Dark Space (Sentients of Orion)

by Marianne de Pierres

  MIRA

  The Saqr encircled Ipo like maggots working the edges of a carcass. Rast tried to keep order, organising work parties, but many wanted to fight away their fear.

  Mira volunteered to pick grain from the crops in the hydro-tents. At the end of her first shift, Rast was waiting for her outside, sitting in a TerV. ‘Get in.’

  Mira ignored the mercenary, walking back towards the town centre behind the truck that had brought them to the tents. Now it was loaded down with kranse.

  Rast rolled the TerV alongside her. ‘That’s an order, Fedor.’

  ‘I do not take your orders,’ Mira said softly.

  Rast raised her rifle and pointed it casually out the window. ‘Do as I say, Baronessa.’

  Mira stopped still, biting her lip. The others on the work detail walked on, heads averted, not wanting any part of her problem. She stood, undecided. She found the mercenary abrasive and rude but she sensed it was not wise to test Rast’s anger so she climbed into the TerV.

  ‘Your manners are appalling,’ she said in her stiffest aristo tone.

  ‘Manners?’ Rast laughed so hard that she sent the TerV jerking from side to side of the track as she drove it past the tents toward the east end of the town.

  They pulled up near a section of the fence through which they could see a handful of Saqr tending a row of yellow globes half-buried in the ground. Mira could smell the cloying sweetness.

  ‘Tell me what these things are—everything you know about them, and how you know it,’ Rast demanded.

  Mira paused to collect her thoughts. It seemed hard to remember things and harder to concentrate, as if a heavy impermeable shroud had been cast across her mind. ‘I studied other sentient cultures at the Studium and the Saqr were one of over five hundred life forms I referenced. I did not receive a neural fact- augmentation because it was not deemed necessary. Not for a woman who would never truly hold a position of importance. So I can only use ordinary recall and it is possible that I may be confusing them with other species. My knowledge hardly qualifies as expertise.’

  ‘Try,’ said Rast.

  ‘I believe the globes are cysts.’

  ‘You mean eggs?’ Rast asked.

  ‘No. Each one is a fully formed Saqr in a state of cryptobiosis. Hibernation,’ Mira said, softly.

  ‘Impossible. The globe is too small.’

  Mira shook her head. ‘I saw one hatch in Loisa. They are capable of compacting their bodies.’

  ‘Why do they do that?’

  ‘Cryptobiosis is used to survive extremes of temperature and other conditions.’

  ‘Then what is the sweet stink?’

  ‘I’ve been trying to remember. I think it has something to do with the alteration of their body fluids. In cryptobiosis the water in their bodies is replaced by glycerol and sugars. It protects their membranes. Usually, though, they would enter hibernation if conditions were very dry. Somehow that has been reversed...’

  ‘By someone.’

  ‘Si.’

  ‘What of their social habits?’

  ‘Their culture, as we discussed, is based on reproduction and survival.’

  Rast snorted. ‘Do they take orders?’

  ‘Perhaps. I’m not sure about their organisational hierarchy, though I believe it is possible to communicate with them. OLOSS has attempted to do so. I do recall one other thing. After hibernation they are voraciously hungry and hostile—depending on how long their hibernation has been.’

  ‘So someone has bought them here and released them in their most aggressive form. I wonder,’ said Rast, staring through the fence, ‘who that might be.’

  Mira clasped her arms around herself, holding tight to the guilty weight of her conscience.

  * * *

  That evening Rast called a town meeting in the piazza to set up a maintenance turnaround to keep the TerVs ready to move. She also insisted that all available weapons should be stockpiled and distributed according to the duty-watch roster. Though, on the face of it, the miners and farmers agreed, Cass told Mira that many of them had other weapons hidden.

  They stood together at the edge of the crowd, among the women and ‘bini. The segregation had occurred naturally as if the women sought comfort in each other as they listened to some of the men lobby to attack the Saqr.

  Rast’s mercenaries prowled through the crowd, fully armed, while she talked the aggressive faction down. Mira wondered how long she could restrain them.

  Rast sought Mira out again after the meeting ‘I want you on a maintenance shift. You’ve got engineering knowledge.’

  ‘Theoretical,’ Mira countered.

  The mercenary gave her a withering stare. ‘Your theoretical aristo manner will likely get you strangled in this climate, Baronessa.’

  Mira’s heart quickened and she instinctively stepped backwards.

  Her reaction set Rast guffawing. ‘That stiff little act of yours is getting brittle, Fedor.’ She made a snapping noise with her tongue as she strode off.

  ‘Rast is attracted to you,’ said Cass. ‘Maybe we can use that.’

  * * *

  We? Mira pondered what that meant as she walked back alone to the dormitory. Cass had met a man and moved in with him. Her Thomaas was a scrawny, unsmiling person who owned a gume close to the dorm. Was that the ‘we’ she spoke of?

  ‘Someone digging your grave?’ Mesquite was outside in the dark with her hood off, smoking. The nightwinds whipped the smoke straight up into the sky where Tiesha was already waning. Semantic would rise later.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Mira found the woman’s forthright manner disconcerting.

  Mesquite moved casually closer to her. ‘Cass Mulravey’s fratella has been outside, watching for you. I saw him, though he has been hiding across the way,’ she whispered.

  Mira couldn’t stop herself peering into the dark.

  ‘You need to learn how to protect yourself, Baronessa.’

  ‘Aristo women do not use violence,’ Mira said automatically. ‘We made that choice when we left Latino Crux.’

  Mesquite ground the butt of her smoke underfoot. ‘So the women made that choice? Or the men made it for them? You have the Inborn Talent? What can you fly?’

  ‘Anything. Though I am most skilled with the Intuits.’

  ‘What about assailants?’

  ‘Si,’ said Mira, puzzled.

  ‘What are they built for, then? Leisure trips?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Oh, so you’re trained to fly a warship but you do not take up arms?’

  ‘That is different. I would never see my enemies...’ Mira trailed off limply.

  Without warning Mesquite hooked Mira’s ankle and knocked her flat on her back. She shoved the point of her boot into Mira’s throat.

  Mira struggled, trying to wrench Mesquite’s foot away, but the woman pressed harder, cutting off her airflow. In a bid to breathe, Mira twisted sideways, overbalancing Mesquite.

  The woman fell heavily onto the ground.

  Mira sat up, holding her throat. ‘Are you l-loco?’ she gasped.

  Mesquite rolled over slowly to face her. ‘Aristo women do not fight, eh? Well, aristo thinking will not keep you alive through this, Mira Fedor,’ said Mesquite. Her expression became suddenly apprehensive. ‘It did not save the Principe, or his familia.’

  But Mira cared not for her philosophies. ‘How dare you touch me?’ She climbed to her feet, furious enough to strike the woman.

  Mesquite brushed the dust from her protecsuit, unfazed by Mira’s reaction. ‘Adapt if you want to survive.’

  Mira left her and went inside. She took Vito from one of the cluster of makeshift cradles that was serving as a nursery and thanked the young familia woman who’d been minding him. He snuggled into her arms.

  ‘He doesn’t eat much. Dribbled out most of his latte,’ said the minder.

  Mira sighed. ‘He is Pagoin. They cannot metabolise it so well.’

  The woman nodded doubtf
ully, as if she didn’t understand. Then she frowned. ‘Did you have a fall, Baronessa? Your fellala...’ She gestured at the fresh red smears on the back and side of Mira’s robe.

  ‘Si. An accident. Please, my name is Mira.’

  The young woman smiled this time. ‘And I am Josefia.’

  Mira took Vito to her corner where the korm was roosting, one eye closed. She retrieved the knife that Cass had given her from the small bundle of clothes that she had been allotted and secured it inside her underliner. Then she lay down on the bedfilm, cradling Vito close to her. He squirmed a little. He was stronger now that he’d had some food, but his expression stayed solemn.

  Mira lay there, trying to picture him in a few years. Wiry and serious, she thought, no easy laughter for Vito. Her heart ached for that young man. Would she be there to see him like that, to tell him about this terrible time and where he had come from?

  She knew she wanted to be, and in that instant Mira felt Faja close to her.

  * * *

  The following night Mira took the korm to the early sitting at the mess. Mesquite surprised her by producing a meat-extract soup that the korm could digest. Mira watched the alien gulp the food, avoiding Innis’s sulky glares. He seemed sober though Kristo told her he’d been drinking behind Cass’s back. Kristo had taken to calling for Mira at the dorm to walk her to meals. She welcomed his company and his unobtrusive manner.

  ‘G’d,’ said the korm. It had collected some rudimentary ‘esque words but its palate wasn’t designed for speech. It replaced some letters with whistle sounds, making its pronunciation difficult to understand.

  ‘Dj^s^r^t?’

  Mira shrugged. ‘I don’t know where she is.’

  The korm’s crest filled and coloured. Mira had come to recognise this as a sign of emotion in the child.

  ‘F^nd?’ it insisted.

  ‘Where would I find her?’

  ‘F^nd h^r!’ The korm lurched to its feet, upset, body quivering. It fell into a fighting crouch—the same one that Mira had seen it adopt in Loisa, against the Saqr. Its action knocked over the table, which tipped onto the next. Marrat’s dinner crashed to the floor, Innis’s spilt across him.

  The korm rushed out, leaving Mira.

  Marrat began to clear up the mess but Innis was at Mira’s side immediately, his face only a breath away from hers. ‘That ginko of yours is no more’n an animal. Should be kept outside with the quarks and the cane,’ he said.

  Mira’s fingers curled into the skin of her felalla. Why did he come so close? ‘The korm is upset. It has lost its friend. We have all lost someone.’

  Innis’s expression became petulant. ‘You been turnin’ my sister against me.’

  Mira stared at him in honest surprise. ‘How could I do that? Why would I care to?’

  Innis’s glower lightened into something slightly more amenable at her answer. His hands fell to his sides and he took a step back.

  ‘I guess I’ve been riding you, Baronessa. Maybe we could work things out better. Don’t need it to be like this. Not with the ginkos out there jus’ waiting to get in at us.’ He gave her a would-be appealing smile that only made her nervous.

  ‘All right,’ Mira agreed cautiously.

  ‘Let’s talk outside.’

  She glanced around. The korm had gone—back to the dormitory, she hoped, but she couldn’t be sure. She should follow, she thought: collect Vito from the nursery and see what she could do to calm the korm. Or should she let Innis have his say?

  Mira took a deep breath and nodded to him.

  Innis led the way outside, away from the refectory and down a dirt road to the north that was lined with gumes. One fading street solar and the occasional flicker of activity inside the huts lit their way. Marrat tagged along close behind.

  Halfway along, Mira suddenly stopped walking, uncomfortable with the distance they were from the refectory and the dorm. ‘Speak your mind now.’

  ‘You sleeping with my sister?’

  Mira opened her mouth, astonished. ‘That is ridiculous.’

  Innis came closer to her, his face puckered like that of a ragazzo about to cry. ‘She thinks I’m useless. Why else would she think that, ‘cept if you’re poisoning her?’

  Mira found herself wordless in the face of Innis’s accusation. She held out a gloved hand in protest. ‘Your sorella and I have no such relationship—she is with a man. You have seen him.’

  But Innis was sunk low in self-pity. He slapped her hand away with force and grabbed her shoulders. ‘I’ll teach you ‘bout men,’ he said, ripping at her robe.

  Fear made her react without thinking. She reached for the knife inside her fellala, the one that Cass had given her, and slashed at him.

  Innis staggered back a few paces, surprised. Blood flowed from the wound.

  But Marrat seized her, pinning her arms to her sides, forcing the knife from her hand.

  ‘Aristo b-b-itch. Ginko-fucker.’ Innis coughed. He kicked her in the stomach.

  Mira crumpled over in Marrat’s arms. The pain made her vomit up the food in her stomach.

  ‘The bitch is sick, Innis,’ Marrat complained. ‘Let’s dump her.’

  Innis laughed, sounding a little loco. ‘Better. Let’s give the ginko-fucker to the ginkos.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I know how to shut the fence down,’ Innis whispered. He sounded excited.

  Mira’s heart pounded so loudly in her ears that his voice sounded distant. Then she felt his hands on her fellala, ripping at it.

  ‘That’s jus’ stupid, Innis. Next thing the ginks’ll be on us,’ said Marrat.

  ‘Only needs to be off for a snap. I’ll switch it off; you shove her through. Ginks won’t even know what’s happened.’

  ‘What if you turn it on too quick? What if you fry her?’

  ‘What if...’ Innis was smiling.

  A wave of loathing swept through Mira. He didn’t care if she lived or died. He had no thought for Vito’s survival. He’d see her dead because of his stupid jealousy.

  ‘Cass will know what you’ve done,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘What will she think of her little fratella then?’

  ‘Shut it, ginko-lover.’ Innis slapped her mouth.

  ‘Innis. Quash it.’ Marrat was getting nervous.

  ‘Juanita, Marrat. Remember Juanita.’ Innis’s reminder was an explicit threat.

  ‘Yeah, Innis. I wasn’t the only one. Remember that, too.’

  Mira knew that her fate was being decided in the silence that fell between them. Stand up to him, Marrat.

  ‘Amico?’ said Innis in a more cajoling tone.

  Marrat let out a long, troubled breath. ‘Give her to the ginkos.’

  No! Sagging back against Marrat, Mira kicked out at Innis.

  Enraged, he threw himself at her, toppling the three of them to the ground.

  Mira flung herself from side to side. Help! Help! Fear robbed her of breath. She couldn’t shout, couldn’t breathe at all. Stabbing pain where fingers dug into her throat. Choking dread. Don’t strangle me. No.

  Then the grip loosened. Weight peeled off her. Different hands touched her and a light shone into her eyes. Rast peered down at her. ‘You alive, Baronessa?’

  ‘Si,’ Mira whispered. She heard Rast’s sharp, relieved breath and felt a vague surprise.

  ‘Lock the prick up. Get her to the temporary infirmary in my building. Find Cass Mulravey and bring her to me,’ ordered Rast.

  * * *

  Cass was sitting beside her, Mira knew. She could see her through half-closed eyes, as the woman read the infirmary log and bladder-fed Vito. Mira tried to swallow and coughed instead. She wished Cass would leave but she didn’t have the energy to say so.

  * * *

  This time the korm was there as well. Mira wanted to say that she was well enough but that meant speaking aloud. Speaking to Cass. She’d rather sleep. Why is Catchut guarding the door?

  * * *

  Next time the world was sharper. S
o were the aches in Mira’s throat and head. She lay still, orientating herself. Innis. Rast. Cass. She placed them in order of events.

  ‘Mira?’

  Slowly, painfully, she turned her head. Cass was in the same spot as before. This time Vito slept in her arms. The korm was there too, on a makeshift roost in the corner of the small room.

  ‘Medic’s pretty basic. Rast said a few more hours with pain relief—no more. That’s all she can spare.’

  ‘What’s wrong with me?’ Mira rasped.

  ‘She thinks you’re on the right side of a broken skull. And there’s heavy bruising on your neck where he tried... he tried...’

  Silence.

  ‘Speak it.’

  ‘... Strangle you,’ Cass whispered.

  ‘Where is... he?’ Mira couldn’t say Innis’s name.

  ‘Rast has locked him and Marrat up. I’m so sorry, I feel responsible but—’

  Yes, you are.

  ‘– There are things about him you don’t know...’

  ‘And there are—things you don’t know—as well. He would have killed me—he wanted to—push me through the fence to the Saqr. What would have happened to—Vito if he had?’

  Shock registered on Cass’s face. Mira had never seen her in such distress and she felt a moment’s pity for the woman. Innis was a burden that she didn’t deserve.

  The korm stirred on its roost, its crest filling at the sight of Mira awake. It stood up and loomed over the bed. ‘K^rm b^d. M^r^ h^rt.’

  Mira held out a hand. ‘Korm misses—Djeserit. I—understand.’

  ‘M^ss M^r^ t^ ^f d^^d.’

  Mira managed the smallest smile. ‘Not—dead,’ she whispered.

  Vito woke and blinked, looking around in alarm. When he saw Mira he gave a little cry and reached out. Her heart contracted with pleasure and sorrow. Am I all he has in the world?

  Cass laid him on the bed next to her. ‘My brother’s scared. We all are. And that Marrat is not the sort of friend...’

  ‘It was not—Marrat’s idea. Innis forced—him too. Blackmailed him. And I know what it is. So tell your fratella, if he comes near me or my—bambini again I’ll make sure the whole of Araldis knows. Rast in particular.’