The Sentients of Orion

by Marianne de Pierres

  ‘It’s right to respect the dead,’ said Kristo. ‘You thought well.’ His breathing rate had not altered with the digging. He was a strong man, Mira realised, and his few words lifted her spirit.

  While he finished, Mira went to find Cass.

  She was delving into the medico pack. ‘Precious little here,’ she grumbled.

  ‘We should bury the dead now, before the midday heat. Kristo and I have prepared a grave.’

  ‘You?’

  Mira ignored her surprise. ‘Waiting... will make it worse.’

  Cass nodded, put down the pack and climbed the open doorbridge to address the women. ‘We should bury our dead. Come.’

  They assembled in an exhausted fashion along the sides of the single large grave. Kristo and Marrat laid the bodies next to each other. Davina’s was last.

  Davina’s mama howled in sorrow and threw herself down among the bodies, pulling them apart from each other.

  Cass, Kristo and Marrat—everyone—stared helplessly.

  Only Mira reacted. She knelt down at the side of the grave and took the woman into her arms. ‘What is it?’

  The woman slumped against her, sobbing. ‘You canna leave her on the edge. She’ll be scared. She’s just a ‘bino.’ She gripped Mira’s velum, pleading for understanding.

  Mira looked to Kristo.

  He nodded and lifted Davina into the middle of the grave.

  ‘Thank you,’ the mother whispered, weeping quietly into her fingers.

  Mira helped her up and away from the grave. They leaned against each other in the shadow of the barge, listening to Cass.

  ‘Rest here in Araldis’s soil, mia sorellas. We will all be together again, soon enough ...’

  * * *

  They rested inside the barge and under the bore housing through the afternoon heat. At dusk, before the nightwinds sprang up, they ate small servings of kranse bread soaked in glutinous gravy.

  Kristo and Marrat removed the barge’s outer canopy and settled it on the ground, pegging it down. When all were fed they spread across it and slept.

  Tiesha rose, casting a pale light. When Semantic joined her later for the brief minutes before Tiesha set, the sky would be almost as bright as daylight.

  Cass stirred the men from where they sat near the trough to keep watch over them. Marrat and Kristo walked to opposite ends of the camp but Innis refused to get up.

  ‘Why do they get to sleep?’ he complained.

  ‘Everyone will take their turn,’ Cass said with tired patience. ‘Tonight, though, these women need to rest.’

  Mira listened to their conversation from where she lay on the edge of the canopy. She had not been able to settle, even though her body ached with fatigue. Vito slept next to the korm’s roost, a frail bundle of bones that appeared barely to breathe. She could not bear to watch him. ‘I will go.’

  She climbed to her feet and went to a third point near the barge. As her eyes adjusted to the deeper dark, she could just make out the scrapings of the grave. She rubbed her fingers together, trying to rid herself of the lingering viscous feel of Davina’s brain tissue.

  Without warning, Cass appeared next to her. She handed the rifle to Mira. ‘It is best that you have it. You or Kristo.’ She did not have to say any more.

  Cass turned and climbed up onto the barge’s huge metal tracks, peering not at the graves but up at the night sky.

  Mira shifted her own gaze upward to Tiesha, wishing she were there. Araldis’s moon looked so serene.

  ‘Where do you think we should go?’ asked Cass quietly.

  ‘Mar— Mesquite said we should head south of Pellegrini B, to the Pablo underground.’

  ‘Back in Ipo you called her something else.’

  Mira shrugged. ‘Marchella Pellegrini, her real name. She had only just told me.’

  They sat in silence while Cass digested the information. ‘Franco’s sister?’ ‘Si.’

  Cass gave a low whistle. ‘Why underground?’

  Mira considered how to answer. Cass was no friend of the Pellegrinis, nor was she loyal to the familia, and Mira knew that Marchella would have had good reason for giving the directions she had. ‘We will find out when we get there.’

  ‘You would go there on faith?’

  ‘Si.’

  ‘And what if Franco’s sister is wrong? Pellegrini B is over three hundred mesurs from here. If the winds stay down we might make it. Food is the main problem.’

  ‘How many are we?’

  ‘You brought forty-two. I had forty-six. Then there are the men.’

  Forty-two. Marchella had given her charge of fifty. When their groups had mingled near the parking bay, it must have been closer to a hundred. Forty-two out of a hundred. ‘Are there any other survivors?’

  ‘Marrat is listening on shortcast for any news but we can’t afford to use the cells for long at night.’

  Silence fell between them again.

  Mira’s thoughts fell to food. The plains were devoid of most anything edible. The terrain ahead of them would be fine powdered dust, thorn scrub and, along the mapped roads, the occasional water bore. There would be no hunting for fresh meat, or collecting edible plants. Vito could have Mira’s ration of bread but the korm wpuld need meat.

  ‘Go and sleep,’ said Mira, suddenly tired. ‘Or I will.’

  Cass nodded and climbed stiffly down from the tracks. ‘I’ll make sure someone comes to relieve you. And I’ll check Vito and the korm.’

  ‘Vito needs more fluid,’ said Mira.

  Cass nodded again and disappeared.

  Mira settled with her back against the barge and hunted through her mind for thoughts that might keep her awake. She settled eventually on the enigma of Marchella. If she truly was a Pellegrini then what had brought her to Ipo? Mira tried to recall all she knew of

  the woman. Faja had called her the Villa Fedor’s benefactress. Franco’s sorella was known for her eccentric ways. She had not been seen in Pell for some time. A rift had occurred between her and the Principe—a rift that would now never be mended.

  Mira felt the familiar ache rise in her chest, the one that told her how much she missed Faja. She pressed her hand to the soreness.

  * * *

  ‘Baronessa?’ Josefia woke Mira from a doze with a gentle shake of her shoulder.

  Mira blinked and peered around in the dark. Semantic was high now but dawn was still hours away. The winds blew hard and hot, sending drifts of dust over the barge.

  ‘Pardon, I—’ Mira began.

  But Josefia touched her arm. ‘No matter, Baronessa—it is quiet enough and I could not sleep. Davina’s mama cries and cries. What is happening to our world? Why have these Saqr creatures come here? I want to kill them all,’ she said fiercely.

  Mira wiped her sleeve across her facefilm and stood. On awakening, the leaden feeling had returned to her chest. She did not share Josefia’s desire; death was not on her mind. Only escape. She knew that she wanted to leave Araldis for ever.

  Josefia took the rifle from her. ‘Thanks to you, I know how to use this. First sight of them...’ She jerked the gun viciously.

  Mira left Josefia to take a drink from the trough but the young familia woman’s words haunted her. Had she been wrong to insist that they learned about weapons?

  No, she told herself, weapons by themselves do not make hate.

  She laid down the scoop and bent against the nightwinds to reach the canopy. Her fellala was barely cooling now and she wanted to strip its sodden weight fron her, yet she knew hotwinds would rip all the moisture from her body in a matter of hours. Better that the garment stayed on her skin.

  She searched for Vito among the sleeping bodies and found him in the crook of Cass’s arm where she slept near Thomaas, her own bambini between them.

  Mira did not have the heart to move him. Instead, she found a space next to the korm and settled herself on it. The alien roosted on the ground uneasily, jerking and chittering softly in its sleep. Of all of them, the ko
rm was in the greatest danger of starvation. As she drifted off to sleep, Mira reproached herself for not paying closer attention to its needs. What could she find for it eat? Little enough lived on the plains ,.. little lived.

  * * *

  They gathered to talk at dawn. Cass drew a map of their position in the dirt but the wind spun little spirals in it, distorting her lines. It had not dropped at daybreak like a normal nightwind.

  ‘We’ve heard that the Pablo undergrounds near Pellegrini B will be safe but we have little food and water is scarce,’ said Cass.

  ‘How far?’ a woman asked.

  ‘Maybe three hundred mesurs. We have one compass only. The navigation aids must have been destroyed.’

  ‘What about going to Dockside?’ suggested someone else.

  ‘The mercenary told us that it is the worst of all. Overrun by Saqr,’ said Cass.

  ‘What happens if the Pablo mine is not safe?’

  Others voiced similar fears.

  Mira climbed up onto the doorbridge. The hundred or less women and ‘bini and the few men crowded in a semicircle around Cass. Despite having washed and eaten a little the night before, their faces looked as ragged as their protecsuits.

  The korm roosted at the very back, near the trough, weak with hunger despite Mira’s morning attempt to make an edible paste from thorn-scrub roots.

  ‘What do you think, Baronessa?’ called Josefia.

  Mira shifted Vito’s weight to her other arm. ‘I swear we shall find help there. If we ration ourselves—one portion of food a day for the adults, two small portions for the children, we shall have enough to last four days at our present travelling speed.’

  The group murmured among themselves.

  ‘What about dust storms? We’re in the season,’ called a tall woman.

  Mira looked into the distance. The wind was gusting abnormally, lifting the tattered trim of her fellala. If it turned to a storm, it was likely that most of them would perish long before they reached Pellegrini B. Long before they reached anywhere. Was that why the Saqr had not pursued them, she wondered? ‘That is why we must decide and move on.’

  ‘I want to go to Dockside. My family is there,’ demanded the tall woman.

  ‘What about Chalaine?’ Marrat suggested.

  Chalaine-Gema lay at the foot of the southern ranges.

  Neither their food nor the barge would likely see them that distance. ‘Perhaps. Yes. But not without more food. We would starve,’ Mira said flatly. ‘The Pablo mines have subsidiary tunnels that run for mesurs in that direction. We could travel underground. We must vote now. Pablo or Dockside?

  Only Marrat, the tall woman and three others voted against Pablo. Innis didn’t vote at all. He sat apart from the meeting toying with a rifle.

  Mira worried at his lack of interest. She also worried that the sudden fierce dryness in the back of her throat wasn’t triggered by thirst. Dust.

  Cass must have sensed it too for she added her voice to Mira’s. ‘Fill everything you can with water,’ she told them all. ‘We should move on.’

  The women and ‘bini packed tight into the barge again, leaving the side vents open for airflow. But within a few hours they were winding them shut.

  * * *

  They journeyed for two days in a pall of mounting red haze. At night they huddled on the canopy in the lee of the barge, stomachs sore from hunger, stale bread and dirty water. Few slept for the noise of coughing and the wind-howl. Some already struggled for each breath. With no storm filters to attach to their protec- suits Mira feared for them.

  Unable to rest, she stood guard over the shadowy mass of bodies. Cass had told her it was pointless to set a watch but she could not sit there among the suffering.

  ‘If the dust thickens much more the cells won’t work.’ Cass said quietly. She stood close enough for Mira to sense that she was crying.

  Those worst affected should travel in the cabin, Mira thought, listening to the gasps. The filter in her velum was more efficient than those in many of the protecsuits and yet she still felt the tightness at her chest, could taste the dust with every breath.

  Cass moved closer. ‘Mira?’

  ‘We must keep going.’

  Cass lifted her arm in a gesture of helplessness. ‘In this?’

  A fierceness rose in Mira. ‘Maybe the mine is closer than we think. Or maybe the dust storm will blow out tomorrow. Are you wishing us dead?’

  The other woman stiffened and anger replaced her tears. She turned and walked away without replying.

  Mira returned to watching and listening, straining to discern anything over the burning howl of the wind. She wondered if she’d said enough to provoke the other woman. If Cass lost belief, so would they all.

  * * *

  They travelled slowly the next day with the dust whipping screeds of gravel against the sides of the barge. Mira sat crammed against the doorbridge with Vito and the korm.

  Innis was only a few bodies away from her; she could hear his voice. They’d argued when Mira had insisted to Cass that those with breathing difficulties should replace the men in the cabin. Marrat and Cass’s man, Thomaas, had supported Innis. Only Kristo had backed Mira.

  ‘The Baronessa is right. The environmentals in the cabin are better. They will help filter the dust,’ he’d said. While they’d argued he’d disappeared inside the

  barge and returned, carrying a ‘bino. Her breath had rattled and her neck had been corded with the effort of breathing.

  Suddenly the others’ argument had lost ground.

  The child whimpered as she crawled inside the cabin.

  ‘But I’m the driver,’ Innis whined.

  Mira felt gut-sick from having even to speak to him. ‘And you take up enough space for two.’

  ‘Who do you think you are to tell me what to do,—Baronessa? Your brains would’ve been sucked dry by the Saqr if it weren’t for us.’

  Cass stood between them, unsure of what to say. Mira knew that she was still angry from the night before.

  The tall outspoken woman, who Mira had learned was named Liesl, strode into the centre of their huddle. ‘What’s the hold-up? I might not want to go to the undergrounds but I surely don’t want to stay here.’

  Innis suddenly changed tack. ‘I’ll ride in the back,’ he announced.

  Mira watched, perplexed, as he disappeared around the back of the barge.

  Cass shrugged. ‘It’s decided, then.’

  They quickly transferred the worst cases into the cabin and Cass climbed behind the controls.

  Now Mira sat pressed against the ramp with Kristo and Josefia next to her, wondering what had caused Innis’s change of heart. She listened to the tone of his voice—his words were muffled—and realised it was punctuated by low, warm responses from Liesl.

  * * *

  Sometime during mid-afternoon the barge came to a sudden halt, rocking violently in the wind. Long moments passed and no one came to open the doorbridge.

  ‘What is it?’ Frightened voices clamoured for an explanation.

  Kristo wound the latch on the small inset open and peered out. Thick dust blasted in, sending most of them into coughing fits.

  ‘Can’t—breathe out there,’ he spluttered when he could speak.

  Mira hugged Vito for a moment, then handed him to Josefia. ‘I will go,’ she shouted to Kristo over the roar. ‘My—filter—better. Close—hatch. Knock—when—I return.’

  Kristo nodded. ‘Stay close—barge,’ he shouted back as he boosted Mira through the hatch.

  Outside, the sky had turned solid. Mira could see nothing through the hail of sand and grit that blasted past her. With her body halfway through the hatch she knew that she’d made a mistake. The wind tore her out and away from the side of the barge. Gasping for breath, she clawed at the ground to find a hold, digging her boots deep into the sand. Despite her velum, her eyes streamed. She closed them and took shallow breaths while she convinced herself that she wasn’t suffocating. Her lungs felt a
s if they’d been coated with hot ash.

  When Mira opened her eyes again she couldn’t see the barge. She began to crawl in the direction where she thought it was. Pebbles bounced off her shoulders and back as she crawled forward, counting the number of her movements. After half a dozen in one direction, she reversed back to her starting point. A sound whipped past her—her name, she thought—but from where? She didn’t have the breath to call back. Rotating through a quarter-turn she crawled in that direction.

  No luck.

  Panic took her easily now, tossing her heart around. She wanted to curl into a ball but logic told her that if she stayed still she was likely to be buried. Already she could feel a dirt mound building against her legs. The thought of being buried alive kept her trying her clockwise forays. Just short of the full circle her hand touched something hard—the barge’s tracks. Relief was a sharp pain in her stomach.

  Staying on her hands and knees, Mira crawled the length of the barge, clinging to the top of the tracks, until she reached the cabin. She reached upward, feeling for the door but before she could open it a thought stopped her—if she opened the door it might well be torn off altogether, and that would endanger those inside who were already suffering.

  Recognising her folly, she dropped back to her knees and retraced her movements to the doorbridge.

  The climb up the doorbridge taxed her muscles to the point of total exhaustion and Mira clung to the ladder without the strength left to bang on the inset. In a few moments she knew she would fall and there would be no fight left in her body to crawl back to the protection of the vehicle.

  Then strong fingers grabbed her from above. Kristo was leaning out of the hatch, struggling against the storm to drag her in.

  Mira reached for him as if he were... Insignia.

  SOLE

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