Desert Stars (13 page)

“
What’s going on?” asked
Jalil, more than a little unnerved.

“
Security check,” said the
man, this time in New Gaian. “Raise your hands over your head,
please.”

Reluctantly, Jalil
complied.

A low humming came from the ground
immediately under his feet. He looked down and saw another one of
the doughnut shaped machines encircling his ankles. He tried to
step away from it, but before he could move, a guard laid a firm
hand on his shoulder.

What is this?
Jalil wondered nervously as the machine slowly
rose. It passed his knees, then his waist, then rose up above his
chest and face. When the machine rose above his head, it stopped,
allowing him to lower his hands.

“
Very good,” said the man.
“You’re free to go.

Jalil breathed out in relief as the
machine went back down into a slot in the floor. When he turned to
retrieve his bag, however, one of the guards was already rummaging
through it. He pulled out Jalil’s rifle and held it up for
examination.

“
Don’t touch that!” Jalil
shouted, running over and snatching the gun from the man’s hand.
The guard cried out and drew the pistol from his belt.

“
Hold! Hold!” the
uniformed man behind the desk shouted, standing up and waving with
his hands. “What is that?”

“
It’s my father’s heirloom
rifle,” said Jalil, looking it over quickly. “How dare you touch
it!”

“
Unauthorized weapons are
not permitted,” said the man. “You must leave it with
us.”

What?
Jalil wondered in disbelief. He shook his head.

“
No.”

“
If it is a
non-functioning ceremonial emblem, you may keep it,” said the man,
his cheeks reddening with anger. “But I must see some form of
authorization.”

The license!
Jalil realized. In his haste to get through the
checkpoint, he’d completely forgotten.

“
It’s in my bag,” said
Jalil. “I forgot to take it out.”

The man turned to the guard and said
something incomprehensible. Mira stared wide eyed from the end of
the line, as if terrified.

“
Everything’s fine,” Jalil
said softly in the desert tongue. “Just a misunderstanding—we’ll
get it cleared up soon.”

Instead of handing over the bag, the
guard lowered his gun and searched through it himself. Jalil bit
his lip, but made no move to stop him. After nearly a minute, the
guard pulled out the license and handed it to the uniformed man,
who nodded in approval.

“
Very well,” he said. “But
you are not permitted to keep it loaded at any time. Failure to
comply may lead to criminal prosecution for disturbance of the
peace.”

The guard made as if to take the
weapon from him, but before he could, Jalil opened the chamber and
held it upside down to show that it was empty. The guard scowled,
but he nodded his approval. Without another word, Jalil slung his
rifle onto his back, snatched his duffel bag and papers, and walked
over to the doorway on the other side.

Mira didn’t take nearly as long as him
to pass through the security charade. She handed another
bored-looking officer her documents and let the scanner pass over
her. Satisfied, he motioned for her to pass.

“
Wait,” said the guard,
stopping her with his hand. “No headscarves.”

“
Get your damn hands off
of her,” Jalil spat, pushing the man away. He turned to Mira and
nodded. “Your headscarf,” he said softly. “Better take it
off.”

She hesitated for a
moment, as if afraid to expose herself to so many strange men in
this alien place. After taking a deep breath, however, she slipped
it off, letting her hair fall to her shoulders. She blushed a
little, and in that moment she looked so vulnerable that Jalil felt
an insuppressible urge to shield her from anything that might hurt
her.
Don’t worry,
he thought.
I promised your father
that I would protect you, and that’s what I’m going to
do.

He picked up her bags and they were
off again, away from the crowds and the noise and the uniformed men
and women who made the place so miserable. They stepped into a
long, cavernous tube toward a door on the other side. The walls
were slightly transparent, so that the sun shone through the cloudy
glass, giving the place a strange whitish-blue color. As they
walked, a strange sense of deja vu swept Jalil, and he stared up at
the ceiling and walls as if looking for some forgotten
memory.

“
What is it?” Mira
asked.

“
This place,” he said. “It
feels familiar, somehow.”

Mira glanced around a bit, but said
nothing more. The moment soon passed, and they walked through the
doors at the far end of the hall.

As soon as they stepped out onto the
other side, Jalil gasped.

Rich green fields stretched out in
long rows all the way to the horizon. Blue vehicles like miniature
caravaneers wound their way down orderly rows of crops, while white
arcs of water spurted across dark, cultivated soil. High overhead,
wispy white clouds drifted across the clear blue sky, underneath
the cloudy glass canopy that stretched so high that he could barely
see it.

“
A world in a bottle,”
Mira whispered, her eyes wide. “It’s—it’s beautiful.”

Beautiful, yes,
Jalil thought to himself.
But it isn’t home.

Chapter 6

Jalil pulled the seatback tray table
down over his lap and let the cash datachips spill from his hand
onto the smooth plasteel surface. On the darkened night train, the
only illumination came from the soft yellow LED lights rimming the
tray. Next to him, Mira stirred in her sleep, curled up with her
head against the armrest. Her dark brown hair spilled out over her
black desert robes, while outside the window shadows raced past a
starless night sky.

Twenty-six hundred and
twelve,
he counted, organizing the
datachips into neat little piles. The vibrations of the train
threatened to knock them over, so he stacked them no higher than
three at a time. The tickets for the night train through Aliet Dome
had cost them nearly five hundred, and according to Sarah’s map,
they had five more domes to pass through. With food and lodging,
plus visas and processing fees, they would definitely have to make
the money stretch.

Jalil gently swept the datachips back
into his bag and replaced the folding tray table. Strange to think
that something so small and insubstantial as money could stop them
worse than a sandstorm or a tire blowout.

A creaking noise sounded through the
floor beneath them, and the train began to slow. Mira yawned and
stretched, glancing out the window as she sat up. A bluish-magenta
glow was barely visible on the horizon, outlining the silhouettes
of trees. Dawn was coming, and with it, the end of the
line.

“
Did you sleep well?” he
asked. Mira blinked and moaned, and an audible groan arose from her
stomach. “Hungry?” She nodded.

Twenty-six hundred,
Jalil thought to himself. Outside, the dark blue
of the predawn sky gave way to the harsh yellow lights of the
approaching city. Through the window, Jalil saw broken concrete
walls and jagged steel overpasses covered in sharp, swirling
graffiti. A group of hooded transients huddled around a fire, while
others prowled just inside the shadows. They passed from view in a
matter of seconds, yet Jalil knew they were still there.

He looked back at Mira, who yawned
again and rubbed her eyes. She looked so fragile without her
headscarf, naked and vulnerable, especially in a place like this.
The moment they stepped off of the train, Jalil knew that every man
they passed would stare at her. The thought made him
bristle.

While she wasn’t looking, he slipped
couple of bullets out of his breast pocket and pulled out the
heirloom rifle. Glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one was
watching, he hastily loaded the shells into the magazine and
replaced the weapon under his seat. Sarah had been adamant about
keeping the rifle unloaded, but Jalil didn’t trust the people in
this place. Besides, it wasn’t as if anyone could tell that it was
loaded just by looking at it. Better to be safe, in any
case.

The harsh city lights passed more and
more infrequently as the train gradually came to a stop. Jalil
stepped out into the aisle and slung the rifle across his
back.

“
All right,” he said,
rising to his feet and offering his hand. “Let’s go.”

* * * * *

Mira stayed close to Jalil as they
stepped off of the train and onto the platform. Graffiti covered
the rusted steel pillars, and rotting garbage lay scattered about
the concrete-covered ground. A scampering noise in the corner made
her jump, and a cat dashed out in front of them. A handful of
passengers left the train as well, but they all walked off in
different directions, until she and Jalil were alone.

“
Hang on,” he said,
squinting as he read one of the signs hanging from the ceiling.
They were written in a foreign language, probably New Gaian—at
least, she hoped it was New Gaian, because that was the only other
language that Jalil knew.

A hissing noise sounded from the
tracks, and the train began to crawl away. It moved slowly at
first, but it soon picked up speed, its sleek metallic sides
cutting through the air with a low whoosh. Mira watched the people
in the windows and wondered what they were thinking right now.
Their world seemed almost unreal, the same way the outside had
seemed unreal to her when she had been on the train.

But that wasn’t true any longer, and
she couldn’t ignore it. Even though it was night, the sky was
utterly devoid of stars, giving her the feeling that she was deep
underground. The air felt sticky and humid against her skin, thick
with the smell of garbage, oil, and tomatoes. Beyond the platform,
rows of identical buildings sat crammed beneath ponderously tall
silos and giant sheet metal buildings. Pipes, ducts, and catwalks
ran between the structures, making the town look more like a
machine than a place to live. The harsh yellow streetlamps gave
scant illumination, but the dark silhouettes became increasingly
clear against the lightening predawn sky.

“
This way,” said Jalil,
heading off into the street. Mira struggled to keep up; she guessed
he hadn’t been able to read the signs.

“
Where are we going?” she
asked, glancing periodically over her shoulder.

“
To the nearest hostel,”
he said. “The cheapest train doesn’t leave for another fourteen
hours, so I figured we’d find something to eat and get some
rest.”

Mira nodded; it would be nice to get
some real sleep for a change. Her body felt weak from hunger and
exhaustion, and her eyes struggled to stay open as she followed him
onto the road.

Traffic was light, but threadbare
beggars watched them from the shadowy alleys—at least, Mira thought
they were beggars. From the way they silently eyed her, she wasn’t
so sure. She automatically reached up to pull her headscarf tight,
but it wasn’t there; her head was uncovered. The realization made
her cringe, and she made sure to stay even closer to
Jalil.

How much farther?
she wondered quietly to herself.

“
Here,” said Jalil,
stopping in front of an old brick building with peeling paint.
“This should be as good as any.”

Mira didn’t see anything that
indicated the place was a hostel, but the sign in the front must
have tipped him off. It was just as well; she was starting to feel
anxious about their decision to stop at this town.

A row of lockers lined the wall
inside, illumination coming from a pair of flickering fluorescent
lights. Exposed pipes ran along the ceiling, while depressions in
the white linoleum floor marked years of traffic and wear. The
stench of mildew was strong enough to make her cover her mouth and
breathe through the front of her robe.

Jalil talked with the man behind the
desk for some time. Towards the end, his voice became so raised she
half expected him to storm out. Instead, he shook his head and
accepted a key, leading her up the stairs.

“
We won’t be able to get
food for a few hours,” he said.

“
That’s okay,” said Mira,
even though her stomach practically screamed at her in hunger. The
stairwell was unusually steep, and she felt so tired each step was
a struggle.

“
Also, we’ll have to share
the same room. There’s only one bed, so I’ll sleep on the
floor.”

“
Are you sure?
I—”

“
No, don’t worry about it.
I’ve slept on desert rocks before. This flooring shouldn’t be any
worse.”

She nodded. They reached the second
floor and walked some distance down a long, dimly lit hallway with
graffiti spray-painted over old, peeling wallpaper.

“
Here,” said Jalil,
inserting the key into a wooden door. He turned the knob, and it
creaked open, revealing a tiny windowless room with a brass bed in
the middle. A single yellow light bulb dangled from the ceiling,
while a dark stain on the bedspread made Mira wonder whether the
sheets were actually clean. She hesitated in the doorway, unsure of
what to do.