By the Sea of Sand Read online

  She made her rounds of the others, making sure everyone was accounted for and not in need of anything. All of the residents had been here long enough that they didn’t really need much from her any longer, but it was still her responsibility to check on them, just as it was her job to make sure the lamp was working. Rehker, as usual, was reading in the parlor with his feet on the stool. He charmed her with a smile when she came in, tried to flirt with her. She was used to that. Pera, on the other hand, was busy working on some sort of long document in the other corner. A viddy script, she said sometimes. Other times, a memoir. At any rate, she ignored Teila completely, which was fine with her because Pera could be uncomfortably intense.

  In the dining room, Teila found Adarey and Stimlin. No surprise that the women were together, as it was rare for either to be apart from the other. They’d been strangers when they came here, both suffering the after-effects of their time in battle and both having lost their partners, they’d quickly become a couple.

  Adarey looked up when Teila came in. “The delivery ship came. Vikus said he’d sign for the shipment, but he’s not around.”

  Stimlin said nothing, but then she never did. She ate a bite from the plate between them, then passed the fork to Adarey. The kitchen had plenty of tableware, but Teila had stopped trying to convince the pair they didn’t need to share.

  In the kitchen she found the delivery bot waiting patiently in standby mode. This far out there’d be no other deliveries it had to make, and it had probably been programmed to hold as long as necessary for the appropriate authorization. When she passed her hand over the bot’s control panel, its faceplate lit up. The bot whirred and clicked. Rust had bruised it all over.

  “Stay tuned,” the bot said in its grinding metallic voice. “Stay tuned.”

  Whatever that meant, Teila had no idea. This bot was so old it probably hadn’t had its dialogue functions upgraded in a long, long time. It didn’t seem to matter when she didn’t answer, because as soon as she’d finished punching in her acceptance codes, the bot went to the back door where the delivery ship’s transport scooter waited. The ramp extended and the carrier bots began transporting the boxes and bags of supplies into the kitchen. Teila knew better than to simply trust that they’d get everything off the scooter—there’d been too many times when it had pulled away without fully emptying its cargo and she’d had to wait another full cycle before it came back. But when she checked the flatbed, the scooter was empty. She watched it trundle back to the edge of the sea, where it was hooked by the delivery ship’s wires and pulled aboard. Habit made her wave at the ship, though she could see no signs of crew.

  It wasn’t true, what the Rav Aluf had told her when he returned her husband. Yes, the days of the sea being black with whalers had ended, but there were still plenty of pleasurecraft and tradecraft that passed by. They stayed far out to sea, very few of them ever coming close enough to even risk running aground. She sometimes watched the enormous luxury party boats from the lamp room. When the wind was just right she heard the sounds of their music, though she had to rely on her imagination for visions of the food and drink and dancing the passengers enjoyed.

  Her father had told her stories of the tables set with gold-rimmed plates, utensils forged from platanium. The finest wines and best cuts of flesh, not farm-simulated but genuine. He and her mother had taken such a voyage for their wedding journey, and he’d promised Teila that one day he’d take her, as well. That had been in the days when whalers made their cycle’s fortunes with a single haul, before the government had stepped in to regulate the milka trade. Before the war had escalated, before the rationing and new laws. Now only the wealthiest could afford to take pleasure cruises, and though she had her father’s estate to keep her from poverty, Teila was far from wealthy.

  She didn’t regret it. Life on a whaler was hard. Life in the lighthouse at least was steady, if not occasionally dull. It wasn’t the life her father had chosen for her, but what she’d chosen for herself. She might dream of luxury, but she’d seen what too much money and power did to people. She’d never be poor, and she’d never be rich, but she could at least be content with where and who she was.

  At least she knew who she was.

  She found a surprise waiting for her in the kitchen. Jodah stood in front of one of the mechbots, both hands up defensively, while the bot itself clicked and whirred brokenly. Jodah turned when she came through the door, his stance aggressive enough for her to pause before he relaxed. Just a little.

  “It came at me,” he said.

  Teila’s brows rose. “It’s a mechbot. It can’t hurt you.”

  “I know that. Now,” he added angrily. “But it took me by surprise.”

  Somehow, she thought, that had been the problem, and not anything the poor old bot had actually done. That it had managed to take Jodah by surprise. She put a hand over her mouth to hold back a giggle, but a little bit slipped out.

  “Let me see if I can fix it.” She pushed past Jodah, who stepped back. Fortunately, the bot had only been dented a little. Vikus could probably fix it, and the irony of that—needing him to fix a bot whose sole function was to repair things around the property, was not lost on her. “I’m not sure I should bother. It’s so old, and there are no more replacement parts since the SDF commandeered them all.”

  She paused, wondering if her mention of the SDF would cause him to react, but Jodah said nothing. She opened the poor bot’s control panel and punched in the keycode that would send it back to its charging station. Its gears ground, and for a moment she was certain that was it, it was irreparable. But then it moved, clanking and wheezing, down the hall. She’d found them in odd places before, their batteries run down before they could make it back to their docking stations. She’d check later. For now, she turned to Jodah, who still looked ashamed.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No.”

  “Then . . . why are you in the kitchen?” She gestured at the boxes of supplies just as Vikus and Billis came in from the dining room. “Boys, we need to get this put away. Jodah can help.”

  “Not my name,” he said through gritted teeth.

  She paused, but kept her voice calm though her heart had begun to beat faster at his tone and the way he’d clenched his fists. “We can call you whatever you’d like.”

  “What’s he doing down here?” Vikus asked brusquely.

  Jodah was on him before the young man could take a second breath. His forearm went under Vikus’ chin, pushing him against the wall while Vikus flailed. “You should be more respectful.”

  Silence, not a word from any of them. Billis, to no surprise, had retreated across the room at the first sight of violence. Vikus stopped struggling. Teila, remembering the squeeze of her husband’s fingers on her throat, wasn’t about to agitate him, even though she knew in her heart he wasn’t going to hurt Vikus. Once he’d loved the younger man like the brother he didn’t have.

  “What would you like us to call you?” Teila asked quietly. “And please let Vikus go.”

  Her husband did and stepped back with a wary glare that faded into a grimace of embarrassment. He nodded stiffly. “Your pardon.”

  Vikus shook his robes to straighten them and gave Teila a narrow-eyed look, but he nodded back. “Granted.”

  “If I could call myself anything I wanted,” Billis spoke up suddenly, “I’d pick something really silky.”

  “Silky?” One of her husband’s brows lifted. “You think I should pick a silky name. Like what?”

  Billis moved forward eagerly. “Like . . . Dentrel. Or Vesperil.”

  “Viddy performers.” Teila laughed. “Billis, I don’t think he wants to name himself after viddy performers.”

  “Anyway, he doesn’t want to pick his own name. He wants to use his real name. Even if it’s gritty and not silky, right?” Vikus put in a little snidely.

  Teila frowned at him, but her husband didn’t seem to care this time about respect. He nodded and ran a hand over hi