Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction

by Leigh Grossman

  Softly he said, “Play it.”

  Khal regarded him. Then she clicked the disk into a computer port on her desk.

  His father’s voice floated into the still air. “Hello, Jeremiah. If this finds its way to you, I want you to know we are doing everything possible to free you. Your mother and I are also working with the authorities to obtain travel clearance for Coba. We won’t give up.” Then his mother spoke, her voice strained. “All our thoughts are with you. Your brother and sister send their best. We love you, Jeremiah. We will see you again, I’m sure. Love always, Mom and Dad.”

  The disk hummed into silence.

  His hands clenched the desk. He saw through their optimism. Visiting Coba shouldn’t take that much red tape—unless the authorities feared they would cause trouble. Even if his parents did make it here, the Cobans would never let them near him. He might never see his family again.

  “I am sorry,” Khal said. “I shouldn’t have told you.”

  He fought back the tears that threatened his eyes. “You would understand how they felt if you had children.”

  She froze. “What makes you think I have no children?”

  “How could you? We’ve only been married a few tendays.” Belatedly he realized he might have just made a terrible gaffe. She could have been married before. What if she had lost a husband? Or she might have illegitimate children. That seemed unlikely, though, given her conservative nature.

  “How could you think I had no husband?” Khal asked.

  “You never mentioned one.”

  She leaned against the desk. “Ah, no.”

  Jeremiah tensed. “What does that mean?”

  “How could you not know?”

  “Know what?”

  “I had another Akasi. We stopped years ago.”

  “Stopped?” What did that mean? “Where is he?”

  “In the Calanya.”

  “Still?”

  She tilted her head. “He and I are no longer Manager and Akasi. I wouldn’t be here with you otherwise. But the Oath is for life. I swore him support and protection. Our estrangement doesn’t negate my responsibility.”

  Dryly Jeremiah said, “We call it alimony.”

  “He told me that he visited you on your first night here.”

  “Yes.” She pushed her hand through her hair. “Kev.”

  “He didn’t say a word.”

  “You must have seen his Viasa armbands. They are like yours.”

  “I didn’t understand. “ He did now, though. No wonder Kev wished he would fall off a cliff. And Hevtar. How could he have missed it? Yes, the boy had many of Kev’s traits. But his resemblance to Khal was also unmistakable.

  Khal spoke softly. “I regret that you had to find out in this way. I assumed you knew. You have learned so much about us that I sometimes forget you don’t know our culture as well as we do ourselves.”

  He walked to the window and gazed out at the sky. “I need to think about all this.”

  “Would you prefer to return to your suite?”

  Relieved, he nodded.

  He spent the rest of the day in his window seat, thinking about Kev and Hevtar. He wished human relationships were as easy to understand as Quis.

  * * * *

  Hevtar walked into the common room “It’s her!” He came to the table where Jeremiah and several other Calani were playing Quis. “I saw her windrider from my window.”

  “Pah. “ Savan looked up from his dice and glared at the boy. “Calm down. I can’t concentrate.”

  “I am calm,” Hevtar said.

  Niev smiled at Hevtar. “Quite an occasion when Her comes to visit. Whoever Her is.”

  “Manager Tehnsa,” Hevtar said.

  Jeremiah was relieved for an excuse to leave the game. Since his talk with Khal yesterday, he hadn’t felt much like playing Quis. “The infamous Manager Tehnsa? This I have to see.”

  “You better hurry,” Hevtar said. “Her rider already landed.”

  It surprised Jeremiah that Hevtar didn’t rebuff him. Curious about what could convince the youth to forget his resentment, he followed the boy into his suite. Hevtar took him to a window that overlooked the airfield. Gazing down and out, Jeremiah saw Khal walking across the distant tarmac with a group of people.

  “Which one is Manager Tehnsa?” he asked.

  “The woman with the black hair,” Hevtar said.

  Jeremiah studied the graceful figure. “Woman” wasn’t really the right word. Manager Tehnsa couldn’t be more than sixteen. A waterfall of black hair fell down her willowy back, glossy in the sunlight. “She’s beautiful.”

  “Yes,” Hevtar agreed, with great emphasis. In a shy voice, he added, “She’s nice too.”

  Jeremiah smiled, wondering if Khal knew how her son felt about the Tehnsa Manager. It seemed an apt pairing, the son of one Manager with another Manager.

  Hevtar suddenly seemed to realize who he had invited into his room. He stopped smiling. “I didn’t mean to disrupt your Quis game.”

  “You didn’t. I wanted to quit.”

  “Oh.” The boy looked out at the airfield.

  “Hevtar.” Jeremiah hesitated. “I wanted to say…”

  Hevtar looked at him. “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry if I’ve caused you any difficulty by being here.”

  Hevtar shifted his feet. “It isn’t really my business.”

  Jeremiah searched for words. How did one discuss these things? “I didn’t realize before. About your parents. I hope I didn’t seem insensitive.”

  “I just can’t…” Hevtar glanced toward the common room. “I have a Quis session”

  “Of course.” Jeremiah let it go. When he was fourteen, he doubted he would have wanted to discuss such a convoluted situation either.

  They started out of the suite. Just before they entered the common room, though, Hevtar paused and gave him a shy smile. “Some time, would you like to come over and listen to Niev and me practice? He plays the lyder. I sing.”

  “Thank you,” Jeremiah said. “I’d like that.”

  In the common room, after Hevtar went to his Quis game, Jeremiah headed to his suite. Before he reached it, though, he ran into Kev coming out of another common room. They both stopped, awkward with their almost-collision. Jeremiah wished he could tele-port somewhere. Anywhere.

  After a pause, Kev said, “Do you have a moment?”

  Jeremiah shifted his feet. “Sure.”

  So for the first time, he went to Kev’s suite. It had a living room far more luxurious than anything else he had seen, even in the Calanya. The fixtures, trim, and braziers were gold. Standing lamps had silk shades with gold ribbing. The rugs, divans, windows, tables, and walls gleamed with the understated elegance of immense wealth. Apparently Khal’s “alimony” came high. Jeremiah tried not to be irked, but he didn’t succeed.

  “Would you care for some liqueur?” Kev asked.

  “Thank you, but no.” He wondered why Kev asked. Out of hospitality? Or some other motive? He had no idea if Kev knew he couldn’t drink Coban liqueurs, only certain wines, teas, and boiled water.

  Stop it, he told himself. If he tried to analyze every word Kev spoke, he would go nuts.

  The Third Level motioned him to an armchair. As Jeremiah sat down, Kev settled into a chair across the table. He spoke quietly. “Khal told me what happened.”

  Jeremiah shifted his weight “I shouldn’t have been so dense.”

  “I owe you an apology. I have been…less than courteous.”

  “It’s all right.” Jeremiah didn’t know what else to say.

  So they sat, trying not to look at each other. Then Kev went to stand at a floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the airfield. “They’re moving Manager Tehn-sa’s rider to a hangar. She must be staying for a visit.”

  Relieved to change the subject, Jeremiah joined him. A crew was wheeling the rider across the blacktop. The craft looked like a giant bird with a bright red head, green plumage edged in black, talons bl
ack as lava, and gold eyes. “It’s hard to believe Manager Tehnsa is as inept at Managing as everyone says.”

  “She isn’t.” Kev continued to watch the crew. “Caryi had an entire Estate rolled into her lap when she was only thirteen, after her predecessor died in a rock fall. Since then she has been trying to cope. Khal helps Tehnsa is also hampered because its Calanya is small, only six Firsts and no higher Levels.”

  Jeremiah glanced at Kev’s three arm bands, wondering if he had ever considered leaving Viasa. It would solve the problem of having to see his ex-wife and her new husband every day. “How would she go about getting a higher Level?”

  Kev looked at him. “The Estate that wants him makes an offer. If he is interested, the Managers negotiate. Counteroffers are made. Other Estates may enter the bidding. The higher the Level, the steeper the price of his contract. The practical limit for most Estates is Third Level.”

  So. Maybe no one could afford Kev’s contract. “Why trade at all?” He thought of Aza. “If one of us went to Bahvla, wouldn’t that give Bahvla power over Viasa?”

  Kev snorted. “Khal would never trade with Bahvla.”

  “But she does with other Estates.”

  “Not often. High-level trades are rare.” Kev brushed his Viasa band in a gesture he often used, yet didn’t seem to notice on a conscious level. “Savan came here from Tehnsa two years ago. When he left Tehnsa, Caryi lost her best Quis player. But the settlement that Viasa paid for his contract allowed Caryi to clear many of her Estate’s debts.”

  Jeremiah could see why a player with Savan’s talent would want a position at a more powerful Estate. But going from Tehnsa to Viasa was like switching from a small to a large room in the same house. Kev had come from Varz, a powerhouse Estate having only a tenuous alliance with Viasa.

  Another thought came to him. “You must have been at Varz during the war.”

  Kev nodded. “I knew the Calani Sevtar for a short time.”

  “It’s hard to imagine a war fought over one man.”

  Kev smiled slightly. “Not if you knew Sevtar. He was bigger than life, Jeremiah, huge, powerful, strong, wild, gentle when he wanted to be, affectionate. He looked like a god and he played Quis better than anyone alive. In many ways, he was the antithesis of the Coban male, yet in others he offered everything a woman could want. It all added to his mystique.”

  “It certainly seems to have affected Karn and Varz.” Jeremiah paused. “I don’t really understand Coban women.”

  Kev gave a dry laugh. “I quit trying long ago.”

  Jeremiah smiled. Then he spoke with care. “Negotiations for your trade with Viasa must have be going on then.”

  Kev looked out the window. The airfield was clear now. “Fourteen years ago, Manager Varz wanted to enlist Viasa as an ally. So she honored Viasa with Quis. She chose me to play dice with Khal.” It was a moment before he continued. “Khal and I discovered we suited. She negotiated with Manager Varz. The settlement put Viasa into debt for years.”

  Jeremiah didn’t want to know this, that Khal had indebted her entire Estate for another man. “Doesn’t it bother you that they buy us that way?”

  “No.”

  “Never?”

  “The Calanya is the only life I have ever wanted.”

  “Don’t you want to go Outside? Climb a mountain? See the world?”

  Kev turned to him. “No.”

  “Oh.” Jeremiah didn’t know what to say to that.

  “You would have liked Sevtar.” Kev smiled. “He also had this habit, running circles in the Calanya parks. He was an offworlder, too. A Skolian.”

  Jeremiah stared at him. “You’re joking.”

  “Not at all. His ship crashed here almost thirty years ago. Now the Managers are afraid.”

  “Afraid? Why?”

  “He came from a powerful Skolian family.” Kev regarded him. “One that could cause Coba great harm if they knew what happened here. The Managers changed his name and identity. The name Sevtar is Coban, our god of the dawn. None of us knew Sevtar’s real name. We don’t make his story a secret, because its discovery would draw even more attention. However, we say very little about him to offworlders.”

  Jeremiah just looked at him, his unspoken words hanging between them like an intruder: You told me. The Viasa Calani had already accepted what Jeremiah continued to deny, that he would never leave Coba.

  III

  Mountain Passage

  The year on Coba lasted a few months longer than on Earth. It eased from winter into spring, warmed into summer, and frosted into autumn. Viasa sat so high in the mountains that when winter returned, its storms often massed below the Estate, leaving Viasa in sunshine, subzero temperatures, and ice.

  Today light poured through the windows of the morning room in Khal’s suite. She sat across the breakfast table from Jeremiah, lost in silence while they ate. The blue silk of her robe glowed against her golden skin, and her hair fell over her body in red-gold waves. It wasn’t only her striking appearance that attracted him now, but also qualities that made her unique: the slight curve of her lips that hinted at her hidden streak of mischief, the way she looked up from her work in welcome when his escort brought him to play Quis during the day, the sultry invitation in her gaze at night. He knew he had fallen in love with her. But she remained a cipher. She never spoke of her feelings, and her face rarely revealed her moods.

  “You’re quiet today,” he said.

  She looked up, focusing on him. “My apologies. I must make poor company this morning.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  She sighed. “One might say so.” After considering him, she touched an audio-com set into the table.

  The voice of her aide floated into the air. “Seva here.”

  “This is Manager Viasa. Please have the Allied files in my office sent up here.”

  “Right away, ma’am.”

  Allied files? Jeremiah gave her a questioning look, but she said nothing. From past experience, he knew that trying to draw her out would do no good. So they continued to eat.

  After a while a girl tapped at the open door arch. “An aide is here to see you, Manager Viasa.”

  “Show her in,” Khal said.

  A woman with yellow hair entered, carrying a box about six inches on a side. When Jeremiah saw the comp disks in it, his pulse jumped. He would recognize those anywhere. They held all his notes from his years of fieldwork in Dahl.

  Khal waited until the aide left. Then she regarded Jeremiah. “Yes. They are yours.”

  “What about my dissertation?” He didn’t see the labels for those disks. “Was it destroyed?”

  “Winds, no,” Khal said. “We would never do such a thing. We know the dedication you put into your work.”

  “Where is it?” He knew he shouldn’t let it wrench him this way. It didn’t look as if he would be going home any time soon. He had found no way to escape Viasa or convince Khal to let him go. If the Allied authorities had made progress in negotiating his release, he knew nothing of it. He had begun to wonder if they had given up. With Coba under Skolian protection, Earth preferred to avoid any fuss that might attract military attention from the bellicose Skolians. Yet no matter how he ended up, he cared what had happened to his work.

  “When the Council of Managers agreed to let you live in Dahl,” Khal said, “we all understood why. Minister Karn knew you intended to write about us.”

  Anger edged his voice. “Maybe it didn’t matter because she never intended to let me leave.”

  “We are not so devious, Jeremiah. Minister Karn would not lie to you.” Khal touched the box. “Because of this, we owed you a debt. I paid it as best I knew how. I sent your study to your mentor on Earth.”

  Jeremiah stared at her. “You mean Professor Brenn? You sent him my thesis?”

  Khal took a disk out of the box. A holo of the Harvard seal gleamed on its shimmering surface. “A windrider delivered this while you were still asleep.”

  He swal
lowed. “Khal, play it.”

  “Are you sure? It won’t change anything.”

  “Yes.” His pulse raced. What had Brenn thought? “I’m sure.”

  As she clicked the disk into a slot on the table, Jeremiah tensed. What if Brenn didn’t like the work? What if he thought it incomplete or of poor quality? Even if Jeremiah could have presented his thesis to his doctoral committee, they might have found it wanting. Maybe Khal was right. Brenn’s response might only dishearten him.

  But he had to know.

  Brenn’s voice rose into the air. “Jeremiah, hello. If you are listening to this, you probably know the Cobans sent me your work.” He paused. “To say their action surprised us would be an understatement. In any case, I submitted it to your examination committee.”

  Jeremiah blinked. Why bother giving it to the examiners when he wasn’t there for them to examine him?

  Brenn spoke as if anticipating his reaction. “A thesis without an author to defend it is unusual. However, after reading your work and considering your circumstances, the committee decided to accept the dissertation without your oral exam. In cases such as yours, the oral is only a formality anyway.” He paused. “Your committee, the department, and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences concurred. You were granted your doctorate during the last graduation.”

  They gave him a Ph.D. without his final defense’ How? He certainly hadn’t considered the oral a formality. He had feared he wouldn’t pass.

  Brenn continued. “Your work has provoked more talk around here than I’ve seen in years.” He cleared his throat. “You raised quite a stir with the section on the evolution of the Calanya from a harem of the Managers’ husbands into a group of elite dice players who aren’t married to the Manager. Your arguments that polygamy for either sex destabilizes a society has debates going. Dean Baker claims it’s hooey, Melissa Alli thinks you’re brilliant, and Wayland is somehow running computer simulations on it, lord only knows how.” Awkwardly he added, “But perhaps you have had more chance to test your hypotheses about the Calanya than you would have preferred.”