Desert Stars (29 page)

“
Amina!”

“
Well, if Jalil was the
kind of guy who would abandon her anyway, why shouldn’t she be
happy he’s gone? Better to drop him and move on, that’s what I
say.”

Mira soon lost track of the argument.
It was clear they weren’t truly interested in her feelings, just in
proving themselves right. Those arguments were always the worst
kind.

The tent door parted, and her sisters
both stopped talking. Mira looked over her shoulder and saw Tiera
standing in the doorway. Her clothes were soiled from riding in the
desert, and her uncovered hair was tangled and unkempt, as usual.
She stared at each of them in turn with cold, emotionless
eyes.

“
I need to speak with Mira
alone.”

Amina and Surayya both
laughed.

“
What? You think you can
just order us out?”

“
Don’t boss us around,
Tiera.”

For her part, Tiera said nothing. The
laughter died down, replaced by a tense silence.

“
Oh, come on,” said
Surayya, taking Amina by the arm. “We need to pick out Mira’s
outfit anyway.”

“
Yeah. Besides, I’m sure
Tiera doesn’t have anything interesting to say.”

“
Amina!”

Tiera ignored the last comment and
waited until both girls had left the room. When they were gone, she
lowered herself to the rug-covered dirt floor and sat down. Mira
shifted uneasily and gave her a halfhearted smile.

“
I came to apologize,”
said Tiera, looking Mira squarely in the eyes. “What I said back in
the convoy was wrong.”

“
Apologize?”

“
Yes. I misjudged you; I
thought it was your idea to seduce Jalil into returning to the
camp. I didn’t realize that
Shira
was behind it
all.”

Mira swallowed nervously. She glanced
down at the floor to avoid Tiera’s gaze.

“
There’s no point denying
it. I don’t blame you for what happened, not if you were set
up.”

“
How do you know all
this?” Mira asked. Though she already knew the answer, she didn’t
like the idea of people spying on her without her
knowing.

“
I overheard your
conversation with her in the kitchen,” Tiera confessed. “I swear, I
was already outside working at the time. I didn’t start the rumors
either; some of the other girls must have been
eavesdropping.”

Mira sighed. With the insular nature
of the camp, it was inevitable that news of her mother’s rebuke
would come out sooner or later. She wouldn’t be surprised if
Surayya and Amina were gossiping about it right then.

“
You aren’t angry at
me?”

“
No,” said Mira. “No one
has any secrets around here.”

“
Still,” said Tiera, “you
may want to touch up your cheek with some makeup before you go in
to see Ibrahim.”

Mira brought her hands to her cheeks
and blushed deep red. “Is it that obvious?”

“
Yes.”

She lifted up the hand mirror and
stared into it. Through the cracked and faded glass, her bruises
were more visible than she’d thought.

“
Oh my goodness—thanks for
telling me.”

“
It’s nothing.”

She set down the mirror on the carpet
by her side. “So you believe me when I say I didn’t—”

“
Yes,” said Tiera. “I
believe you.”

Mira hesitated for a moment before
leaning forward and throwing her arms around her half-sister.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “Thank you for
believing me.”

Tiera patted her on the back,
returning the embrace. “I guess I’m the only one, then.”

“
Yes,” said Mira. She bit
her lip, fighting back tears.

“
That doesn’t surprise
me,” said Tiera, her voice bitter. “Let me give you a bit of
advice: Father and
Shira
may try to force you to
marry Ibrahim, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to. They’ll
bring you in to meet him, but if either of you decides not to
follow through, it doesn’t matter what they say—you don’t have to
marry him. That’s your right.”

“
But—but what about my
honor? The family’s honor?”

Tiera looked her in the eye. “You
didn’t sleep with Jalil, did you?”

“
Well, no—”

“
So your honor is
perfectly intact. You don’t have anything to be ashamed
of.”

“
Are you sure?”

“
Of course!” said Tiera.
“Honor isn’t something that others can give or take away. If you
didn’t do anything wrong, it doesn’t matter what anyone else
thinks.”

Mira swallowed and took a deep breath.
“I don’t know,” she said softly “Father threatened—”

“
Threatened
what?”

“
He threatened to banish
me from the camp if I didn’t agree to the marriage.”

Tiera cursed under her breath. “I’d
forgotten about that.”

Then what am I supposed to
do?

“
Your best option is
probably to stall,” she said, as if reading Mira’s mind. “Once the
worst of it blows over and they see that you aren’t pregnant,
there’s a good chance that they won’t live up to that threat. You
still have options.”

“
Are you sure?” Mira
asked. She rubbed her cheek where her mother had struck her—the
memory of it still made her shudder.

Tiera sighed and shook her head.
“Mira, you’ve got to learn how to have a little
backbone.”

“
But—but what if Ibrahim
isn’t that bad?”

“
If you think the marriage
will make you happy, then by all means, go for it. It’s your life,
and only you can live it. But Mira, live it. Don’t let anyone push
you around.”

Mira nodded silently.

Tiera paused for a second more, a look
of genuine concern on her face. Without a word, she passed through
the rug door, letting it fall shut behind her and leaving Mira
alone.

* * * * *

“
So where are you from?”
Michelle asked.

Jalil shifted uncomfortably on the
hard steel bench, leaning heavily on the table. The fabric of his
new jumpsuit felt too slippery, as if it were coated in a light
sheen of oil. Across from him, Michelle looked up from her bowl of
porridge, while Lars walked over from the tiny kitchenette in the
corner and took a seat next to her.

“
Here you go,” said Lars,
setting a bowl out in front of him. “It might not look too
appetizing, but it’s not that bad once you get used to
it.”

Jalil glanced down at the gray goop in
his bowl and bit his lip. It was hard to decide whether it looked
more like wet cement or colorless human waste. Not wanting to be
impolite, he lifted his spoon and downed a mouthful of the stuff,
trying hard to swallow without gagging. Fortunately, it was as
tasteless as it was colorless.

“
Don’t eat it straight,”
said Michelle. She pulled out a tall, thin bottle with a miniature
spigot on the end. “Here, try some of this—it’ll add
flavor.”

Jalil held out his bowl, and she
squirted some of the stuff into his gray porridge. It was bright
orange and bubbled when it hit the stuff.

“
What is it?”

“
Condensed meat flavoring,
mixed with spices. Try it.”

Jalil did. If he closed his eyes, he
could almost imagine that the porridge tasted like day-old meat,
ground and pulverized until it had the consistency of mucous. His
throat tightened as he swallowed; he decided to keep the orange
stuff in one side of his bowl. Whatever this gray slop was, it was
better unflavored.

“
So how long do we have
until we arrive?” he asked.

“
Well,” said Lars, “we’re
scheduled to jump to the K-GN system node in three hours. Traffic
on the starlane is light, so we should reach Karduna in less than a
week. We’ll unload our cargo at K-4 and spend a few days there,
possibly more, before heading out to the Colony. All told, I’d say
about two weeks, give or take.”

Jalil’s stomach fell. Even after
traveling for so many months, two weeks seemed like an unbearable
time to wait. Still, if it meant returning to his home—his true
home—it would be worth it. He’d just have to do his best to get
used to the food in the meantime.

“
You never answered my
question,” said Michelle, pointing at him with her spoon. “Where
are you from?”

“
Yeah,” said Lars. “Tell
us.”

“
Well,” Jalil said,
unconsciously fingering his pendant, “it’s kind of a long
story.”

“
We’ve got time,” said
Michelle.

Jalil leaned back and took a deep
breath. “I remember when I was a young boy, probably three or four,
that I was on a starship a lot like this one. I was looking for my
parents when lights began to flash outside the window. The next
thing I knew, alarms went off, explosions sounded, and everyone
started running around in a panic.”

“
Sounds like a space
battle,” Lars mused. “You’re about sixteen, so that must have been
about twelve standard years ago, during the uprising against
Emperor Faulkensteyn III.”

“
Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said
Michelle. “Get on with the story.”

Jalil took in a deep breath; for some
reason, his heart was pounding in his chest. He pushed his feelings
aside, however, and went on.

“
Before the ship blew
apart,” he continued, “my mother threw me down a chute into a small
pod, which detached from the ship. The next I remember, I was in
the middle of a vast, red desert. I didn’t know anything about what
had happened; all I knew was that I was alone.”

“
So who picked you up?”
asked Michelle.

“
A band of desert
tribesmen,” said Jalil. “They saw the starship fall from the sky,
and came to investigate. That’s how I met my adopted father, Sheikh
Sathi Abu Ari of the Najmi tribe.”

“
They took you in and
raised you as their son?”

“
Yes.”

Michelle nodded with newfound respect,
while Lars frowned.

“
So if you grew up in the
middle of the desert, how did you come here?” he asked.

Jalil reached under his shirt and
showed them his pendant. “Before my mother threw me in the pod, she
put this around my neck. No one in the desert could read the data
chip embedded inside, so I went to the Temple of a Thousand Suns to
find someone who could unlock it for me.”

Lars whistled. “That’s quite a
journey. You must have traveled—what, a couple thousand
miles?”

“
More,” Jalil said
softly.
More than I ever should
have.

Michelle leaned forward, interlocking
her fingers under her chin. “So when you read the data, what did
you find?”

“
Who I am,” said Jalil.
“That my name is Gavin Farland, and I was born in a place called
‘Station K-3 L5b.’”

Lars and Michelle’s eyes both lit up.
“Where did you say you were born?” Michelle asked.

“
Station K-3 L5b,” said
Jalil. “Why? Have you heard of it?”

“
Of course we have,” said
Lars. “That’s our home.”

Jalil perked up at once. “Your home?
What do you mean?”

“‘
Station K-3 L5b’ is
another name for the Colony,” said Michelle. “That’s the
Bridgette’s
port of
call. If you were born there, you must be one of us.”

A chill ran down Jalil’s spine, all
the way to his fingers. He leaned forward, heart racing as a
hundred questions sped through his mind.

“
Where is it? What is it
like? Who—”

“
Whoa there,” said Lars,
laughing. “There’ll be plenty of time to answer all your questions.
But first, you said your name was Farland. I have a friend by the
name of Will Farland—do you think you might be related?”

Jalil’s head spun. “God-willing,” he
said, switching for a brief moment back to the desert tongue. “What
was his name again?”

“
Will,” said Lars. “Will
Farland. But I don’t suppose—”

“
When can I meet
him?”

“
I’m not sure. Last I
heard, he was scheduled to make a run on the
Giselle
out to the New Pleiades, but
if we get back soon enough, we’ll probably catch him before he
leaves.”

Masha’allah!

“
If at all possible,
I
must
speak with
this man,” said Jalil. Chills shot from the back of his neck all
the way to his fingertips.

“
Of course, of course,”
said Lars, chuckling.

“
But what about this
‘Colony’?” Jalil continued, undeterred. “What can you tell me about
it?”

“
That depends,” said
Michelle, swallowing another bite of her porridge. “What do you
want to know?”

Everything.

“
Well,” she said, “for
starters, it’s nothing like the Gaia Nova desert.”