by Lyn Gala
Temar had chosen an outfit with swirled lavender and blue, a ring with a blue quartz on one hand, and an intricate piece of coiled glass hanging from a heavy chain around his neck. He felt awkward wearing the pieces, but at least he’d talked Cyla out of the jeweled nose ring she’d tried to press on him. Temar sneezed and pinched his nose for a second to keep from doing it again. Yeah, a nose ring on a desert planet didn’t make much sense, but then, Cyla’s plans often didn’t.
An electronic whine made most of the gathered crowd flinch back, and then a voice with a slightly electronic tone filled the air. “Hi, folks. The ship is still pretty hot. If you want to keep about twenty feet back, I’m going to hit it with a supercooled charge of air.” Temar could see where Shan caught Lilian’s arm and pulled her to a stop.
“Is that the pilot?” Kevin asked.
“I think so,” Temar said. Shan would know better. He angled around a trio of men still wearing their sand veils to move closer to Shan and Lilian. Another cluster of people was moving toward them, threading their way through the crowd. “Who’s that?” Temar asked Shan and Lilian as he stopped at Shan’s side.
Lilian glanced over. “It’s the council from Blue Hope. The Red Plain council is at the back of the crowd, ready to handle trouble on-site, and the White Hills council is on notice.”
Temar blinked, shocked that Lilian would have gone to that length. It implied that she thought there might be military action. Looking at Shan, he tried to decide if Shan had known about this, but he seemed equally shocked.
“Here it comes, folks,” the voice over the loudspeaker announced, and then the ship gave an enormous sigh and the sand scattered, creating a bubble of blue around the ship. One second later, a rush of cool air that smelled of medicine swept over them, and the muttering crowd went silent again. “Landing procedures are complete, but the ship may have hot or cold spots for several hours, so avoid getting too close. I’m coming out now.” The voice ended with a loud click, and Temar’s mouth went dry and he stared at the ship, waiting for his first sign of a door. It took several minutes before a line appeared in the side of the ship and a section of the metal slowly lowered until it formed a ramp down to the sand, and a man with brown hair and a dark brown uniform stood with the light from the ship behind him.
Lilian found her voice first. “Welcome to Livre,” she called out loudly as she started walking forward. By the time Shan reached for her arm, she had already moved out of reach. Giving Temar an unreadable look, Shan followed after her. “You took your precious time getting down here again, young man, although I suppose your officers carry more of that blame,” Lilian said, her tone going from warm to a grandmotherly sort of chastisement in an instant. The man blinked at her.
“Um, I am sorry about that, ma’am.”
“Your officers and elected officials should be sorry, not you. You weren’t even born when this mess started,” she said, and that wasn’t the tone Temar had expected her to take. The man looked around as though searching for someone to save him from Lilian, who had not even introduced herself yet.
“Welcome to the planet. I’m Shan Polli,” Shan said, holding out a hand. The stranger looked at it for a brief second, long enough to suggest he hadn’t expected to shake hands, but then he came down the rest of the ramp and took it, shaking solemnly.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Corporal William Kester with the Alliance of Free Planets.”
“Welcome,” Shan repeated. “This is Temar Gazer,” he said with a gesture toward Temar, “and Kevin Starwalker and Bylla Sullivan.”
“Starwalker?” Corporal William Kester asked with a strangled laugh. When no one laughed with him, he quickly cleared his throat, all signs of a smile gone. “It’s a pleasure to meet you folks. I’m actually only the taxi driver here, so I have orders to load whatever you would like to take up and ferry you to the Brazica. If you point me to what needs loading and maybe one or two people to help….” He let his voice trail off as he looked around at the thousands of people gathered, most leaning on vehicles, and nearly all of them showing their weapons openly. He swallowed. “Your people are well-armed for farmers,” he said, his voice considerably shakier.
“A man or woman who can’t shoot a sandcat from a hundred yards is likely to end up as food for one,” Lilian lied airily. “Ambassadors Polli and Gazer and I need to get cleaned up after your landing. I’m sure someone can help you.” Lilian turned her back on him and started walking away. “Naite!” she called out into the crowd. Kevin had pulled Bylla back somewhat.
“Ma’am,” Naite said, striding through the vehicles with a gun nearly as large as he was braced on one hip. Temar knew that Naite could have a glare on him under the best of situations, but when Naite stopped, that gun propped up on one hip, and gave the corporal the sort of glare he normally saved for Shan, Temar almost felt sorry for the man. The corporal took a step backward up the ramp.
“Help him get this sorted,” she suggested before walking away.
“Yes, ma’am,” Naite agreed. Clearly they’d planned this, but Temar wasn’t sure what message the AFP was supposed to get, other than the people of Livre weren’t the friendliest bunch in the universe.
The corporal nodded. “If you point to what needs shifting, I’ll show you how we secure loads.”
Naite gave him a long, cold look before he turned and held his weapon out for another worker to take. “Fine. But I’m not carrying shit unless you are too. I’m not your fucking workhorse,” he snapped.
“Hey, I’m just a corporal,” the man hurried to say. “I’m the one who gets ordered to lift shit. Do you want to start grabbing the cargo or do you want to see the equipment first?”
Naite answered by striding up the ramp and passing the corporal to go into the ship without warning. The corporal looked around at the rest of them before giving a half bow and hurrying after Naite.
“Come on, let’s get inside,” Kevin urged them. He and Bylla headed that way, but Temar really wanted to stay and watch these strange interactions. Naite could certainly be that sharp, but he normally didn’t act like that until someone had pissed him off. If a worker ruined seedlings or dropped valuable equipment, he could verbally shred them. This corporal hadn’t done anything, and he’d gotten Naite’s nastiest attitude.
“What is going on?” Temar whispered, not sure if the ship had microphones.
“I have no idea, but I think Lilian does,” Shan said. “Let Naite handle loading the ship, Ambassador Gazer.”
Temar snorted. He’d noticed that bit of obfuscation. That he could understand, though. The man had introduced himself with his title first, so these people clearly cared a whole lot about titles. Lilian was probably right to give them titles. Now the rudeness, that seemed a little less logical. Temar wondered if that wasn’t the point. History was full of illogical people who committed terrible acts of violence in the name of their beliefs. Maybe Lilian wanted these people to wonder if this wasn’t a planet of crazy, violent people—which still didn’t make sense, because if that was true, they should go home and leave Livre to die. Temar realized that Shan was heading for the station, and he ran to catch up. The council from Blue Hope stood off to one side, whispering among themselves, and Temar wondered how far these plans had gone. He suspected that the council wouldn’t have stood back and let Lilian treat their guest like that unless it’d been preplanned. Lilian might frighten most of the planet, but that didn’t mean they’d stand back and let her do something illogical. No, she’d convinced them ahead of time that this was the most logical course.
By the time Temar got down the ladder and headed into the living room, the conversation was already going.
Kevin sounded frustrated. “… wait until we knew for sure.”
“How much more evidence do you need, Kevin?” Lilian demanded.
“Some evidence would be nice.” Shan threw his hands up into the air in exasperation as Temar came around the corner. Most of the boxes had been moved out durin
g the night, so the living room looked like a living room again. Shan was pacing near the food preparation station, his arms going while Lilian sat on the couch, brushing dust from her shirt. Bylla had retreated to a corner, where she watched. “He laughed. Maybe Kevin’s name means something different up there, but that wasn’t him being rude.”
“Sit down, Shan,” Lilian said.
Shan stopped pacing, but he crossed his arms and glared at her, making it perfectly clear that he wouldn’t sit. With a sigh, Kevin sat down next to Lilian. Temar realized that Dee’eta had vanished altogether. Maybe she was overseeing the loading of the glass. Temar wondered if he could get away with going to help her rather than getting in the middle of the brewing fight.
“They were rude for sending that boy in the first place,” Lilian said.
“I was surprised the pilot was alone,” Kevin mused. “I expected some sort of official or officer or something.”
“Exactly,” Lilian said, holding a finger up in the air.
Shan dropped his arms to his side. “I understand that. Yes, it was thoughtless to send someone that young to deal with this.”
Temar didn’t comment on the fact that the corporal was about the same age he was.
Taking a step forward, Shan rested his hands on the back of the chair and leaned forward. “But to treat him like that isn’t going to win us any points.”
“It won’t win us points to accept rude behavior.” Lilian stopped brushing at her outfit long enough to glare at Shan.
Shan’s voice was thick with carefully controlled anger. “They were probably afraid of what the ship would find. The way you have people out there armed, I can’t even claim it’s an unjustified fear. But if there’s trouble, they don’t want an ambassador or officer down here on a planet with a bunch of clearly unstable farmers.”
“As opposed to our two ambassadors going up there with clearly unstable politicians who would declare war on each other?” Lilian asked, and the room went uncomfortably silent. Kevin dropped his gaze to the floor, Bylla studied her hands, and Temar watched Lilian and Shan stare at each other. Shan’s mouth was open, but Lilian’s lips were pressed together in a tight line.
Lilian yielded first. “Your instincts were right. If they come down here, they’re going to learn too much about us, and that’s going to lead them to wonder if our planet wouldn’t fall faster than one of the worlds they’ve been at war with. So, I am not questioning your judgment, Shan. However, you have to keep them off guard. You have to make it clear that they will respect us or we will not play nice with them. You make sure they know that people who try to mine the planet on their own will have to deal with not only us but sandcats, pipe traps, raptors, sand lice, infections, sandblindness, sandstorms, and barchan dunes that can swallow entire towns if you’re foolish enough to put them in the wrong place. You make sure they know we are the only way to get what they want. We all know how many of the first-generation settlers died, so you make sure they know.” Most of the time, Lilian was one to silently watch as others debated, coming in only to settle the matter definitely with her final ruling. Temar had never heard her argue so passionately, but he swallowed as he heard what she wasn’t saying. She expected violence.
“If they won’t listen to us?” Temar asked as he walked farther into the room.
She gave him a small smile. “My dear, you convinced Ben that you would play nice with him until you brought destruction down on his head. I know you can do this.” She turned back toward Shan. “And Shan, you survived that sandrat of a father of yours and have reinvented yourself a half-dozen times. Put away Priest Shan and Mechanic Shan and Apprentice Shan and even that Angry Shan I knew when you were sixteen years old. No one else in the world can reinvent himself like you can, so if they’re starting this with disrespect and suspicion, you make them regret that.”
“Lilian,” Shan said wearily.
“No, no excuses, Shan. You are one of the only men I know who gets stronger every time the wind blows. The wind is blowing, so you get strong enough to survive it. They don’t respect us. That’s where we’re starting. You show them that they have to.” Lilian stood up, and Kevin was at her side. Temar blinked, suddenly realizing that Kevin always stood a little closer to her than anyone else. He was her lover. How had Temar missed that? “These two need time to talk and clean up. We have a certain image. Kevin, you said there’s another bathroom in this place?”
“This way,” Kevin said, gesturing toward the door to the control room, which led to the other half of the station. He kept his hand under her elbow as they headed out of the room. Temar watched as Shan sank into a chair, looking twenty years older.
Bylla took a step toward the door and then stopped. “Div has faith in you, and he trusts that you have faith enough in God and your people to do this job. He would have come to council himself and argued against this trip if he thought you couldn’t succeed,” she said softly.
Shan nodded. “I know. He’s not exactly one to stay quiet when he thinks something’s wrong.”
“I don’t know you two well, but from what I hear, that’s true of you too. The people out there trust you to make the right choices. I’m sorry that Lilian’s plan…. She should have told you about her plans. When I moved here, they warned me about her, but I have to admit that I thought they were exaggerating.”
Shan laughed. “No, no exaggeration. Actually, she didn’t used to be quite this bad, but she’s dying. She doesn’t have to worry about aggravating people.”
“But she does have to make sure the world is safe for her grandchildren. I understand that. Before I lost my children, I would have done anything to protect them, and if anything had included throwing you two to the wolves up there in space, I would have done that too. But she wouldn’t send you up if she didn’t think you could protect her grandchildren.” Having said that, Bylla headed for the door, closing it behind them.
Temar came forward and sat carefully on the table next to Shan’s chair, reaching out to rest his hand on Shan’s shoulder. Shan’s eyes came open briefly before he closed them again. “Am I the only one feeling a need to throw up?”
“No, I am too,” Temar confirmed.
“Do they really disrespect us that much?”
Temar thought about the young corporal who had backed away from Naite and laughed at Kevin’s name. He didn’t have any training in working with people, and that’s who they’d send down. “Yeah, they do,” Temar agreed.
“Great,” Shan said sarcastically. “I guess we should get cleaned up.”
Temar wished he had some way to make Shan feel better, but right now, if he didn’t throw up, he’d call this a successful day. He would never tell Shan, but he was actually grateful that Lilian hadn’t talked about these plans and fears of hers. If Temar had been this stressed for an entire week, his heart would have given out and he would have been dead long before their idiot corporal showed up.
Chapter 18
SHAN clenched his teeth as he looked around the crowded loading bay. Every piece of equipment and glass was loaded and there wasn’t another reason to delay. Glancing over, he saw Temar had that same flat expression on his face that he’d had at Ben’s farm. That made his stomach knot even more.
“I’ve done my best with the glass, but some of those pieces are so delicate that I’m not sure the foam will have the right density to protect them. Are you sure you don’t want to leave some of the pieces here, Ambassador Polli?” Corporal Kester asked for about the third time.
“If it breaks, it breaks. However, try to avoid doing anything that would make it more likely to break,” Shan said, dismissing the concern. Most of the pieces had been made for this trip, and Dee’eta Sun wouldn’t have sent anything too valuable to replace. Temar moved to one of the metal crates and ran his long fingers along the edge. Shan wanted to grab Temar and run for the distant dunes and never come back. It would be a romantic image, except for the part where they’d die of thirst and get eaten by sandrats.
“Yes, sir,” Corporal Kester answered, even though he sounded very unhappy about the answer.
Naite stuck his head into the cargo hold. “We have a report of a sandcat pack attack out by Hope Valley. I was going to head over there, if it’s okay with you,” he said, raising his gun. It was a staged performance, but Corporal Kester’s eyes went large exactly as planned.
Shan nodded. “Take off. Ride safe, okay?” He hated leaving Naite behind. Now that he faced going into space, he had to admit that he wished his brother would be close enough to ride to the rescue if they needed it. Instead, they were on their own.
“You too, Shan,” Naite said, that roughness dropping away, and for one second, Shan could see the worry and love on his brother’s face. Oh, he always knew it was there, but Naite rarely let it show. After that flash of honest emotion, Naite turned and left the ship. He and a dozen other armed hunters would take a sand hunter and head for Hope Valley at full speed, showing their guests that the people of Livre knew how to take care of business.
“Sandcats?” Corporal Kester asked in an unsteady voice. He looked ready to slam the door closed and run for it.
Shan grunted and gave a short nod. “Local predators. Usually they’re more solitary, but they can take down a man easily. A pack can take down three or four full-grown and armed men in minutes.” It was true, but a pack almost never formed. Sandcats turned on each other the second food was scarce. The only reports of sandcat packs came from the early days of colonization when the settlers and their animals had been easy prey. But that worked to their advantage too. These people probably had those early reports, when Livre managed to kill at least half the people who landed on her. These days, few people died from predator attacks, and the ones who did were like Ben—exiled—or like Shan’s father—drunk and stupid enough to lie on the sand to watch sunrise instead of the rock he normally chose for his naps.
