Under the Ember Star. Charles Allen Gramlich

among Kelms as a ‘mother’ or a ‘father.’ There aren’t even words in your languages for those things.”

      “Those who give life are seysmoern,” Duash said. “They are what your race calls hermaphrodites. Male and female both. Others among us are seysbuedin.”

      “Neuters.”

      “Yes.”

      “So what does that make you?”

      “Male. Only. As you may imagine, my existence has caused some...turmoil among the Kelms.”

      Ginn’s thoughts roiled. “Turmoil?”

      Duash’s soft tones hardened. “Your people house themselves amid what was once Kelm glory. You trash it. Your scientists make occasional study of Kelm biology and Kelm ruins. Yet humans have seen too many alien races in their expansion across the galaxy to care much for the remnants of another. Certainly they do not care for what lies inside. You, yourself, have lived here for years. You treat the Kelms better than almost all your kind. But even you know nothing of their true spirit.”

      “So fucking what,” Ginn snapped, her own anger igniting. “You think anyone knows anyone else’s spirit? We’re all alone. Every last bitch and bastard among us. Only money gives you a chance to fool yourself that there’s more to life than raw survival.”

      Stung, Duash recoiled from Ginn’s vehemence. His mouth opened as if to retort, closed again. Finally, he spoke: “You still are young. Surely you are not so cynical?”

      Ginn’s lips twisted into a smirk. She grabbed the two canteens and the med kit she’d dropped only moments before and slung their straps roughly over a shoulder. Then she stomped past Duash toward the front of the cave.

      “We’re leaving,” she said. “If Red Jac’s men catch the hovercar they’ll backtrack it right to here. We’ll follow the escarpment. Meet your people at the edge of the desert.”

      She didn’t wait to see if Duash followed. He would. He’d admitted to having help on his last trip into nomad lands, help that must have been human in nature. Since it hadn’t been her, it had probably been Red Jac. And now Jac’s men were trying to kill him.

      Jac only killed when it was good for business. And his business was money. That meant, no matter how wealthy Duash might be, he was worth more to Jac dead than alive. The only people who could protect Duash from Jac were the military, and Ginn Hollis. And she wasn’t any too sure about the military. Duash needed her. She’d make him pay well.

      Then there was the vivum, Duash had mentioned. Vivum. In the place where they were going. She tried not to think about that. But her body thought about it. Her belly tightened, her mouth dried, her skin flushed.

      She touched her chest. Even through her jacket she felt the hard little cylinder of the vial where it nestled.

      She dropped her hand to her blaster. Walked on.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      Nomads

      Stone above. Stone below. Stone all around.

      Ginn worked her way through a nameless slot canyon at the broken edge of the Karst desert. Smooth, cool rock twisted all around her in delicate hues of salmon, mauve and pearl. Duash followed, his robes swishing lightly.

      Despite feeling that Red Jac would not have flyers on the hunt for them, Ginn had taken every canyon and dry wash she could. It made her feel less exposed, less vulnerable with the sky at least partially obscured.

      “Better safe than sorry,” had been one of Jake Hollis’s favorite sayings, even though in the end it had not saved his life.

      The narrow, tortured canyon that now hid Ginn and Duash had not been made by the desert’s scouring winds but by massive quantities of water pouring through a desiccated landscape. That meant it was old, because Kelmer hadn’t seen a flood of such magnitude in a long time. But then, most everything on Kelmer felt old.

      The swishing of robes behind Ginn ceased and she turned. Duash had stopped to swig from a canteen. He’d not re-veiled himself; she thought she knew why. She moved back a few paces toward him, took a swallow of water for herself.

      “The nomads are close,” Duash said.

      Ginn nodded. “I know. Let’s just hope it’s the ones you signaled for.”

      “It is. Else they would not be so near human settlements.”

      “Not unless they were looking to burn someone.”

      Duash blinked, but Ginn did not wait for any reply he might make. She continued along the canyon and in another hundred paces it opened abruptly onto a boulder strewn plain dotted here and there with dry-weed and skeet-brush. She paused, her hand on the butt of her blaster. She sniffed. Not even a breeze blew today. Yet, the air was tainted with dust. There had been movement here, only moments before.

      Ginn slipped her left hand into the pocket of her coat. “They’re around,” she whispered over her shoulder to Duash.

      “Yes,” hissed a voice behind her that she didn’t recognize.

      Ginn stiffened, but did not turn. That would have been fatal.

      The voice hissed again. “The alh Corovaneen we recognize. You we do not. Dirt your weapons.”

      “Don’t think so,” Ginn said. “Figured someone might come down into the canyon behind us. I’ve got a bomb-bot in my pocket. Slaved to my life signs. I go unconscious and several hundred meters of this desert get vaporized. I’m gonna keep my guns.”

      For three heartbeats, nothing happened. Then laughter boomed. It came not from whoever had been hissing words behind her, but from the rocks all around. Five gaunt figures rose from among those rocks, as if materializing from dust itself. They wore tan burnooses over vests and trousers of Kelmerian wool. Caplets of beaded leather adorned their bare skulls. Their only veils covered their mouths as protection against blowing sand. Above those thin scraps of cloth, their eyes gleamed large and almost black.

      All five were shorter than Ginn’s five feet seven inches, and much thinner inside their clothing. But she did not make the mistake of thinking them weak because of that. It had been years since she’d seen nomads so close. Not since her father’s death. She had not forgotten them.

      These were not the Kelms of the settlements, but wild creatures who smelled of grease and fire and strange, cinnamon winds. They did not walk with heads bowed and faces covered to hide their differences from the human. They were not vying for favors or begging for solars. They did not have to accept, or even pretend to accept, that she was their superior. And they could kill her as easily as they breathed.

      Their weapons were multiple bone knives strapped to their legs and the stubby dart rifles common to nomads. These were air powered and fired three-inch long spines from Kelmer’s version of a cactus. The guns weren’t much good at over thirty feet, but then she wasn’t thirty feet away from them.

      Ginn forced her body to relax. Her right hand fell away from her blaster but she didn’t take her left hand out of her pocket. One of the nomads lifted an arm. This one carried the ritual scars of a chieftain just below its eyes, on a flat stretch of skin where a human nose would be.

      Sand whispered with movement behind her but Ginn still didn’t turn. A figure stalked past. A sixth nomad. This one was taller than the others, as tall as she. A tiny black spot of skeet-seed juice stained its mouth-veil at one side.

      The newcomer had to be the one who’d ordered her to drop her guns. It stopped before the chieftain, handed over the weapon it carried. This was no dart rifle but a worn plasma pistol of older manufacture. That almost certainly meant it had been taken from some of the early human settlers on Kelmer. No doubt it had been handed down from one chieftain to another for generations.

      The nomad with the skeet-stained veil turned to face Ginn. Its eyes were less black and more brown, almost yellowish, but there was hatred in them the others did not seem to share.

      Ginn