Free Desert World Allegiances by Lyn Gala

that he was keeping Div awake. The man was getting old, and the doctor didn’t hold out much hope for his heart. He needed rest. “And I’ve made you brood more.” Div reached over and rested a hand against Shan’s leg. “Your heart will overfill and explode long before your head, son. What’s truly bothering you?”
    “I wasn’t lying. It bothers me that Meid is pregnant again. We nearly lost her to her last pregnancy. The doctors can’t do much without medicine and equipment.”
    “Both of which are in short supply,” Div agreed, his voice growing solemn. “People have lived without technology before. We will survive this. The spirit of those who fear the Lord can survive.”
    “Jeremiah?” Shan asked, curious as to where Div had pulled that quote.
    “Book of Ecclesiasticus.”
    Shan nodded. Div carried entire libraries in his head, so he trusted the man’s memory, even if the doctors doubted the reliability of his heart. “But that was on Earth. Are we as sure of Livre? This place was not built for humans. The pipe traps and sandcats and sandrats are designed for this world, but we aren’t.”
    Div didn’t answer immediately. He turned his gaze to the cross. Even in the dim light that filtered in through thick glass, the metal gleamed. “Sometimes we don’t know where faith and foolishness meet. Do you think our great-grandparents were fools for coming here?”
    “In my case, it was my great, great, great grandparents,” Shan corrected the man. Div reached over and softly backhanded him across the arm. “And I don’t know. They believed that the inner worlds would support them until the world was terraformed.”
    “And now the universe has changed.” Div continued to look up at the cross. “Had they remained on the inner worlds, the odds are that you would now be on a ship, ordered into battle.”
    “A priest is not much good in battle,” Shan quickly disagreed, but Div only turned his head and gave him a long, searching look. “And I know that playing a game of what-if helps no one. I’m just not sure that the changes we’re making to this world are the right ones. We sent Cyla as a slave to another settlement. How can we move people around—take their rights—as if they’re pieces on a chess board?” Shan’s voice had slowly risen to a near shout, and he snapped his mouth shut. Div didn’t deserve his anger.
    Div patted his leg. “Love uprightness you who are rulers on earth, be properly disposed towards the Lord and seek him in simplicity of heart.”
    “I’d rather have guidance than platitudes.” Shan turned to Div, begging his mentor to lay out some choices as simply as he had when Shan had been sixteen. His brother had recently been sentenced to slavery, and his father’s temper had turned from Naite to Shan. After the first beating, he had come to Div and cried in the priest’s arms. Now it was others who came to Shan and begged for guidance, but he never felt like his words reached people like Div’s had.
    “The Bible is full of guidance, and if they sound like platitudes, it’s because we don’t want to listen,” Div corrected him, the censure clear even if his voice remained mild. Shan grimaced as he realized his slip. “I can’t tell you anything that you don’t already know. You aren’t a child whose feet I can put on the path. You’re a little heavy for me to lift, these days.” Div patted him on the leg again and then crossed his arms over his chest once more.
    “You should return to the council,” Shan said softly. The church members would vote Div back on the council in one second if he showed any willingness to serve.
    Div laughed. “Lilian would gut you for even suggesting that. As much as I adore that woman, we risked homicide more than once, being in the same room. So, what are you going to do? I assume that you already know that sitting in the dark will not solve any of your problems.”
    “I don’t know.” Shan wouldn’t have admitted