The Sentients of Orion

by Marianne de Pierres

  ‘I am not Sophos!’ Thales cried. He grabbed her arm to emphasise his point, but the looseness of her clothing caused him to misjudge her shape. His hand grazed accidentally against the softness of her breast.

  He withdrew his hand as if stung. ‘I a-apologise—’ he said.

  The Mae ji froze but her companion gave an affronted cry.

  The circle of Skeptics watched. Behind the bar the klatsch owners began whispering to each other. One of them disappeared.

  ‘I-I meant nothing. That is, I did not mean to touch you in that way,’ whispered Thales.

  But the weight of the judgemental stares told him that his apology was wasted. The patrons were hungry for agitation. He edged towards an exit as a commotion of voices drew everyone’s attention to the rear of the klatsch. Four robed guards entered with their batons loose in their hands. Their appearance sent a ripple of comment from one table to the next. Thales did not wait for the whispers to reach him.

  He ran.

  MIRA

  Res-shift from Dowl had been shadowed by guilt and relief: relief to be clear of Araldis and its heartbreak, guilt for the fate of the ship that had crossed their wake, and for having left Vito and the korm and Cass and her children behind.

  Res-shift from Intel was a thing beyond horror. Quanta streamed by Mira’s virtual vision at shocking speeds, signals flared and flashed compelling her to make instant decisions. They backlogged so quickly that the virtual display became an aurora from which she had trouble distinguishing command prompts.

  Assign default positions. Switch to audio only, she instructed.

  Instantly her mind became invaded by noise.

  Vibration calibration only.

  Mira listened to the whispering of resonator readouts. The tuition modules at the Studium on Araldis had said that most virtual-run craft could res-shift on Autonomy as long as the pilot primed the correct vibration, and allowed the V-I to operate a background safety default.

  With the biozoon Mira was not sure how enmeshed the installed V-I was with the creature. Her tutor modules had not been able to be precise. The degree of Autonomy varied, dependent on what augmentations the individual biozoon allowed. Then there were those who had been hobbled and had had full V-I forced on them.

  Like Sal.

  An uneven hum started up as Mira began to prime the biozoon for shift.

  That’s not right. It should be steady.

  She switched back to virtual vision and hunted for the anomalies in the shift field. The display showed nothing abnormal but the vibration still ran in shuddering bursts.

  The biozoon’s surface temperature fluctuated wildly and Mira heard a terrifying roar like the onset of a ferocious gale. She lost consciousness of everything save the shiftspace. What was causing the vibration irregularity? What had she forgotten? What had she overlooked?

  Diagnostic reports crashed in waves of data. Normal... normal... normal...

  It’s not normal! she shrieked at no one.

  Then she saw it. The biozoon’s cephalic fins weren’t at optimum span.

  The roar geared to a higher pitch. Audio told her that she had 6.2 counts to even out vibration or... they would go into shift ripping apart.

  Too late now. Is there pain with annihilation? Mira wondered.

  6.1 counts: visual sweep. Station security gathered around the edge of shiftspace—ticks sucking a warm body. Their weapons primed. Waiting for her to abandon her course.

  5.3 counts: terminate shift—how much damage?—face Landhurst.

  3.8 counts: or shift and die—certain.

  2.2 counts: nothing

  1.4 counts: nothing

  1.1 counts: untie me

  Insignia?

  In a rush of adrenalin Mira found herself straining out of her seat as she frantically relinquished control of the vibration sets.

  The hum steadied.

  03: shift imminent

  Mira clung to the add-ons as the Autonomy sink wrapped around her, supporting fragile flesh. After the suffocation it came... the exquisite, stabbing, devouring, mind-inverting pain of shift and then the release...

  * * *

  ‘Fedor.’

  The voice was a welcome intrusion into Mira’s dark, swirling, unhinged thoughts.

  ‘You did it, Fedor!’

  Somewhere among the tendrils of requests and screeds of location data Mira knew Rast’s twang.

  You may relinquish everything now, Mira. I am healed enough.

  Insignia sounded disappointed and just faintly amused, Mira thought, like a parent who had watched their child try and fail. She detached herself from the add-ons and plucked the lozenge from the sink. Blinking brought the rest of the buccal into focus. She coughed and manoeuvred her body to the edge of the sink where she sat with her head in her hands.

  ‘Fedor.’

  Rast again. This time, though, the woman stood in front of her, swaying. Her hair was slick with tubercle secretions, her face shiny.

  ‘Are... are you well?’ Mira enquired politely.

  ‘Am I well?’ Rast gave a snorting laugh. ‘You’ve just taken us through res-shift and you’re asking if I’m well?’

  ‘No, I—’ Mira stopped. Perhaps it was safer for her if Rast believed it. ‘Yes, I mean... I guess so,’ she finished limply.

  ‘I guess so?’ Rast laughed again but this one was belly- deep and tinged with relief. ‘You’re even beginning to sound like one of us. We’ve got some bodies to get rid of and then we’ll be up in the mess celebrating. Join us when you’ve got your head straight. How is the ‘zoon doing, by the way? Things were messy down there. Those bastards took a blowtorch to her.’

  Mira shuddered. ‘Insignia is stable. I will be along in a while.’

  The last flicker of concern left Rast’s face and she managed to saunter out.

  Mira sighed. The mercenary seemed to thrive on danger. Why can’t I be like that? Why does each hurdle make me more tired?

  She placed her hands on her abdomen and prodded at the lower area. Had the baby been harmed? And why now, when she so craved only solitude, did her body demand food? She could not face the others yet.

  Insignia, how are your wounds?

  I am depleted of fluids but Scolar is close. I have time to replenish.

  What would have happened to us if you hadn’t recovered sufficiently?

  Insignia hesitated. It is deeply instinctive for me to survive resonance shift. Even wounded.

  So I was wrong to use Autonomy.

  Silence.

  But Mira could not let it rest. If I had maintained Autonomy would I have killed us?

  Yes. You are inexpert.

  A longer silence this time while Mira fretted over her choices. Why would Landhurst cripple you?

  It is the nature of some to destroy what they can’t have. But more, he did not think that you would have the courage to attempt an Autonomous shift. He did not count on your resolve.

  Mira felt warmth soak from the vein into her aching, weak muscles. You are comforting me. Can I do anything for you?

  You can sleep and recover. Then we will discuss my Autonomy component. It is time you had some proper tuition.

  * * *

  Instead, Mira dragged herself to the cucina.

  The cellar shelves stood unfolded and bare. The mercenaries were drinking straight from demijohns—the last of the Araldisian wines.

  ‘Saved you one, Baronessa.’ Rast swung a full bottle up from beside her. ‘Figured you, out of all of us, deserved it.’

  Mira accepted the bottle and searched for a flute. She found one in a cabinet full of Pellegrini-crested utensils. Rubbing the stem of the glass gently between her fingers she took a seat on the side of the table opposite the mercenaries.

  The first sip tasted harsh, not only because of the acidic wine but because of the memory it evoked. Her last drink had been with Faja. Tears pricked the rims of her eyes.

  ‘When you came tottering down that docking tube and pulled out a pistol, F
edor, I nearly pissed my pants,’ Rast pronounced. ‘Thought you were going to shoot me. You better watch out or I’ll start counting you as one of ours.’

  Mira stiffened at the good-natured comment. ‘I would never kill for a living.’

  ‘See, Capo, you throw her a bone and she gets all hoity,’ observed Catchut, with a belch.

  But Rast ignored him. She lifted her blood-spattered boots up on the table and rocked back on her chair. ‘Do you think your farcast got sent to OLOSS?’

  Mira turned away from the disgusting sight of the mercenary’s boot and shrugged. ‘I will try again now that we are in better range.’

  ‘So you think Landhurst was after the ‘zoon?’

  Rast steepled her fingers. ‘I knew him for a businessman but I didn’t know he was dangerous.’

  ‘What about Captain Dren from Audacity? How do you know him?’ Mira asked.

  The mercenaries exchanged glances. Latourn, whose complexion had turned as white as Rast’s hair, rested his head on his arms on the table.

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘He said that “you owed him now”.’

  ‘What else did he say, Baronessa?’

  ‘That I should join Consilience; that there was room for people like me.’

  The mercenaries all exploded into laughter. Latourn hammered the table with his fist and Rast rocked back and forth on her chair until tears streaked down her filthy cheeks.

  Mira took a large swallow of wine. It was beginning to lift the edge from her fatigue. She let them spend their mirth, not caring one way or the other what they found amusing.

  ‘Have you heard of Consilience?’ Rast asked finally.

  Mira sipped deeply again—

  Mira, your body chemistry is changing. It might not help your foetus if you ingest drink—

  – and refilled her glass before she replied.

  ‘Si and no. You hear things on Araldis but there was no way to prove their veracity. Our farcast links were always unstable and our Studium texts were...’

  ‘Bullshit?’

  ‘Parochial,’ Mira finished.

  ‘Consilience is the third side,’ said Rast.

  ‘The right side,’ added Catchut.

  Mira regarded Rast with a steady stare. If the mercenaries wished to talk more she would listen but she would not play a guessing game with them.

  ‘OLOSS brought order and rules and accountability to most of Orion but not everyone wants that.’

  ‘Criminals do not, I should imagine,’ Mira said.

  ‘That’s where you show your ignorance, Fedor. It’s not as simple as that. Not everyone wants to be safe and constrained. OLOSS is seen as a protector by most, but as a dictator by some.’

  ‘The Extropists?’

  ‘Them, yeah. And others.’

  Mira found Rast’s ability to switch between crude and eloquent baffling. For the first time she wondered about the mercenary’s background. ‘Where do you fit in this web?’ Mira asked.

  ‘I fit where I please. I take people as I please. But Consilience believes in something that OLOSS doesn’t, and that’s loyalty. Loyalty can keep you alive.’

  ‘You believe in loyalty?’

  Rast took several noisy swigs from her demijohn. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes shone with an unnatural sparkle. She ran her tongue over the neck of the bottle, licking the runaway drops. ‘I could teach you something about loyalty, Baronessa. In fact, I could teach you... a lot.’

  Mira’s throat tightened. She put her flute down so that they would not see her hand trembling. She let her glance slide to Rast’s filthy boots. ‘You should wash yourself,’ she said.

  They all laughed again at that, as if she’d meant to be funny, not acerbic.

  Catchut yawned and stood. ‘I’m heading to kip down, Capo. And, like the Baronessa says, to wash. Feel like I’ve been poking my shaft in a jam roll.’ He moved his thighs apart in an exaggerated fashion as if they were stuck together.

  Latourn climbed unsteadily to his feet as well. ‘Me too, Cap. This ‘zoon goo crusts up your crap-hole.’

  They left together, still laughing.

  ‘I knew Dren in the war,’ Rast announced when the pucker settled shut. She sprawled sideways out of her chair, taking quick swigs. ‘He fought for Consilience too, but he wasn’t just on the payroll, he was... is one of them.’

  Mira saw her guard dropping with each swallow. ‘We didn’t hear much news of the war—until it was over, at least.’

  ‘If you take the history downloads they’ll tell you that the Extros started it but it was OLOSS.’

  ‘What do you mean? OLOSS retaliated after one of our worlds was attacked.’ Mira searched her memory. ‘Longthrow, wasn’t it?’

  ‘The Extros need raw materials; they exist in one small corner of Orion and there’s not enough minerals there to support their needs. They bought Longthrow from its OLOSS owners. The owners were broke and it was a shitty, slimy place overrun by amphibians. OLOSS panicked and sent in a bunch of hired meat to spoil the sale. They expected to send the half- heads packing but it turned out that the Extros had been sitting on some advanced-tech weapons. They didn’t crawl back into their hole like OLOSS expected.’

  Mira frowned in disbelief. ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘Because I was the hired meat. That’s how I met Ludjer Jancz. He was my Capo.’ Rast gave a short laugh. ‘He said it would be short and sweet and lucrative. But things got out of control. The Extros only had a small force but they were close to home and, as I said, their weapon tech was classy. I mean, you’d expect that, I guess, but it seemed to take OLOSS by surprise.’ Rast’s stare fixed on the last measure of wine in the demijohn. She swirled it around. ‘I’ll sure never forget it.’ She drained the demijohn and tossed it onto the table. ‘Don’t ever underestimate Extros, Fedor. They don’t think like any humanesque or alien I’ve ever met. Damn near impossible to predict and not given to fits of compassion.’

  Rast rocked her chair back to the floor and closed her eyes. A moment later she was asleep.

  Mira was astounded that the mercenary could relax so instantly, bolt upright and in company: just another disparity between them.

  She sat for a while, watching Rast’s face. The mercenary seemed more feminine in sleep, her skin smooth and her lips soft. But the shadows under her eyes and the bruise along one cheekbone kept the picture real. Rast was as unpredictable and pitiless as the Extropists she had fought against and yet Mira felt envy again at the woman’s freedom. Was it as easy as that? Could you just grasp it? Or did you have to be able to kill and fight and view life through a sieve of cynicism?

  Would she swap her life with Rast?

  Even with the weight of tradition and her enslavement by her altered biology she would not. But she could transform herself with knowledge.

  Mira dragged herself to her feet and went to her cabin where she removed her fellalo and laid it onto the steam couch. While it was cleaned she examined herself in the small mirror. It reflected a person vastly different from the one who had looked back at her on Araldis.

  This person was thinner and had lost much of her vibrant crimson colouring. As with Rast, there were exhaustion shadows under her eyes and her skin had developed a waxen texture. It was the kind of fatigue, she knew, that did not quit easily: the fatigue of a person living in constant dread and uncertainty.

  It gnawed at her that she had not been able to say goodbye to Cass Mulravey, nor give her a word of explanation.

  ‘Don’t let her return to the mine,’ Trin had told his Carabinere. Then he had driven away.

  The muzzles of their rifles had stabbed into her back as they forced her inside the cabin of the AiV. They’d shared Trin’s righteousness, the imperative that his line should continue, that a woman should be accepting of everything.

  But nothing in Mira accepted Trinder Pellegrini’s act.

  The memories began to well up but she clamped down on them. What had Trin told the women about her, s
he wondered? That she had stolen an AiV and run away? He would have been careful to ensure that she did not become more than him to them; more of a hero. And now she carried his child.

  My child, not his! My child. My child. Mira intoned the words as she crawled into bed and let oblivion finally claim her.

  * * *

  Insignia woke her.

  There is a farcast from Scolar, Mira.

  She surfaced instantly, as if her sleep had been only a breath below wakefulness.

  Si. Si. What does it say?

  You have been granted an emergency meeting with Sophos Mianos, the OLOSS delegate for Orion Edge. The meeting will occur in twelve hours.

  How can that be? We are days out still.

  Insignia hesitated. I enhanced the length of your sleep cycle and nourished you.

  Mira jerked up out of bed. You sedated me!

  It was for the best—for the baby. Your blood pressure was elevated and your liver function had degraded. You are refreshed now. Your organs are coping better.

  Anger flared hot through her body. Do not do that again. Never do that. She thrust her feet onto the floor. Insignia!

  The only reply was the biozoon’s whispering rhythm.

  Mira dressed and hurried to the buccal.

  Rast was there, lounging in Autonomy, dressed in a strange combination of amber Latino brocade robe and grey mercenary garb.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Mira demanded.

  Rast’s eyes focused on her slowly as she came out of virtual sight. ‘Baronessa. We tried to wake you up but short of breaking into your cabin...’ She shrugged. ‘Figured maybe you’d died in there and I should start working out how to fly this thing.’

  Mira stared at the mercenary. Was Rast joking?

  ‘I found the shift phase extremely... exhausting. Now I have had contact from the OLOSS delegate on Scolar. I will meet with him in twelve hours.’

  ‘Then you’ll be taking us where we want to go?’

  ‘I...’ Mira dropped her head. She had given her word to return Rast to their planet of choice yet she wanted to go with OLOSS to Araldis. She had to go back. ‘I will do what I can.’