Desert World Rebirth (9 page)

Temar frowned and tried to imagine anyone failing to see the beauty in the shifting lines of white sand that shimmered in the midday sun or the swooping flight of a bueto. Chokeweed wasn’t particularly pretty, the gray-green leaves hiding burrs that could rip someone’s feet to shreds, but he could see beauty in pipe plants and wisp grass, with their vivid green leaves against the white sand. True, their world was dry, but the double moons over the rocky mountains and the deep desert had inspired generations of artists. Dee’eta Sun had a series of drinking vessels that mimicked the shape of barchan dunes, with drinking lips on either side of the graceful curve of glass.

“They hated the world,” Shan whispered. “They saw the sand as barren and dead. If those people come down here, that’s what they’ll see.”

Temar frowned. He didn’t like the idea of someone looking at Livre and failing to see the beauty, but that wouldn’t have led him to agree to send a delegation into space. Landing was the largest of the towns, so their council would have a good deal of influence over who went. Temar figured that Lilian Freeland would end up having to negotiate with these people, and Temar did not want to be the one to tell her she had to leave her farm and family to go up into space. The woman might be a diminutive, white-haired grandmother, but she had a tongue sharp enough to shred a man. “Why does that mean they can’t be down here?”

Shan sighed and swung his chair around. “Would you believe me if I said that I acted on instinct? I simply didn’t want some group of foreigners down here hating our world and our people.”

Temar nodded. “Okay.” He said the word slowly, still not understanding the motive.

“You don’t agree.”

That required some thought. “I don’t know,” Temar finally answered. “I don’t know them well enough to know whether I want them down here or whether I trust them enough to send Lilian Freeland up there.”

Shan made a face. “If we send Lilian up, I’ll be more concerned about them. That woman does not compromise.”

“And she seems so nice when you first meet her,” Temar agreed. The first time he and Cyla had tried to go to the council about the water theft, Lilian had listened to them so carefully, resting her chin on her hand and studying Cyla as though she was the most interesting person on the planet. And then she’d told them that they didn’t have any evidence and they should come back at season-end with something other than slanderous words. He felt as if he’d been running and put his foot into a sand trap. She’d shocked him. And then after he’d screwed up, Lilian had condemned him to slavery. Of course, she never would have allowed Ben to abuse him if she’d known about it. Hell, after she found out about the abuse, she had led the charge to compensate Temar for all his suffering… but still, she made him uncomfortable. She had so much power, and she wielded it so easily that he could feel his guts tighten when he saw her.

“Lilian seems nice until you realize you’ve just traded away your firstborn and second-born and agreed to apprentice some grandchild you didn’t know she had,” Shan agreed. “She could negotiate a sandcat out of its nest.”

“And you’re going to tell her that she has to go up and talk these people out of the promised water,” Temar pointed out. Shan cringed.

“She’s going to kill me.”

“Very possibly,” Temar agreed.

Chapter 8

SHAN guided the bike through the narrow walking gate, since the wind hadn’t shifted yet and the blowers hadn’t cleared the main gates. The bike’s rear tire slipped, sending the back fishtailing, and Temar pressed closer to him. God forgive him, but that felt good. And Shan should not be thinking that when Temar clearly needed more time to recover. Unfortunately, Shan’s cock was not quite as ethical as he might like the traitorous beast to be. He could feel Temar’s heat pressed against his back and his arms tight around Shan’s waist, and Shan’s cock started to harden.

The path straightened out, and Temar shifted back so there was an inch of space between them. “I can’t believe how fast you take those turns.”

“I’ve been riding for a long time,” Shan said over his shoulder as he geared the engine down and let the bike coast through the stone passage that led around the main gate. The engine echoed against the smooth walls until they approached the far end. Temar’s farm was closest to the gate, and as they entered the main valley, Shan could see a number of workers walking the fields and sinking water rods into the ground every six or seven feet. Naite was walking the closest furrow, and he turned as they came down the path.

From a distance, he looked friendly enough. He stopped to talk to another worker, offering a slap on the shoulder before he handed them his water rod and stepped over a line of potato plants. However, something in his body language still set Shan on edge. Unless he missed his guess, Naite was not happy.

He strode across the bare ground and waited as Shan negotiated the narrow trail that led down to the valley floor. Shan had stopped, but he hadn’t yet turned off the engine when Naite started.

“Temar, you deal with that sister of yours or I’m going to seriously consider dropping her on her head four or five times,” Naite greeted them, and from the look on his face, he wasn’t joking.

“Hello to you too,” Shan muttered, but Temar was already getting off the bike.

“What happened?” he asked.

“She tried ordering a whole farm’s worth of cotton seed. You put that much cotton in and you aren’t going to have any workers to pick it. That shit is miserable work, and facing a whole farm of it would make any worker worth his salt move to another farm.”

“Oh shit. Did she—”

“I told Young that if he even tried to fill that order that I would make it my personal mission to make sure you never paid a cent for any of it. He had no business trying to negotiate with Cyla. She doesn’t own this farm.” Naite’s hands were clenched into fists, and Shan figured that conversation had come with one or two tacit threats of a more direct variety. Naite might be a council member and one of the best workers on the planet, but his control of his temper sometimes got a little frayed.

“But she was willing to talk to him, like she did have the authority,” Temar said wearily. Shan wished he could carry some of this burden for him, but it was Temar’s farm and Temar’s sister. Shan certainly didn’t know anything about the running of a farm. Of course, from the sounds of it, neither did Cyla.

Naite poked a thick finger toward Temar. “Both of them need attitude adjustment. Mind you, it’s too late to change George Young’s greed, but if someone doesn’t set Cyla straight, she’s going to end up just as bad. And every time I talk to her, I get it thrown back at me that I’m a slave here.”

Temar flinched. Naite didn’t seem too bothered by Cyla’s word choice, but then he didn’t have the same associations with slavery that Temar did. “She didn’t,” Temar said in the sort of weary tone that suggested that he fully believed she had.

“Talk to her before I drop her in the recycler,” Naite said, and then he turned his back and strode away. A knot of workers had gathered in the potato field, but when Naite turned around, they all hurried back to their rows and started the ground probes again.

“I can’t believe she’d do this,” Temar sighed. “Oh wait, yes I can. If the plan looks good on paper, then she’s going to believe that instead of listening to Naite. I can’t believe she threw it back at him that he’s slaved to the farm—like that means anything. He’s the one who knows how to actually run a farm.” Temar ripped off his sand veil, his voice rising with every word.

Shan didn’t normally see Temar angry, but he understood better than most just how much a sibling could get under your skin.

“It’s not like we don’t have bigger problems on the horizon, but no, she has to go and do this.” Without another word, Temar started for the house, his entire body tight with anger.

Even if Temar had inherited Ben’s land to compensate him for the abuse, he hadn’t inherited Ben’s ability to work the land. Shan followed him, noticing that all the workers, including Naite, had stopped to watch them pass. More than once Temar had visited him with stories from the farm. Workers were uncomfortable around Temar. All Ben’s workers had found jobs in other valleys to avoid even looking at the man they had all failed to help. Shan could understand the guilt, even though he couldn’t forgive them for leaving Temar short of employees. Other workers avoided the place because Ben had been less than charitable toward children, and many of the families wanted to wait, to see if conditions improved, before committing to the farm. And then Cyla’s conflicts with Naite had driven off another group of workers who didn’t want to deal with the open hostility.

Temar slammed the front door open and vanished into the house. Shan didn’t come out here often, so for a moment he stood on the porch as cobweb memories clung to him. Temar had stood on this same porch, tied and bruised. The image of that night superimposed itself over reality, and Shan could feel his guts knot as he remembered. A shout brought him back to reality, and he hurried into the house.

“I don’t care what you—” Temar started to say, but Cyla cut him off. She looked so much like Temar that no one would ever miss that they were related, but where Temar was normally reserved, angry seemed a default emotion for her, and she was angry now, her beautiful face twisted in rage and frustration.

“You aren’t even here. You don’t see what goes on every day. We can make this farm successful!” She was an inch or two shorter than Temar, but she got close and poked her finger in his chest.

“Not if you drive off all the workers!”

“There aren’t so many jobs around here that they can afford to quit when we’re paying good wages.”

“Yes, they can. If you ask them to pick and process a farm full of cotton, they will.”

“It’s the most profitable of—”

This time Temar cut her off. “Because it’s the worst one to grow. No one produces a lot of cotton because it’s a miserable crop, and you’re asking people to pick a whole farm full.”

“Just for a year or two.”

“We won’t have any workers after a week or two.”

Shan stood back and watched them, not sure that he could do anything to help, so he plastered himself to a wall and waited.

“This is just like you, always assuming that something can’t be done. Well, I can do it.” She spun on her heels and started to walk away, but Temar reached out and grabbed her arm, forcing her back around. When she came around, her fists were up, and Shan took a step forward. Sibling hatred was normal, but he wouldn’t stand by and let it turn into a fistfight.

“No, you can’t.” Temar stared at her, his own anger clear in every taut muscle and the stiff line of his shoulders.

“Don’t you even—”

“It’s my farm!” Temar shouted, and Shan could see those words hit Cyla. Her mouth was open, ready to shout back, but she froze. “The council erased the slave term for both of us, but the farm is mine,” Temar said again, though this time his voice was quieter. The council had reason for that. Only Temar had been raped, so they had decided to give the land to Temar alone.

“Just because I was wrong about George Young,” Cyla said, but now her words were slow and careful. Oh, the anger was still there, but she was hiding it. When someone mentioned Ben or Temar’s abuse, Cyla’s reaction could be a little unpredictable, and Shan inched closer. He understood how guilt could spur on the darker emotions, but Cyla needed to stop before she really hurt someone with this anger and this aggression.

Temar backed away and sat on the couch. “This isn’t about you being wrong. We were both wrong about George and about Ben.”

“Then why won’t you trust my judgment in this?” Cyla’s anger starting rising again, and her cheeks turned deep pink. “Two years of cotton would—”

“Ruin the damn farm!” Temar snapped.

Cyla physically pulled back, and Temar dropped his head for a moment, looking as weary as Shan had ever seen him. He wanted to go sit next to Temar, but he instinctively knew that if Cyla thought they were ganging up on her, two against one, that would feed her anger more, so he waited.

“Cyla, I love you, but the cotton is a mistake, and we can’t afford to waste the money on seed.”

Cyla didn’t answer, but from the way she set her jaw, she didn’t agree. If Cyla and Naite ever decided to get together and have children, Shan figured he’d have to find another planet to live on. Any child of theirs would terrorize universes. It was probably a good thing that they hated each other. The worst part was that Cyla was such a small woman, with light hair and fair skin that pinked every time she got angry. A person expected a man of Naite’s size to have some rage, but tiny little Cyla seemed to have twice as much. It was frightening to watch her go off on someone.

“So,” she said slowly, “you’re taking away my allowance?” The words were nasty and sarcastic enough that Temar flinched away from them.

For long seconds, Temar was silent. As the more reasonable end of his own sibling rivalry, Shan understood how frustrating idiot brothers and sisters could be. That didn’t mean he knew how to help.