The Sentients of Orion

by Marianne de Pierres

  Mira closed her eyes for a long moment, summoning the energy, the clarity. ‘In Loisa they broke down the gates at the Carabinere compound. I-I was lucky.’ She stared straight at him. ‘If you can call it that. I was able to help Cass and her familia repair one of the TerVs. We used it to get to Ipo.’

  She paused, panting again—so fragile.

  ‘How many familia survived with you?’

  ‘A few Galiottos and Scali. More Cabone and Genarri.’

  ‘Tia Marchella?’

  ‘No,’ said Mira quietly.

  The woman called Cass Mulravey spoke up, ‘The rest of us are teranu and inklan. Honest miners for the most. And there’s a korm.’

  Trin felt a rush of urgency. Mira Fedor was the only unrelated Crown aristo female left.

  Djeserit’s gaze rested on him, as if she could read his thoughts. ‘It does not matter, Principe, who they are. Only that they are alive,’ she said.

  He smiled at her and nodded. ‘Of course.’

  This time it was Mira’s eyes on him. Wary eyes that he could never deceive again.

  ‘And Ipo?’ he asked quickly.

  ‘We were there for some days.’ Mira looked at Cass Mulravey. ‘Weeks, was it? There was a mercenary there who had devised a way to keep the Saqr out of the town. A laser enclosure, I think. Something happened at the end, though. They got through.’ She closed her eyes, as if remembering it.

  ‘Are you all that survived?’

  Mira shrugged. ‘What news do you have?’

  ‘Dockside and Pell have been overrun. Malocchi is dead—I saw him. Franco is dead.’ Trin did not mention Jilda. In truth, he did not know if his mother still lived—nor if he cared. ‘We came here when we realised. Others had already thought to do the same. The tunnels run a long way south.’

  ‘The dust storm stopped the Saqr. But they will come. We cannot stay here.’

  ‘The Principe will lead us to safety, Baronessa,’ said Djeserit.

  Trin nodded. ‘Rest now. I have more men returning tonight. We will make decisions tomorrow.’

  Mira agreed.

  Seb Malocchi approached them. ‘We have beds for those who need it.’

  Cass nodded her appreciation and followed him back to the group while Djeserit returned to the korm.

  Mira climbed down stiffly from her seat. She stopped and looked up at him. ‘And if I sleep, Trinder Pellegrini, will you and your Carabinere still be here in the morning?’ she said softly. ‘Or will you leave me to die—like before?’

  * * *

  Trin lay awake next to Djeserit, listening to her troubled dreams. The weight of her faith in him was as heavy as the Araldis rock between him and the sky. He longed to be outside and free of these tunnels. Every creak of the catoplasma struts, every minor rockfall, had become in his mind the footsteps of the Saqr or the prelude to a shaft collapse. He did not want to die underground. He did not want to die.

  He sat up and eased away from Djeserit, leaning his back into the wall. Not eating tonight had been easy. There was little enough food to go around with the new influx of women and no one had noticed the Principe skip his ration.

  Lig honey had been set aside for those too distrait to eat, and had been harder to acquire. Trin had been forced to take it from one of Mira’s injured ‘esque women.

  Now, with difficulty, he put all thoughts from his mind and slipped into meditation. The trance took some time to get right. He had not practised it since he had come into his potency. It had seemed unnecessary.

  As Trin struggled to find the exact inner route, he wondered if he had been foolish in neglecting the ritual. Familia males practised daily before their potency commenced, so that they had command of themselves when it burgeoned. Once the rush was on them, the lessons were never as well learned: the mastery never as complete.

  In silent mime he began the fertility mantra. When he was satisfied that his body was prepared he took the borsa from inside his fellalo and removed from it a pliable strip. He carefully broke pieces from one end and chewed the dried plant in delicate bites.

  Djeserit murmured in her sleep, calling his name. But Trin’s mind had roamed to another place, and he could not answer.

  * * *

  In the main cavern Mira Fedor sat rocking the ‘bino she had rescued from Villa Fedor, talking quietly with the woman Cass Mulravey. Trinder beckoned to her across the sleeping bodies.

  She passed the ‘bino to Cass and stood hesitantly, not trusting Trin: never trusting. After a moment she made her way over to him.

  ‘I must speak with you alone. I have had word from my scouts,’ he said.

  ‘Why alone?’

  ‘There are reasons that you will understand. Please, Baronessa. Mira?’ He took a few steps toward a TerV.

  Mira glanced back at Cass Mulravey, then followed him.

  Trin drove them to the top, past the sentries and out into the nightwinds. Tiesha lit the unending pattern of the plains in either direction. When Semantic rose, the moments of brilliant twin moonlight would reveal the line where the silky shifting sand dunes changed to the hard rock ridges. Trin stared out to the horizon, to the row of flickering lights. He climbed down from the TerV and walked a distance from it, waiting for Mira to join him.

  She did so reluctantly, her arms wrapped tight around her. He wondered if she sensed something in him, or if her natural reticence had grown into a habitual suspicion.

  ‘What are those lights?’ she asked.

  ‘My scouts tell me that Saqr are hunting the Ipo refugees. But I believe they are pursuing more than that. They are coming for these mines.’

  ‘Then we must move on now,’ Mira said, alarmed. ‘How many can you transport?’

  ‘Some—mainly your women as they are too weak to walk. We will follow the tunnels as far south as possible and then we must travel overland. I have only enough vehicles to transport fifty. Then your barge: another hundred. We have five hundred or more people spread through the shafts. I will pass the word along soon. When we reach the end we will bring the tunnels down behind us.’

  ‘What makes you think that these people will do as you say?’

  Trin turned to her, shocked. She had her velum sealed against the nightwinds and seemed impervious. ‘Because I am the Principe and I command the Carabinere.’

  ‘The Carabinere? A few tired men against an invasion? What if these people wish to go elsewhere?’

  ‘There is no elsewhere. I have been to Pell and Dockside. I saw Malocchi with his brains sucked dry. I saw Rantha... Pell is dead.’ Trin paused while he controlled an upwelling of emotion. ‘Loisa and Ipo are lost.’

  ‘What of the Fleet?’

  ‘I sent a trusted man—a Genarro—to seek out its fate. He has reported it destroyed.’

  ‘Insignia?’ Mira cried.

  ‘That is our secret-yours and mine. Insignia is hidden at the palazzo on the Tourmaline Islands, near the beach where... where...’ It seemed so ridiculous now—that night on the beach and his fear of her. He would have liked to see her face now, to know if she felt the same.

  ‘Thank Crux!’ Mira breathed.

  ‘Papa had some foresight after all.’ Trin spoke as much to himself as to her.

  ‘It is difficult to know everything about a person,’ she proffered.

  He wondered of whom she spoke. His tia Marchella, perhaps? ‘There is one difficulty though. The royal lozenge is in my palazzo on Pell.’

  Mira dropped her hands to her sides, her gloved fists curling. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Because someone must go to the OLOSS worlds and tell them what has happened here. They will send forces to free us.’

  ‘Will they listen? Will they care?’

  Trin reached inside his fellalo and took a small data sponge from his borsa. ‘Take this to them. It is the record of an interview, a trade negotiation with Marchella Pellegrini. I believe that this is the reason for the invasion. Have you heard of quixite?’

  Mira shook her head.r />
  ‘A Lostolian was here some time ago. He purchased all the exported material from a mine that produces a rare naturally occurring alloy of that name. The mine is owned by Franco’s... concubine, Luna il Longa. Tia Marchella negotiated the deal. I believe this invasion is somehow connected to the deal that was struck.’

  ‘What was the Lostolian’s name?’ Mira demanded.

  ‘The name was blanked from the recording.’

  She turned the data sponge over in her fingers. ‘Marchella Pellegrini saved us in Ipo. She could not have caused this invasion.’

  Trin felt none of the distress that showed in Mira’s voice. He wanted to survive; he did not want to feel sorry for those lost. ‘Yet this mine—her mine—was stockpiled with food and medic. A mere coincidence?’

  ‘She is a clever woman: a woman with foresight.’

  ‘Or maybe she is a scared woman? A woman of guilt?’

  Mira made an impatient, unhappy noise.

  Trin changed tactics. ‘You are the only one who can fly Insignia, Mira Fedor. The only one who can take word of this atrocity to OLOSS.’

  He saw her tremble. ‘You would have stolen my Inborn Talent, Trin Pellegrini. Torn it from me and left me to drift into insanity. And yet now you ask me to rescue your world with it.’

  ‘Your world as well, Mira. Your sorella’s world. Your papa’s world.’

  Mira’s trembling increased. ‘Do not speak of Faja. Do not use my familia. I am no longer a ragazza like Djeserit who will worship your royalty.’

  ‘Djeserit is not a ragazza, she is a woman.’

  ‘If that is so then you have forced her to be so—you have stolen her youth from her. It is indecent, what you have done.’

  Trin took an angry, impatient breath. Mira’s forthright manner offended him even though he knew her for an eccentric. ‘I have an AiV ready for you but you must leave now.’

  ‘What of Vito?’

  ‘He will stay here. Djeserit will care for him.’

  ‘No,’ Mira said. ‘I will do nothing without the ‘bino.’ Her voice took on a cold, stiff quality that familia women used against their men.

  ‘If you refuse to do this then we have no chance of survival,’ Trin said.

  ‘You would blackmail me?’

  He stepped close to her. ‘I would do far worse than that, Baronessa.’ And will. And will.

  Mira shrank from him, but her voice stayed firm. ‘You cannot coerce me, Trinder Pellegrini!’

  ‘And you will not fail me. Your Vito is my guarantee that you will go to OLOSS and make them listen—make them come.’ Trin’s voice rose to a near-shout. ‘I swear that Pellegrinis will not lose this world to ginkos.’

  Mira turned to run from him.

  Trin saw her intention and raised his hand in a beckoning gesture. Vespa and Seb Malocchi appeared behind her, each seizing one of her arms.

  She tried to pull away from them, but they held her fast. ‘What is this, Trinder?’

  ‘Listen,’ he hissed. ‘We will retreat to Chalaine-Gema. If the Saqr are there we will cross the southern range to the Islands and wait for help.’

  ‘What else do you want?’ Mira whispered. ‘What does that dogged face you present to me mean?’

  Trin hesitated one last moment. ‘There is no manner in which I can make this less brutal, Mira. I have thought it through. You can resist or you can accept.’

  ‘Accept what? To go to OLOSS?’

  ‘No. That is decided already... I wish to make a bambino. Now. An heir.’

  ‘Loco,’ she whispered in horror.

  ‘I am truly,’ Trin agreed. ‘But there will be another Pellegrini and he will be Cipriano. You are the only patrician blood left.’ He reached into his borsa again and selected his last remaining bravura. As he slipped it under his tongue he began the silent release mantra that would trigger his fertility.

  Seb and Vespa Malocchi wrestled Mira easily to the ground and held her there. One of them pushed the filthy hem of his fellalo into her mouth.

  As Trin forced Mira’s robe open, and himself inside her, it was, at last, his turn to cry.

  MIRA

  The AiV flew on autopilot out of Pablo. The dust had begun to settle and Mira watched dawn became a blazing mid-morning sun from a position of numb awareness. What has he done? What has Trinder Pellegrini done? She couldn’t bear to think of it and yet her senses were ablaze with her violation.

  Beneath her the Araldisian plains unfolded, their endless flowing rock and sand punctuated with dark flecks that might be bodies or wreckage. An invasion seemed impossible with so much earth and so few living things. So much that had happened seemed impossible.

  Mira knew that she should be thinking ahead but the rhythm of the AiV’s engines was like the comforting lull of her sorella’s voice and a profound lethargy crept upon her. Without wishing for it or knowing what, she succumbed to a deeply exhausted sleep.

  * * *

  Mira woke again as the autopilot sensors detected smoke and arced sharply. It brought the present back to her with a jolt. Trin. Vito. OLOSS. Insignia. She forced herself awake this time. Insignia. Trin’s confirmation that the biozoon had survived was the one coherent thought she could catch and hold. She would survive to be with her ship. She would survive to come back to Vito. She would survive to see Trin Pellegrini descend into his own hell.

  She magnified the AiV’s ground view and peered into the viuzzas of Loisa. The extent of the devastation assaulted her mind. Fires had eaten wide, dark furrows through the city and Saqr crawled in and out of villas, searching for bodies. She hoped that no one had stayed behind. She prayed those that were left were already dead.

  As the AiV passed over the edge of the city and crossed the first of the iron ridges, Mira noticed a flurry of movement on the ground. With a sigh that was almost satisfaction, she released the autopilot and took the controls. The AiV felt light and responsive beneath her touch and sent a tiny surge of life through her. She had not flown an AiV since the Studium, and then only in clandestine circumstances. Yet the thrust and tilt felt so familiar.

  She swung it around to make another pass of the area and studied the scanner. Some ‘esques fended off Saqr from behind the cover of a wrecked AiV that had broken fins and fire damage. More Saqr approached from the ruins of Loisa, crawling across the hot ground like slugs.

  The ‘esques signalled frantically to Mira.

  She circled once more, dropping her speed to hover above them. What she saw brought her mind fully to the moment. Her heart thumped so hard that it felt cramped in her chest.

  Rast.

  Mira engaged the fin rotors, curtailed the safety protocol and dropped the craft down behind the damaged AiV. It sent a whirlwind of grit pelting out but she kept the rotors spinning. Already she could see Saqr cresting the dune. Rast would have to come quickly or—

  A shout startled her and a bloodied face pressed against the cabinplex. Fists thumped it. Mira opened the door and Rast and two of her mercenaries scambled in.

  ‘Allez! Vai! Whatever the Crux it is, got’ Rast bellowed.

  Mira assigned full power to the fin rotors so that the craft wouldn’t drift as it lifted. Pummelled by grit and blasted by sand they rose into the air. She heard a crack and felt a sudden searing pain in her elbow but she didn’t look. Not until they had gained enough altitude to be out of the Saqr’s range. By then she had begun to feel sick.

  ‘Your arm,’ said Rast as she tumbled into the front passenger seat, still clutching her rifle.

  Mira glanced down at her elbow. The hole was gaping and bloody. She reset the autopilot, pushed back from the controls and vomited down the side of her seat. It ran into a puddle around her feet.

  ‘Pressure the wound,’ Rast barked at her. ‘You’re losing one fuck of a lot of blood.’

  Mira fumbled behind the seat for the medic kit. All the painkillers had been removed but the pseudo-skins were still there. She rolled back the sleeve of her fellala. The pain made her moan but as she
placed the skin over the wound and watched it grow the agony receded a little. She lay back in her seat and waited for the dizziness to pass.

  ‘If you’ve finished fussing over that scratch, Baronessa, pass the medikit to Catchut before Latourn bleeds to death.’

  Mira felt her skin burn with embarrassment.

  Catchut reached to take the kit from her and rifled through it. ‘Nothing in it, Capo. A few skins, that’s all.’

  ‘Do what you can.’ Rast turned to Mira. ‘Can’t think of anyone I’ve ever been gladder to see, Fedor.’

  Mira did not think she could return the sentiment, and yet in some odd way it was good not be alone. ‘What happened to you in Ipo, when the fence broke down?’

  Rast dragged off her hood. Her short white hair was plastered to her skull and her pale skin was stained crimson with heat and dirt. ‘It didn’t break down. Someone interfered with it.’

  Mira stared at her in shock. ‘Who would do that?’

  ‘Who would beat up one of their planet’s last remaining royals and try to feed her to some gizzard-hungry ginko?’ Rast shrugged. ‘A loco.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Lucre, mebbe.’

  ‘What did you do? I saw you drive past...’

  ‘Same as everyone else—we got out. Only made it this far, though. Damn AiV dropped a middle rotor. If I was of a paranoid nature, I’d say someone fixed it to happen, seeing as it was my AiV.’

  Innis. She was talking about Innis.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking but don’t waste your time. It could have been him but it could have been anyone. I don’t make many friends—I make memoirs.’

  Mira thought of the man, Brusce, that Rast had killed outright. Rast was right. Mira reached out to disengage the autopilot and heard a tiny whirr. A muzzle pressed against the soft part of her neck.

  ‘Before you touch that, tell me where you are going.’