The Sentients of Orion

by Marianne de Pierres

  As the pressures altered to adjust to the influx of heat Mira chose the bed closest to the door—her bed—and fell quickly asleep.

  * * *

  The exact same noise of pressure change woke her a few hours later. She lay there, breathing quietly. The door. She had not locked it.

  A soft curse and the door closed.

  Warmer air surged around her. Someone was in there. Not Faja. Or Istelle. An intruder?

  Mira’s heart beat wildly when a hand touched her ankle. She kicked and rolled away.

  The intruder, caught off guard, overbalanced and fell.

  Was he conscious? He? Yes, she thought, it was a male’s odour—humanesque, familiar almost. She tapped on the light and groped for the shortcast, but her hand froze in mid-motion. She stared down at the fallen figure.

  ‘You!’ Mira declared with enough accusation in her tone for a lawmon demanding a life sentence for a killer.

  TRIN

  Trin could not sleep. He see-sawed between shame and elation. Djeserit was a part-ginko and not quite an adult, yet he grew hard at the thought of her. Had her strangeness cured him of his need for bravura? He would know when he saw her again—and how he longed for that. Anticipation kept fatigue at bay: he should have been exhausted but still the energy flowed in him.

  He dressed and went into the office where Nathaniel Montforte dozed over the desk.

  Trin startled him awake. ‘You had a visitor from Pell earlier. He grew tired of waiting and said that he must return to the mountains. He left you this.’ Nathaniel yawned and pointed to a capsule on his desk.

  Trin picked it up and turned it over in his hands. His data sponge was inside. He knew it. Joe Scali had been. ‘Bene, Montforte. Have you had a meal?’ he asked casually.

  The young man shook his head.

  ‘I shall watch the shortcast for you.’

  ‘But the Capitano...’

  ‘I will log it as my request. See.’ Trin tapped an entry into the deskfilm’s diary. ‘It is hardly reasonable for both of us to be here when I am unable to sleep. Come back in a while when you have filled your belly.’

  Nathaniel hesitated, then nodded his appreciation. ‘Grazi, Don Pellegrini. The Capitano called me off my break cycle. I did not have time for food.’

  Trin forced himself to smile: Nathaniel, at least, treated him with respect. ‘Take your time, Montforte. My card is empty.’

  When he had left, Trin attached the sponge to his deskfilm and searched for the file from Lotte Perrone’s office. To his surprise the contents of the file were an audio-only record. He secured the coldlock to both doors before activating it.

  Clearance level: tau.

  Meeting between visiting dignitary (name available at clearance level: psi, hereafter referred to in this recording as SUPPRESSED) and ambassadress for Araldis, Marchella Pellegrini.

  Recorded and sealed 20/14/4006.

  ‘My apologies for any offence, Ambassadress Pellegrini: the sight of your beautiful planet excites my physiology. On my planet it is not a thing we hide. It prevents much deception when you can see what excites a person.’

  ‘SUPPRESSED, please call me Marchella. I have arranged a tour of the main equatorial mines for you. Our transport will depart shortly after breakfast.’

  ‘Will you be accompanying me... Marchella?’

  ‘That would please mia fratella, SUPPRESSED.’

  ‘But will it please me?’

  (pause)

  ‘The variety of minerals on Araldis is due in part to its unusual geography. As you may be aware, Araldis has no definitive polar land mass like most other inhabited planets. Large subduction plates collide at each pole, creating the maze of islands that sprinkle the breadth of each hemisphere, ending in the ranges that fringe the belted land mass on which we live and which we mine. Araldis’s climate is extreme. While the polar waters are warm, due to the underwater volcanic activity, the islands are cool and wet. The Equatorial Belt, in the rain shadow of the ranges, is hot and arid.’

  ‘I have familiarised myself with Araldisian geography, Marchella Pellegrini. It is part of what makes its minerals so... special. Please join me for a meal.’

  ‘Thank you, SUPPRESSED, but I have eaten already.’

  ‘Then I will be offended. I need a guide through your foods. Please sit, Marchella. I may wear less clothing than you are used to, but I am quite harmless.’

  ‘This is kranse bread. It is our most successful crop and is very high in protein. The eggs are quark, and have an unusually dry texture—again, high in protein. The sea cucumbers are crisp. The roe is from the Tourmaline Islands and may be saltier than you are used to. I recommend that you drink it with wine. Araldisian Reds are our most famous export, after our minerals, SUPPRESSED. We have numerous varieties. Though the grapes are grown in climate control, the Araldisian soil that nourishes them makes for a piquant flavour.’

  ‘Please join me, Marchella.’

 

  Recording resumed in AiV 197*

  ‘And what of your family’s operations, Marchella?’

  ‘Below is Pellegrini A, and to the south Pellegrini B. Each produces 60,000 tonnes of ore per thirty-hour day. The ore is conveyored back to Dockside and stockpiled. The Pellegrini conveyors are some of the longest known. The mining belt has the perfect geography and climate for our conveyors, flat and hot—no frost to damage the machinery. Subsidiary feeders from the smaller mines join the main conveyor all the way along.’

  ‘The process is very primitive.’

  ‘Yes, but it works. Our society uses some grotechnology to maintain its infrastructure but we found it to be too expensive on the mining scale. We are still a young planet.’

  ‘And youth is so seductive, my dear. What of the non-Pellegrini mines?’

  ‘They use land barges to transport their ore, or rent space on the conveyors.’

  ‘So indeed your family has the monopoly?’

  ‘The Cipriano Clan purchased Araldis after seeing the assay reports from the first exploration ships in this area. The Pellegrinis are the most powerful of the Araldis Ciprianos, the royal family. It is... our planet.’

  ‘And what would it take for me to convince you that an exclusive minerals contract with me would be in the interest of the Pellegrinis’ great name?’

  ‘Orion lucre.’

  ‘That is something I am in a position to offer.’

  ‘What minerals do you want?’

  ‘Only one little mine, Marchella. It is named Juanita, I believe.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The one that produces a quantity of quixite.’

  ‘Our financiers will negotiate with you On that issue, SUPPRESSED. But, if you’ll pardon my frankness, there are others bidding for the same alloy.’

  ‘May I enquire who that may be?’

  ‘You know that I cannot disclose who bids against you.’

  ‘Is there nothing that might convince you to short-cut this... this... bargaining?’

 

  ‘There is one small thing that would gain you favour in the bidding.’

  ‘Which would be?’

  ‘You are tyro to the Sole Entity?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I... that is, we want one of our familia to be admitted to Belle-Monde to undergo testing by the Entity.’

  ‘But only the very brilliant are chosen.’

  ‘And you do not think there could be one so brilliant among us Latinos?’

  ‘No need to take offence, ambassadress.’

  ‘No offence taken, SUPPRESSED. But this point would be, in brutal parlance, a deal-breaker.’

 

  ‘Then perhaps it could be arranged, Marchella, once the terms of export are agreed. Do you have one person in mind?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Then I would say we are close to a deal.’ His tone indicated that he was about to make a further condition.

  ‘SUPPRESSED?’ Marchella asked.

  ‘There is one ot
her thing I would also have, which would be, to use your words, a deal-breaker.’

  ‘Si?’

 

  Trin sat transfixed as the final moments of the recording played out the unmuffled sounds of the dignitary’s concluding negotiations. He then replayed the beginning, listening for the date—over a year ago.

  Had the deal been struck, he wondered? And why did the dignitary wish to purchase minerals exclusively from the mine of Luna il Longa? What was this alloy that he, and others, so eagerly sought?

  Trin stood and paced a little, noticing a sudden aching hunger in his belly. He searched the storage cupboards and found some dried fruits and a tube of sweetener.

  As he ate he tried to open a farcast link to the OLOSS library on Scolar. The link bounced back with the message that the relay station at Dowl was indefinitely disrupted.

  Indefinitely?

  Frustrated, he replayed the trade negotiation. He had heard of the discovery of a strange Entity, out past Mintaka, but to believe that the creature was a god was so... unlikely! Why had his tia loco wanted to send a familia to its tutelage?

  When the answer did not come readily to him, Trin realised how little he knew of his familia’s politics or what really lay at the heart of the trouble between Franco and Marchella.

  His thoughts drifted to Djeserit. He checked the time. She would be waiting for him now but he could not leave until Nathaniel returned. The ragazzo was taking too long.

  Trin allowed conscience and desire to war within him momentarily. But conscience had never been his ally.

  SOLE

  manifestspace

  watch’m secrets

  cleave’m thoughts/ bring’m danger danger

  lose’m thoughts/round round

  make’m/ absurd absurd

  try’m other

  threat threat/on little creature.

  watch ‘m secrets

  TEKTON

  ‘What privacy issues, Tekton? I am told that Sole Entity encourages competition between the tyros. And, to put it frankly, tell someone who cares. As long as you turn up for your assigned scans, you are free to bitch as much as you like among yourselves.’

  Bitch? BITCH! Tekton toyed with the idea of opening his robe to share his annoyance with the Chief Astronomein but the Balol scientist’s attention had already drifted back to the algorithm matrices rotating above his console.

  Kick him, said his free-mind. Slice tiny bits from his neck frill and stuff them up his olfactory orifice. His logic-mind chipped in at this point with a cool observation that free-mind is exhibiting signs of extreme liberation, and warned Tekton that following its suggestions could be construed as psychotic behaviour. Oh, and... the astronomein clearly has no legislative power over the tyros.

  In a rather disconsolate fashion Tekton made his daily pilgrimage to the ménage lounge.

  To his surprise, Ra was there, playing 4D quoits with the uuli humanesquetarian specialist. Tekton hadn’t seen him for weeks. The only other person in the bar was a particularly unkempt individual that Tekton’s moud informed him was the famously famous Jo-Jo Rasterovich, mineral scout and Sole-discoverer.

  Tekton experienced a surge of possibility that titillated both his minds.

  ‘Cousin,’ acknowledged Ra, amiably enough.

  Tekton kept his tongue between his teeth lest he should hiss, and took a seat at the bar next to the scout.

  ‘May I introduce myself and procure you a drink?’

  The scout shrugged in a confused, thuggish kind of way. Tekton tried not to recoil from the sickly aroma of freeze-dried cabbage that clung to him.

  ‘Jax and spritzer. And a teranu spliff,’ he mumbled.

  No cannabis if I’m paying, Tekton told his moud. But put some adrenalin in the mixer—he seems half asleep.

  The moud relayed the message to the bar.

  When the two drinks arrived sans boosted cigarette, the scout didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘I am Godhead Tekton of archi-Tects and I believe, sir, that you are somewhat of an expert in the field of mineral discovery?’ said Tekton.

  Jo-Jo took a sip and washed it around in his mouth. The movement displayed the elasticity of his skin and sent Tekton’s free-mind skittering after thoughts of Miranda Seeward’s jowls.

  ‘Can’t do, mate. Retired from all that, after all this.’ Jo-Jo waved his hand around to indicate Belle-Monde.

  ‘There would of course be some remuneration for any answers... any clues you might be able to give me.’

  ‘Cheap as I might look, mate, I don’t need your moolah.’

  ‘What do you need?’ Tekton was feeling unusually forthright—desperate, in fact.

  Jo-Jo’s answer, or lack thereof, was drowned out by Miranda and Jise entering the lounge, arguing loudly.

  Lovers’ spat, thought Tekton with a superior sniff and turned back to the scout.

  Whether it was the effects of the adrenalin, Tekton could only guess, but suddenly Jo-Jo quivered with the alertness of a hunted animal. He stood and attempted to leave but stumbled backwards as if his body would not do as he told it—as if something held him firmly to the room.

  His expletives were, thankfully, beyond the interpretation of Tekton’s moud. He grasped Tekton’s robe and dragged him close. ‘You know that woman?’ he whispered.

  Tekton resisted pulling away, sensing that a bargaining point had presented itself. ‘Indeed. We are colleagues.’

  ‘She must not see me.’

  Tekton pulled away a little and regarded the scout with a steely eye. ‘How interesting that suddenly we both have something that the other wants.’

  Jo-Jo Rasterovich gulped his drink and huddled down onto his stool, trying to make himself smaller. ‘What would it take for you to get me out of here?’ He glanced around wildly as if addressing someone unseen. ‘What would it take?’

  Tekton surmised that it was not the adrenalin and, in fact, perhaps Jo-Jo was a little deranged—but that was of no matter.

  ‘That’s very simple, Mr Rasterovich. It would take a rare mineral amalgam,’ he said.

  MIRA

  The intruder, dressed in a once-white Carabinere fellalo, rolled onto, his knees, clutching the back of his unhooded head.

  ‘Trinder Pellegrini? What are you doing here? Dressed that way?’ Mira heard the shrill fear in her voice.

  ‘Mira Fedor?’ he whispered, hoarsely. ‘What in the cazzone are—’

  A deafening explosion shook the room, knocking Mira to the floor, against Trin. After pushing him away, she scrambled for her boots and ran to the door.

  ‘Stay inside,’ he shouted at her. But she ignored him, flinging the door open.

  Another explosion knocked her backwards as if she’d been kicked in the chest, robbing her of breath and hearing.

  Stunned, Mira levered herself up onto her elbow to see Villa Fedor crumbling in the pink dawn light like a sand palazzo before a breaking wave. Fragments spewed outwards in a roar and a chunk of catoplasma struck her shoulder; gravel from the dry-garden stung her face. She rolled onto her stomach, moaning, fumbling to seal her velum.

  A lull followed the shock, and in its aftermath came another noise. Worse. The cries of injured ‘bini.

  Mira’s heart beat in painful spasms. Faja and Istelle. Crux... oh, my Crux! She climbed to her feet and ran outside. Fire consumed the ruins without conscience for those still alive who were trapped inside.

  ‘Trinder,’ she screamed over her shoulder. ‘The Carabinere.’

  But Trin did not answer, nor did he come outside.

  ‘They’ll burn to death,’ she cried. What could she do? Nothing. She could do nothing. But what if Faja was alive? What if Istelle—

  A segment of the villa wall cracked with a noise like a rifle shot and fell. The rest would follow. There would be no survivors when it did.

  Mira ran towards the heat and rubble, the ground burning her as if she was walking barefoot on coals. Smoke a
nd dust choked her breather, forcing her to take shallow breaths. She felt light-headed. The cucina? No! Si! I think so. Crux. What is that? Ragazzo? Arm? Cannot tell. Tears hampered her progress—no sadness, only panic—blurring her vision as they poured from her eyes.

  Dining room, covered with beds fallen from the first floor. Korm nest. Smouldering. Other end of dining salon. Fallen cots from above. ‘Bino in cot still. Somehow. Dead. Arms twisted. Istelle! Scrape debris away. Istelle in her arms. ‘Istelle?’

  The woman coughed. ‘Faja. Bambini,’ she whispered.

  Mira strained to lift the thin woman in her arms.

  Istelle whimpered, clutching her robe around herself. Mira dragged her through the flames, legs shaking from the effort, staggering by the time she fell against the wall of the lodge. ‘Trinder, please...’ She thumped against the door.

  Trin opened it and she fell inside. He took Istelle from her, carrying the injured woman to the bed.

  Mira climbed to her feet. ‘Where are the Carabinere?’

  Trin’s expression was strange, disconnected. ‘I’m not there, so they cannot know.’

  He made no sense but she did not wait. She returned to the villa, covering the same rooms: cucina and dining hall and back. More collapsed beds. Some bodies. ‘Bini she didn’t know or couldn’t recognise. Dead. All dead.

  One last glance at the cucina. A deep hole had appeared in the floor. The cellar. She lay flat on her stomach and crawled to the edge, her throat so choked with smoke that she couldn’t swallow.

  She heard a noise below. A chitter. A korm alive.

  Mira plunged her arm down as far as she dared without toppling in. Smaller fingers grasped it. Elation suffused her with strength and she tugged the ‘bino upwards.

  Djeserit’s frightened face appeared through the smoke. She bled from wounds on her cheeks and forehead. ‘The korm is still down there.’