Mira looked around for Wanton-poda. ‘W-Wanton- poda?’ she called out softly.
‘Mira-fedor?’ The response was thin but unmistakably emanating from the small gelatinous lump.
‘I-is that you near my feet?’
‘Wanton is different.’
‘This is your true form?’
‘Wanton is not able to disclose my true form, which is within what you see—it’s illegal for my kind to do so—but this is my interactive skin.’
Mira moved closer. ‘S-skin. It looks too thick.’
‘It is a highly evolved material that can do and withstand many things. However, transport is an issue without a Host. Wanton would ask that you pick me up so that we can proceed.’
Mira swallowed. She felt the baby jerk, as if it had awoken and was not pleased. ‘How do I best hold you?’
‘Wanton would normally integrate into the Host’s nervous system, but as our relationship is not of that nature I would suggest placing me against your neck, just below your ear. Without a Host it is energy-consuming for Wanton to project sound.’
Mira stared at the Extro with apprehension. ‘Forgive my uncertainty, but will you hurt me? Or will you affect my control of my own functions?’
‘Mira-fedor can be reassured no harm will come to her,’ it replied. ‘And we must hasten now.’
Mira glanced around. The landscape in front of them was as barren as before, but behind her was a different matter. Behind her everything stopped. Nothing existed past a certain point. It seemed as though the nothing was just a clear, pale sky, or something as featureless.
‘The nutrient wall protects our environment. What little is left over is the Bare World.’
‘That sky is the wall?’
Wanton made an exasperated noise. ‘If it will help us to leave this spot, Wanton will explain as we proceed. But please, Mira-fedor, pick Wanton up.’
Mira reached out, stopping just short of touching the Extro. To her surprise, it sprang up of its own volition and settled on the palm of her hand.
She carefully lifted it closer to her face. It felt sticky, and had the odour of something alive and slightly bloody. She took a deep breath as it squirmed in her hand.
‘Please hasten, Mira-fedor. There are things we should avoid.’
She lifted her hand to the side of her throat and Wanton squirmed across to make contact with the flesh under her ear.
The sensation was not unpleasant, like having a cool compress applied to a bruise.
Wanton made a satisfied noise and wriggled a little as it burrowed into her skin. Mira felt tiny pricks as it anchored itself to her.
In Mira’s belly, the baby moved again, irritated.
‘Please walk in a northerly direction.’
‘Which way is north?’
‘Over the ridges in front of you.’
They kept to this pattern, Wanton giving directions and Mira obeying them. The unsettling feeling of being a slave or an automaton was countered by her anxiety to find some shelter, and her fascination with the composition of the Bare World.
It was hard to digest such a place; barren tracts of land ran like tributaries around sections of the Hue much like a maze or a river delta spread across land. Geology had only figured in Mira’s studium learning insomuch as it had pertained to the evolution and existence of particular alien genera. This was something totally outside that reference.
‘Why does the wall—is that what you call it?—meander in such an erratic fashion?’
‘I will assume that you refer to the existence of the Bare World through and around the Hue. The explanation is simple. The nutrient wall—that is a less than satisfactory term—is a fluid and ever-changing filter and protective sac not unlike the humanesque amnion. However, the wall absorbs the raw materials from the Bare World, not a parent creature. It then recomposes the proteins and acids to provide the Hue with necessary living requirements.’
‘You mean food and fluids?’
‘Not only. It can manipulate matter to create any manner of desired material or object.’
‘That is why your world seemed virtual and yet solid.’ Mira reached the top of the first ridge and stopped to stare. Ahead lay a wide corridor of flat, caked clay cracked into symmetrical patterns. On either side, though, the wall rose in such a way that she could not be sure what was sky and what was not. The peculiar visual trick made her nauseous. ‘So you cannibalise the real planet in order to exist?’
‘Mira-fedor’s tone and choice of words imply a negative appreciation of the situation.’
‘Well, what happens when you run out of raw material?’
‘That is not an issue.’ Wanton-poda, she thought, sounded smug. ‘We have seeded the Bare World with a regeneration accelerant.’
Mira picked her way slowly down the rocky ridge. Her feet felt bruised and tender. Perhaps her soft detention stockings would fare better on the clay. ‘It does not appear to be working.’
‘That is why we must hurry, Mira-fedor. Wanton’s references suggest that the Bare World is close to its regeneration point. To be caught in that...’
‘What? What will happen?’
Wanton squirmed against her neck, making her flesh prickle. She wanted to scratch the area but couldn’t without dislodging the Extro.
‘Wanton will be unaffected, but it is unknown what the effect might be on you or your child.’
Mira’s heart thumped.
‘Wanton has distressed you,’ said Wanton.
‘Tell me where we are going.’
‘Wanton is not sure, exactly. Wanton’s initial thought was to escape permanent death, and now, to escape the worst of the regeneration.’
‘But how can we survive until then? I need food and water.’
‘That is not a difficulty. Mira-fedor can feed from the nutrient wall as long as she is subtle and sparing.’
Mira remembered the boost of energy the wall had given her. Relief that she would not starve or dehydrate was tempered by a faint distaste at the thought of having to be in regular contact with the amnion sac around the Extro world.
‘I don’t understand why we have to hurry if you’re unsure where we are going. We need to devise a strategy. Some way to get off this world.’
‘Leave here?’
‘I would wish so,’ said Mira.
‘But there is much prejudice against our kind. Wanton is safest here.’
‘Not now that you have helped me to escape.’
Wanton issued a strange, unhappy sound, then fell to muttering something that Mira couldn’t understand.
It continued its mumbling as they walked until, eventually, she could stand it no longer. The baby, it seemed, was of the same mind, delivering light jabs to the base of her abdomen.
‘Wanton-poda! Where am I going? I cannot continue to walk without a destination. I am not a brainless Host.’
The Extro paused. ‘Please, Mira-fedor. Address Wanton merely as “Wanton”. Poda is no more. Or, perhaps, “Wanton-mira”.’
Wanton-mira. The idea of it made Mira’s nausea return. She halted. ‘Wanton,’ she said clearly and with quiet determination. ‘Where are we going?’
‘According to the studium notes there is a mamelon that is not affected during the regeneration.’
‘Mamelon? You mean a lava flow?’
‘A lava mountain.’
‘Do you have a way to locate it?’
Wanton stayed silent for a moment. ‘Mira-fedor’s manner of speech is most shameless.’
Most shameless? She hesitated. The Extro was attempting to distract her with indignation. ‘You have answered many of my direct questions now. Why would this one cause offence—unless you cannot answer it?’
‘Mira-fedor sounds different.’
Mira stopped walking. The Extro was right. She was angry at so many things and the creature’s tedious manner provoked her. ‘I’m a long way from any friends or family, Wanton. Your species has torn me from symbiosis with my biozoon and brou
ght me here. You may not understand humanesque feelings, so I will tell you plainly—I am angry and lonely and filled with uncertainty.’
In the silence that followed her statement Mira noticed something. The sand at her feet had changed colour, from green to a dark glinting black. With a glance, she saw the same thing happening ahead of and behind her—in swaths. Patterned swaths.
‘Perhaps with me as your passenger, you will be less lonely?’ said Wanton in a small voice. ‘Wanton has lost poda and Mira has lost symbiote.’
She did not reply to that, her thoughts overtaken by anxiety. ‘Why is the sand turning black?’
‘It would seem,’ Wanton said finally, ‘the fertilisation process has begun. There is less time than Wanton thought.’
‘Before what? The regeneration?’
‘Yes.’
‘But how can that be so dangerous?’
‘There will be a flood, Mira-fedor. Vegetation requires water to grow.’
Mira stared at the tract of sand before them, bordered on either side by the strange, opaque sky-wall. ‘Quickly. Which way do we go?’ she whispered.
TEKTON
Young Thales’s bandaged necrotic face was so ghastly that Tekton felt quite relieved when he left. Besides, he had things that needed some quiet reflection. Lasper Farr was stalling for time. Tekton could read the signs.
Search all ‘casts for news of the planet Araldis, he told his travel moud.
While he waited for the newsfeeds, he sat back and admired Fenralia’s statue. Opening his robe, he let his akula free to swell his manhood. When his thoughts became lascivious enough to engender something of suitable comparison to the statue, he observed the differences between its erection and his own.
It was indeed, he thought, a very good likeness.
Excuse me, Godhead, said the irritating moud, immediately deflating Tekton’s frame of mind.
Yes, yes.
There has been some news from the planet Araldis. OLOSS has sent forward investigative fleets to a selection of connecting Resonance stations.
Are they able to shift into the Araldis system?
No, Godhead.
What in Sole are they doing then?
Waiting, Godhead. And watching.
Tekton sighed. How typically OLOSS. He went into the bedroom and lay on the wide, oval-shaped bed.
He found that space travel sapped his energy for some time after a long trip and he had his best ideas when prone.
Once comfortable, he let his minds drift into random thought and waited for patterns to emerge. Miranda Seeward and Lawmon Jise—his fellow tyros. Araldis and quixite. Lasper Farr and the Extropists. Thoughts paired together, split off and then re-formed in new pairs. What should he be seeing in these people and events that he hadn’t recognised?
Step back, logic-mind suggested. What do we know already?
He knew that Lasper Farr couldn’t move any type of force into Araldis while the shift station was compromised, and whoever had invaded the planet wanted—and was most likely helping themselves to—his quixite.
This left Tekton a couple of courses of immediate action. He could simply modify his designs and have Manruben create something from the small quantity of quixite already on its way to Rho Junction. Or he could divert his resources into discovering who had invaded Araldis and bargain with them. Or, perhaps, put his own project on hold and return to Belle-Monde, and unravel Miranda Seeward’s intentions for the planet of Scolar with her nasty little virus.
He immediately dismissed the idea of modification; archiTects did not compromise their designs. And the Araldis questions would be answered soon enough by OLOSS, or Farr, or another group with vested interests. Which left him with Miranda Seeward.
His minds felt in accord over this. Time would unravel the Araldis situation—in the meantime he could interfere with Miranda and Jise and their plans. And possibly keep a close eye on what his cousin Ra was up to.
Godhead?
Yes.
Commander Farr is at your door.
Tekton’s heart fluttered. Had the villain come to negotiate with him, or kill him? Does he have a weapon?
Not that I can detect, Godhead.
That means little enough, said logic-mind. His spit is most likely poisonous.
Let him in, you can out-think him, free-mind bolstered his ego.
As if he could be stopped, sniffed logic-mind and sank itself into design inventory.
Tekton returned to his sitting room. Grant him entry, moud.
Farr entered without fanfare, closing the door gently and making his way to sit on one end of the plush lounge suite. He appraised Fenralia’s statue through eyes hooded, Tekton guessed, from habitual sleeplessness. ‘You purchased it?’
‘Fenralia is eminently collectable. As am I.’
Farr gave a short laugh. ‘You amuse me, Tekton. Such shameless vanity is rare.’
‘The notion of “shame” springs from beliefs that seek to control society. I graduated from such limitations when I began to chew, Commander Farr. I would have imagined the same of you.’
‘You would not begin to imagine what I am capable of, archiTect, with or without shame.’
Tekton grew hard at the man’s bald statement. It was not a new thing for him to find eroticism in power—but danger? Perhaps academia had become too predictable, too familiar to stimulate him any more. ‘And yet you’ve come to tell me that your hands are tied. OLOSS has surrounded all the stations that will allow shift to Araldis. The balance of things is delicate. And that even the enticement of details about the creator of the virus cannot persuade you to help me.’
‘You have a keen mind, Tekton. But what you don’t grasp is my role in this. Sentient creatures have a history of war and genocide. Balance is more important now than it has ever been and I am the only one who can maintain it. Balance is vital.’’
Vital? ‘I’m all for balance, Commander. But you intrigue me. How do you envisage keeping the peace without a superior force at your disposal? Surely you could not hope to reiterate your success as a peacemaker in the Stain Wars? Such things do not bear repeating.’
Farr lifted his hooded eyes. Something about them reminded Tekton of his cousin Ra. Self-belief. Not the kind that Tekton was imbued with, but the extreme, psychotic kind.
‘My skills are outside your comprehension,’ said Farr.
Tekton’s erection softened a little. Psychosis was not as attractive as either power or danger, and the edge in Farr’s voice strayed towards it. Did the man believe he was God?
Of course he does. It’s as plain as the necrosis on the young scholar’s face, volunteered free-mind.
God-deluders aren’t anything new. Logic-mind shot up from underneath a weight of cost calculations.
But this man, thought Tekton, this man is no fool.
His erection came back then, harder, more convulsed, than any he could remember. If Lasper Farr thought he was as powerful as a god then maybe he had something to back his conviction. An edge? A source?
The notion settled firmly upon Tekton.
I must know what it is, he affirmed to himselves. I must know what gives him such confidence. But how? How do I get deeper into such a man?
Then inspiration struck him.
‘Do you worship, Commander Farr?’
The man’s grey eyes widened for a split second. ‘It is a long time since anyone was brave or foolish enough to ask me about my religion.’
‘In my experience, the most clever and powerful people are often the strongest believers.’
‘I detect barely disguised flattery, Tekton. What are you trying to extract from me?’
‘Flattery? Now who is showing their vanity?’
Farr ignored the mild barb. ‘I will assume from your question that you are ambivalent about the notion that the Sole Entity is a God.’
Tekton gave a fake yawn. ‘“God” can be such a confusing noun, Commander.’
‘Yet you’ve adopted the title Godhead?’
‘And... it can be useful—if you get my meaning. Frankly, I am undecided on the nature of God, but I have a regular and personal dialogue with him. I find it clears my mind.’
‘Him?’
‘We are humanesque, Commander. Our pronouns are limited.’
Farr narrowed his grey eyes. ‘There are many prayer venues around Edo that welcome strangers within.’
‘And yours is not one of them?’
Farr got to his feet in a lithe, almost freakish, movement that belied his age. His expression lightened a little; a hint of amusement again. ‘Of course, you are welcome to my chapel, Tekton. But once you have worshipped and taken reflection, I would strongly suggest you make arrangements to move on. Our pleasant acquaintanceship may, otherwise, depreciate in value.’
It took some time after Farr left for Tekton’s erection to subside. To his own fascination, he appeared to be developing an erotic attraction to the idea of physical threat. Perhaps he’d spent his recent years too cocooned from the wider worlds.
That realisation did not distract him entirely from his new purpose. Foil the projects of the other tyros. He would, however, find out as much as he could about Lasper Farr before he was forced to leave.
After instructing his moud to arrange transport to the Edo shift station to connect with a res-ship bound for Mintaka, he logged a request with the porter to pack his belongings (including the statue) and take them to the loading docks.
He then bathed, ate a small meal and dressed in his most comfortable and least ostentatious robes. By the time the moud informed him that his passage was booked and that the porter would be along shortly, he felt composed and ready.
Moud. Commander Farr has extended an invitation to me to pray at his private chapel. Enquire with the mayordomo for directions.
The moud consulted with the station AI and shortly afterwards Tekton said goodbye, for ever, to his moderately luxurious suite. He found a Lamin waiting for him outside.
‘The mayordomo has directed me to escort you to the Commander’s chapel.’ It curled its front lock with a long nail and wiggled its nostrils.
The Sentients of Orion Page 69
