Something scratched at her toes. She looked down as a starfish-shaped creature with twenty or more tentacles lifted its body up and crawled across her bare foot. Splashing water dragged her attention back to the ocean. A crab emerged from the waves, taller than her and with a black shiny carapace, dragging one huge heavy pincer.
A tumble of questions threatened to escape her lips so she kept them firmly closed, bottling her curiosity.
Wanton-poda moved directly forward and she followed it down the sand to the water’s edge, revelling in the feel of the warm sand under her feet. But when the cephalopod floated out over the water, she baulked.
It returned and circled her several times before proceeding back out over the water.
She shook her head. Had the creature forgotten she couldn’t float?
It returned again. This time it positioned itself behind her. Without warning it brushed its fringe against her neck. The sting caused her to jump forward away from it.
It stung her again.
She jumped away from it again, biting her lip to keep from exclaiming aloud. This time though, the water lapped around her feet.
Or not quite.
Tentatively she took another step.
Instead of walking from the sand and into the water, she found she was a tiny distance above it. On a cushion of air? Or perhaps the water wasn’t real?
She stopped and knelt down and dipped her fingers into the rolling waves. They felt real—wet and tingling, and the scent of salt and the moisture on her skin. It had to be real.
Wanton-poda returned to her and made an irritated sound.
A large fish lifted its head from the water and turned a large silver eye on them.
Mira felt a disturbance of the air around her, as if it were vibrating.
Wanton-poda began to bob.
‘Is there a problem with this Host?’ the fish asked.
‘Highness Most Capable of Cultivation is escorting the humanesque shell to Symbiosis Revival. There are some anomalies. It has no speech,’ said Wanton-poda more calmly than she expected.
‘The Host shell may need to be destroyed. Some don’t revive. My own has been replaced several times in this form. But I chose carefully this time.’
Destroy the Host shell. Mira tried not to look disturbed. If she appeared too aberrant she would attract more attention.
‘Most Excellent Host,’ said Wanton-poda as a kind of farewell salutation.
‘Most Excellent Host to you as well, cephalopod,’ replied the fish.
Wanton-poda circled behind Mira and stung her until she stood and continued on.
She kept her eyes downcast after that. The fish had sounded mocking, condescending even, but she knew it could be dangerous to judge Post-Species by her own humanesque values.
They continued their walk across the water for some time—much further than she should have been able to go without tiring. She assumed this was because of the lack of friction and a sense of lighter gravity.
They traversed one large, flat island that appeared bare of vegetation, its only discerning characteristic round indentations spaced at regular intervals, in lines, in the sand.
Instinctively she avoided stepping near them, and something deep-seated urged her to move on quickly, away from them. But Wanton-poda seemed distracted by the sight of them. It fluttered down from time to time for closer observation.
As they crossed the island and passed down towards the sea again, it floated lower to observe the last line of depressions. The sand in one of the indentations began to shift and the Extro wafted back out of the way. A pearly-coloured orb the size of a humanesque’s head erupted from the shallow hole. The skin of the orb bubbled and contorted for a few moments until it tore open. Thin feelers poked through, followed by larger, thicker ones with bulbous ends.
Mira’s heart gave a terrified leap as one of the bulbs peeled back to reveal a moist maw.
Saqr. Smaller than the ones on Araldis but unmistakable.
She trapped the scream in her throat and ran out onto the water. Wanton-poda accelerated to put itself in front of her and they travelled for a while at a higher speed as if it comprehended her need to get away.
After they’d passed several more islands that showed no sign of the Saqr, her fear began to subside and was replaced by aching in her feet and knees. Her dry mouth told her she needed fluids.
She coughed to attract Wanton-poda’s attention.
It swirled and spun a full circle around her, coming to hover in front of her face.
She swallowed and licked her lips, signalling her thirst.
Its ear flaps shot up in a way that she was coming to recognise as alertness. Though they stood on the water between islands, it changed direction heading for the closest one. When they reached it, Wanton-poda floated straight up the beach and disappeared into a thick grove of palm trees.
Mira baulked before the trees, sending a cluster of small red crabs scuttling away from her around her shuffling feet. Spines, almost as long as Mira herself, protruded from the palms’ stems.
She could not see a way past them.
Wanton-poda reappeared after a time. ‘We will return to functional space for refreshments,’ it said in a neutral tone.
It re-entered the tree line, passing straight through the criss-cross of spines.
Mira took a deep, shaky breath. Despite the fact that she had just walked across water, her mind would not be convinced that the spines in front of her were anything other than totally real. Even in her interface with Insignia, she had never felt so at odds with her perception.
She took a step closer, positioning herself in the exact spot that Wanton-poda had entered. The red crabs reassembled and began crawling over her feet to enter the same space at sand level. One by one they disappeared from her view like ants vanishing inside their nest. Tentatively she reached out her hand and encountered the sharp prick of the spine.
She recoiled and sucked her finger. Perhaps the exit to the functional space that Wanton-poda referred to was narrow or oddly shaped. She knelt down and then lay on her belly. With small, careful movements she began to crawl in under the line of the bottom spine.
‘How rude!’ protested a voice near her ear.
She turned her head sideways to locate it and a crab claw slapped her across the bridge of her nose.
‘Wait your turn,’ said the crab.
It climbed over her head, and by the time she dared to look up it had gone.
Avoiding contact with the small creatures congregating around and behind her, she crawled slowly after the crab and found herself suddenly in a tissue-walled room similar to her confinement cell, only this one appeared open-ended, leading into further cells.
Not really cells, she thought, as she dusted sand from her clothes and stood up. More like fleshy caves. An endless, almost featureless cave system.
She looked down expecting to see the sand she had brushed off, fallen to the floor. But it simply no longer existed.
‘Mira-fedor will take refreshments now.’ Wanton-poda hovered off to her right near one of the pearly walls.
Mira nodded and moved cautiously closer, the way she had approached the spine-laden palm. Wanton-poda propelled itself directly into the wall but did not bounce off as Mira had when trying to break out of her confinement. Instead, the wall enveloped the Extro, leaving only a small opaque mass where it had entered.
Mira heard a soft pop. An arm’s length from the Wanton-poda mass, the tissue wall rippled and a crab popped out onto the floor.
It raised its claw. ‘You again,’ it muttered in a less than impressed tone. It scuttled wide of her and off deeper into the caves.
Something bumped into her back. ‘Hurry up! You’re slowing everything down.’
She half-turned, and encountered the oddest-looking creature. It had the head, wet eyes and whiskers of a sea mammal but its torso tapered into humanesque- shaped legs with webbed feet.
Biting her lip, she faced the wall and ste
pped into it. There was no resistance this time, in fact, quite the opposite. It seemed to suck her forward.
She automatically closed her eyes and held her breath until she could no longer. Then she let it go and gulped. To her surprise, she was able to breathe normally. She felt like she was lying on a cushion of air—no sense of pressure or verticality. Only a mild, cool sensation as if someone was wiping her skin with a damp cloth.
With each wipe her aches and fatigue lessened. Even her thirst vanished. Energy filled her body as it had not done since before the invasion on Araldis.
And then... she was pushed back out into the cave, stumbling to catch her balance.
Wanton-poda spun agitatedly nearby, waiting.
She opened her mouth to tell the Extro how wonderful she felt and to ask what exactly had happened, but then noticed a group of Siphonophores floating near the far wall. They propelled themselves across the cave on their undulating, suckered feet until they surrounded Wanton-poda.
Mira’s heart contracted in fear as they began to bully the little cephalopod as they had in the lab, converging on it with their stingers.
Wanton-poda squealed in pain.
An ungovernable rage rose in Mira, as it had before. She threw herself among them, raking at their jellylike skins with her fingernails; then slapping and punching at their swaying jelly bodies.
They returned her attack by curling their stinging tentacles around her arms.
But her anger had found a release that seemed to nullify the fear—or distance it at least.
Or was it something else that lent her strength and fury? Deep within her she felt a cold rush of adrenalin, and then a small but distinctive movement in her belly.
Child?
She grabbed some of a Siphonophore’s tentacles and rent them apart. They tore easily, like, worn cloth, and the creature pulsed black ink from its sac in a wide arc.
The squealing intensified: not all Wanton-poda’s any more. And not just sounds of pain. Voices joined in; a cacophony of them, calling for her to be stopped.
The rest of the Siphonophores retreated, leaving her with the cephalopod and the remains of the torn Extro in her hands. Her hands and shift were stained with ink.
Other small creatures gathered around them, popping out of the walls or entering from other places, curious and shocked.
‘Mira-fedor.’ Wanton-poda’s voice projection was barely a whisper. ‘What have you done?’
‘They were hurting you,’ Mira said hoarsely. ‘And I... I...’ She couldn’t finish because she didn’t know what she’d done. ‘Th-the child moved.’ She cupped her belly. ‘And...’
‘Mira-fedor must leave quickly,’ said Wanton-poda, ‘or she will be punished.’ It hovered low near her shoulder. ‘Mira-fedor and Wanton-poda must go into the Bare World.’
JO-JO RASTEROVICH
Jo-Jo woke flailing and shouting from the worst of overheated, dehydrated alcohol dreams. He’d been in the mud crawling along between Rast Randall and her Capo and ahead of the balol like. Rast silently signalled an enemy sighting and rolled sideways under some thick reed. Jo-Jo threw himself in the other direction, colliding with the Capo. The pair grappled with each other to be the first to reach the cover of a fallen tree.
‘Get yer own,’ whispered the Capo.
Jo-Jo was so close to the man that his spit made him blink. So close that he could see every minute detail of the Capo’s face beneath the layer of grime. So close...
‘Wait!’ Jo-Jo sat upright. ‘I know who you...’
‘Shut the fuck up or they’ll hear you,’ the Capo hissed. He raised his fist to club Jo-Jo but Jo-Jo warded him off with his forearm.
‘I KNOW WHO YOU ARE!’ he shouted. ‘I KNOW WHO YOU ARE!’
And he did.
And then the sleep dropped away and he found himself sitting upright in bed, shaking and still shouting the words.
He dragged himself straight into the wash cubicle and sat there until the tremors subsided.
It gave him time to sort his brain out—think over things.
He was on a half-crazy, pining ‘zoon travelling though Extro space with a bunch of self-serving, edgy mercs.
Something new. Think, harder.
Rast Randall had strong feelings for Mira Fedor. Maybe as strong as his. That meant she must be feeling guilty as hell about losing Fedor. And worried. Jo-Jo could use that, and to a degree, he could trust it.
Slightly cheered, he went to the medi-lab and connected himself up to an IV of electrolytes. When the drip ran out he moved on to the cucina and forced himself to eat some bread and dried meat.
Better.
But the effort of the walk he then took up to the buccal almost had him vomiting up the food. And the shaking was back—though not as bad.
This time when he sank his fist into the pucker it opened.
Rast was reclining in the sink they called Secondo. She didn’t appear surprised to see him but her hand drifted to the weapon on her lap.
‘Let’s talk,’ said Jo-Jo.
She sat more upright at that, eyes narrow and suspicious. ‘Shoot.’
‘Tell me the situation out there.’ He lifted his head to indicate outside.
Rast chewed her lip before replying. ‘From what I can tell we’re heading to the outer reaches of Saiph. ‘Zoon’s sticking close to a bunch of freighters. Think it’s trying to muddy up its signatures.’
‘Makes sense.’
‘Lots of activity around the system, especially back near Rho Junction. My Extro space nav isn’t exactly sharp though.’
“Zoon’s got a connection with the Baronessa—maybe it knows where she is,’ said Jo-Jo.
‘I’m banking on it. And on the fact that it’ll let us do our thing when the time comes.’
What’s your thing? Jo-Jo wanted to shout at the merc. Desert two vulnerable women? But he bit the words back. He needed information and commitment. He wouldn’t get that from the likes of Rast Randall by being antagonistic.
His legs began to tremble, forcing him to sit down on the edge of the Autonomy nub.
‘Looks like you’ve just trashed a kidney and a liver,’ observed Rast.
‘Gotta get my HealthWatch upgraded. Forgotten what a real hangover was like.’ That was true. Jo-Jo had never felt this bad from drink before.
‘Yeah. Never know what you might pick up—the places you frequent.’
Jo-Jo hunched, not seeing the lighter side. ‘I’ve been thinking over some stuff. Strikes me there’s a lot of things that seem connected that shouldn’t be and I’m wondering why.’
Rast cocked an eyebrow and waited.
‘The Lostol getting on that ship with Berniere and Bethany on Rho Junction—I know him. His name’s Tekton. He’s a tyro to the Entity on Belle-Monde.’
Rast’s mouth fell open. ‘‘That was Tekton?’
‘You heard of him?’
‘Fedor says he’s the one who’s been buying up the quixite on Araldis. Carnage mentioned him too. You had some shit go down with him... something about a Hera contract.’
‘Shit’s the word for it,’ said Jo-Jo grimly.
‘So what’s he doin’ with Beth and the idiot scholar?’
‘Heading back to Akouedo, I’m guessing. That can’t mean anything good. Carnage and Tekton...’ Jo-Jo shook his head, imagining the consequences of a partnership between the Commander and the tyro. He regathered himself. ‘You told me before that your allegiances are your own. You stand by that?’
Rast nodded and gave him a keen look. ‘Spit it out.’
‘Stuff is happening... I keep thinking that I’m understanding it, and then something else happens.’
‘Yer not making much sense, man.’
‘You heard of a Dynamic System Device?’
Rast returned to chewing on her lip, taking her time to answer. ‘Maybe. Thought that stuff was mostly made- up... DSD—wasn’t that someone’s idea of predicting patterns?’
Jo-Jo tapped his head. ‘You’ve supp
ed a bit then.’
Rast folded her arms. ‘As you do... when you get an education,’ she finished sarcastically.
‘No offence,’ said Jo-Jo, relieved he didn’t have to explain from scratch. ‘Most mercs—’
‘Yeah, yeah, so what about it?’
‘Carnage Farr’s got one. A DSD. Saw it in virtual. He proved it by showing me some things. One of them was you wallowing in mud on some craphole during the war—’
‘Longthrow?’
‘Dunno—probably. You were with your Capo and a balol.’
Rast’s eyes widened. ‘Jancz and like.’
Jancz. So that was his real name. Not Jed. ‘You tripped a land mine.’
‘How did you know that?’
‘Saw it. Farr buys information to fuel his DSD. Combat records. Everything. And he’s got eges everywhere, recording.’ Jo-Jo glanced around the buccal. ‘He’s probably got them in here.’
‘OK. So what’s your point?’
‘I was drinking in a bar on Dowl—followed Tekton there. Got talking to a female balol. Kinda thought I might enjoy some rough trade for a change.’
Rast sniggered. ‘like?’
‘Yeah. She did her thing, while her friend—Jed he called himself—did his. He framed me up for importing an illegal uuli species. Problem was the judge had a grudge against me already. Anyway... to cut it short... Tekton’s down there buying up quixite to help his cause on Belle-Monde. Meanwhile your Capo—Jed or Jancz or whatever he calls himself—steals my ship.’
‘When was that?’
Jo-Jo gave her approximates.
Rast thought for a few moments. ‘Jancz and like were down on Araldis a while after that. I saw them when we were trapped in Ipo. Maybe they used your hybrid ‘zoon to bring in the Saqr. They were running the show down there—no doubt about that.’
‘Why didn’t you let him know you were there? Sounds like he coulda got you out of that tight spot.’
Rast—almost imperceptibly—raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t know mercs, do you, Rasterovich?’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning you get hired by someone then all bets are off. You might have worked with a guy on a previous job—turns out he’s your enemy the next time round.’
Mirror Space (Sentients of Orion) Page 6