by Joe Vasicek
Surayya clucked her tongue and shook her head at Amina. “Is your heart made of stone? Can’t you see you’re hurting her? Only a few months ago, she thought she was going to marry Jalil. Wouldn’t you be upset?”
“Not if the groom were Ibrahim. I hear he’s quite a beast.”
“Amina!”
“Well, if Jalil was the kind of guy who would abandon her anyway, why shouldn’t she be happy he’s gone? Better to drop him and move on, that’s what I say.”
Mira soon lost track of the argument. It was clear they weren’t truly interested in her feelings, just in proving themselves right. Those arguments were always the worst kind.
The tent door parted, and her sisters both stopped talking. Mira looked over her shoulder and saw Tiera standing in the doorway. Her clothes were soiled from riding in the desert, and her uncovered hair was tangled and unkempt, as usual. She stared at each of them in turn with cold, emotionless eyes.
“I need to speak with Mira alone.”
Amina and Surayya both laughed.
“What? You think you can just order us out?”
“Don’t boss us around, Tiera.”
For her part, Tiera said nothing. The laughter died down, replaced by a tense silence.
“Oh, come on,” said Surayya, taking Amina by the arm. “We need to pick out Mira’s outfit anyway.”
“Yeah. Besides, I’m sure Tiera doesn’t have anything interesting to say.”
“Amina!”
Tiera ignored the last comment and waited until both girls had left the room. When they were gone, she lowered herself to the rug-covered dirt floor and sat down. Mira shifted uneasily and gave her a halfhearted smile.
“I came to apologize,” said Tiera, looking Mira squarely in the eyes. “What I said back in the convoy was wrong.”
“Apologize?”
“Yes. I misjudged you; I thought it was your idea to seduce Jalil into returning to the camp. I didn’t realize that Shira was behind it all.”
Mira swallowed nervously. She glanced down at the floor to avoid Tiera’s gaze.
“There’s no point denying it. I don’t blame you for what happened, not if you were set up.”
“How do you know all this?” Mira asked. Though she already knew the answer, she didn’t like the idea of people spying on her without her knowing.
“I overheard your conversation with her in the kitchen,” Tiera confessed. “I swear, I was already outside working at the time. I didn’t start the rumors either; some of the other girls must have been eavesdropping.”
Mira sighed. With the insular nature of the camp, it was inevitable that news of her mother’s rebuke would come out sooner or later. She wouldn’t be surprised if Surayya and Amina were gossiping about it right then.
“You aren’t angry at me?”
“No,” said Mira. “No one has any secrets around here.”
“Still,” said Tiera, “you may want to touch up your cheek with some makeup before you go in to see Ibrahim.”
Mira brought her hands to her cheeks and blushed deep red. “Is it that obvious?”
“Yes.”
She lifted up the hand mirror and stared into it. Through the cracked and faded glass, her bruises were more visible than she’d thought.
“Oh my goodness—thanks for telling me.”
“It’s nothing.”
She set down the mirror on the carpet by her side. “So you believe me when I say I didn’t—”
“Yes,” said Tiera. “I believe you.”
Mira hesitated for a moment before leaning forward and throwing her arms around her half-sister. “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “Thank you for believing me.”
Tiera patted her on the back, returning the embrace. “I guess I’m the only one, then.”
“Yes,” said Mira. She bit her lip, fighting back tears.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” said Tiera, her voice bitter. “Let me give you a bit of advice: Father and Shira may try to force you to marry Ibrahim, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to. They’ll bring you in to meet him, but if either of you decides not to follow through, it doesn’t matter what they say—you don’t have to marry him. That’s your right.”
“But—but what about my honor? The family’s honor?”
Tiera looked her in the eye. “You didn’t sleep with Jalil, did you?”
“Well, no—”
“So your honor is perfectly intact. You don’t have anything to be ashamed of.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course!” said Tiera. “Honor isn’t something that others can give or take away. If you didn’t do anything wrong, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.”
Mira swallowed and took a deep breath. “I don’t know,” she said softly “Father threatened—”
“Threatened what?”
“He threatened to banish me from the camp if I didn’t agree to the marriage.”
Tiera cursed under her breath. “I’d forgotten about that.”
Then what am I supposed to do?
“Your best option is probably to stall,” she said, as if reading Mira’s mind. “Once the worst of it blows over and they see that you aren’t pregnant, there’s a good chance that they won’t live up to that threat. You still have options.”
“Are you sure?” Mira asked. She rubbed her cheek where her mother had struck her—the memory of it still made her shudder.
Tiera sighed and shook her head. “Mira, you’ve got to learn how to have a little backbone.”
“But—but what if Ibrahim isn’t that bad?”
“If you think the marriage will make you happy, then by all means, go for it. It’s your life, and only you can live it. But Mira, live it. Don’t let anyone push you around.”
Mira nodded silently.
Tiera paused for a second more, a look of genuine concern on her face. Without a word, she passed through the rug door, letting it fall shut behind her and leaving Mira alone.
* * * * *
“So where are you from?” Michelle asked.
Jalil shifted uncomfortably on the hard steel bench, leaning heavily on the table. The fabric of his new jumpsuit felt too slippery, as if it were coated in a light sheen of oil. Across from him, Michelle looked up from her bowl of porridge, while Lars walked over from the tiny kitchenette in the corner and took a seat next to her.
“Here you go,” said Lars, setting a bowl out in front of him. “It might not look too appetizing, but it’s not that bad once you get used to it.”
Jalil glanced down at the gray goop in his bowl and bit his lip. It was hard to decide whether it looked more like wet cement or colorless human waste. Not wanting to be impolite, he lifted his spoon and downed a mouthful of the stuff, trying hard to swallow without gagging. Fortunately, it was as tasteless as it was colorless.
“Don’t eat it straight,” said Michelle. She pulled out a tall, thin bottle with a miniature spigot on the end. “Here, try some of this—it’ll add flavor.”
Jalil held out his bowl, and she squirted some of the stuff into his gray porridge. It was bright orange and bubbled when it hit the stuff.
“What is it?”
“Condensed meat flavoring, mixed with spices. Try it.”
Jalil did. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine that the porridge tasted like day-old meat, ground and pulverized until it had the consistency of mucous. His throat tightened as he swallowed; he decided to keep the orange stuff in one side of his bowl. Whatever this gray slop was, it was better unflavored.
“So how long do we have until we arrive?” he asked.
“Well,” said Lars, “we’re scheduled to jump to the K-GN system node in three hours. Traffic on the starlane is light, so we should reach Karduna in less than a week. We’ll unload our cargo at K-4 and spend a few days there, possibly more, before heading out to the Colony. All told, I’d say about two weeks, give or take.”
Jalil’s stomach fell. Even after tr
aveling for so many months, two weeks seemed like an unbearable time to wait. Still, if it meant returning to his home—his true home—it would be worth it. He’d just have to do his best to get used to the food in the meantime.
“You never answered my question,” said Michelle, pointing at him with her spoon. “Where are you from?”
“Yeah,” said Lars. “Tell us.”
“Well,” Jalil said, unconsciously fingering his pendant, “it’s kind of a long story.”
“We’ve got time,” said Michelle.
Jalil leaned back and took a deep breath. “I remember when I was a young boy, probably three or four, that I was on a starship a lot like this one. I was looking for my parents when lights began to flash outside the window. The next thing I knew, alarms went off, explosions sounded, and everyone started running around in a panic.”
“Sounds like a space battle,” Lars mused. “You’re about sixteen, so that must have been about twelve standard years ago, during the uprising against Emperor Faulkensteyn III.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Michelle. “Get on with the story.”
Jalil took in a deep breath; for some reason, his heart was pounding in his chest. He pushed his feelings aside, however, and went on.
“Before the ship blew apart,” he continued, “my mother threw me down a chute into a small pod, which detached from the ship. The next I remember, I was in the middle of a vast, red desert. I didn’t know anything about what had happened; all I knew was that I was alone.”
“So who picked you up?” asked Michelle.
“A band of desert tribesmen,” said Jalil. “They saw the starship fall from the sky, and came to investigate. That’s how I met my adopted father, Sheikh Sathi Abu Ari of the Najmi tribe.”
“They took you in and raised you as their son?”
“Yes.”
Michelle nodded with newfound respect, while Lars frowned.
“So if you grew up in the middle of the desert, how did you come here?” he asked.
Jalil reached under his shirt and showed them his pendant. “Before my mother threw me in the pod, she put this around my neck. No one in the desert could read the data chip embedded inside, so I went to the Temple of a Thousand Suns to find someone who could unlock it for me.”
Lars whistled. “That’s quite a journey. You must have traveled—what, a couple thousand miles?”
“More,” Jalil said softly. More than I ever should have.
Michelle leaned forward, interlocking her fingers under her chin. “So when you read the data, what did you find?”
“Who I am,” said Jalil. “That my name is Gavin Farland, and I was born in a place called ‘Station K-3 L5b.’”
Lars and Michelle’s eyes both lit up. “Where did you say you were born?” Michelle asked.
“Station K-3 L5b,” said Jalil. “Why? Have you heard of it?”
“Of course we have,” said Lars. “That’s our home.”
Jalil perked up at once. “Your home? What do you mean?”
“‘Station K-3 L5b’ is another name for the Colony,” said Michelle. “That’s the Bridgette’s port of call. If you were born there, you must be one of us.”
A chill ran down Jalil’s spine, all the way to his fingers. He leaned forward, heart racing as a hundred questions sped through his mind.
“Where is it? What is it like? Who—”
“Whoa there,” said Lars, laughing. “There’ll be plenty of time to answer all your questions. But first, you said your name was Farland. I have a friend by the name of Will Farland—do you think you might be related?”
Jalil’s head spun. “God-willing,” he said, switching for a brief moment back to the desert tongue. “What was his name again?”
“Will,” said Lars. “Will Farland. But I don’t suppose—”
“When can I meet him?”
“I’m not sure. Last I heard, he was scheduled to make a run on the Giselle out to the New Pleiades, but if we get back soon enough, we’ll probably catch him before he leaves.”
Masha’allah!
“If at all possible, I must speak with this man,” said Jalil. Chills shot from the back of his neck all the way to his fingertips.
“Of course, of course,” said Lars, chuckling.
“But what about this ‘Colony’?” Jalil continued, undeterred. “What can you tell me about it?”
“That depends,” said Michelle, swallowing another bite of her porridge. “What do you want to know?”
Everything.
“Well,” she said, “for starters, it’s nothing like the Gaia Nova desert.”
Jalil frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a space station.”
“A space station?”
“Yeah,” said Lars. “It used to be a deep space mining facility, but we converted it into a comfortable little outpost. The max population capacity is only twenty thousand, but most of us in the younger generation are joining up with the various merchanter families as crew so overcrowding isn’t much of a problem.”
“What he means,” said Michelle, “is that the Colony is a space station.”
Jalil blinked. “So it’s like a dome, then?”
“Kind of,” said Lars, “except ten thousand times smaller. The Colony was originally a mining outpost for an interstellar corporation. All that changed, though, when we won our independence.”
“Independence?” said Jalil. “What do you mean?”
Lars pushed his half-empty bowl aside and leaned forward, looking Jalil in the eye. “Almost a hundred years ago, the Karduna system was a part of the New Gaian Empire. Under their rule, the corporations sucked us dry. They exploited our labor and natural resources, then sold us the finished goods at inflated prices.”
“Thanks for the history lesson, mister flunked-all-his-classes,” said Michelle, rolling her eyes.
“I didn’t flunk history,” Lars snapped at her. “Anyhow, when Karduna seceded from the empire, we threw off our corporate overlords and established a democracy. Things were tough for a while, but together with the Confederation of Kardunasian States, we won our independence.”
“I see,” said Jalil. “Is that how my parents died?”
“No, no, no,” said Lars. “All that happened generations ago. Your parents got tangled up in some Imperial mess that had nothing to do with us. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Right, Jalil thought to himself, gritting his teeth. The wrong place at the wrong time.
“So what about the Colony? Can you describe it to me?”
Lars smiled, and his eyes lit up with a passion that reminded Jalil, strangely enough, of Master Rumiya.
“The Colony is the most perfect democracy in all of settled space,” he said, radiating obvious pride. “It’s nothing less than the last bastion of hope for the free stars.”
“Oh, come on,” said Michelle. “The Gaians aren’t that bad.”
“Not that bad?” said Lars. “What about that crackdown in the Tajjur system a few years back?”
“The Tajjis were terrorists.”
“Some would call them freedom fighters.”
Michelle let out an exasperated breath. “Whatever.”
“Anyways,” said Lars, turning back to Jalil, “at the Colony, the government is run directly by the people. Any citizen can propose a bill or an amendment, and provided it has enough support, it goes on to the General Assembly. Voting is conducted on a peer-to-peer network of personal devices, so any citizen within a couple light-hours can participate in the civic process.”
“If they want to,” said Michelle, stirring her food absent-mindedly. “Some of us think it’s just an enormous headache.”
“A headache?” Lars said, turning on her. “Liberty doesn’t come without responsibilities, ‘Chelle. The obligation to vote is a small price to pay in exchange for personal freedom.”
“Now you sound just like Dad,” she muttered under her breath.
“One o
f these days,” Lars told her, “you’re going to see how fragile our freedoms really are. When that day comes, I hope you have the good sense not to take them for granted.”
Jalil looked awkwardly from one sibling to the other. Lars’s face was red, his hands clenched into fists, and his eyes shone with a fervor that was almost religious.
At that moment, someone climbed down the ladder and dropped to the floor. It was Nash.
“Your father’s going to need you in a minute,” he said, looking at Lars. “He’s about to make the final jump calibrations.”
“Fine,” said Lars. He rose from his seat and slapped Jalil on the back. “We’ll talk more later, ‘kay?” After shooting Michelle a dirty look, he turned and climbed up the ladder.
“What was that all about?” Nash asked, taking a seat next to Michelle.
“Oh, nothing,” said Michelle, looking away. “It’s just Lars, getting into another of his fits.”
Did I say something? Jalil wondered to himself. The fight had flared up so quickly, he hardly knew what had happened.
“That’s okay,” said Nash. “I’m sure he’ll be fine once he calms down.”
He reached behind Michelle and started to massage her back. As he did, Michelle leaned into him, the tension evaporating from her body. Jalil tensed; for some reason, the gesture reminded him of Mira. A vague longing rose like a lump in his throat, but he forced it out of his mind by reaching down and rubbing the pendant underneath his shirt.
I’m not abandoning her, he told himself. I’m going home. Try as he might, however, he couldn’t quite believe it.
* * * * *
Mira stood still as Surayya and Amina dressed her in flowing black robes, ornately embroidered with red and purple cross stitching. Gold-plated copper coins dangled from the hem and from the silky red headscarf she wore. Though the fabric covered her hair, it was just thin enough to give a suggestive hint of what lay beneath.
“Wala!” said Amina, snapping her fingers with a flick of her hand. “You look gorgeous!”
Mira smiled; even though she disagreed, she appreciated the thought.
