‘No!’ Mira stared at Rast in disbelief. How could the mercenary think that way?
Rast saw her expression. ‘What, then?’
‘I will... see,’ Mira said.
Rast dropped her hand onto Mira’s shoulder and squeezed it hard. ‘Thing is this, Baronessa. I don’t fancy your exploding eyeballs being the last thing I ever see. But, one way the other, it will be, if you don’t make a good deal with your ship.’
* * *
Rast kept away from Mira en route to Scolar after that, other than to check regularly on their progress. Catchut found a library of entertainment sims in one of Insignia’s many cabin spaces and the mercenaries spent their evenings drunk in one another’s company.
Mira spent her time in the biozoon’s buccal, enduring her early-pregnancy nausea. Although she avoided total vein-sink, she let the Primo vein sucker adhere gently to her skin, massaging her body. The connection allowed the biozoon to help subdue her illness—mainly with distraction.
Insignia projected her own external views upon Mira’s retina. Without the benefit of full immersion, Insignia’s version of space appeared as a translucent corduroy tapestry, ridged and furrowed, and impregnated with fiery pinpricks of light. Some of those lights passed in a blurred instant while others seemed to burn for ever. And all the while the biozoon rose and sank with the gigantic waves of the solar winds, leaving Mira hollow with awe.
‘I had no idea it would be like this,’ she said. ‘No idea.’
But even her witness to the biozoon’s marvellous abilities couldn’t lighten her inner misery. And the misery made her angry. How could she allow Trin Pellegrini’s act of violence to defeat her when so many Cipriano women had suffered as she had? They had not died inside from it. They had not been rendered impotent with resentment. They had accepted and moved through it.
Yet while the memory of hard male fingers on her body remained, Mira was caught on a pendulum of emotions.
She wondered how Cass was faring. And if it was Djeserit or she who was caring for Vito? Did he have enough to eat? Had Trin Pellegrini eluded the Saqr and led the survivors to the islands?
Insignia, is there any news of Araldis?
Constant reiteration, Mira Fedor, is a trait of the inferior mind. I would have told you had there been news.
When can you farcast to Scolar?
I have explained this already as well. My farcast relay is not functioning at optimum length. It will be possible after the next shift—perhaps.
Mira rolled unhappily onto her side in Primo vein. The biozoon could be so intractable when it chose. She must find a way to get closer to it.
What had you expected when you came to Araldis with my grandfather? She focused on the steady, unhurried rhythm of its biologies as she waited for an answer.
Learning. Although we were a nomadic race, our vanzoons knew that we must keep a reproductive core separate, to ensure the longevity of our species. I was born into this Core Mass. When it was my turn to be allowed to rove I dipped into our collective store of memories. That area of the galaxy is little known to us.
But you must have realised that our clan were destined to be planetbound?
It was my understanding that my Innate and I would be permitted to rove when the new world was settled. But the Latinos proved unreliable. When your father died, I lost my emissary to your Principe.
Mira wanted to speak more of her father but she sensed their conversation would be better served in another direction. You enjoy wandering?
‘Wander’ suggests lack of purpose and I have a deep purpose. We call our roving rafa.
Mira liked the sound of rafa. ‘And what is your purpose when you... rafa?’
I don’t share my purpose! it said in an offended tone.
Embarrassment further warmed Mira’s skin. The biozoon reactions were so difficult to predict. I apologise for my ignorance. It can make me seem... impertinent.
Yes.
The vein temperature cooled abruptly and uncomfortable sensations prickled her skin.
Insignia?
The vein remoulded itself, forcing Mira into an upright position. The biozoon was forcing her out.
Reluctantly, she left the buccal to return to her cabin but Rast intercepted her in the high stratum. The mercenary was staggering, drunk or stoned.
‘Haven’t seen much of you lately, Baronessa. How are our contract negotiations coming along?’
Mira flattened herself against the stratum wall to avoid touching her. ‘They are... progressing,’ she lied.
‘Progressing, huh? Well, we’re getting bored and, let me tell you, that ain’t a good thing.’ Rast suddenly swayed across and leaned her body against Mira’s. She dropped her head to Mira’s neck, brushing her lips against the bare skin.
‘No!’ Mira cried out and pushed her away, running a couple of steps before Rast caught up with her.
‘Whoa there!’
Mira wrenched her wrist free, shaking, and unable to calm herself. ‘You have no right to—’
‘Fuck it, woman, what’s your problem?’ Rast held her hands up in a placatory gesture. She glanced up and down the stratum, embarrassed.
Mira didn’t answer; she fled to her cabin. When she reached it, she struck the pucker with her fist as if it were Rast. When it retracted she ran inside and fell onto the bed.
Mira? Insignia’s thought was filled with concern. Changes in your physiology show distress.
I am... I do... not want the mercenary’s attention. It is important that she understands this. Mira climbed off the bed to enter the washspace. I wish to wash my face.
Water flowed through a skin fold into a cavity on the wall.
You are angry? asked Insignia.
Mira was surprised. ‘With you? No. Why?’ she said aloud.
It is important that I understand your needs. I am in a position to protect you in some ways but I must know when it is necessary to do such a thing.
‘O-oh,’ Mira stammered, speaking aloud again. ‘Thank you.’
She washed and returned to the bed. Lying on her back she stared at the silken canopy that disguised the lumpy flesh of the ceiling. ‘The mercenary is no threat to me. At least... not if I comply with her wishes.’
But that is not how you behaved.
Perhaps, then, it is time that I shared this... Mira took a breath and let the painful memories break the surface of her mind. Somehow the biozoon’s presence sharpened the images until she became lost in them again...
* * *
‘Listen. We will retreat to Chalaine-Gema. If the Saqr are there we will cross the southern range to the Islands and wait for help,’ Trin had said.
‘What else do you want?’ Mira had replied. ‘What does that dogged face you present to me mean?’
He’d hesitated then as if listening to an inner voice. ‘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.’
The fear had come to her then. ‘Loco!’
‘I am truly,’ he’d agreed. ‘But there will be another Pellegrini and he mil be Cipriano. You are the only patrician blood left.’
She had tried to flee him but Seb and Vespa Malocchi had wrestled her to the ground and held her there. One of them had pushed the filthy hem of his fellalo into her mouth. It had tasted of iron and sweat.
Trin had forced her robe open and himself inside her. His tears, as they fell on her face, had meant nothing to her. Nothing at all...
* * *
That appears to be an unnatural violation. But we are very different from you humanesques. Respect for each other is intrinsic in us.
Insignia’s voice jerked Mira roughly out of the past. She swallowed several times and licked her dry lips. Remembering had only made her misery grow. No peace came from reliving it; no amity. Among my kind it is accepted that
a man will decide when he will be fertile. This occurs between marriage partners, though, and is not forced upon acquaintances. She wiped wetness from her eyes and rolled on her side, tucking her knees to her belly to relieve the ache that had settled there.
Insignia remained quiet for some moments. And now you do not wish to be touched.
‘I do not wish to be vulnerable.’
What of the foetus? Do you care for it?
Mira huddled on the bed, wondering what the child inside her would be like: a Fedor or a Pellegrini? ‘I do not know,’ she whispered. ‘I do not know.’
JO-JO RASTEROVICH
Jo-Jo found a farcaster in the node of banking and news booths that acted as a wall for one side of a small kafe. He entered his ID.
‘What are you doing?’ Bethany was a few steps behind him but ahead of Petalu.
While the ‘caster processed Jo-Jo’s request he turned and grabbed her arm. The public node-way was unnaturally quiet: only a few upturned stools and a puddle of spilled drink dotted with undissolved sugar crystals, as if there had been people there only minutes ago.
‘Listen, I have to do something right now. You don’t have to stay with me. Whatever the hell’s happening here, I’d be grabbing the first ship in another direction.’
Bethany trembled, her face paler than the flickering cursor on the screen. ‘But I don’t have any lucre.’
Petalu lumbered up behind her. He was sweating from the short walk. ‘Petalu skint too. Have to contact Mama-Petalu.’ He looked hopefully at Jo-Jo.
Jo-Jo groaned and turned back to the ‘caster. The Health Watch update informed him that it would take several hours to process his application and that should he experience diminished health he should proceed to an infirmary or medi-centre until the update was approved.
He swore and kicked the booth in frustration. The screen flickered and died.
‘Crap.’
A moment later the overhead lights dimmed. Then the whole area went dark.
‘Josef?’ Bethany’s whisper was filled with terror.
Jo-Jo reached out and found her hand. ‘Steady now.’
‘Not good feeling,’ Petalu muttered.
‘Mau, you know any way off the station?’
‘Petalu come in on Savvy.’
‘One of the waste contractors?’ Jo-Jo’s stomach did a flip. Without his HealthWatch in order going near one of those things could be a risk. ‘Where do they berth?’
‘Topside port,’ said Mau.
‘But that’s the farthest one,’ said Bethany.
‘Safety regs, in case there’s a leak. Don’t want to nuke the planet as well,’ said Jo-Jo.
‘Maybe ship’s still there. Maybe not. Savvy don’t like trouble much.’
A siren set up a belated whine and emergency floor lights flared. In the red lighting Mau’s face looked puffy. Jo-Jo could barely see his eyes for folds of skin. He had no idea if he could trust the man. ‘You know the way there, Mau?’
‘Think yes.’
‘But we don’t even know what is happening. Maybe there’s an organised evacuation and we are being left behind,’ said Bethany.
‘Smell smoke,’ said Petalu.
‘Yeah,’ said Jo-Jo. But what concerned him more was another odour. Something sickeningly sweet and pungent. ‘Which way to the top port? Central Truss Lift?’
Petalu nodded. ‘Think there other ways. But that easiest one.’
Jo-Jo searched his memory for the station design. Most res-shift stations had the same basic layout. The jail/confinement modules were usually separated from the main station by a sequence of unity nodes. If there was a breakout, the stationmaster could slam the door on a node and pop it adrift. A quick blast of radiation and everything in the module would be fried. The main station was designed around the Central Truss Lift. Everything else spiralled off it. There were secondary lifts but each one only travelled through a couple of floors.
‘Let’s try the CTL first.’ Jo-Jo ran a few steps and picked up the leg from a broken stool. ‘Grab something,’ he told the others.
Bethany retrieved a smaller part of the stool while Petalu wrenched a strut longer than himself from the wall.
Jo-Jo stared at him, astonished. ‘I know where I’ll be standing when the shit hits, mate—right behind you.’
‘Strong,’ Petalu informed him. ‘Not quick.’
Jo-Jo headed towards the access-way exit. The unity node led into another and another. Each was as deserted as the last and had minor damage to the cablework. Some cables dangled loose from the ceiling while others had been gouged from their conduits along the sides of the passage. The air was tainted with gas, and puddles of oil and lubricants made the floor slippery.
‘It’s like something has attacked the walls,’ whispered Bethany.
Jo-Jo had been thinking the same thing. ‘Yeah. Well, maybe we’ll find out soon. We should be nearly through to the bottom level of the trade court and the CTL. Through this last join.’
But the mating adapter that connected the final node to the main station began creaking ominously.
‘Quick!’ Jo-Jo flung himself over the lip of the join. If the passage integrity had somehow been breached, the station would lock each one.
He reached back and grabbed Bethany, hauling her through after him. She was lighter than he expected, or maybe gut fear was making him stronger, but she flew from his grasp, slamming into the bulkhead with a light thunk.
Petalu lumbered over next. He stumbled on the lip and fell; part of his body on one side, part on the other.
‘Come on, man. This thing sounds like it’s gonna snap.’ Sweat ran from every pore on Jo-Jo’s body.
Petalu’s face was drenched as well. The big man tried to get up but his shirt snagged on the roughed-up plastic of the lip and he lost balance again. On either side of the join floor panels began to flash. An automated voice gave instructions that were lost beneath the noise of the sirens.
‘GET OUT OF THERE!’ bellowed Jo-Jo.
Petalu didn’t bother trying to get upright; he just rolled his body over the lip like a giant worm and flopped onto the other side. As he hit the floor the join irised shut, tearing his shirt off, leaving Petalu bare-chested and shaking.
The whole node began to judder.
‘Mama,’ Petalu cried and scrambled to his knees.
Jo-Jo grabbed one of his huge flailing arms and helped him to his feet but the juddering threw them both against the wall. Bethany lay on the floor moaning.
The groaning noise got louder and louder until there was a crack, more deafening than any thunder.
The juddering stopped.
Jo-Jo squeezed out from underneath Petalu’s sweat- slicked stomach folds and looked for somewhere to wipe himself clean. The big man had, unsurprisingly, pissed himself.
He staggered over to look through the peephole at the join. ‘Fuck me,’ he said. ‘It’s gone. The whole thing has broken off.’
Jo-Jo wanted to sit down then and collect himself. Take it in. No—he wanted to lie down, smoke some changlo hemp and go to sleep.
Instead, he shepherded the other two along the passage.
Bethany nursed her shoulder.
‘Must be blessed, eh?’ Jo-Jo said to her. ‘A few minutes later and—’
But Beth’s stare was fixed ahead to where the passage opened into the vast bottom level of the station’s trade court. ‘Maybe it would have been better if we’d been in it,’ she whispered.
The trade court was under a light pall of smoke that didn’t hide the wreckage: broken tables and chairs, booths that had been torn from their footings, racks of fellalos strewn across the floor and stained with the contents of an overturned Kafe Kart, a food warmer slammed through a glass-vendor’s display shelves.
But there was worse than that.
Creatures, taller than Petalu Mau and encased in sticky insect-like carapaces, were moving slowly through the mess. Each had six clawed legs and a head but no visible eyes. A few of t
hem grouped together, their long thin probosces extending downward under a table into a tangle of humanesque arms and legs. An overpoweringly sweet scent pervaded the entire court.
‘What—are—they?’ Beth whispered.
‘A problem,’ Jo-Jo whispered back. ‘Don’t move while I think for a moment.’
She began to sob.
‘Stop!’ He clamped his fingers around her wrist, jabbing his nails into her skin. ‘Do nothing to attract their attention.’
She closed her eyes and bit her lip. ‘What are they doing to those people?’
‘Don’t look at it, Beth. Just listen to what I have to say.’ Jo-Jo scanned the thick central column that housed the CTL. The row of lift doors that normally flashed icons and blared music were blank and silent, their outlines dimly visible through the smoke. ‘The emergency service lift should still be working. Mau?’
‘Over there.’ Petalu Mau nodded towards the farthest wall where a faint red light pulsed slowly.
‘Had to be there,’ muttered Jo-Jo under his breath. He released Bethany’s wrist and slowly turned his mouth to her ear. ‘We are going to crawl over to the emergency lift. You follow behind me. Understand?’
She turned her face to his. Her eyes were wide open with fear and so close to him that her eyelashes almost brushed his cheek. ‘Don’t let them do that to me. Will you?’
He nodded.
They crawled in a slow single file around the perimeter of the trade court. From floor level they could see humanesque bodies fallen everywhere under the tables. The creatures clustered near them.
As they reached the halfway point a creature broke from its group and crawled in their direction. Jo-Jo froze, feeling the thump as Bethany knocked into him and then a harder one as Petalu did the same.
The creature stopped at a dead body only two tables away, from them and began to probe the flesh in a methodical manner. The corpse was partly disrobed, as if it had already been examined. It was male. Jo-Jo could see a beard and the side of a boot.
As the creature continued its search Jo-Jo saw that it had no definable face but that the feelers uncurled from a set of mouth lobes. Each feeler ended in bulbous tips that appeared to be tasting the body. When the tips reached the dead man’s face they paused, hovering above the closed eyes. A needle-like probe shot out from one of them, directly into the man’s eye socket.
The Sentients of Orion Page 36
