Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (591 page)

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 swallowed. “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. w
ithout
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.”

No kidding, Jeremiah thought.

“You might like to know,” Brenn continued. “You were awarded the Feldman Fellowship in Anthropology. I also submitted your dissertation to the Academy of Planetary Studies.” He paused. “Jeremiah, you won the Goldstone Prize.”

“What?”
Jeremiah’s hand tightened on the stem of the crystal goblet that held his water.

“I think this was the first time a Gold-stone winner couldn’t attend the ceremony,” Brenn said. “Your award monies will be held for you until—well, until you can claim them.”

After a pause, Brenn said, “Your family sends their love. We are all proud of you.”

Then the disk went silent.

The stem of Jeremiah’s goblet suddenly snapped. He stared at the line of red that welled from the cut on his hand. Then he dropped the glass, and it shattered across the mosaic tiles on the floor.

“Jeremiah?” Khal started to reach toward him.

“No!” He pushed back his chair with a jerk, then rose to his feet and strode away from the table. Beyond the horseshoe arch, he entered a lofty corridor. Darkwood paneled one wall but the other was glassplex. It looked out into pure sky.

Far below, the Teotec Mountains rolled away, wreathed in the mists and carpeted by richly growing snowfirs, the Forest of the Clouds. Lake-of-Shad-ows made a dark blue glimmer in the north and Lake-of-Tears glinted silver-blue in the south. Far to the east, the snow-covered tip of Mount Shadows Peak lifted into the sky. The panoramic view mocked him, a reminder that he lived in a gilded prison, forbidden the freedom promised by that spectacular landscape.

The hall ended in a round chamber with its back wall and floor carved from the cliff itself. The other walls were glassplex that polarized to mute the Sun’s glare. The chamber wedged into the cliff like a bubble on that great, sheer expanse of rock.

A bench jutted out from the back wall. Jeremiah dropped onto it, rested his elbows on his knees, and put his head in his hands.

Boots sounded in the entrance. He looked up to see the captain of his Calanya escort. Then Khal appeared behind her.

“You may wait in the morning room,” she told the guard.

After the captain left, Khal sat on the bench near Jeremiah. She spoke with care. “These honors you received—they mean much, yes?”

“What does it matter?” He stared into the sky that arched around the chamber. “I’ll never be able to accept them.”

“It might help to talk.”

That was a switch. Usually he was the one who wanted her to open up. Now she sat quietly, neither pushing nor withdrawing into her reserve.

After a while, he spoke. “The doctorate is what I was working on all those years in Dahl. They don’t normally grant it without final processes I couldn’t do here. But they gave it to me anyway.” He swallowed. “The fellowship is a research grant awarded each year for work that led to a doctorate in anthropology.”

“Given to only one person? Out of everyone?”

“Yes. But it’s no big deal.”

“No?” She regarded him. “I think this doctorate of yours and this prestigious Feldman Fellowship are far greater honors than you admit.”

It had never occurred to Jeremiah that he would win the Feldman. Although he did well in research, the fellowship usually went to someone who also had a top record in academic courses. His grades were nothing to boast about. Research was what he loved, usually to the detriment of his classes.

What dazed him, though, was the Goldstone. He had no idea what possessed the Academy to give it to him. It always went to a seasoned faculty member in a major academic department. For a graduate student to win for a doctoral dissertation was unheard of. It assured him of a good shot at any academic job he wanted. He stood on the verge of realizing his dreams—and Coba had stolen them.

Khal was watching him. “This Goldstone, what does it mean?”

Jeremiah swallowed. “It means that people I don’t deserve to call my colleagues think my work is the best done in our field this last year.” He turned to her. “Don’t you see? This is all I’ve ever wanted. You’ve taken my dreams.”

Quietly she said, “It was a mistake to play the disk.”

“Let me go, Khal. Let me go home.”

“Even if I could take away the Calanya Oath, which I can’t, we could never let you leave now. You know too much.”

“You don’t want me to write about the Inside.”

“In part. It is private to us.” She paused. “But your knowledge of Sevtar is more serious. His family wields immense power among the Skolians. If they ever learned what happened to him here, they would seek vengeance.”

He shook his head. “I’ll never mention him.”

“I have no right to risk the safety of my people.”

Jeremiah rose to his feet and crossed to the curving wall. A misty cloud drifted by below the chamber. “I don’t deserve the Goldstone anyway. My work was incomplete.”

Khal came to stand behind him, sliding her arms around his waist. He saw her reflected in the glass, looking out over his head at the breathtaking view.

She spoke quietly. “I know you, Jeremiah. You would never rest until you created perfection. Even then you would be dissatisfied. I read this work of yours before I sent it to Earth. You deserve every honor they gave you.”

He blinked. “You read my thesis?”

“Yes. It took some time. My English is terrible.” She tilted her head. “It is strange to see the Twelve Estates through the eyes of an offworlder. But your love of Coba came through in all you wrote.”

It meant a great deal to him to know she had liked his work. Even so, he couldn’t tell her what she wanted to hear, that his love of her world would make up for the loss of his own. So they stood in silence, watching the sky.

After a while she said, “I attend the Council of Managers at Karn Estate soon. I have been thinking that, if you like, I will bring you with me.”

He knew she never traveled with Calani. This was her way of trying to ease his unhappiness. “Yes. I would like that.”

Some of the tension in her embrace eased. She drew him around so they faced each other, her arms still around his waist. “Before we leave for Council, Manager Tehnsa is coming here to visit. I would like you to play Quis with her.”

That surprised him. Although Khal often had her Calani sit at Quis with Caryi, she usually chose experienced players. “Are you sure you want me to do it? Not Kev or Savan?”

Khal nodded. “I hope an infusion of new ideas will strengthen her game. You see things in a different way.”

“How about Hevtar?”

“Hevtar?” She gave him a puzzled smile. “He’s a child.”

“Not really.” Jeremiah thought back to their sessions. “He has a fresh outlook and he understands Tehnsa.”

“He does have a remarkable style, doesn’t he?” A mother’s pride warmed her voice.

“He does. And something else, Khal.”

“Yes?”

“Caryi needs a higher Level Calani. And an Akasi. Hevtar might consider it.” Given what Jeremiah had seen, Hevtar would consider it paradise.

Khal dropped her arms. “Hevtar go to another Estate? As Akasi? Of course not. He is far too young.”

“Aren’t most highborn boys here betrothed by fifteen?”

“Well, yes,” she admitted. “In more conservative Estates.”

Dryly he said, “Viasa is hardly a hotbed of radicalism.”

She smiled slightly. “No, I suppose not.”

“You have to let him grow up.”

She considered him, then walked over to gaze out at the sky. “I would miss him. So would his father.”

Jeremiah understood. The deep, abiding love Kev and Khal felt for their son showed in their every word and action toward him. For all that Khal resisted the idea of a betrothal, though, he suspected she realized the match made good sense. Caryi and Hevtar were young by most standards, but the conservative upper echelons of Coban society encouraged early marriages among the highborn, to produce heirs. Tehnsa needed a Second Level, one with a fresh outlook, and Hevtar needed someone like Caryi who understood his moody, stratospheric intellect. The pairing would let him stay near Viasa, yet at the same time give him independence. He and Caryi would also have Viasa to guide them in governing Tehnsa.

Jeremiah paused. “Khal—?”

She turned to face him. “Yes?”

“What happened? With Kev and you?”

“We…had a disagreement.”

He waited. “Yes?”

It was several moments before she spoke. But this time she did answer. “He wanted more children. I didn’t.”

“Hevtar is a wonderful young man.”

“Yes. He is.” With difficulty she said, “I have always thought it important that I give my child my best personal attention. But I am also a Manager. I didn’t feel I could do both with more than one child.” She paused. “My refusal caused rancor. Kev stopped caring for… for Viasa.”

No,
Jeremiah thought.
He didn’t stop caring for you.
“He never left Viasa.”

“I offered. Other Estates expressed interest, despite the immense cost of his contract. He didn’t want to go. Why should he? Viasa is a good Estate.”

Jeremiah shook his head. “The Calanya trade—that’s the only equivalent of divorce that exists for an Akasi.”

“I don’t understand this word ‘divorce.’“

“I know. That’s the problem.”

A long standing heartache showed behind her reserve. “I would never have brought you here if Kev and I still lived as Akasi and Manager.”

“He’s still your husband.”

“You know my people no longer practice polygamy. You wrote this yourself in your study of us.”

“But for Managers it’s still legal. No matter how you evade the description, you have both Kev and me.” He made himself say the truth he had avoided. “Kev will always come first for you.”

“Jeremiah, no.” She started toward him, but stopped when he put up his hands as if to hold her off. “Surely you know what you mean to me.”

“How can I know? You never say.” Pain edged his voice. “Oh, I know, you’re proud of your young trophy husband. But I’m not a prize. What happens when you tire of your ‘exotic prince’? When the novelty wears off and you want a man who understands and values your way of life?”