Desert Stars (8 page)

A broad grin spread across
Sathi’s face, and they embraced and kissed on both cheeks. As they
did,
Shira
turned and gave Mira a sharp
glance.

“
Make sure he returns,”
she hissed under her breath. “Don’t come back without
him.”

Mira shuddered. Her mother’s face was
veiled, but the look in her eyes was enough to tell Mira that she
was deadly serious.

“
Goodbye,
Shira
,” said Jalil, coming between
them. “I’ll miss you.”

“
As will I,” said
Shira
. The fierceness had
evaporated instantly from her face, and she sniffled for effect.
Mira stiffened as her mother embraced Jalil, then turned back to
embrace her.

“
I mean it,” she whispered
menacingly in Mira’s ear. “Don’t fail me.”

The other goodbyes passed as if in a
daze. By the time it was over, Mira wanted nothing more than to
curl up by herself into a little ball.

“
All right,” said Jalil as
the others returned to the camp. “You ready to go?”

Mira hesitated for a moment, staring
off at the camp. Her knees grew weak, while behind her, an engine
revved, and the first of the caravaneers rode off across the dusty
plain.

“
Mira?” said
Jalil.

“
I’m coming,” she
whispered. Before she could say no, she climbed into the back of
the waiting caravaneer.

* * * * *

Jalil watched from the back seat as
the twilit desert raced by. His checkered headscarf fluttered in
the wind, and he squinted against the dust kicked up from the
caravaneers ahead of them. Thankfully, Hamza, their driver, kept
far enough out on the convoy’s flank that the billowing cloud
didn’t obstruct Jalil’s view. The mountains, once almost on the
horizon, now loomed close enough to make out the crooked lines of
strata running along the ridge. While shadows filled the canyons
and darkened the rocky foothills, the craggy peaks still shone from
the light of the setting sun. The sky overhead turned orange and
red; soon, it would fade to purple and black as the stars and
satellites came out overhead.

A strange, unfamiliar longing stirred
in Jalil’s heart as he watched the land he knew so well pass by.
Not far from here was the site of the first camp, the one he’d come
to as a boy shortly after Sathi had found him lost in the desert.
He felt much the same way as he had when they’d moved away from
that site, out into the middle of the plains. Though he’d come back
periodically with Tiera to check on the cistern and make sure no
one was squatting, it never felt quite the same. All those
abandoned stone and adobe structures, devoid of life except for the
ants and an occasional lizard—it felt too empty to have ever been
his home.

Is that how I’ll feel
about the Najmi camp someday?
he wondered
as the caravaneer began the climb to the pass. The thought filled
him with fear, until he remembered the sun-bleached ruins of the
derelict spaceship—the one that had brought him to this world. If
he’d made it through that, surely he could live through
this.

As the incessant hum of the engines
reverberated in his ears, he turned and glanced over at Mira, fast
asleep in the seat next to him. Her dusty black robes and headscarf
covered all but her slender hands, fingers curled near her face. Of
all the strange requests Sathi could have made—but it made sense
that Mira would want to make the pilgrimage with him, even if
coming alone with him was questionable. When a boy and a girl are
alone together…

Nothing will
happen,
Jalil told himself. His father
trusted him to be a man of honor, and he wasn’t about to betray
that trust. Besides, Mira was nothing more than a sister to him; a
stunningly beautiful sister, but a sister nonetheless.

His fingers reached for the pendant
under his robes, and he stroked it gently, his thoughts drifting
back to the voyage ahead. The darkening sky faded to black, and the
stars and satellites began their nightly dance as the faint, cloudy
mass of the Good Hope Nebula rose with the crescent moon before
them. The arc of the galaxy shone down softly, tracing a path
through the heavens like a bridge to far away worlds. Down below,
the craggy peaks stood like sentinels, watching over the lonely
desert land that Jalil knew so well. But he knew it wasn’t the land
that held his destiny—it was the stars above.

Part II

Chapter 4

Jalil cracked open his eyes, head
swimming as he woke from the half-sleep of the past several hours.
The caravaneer continued to jolt him from side to side as it raced
across the landscape, the roar of the engine filling his newly
awakened ears. Yawning, he glanced out at the rust-red desert
around them. Although nearly two weeks had passed since they’d set
out from the Najmi camp, the landscape wasn’t much different than
when they’d started.

Without warning, a high-pitched scream
split the air like the cry of some unholy beast. Mira cried out
next to him and covered her ears, while Jalil grabbed his father’s
rifle and climbed onto his seat. Wrapping his arm around the
caravaneer’s frame for support, he sighted the rifle and scanned
the barren landscape behind them for a target.

He saw it just as it passed over the
horizon—a tiny black dot, high in the clear blue sky. It moved with
the speed of a shooting star, disappearing from sight only seconds
later.

“
Ha!” laughed Hamza from
the forward seat. “Frightened a bit easily, are we?” He glanced up
at Jalil over his shoulder, his thick black beard revealing a
portly smile.

“
Watch your driving,”
Jalil muttered as he slipped back down into his seat, keeping his
rifle on his lap. To his right, Mira turned and looked at him, eyes
wide beneath her dusty veil. The caravaneer was more of an escort
vehicle than a long range carrier, with the back seats slightly
elevated and empty sockets for a pair of miniguns set on a crossbar
running in front of them. Because of its smaller size, they sat
close enough that their knees touched.

“
I suppose you’re
wondering what that was,” said Hamza. The driver’s seat rode
practically on the ground, so that Jalil had a clear view of the
dirty checkered headscarf wrapped around Hamza’s balding
head.

“
Yes. What was that
thing?”

“
A carrier bird. Space
taxi. The devil’s caravaneer. The people of Babylon use those
things to fly themselves up to the heavens; only Allah knows what
they do there.”

Jalil turned and looked to the sky
behind them, nervously fingering the pendant around his neck as he
did so. Next to him, Mira shifted uncomfortably.

“
You called them the
people of Babylon. Why?”

Hamza coughed and spat. “A long time
ago, in the days of Earth, the people of Bab-el thought to rival
Allah and built a tower to reach the heavens. Allah became angry
and smote them for their wickedness, scattering them to the four
corners of the planet. In our day, man does the opposite. He thinks
to dig a cave deep enough to hide him from his Creator. That, my
friends, is our Babylon. In only a few moments, you will see it
with your own eyes.”

Mira frowned, her face creased with
concern as she scanned the landscape ahead of them. “I’m sure it’s
nothing to worry about,” said Jalil, low enough that Hamza couldn’t
hear. She nodded, but her eyes were still filled with
worry.

A change in the rhythm of their ride
marked a shift onto new terrain. The ground in front of them now
sloped upward at a surprisingly sharp angle, with nothing but open
sky above them. Hamza slowed as they approached the edge of the
ridge and rode parallel to it.

“
Oh my,” said Mira, the
first to see what lay on the other side. She leaned forward over
the crossbar to get a better view.

Hamza stopped the caravaneer at the
edge of the cliff. “Behold the caves of Babylon.”

Jalil’s eyes widened as he took in the
sight. Only a few dozen miles beyond their position rose the
strangest mountain he’d ever seen. It was as smooth as glass and
stretched from one end of the horizon to the other, rising at a
shallow angle so that the topmost part was almost out of sight.
Under the hot sun, the air above it shimmered and rippled, causing
mirages to dance like invisible flames.

“
What is that?” asked
Jalil. “Is it natural?”

Hamza laughed again—a dry, nasal sound
that resembled a cough more than anything else. “That, my friends,
is Aliet Dome: an entire world in a bottle.”

“
A world?”

“
That’s right; a world as
unlike the desert as any you’ll ever see. To get to the Temple of a
Thousand Suns, you must pass nearly five thousand miles through
domes such as these, one world in a bottle after
another.”

“
What’s inside?” Mira
asked.

Hamza’s eyes narrowed as he glanced at
her over his shoulder, making her shudder.

“
Babylon.”

Jalil frowned. “What do you
mean?”

“
Heh,” Hamza chuckled,
throwing the engine back in gear. “You’ll see soon enough, my
friends. You’ll see.”

* * * * *

As they rode down the ridge, skirting
the edge of the cliff, Mira couldn’t take her eyes off of the
strange glass mountain. Even after they’d turned out again toward
the plain, the shimmering air above the top was still visible,
reminding her of the world in a bottle just over the
horizon.

The next hour of the drive passed in
silence, but it was a different kind of silence—awake and
anticipatory. Mira could feel it, as surely as she knew that Jalil
could feel it. She stole quick glances at him from time to time,
but he always faced forward, peering at the route ahead.

I wonder what he’s
thinking about.

As the late afternoon sun drifted low
in the sky, the path turned right toward the ridge and the coming
night. Off in the distance, lines of giant windmills shone brightly
in the deepening yellow light, while clusters of white stone
buildings spilled out across the plain like puddles of milk. As
they drew closer to the city, Mira saw that the buildings were much
larger than the adobe huts back at the camp. Some towered as many
as three and four stories high, with thick metal beams and rebar
jutting out from unfinished roofs. Large crowds and strange-looking
vehicles traversed the shadow-filled lanes, while half a dozen
kites hung in the deepening sky as if suspended there.

Hamza slowed and pulled the caravaneer
up to a garage on the edge of the town, next to a field of
windmills at least five times as tall as the one back home. Jalil
stared in awe until they came to a stop in front of the long white
building.

“
This is as far as I go,”
said Hamza. “The town center is about two miles down that
road.”

“
Right,” said Jalil,
jumping off to stretch his legs. Mira waited for him to come around
and help her down, but when he went to unpack their bags instead,
she quietly climbed to the ground by herself.

“
What is this place?” she
asked in a timid voice.

“
New Amman,” said Hamza,
leaning forward with one hand draped over the steering wheel. “The
largest settlement this side of Aliet Dome, and the only spaceport
within five hundred miles. Lots of traders come through here on
their way to the domes—some tribesmen too, from what I
hear.”

“
That’s right,” Jalil
called out from the back. “Quite a few Najmi tribesmen have settled
here over the years, Cousin Sarah among them.”

“
Are you all set,
then?”

Jalil came around with both their bags
in his arms and Sathi’s rifle strapped across his back. He dropped
the bags and stepped up to the driver’s seat.

“
All set, brother. Many
thanks for the ride.”

“
Of course,” said Hamza,
getting out to give him a parting embrace. “May the peace of Earth
be upon you.”

“
And upon you be the peace
of Earth as well.”

With that last goodbye, Hamza climbed
back into the caravaneer and drove it into one of the waiting bays.
The corrugated steel door slid shut after him, leaving Jalil and
Mira standing alone in the empty lot.

“
Well,” he said, “we’d
better go.”

“
Right.”

She bent down to pick up her bag, but
Jalil took it first. “Here, let me get that for you.”

Together, they walked out the gate and
down the dusty road. The windmills spun lazily behind them, and
Mira loosened her headscarf a little to take advantage of the
refreshing breeze. Although the town was bustling in the cool of
the coming evening, they were still a good half-mile out, and
traffic along the road was light.

“
I thought Cousin Sarah
was the only Najmi living here,” she said once they were out of
earshot of the garage.

“
She is,” said Jalil, “but
we don’t want the Jabaliyn knowing that, do we?”

She nodded in understanding. They
walked in silence a little longer.