Desert Stars (41 page)

“
This?” said Jalil.
“Oh—this is Michelle.”

“
And who is
she?”

“
My blood sister,” he
lied, knowing full well the ramifications of bringing home a girl
who wasn’t family. “Michelle,” he said in New Gaian, “this is
Zayne, my mother, and Sathi, my father.”

“
Pleased to meet you,”
Michelle said, smiling as she extended her hand. Both Sathi and
Zayne stared at it uncomprehending.

“
Er, we don’t shake hands
in the desert.”

“
Oh.” Michelle blushed and
gave a short bow.

“
Where is her headscarf?”
Surayya asked aloud. “And why is she dressed in such awfully dirty
clothes?”

“
And this,” Jalil
continued, his cheeks turning red, “this is the rest of my family:
Surayya, Amina, and Tiera my sisters;
Shira
, my
half-mother; and the rest of my sisters, Majd, Alia, and
Rina.”

For some unknown
reason,
Shira
narrowed her eyes and glared
at him. He knew that expression all too well; it was the one she
took when she was on the warpath. Something serious had happened
here—something completely over his head. Rather than making it into
an issue, though, he chose to ignore it for the time
being.

“
Michelle, is it?” Tiera
asked, shocking Jalil and everyone else by asking the question in
New Gaian.

Michelle smiled. “Yes. You’re Tiera,
right?”

“
I am. It’s good to meet
you.”

Jalil received his second shock as
they shook hands. “How did you learn to speak New Gaian?” he asked
his sister.

“
Traders,” she told him,
reverting back to the tribal dialect. “And the shortwave. What, you
think I’ve been idle these last few months?” She turned to Michelle
and smiled. “I am sorry,” she said, stuttering a little. “My Gaian
is not so good.”

“
No problem—I’d be happy
to help you learn.”

“
Thank you.” She glanced
longingly at the shuttle. “Could you perhaps show me—”

“
Of course,” said
Michelle, offering Tiera her arm. She glanced at Jalil. “Do you
think it would be all right?”

“
Sure, go
ahead.”

Zayne frowned in concern as they
walked off. “Where is that girl taking my daughter?”

“
Don’t worry,” Jalil told
her. “She’s just taking Tiera to see the ship. They’ll be back
before—”

“
Well, what are we
standing around out here for?” Sathi bellowed. “Come inside, come
inside!”

* * * * *

A short while later, Jalil found
himself at the seat of honor in the camp’s dining hall, surrounded
by a flurry of activity that showed no sign of settling down. Sathi
sat to his right, trying to entertain him with what had happened in
the camp while he’d been gone. His sisters set the groundcloth
while others brought in the hastily prepared breakfast—beans and
flatbread, with an assortment of vegetables and sweetened crackers.
Every time the door flap parted, he turned, half expecting to see
Mira, but she never entered.

Michelle came in and sat by his left,
smiling at him.

“
Your sister is quite a
character,” she said as Tiera took a seat on her other side. “No
offense, but I think she’d make a much better mechanic than
you.”

“
None taken,” Jalil said
absent-mindedly, turning as Zayne and
Shira
took
their seats on the other side of his father. Zayne sat closest to
Jalil, while
Shira
sat the furthest away; as
their eyes briefly met, her lips turned upward in what could almost
have been a sneer.

“
Well, are we ready to
eat?” Sathi said loudly. The statement was more of an order than a
question.

The girls quickly took their places
around the groundcloth. The door flap swung open one final time,
and Mira slipped in behind them, her headscarf pulled back to
reveal her gorgeous hair. Jalil’s heart leaped in his chest, and he
longed to rush to her side, but this was not the place. She took
her seat on the opposite side of the room, barely glancing his
way.

The breakfast passed with little
conversation—except between Tiera and Michelle, who chattered
almost incessantly. Since the others couldn’t speak New Gaian,
however, they confined their questions to Jalil.

“
So did you find your
family?”

“
Yes, praise Allah,” he
said.

“
And where are
they?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but
stopped short; how could he possibly hope to explain all that he
had learned?

“
Unfortunately, most of
them have passed away. Michelle—she was one of the few I could
find.”

“
May Allah have mercy upon
them.”

An awkward silence fell across the
room. Mira broke it by asking the next question.

“
Why did you come
back?”

Every head in the tent turned to face
him; even Tiera’s. Jalil finished chewing his food and nodded to
Michelle.

There’s no better time
than now.

“
This might be hard for
you to hear,” he began, “but I know no better way to say it than
this. All of you are in danger. This world is about to be
destroyed. If you don’t leave for the stars with me, all of you are
going to die.”

He took in a deep breath and looked
around the room, stealing only a brief glance in Mira’s direction.
Perhaps he’d waited too long; the remains of the impromptu feast
lay sprawled out on the groundcloth before them, and some of the
people were starting to drift off into their own conversations. In
the back, old Zeid was already snoring.

Sathi frowned. “What are you talking
about?”

“
When I was among the
stars, I saw a terrible enemy,” Jalil said, loud enough that all
could hear. “Warriors who destroy entire planets. And they will not
stop until they have destroyed our world.”

Again, no one said anything. Silence
descended on them all, made worse by all the eyes staring blankly
at him.

“
Here,” said Jalil, “let
me show you.” He stood up and walked over to the dusty computer
terminal in the corner, swiveling the screen so that it faced the
room.

“
What are you
doing?”
Shira
asked.

“
I’m about to show you
something important.” He turned to Michelle. “Can you help me with
this?”

As they fumbled with the clunky old
machine, he became dimly aware of hushed voices behind him. His
hands began to tremble.

“
Are you telling us we
need to move the camp?” Zayne asked from her seat next to
Sathi.

“
Yes,” said Jalil over his
shoulder. “And not only from this campsite. We’ll need to leave
this world. That’s why I came back: to save you.”

“
So you’re going to leave
us again?”
Shira
asked, folding her
arms.

“
No, I want to stay with
you, but we can’t stay here in the desert. We have to leave for the
stars. Otherwise, all of us are going to die.”

The hushed whispers only grew in
intensity. Jalil’s cheeks flushed, and he returned to the machine
with renewed vigor.

“
Damn piece of junk,”
Michelle cursed, slamming her fist on the top of the display. The
screen flipped on, displaying a cloud-speckled world of wide brown
land and sparkling blue seas. Jalil nodded in satisfaction and
turned to face the room.

“
Look here,” he said,
pointing to the screen. “This is an image of a planet called Tajjur
V, before these terrible warriors—the Hameji—got there. If you’ll
watch—”

“
Tajjur five?” Surayya
asked. “What is that?”

“
It’s a world,” said
Jalil. “A world, not unlike our own. As you can—”

“
Where are the
deserts?”

“
They’re down there, but
you can’t see them from this angle. They’re on the
other—”

“
That’s supposed to be a
world?” Amina asked. “It sure doesn’t look like one.”

“
Nonsense,” said Zayne.
“It looks very beautiful, Jalil.”

Jalil sighed. “Just watch.”

A series of flashes blinked above the
planet’s curved horizon. The people in the back of the room
squinted and leaned forward, and Jalil realized with dismay that
the screen was too small for them to see the footage
clearly.

“
What’s that?” Tiera
asked, pointing to a bright blue glow in the black sky. It flared,
and seconds later a tiny plume of muddy brown rose up through the
planet’s speckled white cloud cover.

“
It’s called a ‘mass
accelerator,’” said Jalil. “It just threw a rock the size of a
mountain at the planet’s surface. Everyone caught beneath that
plume of debris and smoke is now dead.”

Sathi frowned, but didn’t seem
concerned. On the screen, hundreds of gray-brown plumes rose above
the clouds, forming teardrop shapes above the blue oceans. In a
matter of minutes, the once verdant planet was completely shrouded
in gray.

“
There,” said Jalil,
switching it off. “That’s what they did to Tajjur V, and that’s
what they’re going to do to us once they get there.”

“
You say that’s what our
world looks like from space?” Surayya asked. “It looks…
small.”

“
Yes, but it’s very
beautiful,” said Zayne, making it clear that she supported her
son.

“
Can’t you see?” Jalil
shouted. “That entire world was destroyed! Everything,
everyone—dead! They did it to Tajjur V, they did it to Kardunash
IV, and in less than a month, they’ll do it here, too!”

“
So what do you suggest we
do?” Tiera asked.

“
We need to get out of
here. That’s why I came back—to take you away from the danger. The
Hameji are coming; if we—”

“
Oh, so
that’s
why you came
back,” said Amina, nodding sarcastically.

Jalil’s cheeks reddened. “Have I ever
lied to any of you?”

Silence fell on the camp. Jalil
clenched his fists in frustration, wanting nothing more than to
grab each one of them and shake them.

“
I’m telling you,” he
continued, “if you stay here, you will all die. We need
to—”

“
What you ask is a hard
thing, my son,” said his father. “Where would we go? You speak of
leaving as if it were as easy as breaking camp and setting it up
again somewhere in the sky. How can we do that when our home is
here, in the desert?”

“
We could find a way.
Michelle has friends, and there are other worlds—”

“
Yes, but our home
is
here.
You
would have us abandon it because of a picture on a computer
screen?”

Jalil bit his lip and stole a glance
at Mira. Her face was devoid of disbelief, but it was clear that
she understood him no better than any of the others.

“
We must leave, Father. If
we stay, we will die,” he said softly. “All of us. No
exception.”

“
Why are you trying to
frighten us?”
Shira
asked, her voice noticeably
bitter.

“
I’m not trying to
frighten you,” Jalil pleaded. “Can’t you see? I came back to warn
you—to save you.”

“
We don’t need you to save
us,” she hissed. “You’re an unwelcome guest in this
camp.”

What are you talking
about?
Before he could ask, Sathi turned
and rebuked her.

“
How could you be so rude,
woman? Jalil is our son, and he’s come back to take our daughter
Mira’s hand in marriage. Haven’t you, my boy?”

Sweat began to form on Jalil’s
forehead, but an idea quickly took shape in his mind.

“
If I marry Mira and
assume leadership of the camp, will you listen to me?”

“
Yes, yes, of course,”
said Sathi, waving his hand as if the question was resolved before
Jalil had even asked it. “Whatever you wish. You’re my
son.”

Jalil glanced across the room at Mira;
to his surprise, her face had fallen. She rose to her feet and
excused herself, hurrying out the door before their eyes could
meet.

Jalil frowned.
What the hell is going on around here?

* * * * *

“
Why must you be upset
over this?” said Sathi. “Jalil is back—isn’t that what you
wanted?”

“
By Allah,” said Mira’s
mother, “aren’t you the least bit suspicious of his timing? And by
all the strange demands that he’s made? Wala! To think it would
come to such foolishness!”

Mira sat quietly against the wall of
her father’s study while her parents argued back and forth. Just
this morning, she’d expected to find herself in a caravaneer
crossing the desert. The fact that she was still here, still within
the sound of her mother’s voice, put her nerves on edge and filled
her with unease. It was almost as if fate had passed her by,
leaving her in limbo.