‘Take the next tributary to your right side. The mamelon will be partway along. Please hurry.’
‘I cannot,’ said Mira. ‘My body... cannot.’
But as she spoke the words she felt a light cooling spray of moisture on her face. She licked her lips. Water.
The spray grew steadily stronger.
‘Mira-fedor!’ Wanton’s tone had changed from command to plea.
She glanced around. In an odd trick of perspective, the spray seemed to be emanating from the featureless Hue almost as though the nutrient wall had begun to leak; like rain falling from a cloudless sky—sideways. Within seconds the spray had increased into a steady side flow and then a gush. Water began to pound into the channel of sand from both sides.
Mira’s exhaustion evaporated in a rush of adrenalin and she bundled her shift above her knees so she could lift them.
She ran for three lives. Hers, and her baby’s, and that of the Post-Species creature that clung to her neck making concerned noises. The detention skins she wore on her feet had almost entirely disintegrated as she veered into the tributary that contained the mamelon, but she barely felt their raw tenderness.
She saw it almost straight away—a welcome mound of grey and brown boulders, rolled atop each other, towering high above the sandy floor.
Water from the sprays was beginning to puddle around her feet, turning the sand to mud and slowing her progress. Her breath rasped so hard in her chest that she could barely feel any intake of air—only the constant burning.
Several times she slid and fell.
A sound built in around her; a dull roar. She thought it to be the sound of her heart pounding to meet its body’s demands until Wanton exclaimed, ‘Mira-fedor. The flood! The flood!’
She looked over her shoulder. At the mouth of the tributary she was in, the sand had assumed a bubbling, golden sheen twirled with black as sheets of water slid towards her.
She ran in complete earnestness now, fearing that the water would rise quickly and she would be swept along in it. But the air had become thick with moisture, making it even harder to breathe.
Wanton stayed silent. Inside her, the baby lay still as well. Dimly, she sensed it curling and bunching as if running with her.
She reached the lower boulders of the mamelon as the water swirled at her ankles. As she tried to climb one of the smaller boulders, she grazed her knees and forearms and fell back. Blood dripped into the circling water. Survival instinct got her clambering around to the far side of the rocks where they rested against each other in a more staggered arrangement. She managed to wedge herself between two of them and force her way off the ground.
It took intolerable effort, and too much time. The water had already caught up and was lapping at her feet again. Soon it would cover the lower boulders.
How much higher will it rise then?
She continued to climb, careless of the dreadful stinging from the layer of tiny barnacle shells that still clung stubbornly to the rock from previous floods. But her muscles struggled to sustain the demands on them and a sudden weakness assailed her limbs.
Climb, she told herself. Climb or drown.
She was sobbing, and couldn’t stop, wasting precious energy.
Innate.
Insignia! Mira’s heart thumped.
Your distress is strong.
Mira wanted to cry out for the sheer joy of hearing the biozoon in her mind again but the water surged up over her knees now, buffeting her. Help me, Insignia. Find me. Please.
I have located your whereabouts. Insignia sounded perturbed, angry even. You have a rider.
For a second Mira could not think what the biozoon meant.
A parasite taps your energies, Insignia explained.
You mean the baby.
No. Another.
W-Wanton. A-a Post-Species. I’m carrying it at my neck.
Remove it.
I c-cannot.
You must, or you will die before I reach you.
The link between them began to diminish. Insignia! No!
She reached to her neck. Wanton’s outer casing was slick with moisture and prickly as it resisted her touch.
Mira withdrew her fingers from it. Insignia had never lied to her. At worst it had chosen not to answer her, but never, never, had it distorted the truth. Insignia did not care to protect others’ sensibilities.
She grasped the Extro and wrenched it from her skin, tossing it up on top of a higher boulder.
Immediately some of the weakness left her body. With renewed energy she searched for a crevice in which to wedge her feet. Using it as leverage again, she forced her torso upward until she was able to flop backwards onto the top of the rock, alongside Wanton.
Rolling onto her side, she scooped up the Extro and knotted it into a section of her torn robe. Then she began to scramble higher, finding better hand and footholds on the dry boulders; above.
The water slapped and frothed around the base rocks but she kept her eyes on her ascent, willing Insignia to hear her—to find her. But the climb exhausted her remaining energy, and she collapsed on a ledge just short of the summit. For a time she heard and saw nothing.
‘Mira-fedor?’
Wanton’s thin voice eventually drew her back.
And the baby. One sudden and intense movement that brought her, gasping, to an upright position, gripping her abdomen.
‘Stop. Stop!’ she pleaded, hunching over.
‘What is it, Mira-fedor?’
As the wave of pain abated, Mira’s breathing slowed and she raised her head to gaze at the flood. The water had risen to swirl only a body length below her, gushing around and over the larger part of the mamelon. She moved onto her knees to see better and elongate her tender abdomen. Further out, the desert tributary she had run along to reach here had transformed into a fast-moving river shaped and fed from the nutrient walls.
And yet something even stranger revealed itself from the vantage of height. While at ground level the Hue had seemed endless and seamless with the sky or the not-sky, but from here, looking down, Mira could see a dimpled surface—a roof—that looked like buttons pressed hard into an overfull cushion. ‘What are they?’
‘Please, Mira-fedor, Wanton cannot interpret data from this position.’
Mira fumbled for the knot in her wet gown. With clumsy fingers she untied it and let the Extro drop onto her palm. She raised it to eye level, holding her hand flat.
‘You told me that if I carried you, you would take nothing from me, but you drained my system. I almost drowned.’ There was no heat in her accusation—she didn’t have the energy for it—but she made her mistrust plain. If she wanted to, she could toss the creature away into the rushing water below. It would survive, no doubt, but she would be free of it.
‘Wanton took only the smallest amount for nutrition requirements. Nothing that would interfere with your own functions,’ it protested.
‘But when I removed you I felt my strength return.’
‘Wanton is not sure why that would be.’
The Extro sounded genuine enough but how could one ever know with such a creature? ‘Are you misleading me?’
‘That concept is confusing.’
‘Confusing!’ Mira climbed to her feet. Emotion trickled into her belly. ‘You pick and choose when you wish to understand me, Wanton. That is lying. That is misleading. Now tell me what those circular objects on the surface are.’
She held her arm outstretched and trembling. It would be so simple to tilt her palm and...
Mira.
Insignia!
I am closer. I have located you but it is an uncommon habitat.
Ifs a planet, I think. Covered by a substance they call the Hue. They live inside it and draw raw materials from the earth outside. The planet is in flood, for regeneration, and I am stranded above the waterline. Her thoughts tumbled out. How far away are you? Are you alone?
Some of the humanesques travelled with me to Extropy space. But circumsta
nce has dictated that they are no longer aboard.
Circumstance? Are they alive? Thales Berniere?
I was forced to leave Rho Junction in haste to keep close to our mind-bond. The scholar and Bethany Ionil did not return in time.
Then who travelled with you?
The mercenaries.
Rast, Latourn and Catchut?
Yes.
That is all?
The God Discoverer as well.
Josef Rasterovich? Mira felt a mild disappointment that Thales was not among them.
‘Mira-fedor.’ Wanton unknowingly interrupted her dialogue. ‘Si.’
‘It is possible that you are correct. Your energy was indeed drained from you.’
‘What do you mean?’ Mira refocused her attention. The water level was still rising. Would it reach them even at this height?
‘Wanton has discovered something.’
‘What?’ she cried impatiently. ‘What is it?’
‘There are subtleties amongst the Post-Species. Wanton’s kind chose to live as individual beings, with individual hosts linked by the Hue. Non-corporeal Post-Species are different. They are the Hue.’
Mira felt a little surge of desperation. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Once Wanton left the Hue, there should have been no commonality with others of my kind.’
‘But there is?’
‘Wanton has run a self-analysis of its inner self. A hidden portion of its core is responsible for the drain on Mira-fedor’s energy. Wanton suspects that the portion is still connected to the Hue.’
‘How? No, wait... tell me quickly... what does that mean for us?’
‘Wanton means that any of his kind may select information from the Hue about Wanton’s location, at any time.’
‘They know where we are.’
‘Yes.’
‘Will they come after us? You said they never leave the Hue.’
‘They do leave the Hue. Mira-fedor has seen them on Rho Junction. However, ordinary Hosts do not go into the Bare World.’
‘And with the flood, surely they would not risk—’
‘Wanton is not sure. Mira-fedor’s importance to the Hue is significant.’
‘Why, Wanton?’ She stopped short of closing her fist on the Extro and shaking it. ‘For Cruxsakes, tell me the truth.’
‘Host bodies regularly suffer degradation. Your Innate DNA is much more resilient and sustainable. It is my kind’s desire to reproduce it.’
Again. Again. They sought it as the Principe Franco had. Her talent had become more burden than gift. ‘But you said they were studying my child?’
‘It is logical, then, that Mira-fedor’s child will have a similar talent. Possibly even more refined, and stronger.’
‘And does it?’
‘The study was not completed.’
Mira?
Insignia. Si?
I sense your distraction.
The Extro in my company says its kind wish to copy my Innate compatibility. Their Hosts degrade and die. I am more resilient.
Even over distance Mira felt Insignia’s disapproval.
It is not for another kind to take what is unique to ours.
I agree, but it is not the first time a species has tried to steal from another.
It is more than theft. It is—to use your humanesque term—cannibalism.
‘Mira-fedor. I think we are no longer safe,’ said Wanton.
Mira shifted focus to Wanton again. ‘Safe?’ The word cracked from her throat. It had been so long since she’d been safe, she could no longer remember the associated feelings. The impulse to toss the creature into the water returned, what with its weird naivety and frustrating manner. And yet it had shown her a form of kindness; given her opportunity to escape.
She lifted her gaze to the strange, cushioned roof of the Hue and saw the reason for Wanton’s concern. In the distance—hard to judge how far—several of the buttons had lifted and objects flew free from them.
‘Aves,’ said Wanton. ‘Unvogel most probably.’ ‘Extinct birds?’
‘Extinction is an obsolete concept.’ Mira squinted to make out the size of the rising Aves. As large, she thought, as the Air Vehicles on Araldis. ‘Are they Hosts?’
‘Yes,’ said Wanton. ‘They are the equivalent of our soldier class. We are self-regulating within our own society but it is sometimes necessary to manage external problems.’
‘Si, I have seen your self-regulation.’ Insignia?
Yes, Mira.
Help us. Now!
THALES
Thales wandered aimlessly around the main recreation chamber. The Trade Fest was finished and only the stallholders remained, dismantling their displays and packing. Metal swarfs and leaflets and food scraps intermingled to create a carpet of litter and Au-cleaners scurried about sifting the debris into the funnels of their disposal units.
He could not put a name to his inner turmoil: disgust, frustration, anger, resentment, longing. So many conflicting emotions that one couldn’t be singled out from the others.
‘May I help you, Msr?’ The Lamin on the information booth straightened from where it had been crouched, folding pan-films into a case.
Thales shook his head, unable to muster polite conversation.
The Lamin regarded him with a shrewd look. It trotted over to its table and snatched up a small poster streaming advertising. ‘As my last visitor I would like to offer you a special diversion treatment with a new company on Edo called Ardour. Their clients are spread across many worlds. They cater to a wide variety of tastes, sir, and I’m told, are exceptionally good.’
As Thales touched the poster he felt the faint tingle of something soaking into his skin. Sensory Manipulative—Sen-Man—advertising was banned on Scolar.
He nodded and moved away from the booth. Once out of the Lamin’s sight he tried to throw the poster away but it stuck to his fingers. Embarrassed by the lewdness of the images streaming on it, he shoved it into his coat pocket and headed back to the taxi rank.
He had no idea where to go now. He knew no one here, other than Bethany, Lasper Farr and Tekton. Perhaps he should attempt to find a way into Farr’s laboratory? Or leave? But how would he pay his fare? Where would he travel to? Was his face healed enough to travel safely?
Amid the confusion of thoughts, his mind slipped repeatedly to the memory of Bethany, and the Mio slapping her with its fins—the glazed pleasure on her face as its teeth pulled at her skin.
It repulsed him and yet the tiny trickle of desire he’d felt seemed to have seeded, and be growing stronger by the moment. Had she somehow infected him with her sexual sickness? Or had the poster saturated him with aphrodisiacs?
The taxi requested a destination.
‘Here.’ On impulse he pulled the poster from his pocket and ran it under the scanner.
‘Certainly, sir. There will be no charge.’
Thales didn’t reply. Taxis did not charge anywhere on Edo. But Commander Farr liked to remind users of the fact. Instead he settled back against the seat and closed his eyes. With slow breaths and a simple counting exercise he tried to reach a meditative state, but the calm wouldn’t come to him.
He settled instead for a percolation of memories: Rene and Villon—anything but Bethany.
‘Destination arrival,’ said the taxi eventually.
Thales roused himself. It had stopped outside a wall of storage crates similar to those that Farr had first interviewed them in weeks—or was it months?—before. The higher ones were accessible by a portable elevator.
As if cued to the taxi, a door opened in one of the crates and a cream-suited ‘esque with long, smooth hair stepped out. He tapped on the window.
Thales pulled his skin mask up across the damaged section of his face and told the taxi to lower the window.
‘Do you have your invitation?’ the suited doorman asked.
Thales waved it and it flipped out of his hand, no longer sticky.
The doorman smiled and beckone
d.
Thales had a fleeting moment of hesitation. He needed distraction. No, more than that. He needed to lose himself.
The first crate was an empty shell with filthy, scarred plas walls. To his relief the doorman led him straight through it into another.
The walls of this one—a waiting room of sorts—were blue-tinted and covered in screens running intimate shots of naked humanesques and aliens engaged in explicit sex acts. The images were so enlarged that Thales took refuge in their distortion.
‘Wait here. Your entertainer will come for you.’ The doorman pointed to the row of seats.
Thales sat nervously on one, avoiding eye contact with the other patrons. He sensed their curiosity at his
diffidence. But even the floor was a screen, and he found himself staring at his own clenched fists. His conscience pricked at him. Was this the answer to his misery?
‘Good evening.’
Thales glanced up.
A beautiful, beautiful woman in a close-fitting dress and sharp heels stood looking down at him. Her age was impossible to decipher, but her long silken hair and sombre expression reminded him so much of Rene that he nearly cried aloud.
She saw his reaction. ‘Does my appearance offend you? I can summon another.’
Thales blushed. ‘N-no,’ he reassured her. ‘On the contrary. It is mine that offends.’ He touched his face. ‘My skin... I apologise for it. Until recently I was...’ He trailed off. It would sound ridiculous even to his ears to proclaim his prior handsomeness.
‘What is your name?’ she asked.
‘Thales.’
‘Well, Thales-who-wears-a-mask, my name is Aleta, and you’ve presented with the last of our free VIP services. An exclusive offer. There were only very few available. You must be a valued member of the Commander’s community.’
‘I’m a visitor. That’s all. The Lamin at the information desk gave it to me,’ Thales said truthfully.
‘How unusual.’ Aleta gave the smallest of frowns. ‘Our Ardour franchise is new to Edo, and the VIP offer is part of our normal entry deal to a new world. Usually it would go to a select few.’ She smiled. ‘But you have the ticket, Thales—so you get the experience.’
‘Experience?’ He began to feel a little uneasy. ‘I am merely looking for distraction... with a woman.’
The Sentients of Orion Page 72
