Desert Stars (39 page)

Mira nodded. “I understand,” she
whispered.

“
Good. Now, while honor
may require us to cast you out, it does not require us to cast you
out empty handed. We can pay for passage to the nearest settlement,
and leave you with enough spending money to—”

“
Leave her with
money?”
Shira
screeched. “After all she’s
done?”

The money,
Mira realized with a start, remembering the cash
datachips that Jalil had left with her. They still remained in her
bag—she’d forgotten to tell her parents about them. If she could
use the money to buy passage to New Amman, perhaps she could stay
with her cousin Sarah until she earned enough for passage to Terra
2 Dome. All wasn’t lost—she could find a way to get through this
and build a better life for herself. She could do this.

“…
doesn’t deserve even an
empty datachip from us,” her mother continued, face red with anger.
“She disgraced us by sleeping with Jalil, she disobeyed us by
letting him get away, and she dishonored us by rejecting Ibrahim’s
more than generous offer to—”

“
That’s enough,” Mira said
softly.

A deathly silence fell across the
room. Both her father and her mother stopped and turned to
her.

“
What did you say?” her
mother asked, eyes narrowing.

A wave of fear shot down Mira’s spine.
Her hands trembled and her legs felt weak, but she clenched the hem
of her robe and repeated her words.

“
I said, that’s
enough.”

“
How—how dare
you!”

“
No,” Mira said, “how
dare
you
?
I haven’t done anything wrong, and you know
it.”

The boldness of her words shocked her
almost as much as her mother. Adrenaline surged through her body as
she realized she no longer had anything to lose.

“
The family honor is a
sham,” she continued, her heart pounding. “You only sent me on the
pilgrimage to sleep with Jalil and shame him into marrying me.
Well, I didn’t. That’s right, I didn’t. You falsely accuse me of
the very thing you—”

Her mother’s hand struck
her hard on the cheek, sending her into the carpeted dirt floor.
“Silence!”
Shira
screamed. “I won’t hear any
more of this!”

“
Dear! Please—”

Mira rubbed her cheek
where her mother had struck her. The blow stung something terrible,
but a smile slowly spread across her face as she turned and sat up.
If she was to be exiled, that meant that her mother no longer owned
her. The fact that
Shira
had to resort to violence to
control her only confirmed that fact—confirmed it with a dizzying
wave of exhilaration.

Outcast or not, Mira was finally
free.

* * * * *

Jalil’s legs felt weak as he followed
Lars through the crowd at the jump station’s food court. Even the
high vaulted ceiling and stars in the windows overhead couldn’t
allay the tension in his nerves.

This is the moment of
truth,
he thought to himself.
In just a little while, I’ll have the knowledge
that I came out here for.

Why, then, did the prospect terrify
him?

“
Lars!” called out a voice
from behind them. They turned, and a tall young man stepped out of
the crowd to give Lars a firm handshake, which soon turned to a
shoulder hug. “It’s so good to see you.”

“
You too, Will,” said
Lars, smiling. “How are things?”

“
Shitty, same as for
everyone. This is Gavin?”

“
Yes,” said Lars, stepping
back to include Jalil in the conversation. “Gavin, this is Will
Farland.”

Jalil hesitated a moment before
accepting his hand and shaking it. Will Farland was perhaps five or
ten years older than him, with pale skin, tousled blond hair, high
cheekbones, and dark blue eyes. He felt a strange sense of deja vu
at their meeting—as if he was meeting a version of himself from the
future.

“
I’m sorry, Will” said
Lars, “but I’ve got some business to take care of. I’ll be back in
about half an hour.”

“
Sounds good. See you
then.”

Once Lars was gone, Will turned and
gave Jalil a polite smile. “Well, shall we have a seat?”

“
Yes,” Jalil whispered.
“Let’s do that.”

The food court sat at the intersection
of two major thoroughfares, with hundreds of tables clustered in
the center. High overhead, the starfield shone through giant glass
windows, dimmed a little by the bright halogen lights around the
edge of the ceiling but still quite magnificent.

Even though almost all the tables were
full, few people seemed to be eating. Jalil glanced over at the
restaurants and noticed that most of them were caged up. Squads of
armed security guards patrolled the perimeter, no less than three
per group with weapons in hand. Most of the people in the crowd
seemed fairly harmless, but their frightened eyes and quick,
scattered glances betrayed a collective anxiety—one that reflected
the feelings of his own heart.

“
Here, have a seat,” Will
said, directing them to a small table against the wall. Jalil sat
down on the molded plasteel chair, and Will took the chair across
from him, folding his hands on the table.

“
I’m sorry I don’t have
any food to offer you,” he said. “Most of the employees here have
fled, and it looks like there’s going to be a major shortage on the
station.”

“
That’s fine—I didn’t
expect anything,” said Jalil, a little taken aback.

“
Good. It’s generally a
bad idea to expect charity from anyone these days.” Will glanced in
either direction before looking him in the eye. “So I understand
you’re Gavin Farland?”

Jalil took a deep breath and nodded.
“Yes. At least, that was my birth name.”

“
And you’ve come from Gaia
Nova to search out your family?”

“
Yes.”

Will reached down and unstrapped the
small console on his wrist, connecting the device to a dock on the
side of the table. The tabletop blinked as an image appeared on it.
Jalil pulled back his hands in surprise, staring at the glowing
image before him. It displayed a series of names, ordered by column
and connected by lines, so that from left to right the first column
had one name, the second had two, the third had four, and so
on.

“
What is that?”

“
A pedigree chart of the
Farland family,” said Will. “The name at the head is your own, with
the parents listed as Scott and Dierdre. Do either of those names
ring a bell?”

Jalil’s eyes widened. “Dierdre—that’s
my mother.”

“
And Scott is your
father?”

“
I—I guess so,
yes.”

“
You guess? How do you
know that Dierdre is your mother?”

Jalil reached inside of his shirt and
pulled out the pendant. “Because of this.”

“
May I see
that?”

Jalil handed it to him. Will held it
up to the light and examined it for a moment.

“
A standard Kardunasian ID
chip,” he said. “Let’s see what it says.”

He plugged it into a port next to the
wrist console, letting the lanyard dangle over the edge of the
table. The pedigree chart faded into the tabletop and another image
popped into view—the same image of his mother that Jalil had seen
in the specialty shop in Gaia Nova.

“
Yup,” said Will, “that’s
Dierdre all right—the same one that married Uncle Scott. Birth and
marriage dates match, though I see the death date’s
missing.”

“
She gave it to me just
before she died,” Jalil said softly.

Will grunted, nodding his head. His
fingers danced across the table’s surface, and the pedigree chart
returned—this time branching out laterally above his
name.

“
That makes us second
cousins once removed.”

Jalil’s heart leaped in his chest.
“Cousins? Are you sure?”

“
If what you say is true,
then yes.”

Jalil looked up at Will, hands shaking
under the table. The noise and bustle of the crowd faded away, as
if he were in a tunnel and Will was at the other end. His
cousin—his own flesh-and-blood cousin. Distant, perhaps, but still
family.

Will raised an eyebrow. “Is something
wrong?”

“
No, nothing’s wrong. It’s
just, I’ve come such a long way to find my family. I don’t know
what to say.”

Will shrugged. “I guess I should ask
if you have any questions.”

Yes,
Jalil thought to himself, barely able to contain himself. He
had nothing but questions—but where to start?

“
Do you know what happened
to my mother and father?” he blurted out.

Will’s expression turned serious. “I’m
afraid they both passed away over Gaia Nova,” he said. “They were
caught in the crossfire from the military uprising against the
emperor twelve years ago. I’m sorry.”

Jalil nodded solemnly, but the news
came as no surprise. “Do I have any brothers and sisters? Any
immediate family still alive?”

“
Not really,” said Will.
“It looks like you were Scott and Dierdre’s only son. Uncle Scott
had several brothers and sisters, but they’re all interstellar
merchanters, gone most of the time on some voyage or another. It’s
only by random chance that you met me here.”

Chance?
Jalil wondered.
More
like the will of Allah.

“
What about my
grandparents?” he asked, tapping his foot nervously against the
floor.

“
Scott’s parents have both
passed away. Dierdre’s parents are both alive, I think—no, wait,
just her mother.”

Jalil began to feel a sinking feeling
in his stomach, much as he had at the Temple of a Thousand Suns. He
feared that this part of his quest would end up no
different.

“
So who’s still at
Karduna?”

“
Your grandmother, Jan,
for sure, but I’d be surprised if the rest of Dierdre’s family is
still around. I haven’t seen them among the refugees here, but
there are half a dozen other starlane ports they could have fled
to.”

“
You mean most of them are
gone?”

“
I’m afraid
so.”

So maybe it was a waste to
come here.

Jalil took a deep breath. “That’s
okay. Thank you.”

His birth family was dead or
scattered. His ancestral home lay under the iron yoke of a brutal
occupier. Even if he did manage to get through, what awaited him on
the other side? A world of clean, white tiles and gray metal
floors, probably—as unfamiliar to him as anything under the glass
mountains of Babylon.

“
Look,” said Will, “I
don’t want to sound rude, but if you’ve got an Imperial passport,
you should do yourself a favor and get out of here. I know you’ve
come a long way to find your family, but things are going to get
ugly real soon. Whatever you do, you don’t want to stick around
here.”

“
You’re saying that my
coming here was a waste of time?” Jalil asked, his voice
weak.

“
I don’t know about that,”
said Will. “But I do think you should go back. I mean, what more
can you do?”

At those words, Jalil felt
as if a heavy weight had been lifted from his chest.
He’s right,
he thought
to himself.
I did everything within my
power to seek out my family, and now I have all the answers I need.
My debt of honor to them is paid.

I’m free.

“
Don’t take it too hard,”
said Will, his brow creasing with concern. “I mean, I’m sorry to
break it to you, but—”

“
No,” said Jalil, smiling.
“Thank you. Thank you very much.”

* * * * *

The
Bridgette
had already docked with
the
Genevieve
by
the time Lars and Jalil returned. Against the milky backdrop of
stars and nebulae, with the twinkle of traffic coming to and from
the jump station, the two paired starships brought back memories of
Jalil’s childhood. Sights such as this had once been commonplace to
him—but those days were over, and the emptiness left by their
passing had already been filled. As his mind wandered back to
memories of his desert upbringing, he fingered his mother’s pendant
and felt a peace so profound it almost brought him to
tears.

“
Looks like they’re
already loading up to go,” said Lars, breaking the silence. “Will
you be coming with us?”

“
No,” Jalil
whispered.

“
What was
that?”

“
No.”

Lars turned and gave him a funny look.
“Are you sure? We have plenty of room, and if you can prove your
birth it’ll be easy to obtain citizenship.”

“
Thank you,” Jalil said,
“but…”