The Ruby Dice Read Online Free PDF

Not only did he have the full set carried by most Cobans, his also included unusual shapes such as stars, eggs, even small boxes with lids.

    Dice and Coba. They were inextricably blended. All Cobans played Quis, from the moment they were old enough to hold the dice until the day they died. It was one giant game, the life's blood of a world. They gambled with Quis, educated with it, gossiped through the dice, built philosophies. The powers of Coba used it to gain political influence. For a Manager to prosper, she had to master Quis at its topmost levels.

    Then there were Calani.

    The few men honored as Calani were extraordinarily gifted at Quis. They spent their lives playing dice. They provided strategy for the Manager, a weapon she wielded in the flow of power among the Estates. Managers had ten to twenty Calani; together, they formed her Calanya. The stronger a Calanya, the more a Manager could influence Coban culture. Quis meant power, and a Manager's Calanya was her most valuable asset.

    Only Calani owned jeweled dice. The white pieces were diamond; the blue, sapphire; the red, ruby. But Calani paid a steep price for the spectacular luxury of their lives. They remained secluded. They saw no one but the Manager and the few visitors she allowed. They swore never to read, write, or speak to anyone Outside the Calanya. Nothing was allowed to contaminate their Quis, for anyone who succeeded in manipulating their game could damage the Estate, even topple the Manager from power. Managers shielded their scholarly Calani from Outside influences with the single-minded resolve of their warrior queen ancestors.

    To symbolize Jeremiah, Kelric chose a silver ball. He built structures around it and let them develop according to complex and fluid rules. His skill molded the structures, but the complexity of the game and its often unexpected evolution informed their design just as much. Calani and Quis: they created each other.

    He had intended to model Coban politics and examine what they revealed about Jeremiah. Instead, the dice patterns mirrored the history of his own people. He wasn't certain what his subconscious was up to, but he let the structures evolve.

    Six millennia ago, an unknown race had taken humans from Earth and moved them to the world Raylicon. Then they vanished, leaving nothing but dead starships. Over the centuries, using libraries on those ships, the humans had developed star travel. They built the Ruby Empire and established many colonies, including Coba. But the empire soon collapsed, stranding the colonies. Four millennia of Dark Ages followed.

    When the Raylicans finally regained star travel, they split into two opposed empires: the Eubian Concord, and Kelric's people, the Skolian Imperialate. Skolians referred to Eubians as "Traders" because they based a substantial portion of their economy on the sale and trade of human beings.

    Since that time, Skolia had been rediscovering the ancient colonies like Coba. The people of Earth had a real shock when they reached the stars: their siblings were already there, two huge and bitterly opposed civilizations. The Allied Worlds of Earth became a third, but unlike their bellicose neighbors, they had no interest in conquering anyone. They just sold things. In his more philosophical moments, Kelric thought neither his people nor the Traders would inherit the stars. While they were throwing world-slagging armies at each other, the Allieds would quietly take over by convincing humanity they couldn't survive without Allied goods. Imperial Space Command had an incredible ability to expand to new frontiers, but it paled in comparison to Starbytes Coffee.

    Earth's success in the interstellar marketplace, however, depended on maintaining civil relations with Skolia and Eube. They obviously had no intention of upsetting their relations with the Imperialate over one graduate student. The moment Jeremiah had set foot on Coba, he had forfeited his rights as an Allied citizen