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

did well by him, letting him rest as long as his depleted body needed.

Quirky Edgewhirl made him smile, with its fifty-nine-hour days. Its sun, Whirligig, spun so fast it resembled a squashed fruit. He had started work in midwinter, ten days ago, and already spring was almost half over. Edgewhirl had almost no axial tilt, so the climate stayed boringly constant: hot and clear days, cool and dry nights. No moon lit the sky. Whirligig's tidal force was slowing the planet down, though; someday Edgewhirl's rotation would be locked to its sun and it would always show the same face to Whirligig.

Each day after he woke, in the long hours before dawn, he took out his jeweled dice and played Quis, a strategy game he had learned on Coba. Every adult and child there played it. They told stories with Quis. Exchanged information. Gambled. But most of all, Quis was politics. The better a player wielded the dice, the greater her influence.

Kelric had taken well to Quis. Remarkably well. It had spurred Coba's queens, called Managers in these modern times, to cloister him with the few other select men who had reached the elite ranks of Quis expertise. They served as advisers to a Manager, making their dice brilliance available only to her.

Here on Edgewhirl, the culture was close to egalitarian, as was the overall culture of Imperial Skolia. But Coba had been isolated for five millennia and still retained the Ruby Empire's matriarchal structure. Caught in power struggles among the Managers and famed for his beauty, though Kelric had never understood why, he had spent the past eighteen years owned by a succession of warrior queens.

He had many memories of Coba he valued. Ixpar. There had also been Savina, a previous wife he had loved without reserve— and mourned the same way, when she died bearing his daughter. But gods, most Coban women were avatars. He had been bought, sold, seduced, kidnapped, married against his will, made the center of political schemes, and turned into the most expensive property in Coba's known history, until finally they went to war over him. He had no intention of giving up his freedom to anyone now, not Coban, Allied, Skolian, or Eubian.

Kelric stirred himself from his reverie. Out here at night, far from the port terminals, he needed to pay extra attention to his surroundings. The danger of theft or random violence always existed; now, with so many security systems down, he had only himself to depend on.

He hefted another crate onto the glider. One more and the platform was full, stacked with black boxes made from hardened plastiflex. He punched in a code and sent it on its way.

"I've never seen anyone load a glider that fast," a man said.

Kelric spun around, his enhanced speed kicking in as he snicked his knife out of its sheath on his belt. By the time his brain stopped his reflexes, he had raised his arm to throw the blade.

In the shadow of the warehouse, a man stood watching him. He was on the tall side, though to Kelric he didn't seem particularly large.

"What do you want?" Kelric asked.

The man stepped into the light, holding his arms at his sides to indicate he carried no weapons. He had short dark hair and a strong-featured face with a large nose. Light from the lamps glinted off silver buttons on the shoulders of his dark spacer's uniform. His gaze flicked to the raised knife, then back to Kelric's face. "I'm Jafe Maccar."

"Captain Maccar?"

"That's right."

Kelric had just sent the glider to Maccar's ship. He lowered his arm. "That was the last of your cargo."

"Good." Maccar paused. "Do you always work this late?"

Kelric shrugged. "Sometimes."

Maccar gave off wariness and curiosity, but no hostility. As far as Kelric knew, the captain had no gripes against Zeld or her people. Even so, he kept the knife in his hand, rubbing his thumb on the hilt.

"Cargo Master Zeld tells me you work hard," Maccar said.

"That's right." Kelric wondered what the captain wanted.

"She also told me to stay