An exchange of animated noises told Mira that a discussion was going on. She concentrated hard, trying to decipher something—anything—but she couldn’t recognise any speech patterns or syllabic references.
She interrupted them in frustration. ‘Why have you brought me here?’
But the Siphonophores didn’t even seem to hear her. They turned in accord, leaving as quickly and silently as they’d arrived.
Mira attempted to follow them but the wall became solid as if she’d run into a sheet of rubber. She clawed at it in anger. The texture immediately hardened.
She took a couple of steps backward and then ran forward, trying to use momentum to break through. The wall repelled her with equal force, and she fell down.
Wanton-poda squealed. ‘Please desist, Mira-fedor. You’ll injure yourself and the pantomath.’
Mira climbed to her feet, clutching her hip and abdomen. She felt shaken and enraged, and fearful that she had hurt her baby. ‘You can’t keep me a prisoner!’ she cried. ‘And for Cruxsakes, what is a pantomath? Why did you call my baby that?’ Suddenly she didn’t care that her questions were direct and offensive.
Wanton-poda ascended to shoulder height and excreted a light spray from under its frill. Almost instantly Mira became tired; so tired that instinct sent her stumbling over to the bed where she could lie down before—
TRIN
Trin sat on the beach under Semantic’s glow, and stared out at the dark mass of water. Murmurs drifted down to him from the camp higher up along the tide line. The voices held optimism for the first time.
Many had perished in their flight from the Saqr to safety; some in the Pablo tunnels, but most had fallen to the nightwinds as they trekked to the southern islands.
Since then they had crept from island to island on stolen flat-yachts, sleeping by day and putting their lives in the hands of a young half-Mioloaquan girl.
Now Djeserit had found them an island upon which they might be able to stay, and put an end to this exhausting flight from the Saqr who’d invaded their world and devastated their towns.
Djeserit had their trust. With her unique hybrid biology she was able to fish effectively and provide them with the food they’d need for the two-day journey across the Galgos Strait. Djeserit was their hero and neither he, the new Principe of Araldis, nor Cass Mulravey, the women’s advocate, had been able to give their people as much hope.
Trin wrestled with this realisation, unsure whether it pleased or displeased him.
‘Trinder, darling, you’ve barely spoken to me.’
The voice belonged to his mother. Djeserit had rescued her from the palazzo on the Tourmaline Islands; another courageous feat that chafed at Trinder’s frayed emotions.
‘I have many things to contemplate, madre. They do not include entertaining you with conversation,’ he said flatly.
She sat down next to him and trickled a handful of sand through her fingers, her expression unhappy. The salt had been unkind to her thin hair and ageing skin and she looked more unkempt than the rest of them despite her servant’s ministrations.
‘It is... simply... that I’m grateful to the Mioloaquan girl who saved me. She is .. . resourceful,’ she said.
Jilda Pellegrini’s artless praise of Djeserit infuriated him, in part because he agreed with her, even though he did not wish to.
‘Then you should speak with her,’ he said.
‘I have tried, Trinder, but she dismisses me. She insists that you are the reason they have survived. She is most. . . devoted ... to you.’ She said the words carefully, as if fearful of his reaction, and yet he knew his mother. She was probing him.
‘I am the Principe. Of course I have led them, as my father would have,’ he said.
Jilda’s face crumpled at the mention of Franco Pellegrini and she put her hand to her mouth to stifle a cry.
Trin felt irritation well in him, rather than sympathy. ‘Madre!’
‘Our world, Trinder. What has happened to it? We will all perish in this harsh landscape. Caro Franco—’
‘Caro Franco! He was not your caro Franco, madre. He cared as little for you as he did for me.’
‘No! It was not that way.’
He grasped one thin, frail shoulder. ‘It was that way. Only you refuse to see it.’
‘Si. And will continue to.’
For the first time Trin saw a flicker of the stubbornness that matched his own. Her tragic denial filled him with guilt.
He stood and stalked away along the beach, trying to banish the anguish that she’d seeded within him.
* * *
By the next evening the rafts were assembled and the shells filled with water. The men had brought back bundles of spine bush to shade their crossing and the women had worked the tough seaweed into ropes that would tie them to the yachts if the waters became rough.
Cass Mulravey stood in the water, shepherding her women and bambini aboard their yacht while Trin watched from the beach. Her brother and the few men who had escaped from Ipo with her helped the women board. Trin couldn’t remember their names, only their surliness and inclination to keep separate from the Carabinere. They talked more freely though with those from the Pablo mine.
Djes came to stand alongside him. He noticed her swaying with the effort of standing upright, her muscles more accustomed to the action of swimming now. He knew if he looked closely he would see how thick the webbing had grown between her fingers and toes.
‘Stay close to my yacht,’ he told her.
She inclined her head. Her hair lay slick-wet against her scalp. He had not seen it dry for days. ‘I will scout and return.’
‘But Djes, the xoc—’
‘I will take care, my Principe, I promise.’
Her simple and endearing way released a flood of emotion in him. He reached for her and held her tight, uncaring that the Carabinere, the women and Jilda all watched them. ‘We need you, Djes,’ he whispered. ‘I need you.’
She rested her cool cheek against his, and then pulled away gently. ‘We must get them as far as we can this night. The sun will be cruel on them tomorrow.’
He let her go. ‘Si.’ He raised his voice. ‘We go now. Keep the yachts as close together as possible. Mulravey, do you have your flags?’
The woman waved two pieces of ragged material in her hand. ‘The plain colour means all is well. The bright colour means we need help. Or you need ours.’
An insult lurked in her reply as it did in all her conversations with him; it was as though she could barely contain her contempt.
He ignored it. ‘You have space on your yacht. You will take some of the Pablo men.’
She shook her head. ‘We travel in the group that has always been.’
Her stubborn parochialism invoked a flare of anger in him. It made no sense to adopt this line of thinking. The other two yachts were weighed down with heavier, larger men.
Djes stepped forward to intercede, but before she could speak, one of Mulravey’s men took Cass’s arm.
‘Cass, he’s right. And if anything happens out there there’s only Innis and Marrat and me to help. Thorn’s too weak...’ He inclined his head to indicate a man already lying on the yacht.
Trin watched Mulravey struggle between pride and necessity.
‘Your man speaks well, Cass Mulravey,’ said Trin.
‘My name is Kristo,’ the man replied. ‘And I speak for the good of all of us, not to support you, Pellegrini.’ His face was heavily bearded and his hair was long and ragged, but Trin thought he remembered him ministering food to Mira Fedor when she was first brought down into the Pablo mine. No supporter of the eccentric Baronessa was useful to him. Even so he tempered his reply.
‘Then we should be matched in our opinions,’ said Trin, ‘for that is my intention as well.’
Kristo squared his shoulders as if he might react with anger, but he did nothing other than lightly squeeze Mulravey’s elbow.
Mulravey stared Trin straight in the eye. ‘We’
ll take as many as we can.’ She pulled free from Kristo’s grip and walked to the water.
Trin felt a small victory in her compliance. He would shatter the woman’s ludicrous obstinacy yet.
He too turned to face the open sea. ‘Vai!’ he ordered.
TEKTON
The humanesques Thales Berniere and Bethany Ionil had been much easier to persuade to leave Rho Junction than he had hoped. In fact, Tekton’s free-mind told him, they’d been easier than a Belle-Monde prostitute.
Tekton booked a suite with an adjoining room on the cruiser The Last Aesthetic, and left them alone for several days while he sorted his own affairs.
First, he organised a credit line for Manruben, the metal craftsman he’d left behind on Rho. His last glimpse of the filthy old man had been as he and Thales boarded the fast-trak back to the docks. Tekton had instructed Manruben to access the credit in two days and await news of the quixite delivery. Under no circumstances, Tekton told him, should you indulge in any type of sexual encounter for the duration of the contract. The last one had killed him. Only a quickly administered Health Watch patch had brought the randy old devil back from a permanent date with Hades.
Second, he searched for news from Araldis and looked into the authenticity of the woman that Thales had called Mira Fedor. To his dismay, the young scholar’s story seemed to be true. The Vreal Studium news hub had filed reports of an attack on the backwater Latino-owned planet. Nothing had been verified by the Orion League of Sentient Species though, as communications between planet, shift station and the wider galaxy had ceased. On the subject of the Baronessa Fedor, the Lostol Patrician’s Association referred him to the Latino Noble Network, which provided a simple 3D lineage tree for the exorbitant fee of 1,000 Gals. He now knew more about her family history than he did about his own.
Tekton ordered a lotion bath and luxuriated in a darkened cabin, examining the flow of Latino heritage. Despite his antipathy to feudal hierarchies, Tekton found aristocratic lineage faintly arousing; or at least the power and intrigue it promised. So much so that he indulged in a little auto-eroticism while he learned about the classes of Latino Crux.
The Fedors, it seemed, were part of the Crown Aristo class by dint of their symbiotic relationship with the biozoon species. This honour remained with the males of each generation. However, a recent addendum to the images footnoted that for the first time in history a female of the line had received the Talent.
It seemed the young Baronessa Mira Fedor, to whom Thales referred, really could pilot a biozoon.
This discovery coincided with Tekton’s arrival at the point of orgasm, at which time he gave his free-mind licence to fantasise; the result being an odd vision of the head and shoulders of the young Baronessa Fedor with the body of a biozoon, conducting fellatio upon him.
Sated but a little disturbed at the oddity of the image, Tekton washed, re-robed and lay down on his sumptuous suite’s bed. Next time, he decided, he would pay for pleasure.
He fell to thinking of other things. The biggest of his unanswered questions pertained to Miranda. Why on Mintaka did his colleague, the randy Dr Miranda Seeward, own a bio-lab on Rho Junction? And why had she created a virus that affected the orbitofrontal cortex? And why was she selling it to an illicit bio-dealer on Scolar?
Tekton set his moud about researching the orbitofrontal cortex. When it was ready he questioned it to death—or at least until it began to repeat itself.
What is its function? he asked.
As I have said, Godhead, it manages emotion and reward.
Reward?
And punishment.
Hmmm. That is why it affects decision-making.
Yes, it integrates reinforcers.
Tekton pondered further. Miranda had developed a virus that manipulated part of the brain and was selling it to a distributor on Scolar—the seat of Orion’s greatest philosophers. Intriguing. He had no doubt that this was somehow intertwined with her project for the Sole Entity. Now, if he could persuade Carnage Farr to share his analysis of the virus, he could gazump Miranda, or even better, poach her ideas to gain Sole’s favour.
But how did one persuade someone like Carnage to share information? The man was renowned for his brilliance—and his paranoia.
Everyone has their vulnerabilities, reminded free-mind.
Usually their family, agreed logic-mind.
And how fortuitous, Tekton thought, to be travelling with Carnage’s sister.
He concluded, at that point, that Thales Berniere might well turn out to be incidental to his needs but that the woman Bethany could be the key.
Blackmail her, proposed logic-mind.
How gauche, said free-mind. Charm her.
Tekton considered both options and decided on the i latter for a number of reasons, not the least being that sub-light travel was so tedious.
He would need a diversion.
* * *
He began his seduction of Bethany Ionil with dinner—champagne and barbecued Mioloaquan mussels. The evening was only a moderate success, although it started well when the young scholar Thales begged off attending, saying that he felt unwell.
Bethany accepted the invitation but spent much of her time distracted and out of sorts.
‘You seem pensive,’ said Tekton as gently as he could manage considering he had ordered silver service and fresh flowers from the hydroponic section.
Bethany Ionil pushed her thin hair back behind her ears and sat up straighter. Her plain overalls and bare face made her look older than Tekton, though he guessed she was younger by many years.
A woman ages so gracelessly if she does not pay attention to herself, he thought, and promptly told his moud to order in some more feminine clothing.
For what or whom, Godhead?
Not for me! Tekton snapped at it in exasperation.
The moud fell silent.
‘My apologies if I seem... unhappy, Godhead Tekton. It’s Thales. I’m concerned that he is unwell.’ She linked her fingers together and twisted them.
Tekton poured her a second glass of champagne and put on his most affable and considerate expression.
Look sincere. Open the eyes a little wider, logic-mind told him.
Mouth too, free-mind added.
‘Our journey will be relatively quick, my dear. But yours is a complex situation. I would benefit from a more detailed explanation of circumstances if I am to be of use to you.’
She shot him a straight and somewhat piercing look.
He responded to it head-on. ‘I see your doubt, my dear. Why should I care, you ask? Let me reassure you that I’m a philanthropist at heart, and fortunate to be in a position to indulge my passion. Helping people is what I love to do.’
Overdoing it, logic-mind warned.
‘I have also been known to make the odd wise investment when the right information falls my way.’
The doubt left her eyes. He’d offered her something she could believe.
‘Godhead Tekton, if you can make money at my brother’s expense, I shall tell you everything I know and shout hallelujah!’
Tekton clapped his hands together with feigned glee. ‘Ah Bethany, I believe we will deal fabulously together.’
She unburdened herself then, not skimping on any details that might paint her in any better light. He heard how her passion and insecurities about her Mio husband had caused her to send her only child down to Araldis alone.
‘Godhead, have you ever done something that made you wish you were dead and yet you’ve known that you can’t take such an easy way out before you try and set things right?’
Tekton had no answer. Her heartfelt manner had taken him aback. He was not used to such ingenuousness. There was no melodrama with Bethany Ionil.
She hunched her shoulders and stabbed at the mussels on the plate before her with a tiny silver fork. ‘Josef says that everyone does things that they regret, but I don’t believe him. Not things they would die over.’
‘Perhaps your friend’
s experience is more expansive than yours? You may think yours the worst of mistakes but in fact it is not.’ Tekton, to his surprise, found himself speaking gently. Supportively.
Get a grip, fool. Free-mind was in a feisty mood.
‘What can be worse than abandoning your own child? I’m really not sure of much any more. In fact I am sure of only one thing... I will do anything to rescue my child from that planet.’ The direct look again. ‘Can you help me?’
She loaded the last four words with so much emotion that Tekton excused himself to attend to his ablutions and digest the situation.
He vacillated between amusement and chagrin. He had thought to lure the thin woman to him and use her against her brother, but here she was attempting to use him instead.
He’d been trumped.
The notion rather dampened Tekton’s appetite for seduction.
He returned to the table and told his moud to request brandy. It was no longer a champagne type of evening.
Their conversation continued into the shipboard evening. Bethany answered Tekton’s questions with candour, showing not the slightest effects of the brandy that was making him drowsy.
She’s drinking you under the table, said logic-mind. But the warning seemed to come from the end of a long, long tunnel.
‘What brought you to Rho Junction, Godhead?’ asked Bethany.
‘My project. I intend to build beauty.’ Tekton would have explained it more elegantly if his tongue had not been so thickened with alcohol.
‘Beauty,’ said Bethany mildly. ‘Is beauty as subjective as our culture would have you believe, do you think?’
Tekton felt a rush of akula at the introduction of one of his favourite topics. ‘Beauty is universal,’ he declared with vehemence. ‘I will create something that will make you weep for its perfection and writhe for its passion.’
‘A noble and worthy cause, I imagine, but—pardon my ignorance of artistry—why would you feel it necessary to do such a thing?’
The Sentients of Orion Page 62
