Free The Ruby Dice by Catherine Asaro Page A

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