathe?"
    "Errox arranged it."
    Kahalyton grabbed my hand roughly and examined my wristlock. He made several clicking noises and said, "It doesn't look like a forgery. The VIS would put you through a cell-strip if they found a fake on you. Now I think I know why Errox was in the Rainbow Room, am I right?"
    I shrugged my shoulders in feigned ignorance. Errox had told me not to tell anybody that I'd been a blanc or how I'd gotten a wristlock. Kahalyton already knew that I'd been a blanc and that Errox had brought me to Ural's. Maybe I'd already said too much, but Kahalyton was the only person who’d shown any interest in me, other than Lyonella. Still, I had only a limited amount of trust in Kahalyton.
    "Errox told me not to tell anyone about the wristlock."
    "For your sake, I hope this isn't one of his multiple-player scams."
    "Multiple-player scam? What's that?"
    "Sometimes two or more colors band together to help each other play the Game. If they are high hues, they sometimes get away with it—for a while."
    The more I learned about this world,I found myself in, the less I cared for it.
    "Why are the abodes so crowded?" I asked. "There are more grays here than at Ural's. Mirall has seventeen people here and a three-shift schedule for the sleep rooms."
    "Ural has powerful associates. Most of the gray abodes are overcrowded. When I first slid down the color scale, a dwell like this would have housed six and been considered crowded if a seventh moved in. Things have changed rapidly. When I was a white just hitting my stride in the rainbow run, I talked to an elderly white who told me that only three or four grays shared a dwell when she had emerged from the House of Rebirth."
    "Do all colors share dwells?"
    "Almost all of the shades share dwells—the grays, beiges, blues, browns, purples, and greens—but the highest hues have private dwells." Kahalyton's eyes took on a distant look. His face was slack as if he were lost in memories of a distant time.
    "Are all the dwells like this one?"
    "Yes, except for the residences of the rainbows. During transit the rest of us have to move from one urbode to another and into a different dwell. Even the high hues move, but they don't have to share. The VIS and other white wristlock wearers, who all live in white urbodes, can return to their private dwells in the same urbode if they choose to do so. Shades like Ural and Mirall, who get enough jarva to bribe the best spotters, take possession of a new