Ascendant Sun: A New Novel in the Saga of the Skolian Empire by Catherine Asaro

that matter, having her touch him at all felt strange.

Kelric exhaled. He had to stop brooding, or he wouldn't be able to go through with this.

When he rubbed his hand up her arm, her languorous arousal surged over him. It was uncomplicated lust, touched by neither love nor cruelty. This close to her, he picked up a sense of her thoughts. What they were doing was unusual for her too; in general she treated her employees reasonably well, crude in language but fair in action. He could have done without the dubious honor of inspiring a change in her behavior.

She drew him into a kiss. Kelric made himself kiss her back. She smelled of machine oil, sweat, and carqual tobacco. It wasn't all that unpleasant, aside from the bitter carqual taste, but it felt wrong, because of the coercion, but even more as a betrayal of Ixpar.

He tried to numb his thoughts. Putting his arms around her, he deepened their kiss, responding to what he picked up from her mind. Too gentle and she grew bored: too aggressive and it put her off. He modulated his intensity to fit what she wanted. When he stroked her back, she had almost no reaction, but when he slid his palm over her neck, her desire surged. So he played with the skin there, tracing circles that gave her chills he felt through her mind.

Eventually she stopped kissing him. Taking his hand, she drew him to the bed. They lay down on a blanket that covered a hard mattress. Holding her, he tried to imagine she was Ixpar. Both women were tall. Ixpar had a warrior's beauty, powerful and clean, with well-shaped legs that went on forever, fiery hair sweeping to her waist, and large gray eyes. Remembering her only made him feel worse. He had too much to mourn, the loss of his spouse, children, sister, brothers, aunt, nephew.

The cargo master spoke in a low voice, gruff against his ear. "You're so tense." When he didn't answer, she asked, "You miss this wife of yours so much?"

"Yes," he said, before he thought to stay silent. Then he wondered if he had just lost his job.

She drew back to look at him. "You have, uh, a traditional contract? No extras?"

He wasn't sure what "extras" meant, but he suspected she wanted to know if it was a monogamous marriage. "Yes."

"You seem that type." Avoiding his gaze, she fiddled with the laces on his shirt. "You don't drill around, do you?"

"If you mean, have I ever committed adultery, the answer is no."

She flushed. "You don't have to put it that way."

"How do you suggest I put it?"

The cargo master swore. Then she sat up on the bed and swung her legs over the side. As he sat up next to her, she said, "Your shift starts tomorrow at fifteen hundred hours. That's dawn, Kelric, and if you're late you get docked pay, just like everyone else. Shift goes ten hours. You want a second one, we'll see." She glowered. "Now, get the hell out of here before I change my mind."

Relief washed over Kelric. Standing up, he said, "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Be on time," she grumbled.

He grinned. "I will."

Then he left. He strode through her office and back out to the bronze sunlight streaming down from an aquamarine sky.
* * *
     
     
    Banks of lights lit the warehouse despite the late hour. This far into the night, the isolated area was empty of people, robots, and movement. Except for Kelric. He wiped his hand across his forehead, smearing runnels of sweat. Then he lifted another crate off the loading dock and hefted it onto the glider. In the low gravity it hardly felt as if he was working at all.

Convincing Cargo Master Zeld to give him two shifts a day had been easy. He loaded twice as much as the best of her other human workers, his output rivaling even her cheaper robot cranes. His first shift started at 15:00, just after dawn, and went until 25:00. At 47:00, several hours after sunset, he reported in for ten more hours. He slept twice a day, once during midday, while heat scorched Porthaven, and once at night, after he came home from his second shift. The schedule