Dark Space (Sentients of Orion)

by Marianne de Pierres

  Mira followed hesitantly. As she stepped down, scree tumbled free. Her feet slid out from underneath her and she fell heavily. The ground burned through her gloves and fellala and the sun burned into her skin as if she were naked. More than anything else, she wanted a cool drink but she could not stop her momentum and she slipped and slid to the bottom.

  Below her, Rast had already scaled the portico. She crouched there, waiting impatiently. The mercenary uncoiled a short thick cord from her suit and threw it down. ‘Tie it under your arms. When I take the tension, brace your feet against the wall. I’ll pull—you walk up.’

  They tried several times. The cord bit into Mira’s skin and her legs trembled and collapsed when she tried to walk. She felt the tears of frustration and exhaustion mounting. This is useless. I am useless.

  Rast muttered unrecognisable oaths. ‘Face away from the wall and tie it around your waist.’

  The cord slipped from Mira’s fingers as she tried to knot it and her body ached in every imaginable place. She picked the rope up and tried again.

  Rast began to haul her up slowly, grunting and swearing with the effort. Partway between the portico and the ground she dropped Mira.

  Every part of Mira’s body felt bruised until the welcome numbness of endorphins washed over her. She wasn’t even sure if she was conscious until Rast hung over the ornate balustrade and called, ‘Crux, Baronessa. Are you dead or napping?’

  The stupid insult stung her enough to make her move. Fedor tenacity got her to her feet and she reset the cord under her arms. ‘I will climb.’

  A sudden waft of sweet Saqr scent lent another surge of adrenalin to her exhausted body. Her arms and legs found strength from fear and anger.

  When Mira reached the underside of the portico Rast reached down a hand and hauled her bodily over. Mira tumbled over the balustrade, landing on her injured elbow. Without consideration or care Rast pulled her to her feet.

  The mercenary’s face swam before her eyes and Mira experienced a gush of nausea followed by a rushing sound inside her skull.

  ‘Don’t you faint on me, Baronessa!’ The mercenary shook her so hard that her neck snapped back.

  Mira gritted her teeth. ‘I—am—quite—fine, thank—you,’ she panted. ‘Each floor has a central corridor. I—imagine the Principe’s room—is on the front side of the Palazzo... the crown floor... no, probably the second floor from the crown.’

  Rast let go of her and moved to the row of windows. She fumbled inside her suit and brought out a tube with a long nozzle. She squeezed the contents onto the transparent catoplasma in a wide circle. The substance spread, eating away a large section with little fuss or noise. Rast thrust her boot into the panel and popped it inwards.

  Mira watched in astonishment.

  Rast gave a short laugh. ‘Yeah. Shitting expensive, too. Don’t brush against the edges—it will eat your skin away.’

  Bending low, Mira followed Rast through the hole. They entered a lesser reception hall: an elegant room with a gold-filigree reproduction of Latino Crux inlaid into the black marble walls. Each star glittered, casting a halo across the dark background.

  Chairs had been overturned and toppled. Not wilful damage so much as incidental harm caused to anything standing between the Saqr and the satisfaction of their hunger. Their sweet smell lingered in the air as if they had secreted it on every surface they had touched.

  The lesser hall led into another, and another, each one with varying degrees of damage. Mira and Rast threaded their way through the debris until they found the central corridor.

  ‘Uplifts are spaced along the wider corridor,’ Mira panted.

  Rast ran ahead, fuelled by something that Mira would never experience: the ecstasy of danger. The mercenary again waited impatiently for her at the first uplift.

  Mira tried to catch her breath as they rode it up to the fifth level and was still trying as they stepped into the splendour of Franco’s private wing. The floor-to-ceiling doors had been lovingly packed and brought out from Latino Crux. A hand-painted Pellegrini familia crest adorned each one. Their value was inestimable: genuine polished wood in a world of catoplasma and mud. Unlike the lesser halls, the walls of Franco’s rooms were cloaked in soft materials—velvets, silks and rich corduroys. On one wall of the ante-room hung a vast parcel-gilded mirror that reflected a delicately crafted fauteuil set and gilt-bronze bureau that sat opposite.

  Rast raced in and out of each room, searching for the vault. ‘Where would it be? Bedroom? Office? How many damn rooms can one person have?’

  Mira followed slowly, feeling guilty about their invasion and strangely saddened by what the emptiness meant. The Principe was truly gone.

  She veered into the service chamber, not wishing to see the Principe’s innermost room. A Galiotto servant lay motionless on the travertine floor, spidery trickles of blood across his face. His fellalo was torn open at the chest and a sliver of precious wood protruded from his temple.

  While Rast ignored the body and went about overturning drawers and upturning statues, Mira knelt by the servant. The expression on his face was pained, one hand clenched tight as if he had died in terror. The evidence of his suffering set free tears that she had been holding back. They poured down her face as she straightened his fellalo to give him some dignity.

  ‘The vault’s been opened, Fedor. There’s fuck-all in here.’

  ‘Si,’ said Mira, as she gently prised open the Galiotto’s fist. ‘That is because it is here.’

  * * *

  The Tourmaline Islands were as serene and picturesque as the last time Mira had seen them but now there was no Studium crowd to litter the beaches. Would Trin bring the survivors here, she wondered? Or would he go further south to the cooler, uninhabited Galgos? She hoped that he would have the sense to go the Galgos. If Jancz wanted to destroy every last Cipriano on Araldis, he would know to come and search the vacation Mecca of the aristos.

  Trin had told Mira that the Insignia craft was hidden on the Principe’s island so she flew once over the area to visually confirm her bearings before landing the AiV high on the broad, flat beach on which she and Trin had kissed. The memory of it had become dim now, overshadowed by the horror of the present.

  As the AiV sank into the sand Mira half-expected the Principe’s Cavaliere to emerge, but the island seemed deserted. Preceded by Mira, Rast and Catchut carried Latourn up the beach to a line of brown salt-scrub. As they approached the Principe’s chalet two frightened Galiotto servants appeared.

  Mira called out a traditional greeting. She recognised the stout woman wearing a royal household fellala as one of Jilda Pellegrini’s own. Was there a chance that the Principessa was here?

  ‘Galiotto, we have news,’ said Mira. ‘I am Baronessa Fedor. I come from the young Principe.’

  The Galiotto woman wailed. ‘Don Trinder? Is he alive? Thank Crux. You must come to the chalet.’ She glanced around wildly as if danger might fall on her from the sky.

  The Galiotto male was less trusting. ‘Who accompanies you, Baronessa?’

  ‘Interstellar Hire. They help our cause.’

  ‘What cause is that?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘Araldis has been invaded by creatures called the Saqr. The towns have been captured or destroyed. I have come from the royal palazzo. The Principe has been killed.’

  The woman sobbed loudly. ‘We have prayed for better news. Our shortcast is no longer functioning. The Cavaliere left us and went to—’

  ‘Hush,’ the man told her. He pulled out a rifle from behind his back.

  Mira’s throat tightened. ‘The young Principe has asked me to take the Insignia ship to OLOSS. Our world needs sentientarian aid. Without it we will all perish.’

  ‘The Insignia will not fly without a sanction.’

  Mira reached inside her fellala and pulled out the lozenge. ‘The mercenaries made it possible for me to retrieve this and reach here alive.’

  Beside her, Rast shifted impatiently. Latourn
moaned in their arms.

  ‘Baronessa, you may enter the chalet but the mercenaries must stay here.’

  ‘My crewman needs help and somewhere to lie down,’ said Rast.

  ‘We shall return with some medic,’ said the Galiotto man.

  ‘No!’ Rast took a step towards him.

  The man raised the rifle. ‘You may not enter.’

  ‘Please,’ said Mira to the Galiotto. ‘Let them come. They will do no harm—’

  But the male servant fell forward before she could finish, his rifle discharging into the sand near her feet. Blood flowered across his hair and spattered the sand. The woman at his side made a small inarticulate noise and fainted.

  Mira turned on Rast, appalled. ‘What have you done, animale?’

  ‘Latourn will not die on this beach because of a scared servant. Your oath might be to your people but mine is to my crew. Now pick up that rifle and move.’

  In that moment Mira did not care if Rast killed her as well. She went to kneel by the woman.

  Rast stared at her. Then she shrugged, picked up the rifle herself and marched up the dune to the chalet.

  Mira stayed by the Galiotto woman until she regained consciousness but she could not persuade her away from the body.

  ‘Mia fratella,’ the woman moaned, over and over.

  Mira held her until her sobbing subsided.

  ‘What is your name?’ said Mira.

  But the Galiotto pressed her hands across her face and curled into a ball.

  Mira grasped her arms and shook her hard. ‘Listen! Saqr have invaded our world. I want you to stay here until the young Principe comes. Tell him that I have done as he asked and that he should go on to the Galgos. The Saqr will not like the water.’

  The Galiotto quietened, listening to her.

  ‘Do you know somewhere to hide?’

  ‘Si. I know because the Principess—’ She broke off, cupping her hands over her mouth.

  ‘The Principessa is here, isn’t she?’ Mira shook the woman again, her tolerance as low as her energies. ‘Isn’t she?’

  The Galiotto nodded tearfully.

  Mira put her face close to the servant’s ear. ‘The mercenaries must not know that she is alive. Go to her now and tell her what I have said to you. Stay hidden until we have gone. Whatever happens, her son must not stay here. He must go further south. Capisci?’

  ‘Si. Capisco.’

  Mira helped the woman to her feet.

  ‘Are you a traditrice, Baronessa?’ the Galiotto asked hoarsely.

  ‘Not traditrice, Galiotto. Incinta.’ She touched her belly with a trembling hand. ‘Tell the Principessa that if I survive she will have a nipote. The Pellegrini line will continue.’ Tell her that her son is a rapist. ‘Now go to her without being seen.’

  Mira left the woman and struggled up the red beach, across the patches of sand-thorns to the paths around the chalet. Heat exhaustion was upon her, the nausea greater with each step, the headache more intense. But now she had something to keep her going. Insignia’s voice was back in her mind. Its return was like a feast to someone who was starving.

  She threaded her way through several archways until she found Rast and Catchut in the chalet’s infirmary. They were removing Latourn from a blood-sluice.

  ‘Why is everything here so primitive?’ Rast stormed.

  Mira took a long, steadying drink of water from a faux spring by the window. It tasted faintly briny, as though the desalinator needed servicing. ‘This is not the Palazzo; it is a holiday retreat. The Ciprianos spent their fortune to purchase Araldis. They could not afford unlimited technology.’ Mira was not sure why she bothered to speak at all. This mercenary had just killed familia for little reason.

  ‘Where’s the servant woman?’ asked Rast.

  ‘On the beach still. She wished to stay with her fratella... with the body,’ said Mira.

  ‘She might know something useful. I’ll get her,’ said Rast.

  Mira’s heart fluttered in panic.

  ‘Capo? He’s slipping away.’ Catchut’s tone came close to pleading.

  Rast hesitated. ‘You said the ship had decent medic?’

  Mira nodded. ‘Si.’ She led them back through the arches, across the polished iron courtyard to the spiral outside paths.

  Rast and Catchut carried Latourn between them. As before, he was too weak to stand.

  The hangar doors opened at the touch of the lozenge. Inside, the kite-shaped black Insignia craft with its golden Cipriano emblem seemed to suck the light from the air.

  ‘Open her up and then prepare for lift-off,’ ordered Rast. ‘You do know how?’

  Mira glanced around the hangar. It was like a miniature version of the Fleet’s base on Mount Pell. ‘Of course.’

  Rast nodded. ‘I’ll be back to help you when we’ve got Latourn hooked up. And hurry. I got a feeling that I don’t like gnawing at me.’

  What gnawed at Rast, Mira thought, was the guilt about those she had murdered because they had got in her way.

  While Rast and Catchut carried the dying Latourn on board, Mira limped across the hangar to elevate the launch pad. The pseudo-skin’s anaesthetic had worn off and her elbow throbbed painfully in an ugly, pulsing rhythm.

  She placed the lozenge in the seal on Insignia’s hull. Bonjourno, bella, she whispered to the ship.

  You are here?

  With Insignia’s words Mira’s mind came alive. Things she needed to account for streamed into place: weather conditions, stabiliser integrity, g-thrust analysis, environmentals. The Insignia was rated for deep space but it had been many years since it had seen such a journey. Had the res-shift been hummed recently? Was the ship’s grown still healthy? Degradation from neglect was a possibility. Had the shipskin retained suitable integrity?

  The hangar flattened, settling into its lift-off position while Mira stood in the flooding sunlight. Quotes from her instruction-manual download whispered to her. The result of an inexact res-shift is catastrophic and will have an irrevocable impact on humanesque tissue. Vibration calibration must be precise or molecules in the tissues will implode the flesh.

  A shiver of anticipation finished in a flush of heat that left Mira feeling faint. She had stopped perspiring. Serious dehydration was imminent. In careful order she slipped the last tethers. Where is Rast?

  Insignia replied. There is a humanesque in Secondo vein. I am obliged to listen.

  Mira started towards the loading door in a panic as Insignia’s elevons began to flex. ‘Rast.’

  An AiV buzzed in low over the hangar and past the chalet, coming from the north. The wind from its rotors stirred a dust whirl. It arced out over the water and circled back towards her. When it reached the point of descent it come down like a flake of meteorite in the atmosphere.

  Mira scrambled onto the platform-lift. Insignia. I am coming.

  Saqr screams sent her stomach into a clenching spasm. As the lift reached Insignia’s wing they were already in the hangar. She felt along the biozoon’s scales for the one that would give her admission.

  ‘Turn around,’ a voice ordered. ‘Slowly.’

  Jancz was on the ground below the Insignia’s elevons. Ilke stood next to him.

  ‘So dirty and dishevelled, Principessa?’

  ‘It’s Baronessa,’ she said coldly. ‘You should know the difference by now. You have murdered enough of us.’

  ‘Touchy, these aristos.’ He spoke to like but his stare never left Mira. ‘Now come down from there.’

  Mira felt frantically along the scales. Which one? Tell me which one.

  ‘Now, Baronessa!’ Jancz raised his weapon.

  A scale twitched under her fingers and she sank into it, letting it draw her in. It sealed behind her and she picked herself up and stumbled though the twisted, sloping aisles to the flight stratum.

  Rast was in the Secondo vein, only her face uncovered, eyes darting, unfocused. Cathcut and Latourn were absent—in the medic stratum, Mira supposed. Rast didn’t mov
e her head.

  ‘You were going to leave me,’ Mira said accusingly.

  ‘Yeah. Well, I didn’t. Vein up. There’s more Saqr coming and the ‘esques have some type of incendiary. We’ll have to cold start. The planet’s nav-sat is out. Dowl isn’t responding either.’ Rast’s voice sounded thick, like she was eating something sticky.

  Cold start. Mira found that she had trouble breathing at the thought. She collapsed into the Primo vein and felt the couch pucker around her. She fought off the claustrophobia and tried to relax as grow-receptors skittered over her skin and burrowed in for the beginning of the inflating procedure that would protect her against g-forces.

  For a moment she felt as if her throat was closing over. She swallowed repeatedly until the feeling faded. It was replaced by a sensation of body-bloating, as though she had consumed too much liquid. She flexed and contracted her muscles, knowing that the movement would release the pressure. Again the sensation faded. Nausea mounted in her throat and she found herself swallowing repeatedly.

  All normal adjustments to vein-sink, Mira told herself. She concentrated on the tingling at the base of her skull where the vein insinuated itself into neural lanes. Hurry. The tingling became colour bursts before her eyes. They steadied and resolved into nothing.

  Absence.

  Then whispers became a flow of information, absorbed into her hindbrain with terrifying speed. Mira knew at once and intimately that the ship systems were burgeoning; that Catchut was leaning over Latourn in medic, crying; that the Saqr had positioned themselves around Insignia; that Jancz and like were fixing a patch onto her underbelly.

  Insignia? Prime and Exfoliate, she told the ship.

  Exfoliation while Primed is counterintuitive, Insignia replied.

  Wassat mean? Rast/Secondo interjected.

  Mira ignored her. It is preferable to obliteration.

  Agreed, Insignia thought back.

  Then proceed.

  Yes, Primo. It should be noted that if skin isn’t regrown by mesopause, irrevocable tears may occur, thought Insignia.

  It will be all right, Mira soothed. Proceed.

  The tremor that ran through the ship mirrored itself in her body—so did the contortion, as the ship began to shed skinscales. The sensation was a hundredfold worse than vein-sink, as if her own skin had been inverted and the raw tissue exposed. Bare nerve endings prickled and shrieked.