The Ruby Dice (8 page)

"Viasa, I'm reading your signal," he said.

No response.

"Mace, can you increase my range?" Kelric asked.

"Working," the EI said.

"Viasa, I'm receiving your signal," Kelric said. "Can you read me? I repeat, I'm reading your signal. Please respond."

Still nothing. The scout was lower in the mountains now, and peaks loomed around them.

The comm suddenly crackled with a man's voice, words that made no sense.

"What the blazes was that?" Kelric asked.

"He's speaking Flag," Mace said. "Very
bad
Flag. I believe he said, 'Know English you? Spanish? French?'" The EI paused. "Those are Earth languages."

Kelric wondered if he was speaking to Jeremiah. Do I know any of those? he asked Bolt.

I have a Spanish mod, Bolt replied. I can provide rudimentary responses.

Go, Kelric thought.

Bolt gave him words, and he spoke into the comm, grappling with the pronunciation. The Skolian translation glowed on one of his forward screens.

"This is Dalstern GH3, scout class TI," he said. "Viasa, I need holomaps. These mountains are much trouble. The wind make problem also."

"Can you link your computers to our system here?" the man asked. "We will help guide you down."

"Computers?" Kelric said, more to himself than the man.

"I think he means me," Mace said. "I will make the link."

Kelric spoke into the comm. "We try." At least he thought he said
we.
The translation came up as
I.
He continued to navigate, relying on Mace to map the terrain and feed data to his spinal node. He could hear winds screaming past the ship.

"I'm having trouble linking to Viasa's mesh," Mace said. "It's manufactured by Earth's North-Am conglomerate and is only partially compatible with ours."

Kelric shook his head, wondering if anyone existed who had escaped buying products from the Allied Worlds of Earth. Coba, though? He hadn't expected that.

The man's voice came again. "Dalstern, can you send your data in an Allied protocol?"

"Which one?" Kelric asked.

Symbols transmitted from Viasa appeared on Kelric's screen, and he immediately saw a problem. The Viasa system wasn't set up to deal with starships, only windriders. It was trying to specify his trajectory in a system defined on the planet, in coordinates only they used.

"Viasa, we are maybe close to what we need," Kelric said. "Can you transform the coordinate system you use into the Skolian standard system?"

More silence. Kelric hoped his Spanish was intelligible. What he wanted to say didn't match what was coming out. Mace translated his last sentence as
Can you send the equations that transform the coordinate system in your primary nav module to the system we use?
He hoped it made sense to the people in Viasa.

A peak suddenly reared up on his screens. With accelerated reflexes, he jerked the scout into a vertical climb. G-forces slammed him into his seat as he veered east and dropped past another crag with a sickening lurch. The scout leveled out and shot through the mountains.

"Gods," he muttered. He spoke into the comm. "Viasa, where is beacon to guide aircraft in these mountains?"

A woman answered in terrible Spanish. "Say again?"

"The warning beacon. Where is it?"

"Broken." Her accent didn't mask her suspicious tone. He had just revealed he knew more about Viasa than almost any offworlder alive.

The man spoke. "Dalstern, we have holomaps for you, but we still have a mismatch in protocols. We are working on it. Please stand by."

"Understood." Kelric wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. "Mace, how is our speed?"

"Too fast. The deeper we go in these mountains, the more complex the terrain. I can't recalculate the map fast enough."

Kelric leaned over the comm. "Viasa, I need maps."

"I'm sending what I have," the man answered.

"Received!" Mace said. A new holomap formed, centered on a magnificent waterfall that cascaded down a cliff. In the east, a pass showed in the mountains. With a rush of relief, Kelric veered toward that small notch.

"Dalstern, did that come through?" the man asked.

"I have it," Kelric said. "I pull up."

"Viasa should be beyond the cliffs," Mace said. "I don't have the landing coordinates yet."

Kelric grimaced at the thought of setting down in a mountain hamlet without guidance, on a field that was probably too small. "Maybe we'll see it when we get through the pass."

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.

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.