The Sentients of Orion

by Marianne de Pierres

  Samuelle followed and repositioned herself in front of him. ‘Thales, listen to me. I want the same thing for different reasons. I don’t much care what’s happening to your planet but what Farr is planning affects Consilience. There’re many that have devoted their lives to our belief of balance and peace. He can’t be allowed to destroy that.’ Her wrinkled face took on the semblance of dried carrion. ‘He wont be allowed. We need you alive, Berniere. And you need us.’

  ‘Why do you need me?’ Thales rasped. A peculiar halo had grown around Samuelle’s head, as though the hood of her nano-suit was glowing.

  ‘We want to study your blood and your damaged skin. Find out what Lasper used to blackmail you. We need to be a step ahead of him.’

  ‘You want my skin?’ He glanced dazedly around the laboratory. What did that mean? What did that really mean? But the halo had made it too hard for him to think. It bleached his mind with its astringent light.

  A balol materialised suddenly at his elbow and grasped his arm. He smelt it; felt the scrape of its tough exoskeleton.

  ‘I think that you need to lie down, young man,’ rasped Samuelle. ‘Now.’

  TEKTON

  It seemed that no time at all elapsed between Tekton and the detrivore falling through the floor of the taxi, and Tekton being scooped up by the small salvage tug.

  With no breathing apparatus though, he was too busy gasping for oxygen to appreciate the tug’s immaculate timing. Even when rough hands forced a mask to his nose and mouth, and hauled him into the tug’s small cabin, the Lostolian barely registered the gravity of his situation.

  Only after moments of sucking in brackish, wonderful air did the world begin to make sense again. Tekton clung to the mask and watched the tug operator fume the circling detrivore with a hand-manipulated nozzle.

  The detrivore convulsed and its muscle coordination deserted. The tug operator sent his craft scuttling beneath its erratic wing beats and deep into the shadows of a broken, but gently revolving, giant wheel. At least, that was what Tekton thought the gangling structure and attached carriages to be.

  The pilot wove the tug with extraordinary skill between criss-crossed girders while the detrivore gave clumsy pursuit. Without the coordination needed for fine manoeuvring, it slammed into the metal struts and then dropped away into the chasm.

  The operator cackled into his breather mask, then lifted it to spit cigar smoke out of one side of his mouth. “Nother one down,’ he crowed and snapped the mask back.

  He didn’t speak again until he’d threaded a path through the giant wheel, and deeper into the metal pot-pourri that surrounded the abyss. Floating alongside the wheel was a conical-shaped mass, decorated with gaudy stripes.

  He tethered the tug to the base of it and popped open the cabin door. After a short crawl up an external staircase he was inside the cone. Tekton followed more slowly, his body aching from trauma and adrenalin poisoning. The steps, like the ones up to Farr’s chapel, made him dizzy, and he welcomed the firm grip of his saviour, who reached down and pulled him up the last few.

  Tekton almost fell into the darkened space. While he struggled to sit up, the man slammed the door shut and pressed various panels. Light flooded the cone and Tekton felt a welcome blast of oxygenated air on his skin.

  The tug operator peeled off his mask and hung it on a hook near the door. He held out his hand for Tekton’s.

  The archiTect obediently removed it and handed it over. He inhaled the air with a sigh of relief. ‘I am indebted to you... sir,’ he managed after collecting himself. ‘It would seem that Lady Luck was on my side.’

  The man nodded and proffered a gloved hand. ‘Jelly Hob’s the name. And it ain’t no luck me scooping you up. Been on the lookout since I got the word from Sam that another foreigner was about ta go missing.’

  ‘I am no foreigner. I’m Tekton of Lostol,’ replied Tekton. ‘An archiTect who asked too many questions of Commander Farr, I fear. But who is Sam? And how did he know?’

  ‘Sam is Sam,’ he said, evasively. ‘And... Lasper... well he don’t like questions. And I should know. Was his chief pilot at one time. Saw too much.’

  Tekton dabbed at his bleeding legs and tried to keep his voice even. ‘Commander Farr tried to murder you as well?’

  ‘Jus’ say he had me watched. I don’t much like to be watched, Tekton. ‘S why I took to helpin’ others who might be in trouble. But we should be fixin’ your cuts and things, not gabbing. Can you get up to the top, or need I be carrying you?’ He pointed upward.

  Tekton looked at the central stairs that wound to the top of the cone. At every curve a platform ran across to the wall as though the stairs had wings.

  ‘How far?’

  ‘Three levels.’ He laughed. ‘But the grav’s real light.’

  Tekton struggled up the first two flights alone, cognisant enough to take in the odd structure and accumulated rubbish that made up Jelly Hob’s home. Clothes lay draped over odd bits of furniture, food scraps littered the tops of damaged comm-desks and chipped solar arrays. Some of the equipment looked sophisticated enough to have come from the labs on Belle-Monde; other pieces appeared to be just what they were—junk. Either Hob was a genius, or he was bored and crazy, and altogether slovenly.

  But for once, though, Tekton’s sensibilities weren’t offended. His life had taken a rather uncomfortable turn and he was experiencing his first taste of gratitude. Jelly Hob had saved him from certain death—Tekton could overlook a lot for that.

  But by the time he passed a rather oddly obscene glass statue of a woman bent over displaying the lips of three vaginas, on the second-floor platform, he began to sway, despite the lower gravity.

  ‘Is that a Fenralia?’ he enquired woozily.

  “Tis me favourite.’ Hob caught him before he fell back and puffed smoke about his face. ‘Can’t have an archiTect falling down on my watch,’ he said cheerfully.

  Without any apparent difficulty, he slung Tekton over his shoulder and continued upward. The steps and the weight seemed to offer him no extra stress; he barely puffed—other than his cigar—as he stepped off the stairs onto the next level.

  Hob’s top level consisted of a reclining seat locked at forty-five degrees, a shelf of steel vials and a bucket full of spray-skin and other basic medi-kit products.

  He dropped Tekton into the seat, and with well-practised fingers probed and prodded his wounds. He pasted probiotic paste on everything and sprayed replacement skin over the deeper cuts.

  ‘You Lostols don’t heal so quick. Need to keep the bugs out while you do. This place is a rubbish dump, y’know. Be best if I take you across to Ampere right away.’

  Tekton sighed, almost enjoying Hob’s competent ministrations. It was good, he thought, to be alive.

  ‘Where is Ampere?’ he asked. ‘I am not keen for Lasper Farr to know that I am alive.’

  Hob laughed in the rusty manner of a man who’d spent much time alone. ‘Farr don’t know anything about wot goes on in Ampere. Long as you don’t use y’r other voice.’ He tapped his head.

  ‘You mean my moud?’

  ‘That’s the one. Don’ go talking to it, and you’ll be safe in there.’

  ‘In there?’

  ‘S’pose you ain’t heard of Ampere, bein’ a visitor here. Sam’ll be wantin’ to meet you anyways. Farr wants you dead, then like as be, she wants you alive. Not one for politickin’ much—that’s why I’m on me own. But Jelly Hob’s smart enough to figure that out at least. And to be true, I’ve got a curiosity as well.’

  ‘But who would Sam be, Mr Hob?’ asked Tekton, attempting to speak in a manner that the man would comprehend.

  Hob chortled. ‘Mister, you call me? I be likin’ that a lot, I reckon, but Jelly’s good and all too.’

  ‘Whatever you prefer,’ said Tekton politely.

  ‘Jelly’s the way it been for many a while, and Jelly’s the way that—’

  ‘Who is Sam?’ Tekton interrupted more curtly. His saviour, it appeare
d, was easily distracted and inclined to garrulousness.

  ‘It’s Samuelle, in fact, to those that don’t know her. Used to work in Lasper’s labs till it got so she knew more’n him. Now she sells to him. Got her own little patch not far from here.’

  ‘Farr allows an opponent to thrive on his own planet?’

  Hob chewed on his cheeks a bit before he answered. ‘She’s not agin him, as such, and she’s not for him, neither. Hard to tell you right, how it is.’ He rubbed his chin with a dirty forefinger and then his eyebrows raised as an idea formed. ‘Uneasy is how it is, you see. Need each other—for now...’

  Tekton listened intently for a while, until the details became hard to track. He found his attention drifting to the patchwork job Jelly Hob had performed on his wounds. His Health Watch should take care of any infection, but a scan in a decent medi-lab would put his mind at rest. And Ampere sounded more comfortable, and safe, and possibly more hygienic than Jelly Hob’s helter-skelter cone.

  ‘Could we go there now?’ he asked when Jelly paused to light a new cigar.

  The man nodded ready agreement. ‘Might as well. Got a hankering for some of Sam’s rum. Best I’ve tasted since the war.’

  * * *

  As Jelly Hob helped Tekton back down the stairs to the tug and manoeuvred the squat little vehicle out of its mooring and headed it deeper into the outer rubbish rim of Edo, he kept up a monologue on the Stain Wars.

  Tekton tuned in periodically, when Hob’s smoking didn’t muffle the words too much or when the passing scenery closed in tight as though they were flying through a narrow, jagged tunnel, and gave him claustrophobia.

  It seemed that Hob had been combat-rated and damn good, if he could be believed at all.

  ‘Saw Brigoon up close,’ Hob reflected. ‘And the Mio moons. Blew the guts out of a couple of Extro Geni-carriers there at the end. No substitute for the old u-missiles in the P-class. Made such a mess it was like navigatin’ through a ‘roid shower afterwards. Extros got so damn close to the Mios, thought they’d mebbe wipe ‘em out. That’s when Lasper gave the orders to blow the fuckers. Lasper said them Geni-carriers was automated, killin’ machines with no brain. Never was too sure about that. Seems Extros can put a damn brain in jus’ about anythin’. I hoped after, he was right. At tha’ time though I was just thinkin’ ‘bout the Mios. After that, Lasper told me ta change tack, sent us to intercept the OLOSS fleet. The whole friggin’ fleet. Never been so shittin’ scared in me life. Thought he’d lost his stones, y’know. Turns out he knows how to play tha’ game damn good. He...’

  It went on. And on. A recount of the last moments of the war, who’d done what and Lasper’s counter- moves. At another time it might have been fascinating, but Tekton had a welter of things on his mind, not the least of which was the need to reflect on his own reaction to the first real danger he’d ever experienced. The encounter had left him exhausted but curiously focused. As if free-mind and logic-mind had reached a brief harmonic balance. Both of them were adamant about one thing. Don’t let Lasper Farr get away with this.

  ‘... hittin’ the Geni-carrier was lucky, I reckon. Couldn’t pick what they’d do next, those damn Extros. Never could see their logic. Not ever.’

  ‘Commander Farr must have been able to.’ commented Tekton gently.

  Hob made a grumbling noise, as if he’d been woken after a bad night’s sleep. ‘Mebbe,’ he said. ‘Mebbe not. Things happened. Sure. Sam’s the one to talk to ‘bout them Extros. She was there too.’

  ‘In the war?’

  ‘Yeah. Old as Lasper, she is. She don’t believe in rejuve—except for organs and things. Not like me.’ He puffed for a while then, lifting his breather mask to suck on the cigar and then again a moment later to blow it out. ‘Third set of lungs in as many decades.’

  Tekton couldn’t tell if he was joking. The man looked older than most but seemed hearty and strong. He turned back to the scenery as Hob stubbed his cigar butt onto the dashboard of his display and continued his rambling story.

  Edo’s outer rim was a fascinating graveyard that Hob negotiated with almost casual ease. For all his verbosity, the man was undoubtedly skilled. A waste, thought Tekton, like the wasteland he’d chosen to inhabit.

  For a while, the tug crept in and out and around a conglomeration of discarded fairground equipment. Gravity’s processes had forced smaller objects onto larger ones, forging new, bizarre structures and making it hard to discern where one piece began and ended. Occasionally, Tekton picked out things he recognised.

  As they chugged higher—or further out, he corrected his thinking—the rim became a thicker and more tortured intertwining of broken satellite towers and enormous thick cable rolls.

  Hob interrupted his own monologue. ‘This here’s what’s left of that elevator between Mintaka and her first moon. Hadda geneering fault. Broke loose from its tether. Lost about five thousand ‘esques to the vac.

  Took ‘em weeks to scoop up the bodies floating out there.’

  Tekton nodded. He remembered that fiasco and the spillover. The archiTect who’d worked on the project had been several years senior to Tekton. He’d disappeared after the accident, despite most of the culpability being shifted to the manufacturer. Tekton had always suspected the studium had spent significant money making sure the blame was transferred. The ruins of the elevator were twisted beyond redemption now and thick with a fur of lighter debris.

  ‘Must be some magnetism in them cables. Gawd knows what crud’s stickin’ to ‘em.’

  Hob shot the tug up over one of the monumental base girders and into a rusted hole. They flew in complete darkness for far too long, save for the tug’s watery forward lights. When Tekton thought he could not stand another minute of the blackness, they popped out of the other end of the girder into a yawning space.

  In the centre of the space, a brilliantly lit, glorious, pearly shell-structure twirled like a tired dancer.

  ‘Crux!’ exclaimed Tekton. ‘Oh my fecking gonads.’

  Tekton’s expletive so lacked any impact that Hob burst into his rusty laugh.

  The Godhead didn’t take offence; his minds were far too absorbed by the damaged beauty pirouetting before him. ‘It’s Murex, isn’t it? The Discarded City. I never got to see it finished, although I worked on part of the design when I was a young student. My studium was devastated when they heard the owner had scrapped it. They tried to buy it but he’d already signed a deal with the Savoir company. I can’t imagine how much it cost to bring here.’

  ‘Some say they sliced it right through the middle. Top ‘alf, bottom ‘alf. Brought it through res shift in two goes. Sounds like a load of bull to me. Reckon it musta taken a few more than that. Anyway she’s all stitched up and workin’ fine now. Bit of a tilt, but good enough. If you like that type of close-up livin’,’ he added. ‘Them people all stacked together in there makes me want ta shit a lot. When I shit—’

  But Tekton was too lost in an architectural rapture to contemplate the details of Hob’s claustrophobia, and in fact only remembered Hob was there when the tug smacked unceremoniously onto the landing platform not far from another vehicle.

  Hob and the driver of the other vehicle exchanged waves, which made Tekton feel a little more at ease about the six or so balols that detached from their vantage points around the platform to converge on them. They weren’t armed—that he could see—but their manner was wary.

  Hob peeled back his mask and issued some garbled requests through the comm. The man was smart enough not to open the cabin seal.

  A series of exchanged grunts later and Hob popped the cabin. ‘S’right,’ he said, slinging a leg over the edge. ‘Sam and me go way-oh back. She’s one for rules though. Usually likes a bit of notice when I come calling.’

  Good-ee! Powerful women are sooo—squealed free- mind.

  Dangerous, interceded logic-mind. And mind that.

  But free-mind’s anticipation was blighted before it reached full bloom. The balols marched them
inside the shell structure and down lengthy corridors. When they reached a stunning indoor atrium they shepherded Hob off in a separate direction.

  ‘S’ all right,’ he called over his shoulder to Tekton. ‘ ‘They’re just taking you to the medi-lab. I’ll be seein’ you soon.’

  Tekton concealed his fear at being separated from Hob and let free-mind immerse itself in the exotic and original design touches of the central reception area; the free-floating mezzanine and retractable walkway, the pond water sculptures that periodically turned to ice statues, and most importantly, the staggered skylights that flooded artificial light into the atrium in intricate, specially conceived patterns.

  My skylights, thought Tekton with pride. Mine. His chest swelled as he watched the delicate dappling effect that moved across the floor. Imagine how it would look under true solar rays.

  Tekton was possessed by a sudden mad compulsion. Ampere or Murex, or whatever it should now be called, must see sunlight again. It must.

  The balols, however, were not mindful of Tekton’s private ecstasy and hurried him across the atrium to the escalators. They descended several floors and walked another distance into an area where the lights were not as bright, and the decor less impressive.

  They pushed him through a set of sliding doors into a grey room fitted with the standard range of medi-equipment. One wall of the room was lined with retractable bed-cubes.

  A humanesque attendant approached him, eyeing the wounds weeping through onto his dishevelled and tattered robe. ‘You’d better get yourself over on a bed while we take a look at those legs,’ said the attendant in clear Gal.

  Tekton nodded with relief. Now that he was here, in something resembling proper care, he suddenly noticed how much the cuts throbbed and how nauseous he felt.

  No need to suppress the pain now, logic-mind informed him in a cool tone.

  He tottered over towards the bed-cubes but his eyes began to play tricks. The wall wavered, beds slipped in and out of their slots and grey patches appeared and disappeared before his eyes, heightening his sick feeling.