The holomap suddenly fragmented. In the same instant, Mace said, "I've lost the Viasa data stream."
Damn! Kelric spoke into the comm. "Viasa, we have problem."
"We too," the man said.
Sweat dripped down Kelric's neck. Mace was doing his best to reconstruct the holomap, but they needed more—
With no warning, a wall of stone loomed on his screens. Kelric had no time to be startled; Bolt accelerated his reflexes, and he swerved east before his mind grasped what he was doing. Cliffs sheered up on his starboard side as they leapt into the pass. Closer, too close! He careened away, but that brought him too close to the other side.
Suddenly they shot free of the cliffs. Ahead and below, the lights of a city glittered like sparkflies scattered across the mountains. The rest of the majestic range lay shrouded in darkness beneath the chilly stars. Bittersweet memories flooded Kelric, and incredibly, a sense of homecoming, all of it heightened by the adrenaline rushing through him. He had never seen Viasa, but he knew the way of life, culture, language, all of it. Until this moment, he had never let himself acknowledge how much he missed those years he had spent submerged in Calanya Quis. He had given up everything for that privilege: his freedom, heritage, way of life, even his name. It had almost been worth the price.
"We need a place to land," Mace said. "Or I'm going to crash into that city."
"They must have an airfield."
"I don't see one."
Kelric spoke into the comm. "Viasa, I need set-down coordinates."
The man answered. "We're working on it!"
Kelric could guess the problem. They didn't know starship protocols. The Cobans learned fast, but no one could jump from elementary physics to astronavigation in ten minutes. Jeremiah was an anthropologist. Although most college students learned the rudiments of celestial mechanics, he had no reason to know how to guide down a starship.
"I'm mapping a landing site," Mace said. "I'll try not to hit too many buildings."
Kelric spoke into the comm. "Viasa, I have no more time. I guess coordinates."
"Dalstern, I have it!" the man shouted. Holomaps of Viasa flared above Kelric's screens.
"Received," Kelric said. Then he realized he was going to careen right over the origin of the signal, which meant he might hit their command center. "Suggest you get out of there," he added with urgency.
A sparkle of lights rushed toward the ship, and towers pierced the starred sky. A dark area ahead had no buildings. With a jolt, Kelric realized they had sent him to the Calanya parks, probably the largest open area in Viasa, even bigger than the landing field.
The Dalstern was dropping fast, past domes and peaked roofs. A wall sheered out of the dark and grazed a wing of the ship, sending a shudder through it. Gritting his teeth, Kelric wrestled with the Dalstern, struggling to avoid the Estate buildings.
The scout slammed down into the park and plowed through the gardens with a scream of its hull on the underlying bedrock. Trees whipped past his screen as the Dalstern tore them out of the ground. A wall loomed ahead of them, and he recognized it immediately, though he had never seen this one before. A huge windbreak surrounded every Calanya in every Estate, and he was hurtling straight at Viasa's massive barrier.
With a shattering crash, the scout rammed through the wall. Kelric groaned as the impact threw him against his exoskeleton. The ship came to a stop balanced on a cliff that sheered down beyond the windbreak. Debris from the wall cascaded across the front of the ship. His lamps revealed a spectacular view; the Teotec Mountains rolled out in fold after magnificent fold of land, a primal landscape of dark mists and snow-fir trees.
The Dalstern began to tip over the edge.
Kelric tore off the exoskeleton and jumped to his feet. So much for his plans to land discreetly.
"We don't have much time," Mace said. "I can take off now, but if I tip too far, I'm going down that cliff."
"Coltman will come," Kelric said, more to assure himself than Mace. Jeremiah was smart. If a way existed to reach the ship, he would find it. At least, Kelric hoped so. He cycled through the air lock and jumped to the ground, into a wild night, with the notorious Teotecan winds blasting across his face. Two people were running across the parks toward him, a tall woman and a husky man.
He knew the man.
Kelric froze. His hope of managing this without anyone recognizing him had just vanished.
Pounding came from the other side of the ship. Kelric ran around the fuselage and found a youth banging on the hull.
"You have to get out!" the young man shouted in Spanish.
Kelric reached him in three ground-devouring strides. He grabbed the youth's arm and swung him around. The fellow looked up with a start, like a wild hazelle caught in a hunter's trap.
"I come for man called Jeremiah Coltman," Kelric said in his miserable Spanish.
The man inhaled sharply. "I'm Coltman."
Kelric took his chin and turned his face into the starlight. His features matched the images. He lifted one of the man's arms and read the glyphs on the armband: Jeremiah Coltman Viasa.
Relief washed over Kelric. "So. You are. We must hurry."
The Dalstern creaked as it tipped further. Alarmed, Kelric took off, pulling Jeremiah with him as he ran for the air lock.
A woman's voice called in Teotecan. "Jeremiah, wait!"
Kelric spun around. The woman and man had stopped a short distance away. The woman's attention was on Jeremiah, but the man stared at Kelric as if he were a specter from the graveyard.
Kelric's hand fell to his gun—and Jeremiah caught his arm. The youth had courage to touch a man with a Jumbler, the weapon of a Jagernaut, one of ISC's notorious biomech warriors. Had Kelric had less control of his augmented reflexes, Jeremiah's impulsive action could have just ended his young life.
"Please," Jeremiah said in Spanish. "Don't shoot them."
Kelric lowered his arm. Watching them, the woman came closer. She was tall and elegant, with a regal beauty. A thick braid dusted by grey fell to her waist. The man was about forty, and he wore three Calanya bands on each arm. Third Level. He had been a Second Level when Kelric knew him.
"Don't go, Jeremiah," the woman said.
The youth's voice caught. "I have to."
"Viasa has come to care—" She took a deep breath. "I have come to care. For you."
"I'm sorry," he said with pain. "I'm truly sorry. But I can't be what I'm not." He glanced at the Third Level, then back to the woman. "And I could never share you. It would kill me." He sounded as if he were breaking inside. "Oh God, Khal, don't let pride keep you apart from the man you really love. Whatever you and Kev said to each other all those years ago . . . let it mend."
"Jeremiah." The starlight turned the tears on her face into silver gleams.
The ship scraped and shifted position as if warning them, impatient in its precarious balance. Kelric spoke to Jeremiah in a low voice. "We have to go."
The youth nodded, his gaze on the woman.
"Good-bye, beautiful scholar," she said.
Jeremiah wiped a tear off his face. "Good-bye." Then he turned and climbed into the ship.
With one hand on the hatchway, Kelric stared at the Coban man. The Third Level looked stunned, but his gaze never wavered.
Kelric spoke to him in Teotecan. "Don't tell anyone. You know why."
The man inclined his head in agreement, silent as he kept his Calanya Oath.
Then Kelric boarded the scout.
V
Scholars' Dice
Jeremiah sat in the copilot's seat while Kelric piloted the Dalstern. The youth said nothing, but he didn't barrier his emotions well. His pain scraped Kelric's mind. Kelric pretended to be absorbed in his controls, giving the fellow as much privacy as they could manage in the cramped cabin.
An image of Jeremiah showed in a corner of Kelric's screen. The fellow hardly looked more than a boy. He wasn't tall, and his lean physique lacked the heavy musculature valued in Earth's
culture. His rich brown hair was longer than most Allied men wore it. He had a wholesome, farm boy quality, and a shyness Kelric associated with scholars. Those traits might not have made him a male sex symbol on Earth, but Coba's women probably adored him. Quiet, brilliant, scholarly, fit but slender, neither too large nor too strong: he matched their most popular ideal of masculinity. Kelric had unfortunately fit another ideal, albeit one less common, the towering, aggressive male they wanted to tame.
It didn't surprise him that Jeremiah's armbands differed from those worn by most Calani. Kelric recognized them because his were the same. Jeremiah was Akasi, the Manager's husband. Making him a Calani without his consent was coercion, which meant the union could be annulled if Jeremiah wanted. Whatever the youth decided, Kelric suspected it wouldn't be easy for him.
Jeremiah sat with his eyes downcast, and Kelric busied himself with checks that didn't need doing. They were high enough now that the winds and abysmal port map didn't endanger the ship.
Eventually, when Jeremiah began to look around, Kelric spoke in his clumsy Spanish. "Are you all right?"
The youth answered in the same voice Kelric had heard over the Viasa comm. "Yes. Thank you for your trouble."
"It is not so much trouble."
"You could have been killed."
Kelric suspected the biggest risk had been to the Calanya park. He would find a discreet means to recompense the Viasa Manager for repairs.
"I have seen worse," Kelric said. "I expect to have beacon, though. It help that you know the transform for the coordinates." Without Jeremiah's quick thinking, he would have had to land blind. The Dalstern would have survived, but not whatever part of Viasa it hit.
"I was guessing," Jeremiah said. Mortification came from his mind. "Playing dice with your life."
Kelric wondered if the young man realized just what he had accomplished. "Such a problem take more than guesses."
"I was lucky."
Kelric's voice gentled. "You are not what I expect."
Jeremiah watched him with large brown eyes that had probably turned the women of Coba into putty. "I'm not?"
"The genius who make history when he win this famous prize at twenty-four?" With apology, Kelric added, "I expect you to have a large opinion of yourself. But it seems not that way."
"I didn't deserve the Goldstone." Jeremiah hesitated. "Besides, that's hardly reason for your military to rescue me."
"They know nothing about this." Kelric wasn't certain how much to tell him. "I take you to a civilian port. From there, we find you passage to Earth."
Jeremiah's brow furrowed. "At Viasa you spoke in Teotecan. You even knew how to read my name from the Calanya bands. How?"
Kelric thought of Ixpar, his wife, at least for one hundred and nine more days. He answered, but not in Spanish this time. He spoke in Teotecan. It had been ten years, but it came back to him with ease.
"It doesn't seem to bother you to speak," Kelric said.
Jeremiah's eyes widened, and he just stared at Kelric. It was a moment before he answered, this time in the Coban language. "Well, no. Should it?"
Kelric spoke quietly. "It was years before I could carry on a normal conversation with an Outsider." He used an emphasis on outsider only another Coban would recognize, as if the word were capitalized. Calani were Inside. The rest of the universe was Outside.
Jeremiah froze, his eyes widening. He shifted his gaze to Kelric's wrist guards, and his jolt of recognition hit Kelric like mental electricity.
"You were a Calani?" Jeremiah asked.
Kelric took a gold armband out of his pocket and handed it to him. "I thought this might answer your questions."
Jeremiah turned the ring over in his hands, and his shock filled the cabin. "You're him." He raised his astonished gaze. "You're Sevtar. The one they went to war over."
Sevtar. Kelric hadn't heard the name in a decade. Sevtar was the dawn god of Coban mythology, a giant with gold skin created from sunlight. He strode across the sky, pushing back the night so the goddess Savina could sail out on her giant hawk pulling the sun.
"Actually, my name is Kelric," he said. "They called me Sevtar."
"But you're dead."
Kelric smiled. "I guess no one told me."
"They think you burned to death."
"I escaped during the battle."
"Why let them think you died? Did you hate Coba so much?"
Kelric felt as if a lump lodged in his throat. It was a moment before he could answer. "At times. But it became a home I valued. Eventually one I loved." He extended his hand, and Jeremiah gave him back the armband. Kelric ran his finger over the gold, then put the ring back into his pocket. Those memories were too personal to share.
"Some of my Oaths were like yours," Kelric said. "Forced. But I gave the Oath freely to Ixpar Karn. When I swore my loyalty, I meant it." He regarded Jeremiah steadily. "I will protect Ixpar, her people, and her world for as long as it is within my power to do so."
Sweat beaded on Jeremiah's forehead. "Why come for me?"
"It was obvious no one else was going to." Dryly Kelric added, "Your people and mine have been playing this dance of politics for years. You got chewed up in it." He touched his wrist guard. "I spent eighteen years as a Calani. Everything in me went into the Quis. I was a Jagernaut. A fighter pilot. It so affected the dice that the Cobans went to war. I had no intention of leaving you in the Calanya, another cultural time bomb ready to go off."
Jeremiah didn't seem surprised. After spending a year in the Viasa Calanya, he probably had a good idea how influential the Calani could be with their Quis.
"You knew Kev," Jeremiah said.
Kelric thought of the Third Level he had seen. "He lived at Varz Estate when I was there. Kevtar Jev Ahkah Varz. He called himself Jev back then, because people mixed up our names." As a Third Level, he had an even longer name, now. Kevtar Jev Ahkah Varz Viasa. He would be one of the most powerful men on the planet.
"Why did you tell him not to say anything?" Jeremiah asked.
Kelric wondered if he could ever fully answer that question, even for himself. "I don't want my family seeking vengeance against Coba for what happened to me. They think I was a POW all those years. I intend for it to stay that way."
Jeremiah's posture tensed. "Who is your family?"
Kelric suspected Jeremiah would recognize the Skolia name. It was, after all, also the name of an empire. For most of his life, Kelric had used his father's second name because fewer people could identify it.
"Valdoria," Kelric said.
Jeremiah stared at him. Although he seemed to recognize the Valdoria name as belonging to an important family, he gave no indication he realized the full import of what Kelric had just told him.
"Maybe someday I can return here," Kelric said. "But not now. I don't want Ixpar dragged into Skolian politics unless I'm secure enough in my own position to make sure neither she nor Coba comes to harm." Wryly he added, "And believe me, if Ixpar knew I was alive, she would become involved."
Jeremiah smiled shyly. "Coban women are—" Red tinged his face. "Well, they certainly aren't tentative."
It was an apt description of Coba's warrior queens. Kelric couldn't bring himself to ask more about Ixpar; he didn't want to hear if she had remarried. So he said only, "No, they aren't."
"I thought I would never see my home again," Jeremiah said.
"Your rescue has a price. If you renege, you'll face the anger of my family. And myself." Kelric thought of his children, those miracles he had hidden within Coba's protected sphere. He could sense their minds like a distant song. No matter who might claim it was impossible over such distances, he felt his link to them even now, perhaps through the Kyle. They were happy. Well. Safe. He wanted them to stay that way.
"I'll never reveal you were on Coba," Jeremiah said.
"Good."
"But how do I explain my escape?"
Kelric smiled. "It's remarkable. You managed to fly a rider to the port on your
own." He motioned at the controls. "I've entered the necessary records and had the port send a message to Manager Viasa, supposedly from you."
"So she will tell the same story?"
"Yes."
Jeremiah spoke softly. "I'll miss her."
Kelric thought of Ixpar, of her brilliance, her robust laugh, and her long, long legs. "Coban women do have that effect." Then he remembered the rest of it, how they had owned and sold him among the most powerful Managers. "Gods only know why," he grumbled. They are surely maddening.