The vibration of the ship has seeped into me; I can feel my blood vibrating in time to the engines’ beat as it cycles through my body. I can’t wait to get out of this spaceship! I’m desperate to feel the sun on my face and the wind in my hair again. I curl my toes, imagining the warmth of living soil under them, solid and still. But it’s Seraffa I’m imagining and Malem I’ll be stepping out onto in one week’s time.
She isn’t in her room, so I head for the com room, and there she is, standing in front of the portal, her eyes shining and her hands clasped together in prayer. Her lips are moving, murmuring something too low for me to catch. It reminds me of the time just before I left home when I came upon my mother talking to a holo of my father. As if the dead could be reached through their effects. Only the living are reachable, until it’s too late.
I clear my throat. Agatha gives no sign of hearing me. I cough. It’s a little forced but unmistakably audible. No response. I think of the Adept’s stare and throw myself into it…
Apparently, I haven’t mastered that trick.
“Select Agatha, I was hired to teach you Malemese.” I pronounce each word distinctly. “By your Adept,” I add desperately. Is she aware, as I am, that she will not learn Malemese in the next week? Does she think I’ve failed, or… or does she know I’ve been sent here for some other reason? I think of my father’s fever, and then of his diamond in its leather pouch, hidden under the mattress in my room, and I feel myself sweating.
“Come to the portal,” Agatha says. “You can see Iterria.”
Iterria, viewed through the portal, looks huge. It’s the only other habitable planet around Malem’s sun, and it blocks them both out, casting a reddish glow in the dark of space.
“What’s it like?” I should have researched Malem’s solar system as well.
“It’s very hot, a desert planet. They harvest the few precious clouds that form over the mountains at night, for water. It’s not enough, though, to support the present population. Without another water supply, their civilization could die.”
At least we have water on Seraffa. I look at her, reevaluating. She has done some research. “Why don’t they take hydrogen from the stars?”
“Iterria’s oxygen is very thin, not up to the task of converting the hydrogen into water. Besides, there aren’t any large stars close enough to make that practical.”
“What about a comet?”
“There’s no oort cloud near this solar system.”
I’m beginning to get the picture. “Malem is mostly water.”
Agatha nods. “Iterria wants to buy enough of Malem’s water to create a closed, self-replenishing system on Iterria. Malem could easily spare it.”
The cost of lifting that much water off a planet staggers me. “How would they do it?”
“Iterria and Malem are small, low-g planets with stable orbits. They’re both suitable for skyhook towers. Iterria already has one; they want to build another on Malem.”
“And send water up and down the elevators. The only transport they’d need would be between the satellites, in space.”
Agatha nods again.
“Iterria must be rich.” I look out at the glowing planet.
“Rich, and desperate.”
“Why not just land on an uninhabited part of Malem and take the water they need?” As soon as I say it, I wish I could take it back. There is no uninhabited part of Malem. With only one continent, every bit of land is precious. Agatha doesn’t answer. She’s probably stuck on the “just take what you need” part. I look out the portal.
That’s that, then. Inter-planetary strife is left up to each world to settle on its own, but intra-planetary aggression is forbidden. If Iterria attacks Malem for water, they’ll be fighting the entire Alliance.
“They need a trade agreement,” Agatha says. “It would be a good solution. Iterria’s a technological world, they have a lot to offer Malem.”
“But Malem doesn’t want it.”
“No.”
“And you’re supposed to make them want Iterria’s technology?”
“I’m supposed to try to bring them into the Alliance.”
“They don’t want that either.” I’m guessing, but it fits what I saw of the couple I translated for: reserved and self-sufficient. “How are you supposed to get them to join?”
Agatha’s anxious frown reappears. “I don’t know. I only know the problem, not the solution. This is my first posting.”
“You haven’t been given instructions?”
“Not yet.” Agatha looks out at Iterria. Her face clears. “I will be told in time.”
“Aren’t they cutting it a little close? Malem isn’t on the cyber link.”
“God doesn’t need the cyber link.”
I let that one lie. If God decides to talk to her, I’m pretty sure I won’t be asked to translate.
“Why won’t Malem just give it to them?” I ask, looking out the portal. “Malem has more water than they’ll ever use.”
“I don’t know. There must be a reason.”
Iterria hangs red-hot outside the portal, a dying planet surrounded by cold space. All those people having to leave their homes, and the O.U.B. sends a novice Select with a sixteen-year-old language teacher.
“Chalk one up for space,” I murmur; “One down for humans.”
“Not yet,” Agatha says.
But after an hour of language lessons I’m certain Iterria is toast if it’s depending on Agatha.
“How did you pass your examinations to become a Select?” I finally ask her.
She looks at me, and I know she’s got the seeing-right-through-you part down. But there had to be some studying involved, too, and if she could do it then, she can do it now. So I stare right back at her.
“I prayed,” she says. “I closed my eyes and prayed. I don’t even know who examined me. I never saw them.”
“And you passed?”
“They told me my explanations were incoherent but all my answers were right. The wrong words but the right ideas.” She smiles. “Maybe on Malem—”
“On Malem,” I say “the right words matter very much.”
*****
I check my spacebags one last time before leaving my room. The pouch containing my father’s gem is tucked among my clothes near the bottom of the second bag. Somehow, in the short time I’ll be here, I have to find out if it is a Malemese diamond. Sodum never actually saw it, after all. For all I know, Malemese diamonds are just a myth. The ship’s engineer seemed to think so. The one time I broached the topic with him, he just laughed at me.
I drop the flash on Malem and the two on Kandaran into my spacebag, along with my travel-tab. According to it, the original Malem settlers took a vow of poverty. If they still keep to it, that may explain why they won’t sell their water.
The idea of intentional poverty gives me the creeps, to tell the truth. The Select and the Adepts don’t own anything individually, but they have the entire wealth of the O.U.B. behind them. That’s not poor. Poor is when nothing stands between you and disaster. If that’s the Malemese’s choice, they are crazy. And it probably means there aren’t any diamonds here.
While my bags are inflating, I pull on the full-length woolen tunic I’ve been told to wear over my jumpsuit. It’s hot and heavy and it itches where it touches my skin at the neck and wrists—I have to stop myself from taking it off again. I leave the heavy black boots I’ve also been given beside my bags and go to find Agatha. After three months in space I can’t wait to go outside, even on Malem.
There’s no response when I touch the door to her room. She’s not in the caf. I go to the com room and find her standing in front of the portal again. As politely as possible, I ask her whether she’s packed up yet.
“Have you seen them?” She gives a quick little nod toward the portal.
I walk over and look out. It’s early afternoon but the sun I have longed for is hidden by dark clouds. I can hardly see through the heavy precipitation th
at falls in torrents onto the gray soil—and bounces back up! Hail? I’ve heard of frozen rain, but never seen it. Several figures hurry from a small stone building across the open landing field, stooped over to protect themselves from the stinging onslaught. I watch, fascinated, until I remember I’m about to go out in that.
Two Malemese men are close enough to the ship for me to see. Their dark hair clings dripping to their scalps under light brown arms lifted to shield their heads from the hail. One of them looks up at the ship, his open mouth revealing a missing tooth as he yells something to the other over the wind. They both wear plain dark robes, several layers by the bulky look of them, similar to the itchy woolen thing I’ve been given to wear on Malem. The wind buffets them roughly as they fight their way to the ship. They look cold, dirty and underfed.
“Beautiful,” Agatha whispers. “They’re beautiful, and I can’t even speak to them.”
Maybe they look better when they’re not sopping wet, but beautiful? I stare at her. Her face is tense and pale. She must have meant something else.
“You’ve learned a lot of words,” I say. “And you’ll get better.” I hope so, anyway.
“I don’t know what to do. They didn’t tell me anything. They never do.” Agatha’s voice is close to breaking. It takes me a moment to realize she’s talking about the Order now, not the Malemese people. “I don’t think they trust me,” she says.
“I’m sure they know you’re loyal.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean, I don’t think they believe I’m very competent.”
I understood what she meant and had hoped to sidetrack it. What can I say? She’s probably right. “They made you a Select.”
“I passed the tests. I don’t think they were happy about it.”
“You are a Select,” I tell her. “They sent you here, didn’t they?” I wait until Agatha nods. “You’ll know what to do. You always do, better than them.”
I remember Agatha at my trial saying, “It seemed the right thing at the time,” and the Adept replying, after a pause, “Then it must have been.”
“They trust you,” I say, certain I’m right. “They just don’t understand you.”
Gradually the strain in Agatha’s face eases. She opens her eyes. I remember Jaro’s instructions on social skills and give her a cheery, confident smile.
Chapter Twelve
“There’s a decontamination unit at the station,” the captain says to Agatha, not even looking at me. “Take all your things. The Malemese shoot anyone who brings something into the city, hasn’t been checked and buzzed. Building’s to the left.” He steps aside and opens the hatch.
A fierce gust of wind and hail howls in through the opening. Agatha staggers back, falling against the captain. He grins and helps her regain her footing. She opens her mouth to say something, apparently thinks better of it, and reaches for her spacebags. I follow her out of the ship.
My first step launches me straight into the gale, which blows me backward, slamming me into the side of the ship hard enough to expel the air from my lungs. A bark of laughter comes from the hatch before it closes. I struggle up carefully. The captain could have warned us about gravity being lighter here. Too bad I hadn’t vomited all over him, not just on his boots.
The pounding hail and the wind make it impossible to see more than a few feet ahead. We shuffle along the ground holding hands against the ballast. My spacebags whip about crazily, threatening my tenuous balance until I stop and deflate them half-way. Then I’m forced to carry them above the ground—they aren’t made to withstand the tear of twigs and stones. I’ve never been so cold in my life. My cheeks sting, my eyes are running and I can barely feel my fingers, let alone move them. By the time we reach the spaceport we’re breathless and shuddering with cold. I’m wondering whether the ship, with its life-support turned off, can be worse than this.
The port is small and dark inside. It keeps out the wind and hail, but other than that it’s not much warmer than outside. There’s a desk and a chair just inside the door, with a man sitting at it and a woman standing beside him. He gestures for us to leave our bags beside the single standard decontam unit in the middle of the building.
Decontamination procedures are thorough to the point of paranoia. I have to strip to my underwear before entering the unit. Once inside, I’m ordered to rotate slowly, like a piece of meat on a skewer. The woman gives me a blanket while I wait for my clothes to be buzzed at a higher intensity. One thin blanket. I shiver in the damp, unheated building with the wind and hail pounding against it. I watch the man go for my bags, terrified he’ll empty them, but he only deflates them and throws them into the unit. None of my tools are large enough to show up on a scan as a weapon, so I breathe easier.
They treat Select Agatha with a little more consideration, but not much more. When she and her things are deemed ‘clean’, the man tells her to report to the hospital within two days to have her aud-vid implant removed. I’m so shocked I can barely translate his demand, but Agatha receives the news calmly.
“It’s standard practice here,” she tells me as we dress quickly behind a flimsy curtain. “They’ll reinsert it when I leave.” The curtain blows aside as I hear the door to the building open; I barely catch it in time to preserve our modesty.
The captain is talking to the two Malemese officials when we pick up our bags. He turns and calls out, “I depart in two standard weeks. At noon. If you’re coming, don’t be late.”
Agatha pulls open the door. A gust of freezing wind makes me gasp. My woolen robe is still cold and damp from making my way to the station, but I hug it tight around me. When I look back, the captain’s talking to the two Malemese again, so I leave without answering him.
The hail is abating. By the time we fight our way across the landing field it’s stopped. The wind, however, is still fierce. It batters our spacebags, slowing us down as we struggle to hold on to them. I keep close to Agatha, letting her break the wind somewhat for me. This is her mission, not mine; I’m only here till the ship leaves. At last we reach the grain elevators we were directed towards and huddle against them, shielded from the wind, catching our breath.
Agatha leads us down the narrow dirt streets of the city. The buildings are close on either side, and tall, most of them six or seven stories high. They’re all stone or gray brick, with small windows and not many of those. At least they block the force of the wind, but its coldness stings my cheeks and I have to clap my hands to keep them from freezing. There are people out in this weather, women and children as well as men, all dressed in dark, ankle-length robes, the women’s a little looser than the men’s but otherwise the same. Don’t they have the sense to stay inside on a day like this?
No one approaches us, or smiles at us, or lets on that they’ve even seen us. When we stop to ask directions, however, we receive a polite reply expressed in terms as close to friendliness as the Malemese language permits between strangers.
Prophet’s Lane is no more than an alley leading to a small, gray, single-story stone cottage crouched on a narrow plot of land between the tall apartment buildings, like a nervous toad surrounded by cranes. Even the groundcover around it is gray, dull and flattened under the beating of the wind. We hurry up to the metal door, eager to get inside.
There’s no infra sensor. We wave our hands all over the front of the door and its frame but the door doesn’t slide open, nor do we hear the echo of a chime inside announcing our presence. Finally I kick the door in frustration, despite Agatha’s frown, but it’s more solid than it looks. If I wasn’t wearing heavy Malemese boots I’d have broken my toe. As it is, I lose my balance and fall in the low g.
Agatha taps on the window. The tapping, like my kick, is drowned by the howling wind. We walk all around the house. Every window is dark.
“We have to find someplace to stay!” I shout over the gale. Agatha tries the door and the windows again before agreeing to go to an inn for the night and find the Select in the morning.
; “There’s only one inn, the Brief Sojourner,” we’re told when we finally find someone still out on the streets to ask. He gives us directions which I have to strain to hear over the wind whistling down the narrow streets. Naturally it’s on the other side of the city.
I lean against a doorway, half-protected from the wind. I won’t make it. I will freeze to death right here. The thought is almost tempting, till Agatha gives me a look.
There’s none of that sympathy I got when my parents died, in this look. Nope. This is an if-you-are-stupid-enough-to-die-here-don’t-expect-me-to-stand-in-this-wind-praying-over-your-body look. Despite the allure of freezing to death, I am impressed. I didn’t know she had it in her. I push myself out of the doorway with a shrug, as if she was totally mistaken about me.
This walk seems even longer than the trek into the city. I promise myself I’ll never take transit strips for granted again. I wind the cords of my spacebags around my wrists to prevent them from being pulled from my stiff fingers by the wind. At least my tunic has a hood that ties in place; the hood of Agatha’s Select cape keeps being blown off. I watch her bare neck go from scarlet to white as I follow her.
Three months on that cramped little spaceship for this? Come with me to Malem, Agatha begged me. All I wanted today was a little sunshine. My disappointment turns into a bitter pleasure at the thought of leaving Agatha on this horrible planet while I head back to beautiful, warm Seraffa—really beautiful, not some weird, warped concept of the word that only Agatha understands. I imagine waving farewell at the door of the ship, grinning down at her as it closes.
I pull at the neck of the woolen tunic. It’s frozen stiff from the hail. At least it’s warmer than Agatha’s blue and white habit, meant for Seraffa’s climate. Even so, I’m shivering and she’s not. I glare at her back ahead of me. It’s probably a Select thing. She could freeze to death and never show it.
Agatha turns and smiles at me.
She’ll probably have to wear two of those outfits at a time, or get some of this wool for underclothes. Yes, this nice, rough, itchy wool right against her skin. She didn’t throw up once on the spaceship. The Captain didn’t refuse to talk to her. But I’m the one who’ll get to go home with him.
The Occasional Diamond Thief Page 9