A Roll of the Dice

by Catherine Asaro

  Kev sat across from him and untied the dice pouch on his belt. “We will start with a simple round."

  “All right.” Jeremiah couldn't figure out Kev. The man didn't appear to enjoy his company at all, yet he had offered to introduce Jeremiah to the other Calani. Now he wanted to play Quis instead.

  So play Quis, he thought. Until he understood the dynamics of the Calanya, it seemed best to follow Kev's lead.

  He untied his own pouch and poured out a colorful set of balls, cubes, rods, cones, bars, polyhedrons, disks, and other shapes. The older pieces were glass or painted wood. In contrast, the Calanya dice Khal had given him were all gems or precious metals, a full set and more, including unusual shapes he had never seen Outside. He still kept the older dice, though. He had grown attached to them.

  “What do we bet with?” he asked. As far as he had seen, Calani had no money.

  Kev spoke coolly. “We have no need of bets. It is a device created by Outsiders to hold their attention."

  A boy of about fourteen came into the alcove and dropped onto the carpet by Kev. He spoke to Jeremiah in the rich cadences of the Viasa highborn. “Why would you want to bet?"

  Kev turned to him. “One should not interrupt a teaching session, Hevtar.” When the boy flushed, looking for all the world like a skittish colt, Kev smiled. “Perhaps you might join us?"

  Hevtar's embarrassment vanished. “I would like that."

  Kev glanced at Jeremiah. “My son."

  Jeremiah nodded to the boy. Hevtar resembled his father, with the same dark hair and even features, though his eyes were gray instead of black. Apparently he also shared Kev's talent for Quis. Jeremiah hadn't realized a father and son might end up in a Calanya together.

  He wished he could write about the Calanya. After giving him their vow of illiteracy, the Cobans had taken all his notes and the final draft of his dissertation. When he realized they never meant to return any of it, he had gone into one of the few rages he had ever experienced in his life. To have labored for so long, with such love for his work, and then have it taken away just when he finished—it had devastated him.

  Kev was watching his face. “If you object to Hevtar joining our session, he can observe."

  “I don't mind at all.” Jeremiah nodded to Hevtar. “Join us, please."

  Hevtar took out his dice, then pushed his Calanya bands higher up on his biceps. He wore one on each arm. His were thinner than Jeremiah's, with less engraving. Kev wore both types, one like Jeremiah's on each arm and two of the simpler style. Jeremiah wanted to ask them about it, but something stopped him. Hevtar gave him an odd sense, as if he simmered with distrust.

  Kev placed a ruby ball on the carpet. “Let us make a simple start.” He tapped the die. “Viasa."

  Hevtar set a darkwood arch beside the ball. “Dahl."

  Jeremiah had never played Quis this way. “We name our pieces?"

  Hevtar answered with disdain. “Of course not."

  Kev glanced at his son with a hint of rebuke. To Jeremiah, he said, “In a sense you probably already have.” He indicated Jeremiah's dice. “How long have you had these?"

  “Some for years.” He picked up a wooden rod. “Manager Dahl gave me a set when I arrived in Dahl.” He touched a sapphire ring. “Some are gifts from the crew I worked on, presents to ... congratulate me.” It had been hard to deal with the admiration and joy his friends expressed for his “good fortune,” when for him it was a disaster.

  “They must have liked you very much,” Kev said. An undertone pulled at his voice, as if he resisted believing his own words. “Tell me about your dice. Do you associate them with people, places, objects? Thoughts? Concepts?"

  “In a way.” Jeremiah's mind had always given color, texture, even personality traits to everything from simple mental images to abstract math concepts. With Quis, his associations became so vivid, the dice almost seemed alive.

  Kev indicated the playing area. “Let yours interact with ours."

  Jeremiah set a silver octagon by Kev's ruby. “Manager Dahl."

  An amused voice sounded behind them. “Is this basic Quis?” A man with gray hair stepped past Jeremiah and knelt on the rug. He balanced an opal disk on Hevtar's arch so it shadowed the other dice. “Minister Karn."

  A sandy-haired man a few years older than Jeremiah sat next to Hevtar. He placed a black sphere outside the opal's shadow. “Manager Varz."

  Jeremiah wondered if they always barged into a game this way. Then it occurred to him that this might be what Kev had meant by introducing him to the others. With Quis.

  The older man was elegantly thin, with the tall stature common among Cobans. Meeting Jeremiah's curious gaze, he said, “I am Savan.” Although he too had the Viasa reserve, he gave off none of the dislike the boy Hevtar emanated.

  The younger man smiled. “I am Niev.” He actually looked friendly. “Welcome to Viasa, Jeremiah."

  “Thanks,” Jeremiah said.

  “So.” Savan surveyed the dice. “Shall we continue?"

  Kev snorted. “Only one outcome exists.” He dropped an obsidian block on the structure and it collapsed. “Varz."

  It was an odd “move,” but Jeremiah understood what Kev meant. Karn and Varz, the two most powerful Estates, had gone to war ten years ago. To say it had disrupted the Twelve Estates was an understatement.

  Intrigued, he considered the dice. Could they tell history with the game? He set a bridge into the toppled structure so it linked the Karn and Varz cubes. Then he said, “The Karn and Varz negotiations after the war."

  Savan nodded to him. Then they all resumed play. They soon stopped describing their dice, as the interactions among the pieces became more complex. Jeremiah had never played such Quis. They weren't trying to beat one another with competing structures. Instead, they all worked on the same pattern, using it to describe the war.

  He already knew most of the history. However, the Viasa dice players had a different view of the war's most famous casualty, a Calani named Sevtar. Jeremiah knew Sevtar had died in the final battle, when Varz attacked Karn, but he had never realized the war began over Sevtar. Karn and Varz went to battle for a Calani—and both ended up losing him.

  As the Quis session ended, Jeremiah sat back, enjoying a satisfaction similar to what he felt after he read a well-written history for his research.

  Savan gave him a look of approval. “You learn fast."

  “Thanks.” Jeremiah indicated the structures sprawled across the floor. “Can you describe all history this way?"

  “Not only history,” Savan said. “We project futures, model political strategies, and design trends."

  Jeremiah rubbed his chin. “You all seem to know everything that happens among the Twelve Estates. How? You never leave the Calanya and you receive no Outside input."

  “I used to think they knew everything too,” Hevtar confided, warming to Jeremiah. “But they don't, really. Even father, with three levels, can't know everything."

  “Three Levels?” Jeremiah glanced at Kev. “That means how many places you've lived, doesn't it?"

  “Not exactly,” Kev said. “It refers to the Estates where a dice player has been in the Calanya.” He touched the top band on his arm. “I did my First Level at Ahkah.” His fingers brushed the second band. “Then Varz for a few years.” His touch lingered on the third band, the most elaborate. “Then I came here."

  Jeremiah could see the advantage of having higher Levels in a Calanya. When a dice player switched to a new Estate, he would bring knowledge with him that no one else knew except his former Calanya and Manager. It gave the new Manager political advantage over the previous. He had no doubt the price of higher Level contracts went up exponentially. The Oath also began to make sense, at least the part about no communication with Outsiders. It provided a way to secure the knowledge contained within the Calanya.

  “You advise Manager Viasa, don't you?” he said.

  Savan nodded. “Advise. Shape power."

  “But th
e Oath makes you rely on second-hand knowledge gleaned from higher Levels,” Jeremiah pointed out. “Doesn't that weaken your effectiveness?"

  Savan shook his head. “Quite the contrary. It is our greatest strength."

  “We are almost a closed system,” Kev said. “The Outside touches our Quis only through Khal. Any other input—speech, reading, writing—contaminates our work. The only way to affect a Calanya is through its Manager. She must be supreme at Quis, to counter Outside players—such as other Managers—who seek to influence or infiltrate her Calanya."

  New ideas were forming for Jeremiah. “Would you all play another session with me? I want to try something."

  Niev grinned. “Certainly.” The others nodded with approval. Apparently an urge to play Quis and learn from more senior Calani was more acceptable to them than Jeremiah staying by himself all day. He wasn't sure yet how he felt about living in an arrangement as communal as a Calanya, but so far it was tolerable. His suite allowed him a retreat when he needed privacy.

  Jeremiah set a silver disk with gold spirals in the playing area. As the session evolved, he wove his concepts into his moves, at first puzzling the Calani, then intriguing them. He shaped an idea: the twelve Calanya on Coba were like secured, primary nodes in a culture-spanning network analogous to a computer net. The players Outside acted as nodes and links in an ever-evolving web shaped by the Managers and Calanya.

  Everyone in the Twelve Estates played Quis, from the day they were old enough to hold the dice until age left them too frail to lift the pieces. Quis conveyed news, data, stories, gossip, trends, and more. Outsiders learned new moves and passed them along in their own game, influencing their opponents. So information spread, not through electronic, optical, or quantum machines, but in the malleable, subjective experience of Quis.

  The other Calani picked up his intent with a skill far greater than anything he had known Outside. He had thought himself good at Quis, parlaying his knack for the gambling version into a notorious reputation. Now he felt like a novice. Even Hevtar surpassed his skill. Instead of playing against one another, though, they all worked together, reshaping Jeremiah's ideas, challenging his moves. So he absorbed meaning from the patterns.

  He had known Calani were elite dice geniuses who gave a Manager prestige based on their reputation. However, he hadn't realized they took such an active role in shaping their culture. With her Quis, Khal input information into the Calanya: with their Quis, the Calani studied problems and designed strategies. They output their results to Khal and she analyzed their work. She then played with selected aides, who played with others, and so on, until Viasa's input into the general Outside web spread like ripples in water. The better a Manager played Quis and the stronger her Calanya, the greater her influence.

  Quis was power.

  Exhilaration swept over Jeremiah, the rush he always experienced with an exciting discovery. Lord, he wished he could write an article on this. He saw just how to open the paper, develop the ideas, and argue his conclusions.

  Then his excitement faded. Fine. So it would make a great paper, maybe win him grants. Unless his situation changed, he would never have a chance to do anything with this new knowledge.

  His concentration on the session began to slip. Savan finally paused in the process of placing a die. Hevtar yawned and several other Calani shifted position, rubbing their eyes or looking around.

  “Perhaps we should take a break,” Savan said.

  Agreement rippled around the players. As people stretched and rubbed kinked muscles, Kev regarded Jeremiah. With difficulty, he said, “I see now why so many Managers bid for your contract."

  To Jeremiah's surprise, the others made quiet sounds of agreement. Savan said, “An intriguing idea of your people, to play Quis with machines."

  Jeremiah smiled at the comparison. He supposed, from the Coban view, computer webs were a poor imitation of Quis, dead rather than alive.

  “I'll bet you could come up with great games on these computers of yours,” Hevtar said.

  Jeremiah laughed. “You can indeed.” More ideas for articles came to him: a comparison of top level gamers on Earth with Quis players like Hevtar; an analysis of Quis as a means of redirecting aggression from warfare to strategy games; a study of the sensual link between Quis and Coban male-female dynamics.

  It all would make a veritable gold mine of scholarship—except the same institution that so excited his interest also made it impossible for him to pursue his work.

  * * *

  II

  An Oath Unasked

  Jeremiah glanced out his bedroom window at a crisp, clear morning. Pulling on a sweater, he went into the common room. Across the way, Hevtar was coming out of his own suite, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

  The boy blinked at him. “You're going again?"

  “Every morning,” Jeremiah said.

  A group of Calani was eating breakfast at a table. Niev looked up. “I went with him yesterday,” he told Hevtar. “It was terrible. Truly terrible. I thought I would die.” Then he flashed Jeremiah a conspiratorial grin.

  Jeremiah smiled, glad for Niev's friendly nature. In the fifteen days since he had come to Viasa, only Niev had shown any warmth. The other Calani maintained their reserve. When they played Quis, though, he became one of them. He enjoyed Calanya Quis almost as much as his research.

  Hevtar held himself even more aloof than the other Calani. Jeremiah liked him, though. The youth reminded him of himself at fourteen, fascinated with his studies to the exclusion of all else. He didn't think he had ever been skittish or moody like Hevtar, though; he tended more toward what his friend Wayland described as “amiable stoicism with your head lost in the clouds.” That stoicism hadn't come easy; as a child he had ached with the ridicule he endured in school because of his awkward appearance, high grades, ineptness in sports, and lack of a fighting instinct.

  In contrast, Hevtar had a fresh innocence untouched by the Outside. He had spent his youth as a prodigy sheltered from the world. Then at fourteen he entered the Calanya. Jeremiah wouldn't have traded his youth for Hevtar's, though. It was true the boy had never had to deal with the spirit-crushing experience of constant derision, even physical violence from his peers. Hevtar had lived with great honor since birth. Although it might give him a happier life, it also left him less socially mature. Jeremiah doubted the high-strung, handsome genius could survive Outside, whereas Jeremiah had always known he could make it on his own.

  Hevtar started to smile at him, then stopped. It wasn't the first time he had resisted an impulse to friendship. Now he turned away and joined the group at the breakfast table as if no one else were in the room.

  Jeremiah stood for a moment, stung by the rebuff. Then he took hold of himself and went to the double doors of the common room. Opening the ornate portals, he found his escort at a round table Outside, playing Quis.

  The captain blinked at him, then looked at the others with bewilderment. “He wants to do it again."

  “Jeremiah, you should relax,” another guard urged. “Have breakfast. Enjoy yourself."

  With a half smile, he leaned against the doorframe and waited. Being an Akasi had its advantages. Khal gave him anything he wanted. Anything, that was, except his freedom.

  “Manager Viasa says he can go when he pleases,” the captain said. Her expression suggested Manager Viasa had lost a few Quis dice from her brain. She nodded to the guard who had tried to dissuade him. “You go, Aza. It makes me tired just watching him."

  Aza sighed, rising to her feet. She went with Jeremiah back Inside and through a maze of halls that let them out into the parks. Then she paused, squinting as if she hoped he had changed his mind.

  He grinned at her. Then he set off for his morning run.

  The mountain air exhilarated him. The parks were ideal for running. They started out as well-tended gardens, then tangled into untamed forests that hid chill sapphire lakes. The ever-present wind rippled the forest in waves, ethereal in its wild beaut
y.

  Although linguists translated the Teotecan word for these trees as snowfir, they hardly looked like firs to Jeremiah. At this high altitude they grew only about twenty feet tall. Their trunks consisted of slender white stalks that spiraled around each other. Clusters of white or pale green fruits bobbed around them, attached to the trunk every few inches, like snowy billiard balls but delicate and hollow. The pale green needles on the trunks could jab a person like bee stings and left punctures that took days to heal.

  The path he followed wound through the edges of the forest. He had started running three years ago because his poor showing on the Dahl construction crew had embarrassed him. Overweight and out-of-shape, he had struggled through his shifts. Now he enjoyed running for its own sake. He would have liked a partner, but he had yet to convince anyone on Coba that it provided a sane form of exercise.

  Had his stay in Viasa been voluntary, he would have thrived. Calanya Quis not only fascinated him as a research subject, it was fun to play. The Calani took it far beyond what he had learned Outside. Savan's game incorporated the wisdom of an expert who had spent decades mastering the dice. Niev's style reflected his good-natured outlook on life. Hevtar played with a naivete that stumbled at times and soared at others.

  None of them, however, could match Kev's formidable gift. During one session the Third Level gave every detail about the failure of a beacon that warned riders in the mountains. It was powered by the Viasa-Tehnsa dam. Yet Jeremiah knew Kev and Khal had discussed it only with dice, never words. And Kev's Quis brilliance only began in his ability to process huge amounts of information. With style and flair, he manipulated abstract portrayals of the political fluxes among the Twelve Estates, molding the very flow of power on Coba, for Viasa and for Khal.

  Jeremiah often found Khal in his thoughts. He had never known anyone like her. He couldn't imagine a woman of her status on Earth paying him any attention. Even if she had, he would have been too flustered to respond. Khal, however, liked his reticence. It was, after all, a Viasa trait, and expected to some extent for men throughout the Twelve Estates.