Born of Sand (Tales of a Dying Star Book 5) (7 page)

"Nobody here knows how. Farrow's worried something awful. Anyway, since one's broken we might as well clean it up real nice while we can." She stepped up to a computer screen--so high she barely reached it--and a door next to the glass window slid open. The mechanical noise abruptly magnified. "Come on. Grab your bucket."

Mira followed her down a metal grate stairway into the room. It was tough to get a good sense of size from up in the control room, but the turbines stood at least twenty feet tall. A thin layer of sand covered the floor, making each step precarious and uncertain around so much machinery.

"I'll open the maintenance hatch and climb inside," Binny said when they reached the broken turbine. She stuck out her chin stubbornly. "When Spider's bored he likes to close the door and trap me inside, threatening to turn the turbine back on. He never does, though, so I'm not scared anymore. He won't do that with Akonai around, but once he's gone... it'll be good to have you here to watch out."

"Who is Akonai?" Mira asked. "Is he in charge?"

"Sort of. He's someone important. Gives a lot of orders, talks about plans. Farrow doesn't like him. He doesn't say that, but I can see the way he acts around him. I can tell." A long tube connected into the base of the turbine. Binny knocked on it with her knuckles, sending a hollow sound through the air. Then she opened a metal hatch in the side. A puff of hot air billowed out, and sand trickled to the floor.

"Doesn't it burn you?" Mira asked, eying the hatch. "It looks hot."

"You get used to it,' Binny said cheerfully. "Farrow says I have tough skin. Okay, while I'm in there take your rag and bucket and scour the outside of the pipe. Once you finish that, you can start on the outside of the turbine itself."

She started to climb into the pipe. It was barely wide enough for her to squeeze through. "Won't the water make it rust even worse?" Mira asked, staring at her bucket.

"It's not water. It's
chemicals
. It scours the rust and keeps it from coming back for a while. Be careful not to inhale too much.
And don't get any in your eyes
, or you'll go blind." And with that dire warning Binny shimmied inside the tube, pulling her own bucket behind her.

Mira reached into the bucket, smelling the liquid for the first time. As she pulled out the rag from the liquid's depths the fumes burned her nostrils. Mira kept it at arm's length as she began rubbing it over the exterior of the pipe.

How can a girl so young be so... old?
Binny acted like someone who'd seen the horrors of the world and had hardened herself against them.
Because she probably has
, was the obvious answer. Although she respected and followed Farrow's orders, Mira got the impression that he wasn't Binny's father. And she'd made no mention of a mother.

Mira suddenly felt very foolish. For the longest time the only thing that mattered was protecting her own daughters. Everything she did and thought about was to that end. She'd had no room for anything else in her focus. With them gone, Mira had a deep, empty hole in her concern. Now that she allowed herself to look around her, see the struggles of everyone else, it became obvious that she wasn't the only one suffering under the Melisao occupation.

And yet despite that occupation, strength existed. Binny was stronger than Mira. She seemed fine at being alone, while Mira still felt vaguely lost without her daughters. And that tiny girl's strength comforted Mira, reminded her that her own daughters would be fine.
They're stronger than they know
, she thought as she dipped her rag into the bucket to soak it with more liquid.
They'll be just fine, at least until I get there.

But she still needed to get there, eventually.

"So what does Farrow or Akonai have planned?" Mira asked when Binny eventually emerged from the turbine interior.

"We're going to take the planet back. Throw off the Melisao peacekeepers and restore the Praetari monarchy."

They began cleaning the turbine shell in unison. "If you want to throw off the Melisao, then why is Spider here? Why is a blue-eyed Melisao on your side?"

"Not all Melisao are bad," Binny explained patiently. "Some want to destroy the empire. They think their Emperor is a false god. They want to worship Mother Saria, like we used to here on Praetar before the occupation. Spider is like that." She added, "He's still a bad person, mind you, but in a different way."

Mira chewed on that for a while. It didn't make much sense to her.

"You had daughters?" Binny suddenly asked. "Farrow said you had daughters."

Mira smiled. "I still do, yes. Ami is four, but Kaela is about your age."

"You say 'is'. Does that mean they're not dead?"

That took Mira aback. "Why would you say that?"

"If they were alive they would be here with you."

Mira scrubbed at the metal, picking her words carefully. "Sometimes a mother has to do what's best for her girls, even if it seems terrible. Even if it's the hardest thing in the world."

"You didn't answer my question," Binny pointed out.

She's so much like my Ami, smart and stubborn.
"I sent them away. I found a way for them to leave the planet, to escape to a better place. I wanted to go with them, but there was no way."

"Farrow says there's no way off the planet. Anyone who tries to escape is killed, except for Akonai."

Farrow doesn't want to get her hopes up
, Mira realized. Hope could be a dangerous thing, she knew. Changing the subject, she said, "How long until your group of rebels attacks the peacekeepers?"

"We're not
rebels
. We're
Freemen
," Binny said. "And I don't know how long. They always talk like the revolution is nearly here. But I've been here two years and it still hasn't happened. I don't think anyone knows. Though with Akonai in the base everyone has seemed more nervous. Anxious."

"How are you going to defeat the peacekeepers?" Mira asked. "If there's only thirty-some Freemen here, and they have thousands..."

"We're smarter than them," Binny insisted. "They built electroids and teach them how to fix things and repair. We take them and fit them with weapons. Plus we're salvaging more and more ships from the desert. There was a battle here long ago, and many of the parts are still useable. We'll have an army, soon."

An army
. Mira couldn't decide if the girl was optimistic or if that was a realistic possibility. But if they were successful, if they somehow managed to take back the planet... could the Praetari come and go as they pleased, then? With no need for freighter trips by corrupt men like Bruno?

Binny dropped her rag into the bucket with a
plunk
. Okay, that's good enough for now. Time to clean the engineering bay."

The hum and vibration of machinery slowly disappeared as Binny led her across the base to the wide room they'd seen before, with the messy piles of metal and electronics. Two men crouched among one pile, sifting through the parts. They leaned low, examining each piece carefully. Half the parts looked familiar to Mira, scrap parts from one model of electroid or another. Behind them, on a workbench, an array of half-assembled pieces laid in a row: four arms, one torso, various sizes of legs. At a glance Mira knew half of them were improperly assembled.

"We sweep in here," Binny said, shoving a broom into Mira's hands. "The sand gets
everywhere
. It rains down when the ceiling hatch opens for aircraft. It never stops, there's always more!"

Mira eyed the hatch in the ceiling, round and split down the middle with a seam. The hangar doors were all closed now. She wondered if Farrow had told the truth about them.

"Sweep it as best as you can into piles, which we'll clean after," Binny instructed. She bent her head to the task, moving the too-tall-for-her broom with both hands.

Mira copied as best she could, brushing the sand across the floor. It was slow work because every time the pile of electroid parts shifted it kicked up fresh sand, dirtying the part of the floor she'd already swept. But it was mindless work, and Mira allowed her thoughts to drift to her daughters.

Some time later the two engineers began arguing. Binny kept her head down, but Mira tried listening in. They gestured wildly at one another, speaking in low tones. Eventually one of them tossed an electroid arm across the workbench and they both left the room, arguing.

"They do that a lot," Binny said. "They're not very smart, not when it comes to machinery. They can't even repair the turbine."

Mira eyed the workbench while Binny chatted away. One of the electroid legs looked wrong, somehow. But she couldn't be certain from across the room.

"They left to get supper. We'll get ours when we're done sweeping. I like to go later, when everyone else is done eating. Maggy the cook gives me extra food because I'm a growing girl, but not when the others are around, 'cause they'd get jealous."

They were all alone in the room. How long would the engineers be gone? She remembered Farrow's warning:
if Spider saw you working on the electroids he'd probably kill you where you stood
. But she also remembered telling her daughters to be brave, that she'd meet them on the Oasis station. If Mira wasn't brave, how could her daughters be?

I need to prove my worth. And I'm not worth much sweeping the floor.

She set her broom against the wall and approached the workbench, picking up the first electroid part she saw.

"Every third day Maggy makes soup," Binny continued. "It's thin, but filling, with carrots and celery from the synthetic garden. We don't have a lot of food, and Farrow is worried that if our size grows beyond--HEY!" Binny's broom clattered to the floor. "What are you doing? Get away from there!"

Mira knew what the problem was. Electroids varied by model depending on how old they were. The modifications were usually subtle, but occasionally something important changed, like the number of wires in a connector between parts. The factory workers had to stay late whenever a model changed, spending extra time learning the differences.

But someone untrained wouldn't know enough to tell the difference between models. The electroid arm in Mira's hands was a combination of seven parts from three different electroid models.
Which is why the wiring connector won't fit
, she thought with a grimace,
and why the joint doesn't bend all the way.

Binny appeared next to her, eyes wide. "Stop! You're going to get in trouble. The engineers are ornery."

"I'm just being brave," Mira said as she pulled the pieces apart. "You're braver than I, climbing inside that turbine."

"That's different. I'm
supposed
to do that. It's my job. You aren't supposed to be touching the electroid pieces. Nobody is, they're too valuable. If the engineers come back, or worse, Spider..."

"Go watch the door for me, then. This won't take long."

Binny made an exasperated noise, and seemed to bounce up and down as she struggled with what to do. Finally she ran across the room on quiet feet. She peered out into the corridor, nervously glancing back.

Mira quickly disassembled the incorrect arm and strode to the huge pile of spare parts. She began hunting, picking out the parts she recognized. It soon became obvious that most of the electroid parts in the pile were from a model two iterations old. That was fine, now that she knew. Parts flew and clattered as she tossed the good ones in the direction of the work bench. Fifteen main parts comprised an electroid arm, but she only wanted the internal pieces, not the external plating. The plating was universal, anyways, rarely changing from model to model.

She returned to the bench with an armful of metal and wires. She sorted them into three piles, one for each model of electroid. She wanted to assemble three, so the engineers could see the difference between models. Her hands moved of their own accord, deftly fastening one piece into another. She'd hated her job at the factory, competing against the other women, worried she might be seized at any moment, toiling for the Empire that came and killed and conquered. This was different. Her fingers worked with purpose, the familiar motions somehow soothing. And of course the result would be different. These electroids would not help the Empire.

The danger felt different, too. At the factory there was an omnipresent feeling that at any moment the Melisao peacekeepers would arrive and drag someone away to be questioned, or worse. Here the danger was a muted thumping in her head, a race against the clock before someone found her. Because she wasn't afraid that they would find her; she was afraid they would find her before she'd finished. She worked furiously, never making a mistake, never cutting herself on the worn parts.

One electroid arm materialized, then another. Finally she finished the third. She arranged them side-by-side, all nearly identical except for the mundane differences apparently only Mira knew.
My hands have value, here.

Binny let out a long sigh as Mira returned to her broom. "You're not brave, you're
stupid
," she said, hands on her hips. "Been here ten minutes and you're already making trouble."