Read The Desert of Stars (The Human Reach) for Free Online Page B

were
speaking English, which of course Das knew. “It won’t kill him. It won’t even
hurt him. Here, I will take some to show you it is safe.”
    “That means nothing. You could have tailored it for him.”
    “Indeed we did, and his sensors won’t pick it up, either.
But I promise you it won’t hurt him. It’s something that will help him. It will
make him feel … better. Happy.”
    “Happy?”
    “Don’t you think he could stand to be a little more happy?
Couldn’t that lead to this being a better place? Or, at least, a less terrible
one?”
    Only later did Das remember the first voice, which
belonged to someone he had seen and heard at the loading docks behind the
presidential palace, a man who always wore loose-fitting white clothes and a
funny hat.
    The Punjab, Earth
    “Are we sure this area is safe?” the senator’s aide said,
his voice sharp and irritated. Now that they were here, flying over what many
locals considered occupied territory, this wasn’t turning out to be the
adventure he had envisioned when he reviewed the itinerary back in Washington.
Mostly he felt tired and dirty, and his intestines were warning him they were considering
forcefully ejecting something within.
    His question didn’t draw any response from Senator Gregory,
who was staring out the skycar’s window at the dark, rocky slope along the
western bank of the Jhelum. So the aide stared pointedly at the only other conscious
person in the passenger cabin, the NSS liaison to this expedition, who had the
glassy-eyed look of someone reading text on his ocular implant.
    Although the aide was more than twenty years junior to the
liaison, he considered himself acting in the best interests of Senator Gregory
at all times, and he thus believed he shouldn’t be ignored.
    “Well, Mister Donovan? Are we safe?” he insisted.
    The man who went by the name James Donovan tapped a button
on his handheld and slowly focused his gaze on the aide.
    “No,” he said. It was sort of a lie – odds were heavily
against a Punjabi guerrilla taking a shot at their car, but the aide had
annoyed him, so he decided to scare the kid in retaliation.
    Senator Darren Gregory of New Jersey, chairman of the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, looked up at that. He didn’t like his
aide much – his hiring was a bone to one of his chief supporters in Morris
County – and enjoyed Donovan instilling a little fear into him. Gregory’s brief
smirk was an uncommonly honest expression for him, as had been his placid
countenance as he watched the dawn-shadowed countryside roll by. Shortly, he
would dial up his political persona, smiling and back-patting and making anyone
in view feel like they were important. It worked well with individuals and
crowds: He had a sharp, youthful face, jet black hair and a gringo complexion,
but he lacked the firm jawline that had been associated with male politicians
and newscasters for so long, to the point that people had begun to distrust
such pretty-boy visages. He was a little bit imperfect, and that made people like
him all the more.
    They landed forty-five minutes later at an Indian Army fort
on the Indus River, the western border of “occupied Pakistan” or “restored
Greater India,” depending on one’s politics. Their State Department briefers had
reminded Gregory and his entourage to use only the latter term to keep favor
with their hosts.
    They were met on the tarmac by a thickly muscled Indian
Space Force wing commander, who introduced himself as Ramesh and cordially
refused to be called anything else. As he led the senator’s party across the
tarmac, Donovan stole glances at the assemblage of combat gear around them. He
was no military analyst, but he recognized Kawasaki fighter and surveillance
drones, Kartsev main battle tanks, and homegrown wheeled LAVs. Surprisingly few
soldiers were in view; when questioned, Ramesh explained that many of them were
out in the nearby communities.
    He led them to the base’s