Desert World Allegiances

by Lyn Gala

  “If Temar wants to bring someone in, fine, but I’m not going to give up looking for the evidence. No one is smart enough to hide this kind of theft forever.” Without another word, Naite headed for the door, his heavy footsteps just short of stomping. Shan held his breath until Naite slammed the door.

  Tom kept eating his lukewarm stew, and Shan sat at the table, not sure what to think of that. His brother didn’t usually have that much temper, at least not anymore. As a young man, Naite had had all kinds of temper, that had vanished by the time Naite was an adult. However, Tom wasn’t bothered as he ate his stew, so maybe he’d seen Naite’s temper before. In fact, Shan had the feeling he’d seen it a whole lot.

  “That was interesting,” Shan said slowly.

  Tom shrugged. “It usually is when those two spend too much time together.”

  “Naite doesn’t like Hannal?” Shan frowned. Naite had flaws, including a certain habit of assuming he was always right, but he was fair in his judgments of people. If someone was competent and honest, Naite liked them.

  Tom scratched his arm. “I don’t think it’s that they don’t like each other. Years ago, when I was just friends with Hannal, who had come out to work with a sick animal, I told her that I was attracted to Naite. I told her it scared me that I could never know how much he cared about me and how much he needed me, because I was the first man to protect him. I couldn’t start a relationship with someone who needed me, not when he needed me to be family.”

  “Naite can care about you and need you at the same time,” Shan protested.

  Tom smiled, but it was a sad expression. “Maybe, maybe not. I just know that the longer I spent with Hannal, the more I realized that we loved each other without this all-consuming need that pushed everything else out. I mean, Hannal doesn’t really need me. She’s a strong woman, and if I make a mistake and come home and complain about the stew too often, I don’t have to worry about hurting her.”

  “And you worry about Naite? Do you really think he’s that easily hurt?”

  Tom thought about that. “From most people? No. But I think you or I could hurt him pretty easily if we really tried. I think he needs something from me that I can’t risk screwing up.”

  “So you chose Hannal?”

  “I chose to not hurt anyone,” Tom said as he pushed his chair back. “I chose to be your brother’s family instead of his lover, and I fell in love with someone else. We’re all adults, and we all understand each other’s feelings. That doesn’t mean Naite wants to hear advice from Hannal. That’s why she goes out of her way to avoid giving any, even though she’s famous for mothering about everyone else on the farm.” Shan wasn’t sure if Naite or Hannal were as accepting as Tom seemed to believe, but given his own doubts and fears, perhaps he wasn’t the one to give anyone advice on love. “I think you priests are right about celibacy. It’s not easy to have more than one relationship with someone, and when a relationship is as important as the one Naite and I share, it’s not worth risking.”

  “Because he sees you as a father figure?”

  “Because he needs someone to love him all the time,” Tom countered. “Without the mess of being in love.”

  When Shan made his miraculous return from the dead, he figured he’d have to send Div out to this farm to counsel all of them. “He knows you care about him. He knows you always will care about him.”

  “Because I never take my frustration out on him, like I sometimes do on Hannal. That’s the unpleasant side of marriage, Shan. Anyway, I’d better go talk to Naite. I think he’ll be more willing to listen if….”

  “If I’m not around?” Shan guessed. It seemed like Temar struggled to see Shan as anything other than a priest, but Naite could only see Shan as a mean-tempered little boy who didn’t understand why his father didn’t love him.

  Tom looked at him for a time. “He loves you,” he said quietly.

  Shan nodded. “And I love him. That doesn’t mean I have to like everything he does.”

  That made Tom laugh. “No, you don’t. The kids are asleep, but if they wake up, lock yourself in the bedroom, and they’ll wander out to find one of us.”

  “I’ll take some stew in to Temar and eat in there.” Shan got up and headed for the stove. “If you need anything….”

  “I’ve handled your brother’s temper for a long time. I might not own him, but I know how to get him to listen,” Tom said kindly. Finishing his last couple of bites of stew, he dropped the bowl in the sink and headed out the door.

  Shan was filling bowls when Temar appeared at the open door, his eyes going up to the stairs. The kids didn’t come down after dark. The older ones had homework, and the younger ones were asleep. However, Shan didn’t want to risk one of them seeing Temar. He nodded back toward the room, and Temar faded back into the shadow while Shan quickly filled two bowls and headed into the bedroom.

  When Shan crossed the threshold, Temar appeared and took one of the bowls. “We’re going to have to do something, aren’t we?” he asked.

  They were, but Shan sighed, considering whether he wanted to tell Temar the truth. Of all of them, Temar was the one most at risk. Shan had seen his father’s obsession with Naite, and he suspected that Ben had the same obsession with Temar. Men like that enjoyed control and humiliation, and when they found a victim, they wouldn’t give up easily. At least Shan’s father hadn’t. He hadn’t stopped trying to get his sons back until a neighbor found him with his entire back ripped open and all his internal organs stolen by a nest of sandrats, as he lay in the sand.

  “If Naite can’t find anything, we can still bring charges based on what he did to you.”

  “Which won’t stop whatever he’s part of.” Temar sat on the edge of the bed and started eating the stew. “What do you think he’s doing? I keep thinking about it, but it doesn’t make sense. If he started using all that water, someone would get suspicious. George Young would bring charges against him in two seconds, if he thought Ben’s crops got more water than his.”

  “Yeah, he would,” Shan agreed as he sat on the woven grass chair.

  “So, this isn’t just about Ben, it’s about whatever he’s trying to do. If Naite isn’t finding anything, it’s time for us to do something. We’re both healed. Mostly.” Temar gave Shan’s leg a long look, and Shan had to ignore the way the healing burn suddenly started to itch. It had been a nasty burn, and he was going to have a hellacious scar, but it wasn’t a serious threat anymore. If it hadn’t killed Shan out on the desert, it wouldn’t slow him down now.

  What was slowing him down was the thought of putting Temar at risk. Shan had been part of the group to condemn Temar to slavery. It had been his own failure to convince the others of the potential harm that had led to Temar’s abuse. The whip marks had faded, but Temar would still startle at random times. He still insisted he was more comfortable sleeping in the bottom of a closet, and Shan didn’t even want to think about that. Shan had even offered to abandon the bed and take a turn sleeping on the floor, but Temar insisted he wanted one more door between him and any intruder, and Shan suspected that he worried about Ben breaking in here. Temar wasn’t weak, but he hadn’t healed.

  Shan thought about Naite’s flash of anger and his sudden weariness. For the first time in his life, Shan wondered if his brother had ever truly healed. Had he condemned Temar to a life of struggling with this because he couldn’t convince the others to only fine Cyla and Temar?

  How could he justify putting Temar in even more danger now? Shan focused on his stew as silence settled over the room. He would have to get out there and check the mechanics at the relay, but he couldn’t put Temar in the middle of that. If Ben or his co-conspirators caught Shan again, he wouldn’t bet on the Lord to save him a second time. Shan really did believe that God had guided him to the valley, turning him at the last second so that Shan would see the beacon. True, he’d never expected God to take the form of a pipe-induced hallucination, but Shan found that more believable than the idea of a ma
n walking the desert alone without any water or shelter. The Lord wasn’t likely to give him a second miracle.

  “Do you have any theories?” Temar asked again.

  Shan shrugged and put his empty bowl on top of the dresser. “Motherboards and water make sense if you’re going to open a new valley.”

  Sucking in a fast breath, Temar asked, “Red Plain Valley?”

  “Maybe,” Shan admitted.

  “Okay, how do we test that theory?” Temar asked.

  For a second, Shan stared at the man. Every time Shan expected to shock Temar or for him to curl up in terror, Temar kept going. Every time Shan thought Temar had put the abuse behind him, the man flinched back from a casual touch or slept on the floor of the closet.

  “If he’s trying to use the terraforming equipment, he has to run that through the relay.”

  “So, we head to the relay?” Temar asked, not even hesitating before offering himself up for danger. Shan wanted to order Temar to stay behind, to stay safe. He wanted to relieve his guilt by putting his own body between Temar and any threat. However, he had a streak of cowardice in him, because he found himself nodding in agreement rather than explaining all the reasons why Temar should stay behind.

  Temar smiled, and Shan figured they’d have at least one more night here, and then he’d have to find a way to make it clear that Temar should stay behind. Shan wouldn’t do any more damage to a young man who had already suffered too much.

  Chapter 19

  TEMAR left the mouth of the narrow cave. It was high on the side of the valley, exactly where Tom had told them to look, but Temar couldn’t escape the feeling that Tom and Shan were hiding something. He’d accuse Naite of the same, only he hadn’t come back after last night, when Temar had heard him talking with Shan and Tom. He still had trouble thinking of Naite as being someone so fragile that Tom worried about hurting him.

  On the other hand, Temar knew how often he felt like a fragile glass tube, about to explode from the pressure of memories. It was almost worse now that all the physical symptoms had healed. Before he’d been able to run his hand over a hot bruise and hold onto the anger. Now he struggled to divide fears from memories, to decide which shadow was a memory trying to creep in and which was a windwood tree, swaying in the breeze.

  He felt even more off balance after spending four days sharing a room and becoming increasingly aware of Shan as a man. Temar lay in his closet with his hands between his legs, debating how to handle his cock’s increasing interest. Maybe he was feeling withdrawal, after having sex three times a day. Maybe he was frustrated because he couldn’t touch himself with a priest on the other side of the closet door.

  He was even more annoyed with the feeling that Shan wasn’t telling him the entire truth. Since last night, he’d grown quiet. Shan had told him to keep watch, but Temar made a decision. Turning his back on the narrow crack that led to an old, crumbling trail that led up to the top of the valley, Temar followed Shan into the deepest part of the long, narrow cave.

  Shan had taken a light into the cave, and Temar found that the sunlight quickly faded as he left the mouth of the cave. If not for Shan’s light shining ahead of him, he would have turned back. However, he followed, deep into the cave, past old crates that had markings Temar didn’t recognize. This stuff might even be from one of the drop ships, and Temar wondered if Ben was the only one keeping secrets. If Tom had hidden these supplies away, either he trusted them not to tell the council, or they weren’t terribly important. Since Shan was on the council, Temar had to assume the second was true. The floor sloped up and curved slightly, and Temar found himself in a slightly wider chamber. Shan and his light were in the middle.

  Shan crouched next to a sand bike, the side panel lying next to him on the ground. Temar watched as Shan ran his long fingers over the belts of the old sand cycle. Age and the desert sand had blasted off the paint, and Temar didn’t know all that much about bikes, but it looked like an old one, maybe even from the early drop ships.

  Shan’s eyes were closed as his fingers traced the gears and belts exposed on the side. He looked peaceful, and Temar hesitated to interrupt. Ever since Shan had shown up, he’d looked drawn and harried. That, added to Temar’s own strange feelings, combined to make their conversations increasingly uncomfortable. Before all this, Shan and the church had been part of an island of calm. It was as if Temar didn’t see Shan at all… he’d been a prop that stood at the front of the church and spoke in a low voice that rolled through Temar, washing away disappointments and fear that crashed into him the second he stepped out of the church.

  Now, though, Shan was a real man. Shan had his own history, a brother he fought with, a father who’d killed himself with pipe juice. And maybe what had happened, maybe his time in Ben’s bed had changed something, but Temar couldn’t help but notice Shan’s shoulders and his large hands. He wondered what they would feel like.

  Would Shan be hesitant? Would he be confident? Would he explore with his hands? Temar was pretty sure of two things: he was sexually off balance, and he was going to hell for having these thoughts about a priest. Temar shook his head and struggled to focus on the current mystery—why Shan was stroking the sand bike.

  “Problem?” Temar asked. Shan sucked in a breath and turned so fast that he had to put out a hand to keep from falling over.

  “Actually, no. She’s in good shape,” Shan answered with a smile, but Temar could feel the awkwardness in the cavern. Shan wanted privacy, and maybe Temar had grown a little paranoid, but that made him nervous. Instead of retreating, which was his first instinct, Temar went with his second impulse, to get nosey.

  He took a step into the dim cavern. “I didn’t know there was a bike in here.”

  “Tom told me about it.”

  “Tom.” Temar clenched his teeth at the idea of more secrets.

  “He didn’t know if it would handle a desert trip, but she’s more reliable than any planet-built machine.”

  Temar crossed his arms, and he could see an answering flash of worry in Shan’s face. “I didn’t know you were that good with machines, good enough to know if that is reliable enough for a desert trip.”

  Standing all the way up, Shan brushed off his hands and then wiped them against his jeans. “I always thought I would be a mechanic. Maybe I should have stuck with sand bikes.” Shan looked up at him, and for a time, the silence grew heavy between them. “I wish I was half the priest Div was in his prime. I can’t help but think he would have noticed something, that he could have fixed something,” Shan said. “I thought the Lord called me to the church to devote my life to it, but now I’m wondering if he just didn’t want me safe for a time.”

  “What did you need to be safe from?” The words came out bitter—Temar could hear that. However, from everything Temar had heard and overheard, Naite had been their father’s victim, not Shan.

  Shan looked up, his dark eyes wide with some emotion Temar didn’t understand. Now that Temar thought about it, Shan had been in the house after Naite had been sent to Tom. Maybe there was more there than Shan had told anyone. The raw pain was there in his eyes. It bothered Temar—the idea that Shan’s own father had….” Temar’s mind skittered away from the word that tried to form in his mind.

  “I guess….” Shan let out a breath. “I guess I finally figured out what my father was really like.” Shan put the screwdriver on the ground and sat right in the dirt of the cavern floor. “I guess I finally figured out why Naite was out causing trouble, trying to get anyone to pull him out of there. I guess I figured out that I’d spent a lifetime trying to hurt Naite because I was jealous, and I’d been part of the problem. I hurt him, and I needed to be safe from my own self-hate.” Shan stopped, but not before Temar could hear the hatred in his voice. Then Shan shrugged, like none of it was important. “Besides, the church was the next best way to get out of the house.”

  “So he never…?”

  Shan shook his head. “No. He never touched me.” Shan rubbed his
hand over his face. “Some days I wish….” He stopped again.

  “Wish what?” Temar studied Shan, seeing not the priest or even the man, but imagining the lanky boy Shan must have been. For the first time, Temar realized that there was more than one way to be hurt. Would Cyla feel this pain? When she realized that her plan had turned Temar into the perfect victim, would her eyes be as haunted? Temar didn’t want that. He didn’t want to tell the council what Ben had done. He’d rather the man be exiled for water theft.

  Shan looked up for a second before closing his eyes and shaking his head. “Never mind.”

  Anger flashed through Temar. Shan was no better than he was. They both carried their scars and their guilt. “Do you think that I can’t handle hearing the truth?” Temar demanded. “Do you know Ben’s favorite game? Do you?” Temar advanced into the cave, his hands fisted at his sides. “He liked to make me choose. He loved it. He loved hearing me ask to be hurt, so do you really think you have to change the subject, as though I were some sort of child?”

  Temar stood over Shan, staring down as the silence settled around them, dust motes dancing in the air. Temar breathed fast, embarrassment starting to push aside the worst of the fury. He didn’t want people knowing that, and yet here he was talking about it.

  “I think you suffered more than you should have,” Shan said softly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry doesn’t really change anything.” Temar turned his back, and for one instant, he felt cold fear, as though Shan might tackle him from behind. Hurrying, Temar got to the mouth of the cavern and turned, but Shan was still on the ground. His emotions raged, and Temar took several deep breaths, smelling the coppery dust of the cave as he struggled to calm the storm inside of him.

  “You’re right. ‘Sorry’ doesn’t change anything,” Shan agreed after a long pause.

  Temar could feel his emotions cool, like glass pulled from the furnace. And maybe he was shedding heat too fast, because he could almost hear his emotions crackle as they cooled and threatened to shatter. If he didn’t get a handle on these emotions, Shan would never let him go on this trip, and this was too important. If he didn’t get evidence against Ben…. Temar refused to even consider what that failure would feel like.