Jo-Jo took a swallow and nodded. ‘Weird stuff, all right.’
‘I said I’d never forget the fact you got me out of there, and I won’t.’ She opened the other flask and sucked in some more. ‘Can’t think of a much worse place to die than in that goo. Even the vac’d be better. You did all right in there, Rasterovich.’ She tapped her temple.
Jo-Jo shrugged, not wanting her to make something out of it. ‘More to do with how the Entity fucked my head over back when I discovered it than anything else. Made it easier for me than for you to think.’
They sat in silence for a while, drinking.
‘You think she’s still alive?’ Randall asked him.
‘Mira?’
‘No, the fuckin’ Extro queen.’
She was baiting him, but he laughed. It felt good to be alive. ‘Yeah. I do. Might just be wishful,’ he said truthfully, ‘but she’s a survivor.’
‘Like us?’
‘No. She’s smarter than that.’
They both laughed this time.
Then Randall’s expression sobered. ‘I shouldn’t have left her alone on Rho Junction,’ she said. ‘Thought she’d be OK. We were so damn close to the ship. Didn’t expect anything to happen. Bethany was with her too. Beth’s got smarts.’
‘No. You shouldn’t have,’ said Jo-Jo. ‘And I won’t fuckin’ forget it till we find her alive.’ It was the first time the mercenary had admitted guilt at Mira Fedor’s kidnapping.
Randall stared at him. ‘Figured as much. I don’t give a fuck about your forgiveness, though.’
Jo-Jo didn’t like the direction of the conversation, so he hauled himself to his feet, then bent down and rubbed his shins. ‘Gonna find somewhere to sleep. I’ll finish looking around in the daylight.’
Randall nodded. ‘Thinkin’ the same way. Don’t change the shade settings on the windows, and stay away from them once it’s light. Might be that the Extros in that big ol’ flying drum were happy to get rid of us, but the Saqr might fancy a bit of fresh brain juice.’
‘Hear you,’ said Jo-Jo. ‘Where da ya think we’ll find a flyer?’
‘There’re buildings all over the mountain. If we go out at night, we should be able to cover most of them. Could be, we get lucky and find one that hasn’t been damaged.’
‘Or?’
‘Could be, we spend the rest of our days eating pasta, right here. Until it runs out.’
‘I think we’re gonna get lucky,’ said Jo-Jo with a certainty he didn’t feel.
‘Sure,’ said Randall. ‘And OLOSS is gonna fly right in here and take Araldis back. Mira Fedor will be with them. She and I’ll fly off into the black together and get rich.’
Jo-Jo gave her his best scowl. He didn’t like that scenario much better than the first.
MIRA
‘Your placenta is breaking down. We must take the baby from you soon, or it will starve.’
Mira felt vulnerable lying on her back, covered by a translucent membrane and under the scrutiny of an array of sensors. The clinician – Dolin, he introduced himself as – was like all the others who had come to examine the odd Latino woman carrying a child of indeterminate biology: curious but nursing a hint of faint repulsion beneath his spill-resistant research whites.
Rene Mianos had been true to her word, arranging for Mira’s transfer to the Mount Clement facility as soon as the biozoon docked. It had come at a price, though. Thales Berniere had been escorted off the ship, straight to the Sophos, by red-robed police. The Consilience soldier, Fariss O’Dea, on the other hand, had easily disarmed her would-be captors and simply disappeared.
Mira wondered if Fariss and Thales had worked out a plan for this eventuality, or whether the soldier had simply decided to cut her losses and leave. Either way, Mira went to Mount Clement alone.
As she and Thales had been escorted away from the egress scale – Mira on a hospital float and Thales in restraints – she had seen a fine-looking, slim woman standing in the background of the down-lift area. She’d wanted to tell Thales his wife was there, but the Scolar authorities had allowed them no time to speak or say goodbye.
‘Will my baby survive?’ she asked Dolin.
‘We’re unsure, Baronessa. We’re not a neonatal facility as such, though our cellular accelerator may be just what you need. If you agree to its use, then we should be able to mature your infant’s development enough for it to survive. You should know, however, that to date we have only used it on test clones.’
‘What could happen to my baby?’
‘The accelerator has been seen to trigger Werner syndrome in a small percentage of recipients.’
‘What is that?’
‘Werner syndrome causes accelerated aging. The process goes … too far, if you like to look at it that way.’
Mira closed her eyes as he continued to speak.
‘The good news is that despite its short gestation the baby in your womb appears unusually well-formed for its biological age. It should only need a short exposure time. More worryingly, our scans show that the baby has some unusual physical characteristics. You say the father was humanesque?’
Mira had been over this so many times in the past few hours that her tongue refused to cooperate again. She stared at the clinician in frustration. They’d all wanted endless details from her but were prepared to give only generalisations in return.
Dolin saw her expression and relented. ‘Do you consent?’
‘What will happen without it?’
‘We predict the baby will only survive a few minutes. Its lungs are too immature, as are some of its other organs.’
Mira levered herself up onto one elbow to stare at the scientist. He was tall, with a narrow face and a furrowed expression. Not an unkind fellow, but one with deep preoccupations.
‘Use the accelerator to save my child,’ she said, cupping her stomach. ‘She’s all I’ve got.’
‘She?’ The clinician looked interested. ‘You believe the child is a girl? Our scans were inconclusive.’
‘Si. At least, I’m n-not sure. My biozoon symbiote couldn’t tell me. Biozoons have different sexual references to humanesques.’
‘I know,’ said the clinician. ‘I studied among the Pod for a time.’
Mira stared harder at him. ‘You were permitted into the Pod?’
He nodded. ‘I met Designate Ley-al at a conference on Mintaka, many years ago. Ley-al showed much interest in my research and was able to convince the Pod to allow me a short sabbatical among them.’
‘Where did you live?’
‘Aboard Ley-al. It was a remarkable experience, and somewhat frightening.’
Mira relaxed a little, knowing Dolin had been with Ley-al. The leader of the biozoon’s first diplomatic family would not let an unethical ’esque near the Pod.
‘We should proceed with preparation,’ said Dolin gently. ‘Your consent, please.’ He held out a disclaimer.
She pressed her finger against the film and waited for it to copy her DNA.
As she felt the tingle of identification being completed, Dolin’s technicians moved in around her, pressing adhesives on her skin, spreading absorbent sheets around her body. Mira listened as Dolin described living among the Pod. He was still talking, distracting her, as a transparent crib was wheeled in, and lights shone directly at her face so that she couldn’t see past the end of the bed. She felt a cold sensation against her thigh.
‘Dolin!’
He leaned past the bank of brightness until his face was close to hers. ‘The accelerant has been administered.’
‘How long will it take?’ She felt short of breath, as though the infusion had robbed her of oxygen.
‘The biozoon slowed down the fluid loss with a synthesised hormone that will now be nullified by the accelerant. Soon you will feel contraction pains. The baby is small, so we do not anticipate difficulty with the birth. However, we think the accelerant will have more time to work if the baby is born through the birth canal – not by the normal pro
cedure.’
Mira tried to sit up. ‘You mean an uncontrolled birth?’
‘The accepted term is natural birth. Afterwards, though, we may have to take the baby away quickly. Try not to be alarmed.’ Dolin smiled reassuringly, but Mira could see the concern in his eyes. ‘Our tests show us that the baby’s physical characteristics are primarily humanesque, Latino origins, but there would appear to be some anomalies in its blood work. We will know more soon.’
He withdrew behind the lights.
Within moments Mira felt the first twinge – milder than the gripping pain she’d felt on Intel station. She lay back on the bed, suddenly wishing that her sister, Faja, or her friend Estelle were with her. Even Bethany Ionil.
A different kind of fear struck her. Only women caught in dire circumstances went through uncontrolled childbirth. Even on Araldis, natural birth was a rare thing.
‘What will happen?’ she asked after another contraction.
‘Your body will know what to do. Just accept what happens as part of a normal process. We are monitoring your progress.’ Dolin’s voice echoed past the lights. ‘Don’t be afraid.’
The next contraction squeezed her abdomen into a tight ball, and she gasped aloud.
‘We can’t administer pain relief with the accelerant, Baronessa.’
She nodded and felt another contraction. This one started in the small of her back and radiated to her side and down into her pelvis, finishing in a fierce cramp that made her draw her knees up. She grabbed the edges of the bed and rolled to one side.
Gloved hands reached through the bank of lights. ‘Stay on your back. We must feel inside the birth canal.’
‘No!’ Mira jerked upright. ‘Where are the women?’
‘Baronessa?’ said Dolin’s voice.
‘I want women in attendance.’
‘There are no women on this shift.’
Mira lashed out with her foot, knocking over a bank of lights. She slid off the bed to her feet and blinked into the dark side of the room. It was filled with male ’esques.
She gritted her teeth through the next wave of pain, waiting for it to pass before she could speak again. When she could, she straightened. ‘Dolin …’
He righted the lights and moved them further back. Then he stepped to her side.
‘Yes, Baronessa?’
‘Find a woman to help me, then do not come back in here until the baby is born. None of you!’
‘But we must—’
‘As soon as the baby is born, you may do what is necessary to save it.’ She was quiet but emphatic, using the most commanding manner she could muster.
In the silence that followed something unspoken passed between the observers. They quietly disappeared, leaving only Dolin. He helped Mira back onto the bed.
‘Your customs don’t allow males present at the birth?’
She nodded. ‘Latino women are modest. I have adapted to … many things since leaving Araldis, but not this.’
The furrows in Dolin’s forehead grew deeper. ‘I’ll see what can be done.’
He disappeared.
She lived in the narrow world of managing pain until the door finally opened again, and a stocky woman dressed in food-smeared overalls entered. The dark hair escaping a white cap marked her as a domestic of some kind. She marched straight over to Mira’s side.
‘What’re all these harsh lights for? For Scolar’s sake … men!’ She straightened the cover and put her hand to Mira’s brow. ‘What’s yer name, love?’
‘Mira Fedor.’
‘Well, Mira Fedor. I’m Linnea, the galley supervisor in this place. Come from just down the mountain in Clementvale. Only ever delivered one baby the old way. Me own. Got caught out in the protein fields on Argamon. Had me son right there in the clod. Used me pocket knife to cut the cord.’
Her reassurances were thin, but her voice was strong and centred, like Faja’s. Mira became calmer – until the pain piled in again. She gasped for air.
‘Little breaths, love. Above it. Ride above it.’ Linnea left her to search through some drawers. She returned with a wad of absorbent pads and a white overall. She stripped out of her kitchen garb and donned the clean overall right then and there, unconcerned about modesty.
The sight of her bare chest made Mira gasp – not the nudity, but the myriad of finely inked lines spreading across her naked breasts. ‘Pensare!’
‘What?’ Linnea pulled the overall up and sealed the seam.
But Mira was caught in another contraction and couldn’t speak. When the wave of pain passed, she reached out for Linnea’s hand.
The woman stepped closer, surprised. ‘What is it, love?’
‘You belong to the Pensare.’ She traced her fingers across her own breast with her other hand.
Linnea nodded, understanding, and smiled. ‘Aaah. I’d heard it called different things, but never that. Here we are the Swestr – sisters. The women’s lobby. Even on famous Scolar, things are not always equal. Do you bear the marks?’
Mira shook her head; another contraction was coming. ‘Mia sorella … sister … mine,’ she panted.
‘Roll on yer side. Let me rub your back, little Swestr.’
But Mira barely heard her. The individual stab of her contractions turned into one long excruciating pain that shifted to her back. Then a strange sensation overtook her body, as though her pelvis might split apart. Her focus fell to it, and the sense of movement within her.
‘It’s coming.’ She thought she’d spoken aloud. Had she?
Linnea began helping her onto the floor, into a squatting position. Her sturdy body bore Mira’s weight easily.
‘Better than on yer back, love. Use gravity to help you get yer little ’un out.’
Mira’s legs trembled with the exertion.
‘It’s crowning. Now lean on me back,’ instructed Linnea. ‘I’m goin’ to get down low and make sure yer baby doesn’t slip.’
Mira collapsed across Linnea’s broad back, fingers spasming into the folds of the cook’s overalls.
‘Just one little push. Now. Not too hard. This one’s slipperier than an eel.’
Mira felt disembodied, seperate from her skin. Not able to think.
‘Mira! Swestr! Push!’ said Linnea, sharply. ‘Bear down.’
Mira’s mind began to slip away somewhere, to a place that she’d been before. But then Insignia drew her back from that blissful oblivion, insisted she return.
Mira?
Insignia had been silent in her mind until now.
Our baby is about to be born, said the biozoon. You must help her.
Mira felt something. Her eyes flickered open.
Linnea had gripped her shoulder with one hand, reaching up, her other hand still cupped between Mira’s parted legs. The thick fingers bit into her flesh with no apology.
‘You must push now. This baby needs to be free of yer.’ Bright eyes and a sweat-glistening face. ‘This is yer important job, Mira,’ Linnea told her. ‘The one you were born for. Don’t fail yerself. Or yer baby.’
The woman’s intensity grounded her. Suddenly it wasn’t Linnea, a stranger, delivering her baby, but her beloved sister Faja. The same look, the same voice, the same determination.
Fa!
Mira let the sensations back in – the pain, the sense of her own body being torn – and pushed down.
She felt her baby’s head move.
‘Babe’s here!’ cried Linnea. ‘It’s here. Once more.’
Mira pushed again, and with the sliding sensation came a release from the pain.
‘Here, I’ve got yer babe in my hands.’ Linnea lifted a bloody bundle up so Mira could see.
With trembling fingers, Mira reached for the tiny body. ‘It’s a girl,’ she said.
‘Guess so. Can’t see no man’s tackle down there. Now lie yerself down on the bed while we deal with the afters.’
‘A girl,’ repeated Mira, as she weakly levered herself onto the bed. ‘Thank Crux!’
Linnea smiled, but continued to hold the infant. ‘Yer babe looks good an all to me, love. A tad undersized, as you’d expect, but its lungs seem to be working fine.’
‘I wish to hold her,’ said Mira.
Linnea shook her head and laid the bloody babe in the transparent crib. ‘Promised Dolin I’d put her straight in here, soon as I cut the cord. It’s the only reason he let me in. Once the scan’s done, yer can have her back. How are yer planning to feed her?’
‘Feed?’ Mira hadn’t even thought of it.
‘Yeah. They do need it, yer know,’ Linnea said with gentle sarcasm. ‘And what name have yer picked?’
Mira felt her face warm with embarrassment at her exposed ignorance. Estelle wouldn’t have been so ill prepared. Nor Faja. Both would have picked their child’s name before the birth.
She spent some precious moments thinking about her sister and her best friend, wishing they were with her, longing for their company and advice. Then she let her self-pity go and looked to her child.
Our child, Insignia corrected.
THALES
‘Villon?’ The detention room was so achingly familiar that Thales felt compelled to say the old philosopher’s name aloud.
But no aged and gentle person emerged from one of the bedrooms; no refined and thoughtful voice replied. Villon was dead, and Thales found himself back in the exact room he had shared with the great man.
Rene had been in the docking bay when the politic guards led him away. He’d seen her there, pressed back against the wall, a slim almost ethereal figure with her fingers clasped tight. He didn’t call out to her or plead for her help. He hadn’t endured the last months to return home like a boy needing protection.
In the furore of their arrival, and Mira’s transfer to Mount Clement, Fariss had eluded the guards. Even though she hadn’t really understood all the reasons for him risking detention again, she’d happily acknowledged his determination. If she’d forbidden him, he didn’t know what he would have done. His urge to obey her was so strong, and yet his desire to preserve the integrity of his world was equally so.
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