Desert World Rebirth (25 page)

Shan paused, not sure how to answer with their potential audience listening in. “I’m not sure.”

“What?” Temar squinted at Shan. “What happened?”

“We just got to know each other.”

“Uh-huh.”

Shan squirmed, truly uncomfortable now.

“Is she nice?”

“Yeah. She has a degree in sociology, even though she lost her entire family in the war. I’m pretty sure she was in the service before she started doing this protocol thing. They have wine. It’s a little like drinking the world’s weakest pipe juice flavored with grapes and wood.”

Temar pushed the sheet off, swung his legs off the bed, and got up. “Okay, that sounds disgusting.”

“It was actually kind of good. Better than pipe juice. Were you and Rula okay?”

“Yeah, we were fine.” Temar moved to Shan’s side, and Shan flinched back from his touch. If he let Temar touch him, that was going to lead to something, and Shan couldn’t have anything happen. Temar let his hands drop to his side. “Shan, are you sure you’re okay?”

There were a lot of things wrong with him, but Shan was almost sure Temar meant physically. “Do you know how I was after I nearly died on the desert?”

“Are you that sick?”

“No, no, I’m not. I’m sort of in that fuzzy state where things are mostly fitting together in reality but not quite.”

Temar took a step backward. “So, no hallucinations?”

“Not even one. I am, however, feeling a little uneasy.”

“Like you might throw up?”

“No. It’s weird. I don’t have any of the side effects of pipe juice. I don’t feel like passing out or throwing up, but I am a little fuzzy around the edges.” Turning around, Shan headed for his room. “I’m really glad that we don’t have wine on Livre, or we would have a lot more drunks.”

“That’s one thing we won’t ask for, then.” Temar followed him, pulling his sleep pants up.

“They’ll like that.”

“Who?”

Shan headed into his room and dropped onto the bed without taking any of his clothes off. They had more clothes. “The AFP,” Shan answered. “They’re very religious.”

“You should like that,” Temar said in a tone that made Shan lift his head and look at Temar. “What does that have to do with wine?”

Shan let his head fall back to the bed. “Drunkenness. Drunkenness is not religious. They wouldn’t appreciate it if we traded away our glass and raw materials for too much wine.”

“If that’s the case, you must have made a great impression on them. Seriously, Shan, what is going on?”

“I think the wine is more like pipe juice than I thought.”

“Obviously.” Temar came and sat on the side of the bed, and Shan looked at him, wanting him but really not wanting him enough to get them both killed by bigots.

“I don’t think I’ll be drinking anymore.”

“I think that’d be good,” Temar agreed.

“I don’t want to tell them the truth.” Shan closed his eyes, and immediately sleep started pulling at him.

“Oh, what truth are we avoiding?”

Shan grunted. He didn’t want to talk about this. He wanted to sleep. “We have to avoid it.”

“Avoid what?”

“Ask Natalie,” Shan muttered.

“Natalie?” Temar’s voice went up, and Shan opened one eye to look at him. “Exactly what am I asking Natalie about?” Temar asked.

“Um….” Shan’s mind whited-out as he tried to figure out what he could say without putting them all at risk. Natalie’s obscure references to bloodshed had him a little unsure about just how crazy these people were. Shan knew from church history that religious violence was the worst.

When Shan couldn’t come up with an explanation, Temar stood up and patted him on the leg. “Get some sleep, Shan. We can talk about it tomorrow, okay?”

That wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay. However, Shan blinked and Temar was gone, leaving Shan alone with his tangled thoughts. “Well, shit,” he muttered as he closed his eyes. That hadn’t gone well.

Chapter 22

ONE awkward morning with curious looks from Temar and one very awkward day with Ambassador Melton and Shan’s headache had grown to epic proportions. Melton had tried to link any sales to Livre joining the AFP, and he didn’t seem to understand why Shan might have doubts about that. Worse, he kept giving Natalie little looks, clearly encouraging her to try and convince him to go along with the program. The more Natalie talked, the more Shan started to wonder if she hadn’t manipulated him so he would trust her judgment.

Every time she urged him to consider the advantages of being a member planet, Shan could feel the sandrat eating his brain just behind his right eye. It didn’t help that Temar kept watching, his chin resting on his hand as he kept looking around with this wide-eyed confusion that made Shan feel two inches high.

He ate the food they brought during one break without tasting it, turning down the wine that appeared.

“I am not comfortable committing my planet to an alliance,” Shan said for about the hundredth time. He was starting to think Naite would have been a better ambassador. He would have ended the interminable debates with one well-placed fist, and then they could have all moved on.

“The border planets need to present a strong front. I know your people missed the war, but I understand that Officer Aral explained the horror of it to you last night.” Melton looked toward Natalie for confirmation.

“It was a horrible time,” Natalie agreed.

“I understand that.” Shan looked over to Temar for some sort of support.

“I think Ambassador Polli believes that we simply don’t know anyone well enough to make permanent friendships,” Temar said softly. Ambassador Melton gave him only a quick glance before turning back to Shan.

“We have the military strength to protect you from the Inner Alliance. They have control of Minga, right on your border, and they’d do a lot to get control of these sorts of resources. Their rules, their taxes, their intrusive beliefs are impossible to live under, and that’s what you’re risking.”

Shan took a deep breath. “Ambassador,” he said, “the people of Livre aren’t likely to support any alliance made quickly, and I can tell you this about my people… they don’t put up with anyone telling them what to do. If, as you suggest, the Planetary Alliance came to Livre and tried to tax the people, they’d find that no one on the planet owned more than one shirt and glass would vanish under the sands. We can be a rather disagreeable people when we’re pushed.”

Shan imagined someone from either alliance trying to tell Lilian what to do. Considering that the woman’s sons couldn’t handle her and her two daughters had both moved off the farm, telling people that they loved their mother but they would murder her in cold blood if they had to live with her any longer, it wouldn’t end well. And Naite wouldn’t even bother being polite while he suggested both sides shove their rules right up their backsides, only he’d use much more colorful language.

Ambassador Melton laughed. “I think I like your people. That is why we should be allies.”

“Ambassador Melton,” Natalie said in that ingratiating voice that Shan was starting to mistrust, “perhaps we need to move slowly. We could have a presence on the planet. Perhaps I could act as a local liaison and perhaps Livre could appoint a permanent ambassador to the AFP.”

Shan stared at the woman. Right now, all he wanted was to get off the ship without having to ever talk to these people again.

“If we established a trading office in Landing, we could start building the sort of relationship that would help Livre to come into the alliance.” Natalie turned and smiled at Shan before reaching over to brush her fingers over his arm. Shan blinked. Either she was seriously flirting with him or she was trying to buy a ticket out of the AFP, and at this point, Shan didn’t trust himself to know which was more likely. Looking over at Temar, he could see Temar watching Natalie’s hand with a small frown, and Shan yanked his arm away.

“I understand the need to move slow, but this is a major investment of water and resources. Ambassador Polli, you can see why we would want a long-term relationship in return for this kind of investment.”

“At this point, I’m not sure it’s fair to call this an investment as much as a trade. We have merchandise. We’ll trade for water, technology, and animals.” Shan tried to keep his face neutral, but it wasn’t easy with Natalie rolling her chair closer and Temar on the other side of the table watching with an intensity that suddenly looked more like Lilian Freeland than Shan wanted to think about. It was probably because they had the same fair skin and blue eyes, but Shan was starting to get that same uneasy feeling as when Lilian was unhappy with him.

Melton leaned back. “We can certainly deal with this as if it was a one-time trade, but that means you’re asking us to divert an ice-mining ship and a drop system for water when this might be a one-time deal. That’s an expensive proposition.”

Shan frowned. “Why would this be one time?”

Melton’s mouth hung open several seconds before he spoke. “I keep trying to offer you a long-term arrangement, and you continually turn it down.”

Shan shook his head. “No, you’re offering to have us in your alliance, which would limit us to working with you.”

“Would you rather work with the Inner Alliance?” he demanded, puffing up like George Young.

Shan didn’t have an answer, and he had the feeling he’d badly misspoken. “No, I’m sure we wouldn’t,” Shan said in his most soothing voice. The longer he was talking to these people, the more he realized that he liked machines much better than people.

“Ambassador Melton,” Temar said softly, “our people have a saying. They say that the truth is finer than sand.”

Melton frowned, looking from Shan to Temar in confusion as Temar seemed to gather his thoughts.

“If someone’s story doesn’t make sense, we’ll say that it doesn’t even hold stones, much less sand, and of course if truth is finer than sand, it runs through a much finer mesh. We aren’t saying we want to trade with someone else or even that we don’t want an alliance with you.”

Shan figured Temar could say that honestly, since he didn’t have all the information, but Shan didn’t interrupt as Temar seemed to talk their way out of the mess Shan had made. Melton was leaning back in his chair, his fingers steepled in front of him as he concentrated on Temar.

“We are suggesting,” Temar continued, “that we carry this bag for a while and see if it holds the truth. We’re a cautious people, and if we have to pay a little extra because of our caution, you can understand that, yes?”

Melton still looked concerned, but it was Natalie who spoke up.

“Coming from a world where local predators attack from under the sand without warning and where humans can be prey, this sort of caution is predictable. I like your saying, Ambassador Gazer. Truth is finer than sand.” She smiled at Temar, and the sandrat gnawing on Shan’s brain chewed a little harder.

“Ambassador Polli?” Melton asked.

Shan nodded. “Temar is right. I never meant to offend you, but my people are much too stubborn to accept any alliance quickly or easily. As Ambassador Gazer points out, they’ll want proof that the mesh is woven tightly enough to hold both sand and truth.”

Melton frowned as he glanced back down at the datapad with their latest numbers.

The current trade represented more wealth than Shan had seen in his life. The water wouldn’t be enough to finish terraforming the planet, but it was enough to make the current farms run for another seventy or eighty years. And this was one deal. Shan tried hard to not show any emotion. After all, he’d listened to confession while people talked about adultery and fighting and cursing, and he’d gotten pretty good at keeping a straight face through it. He’d even gotten to the point where he could meet people on the street and not twitch as he remembered what they’d told him during their previous confession.

“The deal includes the optic glass samples?” he asked.

Shan looked over at Temar to see if he had any opinion on whether to try and push for more. He gazed back at Shan, his eyes flicking to Natalie, and Shan quickly looked away. “Those are samples. If you want to buy them, another thirty-three thousand gallons per sample would work.”

“Deal,” Melton said, far too quickly. The people of Livre would consider it a good trade, even if Melton would have paid a lot more, and from his tone, it seemed like he would. “We can stay here until the water ships have confirmed their first delivery, if you’d like, Ambassador Polli.”

Shan thought he would pretty much rather saw off his own leg that stay with these people longer than necessary, but he pasted on a smile. “We should start this with trust and assume the mesh will hold the truth. You can distribute our goods, and we are happy to return to Livre, announce the deal, and wait for the deliveries.”

Melton smiled so wide his whole face seemed to stretch in new directions. “We are going to be allies. Those of us out here on the border know the value of a handshake and a word. And I’m offering you mine. You’ll get the trade goods.” Standing up, he offered his hand, and Shan rose, shaking it solemnly. “Ambassador Gazer,” he said, offering his hand to Temar. Temar shook it, but that emotionless mask allowed only for a small, insincere smile. Shan had to talk to him, explain a few things before the trust between them eroded too much.