Desert World Rebirth (8 page)

“Crap,” Shan muttered before he crammed his sandwich in his mouth and dropped to the floor, pulling the lower panel off the computer. He pressed against Temar’s legs, and Temar slid out of the chair to give him more room.

“What is it?” Temar asked. The whine rose and fell, the sound cutting through his head and making his ever-present headache throb in time with the noise.

“I don’t know.” Shan’s voice was muffled. “Get my gray tool kit, the small one by the door to my bedroom,” he called. Temar turned and ran from the room, grabbed up the bag, and came back. Shan knelt on the floor, his large hands moving as though tracing some wire, but the machine was such a mass of wires and glass circuits and control boards that Temar couldn’t understand any of it. He just slid the bag in next to Shan and bit his lip.

Shan grabbed several tools and went to work. Three indicator lights went to red and then black, and Temar opened his mouth to warn Shan, but he didn’t want to break the intense concentration he could sense, so he waited.

“You little sandrat. That’s where you are,” Shan muttered, and then the whine vanished, replaced with a persistent beeping noise that was less painful, even if it was just as annoying. “That’s really not much better.” Shan pushed himself up to his knees and peered at the panel. Inching closer, Temar watched the pattern of flashing blue, green, and violet lights. Violet was new.

“Is it broken?”

Shan gave an exaggerated shrug. “I don’t think so.”

“So it’s supposed to flash like that?”

“Clearly under some circumstances, it is. I’ll look it up.” Getting up, Shan headed for the other computer and pulled up what looked like more of the repair and use manuals.

“It’s the left-hand indicators blinking violet,” Temar offered. Shan made a small grunting noise as he read through the material, and Temar watched Shan’s eyebrows come down as he frowned at the text. It was funny—everything had seemed to come easy for Ben. He’d laughed easily, talked to people easily, stolen water easily, and raped Temar easily. But Shan had this intensity, like he had to really concentrate on whatever he was doing. He was that way when he tried to talk to Temar about something important, and he seemed to throw everything into concentrating on his screen now. Temar studied the curve of Shan’s shoulder, the finger that ran down the screen as though trying to keep track of his place in the reading.

Walking over, Temar stood behind him and rested his hand on Shan’s shoulder. Shan looked up, offering a quick smile before he went back to reading the manual. “It’s definitely the communication system. Nothing else seems to connect to that workstation,” Shan said, his voice distant as his finger ran down the screen before he scrolled it down and started his finger at the top of the screen again.

“Okay, that alarm either means we have a new incoming stream or....”

“Or?”

“Or the system is going to blow up,” Shan said, but from his tone, he was joking.

“I’ll make sure to stand behind you, then,” Temar teased right back. “So, who’s sending us a new set of complaints?”

“Who knows?” Shan said. “These people do seem very capable of complaining.”

“I have to admit that I’m a little surprised at how talented they are at that.”

“Same here. I always thought of the inner planets as these powerful people with incredible technology that allowed them to control entire planets.”

“I think they are all that,” Temar said. “They’re just also petty and vindictive and really obsessed with making threats.” Temar stepped back to allow Shan to change seats.

“Yeah, I think I’m glad that they’re up there and we’re down here.” Shan hesitated for a second, his hands pausing over the control board, and Temar knew exactly what he was thinking. If the inner planets had come back earlier, Ben might not have hurt Temar.

“Me too,” Temar said as he stepped close enough to put his hand back on Shan’s shoulder. What had happened to him wasn’t on the same level as interplanetary war. Sometimes he had to remind himself of that, but it wasn’t. He was here and safe, and Ben was nothing more than bone fragments in a sandrat nest. “So, what do we have?”

Shan touched a number of controls, sorting through menus that came up on the computer screen until a face appeared. A few of the messages were actual vid recordings, but most had been text. Temar figured the texts were easier to transmit, because the man in the picture had the edges of his face pixilating in and out of existence.

“That’s new,” Temar said as he looked at the fancy uniform. Most of the messages that had come from vid had been from some woman or man in a plain uniform sitting in the middle of a room crowded with electronics. This man had gray hair, but he still had the sort of stiff posture and wide shoulders that reminded Temar of vids of soldiers.

“Greetings from the Alliance of Free Planets. I’m Commander Peter Stovall. I have to say, gentlemen, you have surprised us all. Welcome back, Libre.”

Temar closed his mouth, his teeth clicking together. Standing behind Shan, he couldn’t see the expression on Shan’s face, but he had to be shocked. Actually, shock didn’t even describe the feeling that ran through Temar right now, bleeding into every cell of his body. Commander Stovall was a real man… this was someone from another planet staring at them. This was too inconceivable for his brain to even comprehend.

“Um, greetings,” Shan said, his voice weak. “We’ve had some technical issues down here.” It was several seconds before Commander Stovall answered, but that was still much faster than Temar expected. In school, they’d learned that subspace wasn’t really space or beneath anything, but rather one of many contiguous dimensions with rules of physics that allowed signals to travel faster than light, but the relays and stations required for subspace communications meant that it took minutes or even hours for signals to get from point A to point B. Temar studied Shan to see if he was surprised. After all, Shan understood the technical end of space far better than Temar… or almost anyone else on Livre at this point.

“That’s some technical issue. You’ve been missing in action for a quarter of a century. I don’t mind telling you that we thought the planet had died.”

“We… uh… the mechanic in charge of the unit recently… passed away.” Shan cleared his throat. “So we recently had someone new look at it.”

After the few seconds it took for Shan’s words to cross space and reach him, Commander Stovall smiled. “Well, we’re glad to have you back. We had a mission planned for Libre in a few years, but we honestly didn’t expect to find survivors.”

“Livre,” Shan corrected the man.

“Excuse me? I didn’t read that.” Commander Stovall leaned forward and did something to his controls.

“Livre, with a V. The planet is Livre,” Shan said.

Commander Stovall leaned back. “Copy that,” he agreed. “The prewar records have some holes in them. Old-world agents blew a couple of our document storages, so we’ll get that updated. Livre it is. And we are glad to see you. The old saying goes that survivors survive, and colony people have a habit of surviving in unlikely situations. We’re glad to see you surviving.”

“We are.” Shan answered, but he didn’t sound like himself. His voice was strained, and when he glanced over his shoulder at Temar, his eyes were wide with shock.

For several seconds, silence reigned.

Commander Stovall tilted his head to the side, as though Shan was doing something particularly confusing, and Temar could feel the acid rise up his throat. “We don’t have any diplomats on hand for negotiations,” Commander Stovall said, his voice softer than before, “but I assume you’ve received our invitations to join the AFP.”

“AFP,” Shan echoed. Temar wished he could contribute something, to share the weight of the conversation with Shan, but he couldn’t think of one single thing to say to this man. More than that, he felt more than a little guilt that he’d asked to poke this particular hornets’ nest, and he didn’t know how to fix that mistake.

“Alliance of Free Planets,” Commander Stovall explained. “I’m sure it will take a while to get up to speed. We’ve separated from the inner planets and their over-taxation and manipulation. We have stable borders, and with the exception of some state-sponsored terrorism from the old worlds, we are safer than we ever were under the old government.”

“That’s… that’s good.” Shan cleared his throat and seemed to find his voice. “We honestly didn’t expect anyone to be sitting on the other end, waiting for a call from us.”

Commander Stovall nodded. “I can understand that. You’re decades out of date on the technology, but subspace communication has improved significantly, and we have an entire network of microstations designed to carry signals in near-real time. It helps that I’m on a station only six light-years away, practically sitting on top of you,” he offered with another bright smile. Temar didn’t know if he was a particularly happy soldier or if he was trying to ease the tension. “We’ve had a lot of other advances—medicine, travel, communication, and laser technology are all having a renaissance of a sort.”

“I imagine war would lead to that,” Shan said.

“Yes, as horrific as war is, the advances and the freedoms are often worth the price.”

Temar didn’t believe that, but Commander Stovall clearly did.

“We haven’t had a chance to even read the backlog of messages, so I’m afraid we’re truly in the dark about the war, the advances, and even the state of politics out there in the universe. We’re rather isolated,” Shan said, and Temar could hear the caution in Shan’s voice.

Commander Stovall nodded. “Understandable. Just to keep you informed, I did contact authorities at Capital, and they’re sending out a negotiating team. You will receive full diplomatic status as a sovereign power. We don’t want you to think this is business as usual, the way the old planets ran things. The negotiating team is offering to either come down to Livre or I’ve offered the station as a neutral ground for any talks.”

“The station,” Shan answered quickly, and Temar looked down at him, shocked at the answer. Temar couldn’t imagine a half-dozen people on the entire planet who would want to leave to go and talk to people who thought war and killing were the solution for disagreements. The memory of Ben flashed through Temar’s mind, and he realized that Ben would have gone. Ben would have loved a chance to return to space. However, forty-three people from Landing alone had died because they wanted to go into space, and considering that the rest of the people were still reeling over that, he doubted that anyone else would rush to leave.

“You’re welcome up here,” Commander Stovall promised. “We’ve improved shuttle service quite a bit since your ancestors took drop ships down. We have a two-stage shuttle system the soldiers call a ‘scoop and skip’ that can get you up here in no time. A pilot will land a scoop shuttle that can only reach low orbit, load, take off from the planet, and then rendezvous with a skip shuttle that will dip down into low orbit, allow the scoop to dock, and then head into space. It’s a brilliant system. It makes planetside visits much more economical.” The commander looked like someone’s uncle describing a favorite nephew.

“We don’t have water to refuel here,” Shan said cautiously.

“I have no doubt of that. You colonists have been incredibly frugal with your resources to make it this long, so the scoop will bring all its own supplies.”

“So, how long will it take for the shuttle to arrive?”

Commander Stovall leaned over so that he disappeared from the screen in a pixilated streak. He came back into the picture a minute later. “Are you still using the same primary relay site?”

“Yes,” Shan agreed.

“The shuttle can make a sand landing south of your position, but it will take a few adaptations on the shuttle itself. We estimate three days for re-engineering the shuttle with five more days for travel. So, what do you say we estimate planetfall in eight standard days?”

“Eight days. That sounds good,” Shan said, his voice weaker than ever.

With a smile, Commander Stovall gave a nod. “I am looking forward to meeting you, as is the negotiating team.”

“We look forward to seeing you.” Shan sounded like he was saying the words from rote.

Commander Stovall kept staring at them from the screen, and Temar wondered if they had an off switch. He and Shan couldn’t exactly talk with the man watching, and Temar really wanted to ask why Shan had agreed to send a delegation into space. It seemed utterly unreasonable.

“I was wondering if I could give the negotiating team the name of our primary contact,” Commander Stovall suggested.

Shan sat upright. “I apologize, Commander. I think you understand this has been a surprise. I’m Shan Polli, and this is Temar Gazer.” Shan stood up to gesture toward Temar.

“Shan Polli and Temar Gazer, I am pleased to meet you, and on behalf of the AFP, welcome back to the universe, gentlemen.” Commander Stovall bowed his head formally. “Unless you have other issues to discuss, I should sign off and handle some business on my end.”

Shan nodded. “Of course. We’re very pleased to meet you, and we will be looking for the shuttle in eight days. Good day.”

“Good day,” Commander Stovall repeated. The screen flickered and then turned gray.

Once the man from the ship had vanished, Temar realized that his knees felt too weak to hold his weight. Maybe Shan felt the same way because he dropped back down into his chair. For a long time, they both stared at each other, the silence clinging to them. For his part, Temar couldn’t quite grasp the idea that he’d talked to a man from outer space. Actually, he’d watched Shan talk to a man from outer space, but there wasn’t a lot of difference between the two concepts.

“Why go up there?” Temar finally asked.

Shan sat with his forearms resting against his knees, his whole body slumped forward. He looked up at the question. “Our ancestors hated this place,” he said.

Temar walked carefully to the next chair, aware that his knees threatened to collapse with every step, but he managed to reach his destination before dropping down into the seat. “What? They chose to move here.”

Shan shook his head. “They wanted to make money, a few hoped to earn enough to buy passage back off Livre before retiring. They hated the dryness, the desert, the sandrats, the chokeweed and the pipe traps. They thought the world was harsh and ugly.”