Desert Stars (3 page)

Jalil ran up to the door flap marking
the family entrance and reached in to pull it aside, but the fabric
repelled his hand; the door was sealed. He fumbled unsuccessfully
at the doorway and shouted for help, while behind him, the storm
towered ever higher.

The door shook, and a pair of small
hands parted the narrow opening. “Let me in!” he shouted, knocking
someone over as he pushed his way inside.

“
Hello?” came a little
girl’s voice. Before answering, Jalil turned and sealed the tent
door shut. Just as he fastened the last clasp behind the zip line,
the entire wall shook as howling winds pelted the camp with
sand.

With a sigh of relief, he
turned back around, eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light of the
glowlamps. The girl who had let him in was Rina,
Shira
’s youngest daughter. Barely
seven primary lunar years old, she looked up at him with round,
innocent eyes.

“
Sorry about that,” he
said. “Is anyone else still outside?”

She shrugged, then ran off
giggling.

I’ll take that as a
“no,”
he decided. Still, he hung around
for a moment, just in case.

As he stood by the sealed door, the
loud wind shaking the tent walls as if to tear them down, he heard
another girl’s voice as she approached from the inner
corridor.

“
What is it, Rina? Who did
you—”

She rounded the corner and almost
walked into him. It was Mira, the Najmi daughter closest to his own
age, and by far the most beautiful. Her long brown hair spilled out
over her small, feminine shoulders, her head uncovered. They both
froze for a second, waiting for the other to speak.

Her eyes grew wide, and her cheeks
blushed deep red, bringing out the hue of her gorgeous hazel eyes.
“Oh!” she said, hastily wrapping her dark red headscarf around her
unbound hair. Jalil laughed, breaking the tension of the moment;
Mira’s smile was so genuine, even a veil couldn’t hide
it.

“
Sorry to disturb you,” he
said, nodding to her, “but it seems the storm has cut me
off.”

“
Oh, that’s all right,”
said Mira. She glanced down shyly.

“
I’ve ended up in the
women’s quarters, haven’t I?”

“
Yes.”

“
Ah. Well, would you warn
the others that I’m coming?”

Mira nodded and hurried back the way
she’d come while Jalil waited. Since he was one of the family, it
wasn’t technically forbidden for him to be in the women’s
quarters—but then again, there was a reason why old Zeid acted as
chaperone whenever he and Tiera were out alone.

After a few moments, he stepped into
the narrow annex and through an old brick doorway into the inner
chamber. The noise of the wind outside grew fainter as he passed
into a narrow vaulted tunnel, glowlamps casting a dim yellow light
along the rough-hewn stone and adobe. Still, with the arabesque
rugs spread over the dusty, uneven ground and the ornately
embroidered wall hangings, the place felt far from
barren.

Although the stone and adobe
structures sheltered them so well from the storm, Jalil knew that
the camp wasn’t designed to be permanent. The windmill at the
center of the compound operated a pump that pulled up groundwater
into a large cistern; when the stored water was depleted, the
family would have to move to another site dozens of miles away.
They’d lived at this camp for five primary lunar years, and the
cistern was already getting low. After another year, they would be
forced to move on, letting the wind-operated pump gradually
replenish the cistern over the course of the next few
decades.

Jalil ducked to step
through another doorway and entered the small vaulted courtyard at
the center of the women’s quarters.
Shira
’s older
daughters sat clustered around one of the ragged mattress pads that
ringed the room, chatting excitedly under the light of several
dozen glowlamps. They glanced up at him as he came in, but soon
resumed their conversations.

“
Hello,” he said, nodding
as he walked over to them. “Have any of you seen Tiera?”

Lena sat on a cushion in
the center of the group, dressed in a richly embroidered black silk
gown with gold coins dangling from the hem of her headscarf.
Surayya, the largest of
Shira
’s daughters in
spite of the fact that she was only the second oldest, rose to her
feet as Jalil approached. She and Mira both had their heads
covered, while Amina, the smallest and craftiest of the four,
didn’t seem to care one way or the other.

“
Tiera?” said Surayya. “I
don’t know. Did any of you see her?”

“
She’s here,” said Amina.
“I saw her come in a few minutes ago.”

“
Good,” said Jalil, glad
to hear that she was safely in from the storm. “If you’ll excuse
me—”

“
Jalil!” A short, graying
woman with an old, wizened face ran over from the far side of the
room, arms outstretched. Jalil recognized his mother at once.
Although Zayne was only his mother by adoption—and Tiera’s by
birth—she loved him as fiercely as if she had borne him
herself.

“
Hello, Mother,” he said.
They embraced and kissed each other warmly on both
cheeks.

“
Jalil, my son from the
stars, welcome home! But my, how you stink! You smell even worse
than Tiera.”

A flutter of giggles rose from the
girls. Jalil’s cheeks burned with embarrassment.

“
Mother!” he
protested.

“
Don’t ‘Mother’ me. Be a
good boy now and wash up. Your father will be expecting you
shortly.”

“
All right, all right. I’m
not a boy anymore, you know.”

Zayne smiled up at him, her wrinkled
face beaming. “No, no, my son. To me, you will always be my little
boy.”

Jalil inwardly cringed as he thought
of his plans to leave the camp once the wedding was over. How would
Zayne feel when he was gone—when Tiera was the only child of her
own she had left? Even that wouldn’t last forever, though—as soon
as Sathi found a suitable husband for her, Tiera would be
gone.

“
Well, what are you
waiting for?” asked Zayne, one hand on her hip. “Off to the washing
room with you!”

The girls laughed again as Zayne
chased him from the courtyard, down the narrow hallway that
separated the men’s quarters from the women’s. Jalil pulled aside
the rug door and ducked into the narrow chamber that served as the
camp’s washing room. A large, metal tank stood propped at an angle
in the far corner; the rust-red dirt beneath it was stained dark
from runoff. Two spigots in the wall opened to a sink jutting out
of the wall, and in the corner next to the sink sat a flat water
basin. A shower head jutted out over the basin at eye level, and a
white plastic curtain hung from the ceiling, tied off against the
wall.

“
There,” said Zayne from
the doorway. “I’ll lay your clothes out on the floor while you wash
off.”

Jalil knew that there was no
objecting, so he submitted without further protest and quickly
undressed himself once she was gone. When he was down to his
sand-worn trousers, he paused to carefully remove the thin chain
that hung from his neck. At the end of this chain dangled his
pendant—a black plasteel locket, rectangular in shape and no larger
than his thumb. He handled it with great care, gently hanging it
from a nail in the brick wall.

To anyone else, the little black
locket might be just another electronic device, but to Jalil, it
could not have been more valuable if it were made of pure,
unblemished sapphire. His birth mother had given it to him shortly
before he had crashed into the desert. He kept it on his person at
all times, wearing it underneath his clothing, close to his heart.
The long years had worn the exterior casing smooth, but it was
intact, and that was all that mattered.

Not long now,
Jalil told himself as he stroked the black
plasteel casing.
Not long before I uncover
the secrets you hold.

Though his body was exhausted from the
long ride, he resisted the temptation to savor the shower. Not that
he could if he wanted to—the trickle from the spigot was barely
sufficient to wash with. He scrubbed himself down with a chunk of
spongerock, splashed the suds off of his body, then pulled down the
vacuum to suck the spare moisture back into the fluid
recycler.

Once he was fully dressed, he slipped
the locket back underneath his shirt and returned to the courtyard
of the women’s quarters. He no sooner stepped inside, however, than
he felt as if he had entered a battlefield.

“
How could you say such a
thing?” Shira screamed at Tiera, her daughters standing timidly
behind her. For her part, Tiera stood alone, arms folded defiantly
across her chest, even as she faced the full brunt of Shira’s
wrath.

Oh no,
Jalil thought to himself.
What is it
this time?

“
Majd asked why we don’t
serve some of the strawberries to our guests now,” Tiera said in a
cold voice. “I only said it was a good idea.”

“
Don’t play games with me,
you little brat. You meant a lot more than what you said, and I
won’t stand for it—not on the eve of my daughter’s
wedding!”

Shira
’s face was a picture of
fury. Creases of anger cut across her prematurely aged face, and
her eyes blazed with murderous hatred. Mira, Surayya, and Amina
stood behind her, while Majd, her second youngest, clung to
Shira
’s knees with tears streaking
her innocent face. Lena stood by her mother’s side, aloof and yet
in the very center of the fray.

“
Wait, wait,” said Jalil,
stepping between them all. “Please, let’s not start a fight over a
misunderstanding.”

“
It’s not a
misunderstanding,” said Lena, her voice deadly cold.

“
Yes!”
Shira
screeched, shaking her finger at Tiera. “That bitch openly
insulted my daughter!”

“
I did nothing of the
sort,” said Tiera. Her voice, though calm, carried a sting as
focused as a sniper’s sight.

“
By Allah! What devil gave
you such a liar’s tongue?”

Down by
Shira
’s knees, Majd began to
wail.

“
Please!” shouted Jalil,
raising his hands. The room quieted somewhat, and in the brief
lull, he turned to face Tiera.

“
I don’t know what you
did, but whatever it was, Lena feels insulted by it. Please, Tiera,
apologize.”

She glared at him, then said in a
hushed voice, “Why should I deny what we all know to be
true?”

“
You whore!”
screamed
Shira
, lunging forward. Before she
could strike, Jalil caught her and held her back.

At that moment, Zayne stepped into the
room.

“
What is—Aie! My
daughter!” Zayne rushed to Tiera and hugged her close, as if to
protect her from a dangerous beast.

“
Your daughter is a
puss-ridden whore,” said
Shira
. “Do you know what
lies she said about my Lena? The gall!”

“
Please,
Shira
,” said Jalil. “Get a hold of
yourself; the guests will hear you.”

His words quieted her somewhat, but
did nothing to lessen the evil in her eyes. Beside her, Lena’s lips
curled upward in a snarl, as if preparing herself to
strike.

Jalil turned to Tiera and gave her a
furious look. Zayne was crying on her shoulder, and her previously
stony expression had started to crack.

“
There must be peace in
this house, today of all days,” he said. “Tiera,
apologize!”

Tiera’s lower jaw began to quiver—not
a lot, but just enough to be noticeable. Her hands began to tremble
as well.

“
I’m sorry, Lena,” she
said coldly. “I’m sorry to insult you on the eve of your
wedding.”

“
With a tongue like that,”
said
Shira
to no one and everyone at
once, “it’s no wonder that she isn’t married yet.”

Tiera pushed her mother away and
screamed at the top of her lungs. Before anyone could stop her, she
stormed red-faced out of the room.

Shira
and her daughters were in an
uproar.

“
What did she do that
for?”

“
The guests—do you think
they heard?”

“
By the Lord of Earth and
Heaven,”
Shira
said, “the next time I see
that girl, I’ll wring her little neck!”

Zayne hurried after her daughter,
while Majd’s wailing grew even louder.

“
I’m sorry, I’m sorry,”
Majd cried. “I didn’t mean it! I’m so sorry!”

“
Hush, now, sister,” said
Mira, crouching down to console her while the others continued to
fuss. “You didn’t know.”

“
What did she say?” asked
Jalil.

Mira looked up at him,
still hugging her younger sister. “She asked if we could serve the
Jabaliyn tribe some of the strawberries
Shira
has
been growing for the last few months.”