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to wed Caryi, they would probably turn to each other to fill the void. Jeremiah couldn't bear to live with
Khal knowing another man would always claim her heart.
She came to him. "Don't go. Viasa has come to care -- " She took a breath. "_I_ have come to
care. For you."
Her look was achingly familiar, the one that caressed him after they made love, that held promises of
affection she never spoke aloud, always leaving him in doubt. Now she added the words he had needed
to hear, and even on the brink of escape he wanted to take her into his arms and promise he would stay.
He struggled with his words, aware of the Skolian stranger listening to them. "I'm sorry. I'm truly
sorry. But I can't be what I'm not. And I could never share you. It would kill me." He swallowed. "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," she murmured. The silver track of a tear slid down her face, catching starlight.
The pilot spoke with unexpected gentleness. "We must go."
Softly Khal said, "Good-bye, beautiful scholar."
Jeremiah wiped a tear off his face. "Good-bye, Khal."
The Skolian was already opening the airlock. As he paused to let Jeremiah enter, he looked back at
Kev. "Don't tell anyone," he said in Teotecan. "You know why."
Then he closed the hatch, cutting them off from Viasa.
* * * *
Jeremiah sat in the co-pilot's seat while the Skolian took them away from Coba. On the holoscreen,
he watched Coba recede until she became a jeweled orb, a beautiful Quis die among stars and stardust.
Another tear rolled down his cheek. He wiped it away, not wanting the stranger to see.
The pilot remained intent on his controls, more so than the ship probably required. His concentration
gave Jeremiah a portion of privacy.
After a time, when Jeremiah had recovered some, he looked more closely at his rescuer. The man's
skin, hair, and eyes had a gold cast. His skin flexed like tissue, but looked metallic. He had no doubt the
man's alterations improved him over a normal human. He appeared hale and fit, with a powerful
physique. Jeremiah was no judge of appearance in men, but even he could see this Skolian had
remarkable good looks. Gray streaked his hair. He appeared about forty, but his facial expressions had a
maturity that came from many more years of life, which suggested he enjoyed the benefits of delayed
aging. Taken with the engineering on his body, it made Jeremiah suspect he came from a wealthy,
powerful segment of the Skolian population.
The Jumbler gun at his hip was military issue. He also wore heavy military gauntlets embedded with
conduits, picotech controls, comm meshes, and a wide gold strip around each wrist. Although the
gauntlets looked solid, they flexed with his movements like a second skin.
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The man glanced at him. In Spanish, he asked, "Are you all right?"
Jeremiah nodded. "Yes. Thank you for your trouble."
The man shrugged. "It is not so much trouble."
"You could have been killed."
"I have seen worse." He paused. "I expect to have the beacon, though. It help that you know that
transform."
Jeremiah thought of his half-panicked Quis. "I was guessing. Playing dice with your life."
"Such a problem take more than guesses."
"I was lucky."
The man's face gentled. "You are not what I expect."
"I'm not?"
"The genius who make history when he win this famous prize at twenty-four? I expect you to have a
large opinion of yourself. But it seems not that way."
"I didn't deserve the Goldstone. Besides, that is hardly reason for the Skolian military to rescue me."
"They didn't. They know nothing about this." The man paused. "I take you to a civilian port. From
there, we find you passage to Earth."
It made no sense. Why would this Skolian help him? Was he a wealthy eccentric? Then how did he
have a Jumbler? Jeremiah considered him. "At Viasa, you used some Teotecan. You even knew how to
read my name from the Calanya bands. How?"
The man answered in perfect Teotecan, his accent heavy but easy to understand. "It doesn't seem to
bother you to speak."
"Well, no." Jeremiah blinked, startled by his fluency. "Should it?"
The man spoke quietly. "It was years before I could carry on a normal conversation with an
Outsider."
An awareness that had been tugging at Jeremiah's mind suddenly became clear. The gold bands in
the man's gauntlets weren't high-tech equipment.
They were Calanya guards.
Jeremiah stared at him. "You were a _Calani?_"
The man reached into his pocket and took out an armband. "I thought this might answer your
questions."
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Jeremiah took the band. He recognized both the insignia of Karn Estate and the Akasi symbol. The
man who wore this had been Akasi to the ruler of a world. The name said _Sevtar Karn._
"You're him." Jeremiah looked up. "Sevtar. The one they went to war over."
"Actually, my name is Kelric. They called me Sevtar."
"But you're _dead._"
Kelric smiled. "I guess no one told me."
Jeremiah flushed. "They think you burned to death."
"I escaped during the fires. In all the chaos, I managed to take a windrider and fly to the port."
"Why do you let them think you died?" Jeremiah paused. "Did you hate Coba so much?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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