The Sentients of Orion

by Marianne de Pierres

  Word is spreading quickly that the Dowl sphere has reopened. ‘Esques and aliens are scared. We must leave now, or they may disengage the sphere.

  I’ve caused mass panic, Mira thought.

  We don’t have time to absolve you of your mistakes. All pretence of patience had left the biozoon’s mind tone. It sounded preoccupied. Its anger would come later. You have shared the truth. The Post-Species have amassed significant weaponry, and some of it is thought to be located on Araldis. OLOSS’s existence is under threat. Now is the time to concern ourselves with our survival.

  The biozoon was right. Can you shift early?

  Imperfect shift again?

  Si.

  Of course. The Omniline are already preparing for it themselves.

  They will return to the Pod?

  Yes. Are you able to make a decision as to where to go? Or is your mind impaired by your hormones? If so, then I will choose.

  Insignia’s last question held no trace of humour.

  Mira hesitated, floundering. Where should they go? With the Dowl sphere open, they could try shifting to Araldis and attempt to rescue the survivors on their own, but that would be dangerous, and her baby would surely die.

  The Geni-carriers she’d seen leaving Extro space had been headed there, she was sure of it. The Post-Species had sent a formidable force to her home world. But why Araldis? And when would they loose their arsenal on the rest of Orion? Was that why the Dowl shift sphere had reopened? An attack?

  The two ‘esques to whom she would have looked for counsel, Rast Randall and Josef Rasterovich, were captives of the Extros. She could not help them. They could not help her.

  And yet it felt cowardly to retreat and abandon the survivors on Araldis. Cowardly to run to a distant world and hide and hope that the Post-Species did not go there. But where could she hide? Which planets would the Extros choose to destroy first?

  She broke from her inward reverie and glanced at the Secondo vein. The scholar Thales Berniere was enveloped by the vein-sink; only his face and the tips of his fingers were visible where he grasped the edges. A tall broad female soldier in plain garb bent solicitously over him. What was her name again? Fariss. Fariss O’Dea.

  ‘Thales?’ said Mira.

  ‘Yes, Baronessa?’ he croaked, lifting his head above the cocoon so that they could see each other.

  ‘My baby will be born prematurely. Insignia tells me that there is a facility on Scolar that could save my child.’

  ‘Mount Clement,’ he said. ‘It is... I’m told... the best of its kind. But it’s foremost an experimental facility—not available to the public, as far as I know. They focus on in-vitro genetics. Bethany spoke of it. She has expertise in that area.’

  Bethany. Mira felt a pang of loss for Bethany Ionil’s brief friendship. A woman’s company right now would reassure her. Fariss O’Dea was not one, Mira guessed, to concern herself with affairs of childbirth. ‘Where is Beth?’

  The soldier straightened. ‘Bethany Ionil travelled to Intel with us.’

  ‘Bethany? On Lasper’s ship? You didn’t say,’ said Thales, looking up at her in surprise.

  Fariss laughed. ‘You didn’t ask. Figured it was best left at that.’

  ‘Bethany may know someone at Mount Clement, Mira.’

  ‘Can we contact her?’

  ‘Yeah, sure, if you want to attract the Commander’s attention to us,’ said Fariss in dry tones.

  Mira, we do not have time to wait. Do you comprehend this? Insignia’s urgency sent a skewer of energy through her.

  She wavered for another moment. Wait and try and contact Bethany, or leave now? The memory of the Geni-carriers blossomed in her mind. Waiting could mean death for all of them.

  ‘Soldier Fariss, seat yourself in the Autonomy nub. It will protect you through imperfect shift,’ Mira said.

  ‘Imperfect shift? Shit! Always wanted to do that.’ Fariss gave Thales’s shoulder a squeeze and stepped across to the command seat mounted in a tubercle.

  Protect her, Mira told Insignia.

  Res-cushioning flowed around the large body from the tubercle’s pores.

  ‘Don’t touch any of the functions,’ Mira added.

  Fariss crossed her arms. ‘Wouldn’t think of it.’

  Insignia, we should leave.

  Yes. I will manage shift. It is better that you rest.

  Mira hesitated. Insignia had sedated her twice without her permission. And yet now fear and fatigue made her almost welcome the idea of oblivion. How long since she had truly rested? How long since she’d had a moment of peace? How long since worry had not gnawed its way through her bones? Will it help slow down the loss of fluid if I am... sedated?

  Yes.

  Very well.

  Insignia’s reply was relaxation stealing across her neural pathways, a drowsy warmth and sense of security. She felt all her muscles loosen and her churning stomach settle. Insignia? Can you do the same for Thales?

  Yes, Mira.

  She drifted, then returned to say one more thing. I had to warn them. You understand?

  Yes, she heard Insignia say before she succumbed. And no.

  TRIN

  They stumbled across the caves in the grey light of predawn. Exhaustion would have stopped them anyway. Most had used up the stimulant pods which had helped them climb up through the tangled undergrowth that cloaked the mountain. There were pods left, but Trin wanted to conserve them until Djes could harvest more and they could build a store.

  ‘Wait! Stay here in the bushes,’ Trin told his band of survivors. ‘We’ll search the caves just before sunrise.’

  Djes moved closer to him as the others sank gratefully to the ground.

  ‘Are these the caves you saw when you came here before?’ Trin asked her.

  She sat down on the moist ground, legs curled out to one side, and waited for him to join her.

  His stimulants had worn off as well, and a stale aftermath crept over him. He reached for her as he settled, and she leaned into his arms. Around them, others were doing the same, squatting or lying in the undergrowth close to each other, staring at the dark shadows that signalled cavities in the mountainside.

  ‘Not sure. I think the ones I saw might have been lower down. Perhaps we missed some. We’re so close to the summit here. I don’t think I climbed this high; I didn’t have time. It was dark... I’m not sure.’

  He stroked her arm. Her skin still had an odd texture from spending so much time in saltwater—slippery, like an eel’s, and yet wrinkled. How did he find her even remotely attractive? he wondered. She was not familia, and she was part alien.

  Yet, her part-Miolaquan heritage—her ability to swim like a fish—had saved their lives. And he’d watched as she’d changed a little more with each passing day she’d spent at sea. The webbing between her fingers and toes had become thicker, her hair thinner, even her eyes; the aqueous membrane showing as she blinked and adjusted to the bare sunlight.

  She ventured no further comment now, and Trin found himself drifting to sleep, one arm around her and his back wedged against the trunk of a stunted tree.

  He woke like that a short time later, his arm cramping. The lightening sky showed the caves as gaping holes in the pale rock. The mountain is soft, he thought. No wonder the wind has eaten at it.

  Around him, others stirred. For so long now they had slept in short grabs, through the daylight, as they sought to escape the invading Saqr. It was impossible to imagine a full night’s sleep.

  Juno Genarro, Trin’s most trusted carabinere, crawled from the arms of his cousin Josefia and over to them. ‘Principe? What are your orders?’

  ‘We should eat, Juno. Then take Tivi and look inside the caves. Joe will stay in command of the group. If the caves are not safe, we’ll need to find thicker cover before the sun rises.’

  Juno nodded. ‘And you?’

  ‘Djes and I will walk to the top. It is only a short distance now, and it is important that I see how the land lies from above
.’

  ‘You’ll have to hurry, or you will be caught without shade, Principe.’

  Trin touched the carabinere’s arm briefly. ‘Tell Tina to bring us some food. And be careful in the caves. The checclia that we saw at the base of the mountain might not be the only mutations on the island. The vegetation is lush by Araldis standards; other creatures could survive here.’

  Juno nodded and crawled away.

  ‘Djes?’ Trin shook the sleeping girl.

  She woke quickly and fearfully, her webbed fingers grasping at the air and her eyes flickering open, revealing her secondary lids.

  Trin still experienced a shock when he saw them, yet he’d grown to depend on her devotion; her belief gave him confidence even though his feelings for her see-sawed.

  Recently, when it had seemed that she knew more than him, he’d resented her. Trin wondered whether his attachment to her would survive her growing assertiveness and his men’s tacit approval of her decisions. There was a place for only one leader among them, and it was not the bitter and gaunt Cass Mulravey, nor the dour Kristo, nor Djeserit, nor any of the others. This was his world, his birthright, and he would do anything to see that it remained so.

  ‘Trinder?’

  Djes’s gentle question broke him from his trance. He held out his hand and pulled her to her feet, smoothing away his guilt with action.

  ‘We should go to the summit before Leah rises,’ he said.

  She glanced upward and nodded, seeing no need to question him this time. On many things they were of one mind.

  Not all, though, he reminded himself, as they accepted a breakfast of dried fish from the hands of Tina Galiotto. Djes had discovered and used the stimulant pods herself, without telling him about them. She had done it to ensure they were safe, she’d said, a foolish and bold risk. In their flight from the mainland, they’d depended on her to lead their boats across the islands. Without her abilities to swim and fish, they would have perished.

  She followed closely behind him as he dragged his weary body up the short but steep distance of bush-covered rock to the mountain peak.

  At any other time, the view from the peak would have lifted his mood: sheets of brown sea broken up by the irregular shapes of tiny white islands, and the roaring stretch of the Galgos Strait that they had just navigated and, by Crux’s blessing, survived.

  To the west he saw larger islands, separated from each other by greater distances and then eventually becoming lost in the Southern Sea. Their yachts would not have made it to any of them, he thought. This island was their only hope.

  He swivelled east, to look again in the direction that they’d come. Beyond the strait and the delta of tiny islands nestled against the coastline, the central continent of Araldis was a slim snaking line tinted red by the rising haze of blown sand.

  Trin looked back across their track and felt a pang of loneliness. He was cut off from all the places he knew, forced now to find a way to survive on this island mountainside.

  ‘We’ve travelled so far. It’s hard to believe,’ said Djes.

  ‘Si, bella. Surely the Saqr will not bother to pursue us here.’

  She nodded. ‘I hope not. I suppose, though... it depends on why they’re here.’

  He dragged his gaze from the wide vista to Djes. Why were the Saqr here? Every one of the survivors pondered that question endlessly, he was sure, but there had been no time for discussion, no energy for anything other than keeping the will to survive. ‘You have ideas on that?’

  She shrugged. In the growing light she looked so tired and jaundiced that he pulled her into his arms. For all his concerns about her growing independence from him and her natural leadership qualities, he could not bear to lose her.

  She leaned closer and slid her own arms around his waist, reaching beneath his fellalo to stroke his bare skin.

  Trin felt a spark of desire but knew he did not have the vigour to pursue it.

  She sensed that almost immediately and withdrew her hand. Locking her grip behind his back, she stayed close to him. ‘It’s good to be away from them. They watch us together.’ She sighed.

  ‘We can’t stay much longer,’ said Trin. The light was gaining potency.

  ‘Just a few moments. Please.’

  He held her tightly. How was it possible to know a person so well, and yet barely have talked to them of anything other than the most practical things?

  ‘Trinder?’

  ‘Si.’

  ‘What is that?’ She drew away from him a little and pointed.

  High above them, he saw a circular object like a wheel spinning free across the sky. They watched its trajectory to the east in silence.

  ‘Mira?’ asked Djeserit finally, hope lifting her voice.

  Was it? Had the eccentric Baronessa returned with help for them? Trin’s heart contracted for a single beat, and then settled. As far as he knew, OLOSS did not have craft of such a shape and size. ‘That is not an OLOSS ship. It would be hasty to think it signifies our rescue. Perhaps it transports more Saqr.’

  ‘No!’ Djes turned her face to his. ‘Please, let it be Mira. Can’t it be her?’ Tears squeezed out onto the taut skin of her cheeks.

  He trailed a fingertip in their wake. Djes was not given to quick emotion. He did not recall her crying before, other than when the Saqr had attacked her and torn her leg. ‘Don’t raise your hopes.’

  She sniffed and nodded. ‘You’re right. We are not that lucky, I think.’

  He grimaced at that and at the way she straightened her shoulders, and it made him think about her parents. What had driven them to abandon such a pragmatic and resourceful child? Or had that strength grown from her abandonment? When he’d found her outside Villa Fedor, she had seemed needy and weak. Back then his thoughts for her had been purely carnal. Now, though, he found himself relying on her calm, her belief in him.

  And perhaps it was not only Djes that had changed.

  Though Trin had hated his papa, Franco, for sending him to the carabinere station at Loisa, it had forced him to assume a leadership mantle, or be demeaned. ‘We must go back now. I doubt the others could see the craft from below the mountain’s lip. Perhaps we should not mention it yet. We can come back here again, the two of us, and watch.’

  She nodded. ‘I would like that. Lead the way, my Principe.’

  * * *

  They returned to find the group sitting close together under the bushes, listening to Juno Genarro.

  ‘Principe!’ Juno sounded excited. ‘The caves are deep and cool. I think we’ve found a safe place.’

  A small cheer went up from the group.

  ‘How many?’ asked Trin.

  ‘Two larger caves, and several shallow ones. Some rockfall needs to be cleared in one of the bigger ones, but there is room enough beside it for the moment.’

  ‘They are empty?’

  Juno nodded. ‘Some small droppings, little else. And the floor is clean gravel.’

  Trin glanced at the bright sky. Leah was rising. The cave mouths were only a short distance away, but that distance was unshaded. They must move now or spend another day under the bushes.

  The thought of lying in a cool darkened place was irresistible. ‘We move now. Split numbers equally between the two large caves for today. When we’ve searched them more closely, we’ll decide who shall sleep where.’ It was a popular decision, he could see from their expressions. ‘Cass Mulravey?’

  Mira Fedor’s gaunt friend lifted her head and stared at him. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Tivi and Joe will go with you. They’ll carry Thomaas.’

  She didn’t argue. Her man lay with his head on her lap.

  Trin stepped out from the bushes and ascended the rocky path to the caves, ignoring Joe Scali’s look of reluctance at being separated from him.

  From me? he wondered. Or Djes?

  Trin knew that he was deliberately keeping Joe Scali apart from Djeserit. The moment of physical closeness he’d seen between the two on the beach was chewing at
the edges of his mind. They’d been bringing fish back for the others and had guiltily moved apart at the sound of his voice.

  He reached for Djeserit’s hand. She gripped him back, but the webbing between her fingers prevented him from interlacing Trin’s through hers. Not her. Not Djes. She would never betray me.

  It was a short climb, and only Thomaas had to be carried. Even his madre, Jilda—the oldest and most feeble—managed it, assisted only by her servant Tina Galiotto.

  The group divided naturally. Mulravey was followed by her women, her brother and his friends, and Joe, Thomaas and Tivi. The surviving carabinere and the miners who’d joined them in the Pablo mines followed Trin. The korm tagged behind him also.

  That surprised Trin, as the outsized alien child had spent most of the journey with the women. Though he knew its devotion to Djeserit, it had stayed shy of him since Loisa, and to be honest the creature made him uncomfortable. He sensed judgement in the strange beaked blue-skinned face. When not shadowing Djes, the korm often paired with Cass Mulravey’s ragazzo. Though the ragazzo was much younger—maybe only six or seven Araldis years of age—the two were often together at meals, or as they’d trudged the desert. Right now Trin resisted ordering the korm back to the others. Djes would protest.

  He looked ahead. The entrances to both of the larger caves were smooth and oval, one larger than the other. Trin took his party into the large one.

  ‘Why so perfectly formed?’ he asked Juno Genarro.

  ‘Lava tubes, Principe. Made by hot gases, I would guess, not erosion.’

  Inside, even the walls were smooth. Trin ran his hands along them, feeling the thick grain of the long-ago-cooled rock. As his eyes adjusted, he saw the wider, deeper cave beyond, and the thick back wall of a rock-fall. He glanced at the roof. It seemed safe enough, but it was hard to tell.

  ‘Spread out and find spaces close to the sides. Leave a path free through the middle of the cave. Juno, set watch at the mouth. Then we shall eat and sleep.’

  He heard more murmurs of approval as the carabinere surged past him to find resting places in the cooler dark. Juno and Josefia stayed closer to the light, sorting the remaining food from Djeserit’s last fishing trip.