"It doesn't matter." Moisture gathered in his eyes.
Her voice was low. "Such a tremendous gift you have given me, waiting while it took me nine years to die."
"Jeejon, stop."
"Someday . . . you must finish that chapter of your life you left behind for me."
He cradled her in his arms. "You can't die."
"I love you, Kelric."
"And I, you." His voice broke. "Always."
"Good-bye," she whispered.
"Don't—" Kelric froze. Her breathing had stopped. Somewhere an alarm went off, distant, discreet, horrifying.
"No." He pulled her close, his arms shaking, and laid his cheek against her head. "Jeejon, no."
She didn't answer.
Kelric held his late wife, and his tears soaked into her hair.
I
Quis
"Jeremiah Coltman," Dehya said.
Kelric looked up from the console where he was scanning files on army deployments. He and Dehya were in one of the glossy offices that honeycombed the hull of the space station.
"What?" he asked.
She regarded him from her console, a slender woman with long hair, sleek and black, but streaked with white, as if frost had iced the tendrils curling around her face. Translucent sunset colors overlaid her green eyes, the only trace she had of her father's inner eyelid. Kelric didn't have the inner lid either, but he had his grandfather's metallic gold eyes, skin, and hair, modifications designed to adapt humans to a too-bright world.
"Jeremiah Coltman," she repeated. "Do you remember?"
"I've no idea," he said.
"That boy from Earth. About a year ago we had trouble with the Allied Worlds over him."
Kelric searched his memory, but nothing came to him. Bolt, he thought, accessing his spinal node. You have anything on him?
His node answered via bioelectrodes in his brain that fired his neurons in a manner he interpreted as thought. Jeremiah Coltman was detained on a Skolian world. I'm afraid my records are spotty.
He remembered then. It had come up the day Jeejon died. He recalled little from that time, and he hadn't recorded his memory well in the long days that followed. Even now, nearly a year later, he avoided the memories. They hurt too much.
"I thought the man they locked up was an adult," Kelric said. "A professor."
"An anthropology graduate student." Dehya was reading from her console. "He spent three years on one of our worlds while he wrote his dissertation. Huh. Listen to this. They didn't throw him in prison. They like him so much, they won't let him go home."
Kelric turned back to his work files. Absently, he said, "Can't somebody's embassy take care of it?"
"I'm not sure," she said.
It surprised him she was spending time on it. Dehya served as Assembly Key, the liaison between the Assembly and the vast information meshes that networked the Imperialate, not only in spacetime, but also in Kyle space. Physics had no meaning in the Kyle; proximity was determined by similarity of thought rather than position. Two people having a conversation were "next" to each other no matter how many light-years separated them in real space. It made possible instant communication across interstellar distances and tied the Imperialate into a coherent civilization. But only those few people with a nearly extinct mutation in their neural structures could power the Kyle web. Like Dehya. As Assembly Key, she had far more pressing matters to attend than a minor incident from a year ago.
"Ah, but Kelric," she said. "It's such an interesting incident."
Damn! He had to guard his thoughts better. He shielded his mind, fortifying his defenses until nothing could rise too close to the surface. "Stop eavesdropping," he grumbled.
She smiled with that eerie quality of hers, as if she were only partly in the real universe. "He won a prize."
"Who won a prize?"
"Jeremiah Coltman. Something called the Goldstone." She glanced at her console. "It's quite prestigious among anthropologists. But his hosts won't let him go home to receive it. That caused a stir, enough to toggle my news monitors."
Kelric felt a pang of longing. Had he been free to pursue any career, he would have chosen the academic life and become a mathematician. He and Dehya were alike that way. Those extra neural structures that adapted their brains to Kyle space also gave them an enhanced facility with abstract disciplines.
"Why won't they let him go?" Kelric said. "Where is he?"
"Never heard of the place." She squinted at her screen. "Planet called Coba.”
He felt as if a freighter slammed into him. Jeejon's words rushed back from that moment before she died: You never told anyone where you were those eighteen years.
"Kelric?" Dehya was watching him. "What's wrong?"
He refocused on her face. Mercifully, his mental shields were still in place. He didn't think she could pick up anything from him, but he never knew for certain with Dehya; she had a mental finesse unlike anyone else. So he told the truth, as best he could. "It reminded me of Jeejon."
Sympathy softened her sculpted features. "Good memories, I hope."
He just nodded. His family believed he had been a prisoner of war during the eighteen years he vanished. He let them assume the Traders had captured him, and that he didn't want to speak of it. That was even true for the final months. But he didn't think Dehya had ever fully believed it. If she suspected he was reacting to the name Coba, she would pursue the lead.
He had to escape before she sensed that his disquiet went beyond his memories of Jeejon. Dehya's ability to read his moods depended on how well the fields of her brain interacted with his. The Coulomb forces that determined those fields dropped off quickly with distance; even a few meters could affect whether or not she picked up his emotions.
He rose to his feet. "I think I'll take a break."
She spoke softly. "I'm sorry I reminded you."
His face gentled, as sometimes happened around Dehya. She was one of the few people who seemed untroubled by his silences and reclusive nature. "It's all right."
Then he left the chamber, walking in long strides, his steps lengthened by the lower gravity. Alone, he headed back to his large, cool, empty house.
****
Kelric sat in his living room with no lights except the gold designs on the walls. No sunlight slanted through the open windows, but the bright day diffused into his home. He had settled on the couch, one of the few pieces of furniture in the huge room.
He sat and he thought.
Coba. It had taken eighteen years of his life. What would it do to Jeremiah Coltman? Would his unwilling presence stir that world as Kelric's had done, until its culture erupted into war? Compared to the interstellar Radiance War that had raged between the mammoth Trader and Skolian empires, Coba's war had been tiny. But it had ravaged its people. And he, Kelric, had caused it. Coltman was a scholar, not a warrior, but the young man's presence would still exert an influence.
Kelric spoke to the Evolving Intelligence, or EI, than ran his house. He had named it after an ancient physicist who had illuminated mysteries of relativistic quantum mechanics.
"Dirac?" he asked.
A man's rich baritone answered. "Attending."
"Find me everything you can about Jeremiah Coltman."
Dirac paused. "He was born in Wyoming."
"What's a wyoming?"
"A place on Earth."
"Oh." That didn't help much. "What about his graduate school?"
"He earned his doctorate in anthropology from a school called Harvard for his study of human settlement on the planet Coba. He spent three years working on a construction crew while he wrote his dissertation. One year ago, a Coban queen selected him for a Calani. I have no definition of Calani."
"I know what it means." Kelric leaned back and closed his eyes. Queen was the wrong word for the women who ruled the Coban city-estates. They called themselves Managers. In Coba's Old Age they had been warriors who battled constantly, but in these modern times they considered the
mselves civilized. Never mind this atavistic penchant of theirs for kidnapping male geniuses.
Dirac continued. "Coltman's family and members of the Allied diplomatic corps have tried to free him."
"Any success?" Kelric asked.
"So far, none. He agreed to abide by Coban law when they let him live on their world."
"What about this award he won?"
Dirac paused. "Apparently the Coban queen relented enough to send his doctoral thesis to his advisor at Harvard. The advisor submitted it to the awards committee. At twenty-four, Coltman is the youngest person ever to win the Goldstone Prize."
Kelric was grateful the fellow had received the honor, not because he knew anything about anthropology, but because it had caused enough of an outcry to catch Dehya's attention.
"What do you have on Coba?" Kelric asked. His outward calm didn't match his inner turmoil. He had avoided speaking that question for ten years, lest someone notice and want to know why Coba interested him. As long as he ignored Coba, no one had reason to suspect its people had imprisoned a Ruby heir for eighteen years.
"Coba is a Skolian World," Dirac said. "Restricted Status. No native may leave the planet. They are denied contact with the Imperialate. The world has one automated starport, a military refueling post that's rarely used. Skolians who voluntarily enter the Restricted zone forfeit their citizenship."
Kelric waited. "That's it?"
"Yes." The EI sounded apologetic.
Relief washed over him. It was even less than he expected. Restricted Status generally went to worlds inimical to human life or otherwise so dangerous they required quarantine. The Cobans had asked for the status, and ISC granted it because Coba was so inconsequential that no one cared.
Kelric's Jag fighter had crashed on Coba after he escaped a Trader ambush. The Cobans should have taken him to the starport. He would have died before they reached it, but the Restriction required they do it. Instead they saved his life. By the time he recovered, they had decided never to let him go. They feared he would bring ISC to investigate the Restriction. They had been right. That had been before he understood how the Imperialate could destroy their unique, maddening, and wondrous culture.
Kelric couldn't fathom why they had let Coltman study them. He rose to his feet, and his steps echoed as he walked through the stone halls of his house, under high, unadorned ceilings.
His office had a warmer touch. Jeejon had put down rugs, dark gold with tassels. Panels softened his stark walls with scenes of his home world, plains with silvery-green reeds and spheres adrift in the air. In some, the spindled peaks of the Backbone Mountains speared a darkening sky.
He sat at his desk, and it lit up with icons, awaiting his commands. He turned off every panel. Then he opened a drawer and removed his pouch. The bag was old and worn, bulging with its contents. He undid its drawstring and rolled out his Quis dice.
The dice came in many shapes: squares, disks, balls, cubes, rods, polyhedrons, and more. Not only did he have the full set carried by most Cobans, his also included unusual shapes, stars, eggs, even small boxes with lids.
Dice and Coba. They were inextricably blended. All Cobans played Quis, every day of their lives, from the moment they were old enough to hold the dice until the day they died. It was one giant game, the life's blood of a world. They gambled with Quis, educated with the dice, gossiped with it. Scholars built philosophies based on the game. The powers of Coba used it to gain political influence. For a Manager to hold her realms and prosper, she had to master Quis at its top levels.
Then there were Calani.
The few men honored as Calani were profoundly gifted at Quis. They lived in luxury and spent their lives playing dice. They provided strategy for the Manager; as such, they served not only as advisors, but also as a weapon she wielded in the flow of power among the Estates. Managers had ten to twenty Calani; together, they formed her Calanya. The stronger a Manager's Calanya, the more she could influence the network of Quis that molded Coba's culture. Quis meant power, and a Manager's Calanya was her most valuable asset.
Only Calani owned jeweled dice. The white pieces were diamond; the blue, sapphire; the red, ruby. The opals had many hues that allowed Kelric to manipulate color rank when he built structures. Over the decades, his gold dice had become worn, their metal less durable than iron or copper.
Calani paid a steep price for the spectacular luxury of their lives. They remained secluded. They saw no one but the Manager and the few visitors she allowed. They swore never to read, write, or speak to anyone Outside the Calanya. Nothing was allowed to contaminate their Quis, for anyone who succeeded in manipulating their game could damage the Estate, even topple the Manager from power. Managers shielded their scholarly Calani from outside influences with the single-minded resolve of their warrior queen ancestors.
To symbolize Jeremiah, Kelric chose a silver ball, one of his higher-ranked pieces. He built structures involving the ball and let them develop according to complex and fluid rules. A Calani and his dice were two halves of a whole, each affecting the other. His skill molded the structures, but the complexity of the game and its often unexpected evolution informed their design just as much. Calani and Quis: they created each other.
He had intended to model Coban politics and examine what they revealed about Jeremiah. Instead, his patterns mirrored the history of his people. He wasn't certain what his subconscious was up to, but he let the structures evolve. Six millennia ago, an unknown race had taken humans from Earth and moved them to the world Raylicon. Then they vanished. No one knew why and they left behind nothing but dead starships. Over the centuries, using libraries on those ships, the humans had developed star travel. They built the interstellar Ruby Empire and established many colonies, including Coba. But the empire soon collapsed, destroying the starships and stranding the colonies. Four millennia of Dark Ages followed.
When the Raylicans finally regained the stars, they split into two empires: the Traders, with an economy based on slavery; and Kelric's people, the Skolian Imperialate. Since then, Skolia had been rediscovering ancient colonies like Coba.
The people of Earth had a real shock after they developed space travel and went exploring: their siblings were already out here, two huge and bitterly opposed civilizations. The Allied Worlds of Earth became a third. Unlike their bellicose neighbors, however, they had no interest in conquering anyone. They just sold things. In his philosophical moments, Kelric doubted either his people or the Traders would inherit the stars. While they were busy throwing world-slagging armies at each other, the Allieds would quietly take over by convincing everyone they couldn't survive without Allied goods. Imperial Space Command had an incredible ability to expand to new worlds, but it paled in comparison to Starbytes Coffee.
Earth's success in the interstellar marketplace, however, depended on maintaining civil relations with Skolia and the Traders. They obviously had no intention of upsetting their relations with the Imperialate over one graduate student. The moment Jeremiah had set foot on Coba, he forfeited his rights as an Allied citizen and became subject to the Restriction.
Kelric blew out a gust of air. He had to get Jeremiah out of there, and do it without alerting anyone. The Restriction protected Coba's extraordinary culture—and his children.
He sat back, staring at the Quis structures that covered his desk. "Dirac."
The EI's voice floated into the air. "Attending."
Kelric knew if he continued to ask about Coba, someone might notice. His interactions with Dirac were shielded by the best security ISC had to offer. But he knew Dehya. If she became curious, she could break even his security. He was taking a risk. But it had been so long, and he had so little time left.
He took a breath. "I need you to find a Closure document. It was written ten years ago, just after the Radiance War." He tilted his chair back until he was gazing at the stone ceiling far above his head. The silence of the house surrounded him. Outside his window, wind rustled in the dapple-trees li
ke children whispering together.
"Did you write it?" Dirac asked.
"That's right," Kelric said. "I was serving on a merchant ship. The Corona." He had escaped Coba in a dilapidated shuttle that barely managed to reach another port. He hadn't had credits enough even to buy food, let alone repair the aging shuttle. The job on the Corona had offered a way out.
"I have records of a vessel fitting that description," Dirac said. "Jaffe Maccar is its captain."
"That's it. I filed a Closure document with the ship's legal EI."
A long silence followed. Finally Dirac said, "I find no record of this document."
Maybe he had hidden it better than he thought. Either that, or it was lost. "It's encrypted," he said, and gave Dirac the key.
After a moment, Dirac spoke crisply. "File six-eight-three, signed by Kelric Skolia. Marriage to Ixpar Karn Closed. If Closure isn't reversed in ten years, Kelric Garlin Valdoria Skolia will be declared dead, and his assets will revert to his heirs. Ixpar Karn and two children are named as beneficiaries." The EI paused. "Your listed assets are extensive."
"I suppose."
"In one-hundred-eleven days," Dirac said, "Ixpar Karn will be one of the wealthiest human beings alive."
Even though Kelric had known this was coming for ten years, it still rattled him. "Ixpar doesn't know."
"Do you wish me to cancel the document?"
"I'm not sure."
"You aren't dead," Dirac pointed out.
"If you cancel it, I'll be married to Ixpar again." The Closure didn't become permanent until the end of ten years. It was usually done when someone's spouse vanished, to declare that person legally dead. Generally, the abandoned spouse invoked the Closure, not the person who disappeared.
"Is marriage to Ixpar Karn a problem?" Dirac asked.
Kelric thought of Jeejon. Grief didn't end on a schedule. It receded, yes, but it crept up on you like a mouse under the table, until one day you looked down and saw it crouched in your home, watching you with pale eyes, still there after all this time. It was true, he had married Jeejon in gratitude. Maybe he had never felt the soul-deep passion for her that he had with Ixpar, but he had loved Jeejon in a quieter way. She had given up everything she owned to save his life, even believing he was deluded to think he was the Imperator. She had never expected anything in return, but he had sworn to stand by her.
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