Desert World Rebirth (24 page)

And for most people, experimenting with sex started out with homosexuality. You certainly didn’t want to risk a pregnancy when a woman was too young to carry it easily, and no man wanted to have his wages diverted to a child who didn’t live in his home, so sex with the opposite gender waited until you met someone you wanted to start a life with. However, Shan knew very few people so inflexible that they’d chosen to wait rather than playing with people of the same gender.

One of the women he’d counseled as a priest, Marium, had been that way. She’d thought something was wrong with her because other women could never interest her, and she’d resorted to faking orgasms to avoid leaving partners feeling inadequate. Shan suggested that she just wait until she found a man she liked well enough to marry, but he knew she still felt awkward, like there was something wrong with her. When he’d been a young man, he’d avoided full anal sex out of fear, sticking with rubbing and mouths on the rare occasions when he’d been sexually active, and a lot of young men did that. The first time Shan had seen a fully erect cock, he really hadn’t believed that anyone could physically make it fit up an ass.

Shan grimaced and wondered how these people from this alliance of supposedly “Free” Planets would appreciate his world. He suspected that if they were all Paulians, they wouldn’t be amused.

“Do you need a pain reliever?” Natalie asked softly.

Shaking his head, Shan lifted his cup and drank. It was an iced drink that tasted of sweet balm. “Good,” he said, raising his glass.

“It’s lemonade. Livre didn’t have cultivars for citrus, so I imagine it’s a new flavor.”

“We have a hot drink called sweet balm that’s similar.” Shan looked down at his cup. How was he supposed to negotiate with these people when he couldn’t actually talk to them without having to weigh every word?

Natalie reached over and rested her hand on Shan’s arm, and he looked up at her in surprise.

“Your planet is very resourceful. I shouldn’t be surprised you found a way to make lemonade, even without lemons.”

Shifting aside the larger concerns for now, Shan focused on Natalie. “I imagine you’re fairly resourceful yourself. A protocol officer sounds like a rather high position.”

“For a woman, you mean?” Natalie asked him with a smile. A stone settled in Shan’s stomach at the evidence that the social corruption was so deep. Women tended Christ, watched his body, announced his return, and yet the Paulians would exclude them from any authority. Why hadn’t Shan seen any signs of this when they’d talked over the communicator? Shan sighed as he wondered if he had been really listening or if he’d been so busy making his own plans that he’d missed the big, flashing warning signs.

“For anyone,” Shan corrected her gently.

She smiled at him and tightened her fingers before pulling her hand away. “My parents died in an attack on Loralei and I ended up on a refugee ship to Minga, so I had to figure out how to make myself useful at a very young age. I had a talent for explaining things.”

“Minga. Isn’t that in the Planetary Alliance?”

“Now. Back then it was a battlefront. I found a group of AFP soldiers hiding during a Planetary Alliance sweep, and I helped them.”

Shan nodded. So, she’d done what she had to in order to survive and found herself on the wrong side of the war. Maybe. Shan was seeing the AFP’s flaws, but he didn’t know whether the Planetary Alliance was worse. More and more, Shan wished he could go back in time and break the communication equipment until no one could fix it. If the Lord had a plan in mind, He hadn’t yet shared it with Shan. “And Rula?”

Natalie’s eyes narrowed. “What about Rula?” Based on the suspicion in her voice, Shan suspected he wasn’t the only one trying to hide a lover.

“Is it normal for women to become soldiers?” If Livre had fought in the war, the women would have gone up with the men. Women like Sua Smith and Aila Freewind could swing an ax or a gun just as well as Naite would.

“Most people don’t realize she’s a soldier. How did you?”

“She moves like one.”

“She has the mouth of one,” Natalie said with an amused huff, and Shan waited for some sort of explanation. Natalie drew her lips up in an odd expression. “She can be overly blunt, which is why she has orders to avoid talking to the senior ambassador. I think Ambassador Melton is afraid she’ll say something to make negotiations more difficult.”

That was ironic. Natalie had already made things nearly as difficult as they could get. “Why do you have a soldier as an assistant?” Shan asked. “Do you really think Temar or I would pose any sort of danger?”

All expression left Natalie’s face as she blinked at him. Her eyes flickered up toward the ceiling, and her mouth opened once, closed, and then she pressed her lips together tightly. The entire display worried Shan more than any words.

“Assigning a security detail is a matter of protocol,” she finally said in a voice so sweet it could turn olives to candy.

“So you don’t expect Temar to pull a knife and try and hijack the ship?”

Natalie laughed. “No, no, I really don’t. We honestly never even thought you would spot Rula as a soldier at all. Most people think she’s my assistant.”

That hadn’t been Shan’s first assumption, but he wasn’t going to discuss that here. “As long as we haven’t given you the impression that you have to put guards on us.”

“You did put on quite a show for the airship pilot.”

“Show?” Shan frowned.

Natalie leaned close. “Do you really have local predators that could take out a man?”

Shan leaned back and wondered whether she’d been sent to ask this exact question. If so, he wasn’t sure she was on their side. “My father, Yan Polli, died in a sandrat attack,” Shan said quietly. Natalie lost most of the color out of her face. “They’re pack predators. They’ll use razor teeth to rip the feet out under larger prey and then pull them to the ground, where they eat them alive. The larger sandcats are the same species, but while they can and have formed exceptionally dangerous packs, they more often hunt alone. Last year, Landing alone lost forty-three people to predator attacks in the desert.” Shan stood up, uncomfortable with using the memory of those exiled people this way. Moving across the room, he focused on a vidscreen showing a field of stars. “There isn’t a person on Livre who doesn’t know someone who’s died on that desert.”

“Ambassador Polli, I apologize,” Natalie offered.

“Shan,” he corrected her for the third or fourth time.

“Shan,” she echoed. “I certainly didn’t mean to bring up bad memories. I was simply surprised. The early reports had very little to say about the local fauna.”

“And then humans came down and they found a new food source.” Shan turned to face her. “I love Livre. I love the orange and green streaks in the sky after a sandstorm. I love the wide spaces and the feel of a bike flying down a duneface. However,
I’ve
nearly died on that desert. I’ve known dozens of people who have died out there, so I love it without ever underestimating its power.”

She nodded. “I understand.”

“Do you?” The words slipped out even though Shan knew they were rude.

Natalie stood up and moved closer to him, her hands tucked behind her back in a pose that Shan found suggestive of military training. Rula might not be the only soldier. “I do know, Shan. I understand you can love something dangerous. And I apologize for doubting the veracity of your claims. I absolutely believe you’re being honest.” Her eyes flicked up toward the ceiling again, and Shan frowned. “I absolutely believe you,” she repeated, and she turned her head to look toward the couch. It took Shan a second to spot the small tan disk planted inside her ear, but when he did, he still wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“Apology accepted.”

Natalie gave him a bright smile. “I am glad. You’re not at all what I expected. Very few ambassadors ride bikes or risk their lives on the desert. I would hate to offend you.”

“You haven’t. Trust me, it takes a good deal more than that to offend me.”

“I’m glad. I had hoped to invite you to dinner. My degree in sociology suggests that people from rural areas give more weight to socializing and getting to know individuals rather than the details of the financial trade. So, did my professors get that right?”

“They did. I’ll get Temar,” Shan said, turning toward the door. He hated that Temar was alone with Rula, so he appreciated the excuse to get him.

Natalie caught his arm, stopping him. “Do you need him to come along?” From her expression, she definitely wanted him to say “no.”

“I should talk to him,” Shan said, unsure what he should do or which side Natalie served.

“Rula is good company. She can play a ruthless game of cards. They’ll be fine.”

Natalie still had that intense expression, but Shan pulled his arm away from her and headed for the door. Pushing it open, Shan found himself in a bedroom/sitting room combination, which surprised him, because the joint sitting room connected their two personal quarters. Exactly how much sitting were two men supposed to do? Rula and Temar sat in front of a vid screen, images of artwork in tiny squares until Rula clicked one and it filled the small screen.

“Temar?” Shan asked.

Temar leaned back in his chair. The wide smile suggested that he’d been enjoying his tour of art, and Shan felt a flare of jealousy that he couldn’t share that joy—not without making these people suspicious.

“Natalie invited us out for dinner.”

“Oh?” Temar swiveled his chair around, and Shan could feel Natalie’s warmth as she pressed close to him from behind.

“You’re welcome to join us or stay here and review the art pieces you’re enjoying. Rula rarely gets a dinner partner who shares her interest in art. We can have some food sent down from the officers’ hall.” Natalie’s voice sounded pleasant enough, but Shan could see the stiffening in Temar’s body and he looked from Shan to Natalie with a frown that projected his confusion.

“I could show you the crap that passes for paintings on Vitalis Three,” Rula offered, and Shan could see the words pulling Temar closer toward Natalie’s plan. Temar looked to Shan, clearly wanting some sort of hint about whether he should stay or go with them, but Shan didn’t know what to advise, and if Natalie had told him the truth about people listening, he couldn’t have that conversation with Temar. He hated this.

“Honestly, I’d rather stay here than try and deal with a lot of strangers,” Temar said almost apologetically.

“That’s fine.” Shan hid his disappointment. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy talking art with someone, and I know I’m not always the best person for that conversation.”

“What, just because you compliment glass spun by a sixth-year student, why would I question your good taste?” Temar teased, easing the tension in the room.

Shan grinned at him. “If you’d seen the crap I spun when I tried that in
my
sixth year, you’d show a little more appreciation for your own talent.” Shan basked in Temar’s smile until Natalie moved closer, wrapping her hands around Shan’s arm. Shan froze, and the smile faded from Temar’s face.

“We should go. The food gets less predictable as the night gets later. There are rumors that the chef does a little imbibing of the cooking sherry,” Natalie said brightly. Shan opened his mouth to say something to reassure Temar or order Natalie away, but she pulled at him, and before he could gather his thoughts, they were back in the sitting room heading for the door.

“I’m not sure—”

“They’ll be fine,” Natalie said, but she clenched her jaw and her fingernails dug into the soft meat on the inside of Shan’s elbow. Confused and worried, Shan closed his mouth and let her pull him out to dinner, when he suspected he’d enjoy himself more if he stayed with Temar and looked at art.

Chapter 21

BY THE time Shan got back to the quarters he shared with Temar, he didn’t know what to believe. Natalie had charmed him—some might say flirted with him, but it’d been a long time since he had any experience with flirting, so he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure about a whole lot, since the wine she’d offered him at dinner was stronger than he’d thought.

Shan let himself into the quarters, nodding to the soldier who had been escorting him ever since he left dinner with Natalie. The main sitting room was quiet, and Shan headed toward the door to Temar’s room. He hated that Temar had a separate room, but after a night full of veiled hints about religion and violence, Shan wasn’t about to seduce his lover as long as they were on this ship. He was also going to start avoiding wine.

Letting himself into Temar’s room, Shan saw that he was asleep, his leg tangled in a white sheet with his arm thrown over his eyes. His gray sleep pants rode so low that Shan could see the trail of barely visible blond hair that led from his belly button down, to disappear under the waistband.

Shan wasn’t sure how long he stood there before Temar shifted, his arm lifting as he blinked. “Shan?” he asked, and Shan realized that, with the light from the sitting room spilling in behind him, Temar couldn’t see him.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

Temar sat up, shifting around in the bed. “How was your night?”