Between Darkness and Light by Lisanne Norman

Author:Lisanne Norman
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2010-12-14T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

TRANSPORT was an open-sided vehicle that seated sixteen easily, which was as well since their welcoming party accompanied them. It was obviously used for bringing the work force from the villages to the spaceport. Once they were seated, it rose off the ground and began to move out into the surrounding desert.

“Not as primitive as they’d have us believe,” whispered Banner.

“Agreed,” came back Kezule’s equally quiet reply.

Once free of the buildings, the vehicle sped up and their journey took only some fifteen minutes.

The countryside was unremarkable scrubland, but they knew from their scans that the village was sited around an oasis. As they got closer, they could see the fields and irrigation ditches that fed them as well as the several greenhouses that they’d noticed when they’d flown over them before landing.

This settlement, the nearest to the spaceport, spanned several acres and was served by a village of thirty or so dwellings made of local materials—not dissimilar to the way the settled desert houses back home looked as if they’d grown organically out of the actual soil of Shola, Kusac noticed. The roofs, however, glittered in the sunlight and were probably made of some form of augmented solar panels, the accumulated energy used to power the whole community.

The buildings had been positioned on either side of a single main street which opened out in the center to form a square. This was where he was sure they were heading.

Outside the largest one, two people in long colored robes waited, obviously for them. They stopped just short of the building and disembarked.

While making sure he was at the back of their group, he surreptitiously looked at the two. Both were elderly, he realized, noting the lines and wrinkles on their faces. He’d never seen a really elderly Valtegan or Prime before. When the one in the blue patterned robes looked at him, she had eyes that seemed to bore straight into his despite his efforts to remain unnoticed.

“This is M’zayash, and Szayakk, our Senior Elders.” said Nishon, introducing the two Elders as they moved toward them.

The cool interior of the single story building was welcome after the heat outside. However, within moments of entering, their comm links suddenly went silent. Banner, slightly ahead of him, signaled “Null zone—blocking devices. Sophisticated for an Ag culture.”

Passing what was obviously the Council Chamber, they followed Nishon and the others into a side room. Walls of off-white sloped gently toward a ceiling some ten feet above them where fans rotated lazily. Unusually large windows, tinted to keep out glare, punctuated the walls, opening onto a view of formal gardens. Furniture was in the form of sectional seating, made of some local canelike plant. Soft seat cushions, and small fixed back pads kept the furnishings comfortable but cool. It reminded him strongly of the lounges off the various meeting rooms at the Governor’s Palace at Shanagi. This room, however, had an—unfinished—feel to it, as if items normally displayed there had been hurriedly removed.

The sections had been arranged so they made small enclaves where groups could gather for private discussions.

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