Desert Stars (23 page)

“
Take these,” he said as
he dropped several cash datachips into her hand.

“
What’s this?”

“
Two thousand credits,” he
said. “It should help you with the return journey. Nawal will
supply the rest, I’m sure.”

She looked up at him with teary eyes.
They stared at each other in silence for a few more moments before
he turned and left the way they had come.

Mira watched him until he
turned the corner and was gone.
You didn’t
really forgive me,
she thought to herself.
Tears burned in her eyes, and her legs felt weak.
You think you did, but you didn’t.

But then again, how could she expect
him to forgive her when she couldn’t even forgive
herself?

* * * * *

“
Is this what you’re
looking for?” asked the bald, overweight man at the specialty data
store.

“
Yes,” said Jalil. His
heart leaped in his chest as the data from his locket appeared in
raw binary code on the screen.

“
Looks like a fairly
standard encryption,” the man muttered. “This should resolve
it—here.”

The numbers flashed away, revealing
the image of an ID card. The right column contained critical
information, such as age, height, and nationality, while the left
column contained writing in a language that Jalil couldn’t read. In
the upper left corner of the screen, the picture of a surprisingly
young woman smiled down at him.

Jalil drew in a sharp breath. The
woman in the picture was his mother.

She looked almost nothing like he’d
remembered. Her face was too round, her nose too wide, and her skin
too blotchy. The only thing he felt he genuinely recognized was the
expression. There was something in her eyes that looked vaguely
like the mother he’d remembered, but just barely. Otherwise, she
could have been a complete stranger.

“
Is this the data you’re
looking for?” the man asked.

“
Yes. That’s
it.”

“
Identification card for a
missus—” he turned and squinted at the screen. “—a missus Dierdre
Farland?”

Dierdre Farland,
Jalil thought, his heart racing.
That’s my mother’s name.

“
Yes,” he said in a
trembling voice. “That’s the one.”

The man pursed his lips and nodded
“Hardy looking chip. You had it for a while?”

“
All my life,” Jalil
whispered.

“
Long time to be carrying
something like this, son. You say you want to know where it comes
from?”

“
Yes, please.”

“
Let’s see,” said the man,
yanking out the locket from the computer. Jalil winced as the
screen went blank. “From the design, it probably came from one of
the frontier worlds, out near the Good Hope Nebula. We don’t get
these too often.”

“
Can you read the rest of
the data?”

“
Certainly. Cracking the
code was easy—the difficult part is always the
hardware.”

“
How much for a printed
copy?”

“
Of what you have here?
Besides the missus’s picture, there’s not much else except her
vital statistics and a short personal history. All told, looks like
it comes to twenty-four pages.”

“
How much will it
cost?”

“
Oh, let’s see—five
credits base price, another two to get it in a bound
copy.”

“
I’ll get it bound,
thanks,” said Jalil. He paused. “Can you tell me what planet she’s
from?”

“
What’s that?”

“
Her homeworld. Planet of
origin. What does it say?”

The man turned back to the computer
and plugged in the locket. The monitor came back to life,
displaying the information again.

“
Karduna,” he said,
evidently pleased with himself. “One of the frontier systems, just
as I suspected. Looks like she’s from the third—no, wait, a mining
colony near the third planet. Station K-3 L5b.”

K-3 L5b,
Jalil thought. It sounded like some kind of
vehicle specification, not a place where people lived.

“
One more thing,” said
Jalil, his heart racing. “You said there was a family history. Is
there any information about children?”

The man frowned.
“Children?”

“
Yes.”

“
Hold on a second, son,”
the man said, turning back to the screen. “Let me see…” He scrolled
down the data, moving painfully slow. Jalil tapped his foot
impatiently on the floor.

“
Yes,” he said after
nearly a minute. “Looks like she was married to a mister Scott
Farland, of the same system, with one child.”

“
Yes, yes, I know. What is
the boy’s name?”

The man made a funny face and turned
back. “The name they’ve got for you is Gavin—Gavin
Farland.”

Gavin Farland,
Jalil thought, his heart pounding like a nuclear
engine in his chest.
That’s my name—Gavin
Farland.

“
Will that be all,
son?”

“
Yes,” said Jalil, coming
back to the present. “Thank you.”

“
I’ll have your print job
done in a few minutes. Until then, feel free to shop
around.”

Karduna,
Jalil thought to himself as the man hobbled
behind the counter.
My name is Gavin
Farland and I’m from the star known as Karduna. My family is from a
place called Station K-3 L5b.

It didn’t sound at all like
home.

Book II: Sand and
Stars

Part IV

Chapter 11

“
Headed for Karduna, eh?”
said the gaunt, black-haired man seated on the bar stool next to
Jalil. “You looking to sign up for the war effort?” He took another
puff of his foul-smelling cigar, the smoke mingling with the haze
of a dozen other cigarettes in the cramped spaceport
cantina.

“
What?” said Jalil. “No, I
only want passage.”

“
Oh, I hear you, lad, I
hear you. Only a fool would sign up with the Gaian Imperial Marines
at this point, eh? Those Hameji are a right nasty bunch—believe me,
I know. You wouldn’t want to end up as cannon fodder for them, eh?”
He gave Jalil a meaningful nod.

I don’t have a clue what
you’re talking about,
Jalil wanted to say.
These “Hameji”—why was everyone talking about them? He
sighed.

“
All I’m looking for is
passage to Karduna.”

“
Of course,” said the man,
folding his hands together on the bar top and glancing quickly to
either side. “Then let me put it to you this way: I know a private
military company that’s looking to take on a few extra soldiers. A
young man such as yourself could do well with them.”

Jalil frowned. The man with the cigar
reminded him too much of Gregor Luczak with his meaningful glances
and smooth talking.

“
I’m sorry, but I don’t
think you can help me.”

“
Right, right—I
understand,” said the man, fishing for something in his pocket as
he rose from his seat. “But if you change your mind, here’s my
card.” He handed Jalil a small datachip device. “The password is
‘starrider,’ with two r’s. I’ll be planetside here at GN-2 for
another two weeks; you’ve got until then to change your
mind.”

Jalil took the chip and nodded
wordlessly. ‘GN-2,’ he’d learned, meant Gaia Nova II—the Imperial
name for the planet on which he stood. The designation still
sounded odd to him, but it seemed to get bantered around a lot in
the cantinas around the spaceport.

Feeling a little disappointed, he
turned his head to glance around the establishment. Aside from a
few other patrons at the bar, the place was empty. A nearby cyborg
returned his stare; his red eyes and expressionless,
circuit-embedded face made Jalil cringe and shudder. He turned back
around and leaned heavily across the bar top.

“
What’ll it be?” the
bartender asked, polishing glasses with the end of his
apron.

“
I’ll have some more
coffee,” said Jalil. “Black, with no sugar.”

“
You sure you don’t want
anything harder?” The bartender gestured to the colorful array of
liquor behind him. A large fishtank was embedded in the wall,
giving the illusion that the fish inside were swimming lazily from
bottle to bottle.

“
No,” said Jalil. He had
been raised to never drink alcohol, and had no desire to start
now.

The bartender shrugged. “Suit
yourself.”

He set down a ceramic mug on the table
and filled it from a simple plastic thermos. Jalil picked it up and
swirled it halfheartedly before drinking. The coffee here wasn’t of
the best quality, but at least it was better than nothing. He took
a quick sip before placing it back down on the table.

“
I don’t suppose you’ve
heard anything new in the last couple of days, have
you?”

The bartender shook his head. “Sorry,
mate. Not many merchanters headed out on the GN-K route these
days.”

“
Why is that?”

“
Probably the wars out in
the frontier worlds. Ever since the Hameji took Tajjur and
Belarius, the Imperial Navy has been real skittish. There’s even
been talk of a temporary alliance with Karduna until the fighting
settles down.”

Jalil nodded, taking another sip of
his coffee. Most of the astropolitics went over his head, but he
pretended to know what the man was talking about—after all, he
didn’t want to look like an idiot.

“
Of course, that’s
probably just a political stunt,” the bartender continued. “The
Hameji battle fleets are too far away to pose an immediate threat,
but Gaian merchanters don’t want to leave the protection of the
Gaian Imperial Navy while there’s still a war going on.
”

“
You’re forgetting
something, Bill,” came a man’s voice from the doorway. “A lot of
loyal Kardunasian merchanters are willing to take the risk—and this
time, there’s no embargo to stop us.”

Jalil turned and watched as a tall,
well-built man strode into the cantina. He wore a light gray
jumpsuit with a thick belt and a brown leather vest. His
salt-and-pepper beard was short and trim, and his eyes were bright
blue, the color of the sky in the open desert. With his silvery
black hair, he seemed as old as Jalil’s father—and from the
confident, self-assured way he carried himself, he looked to be a
man of some authority.

“
Ah, Mark,” said the
bartender in a warm voice. “I heard you were planetside. Care for a
drink?”

“
The usual,” said the man,
taking a seat at the bar next to Jalil. He glanced around the room
before leaning forward on one arm. “Things seem a little quiet
around here, don’t they?”

“
That they are,” said the
bartender, filling up a glass with a heady amber-colored drink from
the tap. “Much too quiet. You just come in from another trade
run?”

“
Sure did,” said the man.
“Sold my cargo for a tidy profit, too; the boys are topside
unloading it right now. Thought I’d stop by while I was in the
neighborhood.”

He seems friendly
enough,
Jalil thought, looking for a
chance to introduce himself. He didn’t have to wait
long.

“
I don’t believe I’ve seen
you here before,” the man said, turning and looking Jalil in the
eye. “Where do you hail from?”

“
From the desert,” said
Jalil without thinking. “That is, uh, most recently.”

“
I see. The name’s
Mark—Mark Stewart.” He extended his hand, and Jalil took it.
“What’s your name?”

“
Jalil Ibn—I mean, Gavin
Farland.”

Mark’s eyes narrowed inquisitively.
“Farland, huh? Where did you say you were from?”

“
The boy’s looking for
passage to Karduna,” said the bartender, interrupting before Jalil
could answer. “You wouldn’t happen to be looking to take on crew,
would you?”

“
Not particularly,” said
Mark, turning back to the bar to take another drink from his
glass.

“
I’m from Karduna, sir,”
Jalil blurted. “At least, that’s where I’m from
originally.”

“
And how did you end up in
the desert?”

“
It’s actually kind of a
long story. I was raised in the desert, but—”

“
I can certainly see
that,” said Mark, eying Jalil’s clothes. Jalil blushed; not only
had his desert robes become ragged during his journey, but they
made him stand out in the spaceport just like his fair skin and
blond hair made him look out of place among the
tribesmen.

“
And why do you want go to
Karduna?”

Jalil swallowed. “All I want is to go
home, sir.”

Mark stared at Jalil for several
moments, not saying anything. Jalil fidgeted a little in his seat,
but he met the man’s gaze without flinching.

“
I see. Well, if all you
want is passage, why don’t you take one of the passenger
liners?”