Desert World Rebirth (28 page)

When Shan had mentioned marriage, shock had robbed Temar of the ability to really consider it. Growing up, Temar had always seen himself as the loner. He’d had a few sexual experiments and a couple of lovers, but they’d never lasted, and Temar hadn’t wanted them to last. They’d been a distraction from his father’s drinking or from Cyla’s increasingly sharp temper. They’d been a way to spend an hour not thinking about the farmland ruined with pipe traps or the apprenticeship that Temar would never be able to afford. While he’d liked them, he hadn’t ever yearned for them—he yearned to get away from his life.

However, watching Shan walk ahead with his hand on Natalie’s back, Temar could feel the hot need to be with his lover. He missed Shan. The sex was tender and slow. Temar appreciated that, but it wasn’t simply the sex. He missed the way Shan would let his hand rest on Temar’s knee as they sat next to each other or the way Shan would walk with his hand on Temar’s back. He missed leaning into Shan’s body and feeling those strong arms wrap around his stomach. He wanted to wake up with Shan’s warmth pressed up against his back, the soft snoring marking time in lazy seconds. He could see himself waking up to that every morning for the rest of his life. These people wouldn’t appreciate that, though. Temar really had difficulty understanding that hatred, but the longer they were on the ship, the more he realized he didn’t understand much at all when it came to the Alliance of Free Planets.

“You look like you’re thinking too hard,” Rula teased in a near whisper as she fell in place next to him.

Temar blinked at her. “Do I?”

“Yes. I thought negotiations went well, but that is a worried expression.”

Considering that they would have given twice as many goods for half the water, Temar had to agree that both sides had come out winners. “They did go well.”

“So why do you look so worried?”

“Why are we going back to meet with Ambassador Melton?”

Rula gave a little puff of laughter. “Do you really think I would know the answer to that? I’m a little low on the totem pole to get that kind of information.”

“Natalie didn’t tell you?”

Rula gave him an odd look. “Protocol Officer Aral only advises me on her schedule when it affects my ability to provide assistance. She doesn’t brief me on the contents of any meetings.”

Temar nodded, accepting that he’d just crossed a fairly large line. If the women were together, they couldn’t be seen acting like a couple, not in this government. He focused on following Natalie and Shan without saying anything else stupid. They passed a long window that wasn’t more than six inches high but that ran for seven or eight feet along the length of the hall and gave them a view out into the blackness, blue and yellow glimmers from distant suns the only indication of life outside the ship. At the very edge of the field of vision, Temar could see the square, gray end of one of the
Brazica
’s other “arms” poking out into space.

The ship was a cylindrical center hub crossed by four large arms that jutted out at stark angles, and as near as Temar could tell, they’d spent most of their visit in one arm, with their most recent visit to the mechanical room being their first trip to the central hub. Shan had explained that a good third of the ship would be the giant jump engines, but no one had offered to take them any farther than that. On Livre, landowners would happily show anyone their territory. A visitor from Blue Hope could expect to have a full tour of every row, every pipe, every building, and every plant on his host’s land.

Temar wondered if these people had changed that much in a century or if the people of Livre had. He worried that, in the end, it might not matter. The entire situation made Temar feel vaguely on guard and disquieted. Maybe the best solution would be to trade and otherwise avoid each other whenever possible.

By the time they got back to the negotiating suite, a series of nested offices that opened up one into another, Temar could feel a crawling sensation up his spine.

“Ambassador Polli, you should go in,” Natalie said, giving Shan a flirty smile.

“You’re not coming?” Shan frowned.

“The ambassador requested that I not attend. I am hoping that means he is planning to discuss the possibility that I might transfer to Livre.” Natalie opened the door for Shan and gestured.

“I hope so,” Shan said, and for one moment, Temar could see the naked honesty in that. Shan wanted to help her so much that his eagerness shone through all the worry. Natalie graced him with a brilliant smile, and then Shan headed into the meeting room.

Temar tried to follow, but Natalie closed the door. “Ambassador Melton wants to have a private discussion with Shan,” she offered apologetically.

Temar jerked back in alarm. “Why?”

Natalie exchanged a look with Rula, but both women seemed more confused than hostile or aggressive. “He feels that some information is sensitive enough to present to a senior diplomat first,” Natalie said carefully. “He certainly meant no offense to you, Ambassador Gazer.”

“Senior?” Temar asked. He certainly knew the word, but generally it referred to someone more trained, and neither he nor Shan had enough training at diplomacy to be senior. They were one step up from utterly clueless. “You mean as in older, or as in more influential, or more trained?”

“I think all three,” Natalie said with a sort of kind smile that she probably meant to soften the blow.

“So, he’s assuming I’m not as important as Shan without even asking?” Temar crossed his arms as aggravation made his palms itch with sweat. He didn’t like being pushed aside, and he didn’t like that Shan hadn’t come back out looking for him.

“Perhaps he spoke to Ambassador Polli.” Natalie traded more worried looks with Rula.

“No, I know that’s not true. Shan would never say I was less important.” Temar figured that, given their respective histories and Shan’s unfounded guilt after failing to convince the council to denounce slavery, Shan would cut off his own arm before saying anything of the sort. However Natalie looked more confused.

“He wouldn’t?”

“No, he definitely wouldn’t.”

Natalie frowned. “Ambassador Gazer, I certainly don’t mean to offend, but I really need to clarify this point. Is Ambassador Polli the senior official?”

Now he was aggravated. “Only if by senior you mean older.”

“Oh dear.” Natalie visibly flinched before reaching out for the door to the inner office. “I do apologize. I certainly understand the importance of rank, and I should not have assumed that age defined the ranking structure.” She pulled on the door, but it didn’t open. With a quick and awkward smile in Temar’s general direction, she knocked on the door. “Ambassador Melton, we have a miscommunication that needs immediate attention,” she called out. Silence answered her. She and Rula traded glances, and Rula reached up to touch her ear. Natalie knocked again, “Ambassador Melton?”

“Officer Aral,” Rula said as she moved in fast, pulling Natalie away from the door and stepping in front. She beat on the door, the sound echoing around the room, pounding at Temar’s head as something that felt a lot like panic wormed its way up his throat. “Ambassador Melton, this is Security Officer Lish. Open the door, or I will initiate an emergency override.”

Still, silence answered.

“Get back. Move,” Rula ordered, and before Temar could get sound out of his open mouth, her hands were on him, shoving him back toward the door to the outer office. “Move.”

Natalie already had the door open, and Rula hurled him toward the open door before Temar could object. He stopped in the outer office, whirling around to confront someone, but Natalie had a handheld computer out, and Rula was on the interface set into the wall.

“Captain, we have a nonresponsive office. Red-seven-seven-four, requesting security override and open.”

“Security, who is compromised?” a male voice on the other end demanded with the sort of terse tone that never boded well.

“Ambassadors Melton and Polli. Assistant Lieutenant Chardon. Assistant Technicians Pentalia, Leon, and Kossel. Security Officer Daedali.” Finally Temar had names to put with the nameless men and women who seemed to hover around Ambassador Melton. That didn’t reassure him, especially not with people throwing around words like “compromised.”

The voice came back after no more than a half-second. “Officer Lish, be advised that security override has failed. We have mechanical interference.”

“Fuck on a pogo stick,” Rula snarled, and then the world upended itself. Temar flew backward and slammed into the wall so hard his legs couldn’t hold his weight and he crumpled to the floor, which was his first sign that something was horrendously wrong.

Chapter 25

“SHAN? Shan!” Temar struggled to his feet, and then the whole world rocked again, the floor heaving up and then dropping so fast that Temar’s feet lost contact with the metal floor.

“Ambassador, stay down.” Rula dove toward him, grabbing Temar’s arm and yanking him down to the cold floor as the metal shuddered violently.

Temar got an arm under himself and tried to push up. “Shan’s in there!”

“Rescue teams will be coming out. We have to clear the area.”

Temar silently struggled, but Rula was too strong. Her hands wrapped around his arms, and he flashed on the feel of Ben’s hands holding him, trapping him. Panic—panic for Shan, panic for himself—merged until his chest ached with the force of his beating heart. Another explosion made the world jerk, and then gravity failed. Twisting his body around, Temar tried to flail, but Rula pulled him closer, centering his world as papers and datapads floated up, all of them drifting toward one wall.

“We have to get Shan,” Temar begged.

“We have to stay out of the way so we don’t distract the rescue crew. They need to focus on Shan, and that means we can’t be out there to get in their way,” Rula told him, but her eyes focused on Natalie. Unlike Temar, whose first reactions included panicking and flailing, she had positioned herself under the table, her back against one leg, while she braced her boot against the nearest leg.

“You okay?” Rula asked.

Natalie looked over and gave a smile. “Not half as bad as that time in the Inster Docks.”

Rula snorted. “If it was, I’d be a good deal more worried.”

Temar yanked one arm free and twisted so he could glare at Rula. “We have to get to Shan.”

“Temar, that’s a missile-resistant metal door embedded in structural beams,” Natalie said. “I understand that you want to get to him, but if that door doesn’t come open on its own, we don’t have any way to get through it.”

“And if it does come open, we need to be clear of this area,” Rula added.

Temar’s stomach lurched. He wouldn’t leave Shan. “He could be hurt. We have to—” He had a whole host of arguments, but Rula cut him off.

“Temar, the fire systems haven’t activated, and we still have pressure. Whatever is going on, the ship is in one piece. It will be okay,” Rula promised him, but her words didn’t even scratch the panic that crawled through his belly.

“No.” Temar wasn’t even sure what he was saying no to. Reality, maybe. He wanted to deny that any of this was happening, but Rula manhandled him toward the exit. No matter how Temar threw his elbows and twisted, she kept him moving, and the lack of gravity meant that Temar couldn’t do much except flail. He hit the door to the corridor face-first, and he wanted to push off, to fly toward Shan and beat on the door and beg until someone opened it, but Rula braced her body behind his and grabbed an embedded handhold, pinning him to the door. Natalie seemingly flew out from under the table, her body stretched out toward the controls.

“We’ll get him back, Ambassador,” she promised, hitting the button to trigger the door so that Temar helplessly slipped out into the hall.

Men in white uniforms were there, black weapons larger than a cow’s thighbone held at the ready. Temar arched his back and tried to retreat from the armed force, but without gravity, he floated helplessly right into their midst. One reached out and caught him, a strong arm jerking Temar close and then wrapping around his neck, so that Temar was effectively helpless.

“He’s on our side,” Natalie said as she pulled herself around the edge of the door, carefully holding onto the handles set into the wall. Temar had thought the intermittent curves of metal set into the wall were decorative. They weren’t. Temar didn’t want to think what it implied that they built handholds into their corridors.

“Hostages?” one of the white-uniformed men asked.

“Potentially,” Natalie agreed.

The man who’d grabbed Temar loosened his hold and gave Temar a small nudge toward the wall, and Temar drifted that way without control. By grabbing one of the handles, he stopped his flight, watching as the men marched forward, their boots artificially heavy against the metal flooring, the lack of gravity not seeming to apply to them.

“Why can they move around?” Temar demanded of Natalie as she moved closer.

“Magnetic boots. They’re a quick-response team, some of our best.”

“Quick response.” Temar couldn’t catch his breath as reality slammed him in the face. Quick response. That meant that they often needed to respond quickly. They’d said the war was over, that it was safe to rejoin the universe. A soft touch distracted him, and Temar jerked his hand away from Natalie’s worthless attempt to offer comfort.