Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (586 page)

“My greetings,” the man said. “I am Kev.” He took in Jeremiah’s slouched posture. “I can return another time, if you prefer.”

Although Jeremiah didn’t feel like company, he had no wish to alienate the other dice players. He would be living with them for some time, maybe even the rest of his life, a possibility he was doing his best to forget.

He sat up straighter. “Come in. Please.” He indicated an armchair set across a table from him. “Be comfortable.”

Kev settled into the chair and stretched his long legs across the carpet. “Being Outside is tiring. But you need not worry. You will not have to go there often.”

“Outside?”

Kev gestured around them. “The Calanya, the place where we live, is Inside. All else is Outside.”

Jeremiah stared at him. “We never leave these suites?”

“We have this wing of the Estate. And the parks. They cover twenty square kilometers.” Kev looked apologetic. “Most Calanya have more land. These mountains limit Viasa’s space. Still, it is enough, I think, for fourteen people.”

“Fourteen Calani live here?”

“Counting yourself.”

Jeremiah rubbed his eyes. “Don’t remind me.”

Kev considered him. “The rumors are true, then? You received your Oath against your will.”

“Yes.”

“It is hard to imagine. Many people would give much to be where you are now.”

Jeremiah shook his head. “I had no idea Manager Viasa wanted my contract.”

“Normally the Calani decides what offer to accept,” Kev acknowledged. “When Khal initiated the negotiations for your contract, news of your Quis talent spread. Several Estates entered the bidding despite your lack of formal study.”

Jeremiah stared at him.
Other
Managers had also bid for this clandestine dice contract of his? “How do you know?”

Kev’s expression turned inscrutable. “Khal and I talk.”

Khal. Kev spoke as if it were natural to call one of Coba’s most powerful leaders by her first name. Calani were among the elite who might address a Manager in such a manner. Jeremiah couldn’t imagine doing so, no more than he had ever felt comfortable using “Jack” for Professor Brenn, even after Brenn insisted. Maybe the ease came with experience.

“How long have you been a Calani?” Jeremiah asked.

Arrogance touched Kev’s voice. “Twenty-three years. I took the Oath at sixteen.”

That boggled Jeremiah. Kev must have spent most of his life in seclusion, playing dice. Then a thought came to him:
Is it really so different from the way I’ve studied all my life?
He might as well have been in seclusion given how rarely he ventured out of the library or classroom.

Yes,
he thought.
It’s different.
He had chosen that life, rather than having it chosen for him.

Jeremiah slept through the morning, something he rarely did on Coba, given its thirty-two-hour days. He didn’t feel like getting out of bed. He spent the afternoon in his robe, sitting in the window seat of his bedroom, staring out at the chasm of air and the drifting clouds below.

Of course he tried to leave. He heaved open his private door and found guards Outside, all armed. When the captain asked if they could do anything for him, he shook his head and closed the door. Then he returned to the window seat and watched the sky.

In the evening, he roused himself enough to bathe in his swimming pool with its fountains. He shaved using a pearl-handled razor he
discovered laid out with a towel on a polished stone bench by the pool. Back in his bedroom, he changed into clothes he found in the wardrobe, garb similar to what he had worn yesterday. Then he sat by the window again.

Kev came to ask if he wanted to join the other Calani for dinner in the common room, or would he like his meal here. Jeremiah shook his head to both suggestions.

Finally night settled over the cliffs. He was still sitting by the window when the guards came for him.

Blue and green mosaics tiled the halls, with gold accents that gleamed in the torchlight After following a maze of corridors, the guards took him up a tower, climbing a spiral staircase of black marble. No one explained why or spoke to him.

At the top, they came to a horseshoe arch. The suite beyond was even more refined than his own. Soft light diffused from panels in the ceiling. Parchments on the walls glimmered with paintings of birds and branches. Dark urns as tall as Jeremiah stood in the corners, enameled with clusters of gold marble-flowers.

His escort showed him into a room with blue-shaded walls and a pale blue rug. It had no furnishings, only a voluptuous pile of green, blue, and gold pillows heaped in one corner The captain bowed to him and then the guards withdrew. A moment later Jeremiah heard the door close, followed by the click of the lock mechanism.

He rubbed his chin, baffled. What did they expect him to do here? For a while he paced the rooms. When he grew tired of looking for a way out, he lay among the pillows, letting their softness envelop him With no other outlet, he sought the freedom of sleep.

Sleep, however, evaded him. Instead, tears slid down his face Damn He hated to cry The tears came anyway, for the loss of his freedom and the people he loved. After a while he did manage to drowse, but he never fully slept.

“Jeremiah?”

He opened his eyes. Khal Viasa was standing above him, dressed in a clinging robe of red velvet. She had unbraid-ed her hair, and it fell in glorious auburn waves to her waist. He stared at her, bewildered, aware of her long, lean curves under the robe.

She knelt next to him among the pillows. “Your guards told me you haven’t eaten all day.”

“I wasn’t hungry.” He rubbed his palm across his cheek, trying to erase the signs of his tears.

“Ai, Jeremiah,” she murmured. “I am so sorry you are unhappy.”

Her compassion caught him off guard. He had expected her to be as cold as everyone else he had met from Viasa. Maybe under that infamous reserve, they were human after all. “I don’t understand what you want from me.”

“To eat. You will become sick if you refuse food.”

He wanted to say no. His diet was tricky, though. He had none of the immunities that protected Cobans against the poisons and bacteria here. It limited the foods he could eat, and his water had to be treated. One reason he had lost weight so last when he first came to Coba was because he had been sick so much, until he and his doctor worked out a diet he could tolerate. If he became careless now, he risked upsetting the chemical balance his body needed to maintain.

After a pause, he said, “All right.” Khal rose to her feet and went to an audiocom in the wall. When she touched its fingertip panel, a woman’s voice floated into the air. “Seva here “

“Seva, this is Manager Viasa. Have the instructions for what Jeremiah can eat and drink been given to the kitchens?”

“Yes, ma’am Last night, right after you landed.”

“Good. Have dinner brought up for him and me. We missed the evening meal.”

“Right away, ma’am.” Jeremiah wondered why she hadn’t eaten. She looked exhausted. “Are you all right?” he asked.

She came back and settled next to him in the pillows. “I am fine. But it is kind of you to ask.” “Is it the Viasa-Tehnsa dam?” Khal sighed. “It took all day to repair the electrical plant. The beacon still doesn’t work. Then I had to explain to Manager Tehnsa why it all failed.” She gave him a look of apology. “But I shouldn’t bore you with mundane Estate details.”

“It’s all right.” He preferred mundane details to thinking about his situation.

The audiocom buzzed. Then a girl said, “Your meal is here, Manager Viasa.”

“Ah. Good.” Khal rose gracefully to her feet and left the room. She returned with two junior aides. The boy carried a gold platter with an ornate cover, and the girl had a blue lacquered stand trimmed with gold and pearl inlays. They bowed to Jeremiah, set up the stand with the platter, and then withdrew from the room. A moment later the door closed and locked. Jeremiah blinked. “That was fast.” Khal smiled. When she lifted the cover off the platter, an aroma of spices filled the room. It made his mouth water. Maybe he was hungry after all.

Dinner was set out on the platter. Khal filled two gold-rimmed crystal goblets with red wine and gave him one. Then she took a plate of spiced meatballs and settled next to him among the pillows. Using a small gold fork, she speared a spice ball and offered it to him.

Jeremiah flushed. He would never have expected an Estate Manager to feed him. Self-conscious, he ate the spice ball. It tasted even better than it smelled, and he suddenly realized he was famished.

She gave him another, then speared one for herself. They alternated eating spice balls with drinking wine, Khal feeding them both until they finished the plate.

He took a last swallow of wine. “That was good.”

“I am glad you liked it.” She finished her drink, then took his empty goblet and set it with hers on the rug.

Jeremiah lay back in the pillows, relaxed now. Tipsy, in fact. Khal leaned on her elbow next to him, an intimacy that made him even more aware of her presence. The collar of her robe slipped down her shoulder, revealing smooth skin. He didn’t think she noticed, but that only made the effect more erotic. She nudged him onto his back and began to unlace the thongs that held his shirt closed.

Jeremiah caught her hand, still sober enough to read the implications under her seduction. “What are you doing?”

Her eyes were glossy from wine. She disengaged her hand from his and tweaked open his shirt. Then she slid her palm across his chest. “You are very beautiful, Jeremiah.”

Beautiful?
Right. What was going on, with a private den, an intimate feeding, and now this? On Earth, women had never noticed him. It hadn’t surprised him, given how he saw himself: a fat, short, boring nerd. His parents claimed his negative self-image was undeserved, that it came from taunts he had taken as a boy, when in truth he was “a charming, intelligent young man.” Well, of course they said that. They were his parents. They would think he was charming if he fell on his face in the mud.

It was true, though, that in Dahl his shyness had become an asset. Coban women valued the trait in men. But he had never risked having a girlfriend there. The Twelve Estates operated on a double standard that could have come from the Dark Ages, except here it applied to men. A woman could do as she pleased, but a man was expected to behave with decorum. Had he taken a lover, Manager Dahl would probably have asked him to leave. In a place as conservative as Viasa, he could have been deported.

In some ways, it had been fun. Women in Dahl considered him a challenge, an exotic treat they were convinced wanted his honor compromised. After all, he came from offworld. Surely if a single young man traveled so freely, without a chaperone, he must be free in other ways too. But even the most aggressive had never pushed this hard. The implied insult in Khal’s behavior stunned him. It also hurt, given his attraction to her, but he didn’t want her to know.

She touched his cheek. “Your emotions flash across your face like a beacon. Why are you upset?”

He spoke coolly. “It’s obvious why you had me brought here.”

“I should hope so.” She smiled. “This is the Akasi suite.” Akasi? Oh, Lord.
Oh, Lord.
She was watching his face. “You didn’t realize?”

“No.” He flushed. “I hardly know you.”

Khal looked at a loss for words. “Chankah Dahl led me to believe that you knew of my proposal.”

He thought back. Yes, the Dahl Manager had said something about an Akasi during his solitary confinement. He had been so angry at the time, he had refused to listen. “I… missed it.” “It is a big thing to miss.” No kidding. Akasi Calani. How could he be married to this stranger? “When did we, uh, have the ceremony?”

“We were wed as soon as you signed the Calanya contract.”

“I didn’t sign anything. Manager Dahl wrote my name.”

“Well, yes, it did work out that way,” Khal admitted. She brushed her knuckles over his cheek. “I won’t hurt you, sweet Jeremiah.” Then she went back to unlacing his shirt.

Flustered, he caught her hand. “Now wait a minute, Manager Viasa.” “Khal,” she murmured. He reddened. “Um, okay. Khal.” “It is all right,” she soothed. “Try to relax. “ She slipped her hand free, then finished undoing the buttons that closed the outer seams of his sleeves. As she tugged his shirt away from his body, her robe slipped more, revealing tantalizing hints of skin.

This all felt surreal, like a dream. Real or not, though, it was a marked improvement over the last few days. With a sigh, he let go of his resistance and put his arms around her waist. Drawing her close, he inhaled her scent, a fragrant blend of spices and incense.

Khal reached down to the outer seams of his trousers, which were held dosed by flaps. As she undid the flaps, she traced her fingertips over his skin. He finally understood why men’s trousers here had such an odd design. A woman who knew what she was doing could make taking them off intensely erotic.

Pushing up on her elbow, Khal gazed at him. “You’ve such big eyes.” She rolled a lock of his hair between her fingers. “Our poets write soliloquies about the wind god Khozaar. They say his face has a beauty no mortal man can match. But they never saw yours, Jeremiah. You shame even the wind.”

Good Lord. She was sweet-talking him. Before he could think of an appropriate response, if one even existed to such outrageous statements, she added, “I can’t believe the women on your Earth let you come here alone.”