The Occasional Diamond Thief

by J. A. McLachlan

  I hear the piercing whine of a space shuttle approaching the distant landing field. The ground shakes beneath me as it settles on the landing site, the weeds around me swaying crazily. I stare at them numbly, waiting for the ground to stop trembling.

  How can anyone stand to live in a spaceship? Cooped up without the feel of the sun and the breeze on their skin, without the warmth of soil beneath their feet or the sight and the sweet, pungent smell of familiar growing things around them? Better even to be a weed, unwanted and despised.

  I reach for one of the tall stalks beside me, brushing my fingers up the sturdy, maroon stem and across the lighter, copper-colored leaves, plump with stored water, smooth and waxy to touch. They’re tough, weeds. They take what they need on this desert planet. What do they care if no one wants them?

  I lie down, stretching my arms and legs wide to crush as many weeds as I can, breathing in the fresh-sap smell that rises from the thick leaves and the similar, sharper scent of broken stems. I lie there, motionless and dry-eyed, with the sun on my face, the hot breeze in my hair, the firm earth with its cushion of vegetation underneath me.

  And inside an emptiness that all Seraffa’s warmth can’t fill. It disappears into a small vacuum inside me, leaving nothing but an ache. All I can feel is that ache: not the sun, not the wind, not the soil with its weedy softness, just the emptiness and the deep ache of it.

  Two more ships come in. One departs. The sun droops lower until the spaceport casts its shadow across me, making me shiver. I shift sideways and feel something hard pinching my hip. Half-rising, I dig down into my pocket. When I touch the soft leather of the pouch, I take several deep breaths before I can steel myself to pull it out.

  In the daylight it no longer looks so ominous. It’s just a commonplace little sack with a small, hard object inside it.

  I have to use my teeth to untie the leather cords that hold it shut. The thin cords are dry and tough in my mouth, and when I finally work them loose they still hold the shape of the knot. Reaching inside with my thumb and forefinger, I feel a jagged stone the size of a marble. I pull it out and drop it onto my palm. The sun hits it, and I gasp in disbelief. It is stunningly, frighteningly beautiful.

  The stone is clear and brilliant, like the diamond in Owegbé’s wedding band, except that this one is ten times the size of hers. It has a brilliant circle of darkness at the core, as though I am staring straight into the sun. Light shimmers across this dark center like lightning in the night sky, and shoots out through the surrounding diamond in a rainbow of colors. I stare at it, mesmerized.

  And quickly close my fingers tight around it. I look down at my closed fist for a while, before I pick up the pouch and slip the stone back inside. How did my father come by such a thing? And why didn’t he tell anyone about it?

  He was hallucinating, his sentences disjointed, when he talked to me. “It’s yours” was clear enough, but who did he think he was talking to? I shiver, remembering his intense stare, just above my head, as though he was looking at someone behind me. Just thinking about it makes me turn and look over my shoulder.

  “Sariah,” he said. A word or a name? Either way, I’ve never heard it before. And he called it… what? A heart? Someone’s heart? None of it makes sense, because he wasn’t making sense. He was dying. I close my eyes. That’s a word that doesn’t make any sense. How can I live with that word?

  The pouch slips out of my hand. I open my eyes and look down at it. What should I do with the diamond? If I show it to anyone, they’ll ask where I got it. Then Owegbé will find out I spoke to Father, that I broke my promise and spoke Malemese, and she’ll blame me for his death.

  She’s right. I did kill him. I spoke Malemese, knowing I shouldn’t, and it was too much for him to bear, just as the doctor warned me. He warned me and I did it anyway—

  I lean sideways just before the spray of vomit spews from my mouth, and then I heave and heave, unable to stop. When nothing more will come out I spit onto the ground, trying to clear the taste from my mouth with saliva. I grab a handful of weeds and wipe my mouth, then grab a fresh handful and chew on the stems until their bitter flavor drowns out the other.

  The pouch is lying on the ground, like a written confession. I scoop it up. No one knows about it or the diamond, I think with relief. And then I think: no one knows my father had it, or that he gave it to me. They’ll think I stole it.

  Would they put me in jail?

  My hand tightens around the pouch. Not if they don’t know.

  Chapter Two

  I step off the transit strip in front of the block of residences where I live. The interlocked clay bricks feel hard under my sandals after the springy feel of the weeds, but they’re warmer than the cold metal of the transport strips.

  As independent traders, our family is respectable enough to live in this section close to the inner core of the city, and Owegbé insisted on it, even though my father’s single trade ship earns barely enough to maintain a ground-level, corner apartment at the back. That’s fine with me. I like being grounded. I wouldn’t choose one of the upper level apartments with their sunroof skyscapes even if it was free, so I’m glad we’re too poor to afford one. I wish we had a door, though, or even a window, opening directly onto the narrow courtyard in the center of the block of apartments. It’s not much—a couple benches, redgrass underfoot with shrubs and a few flowers at the corners. Costs a planet to water, which is why it’s so expensive to live here, but in the middle of the clay and steel city, it’s a place I can go to breathe.

  Thinking about it makes me realize how breathless I feel now. What if they won’t let me in? What if Owegbé guesses what I did, why I ran? I’ll have to pretend I needed to be alone. That’s what Etin would have told her. I’m walking so slow you’d think I was crossing a dune, my feet sinking in sand at every step, but I can’t seem to make myself go faster. I reach the corner of our complex, and turn down the narrow alley between our building and the complex next to ours. As I approach our apartment, I hear a hum of conversation, too subdued to make out individual words.

  I turn onto the street behind our building, which our apartment faces onto, and slow up even more. Through our front window I see a crowd of people moving about inside. The sight makes me stop dead. I can’t face all those people. It’ll be hard enough to hide my guilt from my family. I have to get out of here. I look around nervously, and then think of the Traders’ Library, my other refuge when I need to be alone. I’m on the verge of running back to the transit strip when someone moves across the window and looks out, straight at me.

  I want to flee more than ever, because she’s wearing the blue and white habit of a member of the Order of Universal Benevolence. But when she looks at me, I freeze. It’s impossible to keep anything from a Select of the O.U.B. They train from childhood, heightening their six senses to a nearly inhuman level. The smallest twitch of a muscle in my cheek or shift of my eye will tell her I’m lying as clearly as a full confession. It never worried me before, but I never had anything to hide, before.

  What is she doing here, anyway? Father would never have let her into our house. But Owegbé believes in the O.U.B. I remember her taking me to worship services as a child. I shouldn’t resent my mother taking what comfort she can from her faith, but I do. It just seems like she couldn’t wait till Father died to change things.

  The Select stares back at me, making sure I know she’s seen me, then crosses behind the window back the way she came, toward the hall and the front door. She’s coming to see me!

  Running away now is out of the question. She’s probably already seen that I want to and she’ll be wondering why. It’s one thing to disappear all day to mourn alone, another to appear to be avoiding the O.U.B. Might as well just tell them outright I have something to hide.

  My left hand moves reflexively to the pocket of my pants. I jerk it away, and clasp my hands together behind my back. I’ll never get away with this. I ought to show her the diamond as soon as she comes outsi
de, and tell her where it came from. If I delay at all… But I’ve already been away all afternoon. Won’t it look suspicious that I didn’t turn it over earlier?

  Besides, if I tell her told how I really came by it, I’d have to confess to speaking Malemese to my father. The pouch was so well hidden I’d never have found it unless he told me where to look. And he did. He gave me the diamond. He didn’t give it to Owegbé, or the O.U.B. There must be something special, something secret, about it. Some reason he wanted me to have it.

  Right then and there I know I won’t give it up. Even though as long as I keep it, I’m as much a thief as—

  As my father. A thief. How else could he have come by something so precious? Why else would he hide it so carefully, for so long, would he only talk about it in a language no one else understood?

  Alright, a thief. But no one will ever call him that. No one will ever know, even if I have to be a thief, too, to keep the secret.

  There must be some way to hide something from a Select. I remember a saying: “to fool the Select, you must fool yourself.” That’s impossible—how could you deliberately fool yourself? Maybe hypnotism could do it, but there isn’t time for that.

  I’m still trying to think of something when the front door slides open and the Select steps out. Think of something else, I tell myself desperately, which just makes me even more aware of the gem in my pocket, so I picture my father in his bed, as I saw him this morning.

  Only this morning? Only so short a time ago?

  I haven’t given you much reason to love me.

  I’ve tried not to think of his words all day, and now grief hits me like a physical blow. I shudder and my legs go weak; I’m falling when the Select runs forward and grabs my arms.

  “I can’t face them,” I whisper, “I’ll cry.” And then, of course, I start to. I blink the tears back, horrified that I really will cry in front of everyone. Owegbé would be furious over such a public display of emotion. But not as angry as if she learned the truth. I hate myself for it, but I stop resisting the tears.

  “Come.” The Select leads me back into the alley, where we have a small measure of privacy. This is even worse! I don’t want to be alone with a Select of the O.U.B. I pull away, wiping my face with my sleeve. Only now that I’ve started crying, I can’t stop.

  The Select waits quietly. When at last I pull myself together, she asks, “Would you like to pray?”

  “Not really.” The words slip out between a hiccup and a sob, before I have time to think. I look up, horrified. Refusing to pray with a Select is like spitting in a Worship House. Owegbé will kill me when she hears.

  But the Select doesn’t look angry, she looks relieved. “I don’t have very much experience with praying out loud,” she says. “For others, I mean. Not that I don’t pray for others, I do. All the time. Just not with them listening…”

  What is she talking about? Is she blushing? I edge toward the front door.

  She appears to pull herself together. “I’m very sorry, my dear.”

  “Thank you,” I mumble. My tears were convincing because they were real, but I don’t dare push my luck. I have to get away from her before I betray my secret.

  “Oh, don’t thank me. It’s not a nice thing, being sorry. Far better not to have anything to be sorry about. At least they tell me so. Often.” The Select sighs.

  What is she talking about now? I look at her more closely. She’s pretty young for a Select, maybe in her early twenty’s? And not much taller than I am, 5’3 or 5’4, with skin as pale as mine is dark, and wide blue eyes that look—uncertain. Uncertain? I look again.

  “Are you a Select of the O.U.B.?” As soon as I say it, I wish I could take it back. But everything about her is so unusual for the Order that I can’t help wondering if I’ve mistaken the habit.

  Instead of being insulted, she looks embarrassed. “Not a very accomplished one,” she says. “I’m kind of still in training.”

  “Oh.” Then I remember what the O.U.B. are trained at, and begin moving toward the front door again. She follows me, looking a little dejected.

  I pause before lifting my palm to the infra-red dot beside our front door. “I’m sure you’ll get better at it,” I say awkwardly.

  “Do you think so?” She smiles hopefully as the door sweeps open. I step into the narrow hallway, with the Select right behind me. “I try very hard, but I always seem to say the wrong thing. They tell me it would be better if I just didn’t talk—” she breaks off abruptly.

  “No, it’s okay. I like the way you talk. It’s better than asking questions—” I break off. I don’t even want her to think about asking me questions.

  “But people respect the other Select, especially when they ask questions. I just can’t think of the right questions to ask.”

  Good. I look around the front room. It’s packed with people. I recognize some friends of my sister and brother, and neighbors, a few relatives. Across the hall, the dining room is also crowded.

  “I suppose it’s just as good to be liked as to be respected,” the Select is saying beside me.

  I almost say, take what you can get, but stop myself this time. The Select’s candor is infectious.

  Perhaps she’s trying to get me to talk, to see what might come out? She might be more cunning than she seems. I nod without answering, and glance toward the dining room again. Someone shifts sideways and I catch a glimpse of the table, laden with food. The sight makes me hungry. I haven’t eaten since breakfast. Then I see another Select, an older man, speaking to Owegbé. Two Select in our home? My father would hate that. Today, at least, should be about him, not Owegbé, even if she does follow the Order.

  The older Select straightens and turns his head, and sees me looking at him. I quickly turn back to the Select beside me, so I won’t look like I’m avoiding the O.U.B.

  “I’m Select Agatha.”

  “You have names?” For the second time I’m surprised out of my natural caution.

  “Of course we do. I’ve never understood why we don’t use them in public. It’s a silly thing to keep secret, don’t you think?”

  Behind Agatha, I see the man make a sign of comfort over Owegbé. Then he turns and heads directly toward us. There are too many people and conversations between him and us for even a Select of the O.U.B. to have picked up our actual words, although you can never be sure; it’s more likely his intuition is bringing him our way. Or something he saw in my face. He looks calm and reserved, the usual Select expression that actually expresses nothing. But there’s something in his eyes as he looks at Agatha that reminds me of the way Owegbé looks at me.

  …keep secret, don’t you think? Agatha’s words register on me belatedly. Are they meant to trap me into saying something I shouldn’t, or are they another weird confession that could get her into trouble? I look at her pale face with its slightly anxious expression. She looks the way I feel, trying to please Owegbé. I decide to trust her. A little.

  The older Select is close enough now to hear what we’re saying.

  “Did you know …Itohan?” I can’t say ‘father,’ can’t even let myself think the word, not with my face still tight with dried tears. Even saying his name causes a pain so sharp I miss a breath. But this is something we might be saying to each other, and certainly safer for both of us than the topic of secrets.

  Agatha’s expression transforms at once into the serene face of the Select.

  “I did know him,” she says, “years ago, when I was an Acolyte, younger than you are now. Before he turned away from the Order. He was a good, kind man.”

  I feel my face crumbling.

  “Not now,” Agatha says. “Not here. Go and wash your face, and change. I’ll tell your mother you’re back.”

  “Thank you,” I stammer. I hurry down the hall before the older Select reaches us.

  Select Agatha will never know how close we both came to being caught.

  Chapter Three

  “I’m looking for Messer Sodum
of ‘Sodum’s Jewelry’.” I force my voice steady despite the pounding of my heart. What if the station concourse peddler lied to me about this jeweller? What if he demands proof of ownership before he’ll pawn the ring? I smile to hide my fear. I’ll think of something, if it comes to that.

  “Yu’ve found him. What’s yer business?” The old man turns to face me on his stool, frowning. He’s bald, with huge ears and slightly protruding eyes which stare piercingly through a pair of archaic spectacles. Spectacles! I struggle not to show surprise. Surely he’s had laser surgery. Even the poor are entitled to necessary health care, and although his store is small and far away from the main shopping station, Messer Sodum is obviously not poor.

  His outfit is unusual for Seraffa, but it’s so carefully cut and fitted it has to be the latest fashion on some planet or other. The top, a long tunic with bloused sleeves, is ornately embroidered with swirls of turquoise and midnight blue. The threads stand out against the softer blue of the material itself, which looks so cool and light and rich it might actually be real Earth silk. The high-back collar fans away from his neck in a way that will give protection from the sun and yet allow easy movement and cool air around his neck and the back of his head. I wish I had a collar like that on my jumpsuit. The rest of his outfit is hidden by the counter, but an arch of sapphires and turquoise jewels glitter around the edges of both his overgrown ears.

  “Yer business?”

  I blink, embarrassed at being caught staring. Quickly I unseal one of the side pockets on my pants and pull out a small ball of folded tissue, which I drop onto the counter. He looks at me a moment, before unwrapping the tissue to reveal an ornate ring with a pattern of small, brilliant diamonds encircling an emerald. I can’t help giving a small, tight smile at the sight of it. The minute I saw the ring it screamed ‘escape!’