Dark Space (Sentients of Orion)

by Marianne de Pierres

‘How many are we?’

  ‘You brought forty-two. I had forty-six. Then there are the men.’

  Forty-two. Marchella had given her charge of fifty. When their groups had mingled near the parking bay, it must have been closer to a hundred. Forty-two out of a hundred. ‘Are there any other survivors?’

  ‘Marrat is listening on shortcast for any news but we can’t afford to use the cells for long at night.’

  Silence fell between them again.

  Mira’s thoughts fell to food. The plains were devoid of most anything edible. The terrain ahead of them would be fine powdered dust, thorn scrub and, along the mapped roads, the occasional water bore. There would be no hunting for fresh meat, or collecting edible plants. Vito could have Mira’s ration of bread but the korm wpuld need meat.

  ‘Go and sleep,’ said Mira, suddenly tired. ‘Or I will.’

  Cass nodded and climbed stiffly down from the tracks. ‘I’ll make sure someone comes to relieve you. And I’ll check Vito and the korm.’

  ‘Vito needs more fluid,’ said Mira.

  Cass nodded again and disappeared.

  Mira settled with her back against the barge and hunted through her mind for thoughts that might keep her awake. She settled eventually on the enigma of Marchella. If she truly was a Pellegrini then what had brought her to Ipo? Mira tried to recall all she knew of

  the woman. Faja had called her the Villa Fedor’s benefactress. Franco’s sorella was known for her eccentric ways. She had not been seen in Pell for some time. A rift had occurred between her and the Principe—a rift that would now never be mended.

  Mira felt the familiar ache rise in her chest, the one that told her how much she missed Faja. She pressed her hand to the soreness.

  * * *

  ‘Baronessa?’ Josefia woke Mira from a doze with a gentle shake of her shoulder.

  Mira blinked and peered around in the dark. Semantic was high now but dawn was still hours away. The winds blew hard and hot, sending drifts of dust over the barge.

  ‘Pardon, I—’ Mira began.

  But Josefia touched her arm. ‘No matter, Baronessa—it is quiet enough and I could not sleep. Davina’s mama cries and cries. What is happening to our world? Why have these Saqr creatures come here? I want to kill them all,’ she said fiercely.

  Mira wiped her sleeve across her facefilm and stood. On awakening, the leaden feeling had returned to her chest. She did not share Josefia’s desire; death was not on her mind. Only escape. She knew that she wanted to leave Araldis for ever.

  Josefia took the rifle from her. ‘Thanks to you, I know how to use this. First sight of them...’ She jerked the gun viciously.

  Mira left Josefia to take a drink from the trough but the young familia woman’s words haunted her. Had she been wrong to insist that they learned about weapons?

  No, she told herself, weapons by themselves do not make hate.

  She laid down the scoop and bent against the nightwinds to reach the canopy. Her fellala was barely cooling now and she wanted to strip its sodden weight fron her, yet she knew hotwinds would rip all the moisture from her body in a matter of hours. Better that the garment stayed on her skin.

  She searched for Vito among the sleeping bodies and found him in the crook of Cass’s arm where she slept near Thomaas, her own bambini between them.

  Mira did not have the heart to move him. Instead, she found a space next to the korm and settled herself on it. The alien roosted on the ground uneasily, jerking and chittering softly in its sleep. Of all of them, the korm was in the greatest danger of starvation. As she drifted off to sleep, Mira reproached herself for not paying closer attention to its needs. What could she find for it eat? Little enough lived on the plains ,.. little lived.

  * * *

  They gathered to talk at dawn. Cass drew a map of their position in the dirt but the wind spun little spirals in it, distorting her lines. It had not dropped at daybreak like a normal nightwind.

  ‘We’ve heard that the Pablo undergrounds near Pellegrini B will be safe but we have little food and water is scarce,’ said Cass.

  ‘How far?’ a woman asked.

  ‘Maybe three hundred mesurs. We have one compass only. The navigation aids must have been destroyed.’

  ‘What about going to Dockside?’ suggested someone else.

  ‘The mercenary told us that it is the worst of all. Overrun by Saqr,’ said Cass.

  ‘What happens if the Pablo mine is not safe?’

  Others voiced similar fears.

  Mira climbed up onto the doorbridge. The hundred or less women and ‘bini and the few men crowded in a semicircle around Cass. Despite having washed and eaten a little the night before, their faces looked as ragged as their protecsuits.

  The korm roosted at the very back, near the trough, weak with hunger despite Mira’s morning attempt to make an edible paste from thorn-scrub roots.

  ‘What do you think, Baronessa?’ called Josefia.

  Mira shifted Vito’s weight to her other arm. ‘I swear we shall find help there. If we ration ourselves—one portion of food a day for the adults, two small portions for the children, we shall have enough to last four days at our present travelling speed.’

  The group murmured among themselves.

  ‘What about dust storms? We’re in the season,’ called a tall woman.

  Mira looked into the distance. The wind was gusting abnormally, lifting the tattered trim of her fellala. If it turned to a storm, it was likely that most of them would perish long before they reached Pellegrini B. Long before they reached anywhere. Was that why the Saqr had not pursued them, she wondered? ‘That is why we must decide and move on.’

  ‘I want to go to Dockside. My family is there,’ demanded the tall woman.

  ‘What about Chalaine?’ Marrat suggested.

  Chalaine-Gema lay at the foot of the southern ranges.

  Neither their food nor the barge would likely see them that distance. ‘Perhaps. Yes. But not without more food. We would starve,’ Mira said flatly. ‘The Pablo mines have subsidiary tunnels that run for mesurs in that direction. We could travel underground. We must vote now. Pablo or Dockside?

  Only Marrat, the tall woman and three others voted against Pablo. Innis didn’t vote at all. He sat apart from the meeting toying with a rifle.

  Mira worried at his lack of interest. She also worried that the sudden fierce dryness in the back of her throat wasn’t triggered by thirst. Dust.

  Cass must have sensed it too for she added her voice to Mira’s. ‘Fill everything you can with water,’ she told them all. ‘We should move on.’

  The women and ‘bini packed tight into the barge again, leaving the side vents open for airflow. But within a few hours they were winding them shut.

  * * *

  They journeyed for two days in a pall of mounting red haze. At night they huddled on the canopy in the lee of the barge, stomachs sore from hunger, stale bread and dirty water. Few slept for the noise of coughing and the wind-howl. Some already struggled for each breath. With no storm filters to attach to their protec- suits Mira feared for them.

  Unable to rest, she stood guard over the shadowy mass of bodies. Cass had told her it was pointless to set a watch but she could not sit there among the suffering.

  ‘If the dust thickens much more the cells won’t work.’ Cass said quietly. She stood close enough for Mira to sense that she was crying.

  Those worst affected should travel in the cabin, Mira thought, listening to the gasps. The filter in her velum was more efficient than those in many of the protecsuits and yet she still felt the tightness at her chest, could taste the dust with every breath.

  Cass moved closer. ‘Mira?’

  ‘We must keep going.’

  Cass lifted her arm in a gesture of helplessness. ‘In this?’

  A fierceness rose in Mira. ‘Maybe the mine is closer than we think. Or maybe the dust storm will blow out tomorrow. Are you wishing us dead?’

  The other woman stiffened
and anger replaced her tears. She turned and walked away without replying.

  Mira returned to watching and listening, straining to discern anything over the burning howl of the wind. She wondered if she’d said enough to provoke the other woman. If Cass lost belief, so would they all.

  * * *

  They travelled slowly the next day with the dust whipping screeds of gravel against the sides of the barge. Mira sat crammed against the doorbridge with Vito and the korm.

  Innis was only a few bodies away from her; she could hear his voice. They’d argued when Mira had insisted to Cass that those with breathing difficulties should replace the men in the cabin. Marrat and Cass’s man, Thomaas, had supported Innis. Only Kristo had backed Mira.

  ‘The Baronessa is right. The environmentals in the cabin are better. They will help filter the dust,’ he’d said. While they’d argued he’d disappeared inside the

  barge and returned, carrying a ‘bino. Her breath had rattled and her neck had been corded with the effort of breathing.

  Suddenly the others’ argument had lost ground.

  The child whimpered as she crawled inside the cabin.

  ‘But I’m the driver,’ Innis whined.

  Mira felt gut-sick from having even to speak to him. ‘And you take up enough space for two.’

  ‘Who do you think you are to tell me what to do,—Baronessa? Your brains would’ve been sucked dry by the Saqr if it weren’t for us.’

  Cass stood between them, unsure of what to say. Mira knew that she was still angry from the night before.

  The tall outspoken woman, who Mira had learned was named Liesl, strode into the centre of their huddle. ‘What’s the hold-up? I might not want to go to the undergrounds but I surely don’t want to stay here.’

  Innis suddenly changed tack. ‘I’ll ride in the back,’ he announced.

  Mira watched, perplexed, as he disappeared around the back of the barge.

  Cass shrugged. ‘It’s decided, then.’

  They quickly transferred the worst cases into the cabin and Cass climbed behind the controls.

  Now Mira sat pressed against the ramp with Kristo and Josefia next to her, wondering what had caused Innis’s change of heart. She listened to the tone of his voice—his words were muffled—and realised it was punctuated by low, warm responses from Liesl.

  * * *

  Sometime during mid-afternoon the barge came to a sudden halt, rocking violently in the wind. Long moments passed and no one came to open the doorbridge.

  ‘What is it?’ Frightened voices clamoured for an explanation.

  Kristo wound the latch on the small inset open and peered out. Thick dust blasted in, sending most of them into coughing fits.

  ‘Can’t—breathe out there,’ he spluttered when he could speak.

  Mira hugged Vito for a moment, then handed him to Josefia. ‘I will go,’ she shouted to Kristo over the roar. ‘My—filter—better. Close—hatch. Knock—when—I return.’

  Kristo nodded. ‘Stay close—barge,’ he shouted back as he boosted Mira through the hatch.

  Outside, the sky had turned solid. Mira could see nothing through the hail of sand and grit that blasted past her. With her body halfway through the hatch she knew that she’d made a mistake. The wind tore her out and away from the side of the barge. Gasping for breath, she clawed at the ground to find a hold, digging her boots deep into the sand. Despite her velum, her eyes streamed. She closed them and took shallow breaths while she convinced herself that she wasn’t suffocating. Her lungs felt as if they’d been coated with hot ash.

  When Mira opened her eyes again she couldn’t see the barge. She began to crawl in the direction where she thought it was. Pebbles bounced off her shoulders and back as she crawled forward, counting the number of her movements. After half a dozen in one direction, she reversed back to her starting point. A sound whipped past her—her name, she thought—but from where? She didn’t have the breath to call back. Rotating through a quarter-turn she crawled in that direction.

  No luck.

  Panic took her easily now, tossing her heart around. She wanted to curl into a ball but logic told her that if she stayed still she was likely to be buried. Already she could feel a dirt mound building against her legs. The thought of being buried alive kept her trying her clockwise forays. Just short of the full circle her hand touched something hard—the barge’s tracks. Relief was a sharp pain in her stomach.

  Staying on her hands and knees, Mira crawled the length of the barge, clinging to the top of the tracks, until she reached the cabin. She reached upward, feeling for the door but before she could open it a thought stopped her—if she opened the door it might well be torn off altogether, and that would endanger those inside who were already suffering.

  Recognising her folly, she dropped back to her knees and retraced her movements to the doorbridge.

  The climb up the doorbridge taxed her muscles to the point of total exhaustion and Mira clung to the ladder without the strength left to bang on the inset. In a few moments she knew she would fall and there would be no fight left in her body to crawl back to the protection of the vehicle.

  Then strong fingers grabbed her from above. Kristo was leaning out of the hatch, struggling against the storm to drag her in.

  Mira reached for him as if he were... Insignia.

  SOLE

  manifestspace

  learn ‘m/learn’m/little creature

  push’m push’m/more more

  each’n versus each’n

  watch’m alter

 

  MIRA

  The storm blew out more quickly than it had started. The women stayed still, as if afraid of what might follow. Some sobbed, but most stayed silent, worn out from the exertion of breathing.

  The doorbridge began to open but became jammed on the build-up of sand. ‘It’s over,’ Cass called to them from the small opening. ‘It’s over but we shall have to dig the sand away.’

  Innis was the first to move, pushing roughly over Mira and Vito to help Liesl out.

  Kristo raised a hand to ward him off but Mira stopped him—she had no heart for such confrontations. She felt more concern for the korm who roosted next to her, barely moving.

  The barge emptied slowly, two at a time, until only Mira and Josefia were left. Cass waited for them on the mound of sand.

  Outside, the dust-filled air filtered the sting of the sunlight. Visibility had increased to several mesurs and Mira could see the squat outline of thorn bushes scattered along the base of the dune. ‘Are we near water?’ she asked, hopeful.

  ‘Perhaps—I haven’t looked yet. I couldn’t open the door until the wind had dropped. Had to dig sand away from it, too.’

  ‘Why did you stop?’

  ‘Cells ran down when the storm got bad. One of the young ones... she... died in my arms.’ Cass gave a raw, shuddering sound—something much deeper than a sob—and walked around the side of the barge.

  Mira turned to Josefia. ‘Everyone needs a ration of food and another drink.’ She handed Vito to the young woman. ‘Give him my bread but soak it in water first. Little pieces so he won’t choke. We won’t be able to move until the dells charge. Make sure that the rest understand to stay near the barge—the dust will take days to settle.’

  Josefia nodded, calling others to help her.

  ‘Kristo?’ said Mira.

  ‘Si, Baronessa.’ He was hovering close behind her still.

  ‘There’s a... body in the cabin. Can you... bury her? Quietly.’

  Kristo nodded and disappeared around the side.

  Mira felt immeasurably grateful to him, not simply because he had pulled her inside the barge but because she did not have to explain herself to him. At some level, despite their differences, he saw things as she did. She had not experienced that before.

  She found Cass crouching alongside the tracks, her hands on her knees, facefilm open. Even in the thick air, Mira could see that she had been sick,
could smell it.

  She stood behind Cass on trembling legs, unable to think of anything to say.

  Eventually Cass straightened. Tears had left dirty tracks down her cheeks and chin. ‘It was one of the older ones. Katia. Her face went—’

  Mira held her hand up to forestall the explanation. She could not stand to hear it, no matter how much Cass needed to give it.

  ‘How long until the cells are charged?’ she said gently.

  ‘A day, perhaps—it depends on the dust. If we take the canopy off, everyone can rest. We’ll start again tomorrow.’

  ‘The korm needs something to eat. I will search a little among the thorn bushes.’

  Cass nodded, understanding. ‘Take the pathfinder from the cabin. We won’t be able to come looking for you if you get lost.’

  * * *

  Mira collected her rationed drink and checked on Vito. He grizzled as Josefia sat on the ground trying to feed him. Clear fluid ran from his nose and mixed with the dirt and spittle on his chin. He reached for Mira but she resisted picking him up. ‘I must look for food for the korm, can you watch him?’

  Josefia made an unhappy noise. ‘I am so tired, Baronessa, and he is not my ‘bino.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I know. Please.’

  Josefia nodded wearily. ‘Do not be long.’

  Mira threaded her way through bodies, looking for the korm. When she could not find it, she returned to the barge where she found Kristo replacing the shovel. ‘Have you seen the korm?’

  ‘She watched me bury the ragazza. I tried to get her to leave but...’ He shrugged. ‘She’s probably still there.’

  Mira had a sinking feeling. ‘Where is the grave?’

  Kristo pointed to the ridge in front of the barge.

  Mira fetched the pathfinder from the cabin and walked in that direction. She found the korm scratching feebly at the grave, turning over the sand with which Kristo had covered the body.

  ‘Korm?’

  It whistled weakly but would not look at her. Even in the dull, dust-laden light Mira could see that its crest was flat and dry. Patches of fur had rubbed off and the blue skin was covered in small grey sores.