Desert Stars (17 page)

Jalil’s cheeks turned red as a wave of
guilt and embarrassment washed over him. “We’re, ah, discussing a
matter of business,” he stuttered, trying in vain to recall any of
Gregor’s words. “This man, he wants to, ah, pay us, and,
um…”

“
Pay us?”

For half a second, Jalil clenched his
eyes shut, but the image of the half-naked girl would not flee his
mind. Her breasts stared up at him like a grotesque pair of
sightless eyes, the henna tattoo around her navel an open maw. The
headiness of his arousal made him feel dirty and
ashamed.

“
Well?” asked Gregor,
speaking the desert tongue. “Is it a deal or isn’t it?”

“
What deal?” asked
Mira.

In that moment, the girl in the
showcase slipped out of her dress, spreading her legs as she arched
her back erotically. The others girls followed suit, stripping off
the last of their clothes until all three of them were
naked.

Jalil felt trapped, as if the walls
were closing in on him. He should never have come here, never have
brought Mira to this evil place. They needed to get
out—now.

“
Yes,” he said, reverting
unconsciously to the desert tongue. “We’ll take your
offer.”

Gregor leaned back in his chair and
smiled. “We leave in ten hours for the border,” he said, smoke
curling around the edges of his mouth. “Meet us at gate
twelve.”

“
Good,” said Jalil, awash
in dizziness as he rose to his feet. “We’ll see you at twelve
then.”

* * * * *

Mira stared in mesmerized shock at the
three cantina girls dancing in the showcases. The way they moved,
undulating their bodies to the rhythm of the beat, pulsating with
such raw, unabashed sexuality—it made her feel profoundly
ugly.

“
Come on,” said Jalil,
standing over her. “Let’s go.”

His cheeks were flushed,
his body tense. She rose and took his hand, only to find it warm
and clammy.
It’s because of the
girls,
she realized with a start. The
thought simultaneously repulsed and frightened her.

There is holiness within
you.
Even though she wanted to believe it,
there was no way she could anymore. She’d naively thought that with
time, Jalil would come to notice her, fall in love with her. But
those whores had caught his attention—stolen his attention from
her—in only minutes! Perhaps her mother was right; perhaps the only
way to convince him not to leave was to get into his
bed.

When you’re alone
together, you’ll know what to do.

Part III

Chapter 8

Mira squinted as she stepped out into
the bright, clear sunlight of Etilan Dome. The sky was blue and the
land was green, but the air smelled slightly of smoke—not clean
campfire smoke, or biting gunpowder smoke, but the sticky smell of
burning oil. It was so faint that she would probably get used to
it, but still, it made her nose tingle with each breath.

“
Well, that checkpoint was
easy enough,” said Jalil. He set down her bag as if expecting her
to comb through it, and gave her a puzzled look when she made no
move to do so.

“
What is it?” she asked,
trying to sound as innocent as possible.

“
Well… the headscarf isn’t
forbidden here,” said Jalil. “I thought you might, ah…”

Mira swallowed nervously. She
remembered the cantina girls, and how Jalil couldn’t stop staring
at them.

“
I thought it would be
better if I didn’t wear it,” she said softly. “None of the domer
women do, and I don’t want to seem too out of place. Besides,” she
said, tossing back her hair, “it’s such a beautiful day, I thought
it might be nice to keep it off for a while.”

Jalil frowned, but his eyes lingered
on her for a half second before he bent down to retrieve the
bag.

They walked a short distance from the
border checkpoint to join a growing group of mercenary soldiers.
One was missing an eye; his head was shaven, with strange geometric
lines and patterns crisscrossing his scalp. Another had a
prosthetic arm made of metal—he made a big show of sharpening a
curved knife on its surface. All of them carried guns.

“
What now?” she asked
softly.

“
We wait for Lucien,” said
Jalil. “He’s Gregor’s second-in-command.”

As if on cue, a tall, muscular man
stepped out of a passing hovercar and began barking orders. He had
deep-set eyes, pure black hair, and a carefully trimmed beard. The
soldiers quickly formed a line and began marching down the hill;
Mira didn’t know what else to do, so she stayed with Jalil, walking
alongside him.

At the base of the hill, they marched
past a concrete wall and through a small checkpoint with a tall
metal guard tower next to it. The guards at the gate all carried
heavy assault rifles, and the tower housed some kind of larger gun,
probably a plasma turret. Mira was used to seeing fortifications in
the desert, but this was the first time she’d seen any since they
had started their trip at Aliet Dome. It made her worry that they
were in danger.

The landscape beyond the wall was
half-covered in forests, with checkered farmland and scattered
settlements breaking the deep green carpet. A dusty road led from
the checkpoint to a large town full of peaked red roofs. Though the
town was much bigger than any of the settlements they’d seen in
Aliet Dome, most of the buildings were no more than three or four
stories high. It reminded her of New Amman, except that the
buildings were red and gray instead of white.

“
Look over there,” Jalil
said, motioning with his gaze since both his hands were occupied
with carrying their baggage.

“
Where?”

“
Down the hill.
Look!”

It took Mira a second to see it, but
when she did, her breath caught in her throat. A cluster of burned
out, half-destroyed buildings stood by the side of the road, amid a
clump of wild bushes. Across the dusty side street, the other
buildings bore scorch marks and bullet holes.

“
Listen,” said Jalil, as
if he sensed her growing fear. “Gregor hired me to fight for him,
but my first obligation is to take care of you. They’ll probably
try to keep you with the main convoy and send me out in the advance
guard, but I think we should stick together. I don’t trust any of
these men.”

Mira nodded. She’d been thinking much
the same thing herself. The wind blew a strand of hair across her
face, and she pulled it back behind her ear.

“
So you’re for it?” Jalil
asked, looking her in the eye.

“
Yes, of
course.”

“
Then promise me that
you’ll be careful. Stay low and keep close to me at all times. Do
you understand?”

The light in his eyes reminded her how
he’d fought off the thieves in Aliet Dome. Her cheeks flushed and
her heart beat a little harder.

“
Yes,” she said. “I’ll be
careful.”

“
Good. I don’t want
anything bad to happen to you.”

She had no doubt that he was
sincere.

A small hovercraft with an open truck
bed in the back roared into view from the other side of the road,
coming to a stop in front of them. Lucien climbed on board and
motioned for the others to do the same. As the others joined Lucien
in the hovercraft, Jalil tossed their bags onto the truck bed, then
helped Mira climb up. There was only one seat left, and he let her
have it, holding onto the railing instead.

With a lurch and a loud whine, the
hovercraft took off, tearing across the empty road and turning off
into a fallow field. Lucien, who stood at the front next to the
driver, shouted above the roaring of the engine so that all the
others could hear. Mira couldn’t understand what he said, but from
the way Jalil paid rapt attention to him, she knew it was
important.

Before Lucien finished, they slowed
down and entered a walled compound. Inside, Mira saw dozens of
vehicles, most of them hovercraft. Some were small, with
armor-plated sides and plasma turrets mounted above the narrow
cabins, while others were much larger, obviously built to carry
freight. They came to a stop in front of about fifty armed men and
began to dismount.

“
What did he say?” Mira
asked as Jalil helped her down.

“
We’re splitting into
teams. He put us on the advance guard; one of the recon squads is
short a man, and he wants me to cover.”

A large, wide-faced man stepped up and
clasped Jalil on the shoulder. “Looking for your crew, brother?” he
asked in the language of the high desert.

Mira’s eyes widened. With his long,
white robes, leather gunbelt on his hip, and chains of heavy
ammunition strapped across his chest, he was definitely a fellow
tribesman.

“
Yes,” Jalil answered,
smiling. “The peace of Earth be upon you.”

“
And upon you as well,
brother.”

Two other men stepped forward, one
short with a full beard, the other tall and red-haired, dressed in
black and gold.

“
I am Kariym, and this is
Abu Hassan and Ashraf,” said the first man, introducing them to the
other two. Abu Hussan—the short one—smiled and lifted his hand,
while Ashraf merely looked on.

“
I am Jalil,” said
Jalil.

“
What’s your tribe?”
Ashraf asked, his eyes narrowing.

Mira cringed. She couldn’t place any
of them, and a wrong answer might turn their newfound friends into
bloodthirsty enemies.

“
We are Najmi,” Jalil
answered truthfully.

“
Excellent!” bellowed
Kariym, slapping him on the back. “Abu Hussan and I are Tarsene.
Ashraf is Sarahiyn.”

She sighed in
relief.
Thank goodness he didn’t mention
that Lena’s husband is Jabaliyn,
she
thought to herself. The Jabaliyn and Sarahiyn tribes had been
locked in a vicious blood feud for the last hundred
years.

“
Who is this traveling
with you?” Kariym asked, pointing to Mira. “Your wife?”

All four men turned and looked at her,
making her blush. Her headscarf—why had she refused to wear her
headscarf? It seemed like such a foolish decision now, with the
full weight of the men’s eyes on her.

Jalil hesitated only a fraction of a
second before answering. “Yes,” he said. “That’s Mira, my
wife.”

Her heart surged.
Did he just say that?

“
Why isn’t she covered?”
Abu Hussan asked.

Before Jalil could answer, Kariym let
out an explosive guffaw.

“
Oh, that’s a good one!”
he said. “And I suppose every woman you’ve taken in the last month
has been covered too?”

“
No, but none of them were
my wives.”

“
And are your wives any
more discreet?”

“
They have to be; they’re
ugly.”

The men roared with laughter while
Jalil and Mira looked uneasily on. Jalil’s face turned red, and he
seemed on the verge of starting a fight, but she took his arm and
shook her head.

Off to the side, Lucien barked an
order. The crowd split up as the various crews headed to their
vehicles, while the whine of hovercraft engines began to fill the
air.

Kariym turned to Jalil. “Are you
ready?”

“
Yes.”

“
Good. Say goodbye to your
wife and send her with the main convoy. Our hovercraft is number
five.”

“
Wait,” said Jalil. “I
would rather my wife stay with me. I don’t want to leave her among…
strange men.”

Abu Hussan nodded, while Kariym
touched his hand to his chin.

“
We don’t usually take
women,” said Kariym. “There’s not much room, and recon is a
dangerous position. Still—”

“
Can she cook?” asked Abu
Hussan, butting in.

Before Mira could answer, Jalil spread
his hands, palms outward, in an expression of mock offense. “What
kind of a fool question is that? Najmi daughters are jewels among
women—of course she can cook!”

Mira smiled and blushed, while the
others laughed. “It’s a deal, then,” said Kariym, slapping Jalil on
the back. “Welcome aboard, brother.”

* * * * *

Once they were loaded, Jalil took the
gunner’s position on the top deck, manning the hovercraft’s main
plasma turret. Ashraf and Abu Hussan sat in the cockpit, behind the
long, narrow slit of a windshield. Mira and Kariym seated
themselves in the cabin, but that was fine; Jalil wanted some time
alone.

They skirted the edge of town, riding
along a lightly trafficked major road. Craters littered the nearby
fields, but they were all overgrown with grass; whatever battle had
been fought in this place, it had happened long ago.

Once past the town, they came to a
river wider than any body of water Jalil had ever seen. In the
desert, flash floods occasionally dropped enough rain to fill the
gorges that cut deep into the mountainsides. The mighty torrents
raged for a few days, sometimes even for weeks or months.
Inevitably, however, they vomited forth their muddy contents into
the great sandy washes, where the water quickly evaporated or sunk
deep down into the rocky earth. Here, however, the water was smooth
and placid, not like the harsh, violent rapids in the desert. The
far bank stretched out almost a full mile away, thick with trees
and brush that obscured the ground. Jalil didn’t know how deep the
river was, but for the hovercraft, that hardly mattered. The
surface of the water created the perfect road for their convoy, and
soon they were racing ahead at full speed, kicking up a thick white
spray behind them.