The Sentients of Orion

by Marianne de Pierres

When the lug slotted into its bracket the hatch popped open for the driver.

  ‘Pick us up at the first Savvy lock,’ said Jo-Jo. ‘If you miss us coming out of the chute...’

  Mau gave a grimace that wasn’t pain. ‘Miss you, mebbe. Not her,’ he said before he slammed the door shut.

  Jo-Jo sealed his faceplate.

  ‘Josef.’ Bethany’s voice sounded choked-up through the suit’s transceiver. ‘Hurry!’

  An arthropod crawled out of the flexi-tube.

  Jo-Jo grabbed Beth’s hand and they stumbled, clumsy in their suits, to the larger external hatches.

  Now the arthropods were piling over each other to get out.

  Jo-Jo worked the chute levers and gave Beth the thumbs-up. ‘Go!’

  She climbed up the short ladder and into the mouth of the tube. Jo-Jo expected her to slide in and shut the two-way, but she rolled onto her stomach and bumped the top of her helmet against his. ‘Her name is Djeserit. You come back here and find her.’

  ‘I’ll be the one who’s dead if you don’t shift your arse,’ he barked and gave her a shove. She slid down to the bottom of the tube and he closed the first part of the lock. The distant ‘pop’ told him that she was out.

  The lever icons blinked their changing sequence and the top hatch reopened. He began to climb the steps but a blow knocked him off onto his side. He crossed his arms automatically to deflect another hit but instead something long and wet slithered across his faceplate. The arthropod seemed confused by the EVA suit.

  Jo-Jo tried to breathe but the air seemed to have gone out of his lungs and his suit.

  Another set of feelers joined the first, then another.

  His muscles turned watery. How long before they realised that his brain fluids were behind the shiny faceplate they were playing around with?

  Slowly he brought his knees up to his chest so that he made a smaller target. But that seemed to agitate them. The arthropods unfolded to their full height and crowded in, their movements more aggressive. Claws scraped and rattled on his suit as they began to paw him. The maw of a proboscis opened above his left eye and a needle-thin hollow stalk protruded.

  Fuck!

  Jo-Jo’s strength returned on a tidal wave of terror and he kicked at the middle section of the closest creature. It fell back, creating enough space for him to launch himself at the steps. He scrambled up them and dived into the chute where he floundered around for the hatch control.

  The lock snapped shut, crushing the head section of the pursuing arthropod. Its slimy innards sprayed down the chute and coated his already blurred visor. Then came the pop of the outer hatch and he was out in the black: weightless and tumbling.

  Jo-Jo scraped his hand across his visor, trying to clean it, but the movement left streaks. On each rotation he glimpsed the lug with Bethany tethered onto its flat back. It was moving away from him.

  Beth will make him come back. She will.

  Another swipe across his visor made things worse. He could see nothing now.

  For long, long, long moments he tumbled sightlessly through space. His mind revisited the sequence of events. Had he made the right decisions? What should he have done differently? What would it be like to suffocate? What would he miss most? Who?

  It was the last question that unravelled Jo-Jo completely. There was no one he would miss. No one he cared for enough to grieve over. And worse than that—no one who would miss him. Not a single person to acknowledge his passing.

  A sensation formed in his chest and forced its way up to the back of his throat. It would have been a relief to cry then: anything. But it vented itself in a sound that he had never made before: a whimpering animal noise that was part fear but more anguish, a noise that had no end: no intake of breath, no cathartic climax.

  ‘Josef. Take the tether. We can’t come any closer. You’re going to collide with junk from the detention mod.’ Bethany’s voice was in his helmet, drowning out his own cries.

  Why? he asked himself. Why save myself? An answer came that surprised him. Tekton. Tekton, that’s why. The prick will pay.

  ‘Josef!’ Bethany cried again. ‘Take it!’

  Something thumped against his chest. Jo-Jo grasped it automatically with both hands and felt a soft jerk as his momentum changed. He was no longer tumbling away from Dowl but falling towards it. It took him time to steady his forward motion enough to pull himself along the length of the tether.

  Finally he felt Bethany’s gloved hand on his shoulder and the solid pressure as his thighs encountered the edge of the barge.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Can’t see anything.’

  ‘Just do as I say.’ Beth sounded reassuringly composed now. ‘Lift your right knee...’

  As he followed her calm instructions, Jo-Jo’s rational mind reasserted itself. Shame over his moments of panic welled, and flowed, and subsided. Revenge might not be a noble or even a decent reason for living. But he’d take it.

  THALES

  The next few days passed in a pattern of conversation and meals which at another time, in other circumstances, would have nourished Thales’s soul. Amaury was truly learned but was neither pompous nor dogmatic with it—in fact, his inquiring mind was so bright and fresh that Thales sometimes felt like the older of the two. Aside, that is, from the calm that Amaury exuded.

  For once, Thales and Rene would have been in agreement—no young man could have hoped to have been so at peace with himself.

  They enjoyed an undisturbed exploration of each other’s minds, interrupted only by the arrival of meals that were brought in on a cart by a politic guard and left for them to arrange at the table however they wished.

  Thales pursued his meditations rigorously, first upon awakening and then later in the middle of the day when Amaury was disposed to nap. He followed his contemplations with a bout of vigorous exercise—running on one spot and other calisthenics suitable for a small area—which he did in the confines of his room so as not to disturb Amaury’s sleep. He then took a protracted bath and returned to their common area where Amaury would be transferring their evening meal from the cart to the table.

  The old man seemed to enjoy this ritual, like a mother who was used to supervising mealtimes for her family.

  Thales surveyed the present meal with some satisfaction: a choice of tender meats, gingered kumara and salt greens on silver platters, to be followed by a splendid cream pie perched on a crystal tier.

  ‘A meal fit for the Sophos themselves,’ said Thales as he seated himself.

  Amaury did not reply. He seemed oddly distracted.

  ‘Amaury, there is something I have been meaning to discuss with you. I took occasion to visit The Children of God after hearing that I had been denied my petition.’

  ‘You were seeking comfort, no doubt.’ It was a statement.

  Thales flushed. ‘I suppose that I have inadvertently proved your earlier argument with that comment.’

  ‘I would never denigrate you for seeking comfort, Thales. But I would urge you to remove the root of your need.’

  ‘It is something I will give thought to, Amaury. But, even so, it does not change the disturbing nature of what I learned... I joined a group at the base of Exterus. I spoke to one of them, a woman I know, an Eclectic called Magdalen. The Pre-Eminence have injected selected statues with an erosion substance which will cannibalise them within a short time.’

  ‘Selected statues, Thales?’

  ‘Yes. From what she said, only the statues of Exterus and Villon. I’m afraid it was then that my rational mind deserted me, Amaury. I became deeply, deeply... incensed. When I returned to my wife for consolation she would not even see me. It appears that she already knew of this travesty. Her father, you see, is Sophos Mianos.’

  Thales balled a fist into his palm. Recounting the event unbalanced his carefully created equanimity of the last few days. He forced his hands to his sides and waited for Amaury to speak.

  But Amaury, for the first
time, was neither listening to Thales nor watching him. And why, Thales wondered, was the old man trembling so...

  Thales sought to distract him. ‘So now, Amaury, tell me more about yourself. We have discussed ideas and values, but you have said little concerning where you were born, or your life.’

  But Amaury continued to tremble, as if shocked. ‘Who I am, my life, matters little now. Please excuse me, Thales. I have something for which I must prepare.’

  ‘Of course. But may I ask for what you need to prepare?’

  Amaury rose from the table and took shuffling steps towards his bedroom door. ‘Today I will die and there are things to think about.’ He said it simply and without dramatic pause. A quiet statement that invited no response.

  ‘D-die?’ Thales sprang up from his chair. ‘And upon what do you found such information? A dream, perhaps? A portent?’

  ‘I have long known that I would be executed. All the Sophos needed was enough time, and from what you have just told me that time has elapsed. This fare’—he gestured to the meal before them—‘is significant in its splendour.’

  Thales glanced across the magnificent silver and the succulent food. ‘You mean a last meal?’

  Amaury nodded.

  Thales struggled to believe what he was hearing. The old man seemed so sane and rational and yet this was surely a flight of fancy. Had he been alone too long? Perhaps he could banish Amaury’s fears with logic. ‘For what crime would they execute you? What terrible offence could someone as temperate as you have perpetrated? And if it is, as I expect, not a crime at all, then why would they incarcerate us together? I am witness to anything unfair that happens to you,’ said Thales.

  Amaury ceased trembling and straightened as though infused with sudden new courage. He rested his hand on the handle of the bedroom door and looked at Thales with compassion in his gentle stare. ‘Indeed.’

  A crawling sensation stirred in Thales’s stomach.

  Amaury let go of the handle and returned to take Thales’s hand. His skin was papery and cool, the way Thales’s father’s had been in his latter years.

  ‘The Pre-Eminence seek to frighten you. You’ve spoken of many things these past days. Things that you have observed about our once-dynamic society. And your observations are correct. We have become stale and toothless. Our philosophising is nothing other than a way for us to justify our secure existence. We no longer have an impact on the worlds around us... on the future of the sentient species... but this malaise that you so accurately perceived is, I fear, not from the innate weakness of the humanesque mind, or lack of endeavour, but something much... much more sinister.’

  Thales felt a light perspiration break out across his body. This was the longest speech that Amaury had yet made. He leaned closer to the old man, utterly enthralled by his sombre, smooth voice. ‘Sinister? Are the clusters being held to ransom by the Sophos Pre-Eminence? Is Sophos Mianos behind this?’

  Amaury’s mouth twisted. A life-weary smile. ‘Would that it were merely the harmless politicking of a few power-mongers! It is worse than that and more pervasive. Scolar has been damaged in some way—our ability to think and debate has been compromised.’

  Thales stepped away now, confused. He had been so captivated by the man’s gently subdued manner and yet Amaury’s latest suggestions bordered on paranoia.

  ‘That is implausible!’ And yet even as he said it Thales felt a growing empathy with Amaury’s words.

  The old man perceived the doubt in Thales’s eyes and straightened his robe with infinite dignity. ‘I cannot say what is happening here—Scolar knows I’ve had time enough to ponder it. But I am heartened by the knowledge that you are not blinded to it, and that somehow you have escaped it.’ He gave a heartbreaking smile. ‘They put you in with me, Thales, to frighten you and to destroy my hope. But they have in fact accomplished the opposite. I am overjoyed that I finally have a use for this.’ Amaury reached inside his robe and produced a tiny container. Inside was a minute lump of a putty-like substance. He pressed the container into Thales’s hand. ‘This was smuggled to me by one of my advocates. It will dissolve most materials when wet. You will know when to use it.’ He retied his waist sash as the tramp of boots sounded outside their door.

  Thales held the object in his open palm. ‘But why have you not—’

  ‘It was not the way. They would have caught me. I am an old man. But you...’ He did not finish. Instead, he closed Thales’s fingers over the container and pushed his arm down.

  A moment of silence passed between them, broken by the continuing trample of booted feet in the corridor. The door swung open and a group of Brown Robes entered. One of them crossed the room and knelt in front of the old gentleman.

  ‘Eminence Villon,’ said the guard and bowed his head.

  Villon? Thales’s insides were gripped by something painful. Amaury Villon?

  ‘Forgive me.’ The guard stood and held out a set of restraints.

  Amaury shook his head sadly and placed his wrists in them. ‘I am sorry—I cannot find it in myself to forgive you. But ultimately it is not my forgiveness that you need.’

  Unhappily, the guard triggered the restraints and they wrapped around the old man’s wrists.

  The action broke Thales free from his state of shock. ‘Where are you taking him?’ he demanded.

  But the Brown Robes ignored him.

  He grabbed at one of them. ‘Answer me! Where do you take him? Sophos Mianos will hear of this! The Pre-Eminence will know!’

  ‘Thales, be calm now,’ said Amaury as the Brown Robe thrust Thales away. ‘The Pre-Eminence already know. It is their doing.’ He let himself be shepherded to the door. ‘Remember,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Remember the things we talked about. Remember...’

  Thales flung himself after Amaury but the guards blocked his way again, one of them clouting the side of his face with a baton as they took the old man from the room.

  Thales fell heavily to the floor. He scrambled back to his feet and beat at the locked door. But, as before, nobody came.

  TEKTON

  Tekton knocked on Labile Connit’s door rather than have his moud announce his visit in advance. In this case, he calculated, the unexpected might yield greater results.

  Connit took some time to answer. He had clearly been sleeping off his hangover. ‘Tekton?’

  ‘I thought it seemed that you could do with some cheering.’ Tekton brandished a bottle of lime-tinctured bubbly which he thrust upon Connit. Then from beneath his coat he produced—and popped the lid on—a dish of reconstituted pungent quark eggs. ‘Here.’ He wafted the dish under Connit’s nose.

  The Geneer swallowed several times and bolted inside, leaving the door ajar. As soon as Tekton heard the sounds of Connit’s violent reaction to the eggs, he entered the rooms, placed the dish on a side table and began a quick, concise hunt through the Geneer’s possessions. His rooms were similarly configured to Tekton’s and with deft hands Tekton rifled through clothes and in drawers, finding nothing that might give away Connit’s origins.

  As the reassuring noises of illness had not abated, Tekton was encouraged to search the Geneer’s sleeping quarters. The room was singularly uninspiring aside from one startling object. On the bedcovers lay a book.

  Tekton knew it was a book because the Tan Andao Studium had one in its vacuum vault which was never removed for fear of deterioration.

  Tekton pounced on it. The weight of it surprised him and the brittle outer cover pricked at his trembling thin-skinned fingers. Imagine a Geneer, of all ‘esques, owning such a priceless thing and using it.

  Horrifying, observed free-mind.

  Insane, agreed logic-mind.

  Their agreement left Tekton rather unnerved. He turned the pages with utmost care, wondering over the mess of hieroglyphics.

  Moud?

  A detectable delay as the moud brought itself out of hibernation. I’m here, Godhead.

  Can you tell me what this means?

&nbs
p; Another pause.

  It appears to be the title of the work: ‘Welding for Four Dimensions’.

  And the other?

  An inscription, I believe, Godhead.

  Yessss...

  From your loving father, CF(C)’

  Aaaah... copy this page to your memory. I wish to review it later.

  Yes, Godhead.

  Tekton heard the short blast of a sanitary jet and replaced the book in its original position on the covers. Several quick, soundless steps took him back into Connit’s living room where he swiftly retrieved the dish of quark eggs.

  Labile Connit returned, bleary and out of sorts.

  ‘I can see,’ said Tekton, with a bold lack of concern, ‘that I have come at an inconvenient time. Please, have the quark eggs and champagne with my compliments. I will call again when you are feeling better.’

  Connit stared fixedly at the dish of eggs that Tekton once more held out to him and pressed his hand to his mouth. Tekton dropped the dish onto a table and turned to leave. By the time he had reached the door he could hear the sanitary jet blasting again.

  * * *

  Back in his rooms Tekton reviewed the inscription. From your loving father CF(C).

  For some reason those initials piqued his memory.

  Is there any record of Labile Connit’s planet of origin?

  No, Godhead.

  Tekton sucked a finger. To his annoyance the ingre membrane shed onto his tongue. He spat it out and made a note to increase the oil in his diet.

  On what planet does the Yeungnam Studium reside? Tekton knew that he should remember such a detail but Geneering Studiums—even the famous Yeungnam—did not figure on his list of itinerant facts that were worthwhile retaining.

  Yeung Lesser, Godhead.

  I want you to collate the names of all the C. Connits—or variations on that name—alive or passed, living within several parsecs of Yeung Lesser.

  I would have to employ the Vreal Studium’s VI to gain such information, the moud informed him.

  Tekton paused and thought for a moment.

  Should I pursue this?