The red-leaved plant had hidden in a tiny hollow in the desert sand. As they rumbled by in their Desert Tracker, Orra almost missed it.

“Wait,” she yelled. “I never saw anything like that, stop!”

The big machine had barely halted when she jumped out. “Listen for the warning system, Ranji, while I take pictures of this lovely thing.”

She always worried about the best way to take samples, hating to hurt the plants that managed to grow under such harsh conditions. Pushing stringy fair hair out of her face, she put down the camera and pulled out her sample case.

Someone grabbed her. She flipped the grabber over her head, but there was some other one waving a knife. Jaakers. Crazy desert thieves. She pulled out her own knife.

A crash behind her. Ranji must have been attacked, too. She sliced at the Jaaker, who ducked under the knife and caught her by the legs, bringing her down on sand that was not as soft as it looked. Another Jaaker came flying toward them. Ranji’s huge fists at work.

Then a Jaaker had his hands around her neck, cutting off her air. She sent a knee toward his crotch, but he pulled out of the way. She choked.

The hands fell away. Now the Jaaker gasped and choked. Someone was strangling him. Ranji wasn’t doing it. In fact, his meaty brown arm reached over her, picked up the choking Jaaker, and threw him six feet into the sand.

Two of the Jaakers lay still. The others were gone.

“You okay?” asked Ranji.

“Yeah. Where’d they come from? Jaakers never come this far west.”

“I wasn’t paying attention. You should fire me.”

“WIND!” someone said. A battered figure, chained at the wrists, knelt on the poor abused plant. “Wind,” said the person again, more faintly. Then the tracker began to shriek its alarm. Wind.

They dashed for safety. Orra pulled open the tracker door while Ranji grabbed the chained person. All three of them fell inside in a heap. Ranji managed to bang the control that dug stabilizers deep into the sand while Orra hit the button that slid metal over the glass windows.

Untangling herself from Ranji, who took up most of the front seat, and from their chained savior, whose chain caught on everything, Orra climbed back into the cargo area, hauling their savior along. The tracker rattled and rocked as gales screamed around it.

None of the science wonks had figured out where these sudden, treacherous desert winds came from. It had something to do with the southern mountains, and something to do with heat rising off the pale sand. At least the wonks had created the big trackers, which offered some safety to the Station Service patrols. And they also created the Station, with sliding metal window covers so the wind couldn’t explode the glass windows.

This particular wind lasted the usual eon, which turned out to be about half an hour according to the tracker clock.

Orra pulled out a bottle of water, swigged, then handed it to Ranji, who drank the other half, then began the slow process of getting the tracker out of a sand dune.

“She’s a mess,” Orra reported, as Ranji began to rock the tracker back and forth.

“She?”

“She. Skinny. Wrists bleeding from those damned chains. God knows what else those Jaakers did to her.”

“They’re dead now,” Ranji said, with satisfaction. “Buried in sand by the wind, likely. The hell they were doing out here without any transport, we’ll never know.” He engaged the balloon treads, and the tracker wallowed out of the sand. Turning it back toward Station Four, he twiddled dials. “Wind’s still somewhere around,” he remarked. “Can’t raise Abeenah. She must have locked down.”

Orra was washing the chained woman’s face with another bottle of water.

“How’s she doin’?”

“She’ll need a bath, and medical attention.”

Station Four had been built over a spring that showed no sign of drying up, but saving water was written into the Polity Rules for Station Employees. The Rules went on to define the job of Station employees: to explore the surrounding desert, document their findings, and make sure that the Videzi, the wild native people who lived to the east, didn’t come anywhere near the Station, or the nearest town, Namjani, or Hallantu City, where the Polity ruled.

As they drove up, Ranji frowned. “Why is the Station wide open?” The shutters that protected the place from the wind hadn’t been closed.

“Maybe the wind didn’t make it this far,” said Orra.

Ranji pulled the sand-encrusted tracker into the garage. He’d clean it up later. Right now, the strange woman needed his help. He picked her up. She was long-limbed but weighed nothing. Orra opened the door into the main room of the Station, and Ranji carried their rescue inside.

“You’re late,” said Abeenah, from her spot where she was surrounded by all the sensor apparatus. Her straight brown hair lay in perfect braids; her pale eyes remained on her keyboard.

“We tried to call you, but the wind messed up the signal,” Orra told her. “We were caught in it; took time to get the tracker out.”

“I saw no windstorms.”

Orra peered at the sensors. “Did you recalibrate this?”

“I wish you wouldn’t change my settings. They’re Polity approved.”

Ranji didn’t wait to hear any more. He carried the unconscious woman into the sleeping quarters. But he still heard Orra say, patiently, “The winds change during the spring. If you use the Polity calibrations, you’ll miss too many of the storms. It’s dangerous.” Ranji hated that tolerant tone. He’d heard enough of it from the adults at the Polity Institute for Juvenile Offenders.

Abeenah was arguing. Orra’s voice grew sharper. Now the brat would get all downcast, do what she was told, and look sad and wounded for days.

With some heavy shears he’d taken from the garage, he cut through the chains that bound the woman’s abraded wrists, then carried her, still unconscious, into the bathing room. As he washed her and cleaned her scrapes, she half-woke, struggling feebly. “I’m Ranji,” he told her gently. “We killed the Jaakers.” She stared at him for a moment. One eye was brown, the other blue. She sighed, and closed them.

He got her settled in one of the empty rooms. Every Station should have a staff of five, but the Polity couldn’t manage to find enough people. Abeenah had only agreed to work at the Station if she didn’t have to go out scouting. Like most people, she was scared of the Videzi, because the Polity worried about them so loudly. The tribe had never bothered Orra or Ranji in their scouting trips. Neither had Jaakers. First time for everything.

While Ranji took care of the rescued woman, Orra put together some leftover stew and bread. The Station had one main room, where they worked, ate, and monitored the apparatus that checked for wind and recorded information about the weather. Behind the main room lay the kitchen, bath, and five sleeping rooms.

As they all sat around the table eating, Orra and Ranji told Abeenah about the Jaakers, and about their guest. Ranji reported that she was sleeping comfortably.

“But you know nothing about her,” Abeenah said. “She could be a Videzi for all you know!”

“We should have left her there?” Ranji asked.

Abeenah sat rigidly.

“Videzi have dark hair. Hers isn’t. And dark eyes. One of her eyes is blue.”

Taking refuge in her spanked puppy face, Abeenah finished her meal and returned to the sensor equipment. Orra and Ranji turned in early. It had been a hard day.

Six hours later, Ranji took the late shift on the apparatus so Abeenah could sleep. In the morning, he made coffee and laid out cheese and fruit, while Orra took over the sensors.

“Where is that brat?” Ranji demanded as they finished breakfast.

“Her shift starts later now. She said she needs more sleep.”

“You spoil her,” Ranji grumbled, and went out to the garage to get the sand out of the tracker. That took the rest of the morning. After cleaning himself up under the same hose he used on the tracker, he decided he was hungry. Time to cook something more interesting than leftover stew. Maybe some budaati. There was still some torshi to go with it.

As he entered the common room, he saw that Abeenah was finally at the apparatus. “Ranji broke the western sensor,” she complained, glaring at the big man.

“No, he didn’t,” Orra told the girl. “I recalibrated it. I told you why. This season, the winds come from much higher in the atmosphere. The regular sensors don’t find them in time.”

“There’s no proof of that in the regulations,” Abeenah retorted.

“Your teachers in the city aren’t out here, Abeenah,” Orra said patiently. “They don’t know. You haven’t been here in the spring, either; you haven’t seen it.”

“It’s against regulations,” Abeenah said.

Ranji snorted and escaped to the kitchen. Once the rice was cooking, he went to check on the not-Videzi woman. As he was changing her bandages, she woke up. Again, she struggled. This time, Ranji explained where she was and how she got there.

“A Station?” she asked. “I’m in a Polity Station?”

“You got it. Here, you need to drink more water.”

She was asleep before she finished drinking.

That evening, Ranji took the late shift as usual, but this time, with both trackers clean and shining, he decided to take a nap in the morning.

When he woke up and came into the common room, Abeenah was at the apparatus and the not-Videzi woman sat at the table with Orra, eating steadily. Her short hair glittered in the bright sun that glowed through the high windows. Red, silver, black, blond, strands of every possible human color. Like a Videzi, her skin was darker than Orra’s and lighter than Ranji’s. But no Videzi had hair like that. Or mismatched eyes.

“Hullo,” Ranji said. “Feeling better?”

She stood up, put out both hands in greeting. Long fingers, shredded nails, wrists bruised and scabbed. “I’m Haizea,” she said. “You would be Ranji. Thank you for saving me.”

“Feeling is mutual. If you hadn’t strangled that bastard that was strangling Orra, we’d all be Jaaker meat.”

“They got me and my partner. Never saw Jaakers that far west before. My partner ran. I just hope he got back okay, that he didn’t get caught in that wind and buried.”

“Back where?” Orra asked.

“Namjani town. I work for a company that provides guides and muscle for travelers. Mostly for the Mmgali, when they travel from their north enclave to the southern one. On the Saadi track.”

Ranji frowned. “The Mmgali put up with a female?”

“That’s why my boss made me take a man with me. Big help that was. He just took off, let those Jaakers grab me.”

“I heard about that Saadi track,” Ranji said. “Dug down deep away from the wind. Older than sand, it is.”

Orra sighed. “We never get that far east. Not enough people here at the Station. We can’t stay out very long.” She wondered what kind of plants grew out there. She wished her new-found plant hadn’t been trampled.

“Yeah,” Ranji said. “Poor lil’ Abi gets scared all by her stupid lonesome.”

Orra gave him the look that meant “shut up, Ranji.” She loved him; he kept the trackers working, cooked well, and knew how to take care of scrapes and bruises. But he had a temper.

Haizea filled in the difficult pause. “Mmgali took us as far as the Namjani road. We had wind suits, and I can feel winds coming, so we figured we’d be fine. Didn’t count on Jaakers.”

“They don’t usually prey on the Namjani road,” Orra said. “Spring winds change everything, I guess.”

The Saadi track ran north-south, between the two Mmgali enclaves. They had used it for a hundred years, digging it down eight feet into the sand, safe from the desert winds. The Mmgali brought their pampered women back and forth between their two enclaves, setting up marriages, making sure that their bloodlines stayed strong.

“How could you work for those assholes?” Ranji asked. “Breeding their women like they’re goats.”

Haizea grinned. “It’s good money,” she said. “What with the Jaakers getting worse, they want extra guards.” Her grin faded. “We coulda used some extra guards ourselves. But I gotta get back to Namjani. My boss owes me money for that trip.”

“I’ll take you in the tracker,” Ranji said. “I’m making a supply run in a few days.”

“I never saw a Polity tracker,” Haizea said.

“You were in one!”

“She was unconscious,” Orra pointed out.

“You wanna see one now?” Ranji loved the trackers the way Orra loved the desert plants. He took Haizea out to the garage. Orra figured they’d be there for several hours.

Leaving them deep in tracker machinery, and ignoring Abeenah’s frowns, Orra happily reviewed the information that she had collected about the desert’s plants. Working on an analysis of several different species, she paid no attention when the tracker bay door opened. Ranji was always coming in and out.

Then a strange voice asked: “Are you Orra Shikani?” The man who stood in the doorway wore the uniform of the Polity.

Orra said that she was, and asked for identification. Jaakers had been known to steal Polity uniforms. And those thieves came in all skin tones and sizes. But the man showed his badge, not hiding his exasperation at being asked for it. “I understand that you are harboring a Videzi,” he said.

Orra glanced at Abeenah, who seemed buried in her sensors. “Not that I know of,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“We received information,” the agent said.

Information? Orra looked again at Abeenah, who didn’t respond.

“A woman saved our lives when we were attacked by Jaakers,” Orra said. “She doesn’t look or act like a Videzi. She is leaving for Namjani Town soon. She has a job there.”

“Videzi do not work,” announced the agent.

“Exactly.”

“She may be lying. I need to question her. Where is she?”

“In the tracker bay.”

“I saw only your mechanic.”

“She hasn’t come back in here. Maybe she’s outside.”

“No one is allowed outside the Station without a tracker,” the agent intoned. But he went back out into the tracker bay.

Orra strode over to Abeenah. “Why the hell did you call the Polity!”

“It’s the law,” Abeenah said, not looking at her boss. “It was the right thing to do.”

Orra rarely got angry. Gentle persuasion was her usual method of dealing with people. But now she wanted to haul Abeenah out of her chair and slap her. The feeling astonished her so much that she froze for a moment. Then she said, “Haizea is not Videzi.”

Before Abeeneh could respond, Ranji came in with the Polity agent. “I ain’t seen no Videzi here,” the big man said sullenly.

“He’s lying!” Abeenah yelled. “He carried her in here!”

Orra took a deep breath. She still wanted to slap the girl. “The woman who saved us is not a Videzi.” She carefully enunciated each word. “Videzi stay together; they don’t go off alone. She does not look like a Videzi. She has a job in Namjani, guiding groups of Mmgali. Check with her employer.”

The Polity man said, “I need to see this person. I must examine the premises. She may be hiding somewhere. She may have come in here while you were busy.”

Ranji had probably stowed Haizea in some corner of the tracker bay. Orra needed to buy time so he could hide her more fully. Polity would arrest people on any pretext.

“I’ll show you,” Orra said to the agent. She didn’t like leaving Ranji alone with Abeenah, but didn’t want him going with the Polity agent, either. The big man was likely to knock the agent out and dump him somewhere. She discovered, to her horror, that she wished Ranji would do just that.

Before they got to the bedroom corridor, Haizea appeared in the tracker bay door. “Wind,” she said. “WIND!” And disappeared.

Abeenah yelled, “She’s lying!” The agent yelled, “Come back here,” and ran after Haizea. Ranji yelled, “Get your tracker inside,” and ran after the agent. And the wind began to shriek.

“You screwed up the sensors!” Abeenah cried, reaching for the button that closed the shutters.

Orra grabbed her arm. “We need to make sure the agent’s tracker is inside,” she began, but Abeenah panicked, screaming “Close the shutters!” several times before the Polity tracker was safe and Orra could push the button that wrapped the Station in metal.

“What did you do to the sensors?” Abeenah yelled. “Why didn’t you close the shutters!”

“Get hold of yourself,” Orra said severely. “I told you that the agent’s vehicle had to get out of the wind. And I left the sensors at Polity specifications. Check them.” The girl stared at her, still terrified. Before Orra could shake sense into her, the agent appeared from the tracker bay, followed by Ranji.

“The Videzi has disappeared,” he said. “I’m not authorized to arrest you today, Station Leader Shikani, but you must remain here until I make my report. You as well, Mechanic Nergath. This station is not fully staffed. I’ll have to include that in my report.”

“You do that,” Orra said. “Maybe they’ll listen to you. I have requested more people several times.”

The agent stared at her as if she’d spoken in Mmgali. “If you requested people, they would have been sent.”

Before Orra could retort, the wind stopped as quickly as it started. Abeenah stared at her sensors. “Wind doesn’t stop that quickly,” she said.

“Spring winds,” Orra began, but Ranji interrupted. “You so stupid you don’t think Orra knows more about winds than you ever will? Fucking spring winds are fucking different!”

The agent frowned at him.

Great, thought Orra, he’ll arrest Ranji for swearing. “I’ll see you out,” she said to the agent. She didn’t care what Ranji might do to Abeenah.

After Orra and the agent left, Ranji yanked Abeeneh out of her chair and off her feet.

“She ran outside when that pisshead showed up. You probably murdered her!” he yelled. “I got used to you being no more help than tits on a tracker, you and your fucking immunity bullshit. But if Haizea dies, so will you!”

“It’s a medical phobia,” Abeeneh said tremulously. “Let me go!”

Ranji dropped her. Her knees hit the floor. Hard. “Chickenshit,” he said.

Abeeneh scrambled away from him, getting her chair between him and the sensor panel. “Why did she run away if she isn’t breaking the law?”

“She knows Polity agents. Anyone knows you can’t trust those muckheads.”

“Anyone who’s been to prison!”

This time, Ranji grabbed her by the hair.

“RANJI.” Orra stood in the doorway. Ranji put Abeeneh down carefully, then kicked over the chair so that it banged into the girl’s knees, and stomped past Orra into the tracker bay.

Between sobs, Abeeneh said, “He’s crazy. Don’t let him near me!”

Orra sat down on the abused chair. “What did you think would happen?”

“It was the right thing—”

“Did you consider that Ranji and I might be angry with you? Did you think about how you’d manage if we were arrested?”

The girl sniffled pitifully. “He should be back in prison!” she whined.

“And should I be in prison, too?”

“They won’t leave me alone here. It’s against regulations.”

Orra had never been so angry. She didn’t get angry. It made her feel like she was having a heart attack. “I can’t keep Ranji away from you,” she said. “Lock yourself in your room until the Polity come back.”

Later, after breathing herself calm, Orra sat down and recalibrated the sensors. She could hear Ranji rattling around in the tracker bay. Then he came into the main room and paced. Eventually, he said, “That Polity pisshead will be back, you know. Arrest us.”

Orra had been worrying about this too. “Then they won’t have anyone to take care of the station and keep the Videzi away,” she said.

Ranji shook his head. “The way I figure, those muckheads will haul us off, then put it out on all the links that they’ve saved the Station from the bad Videzi, and their rancid buddies will sign up to join the Station Service and keep the Polity safe. Then they’ll bring that Abeenah brat back to HQ and make her a hero. If I don’t kill her first.”

Orra wanted to rebuke him for his ferocity, but found herself unable to do it. She was ready to kill the girl, too.

“Where is Haizea?”

“No idea. Outside somewhere. In the wind.”

“Couldn’t you have hidden her someplace?”

“She saw them coming before I did. She just ran. She knows Polity. Grab you first, then maybe, just maybe, ask questions later.”

They sat together, saying nothing. They had rescued Haizea only to kill her.

The tracker bay door opened, and Haizea came in. Her clothes and multicolored hair were soaking wet.

Orra and Ranji stared at her, sure that they were hallucinating.

“Sorry I used your water, Ranji,” said Haizea. “Didn’t want to bring all that sand inside.”

Ranji took three steps toward her, put a hand on her arm. “You’re wet,” he said.

“Yeah, I had sand everywhere, needed to wash it off. I used your tracker cleaning hose.”

Orra came over, touched Haizea in turn, to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. “Come—come and sit down,” she stuttered. “Are you hungry? Where did you hide?”

“I could eat, thanks.”

Now Ranji had Haizea by both arms. “How. Did. You. HIDE!”

“Buried myself in the sand along the east wall of your station, pulled my tunic over my mouth. Low down like that, most of the wind went over me, since it comes from the west. The sand piled up, like it does. Took me awhile to dig out. And a downdraft would have buried me good. But the Desert Lady protected me.”

Ranji let go of her. “Are you hungry? I’ll get you something. I’ll get us all something.” He charged into the kitchen alcove and began pulling things around, then came back with bread, cheese, mugs, and an open bottle of wine, which he dropped on the all-purpose table after sweeping Orra’s specimens aside. As Ranji poured the wine, Haizea reached for the food.

“It was Abeenah, of course,” Ranji said. “Orra wouldn’t let me kill her.” Before Orra could say anything, he disappeared again and came back with a towel and a blanket, wrapping the towel around Haizea’s wet hair and the blanket around her shoulders. For a moment, they ate in silence.

“Haizea,” Orra said. “Are you a Videzi?”

Haizea sipped her wine. “My mother was,” she said. “My father was a—he was from Hallantu City, had some kind of Polity thing that said he could study us. The Videzi. He seemed like a good person. Until he raped my mother. Then he left. My aunts and uncles hunted him down and killed him.”

Ranji put down his own wine. “But they brought you up,” he said.

“They aren’t like you folks. A child is a child, no matter how it was made. But it’s hard, being different. I left when I was fifteen, went to Namjani. Got the job escorting Mmgali, and other people, because I can feel the wind.”

“They say Videzi can do that.”

Haizea shook her head. “Not all of us. My family wanted me to stay because of that, but they didn’t want me to stay, because I looked too much like Polity. It was impossible to live there.” She considered the stunned faces of her hosts. “They’re gonna arrest you for taking care of me.”

“That would be stupid,” said Orra. “They can’t find enough people to work here. Why get rid of two of them?”

“Because they only care about the law,” Ranji said. “Place can rot or blow away, as long as their stupid laws are obeyed. Kids can rot in prison because they’re too large and too scary.”

Orra said nothing. It was all true. She had put up with it because she wanted to study plants.

Ranji poured his third mug of wine.

“Both of you would be good at guiding travelers,” said Haizea.

Both of them stared at her.

“You’re a leader, Orra. You can get people to do what’s good for them.”

“Not that Abeeneh bitch,” Ranji said.

“And you’re a mechanic,” Haizea told him. “You can keep trackers going. And you can look large and scary so the Jaakers will leave us alone.”

Orra felt everything shifting around her. “I always wanted to study the desert,” she said. “I was in school for years, to learn how. I can’t give that up.”

“You can still study it. We’ll travel everywhere, not just in this sector. Conso, the guy who employs me, is always looking for people. Even if my partner survived, he screwed up by leaving me. Conso won’t like that. He’ll need new people. People who can throw Jaakers around like they’re pebbles.”

Orra got up, walked around the room, looked at the sensor board, shifted it to look to the south, then to the north.

“C’mon, boss,” Ranji said. “You stay here, you end up in a Polity lockup. Can’t study the desert there.”

“I don’t know.” She’d been here for six years, ever since she received her degree in desert studies. She loved the desert. But now she could see even more of it. Except no one would know about her work.

“Think about it,” Ranji said. “Those pissheads won’t be back until late tomorrow. Right now, I need to sleep. And you need a hot shower, Haizea. No, I don’t care about the extra water. Abeenah won’t use much all by herself.”

Haizea didn’t move. She was watching Orra.

“You want to help those Mmgali treat their women like breeding goats?” Orra asked the big man.

“Mmgali, Polity, what’s the difference?”

Orra stopped playing with the sensor apparatus and stared at the ceiling. “At least Polity gave me a job.”

“A great job,” said Ranji. “As long as you obey every one of their rules, even though they change them all the time or make them up.”

Orra shook her head.

“Think about it,” said Ranji. “We got a day, maybe two, before that muckhead comes back with reinforcements. Anyway, I got work to do on the second tracker, in case we need it.” He frowned at the wine bottle, left it, and headed for the garage.

“I’ll give you a hand,” Haizea said, and followed him.

*     *     *
Late the next morning, Abeenah was hungry, and tired of being in her small bedroom. “Orra,” she called. When no one answered, she called again. Maybe they’d gone out scouting. But they shouldn’t leave the sensor apparatus without someone to watch for wind.

Abeenah slipped quietly out her door, tiptoed down the hall, and peered into the common room. It was empty. And dark. The shutters were down. But she didn’t hear the howl of the wind. Had they gone off scouting, and put the shutters down for safety? She crossed to the apparatus.

A note glowed on the screen.

“Abeenah—I’m sorry, but we have to leave. If we are arrested, we will never be able to work again. Once you’re in the Polity Justice System, that’s the end. I thought you knew that.”

Abeenah stared at the screen for a long time. Then she got up and went to the bedroom corridor. In Orra’s room, everything was gone except for the bed and the clothes press. The same was true of Ranji’s room.

One tracker—the new one—remained. The kitchen had plenty of food.

Standing in the middle of the silent room, Abeenah began to shake. She couldn’t stop, so she curled up on the cool tile floor. The silence pressed her down and down.