by Lyn Gala
Shan blinked, shocked, but when he looked again, Aral had touched the screen and her cryptic message had vanished, replaced by “Food preparation areas” and “Crew quarters.”
“Ambassador Polli?” she asked him with wide-eyed innocence. Shan looked over at Temar, and from the way he only casually glanced toward the datapad, Shan guessed that he hadn’t seen her message.
“The gardens would be interesting,” Temar said before offering her a smile.
“The gardens are beautiful,” she said with a wide smile. “Being from a desert world, you will appreciate the open streams. The advantage of having a sealed ecosystem within a ship is that all water is eventually reclaimed by the air circulation system, so we can have open water sources.”
“Like lakes?” Temar asked, suddenly showing interest. Shan thought about the historical vids he’d seen of lakes, and he had to admit some curiosity.
“Yes, we do have a lake, of sorts.” With a touch on Shan’s arm, Officer Aral gestured them toward the far side of the landing hangar. “Ambassador Melton, would you care to join us, or review the materials list?” She held out the old datapad that Shan had secured to the top of one of the crates. Compared to the datapads from the ship, the Livre version looked thick and dirty, and the screen was blurred.
Shan noticed that the ambassador still looked aggravated, but he took the old datapad. “I believe I will review the goods.”
“Of course, Ambassador.” She turned to Shan and Temar. “Sirs, if you would follow me, I will give you a tour.”
Shan almost reached for Temar’s arm, but he forced himself to keep his hand at his side. Up until now Temar had been largely silent and his emotions had stayed hidden behind a neutral mask, but now he gave Shan a quick frown. Caught between wanting to reach out to his lover and fear over Officer Aral’s warning, Shan waited too long and Temar headed toward the exit, leaving Shan to follow. Aral fell in next to Shan, and another woman in a brown uniform moved closer to Temar. The hair on Shan’s neck stood up as he watched the woman. She moved with a loose-limbed gait that Shan had only seen in vids, the sort of fluid movement of a warrior.
“Rula Lish is my… assistant,” Officer Aral offered with just enough of a pause to make it clear that she had lied.
“Ah.” Shan wasn’t sure what else he could say, so he closed his mouth and worried as they headed out the hangar doors into a corridor. A man in another brown uniform rushed by them, and Rula moved close to Temar to let him pass. Shan’s whole body tightened in alarm. Rula leaned closer and said something, and Temar answered, his head tilting to the side.
Officer Aral wasn’t offering any conversation, and Shan certainly couldn’t come up with any small talk as they followed Rula and Temar down the corridor. The slow curve of the ship and the way corridors met at odd angles meant that Shan quickly found himself completely disoriented.
Technically that didn’t matter, since they were trapped on the ship even if they could find the shuttle again, but as they walked, Shan developed a sinking feeling that continued to grow worse. Rula Lish and Temar stopped in front of a door large enough to ride a loader through.
“These are the gardens… well, the public recreation part,” Officer Aral explained. “The hydroponics generate most of the ship oxygen, but the smell in there is enough to make you pass out, and watching algae slowly float from one level to another isn’t very interesting,” she said as she pressed her thumb to a black square. The doors made a thunking sound that reminded Shan of a heavy lock before they slowly opened. The security measures made the sinking feeling in his gut worse, but when he saw inside, all that was momentarily forgotten.
Shan blinked, his brain in shock at the green that filled very corner of the enormous room he was looking into. Shelves with lights on the underside were covered in greenery that spread out wide, dark-green leaves to soak up the energy. Shan took a step closer, and he felt more than consciously saw Temar move to his side.
“Stars above,” Temar breathed as he stepped in, his hand going up to trace a heart-shaped leaf. Shan followed, aware of the heavy door closing once the two women had come inside.
“They’re plants—don’t you have those?” Rula Lish asked. She was a thick woman; her gracefulness when moving vanished when she stopped and put her hands on her waist. Her dark-red hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail that had a black cord wrapped around it to keep stray hairs from escaping.
“We do,” Temar said, “but most have leaves that try to avoid the sun. Well, except the crop plants, of course, but even those are never this dark green.”
“No doubt the sunlight on Livre would burn these plants in hours,” Officer Aral said. “If you’d like to follow me, the pathways are farther in.” She started forward, but Shan waited until Temar was ready, walking next to him, which left Rula behind them. Shan’s gut churned.
Growing up in his father’s house, he’d often felt trapped. After his mother died, everyone kept telling him to give his father time to recover. They kept talking about what a hard life old Yan Polli had suffered, and Shan had learned to stop complaining. He’d stopped complaining about the fact that his father only paid attention to Naite, praising him for every little success, while Shan flailed to even get his father’s attention. Then Naite had started acting out—damaging neighbor’s fields and getting sentences to first days of work and then years. Shan only suspected the truth after Naite had left and his father had started finally paying attention to him. Disinterest turned to soft touches against Shan’s cheek and moments when his father stood close enough to press their bodies together. After he’d started to suspect that his father had been abusing Naite in that house, he’d felt nauseous… trapped. His bike had been his only escape.
He’d come home after a day apprenticing with Holmes, and his father would watch with this intensity that Shan had learned to hate. He would endure the feeling of being enmeshed in his father’s desire as long as he could and then he’d encourage his father to have a little pipe juice to make himself feel better. Just a little. And once the old man drank too much, Shan would flee on his bike. He’d ride the sands in the middle of the night, and if a sandcat or a dune had killed him, he wouldn’t have cared.
Enmeshed. That described the feeling about as well as anything else Shan could come up with. And unfortunately, that’s exactly what he felt now. He felt like he and Temar were tangled up with politics he couldn’t possibly understand, and that old nauseous feeling caught him off guard and he had no way to escape out to the dunes with his bike. The feeling made it hard to appreciate the tall trees with their thick, straight trunks and the grasses that swayed slowly as some hidden fan stirred the air. Shan could hear a roar in the distance, and in his current state of stress and paranoia, he searched for the source, but the path bent and twisted through tall foliage that didn’t allow him to see very far.
“Ambassador Gazer, that is a stunning necklace,” Officer Aral said.
Temar’s hand went up to the glass knot. “Thank you, but please call me Temar.”
She ducked her head, a gesture Shan had seen the other ambassador use as well. “Thank you,” she said. “In that case, you should call me Natalie. Are there many artists with that kind of talent on Livre?” She nodded toward the necklace.
Temar looked down at the glass. “Dee’eta is amazing, but there are four or five glass workers who could come close to her skill, perhaps even match it. Of course, I’m biased since I know Dee’eta.”
“That is an amazing piece.” Natalie moved closer. “May I?” she asked, looking at the pendant.
Temar nodded, and Natalie reached up to finger the delicate curves. “When the war broke out, very few artists remained with the AFP. The inner planets have more money and resources, and they can afford to give grants so people have time to develop artistically. It became a point of patriotic pride to get rid of artwork from the inner planets, which has left us a little lacking.”
Shan wasn’t sure he bought that explanation
. Livre was as poor as a planet could be, yet every unskilled worker had an appreciation for beauty. The planet certainly had a number of artists. “We brought carved wood art pieces as well,” Shan said, watching Natalie.
She looked over at him with wide eyes. “I thought Livre didn’t have trees.”
“We have windwood trees… very thin flexible trunks that bend with the wind. A good artist can twist the wood pieces together to make some beautiful art. I believe Kevin sent along one of his carved birds.”
“I would love to see that, Ambassador Polli.”
“Shan.”
Both her eyebrows went up, and she traded a surprised look with Rula. “Shan,” she repeated carefully. “I look forward to seeing the piece, even if you decide against trading it.”
“I’ll make sure you have a chance to,” Shan said carefully, not sure where this conversation was going. “So, the war with the inner planets… it doesn’t sound as though it’s as finished as we thought.”
Temar had been crouching on the path, his fingers exploring a plant with long sprays of tiny yellow flowers, but he looked up at that.
“We certainly have some lingering issues.” Natalie’s gaze slid upward, and Shan followed it, not sure what he was looking at. There were the same metal walls and lines of lights he’d seen in the landing hangar. “War leaves hard feelings, and there are people on either side who resent the peace agreements the alliances have reached.” Her voice had a stiffness to it, and she turned her back on him before starting down the path. “There is a waterfall that you truly must see.”
Shan paused, looking over at Temar for a second, but he looked only mildly confused. With no real understanding of the situation, Shan followed Natalie. They left the racks of plants behind, and the path opened up into a field of sorts, with plants crowded together in narrow tiers that rose up to near shoulder level. Bright red and orange flowers interrupted the vivid green leaves that spilled over metal planting beds. The path curved through the rounded planting beds, and the roar grew so loud that it seemed to pound in Shan’s head.
Feeling like he had sand tickling his face, Shan raised his hand to wipe it, only to find his skin damp. Blinking, he turned to look at Temar, but he’d stopped to sit on the edge of a planter and explore an enormous podlike structure hanging under yellow fruit. The pink pod had loose petals lined in dark red. It was a stunning structure framed with enormous leaves. From the look on Temar’s face, the plant interested him far more than the idea of water in the air.
Shan turned back to talk to Natalie, but she was forty feet down the path. Caught between wanting to understand her and wanting to stay with Temar, Shan hesitated. “Temar?” he asked, turning his back on Natalie. Rula sat on the edge of the planter near Temar, and that made Shan nervous too.
“Yes?” Temar looked up, a distant expression in his face.
“Do you want me to….” Shan let his voice trail off as he looked over his shoulder at Natalie.
“I’m fine,” Temar said, smiling, and Shan could see that he was at ease. Wishing he had a little of that calm, Shan nodded before he forced himself to back up.
“If you’re sure,” he offered, silently hoping Temar would invite him to stay. Shan didn’t want to hover. Temar was a man who could take care of himself, but right now, Shan wouldn’t mind a little clinging.
“I’m fine. These are stunning.” Temar ran his finger down one of the enormous petals. “I wonder if you could create this in glass.” His voice softened, and Shan realized that Temar was paying more attention to the flower than Shan or even their situation.
With a sigh, Shan turned toward Natalie and headed down the path. The floor here was a textured metal grate, and Shan could see drops of water gathering on the path and the leaves that arched over it. When Shan followed the twisted path around another turn, he stopped dead.
Far above, water fell out of a tall tower and crashed down over two terraces before falling into an enormous basin. Shan’s brain whited-out for a second. He’d seen vids of waterfalls, but they hadn’t prepared him for this. The roar of the water rushing down, the pounding thunder of water hitting the terraces hard enough to turn the water white before it fell over the edge and landed into the lake. The sense of weight and movement. And the smell. Shan couldn’t describe the warm scents that rose up from the water.
Inching closer, he felt tiny drops against his skin, some clinging and others dripping down. Shan looked at his arms; water droplets stuck to his arm hair, highlighting them oddly. “It’s beautiful,” Shan whispered, awe robbing his voice of any strength. He never thought he’d see water like this. Intellectually, he knew that it was only water, but the majesty of it made him feel like he was sitting at God’s feet. And this wasn’t even a real waterfall or a real lake. Shan closed his eyes and tried to imagine what it would mean to have this much water openly flowing across the face of a planet. Despite his fourth-year science class, he couldn’t really envision it.
“I thought you would appreciate it.” Natalie had to shout to make herself heard.
“I truly do,” Shan agreed. He wished Temar was here to see this. Turning, he glanced back down the path. When Natalie appeared right at his elbow, Shan sucked in a surprised breath.
“Microphones have trouble picking up voices here because of the water and noise. The AFP church says that homosexuality is a sin. They’ll use it as an excuse to arrest you and extort glass and minerals out of your planet.” Natalie smiled at him, her mildly pleasant expression and her fingers resting against her upper lip in a casual expression of interest didn’t match the words that left Shan blinking at her, his brain unable to process the message. Before he could pull himself out of his shock, Natalie was heading down the path in the direction of Temar and Rula.
Shan followed, the words sinking slowly into his awareness. The church certainly had its dark history. The two periods of sexualized priesthood bookended a dark Paulian phrase when the church had lost touch with Christ and worshipped Paul, but Shan couldn’t figure out what would drive the church he loved to return to that belief system. Paulians focused on limiting others—persecution of women and homosexuals and even women who wore short hair and men who wore theirs long. Shan swallowed as he hurried his steps. Natalie was talking to Temar, and for the first time, Shan noted that Natalie and Rula both had long hair, despite the fact that, as a fighter, Rula clearly would have been more comfortable with short hair.
“Is it true?” Temar asked with a bright smile, and Shan opened his mouth, not able to form words when his brain kept recycling every conversation he’d had since contacting the AFP. “Shan?” Temar left his oversized flower and closed the distance between them. Shan flinched back when Temar tried to touch him, and the shock on Temar’s face made guilt crawl into Shan’s stomach.
“The waterfall is amazing,” Shan said weakly. “Absolutely amazing.”
Temar frowned, one hand raised as though he still wanted to touch Shan, but Shan’s brain whirled with thoughts of a hundred atrocities encouraged by the sort of discrimination Paulians represented. They took Christ’s commandment to love others and turn the other cheek and twisted it into some belief where torturing someone else was justified as long as you tortured them in an attempt to bring them around to “correct” thinking. Div had forced him to learn the entire history of the church, insisted that every priest had to know the dangers. Right now, Shan would give anything to scrub certain memories out of his head. He looked around, almost expecting to see guards appear to arrest them for being abominations of nature. Nature. Yes, and Paul called it an abomination of nature for a man to have long hair, as well.
“Shan, you don’t look well.” Temar slowly lowered his hand and took a small step back.
Closing his eyes, Shan struggled to get a firm grip on his fears. “Ever since we got off the shuttle, I keep feeling like the ground is still moving,” he lied. He had felt that strange sense of trying to walk on shifting sand for a minute or two after getting off the shuttle
, but the sensation had passed quickly. However, he must have lied well, because Natalie’s growing alarm turned to sympathy, and Rula quickly moved to his side, her hand resting lightly against his arm.
“It’s common,” Rula promised in a soft voice that didn’t match her appearance. “We should find someplace for you to sit down until it passes. It’s not unusual for someone to fall down, and that can lead to serious injury.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Temar asked with a hint of anger in his voice, but he kept his distance, clearly taking his hint from Shan’s unwillingness to touch earlier. Even though Shan understood that Temar was following his lead, it still hurt to watch Temar physically retreat.
“I didn’t want to interrupt the tour.”
Natalie moved in on his other side. “The rest of the tour can wait until you’re feeling better, Ambassador Polli.”
“Shan,” he corrected her as he realized he really did feel sick.
Chapter 20
SHAN sat at the table in his quarters, his head pounding in time with his heartbeat.
“Are you feeling any better?” Natalie asked, sliding a cup in front of him. Shan wrapped his hands around the cup, surprised to find it cold.
“A little,” he said. He glanced toward the door that led into Temar’s rooms.
“Well, the noise of the waterfall can be a bit much. It’s nice and quiet in here.” Natalie gave him a hard look that Shan would have to be an idiot to miss the significance of. It was quiet in here, meaning microphones could record them.
“Quiet is good,” he said weakly, but he gave her a firm nod to tell her that he’d received her message. If he believed these cryptic warnings, he couldn’t trust anyone on this ship, and he couldn’t even tell Temar what was going on. He really wished she had decided to tell Temar instead, but she hadn’t and he figured asking her to take Temar to the waterfall would probably seem strange to anyone who’d been assigned to watch them.
