Desert World Allegiances (30 page)

Kneeling down, Shan wrapped his fingers around the grate and pulled, small grunts the only sign of how much effort he was putting into it. Nothing moved. Temar got down on the ground, the stone floor nearly crushing his kneecaps as he tried to help.

Shan’s face was set in a mask of frustration as he pulled a tool out of a pocket and started working the bolts on the side. His arm flew as he worked the bolt, little clicking sounds as the tool loosened it with every crank. Standing up, Temar looked nervously down one way and then the other. If the person who passed found the guard, he or she would come running back through here or call lots and lots of people to run up through here, but either way, they’d be caught.

When Shan finally got the last bolt out and dropped it into his pocket, he breathed in hungry gasps and knelt with both hands braced against the floor. Temar pulled at the grate, straining when the heavy metal resisted before scraping against the stone sides of the hole. However, it finally did lift, and Temar braced his knee against it to hold it up.

Leaning so close that Temar could smell the musk of his sweat, Shan whispered, “Wait here.” Temar opened his mouth to object, but Shan lay on his stomach, and his top half vanished into the hole. He was the mechanic. If someone had to break something, he was the reasonable choice for doing the breaking. However, Temar’s arm hair rose as he held the grate open, and Shan vanished into the machines. Temar didn’t hear thuds or screaming, so he assumed that Shan had found a way down into the mechanical room that didn’t involve falling twenty feet to the floor below.

Before he could even consider following, a woman appeared in the hall that led out to the surface. Temar knelt on one knee, his other leg bracing the grate as he stared at her, something locking both of them in place. Her eyes were wide, and Temar distantly noticed that she looked familiar… from the church, maybe. He could see her mouth come open, and he lurched forward, the grate clattering into place with a huge racket, like a hundred pieces of glass hitting the ground all at once. The metal almost bounced on the stone, and the resulting rattle echoed forever.

Temar launched himself at the woman, tackling her with a shoulder in the stomach, and her yell cut off suddenly. It was almost a chirp of a scream—cut short before it could reach full volume. However, Temar figured that by dropping the grate, he’d already made enough noise to get the entire group’s attention. So, their only hope of saving the water was for Temar to keep their attention until Shan could finish.

Struggling back to his feet, Temar tried to run for the exit, figuring he’d make enough noise to pull them out after him. However, the woman on the ground caught his leg and wrapped her whole body around it. Maybe Temar might have felt bad about kicking a stranger before he’d found out about the water, before he’d found his own anger and hate in Ben’s bed. Now he kicked with his one free leg. She gave a pained squawk, but she held on through two more of Temar’s hardest kicks until he finally wrenched his leg away from her and started stumbling back.

He could hear footsteps pounding down the hall, and Temar turned and ran for the exit, pausing at the place where the hall took its ninety-degree turn out into the open air of Livre. He needed them to see him. He needed to pull the attackers away from Shan. The first man to come racing from farther in the mountain slid to a stop near the woman Temar had kicked. She was curled on her side, her arms cradling her stomach, and Temar watched from sixty or seventy yards down the hall. It wasn’t a great head start, but if they came after him, they were going to have a hell of a time catching up with him on foot. He could outrun them until Shan had saved the water.

Two more people appeared—a man with sunset-colored hair and a tall woman with a hawk’s face. They both started running for Temar, and Temar prepared to dash away on his mission, but a voice called them all to a halt.

“Leave him!” Temar’s guts felt like water—like they were sloshing around inside his skin as he recognized Ben’s voice. “He wouldn’t be here alone. Dusty, check the fuel lines. Juke, get to command.”

Everyone stayed frozen as Ben came strolling out of the hidden base as casually as if he was crossing Landing’s town center to go to church. “The boy’s not going to walk in here alone. I know him. Dusty, Juke, check everything. We only have one chance at this.” Ben stopped several feet short of the woman Temar had kicked. “Tyson, get Karan up to the ship and see if the doc can’t give her something for the pain and get her settled into a medbed.”

Ben gave a sad little laugh and shook his head before he looked right at Temar, and time stopped. If Temar’s internal organs had turned to water before, they were now sloshing around inside until Temar wanted to vomit. There was seventy yards between them, but Temar could feel Ben’s hands on him, and he had to carefully control his body to keep it from shaking apart into pieces.

“My little sandrat wouldn’t be here if he didn’t have a sandcat out there hunting the dunes for him, would you?” he asked in that sweet tone of voice that always meant Temar would suffer.

“You’re a thief,” Temar spit out.

“I’m taking what my grandparents were promised… a terraformed planet or a ticket off.” Ben spread his arms out, and as if he were a magician, time seemed to pick up where it left off. The man with the sunset hair and his partner turned and raced back into the base, and the man who had stopped to help the woman Temar had kicked lifted her into his arms with a grunt and started after them. That left Temar and Ben and a length of hallway that seemed to grow shorter by the second.

Frustration made Temar’s hands curl into fists. All he had to do was distract the thieves until Shan could figure out how to break their valves and save the water. He couldn’t even do that right. “You’re stealing from everyone on the planet. You’re a murderer.” Temar spit the words out.

Ben gave an amused snort. “You tell the inner planets that. Their feud is killing the planet. I’m just getting off while the getting is good. So, who did you bring with you, Temar? It wouldn’t have been a council attack party. Trust me, I would have heard the rumors if you’d gone to any of the councils. Ever since Ista panicked, I’ve wondered whether that priest who worried so much about you actually died out in that desert. That was sloppy work. I would have made sure to put a bullet in his head and then watch the sandcats drag his body parts out into the dunes if I wanted him dead.” Ben sounded oddly amused by his own words, but then he always had been. Temar could feel his breath coming in little gasps. They were both so very dead, and Ben was still going to get his way.

“Shan?” Ben shouted. “Shan, are you lurking around here, somewhere?”

Temar held his breath. He’d shout for Shan to stay hidden, only that would pretty much confirm that Shan was alive and hopefully breaking the machinery that turned their stolen water into fuel.

“No comment on that, boy? Maybe you learned to keep your mouth closed.” Ben gave another chuckle as he walked over to the grate, which had landed with one corner stuck up in the air as another corner fell down into the hole. “So, who’s down there?”

Temar stood in silence, fighting his own fear with so much of his heart that he didn’t have time to bother with Ben. He was too busy fighting his own fear and his irrational urge to beg for Ben not to hurt him. That hadn’t worked well last time, and Temar suspected it wouldn’t work any better now. He had to clamp his mouth shut to avoid saying the words, anyway.

Footsteps came running, and Temar flinched back, even though the person came up behind Ben, far enough away that they didn’t pose any immediate threat. At the gesture, Ben gave Temar a knowing smile that made his guts roll and churn.

“What’s going on? Do we have a problem?” The newcomer was a man with a narrow face.

“I guess that depends on whether we caught our intruders coming or going.”

The man frowned at Temar. “Isn’t that—”

“He’s going to tell us who came with him.”

“But—”

“So, young sandrat,” Ben said, his smile faltering as he considered Temar, and Temar could feel the danger, like sand shifting under his feet. “Who did come with you? Shan? Some school friend? Or are you actually alone?”

Temar’s feet grew so heavy he could only watch Ben and this new man.

“Did he get down there?” the new man asked.

Ben seemed to think on that for a few long seconds. “We have to assume he did,” Ben finally said. “Get the Suettes down there to check all the pipes and lines. If something’s wrong, we need to know before we have a disaster.”

“That will slow us down by hours, maybe days.”

“Which is better than having the launch fail,” Ben pointed out. “The storm is going to keep anyone at bay, and if the Suettes get down there now, we can get off planet by tomorrow. There’ll be plenty of time for us all to catch up on sleep when we’re on the ship.”

The second man looked unsure, but after a bit, he nodded and headed back down into the sunken base. Ben pursed his lips. “And now we need to talk.”

Temar watched, feeling like a sandrat caught in a pipe trap. Something moved behind him, and he tried to spin around, but arms caught his shoulder. Someone almost threw him against the wall, and Temar tried to kick out, but his legs were weak from having stood so long with his knees locked. He couldn’t get in a good kick, and before he could do anything, he felt strong arms catch him around his elbows, trapping them against his body.

“I got him!” a man called, and heavy footsteps suggested that Ben was coming. Temar’s body finally caught up with his mind, flooding him with fear that made his heart pound so hard he could feel the pressure behind his eyes.

“Excellent. Is everyone okay up there?”

“Devin’s hurt pretty bad.”

Temar felt a familiar hand wrap around his wrist, and then Ben yanked him away from the man who had jumped Temar from behind.

“Get him down to medical.”

“Why do you care? You’re killing how many people on Livre? Why do you care if you let one more die?” Temar demanded. His fear made his throat constrict, but he wouldn’t live in fear of Ben’s fists anymore. At worst, Ben would kill him, and unless Shan could stop their rocket, Ben was going to pretty much kill everyone Temar had ever loved by leaving them to die on a water-starved world.

“Such a black-and-white world you see,” Ben said, with the sort of fondness parents used when discussing their children’s mistakes, but Temar wasn’t a child. He yanked at his arm, trying to free it. The wrist popped painfully, but Ben essentially dragged Temar back toward the grate while the other man headed back out the other end of the tunnel. “Shan, I have our little friend in hand.” Ben’s free hand came down on Temar’s ass with such force that Temar yelped before he could stop himself. “Did you hear that?” Ben called. “If you don’t come out, I’m going to amuse myself by doing a lot more damage to him.”

“There’s no one down there,” Temar complained loudly, hopefully he was loud enough for Shan to hear and understand that he had to get his job done—he had to sabotage the rocket.

“That’s fine. That means that I can take all the time I want hurting you,” Ben said in a voice only slightly lower. Temar’s knees started shaking.

“Enough,” Shan’s voice came from somewhere below them, echoing against the concrete. “What kind of man hurts someone half his size?”

Ben looked down through the grate. Part of Temar wanted to do the same. He wanted to look down, but his eyes were locked on Ben. He felt as if the world would start spinning if he looked away from Ben for even one second.

“Find someone to surrender to or climb on up,” Ben said in a friendly voice, “but every second you aren’t standing right here, I have Temar to amuse me.” When Ben looked up and met Temar’s eyes, Temar could feel his stomach lurch and roll so badly that he nearly threw up all over Ben, and he was pretty sure that wouldn’t end well at all.

Chapter 23

S
HAN
fought against an urge to shake his arms free of his two guards, but he didn’t have a lot of power here, and if these people would kill a planet full of people to save themselves, Shan figured he didn’t have much of a chance with them. That sense of helplessness was worse because he didn’t know these two. They’d been in the mechanical room where Shan had surrendered, standing dangerously close to the valves that Shan had closed and then snapped off. He didn’t know how long that would slow the group down, but at this rate, Shan figured that God would have to take a more direct approach if he wanted to save Livre. Shan had managed to fail rather spectacularly. He’d failed his planet, and he’d failed Temar.

The two guards led him up a flight of stairs, but instead of heading up the corridor that angled slightly up and out, they led him farther into the complex. They passed Reddy Chilan. Shan had performed his marriage, but the man didn’t even blink at the sight of Shan under guard. The guards finally came to an open door, and one went in ahead while the other stood behind Shan, holding Shan’s upper arms so hard that Shan could feel the bruises forming.