Desert World Allegiances

by Lyn Gala

  Shan prayed that she would listen to him. He couldn’t sit still and allow slavery to take more lives. True, both of them were of legal age, but Temar sometimes came to the church, watching from the shadows. He was such a lost soul, such a young soul. Shan remembered feeling that lost. Someone else had reached out to help him, and now his heart ached with a need to help this young man who had stood in the back of his church and who had obviously never found what he was searching for. Maybe if Shan were a better priest, he would have found a way to connect with Temar before he had done something so idiotic.

  “This is an old song,” Naite said, his voice heavy with disapproval. “Are you going to sing it every time the issue comes up?”

  “If I have to.” Shan worked hard to keep his voice and face free from the annoyance he felt.

  “I’ll sing it for you.” Sarcasm dripped from Naite’s words. “Slavery is unfair and evil and not godly. But there is a problem, little brother.” Naite stood up and walked the length of the table before coming around the end to face Shan. “Cyla and Temar are not being unfairly targeted. They have no good judgment of their own, or they wouldn’t have tried such a dangerous stunt. A few years of being treated like the children they are—of having to work and live where they are told and facing the consequences of their actions—that’s the best thing for them. I don’t think it’s unfair to give these two time in a structured environment in order to grow up.”

  “It’s unfair for anyone to lose his freedom.”

  Naite laughed. “When I was sold for three years, I didn’t see you coming to save me, and it’s a good thing you didn’t. Three years with Landholder Sulli taught me discipline and honesty I never would have learned from our father. Cyla and Temar could use a few of the lessons I learned when I had to work to regain my freedom.”

  “Yes, Landholder Sulli is a good man,” Shan agreed. He held up his hand to prevent his brother from getting them all off track. Naite defended Tom Sulli the way most men defended their parents or their lovers, but Shan didn’t think his brother had ever been in Tom’s bed, during or after his time working for the man. “You were lucky, and I thank God for that every morning, but not all people are as good as Tom Sulli. What happened in Blue Hope—”

  “Blue Hope is not here!” Naite threw up his hands and walked away, his back stiff with anger. “That sandrat in Blue Hope paid for what he did, and I would never put up with hatefulness like that in our community.” Naite dropped into his chair on the other side of the table. “Just because one sick pervert in Blue Hope abused a slave does not mean that the system is corrupt.”

  “And just because Tom Sulli helped you turn your life around does not mean that the system works.” Shan felt his carefully hidden frustration rising in his chest.

  “The system has worked for fifty years. It works better than expecting the laborers to raise crops and feed people who are jailed. Trust me, if criminal convictions led to jail time, half my workers would be out stealing water in order to get condemned to a little rest and free food.” Naite laughed like he had made a huge joke, but then Naite’s sense of humor had never been his best trait.

  “The fact that the jail system failed does not mean that the system of slavery is our only alternative.”

  “No, it’s just the best one.”

  “It is evil.” Shan pronounced each word carefully, because he could feel a need to scream them recklessly.

  “There’s slavery in the Bible.” Naite smiled, a smug expression that clearly suggested he’d planned that little attack.

  “So are incest and infidelity and hate. God is not endorsing any of these acts. God did not wake up on the eighth day of creation and say, ‘Let there be slavery.’”

  “He didn’t say, ‘Let there be sanctimonious priests’, either, but look what we have, anyway.” Naite had a smug look on his face now, and Shan could feel the childish need to tackle his brother to the ground and start pounding on him.

  “Naite Polli.” Kevin Starwalker spoke the name, and even though he didn’t have any inflection in his voice, he still managed to make his disapproval clear. Naite leaned back, his dark face pinking slightly.

  “Perhaps you should look up the root word in sanctimonious,” Shan said, not even feeling guilty about the fact that he was getting the last word only because Kevin had stepped in.

  “Perhaps both of you should look up the meaning of manners,” Bari said, his voice a whisper that might not have been heard, only the room had gone silent, save for the wind whistling against the metal joints of the square building. However, when Shan glanced over, Bari didn’t offer an apology. “We must think of what is best for Cyla and Temar. If we take their wages, they will not have any sort of life. A term of slavery would allow them to finish their punishment and move on.”

  Kevin spoke up. “They could learn from some hard labor. Their father may have blamed George Young for his troubles, but his crops died because he never took care of them. Disliking Young is one thing, but blaming him for theft is unacceptable. He’s honest, even if his values leave something to be desired. If Cyla and Temar work the fields, they’ll learn what their father should have taught them.” Clearly Bari and Kevin were both leaning toward condemning two young people to slavery. Shan didn’t even bother looking at Naite. He looked to his last hope—Lilian. She had withheld her judgment until now, which meant she was unsure. When the woman felt passionately about an issue, she had no qualms about manipulating and cajoling the rest of the council to do whatever she wanted. However, this time she had remained largely silent.

  Lilian was staring out the window. The sand in the air reflected the sun, so that the landscape shimmered in shades of gold and red. The flickers of light shone against the thick glass and spawned prisms and rainbows that scattered across the dull, gray walls of the room. She fingered the wooden talisman that hung from a cord around her neck. “Slavery is not to be taken lightly. What happened in Blue Hope is a reminder of the seriousness of such a judgment.”

  “Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Shan agreed, hope chipping away at the sinking feeling of defeat in his guts. Dee’eta Sun made a small clicking sound that might have suggested she agreed with him, but she remained silent.

  “This is a difficult situation, and some of us are going to leave here unhappy.” She stopped, and the room fell silent.

  While on paper the council might be a meeting of equals, some were more equal than others. Lilian’s years, wisdom, and her friendships with half the town gave her voice a weight that the rest of them lacked. “If these young idiots had skills, they could work off this debt. The fault for that is their father’s, but it doesn’t change the fact that any restitution would cripple them for their entire lives. While I don’t vote for slavery easily, I think this time, it is the only choice. The debt will be paid, these two will have some time to grow up, and maybe they can learn some skills which will improve their futures.”

  Shan had to smother a very unpriestlike desire to slap the smug look off his brother’s face. Naite was the poster child for slavery—the perfect example of what the system was supposed to do. As much as Shan did thank God that Tom Sulli had treated his brother so well and helped him heal from their father’s abuse, sometimes Shan wished that his brother’s papers had been purchased by George Young. Maybe then Naite would have been as passionate about abolishing slavery as he was about defending the system. Maybe. Naite was so stubborn, he still might argue for slavery, just to annoy Shan.

  And now Shan could do nothing to help Cyla and Temar. His guts coiled and churned unhappily. Cyla was a beautiful woman, willowy and pale, with a sharp tongue and sharper temper. She was a second cousin to Lilian’s granddaughter, and the two shared the same ethereal look.

  Temar was the same, and as a boy, the look was even more striking. He had blond hair and blue eyes and very long fingers. When Shan had been no more than ten or twelve, he had seen Temar’s mother hold up her young baby’s hand and declare that he would be the church
pianist one day, with hands like that. Shan remembered being envious of that child because, back then, the thought of living in the church had seemed like a wonderful and impossible dream. But now, Temar’s life would not be one to envy.

  No, Shan had failed to protect them. He wondered if he would sit and listen in confession as they whispered about anger and shame and a weariness that wore at their souls or if they’d avoid the church and carry this burden alone. And one day, what happened at Blue Hope would happen in Landing. When that day came, Shan wasn’t sure if his vows to protect his people or his vow to protect the sanctity of the confessional would win out.

  Chapter 3

  TEMAR sat in the feed shed that served as a temporary prison, trying not to lose himself to the panic that soured his stomach and made his mouth dry. Standing in Young’s muddy field, Cyla had done all the cursing for them, repeating all their accusations about Landholder Young stealing their father’s water and ruining his farm. She hadn’t convinced anyone. No, work-hardened hands had grabbed them, and Temar didn’t have any illusions about what would happen now.

  If he’d had any doubts, the fact that the council had ordered their shoes taken and then had him and his sister locked in separate sheds spoke volumes. They had no hope of escape now, not that there was any place to escape to. Unlucky stars. Sometimes Temar thought he’d been born under the unluckiest of all of them.

  He heard a voice outside the shed and jumped. His heart pounded so heavily that his chest ached with the force of it. Part of him wanted the guards to come. They’d either sentence him to slavery or exile him. Either seemed better than waiting in the dark. If the sentence was exile, he didn’t have a lot of illusions. He’d only last a few days out in the barchan dunes. In the deep valleys, shielded by massive rock walls, humans could build farms and thrive. In the towns, with their windbreaks and houses, humans could survive. Out on the open desert, humans died. If the sun didn’t kill him, the sandcats would. Temar would die before he could walk half the distance to the next town.

  Pressing himself back into a corner of the empty shed, he breathed the grain dust and considered the distances between Landing and the surrounding territories. Sadly, he knew enough math to calculate the loss of his body’s water if he walked across those hot sands in the day, and he knew the probability of running into sand burrs or pipe trap plants if he walked them at night. He actually wished he hadn’t excelled in school. Right now, a little ignorance would be bliss.

  Cyla might get more mercy. Ever since the medicines had run out, so many women died in childbirth that they would have to think twice before exiling a young woman. The thought of Cyla being exiled made his stomach clench. His butt was going numb, so he shifted his weight forward and pressed his forehead to his knees. How did this all go so wrong? His eyes burned with tears. This was all his fault. He never should have followed her out into that field. He should have stood firm, and maybe she would have backed down. Then again, maybe she would have gone out on her own. Would that have been better?

  “We just need proof,” she’d insisted. Cyla’s words echoed through his memory. She had sounded so desperate, like she might break if he refused to help her. He was an idiot, because he should have known to run the other way when she looked at him with that expression.

  If only he could have convinced her to stay home, the two of them would have been safe. Instead, they were about to be either exiled or contracted out to the highest bidder. Their slave prices would go to Landholder Young, and then that excrement of a sandcat would finally be able to say he had destroyed the entire Gazer line.

  Temar couldn’t stop the tears. He tried to. He knew they could open that door and drag him out any second, and he didn’t want anyone to see him cry. But no matter how much he wanted to put on a strong front, his nose insisted on stuffing up and his head ached and his tears slipped out. He tried to push aside the fear and pain by focusing on another emotion—anger. Temar conjured the image of Landholder Young, his blotchy skin with whole patches of gray that stained his dark neck and chin, his balding head with another blot of gray and scaly skin, his fat fingers and his squinty eyes. His eyes were set so deep in his face that he looked like someone had taken him as a child and shoved their thumbs into his eyes, pushing them way back into his head.

  Instead of helping him control his tears, the anger only made him cry more. When the crying grew so bad that his breath came in ragged gasps, he tried distracting himself by calculating square roots or counting the number of interplanetary governors he could remember. It wasn’t enough to cut through the terror. Landholder Freeland was the eldest, and she would want him sold or exiled. His crime was against the land, and since he and Cyla owned land, they should have understood the horror of that. They weren’t townies who had done some accidental damage while goofing around.

  Temar’s chest tightened as he realized that they probably didn’t own land anymore. Their father’s land was a poor strip between two larger farms. One of them would happily pay for the land, poor though it might be. If the council exiled him and Cyla, Landholder Young might even get his father’s land to repay him for the lost water. At that thought, his mind darted off in another direction, and this time guilt washed through him at the thought of all Young’s water spilling out onto the dry ground in heaving surges. The memory made Temar sick to his stomach. He turned away from that thought as quickly as he could. Maybe when he wasn’t so terrified for himself, he could take more time to stop and feel guilty about the damage they had done.

  The priest might speak for them—argue for slavery over exile. That was one vote Temar was almost sure he could count on. And his brother, Naite, spoke publicly of the need for more young people to be taken in hand as slaves. Pretty much any offense sent him talking about how those who weren’t raised well needed the training slavery provided. He might be equally ready to keep them in the territory.

  Dee’eta Sun…. Temar thumped his head against the shed wall. He had so badly wanted to purchase an apprenticeship with the woman. Glass sang for her, twisted into impossible shapes and revealed colors that no one else could duplicate. He’d had fantasies of her seeing his own sad attempts and inviting him to her workshop. Instead she was, right now, discussing what a failure he had turned out to be.

  Getting to his feet, Temar ordered himself to not think about any of it. Unfortunately, that only made the thoughts and the fears and the lost fantasies all crash in around him. He felt like he was in the middle of a glass shop, and he’d dropped one piece, but in trying to catch that piece, he had clumsily knocked over a half dozen more. And as he turned and turned, desperate to save some piece of falling glass, he was destroying everything, and he couldn’t find a way to stop. He should just stand still and let the glass fall to the ground around him. That was the only logical way to prevent himself from doing even more damage, but he couldn’t not try to save something, and the more he tried to save some small piece of the beauty he’d wrecked, the more pieces were shattered by his flailing.

  Maybe the town should exile him while they still had some glass on the shelves. Maybe if he wasn’t around to be such an idiot, Cyla would have given up her vendetta before this happened. Maybe if he understood people, instead of books, he could have found the words to convince her to let go of her anger. He sighed. Maybe he had no control over any of it. That last was more than an unlucky star. That was a whole constellation of unlucky.

  Something scraped against the door, and Temar retreated across the empty floor. A moment ago, he’d just wanted to get this over with, but now he wanted nothing more than a few more minutes in this dusty and dim room. In here, he was still Landholder Temar Gazer. He wanted to be able to claim his name this last time, because when they pulled him out, the council would strip him of his land and probably strip him of his last name and sell him as a slave. If the stars truly hated him, they would allow him to keep his name and turn him out of the settlement to die in the sand. And right now, Temar didn’t want to know.

/>   “Time to hear judgment, young water thief,” Naite Polli said. He was a dark shadow blocking the door, so that the light streamed in around him. Motes of dust danced in the beams, and Temar swallowed, not sure whether the title of “water thief” or fear of his sentence kept him from walking forward willingly.

  Worker Naite sighed and stepped into the shed. He was a huge man with a hawk nose that dominated his face and gave him a dark, predatory look. In his hand, he held a rope, and Temar couldn’t take his eyes off that length of yellowed cord. “I know this is hard, boy.” Naite gave a wry chuckle. “I remember this very shed, and I remember Kevin Starwalker coming in to get me. I nearly pissed my pants, I was so afraid. I was sure someone would be writing a song about how many mistakes I’d made. In your case though, they really might write a song, but you’ll survive that too.” Naite ran a thumb over the rope and stood looking at Temar silently for several seconds. Temar knew that Naite was waiting for him to do something or say something, but fear had turned his insides to stone, so that he couldn’t move at all. Naite sighed. “I know what you’re feeling, but you need to face the consequences of what you’ve done.”

  Temar caught his lower lip between his teeth and fought against a terror that would make him throw himself on Naite Polli and beg forgiveness—or make him dash for the door to run through the sands until he fell into a pipe trap plant and broke his ankle. Then sandrats could mob his body. He wanted desperately to do anything except stand still and let the man put that rope on him.

  “You’ll live, boy. Your pride may take a few hits, but if you’re so full of yourself that you don’t mind spilling two tanks of water, your pride needs to take a few hits.”

  “I didn’t mean—” Temar cut himself off. Worker Naite didn’t want to hear his excuses or his apologies. His father and Cyla had both gone to the council, claiming that their farm’s water had been stolen, and all they’d gotten was a reputation for being a little hot-headed and a lot crazy. In Cyla’s case, the hot-headed part was actually true, and after a few years of drinking pipe trap juice, his father’s sanity had certainly been in doubt. However, Temar wasn’t foolish enough or angry enough to make his own situation worse by being one more raving fool, accusing others of the very crime he had committed. He hadn’t meant to steal Young’s water, but he had. He hadn’t meant to damage the equipment, but again, he had. He had no proof that Young had ever hurt his father, but the proof against him and Cyla was stacked up like bundles of grain.