Mirror Space (Sentients of Orion)

by Marianne de Pierres

  There will be no more discussion about broken contracts, said Insignia firmly. I comprehend that humanesques are intemperate and unreliable, but we are not. Integrity is vital to us.

  At another time, Mira would have argued that integrity was as subjective as art or literature, but now she did not have the energy to argue with Insignia. I am sick... in my heart. Do you understand that? Beyond integrity.

  Dramatics. My previous Innates had considerable inner strength. Perhaps it is a difference between your reproductive roles.

  Mira couldn’t tell if Insignia was baiting her by suggesting she was not as mentally strong as her male ancestors—the biozoon didn’t understand the humanesques’ dual-sex evolution. Insignia’s species’ reproductive process was more elaborate and involved the participation of several of its kind. Yet the ‘zoon’s comment still stung her.

  Mira had travelled so far from the patriarchy of Araldis and with each world, each struggle, she’d shed the beliefs that she’d been born into. Her innate sense of equality had lain dormant on Araldis until her life had been threatened by Principe Franco. Now, her sense of entitlement grew with every passing moment.

  She took a slow and deep breath to compose her thoughts. I will not break my contract.

  As soon as she thought those words a gentle, soothing sensation burst over her. Welcome home, dear one, said Insignia. I believe you will find mycose in the mercenary captain’s cabin.

  Rast Randall?

  Yes.

  Where is Rast? The others? You said you left them somewhere.

  It is best if I show you from Primo. Do you have the strength to get there?

  Did Insignia emphasise ‘strength’? Or did Mira imagine it?

  No matter. She slid her feet off the bed and placed them tenderly on the floor. She needed to wash.

  TRIN

  They carried Djeserit’s catch back along the darkening beach, Joe Scali and Trin sharing the load of the netted fish while Djes struggled under the weight of a large octopus. Trin found his mouth watering for the food, his momentary suspicion of Djes and Joe Scali already fading before his hunger.

  None of them spoke, saving energy for the exertion of the sand dunes and twisted coastal brush.

  Juno Genarro was waiting for them where the brush gave way to the expanse of thinly vegetated ground, around the boulders among which the survivors rested. He immediately detailed cleaning and gutting of the catch to Tivi Scali and Vespa Malocchi, before the light faded. Semantic would be late rising tonight.

  ‘Come and rest now,’ Trin told Djes.

  She was swaying against his side; partly due to the unaccustomed walking, partly exhaustion.

  ‘Soon,’ she promised. ‘I would just speak to the women. Ready them to eat.’

  ‘There is no ne—’

  But she stumbled to the nearest cave before he could finish, and sat among the group of women in there.

  Cass Mulravey moved in alongside her, offering her the robes that they kept in a bundle for her.

  Trin watched Djes slip a robe over the scant rags she’d worn back from the beach. Just a few weeks ago, Djes’s open near-nudity would have shocked and disgusted him, and yet no one noticed her undress, so intent were they all on survival, so trusting and used were they to her ways. Djes had saved them. She would be forgiven anything.

  The two women leant in close, murmuring to each other while the Carabinere moved around him, preparing the food. The sight of Djes in such intimate contact with the Mulravey woman made his empty stomach churn. How was it that she could communicate so easily with everyone? Even the difficult ones.

  ‘Principe,’ said Juno. ‘The food is ready.’

  ‘Eat!’ Trin commanded in a loud, hoarse voice.

  Those that could walk assembled within a few minutes, arranging themselves into a ragged circle around the small, flat rocks that Genarro had gathered to use as a table.

  Djes found her way to Trin’s side and sat awkwardly, as though her legs weren’t sure which way to fold. He knew if he looked closely at her bare feet he would see the thick webbing that had grown between her toes.

  ‘Where is the Principessa?’ she whispered.

  Trin scanned the group, suddenly made aware that his madre had not joined them. ‘She was sleeping,’ he said softly. ‘It is best to leave her. Tina will attend her later. What does Cass Mulravey have to say that is for your ears only?’

  Djes waited until Trinder had taken his share of the raw octopus flesh offered to him by Tina Galiotto before she replied.

  ‘The weaker of her women cannot keep moving. We must wait for a time until they can regain strength.’

  ‘No,’ said Trin, as the iodine-bitter taste assaulted his senses. How he longed for cooked food. ‘The cover here is shallow and an island this size may have dangers. We need better shelter from the sun, somewhere that we can defend. We are lying in cracks of shade, exposed.’

  Djes nibbled at some raw fish. He wondered how she felt about eating from the ocean.

  ‘But some of these women will die if they do not simply rest and eat for a few days. Perhaps you could send a scouting party as before.’

  Trin struggled to make enough saliva to finish his mouthful while he considered what Djes had said. In truth he wanted nothing more than to stop and rest as she suggested, but something in him would not allow that. Not yet.

  ‘I’ll speak to Juno. Then I will decide,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, Principe.’

  He studied her face in the faded light, and saw nothing but the usual patience and exhaustion. She didn’t argue with him or try and insist. It was the reason he found her so comforting to be around. She didn’t bludgeon him with her beliefs like Cass Mulravey, or whine like Jilda, or falsely fawn over him as the Latino noblewomen had done.

  He thought briefly of Lancia and Chocetta Silvio and how they had shared his bed on alternate nights. Those times and that lifestyle had become dreamlike. Now he ate with his fingers and spent most of his waking hours craving food and water.

  He glanced around the circle of survivors again as they struggled through their meagre meal. The divisions were still there; his Carabinere sat on either side of him and Djes, some of the surviving miners sat next to them, and then the women. Cass Mulravey sat opposite him in the circle across the flat bed of rocks. She spoke quietly to her brother. Trin wasn’t sure of his name—Lennie or Innis—she seemed to call him by both names. Mira Fedor’s man, Kristo, sprawled on Mulravey’s other side, turning to check regularly on the alien korm that sat behind him.

  Only three children had survived the walk from the mine shaft to the ocean: Fedor’s adopted ragazzo, Vito, and two others. One belonged to Mulravey, but Djes had told him that she’d lost her other child, a ‘bina named Chanee, to dehydration. Then there was the korm, as large as an adult but with the mentality and resilience of a child. Just a few meals of raw fish had seen it recover its strength more quickly than the humanesques.

  The fact that both Mira Fedor’s charges had survived was somehow a thorn to his flesh—a reminder of her. The korm’s attachment to Djes aggravated him even more. It hovered near her whenever she was on land and the two spoke in the korm’s language.

  Would Mira Fedor come back for her children? he wondered. He’d gambled that she would, but it had been weeks already with no sign of help. Now they must create their own hope, which did not include rescue.

  * * *

  The group slept through the night—the first time in a while. Both Joe and Juno Genarro had agreed with Djes’s suggestion to wait before they further explored the island. Reluctantly, Trin had given in. But something about the arrangement of the boulders and the smell in the air made his skin prickle. Just as the knowledge that his most trusted men had taken Djes’s side against his stung his mind.

  Yet as she lay next to him for the first time in days, he drew comfort from the way her muscled back curved against his stomach and her heels rested against his ankles. Her presence gave him strength
and calm.

  She left him well before dawn to fish again. This time Trin sent Vespa Malocchi to help her bring back the catch. The man was still grieving for his fratello, Seb, and needed distraction. They had all lost someone but Vespa had turned his grief to anger.

  ‘Principe?’ The man spoke gruffly, roused from sleep by Joe Scali.

  ‘Wait on the beach until Djeserit returns. Gather shells for drinking.’ Vespa was unhappy with the command but did not dispute it—another thing that had changed in a short time. In the Carabinere compound in Loisa, Seb and Vespa Malocchi had been the first to mock the disfavoured, inexperienced young Principe. Now he—like the others—was grateful to have Trin shoulder the responsibility.

  Djes returned just before Leah blazed into the sky, draped in a brown weed that was heavy with finger-shaped pods, and dragging a weed net of pipis behind her. She slapped her bounty down on the rock table and peeled a pod off. She held it out to Trin with a wide smile on her face.

  He’d waited for her, roaming the edge of the coastal brush-line, trying to decipher what was making him so uneasy about the place. Now that she was back, he felt an almost uncontrollable urge to move on.

  ‘Weed?’ he asked.

  ‘Edible weed, from beneath the reefs. The seeds are fleshy. I’ve been using them for energy, Principe, but I wasn’t sure if there’d be ill effects. Some weeds are poisonous. It’s been days now and I’ve found no problems. I think it’s safe for everyone.’

  Trin stared at her. She looked tired and thin but not sick. Somehow she’d survived the extreme rigours of their flight better than most.

  He took the seed from her and bit into it. A sweet and salty taste exploded in his mouth and he felt a surge of energy, as if he’d taken stimulants or drunk thick, strong mocha. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

  ‘It could’ve been dangerous. I had to be sure.’

  Trin took another bite and experienced the same rush of energy. ‘That was my decision to make. Not yours.’

  Her smile vanished, and she frowned.

  Trin bit back a further remonstration as Vespa staggered through the brush-line dragging something larger then himself.

  ‘A xoc?’ Trin’s anger turned to incredulousness. ‘You bested a xoc?’

  ‘A gift from the ocean. It was dying in the shallows from reef cuts; bleeding to death. The storm must’ve brought it in too close to land.’ Her voice remained steady and level, but Trin sensed her unhappiness.

  She walked over to the boulders and sank down next to the korm. It chittered loudly with pleasure.

  Trin did not follow her. He called Juno over. ‘Make sure everyone gets some of the xoc and the pipis. Let them have it in their caves. But do not distribute the weed yet. I will speak to you again when Leah has set.’

  Juno raised his eyebrows but did not question the instruction.

  Trin peeled off several of the weed pods and stalked around the boulders to the small soak of fresh water that bled out from under the rocks. He drank his fill and then carried a shell of water across to the brushline closer to the beach. Soon the sun would preclude any movement that was not under shade, but he didn’t wish to return to his own shallow cave with Jilda and Tina Galiotto. The miners and Cass Mulravey wouldn’t welcome him to theirs, and his Carabinere had found women to lie with. In the daybreak light he’d seen Juno Genarro stroking the hair of the young woman Josephia as she cried silently into the sand. With even the slightest return of energies, so did emotions spill forth.

  * * *

  Trin stayed the rest of the day under the shade of the brush, sipping from the shell and slowly consuming the weed pods. With each pod his senses seemed to sharpen. He used the time to examine the surrounds of the boulders. At a glance, they were merely a fallen jumble of large rocks that had tumbled down from the hill to rest in a flat open space. The vegetation around them appeared to be a scant, sand-crawling creeper that flowered at night and exuded a perfume when trampled. And they had trampled it, in their trips to and from the brush-line. The creeper grew strongly near the water, but gradually thinned out as the open space stretched across to the base of the hill and sand met clay there.

  The bare earth was a pale red and compacted enough that there were irregular-shaped cracks across it. Trin wondered why nothing grew on it.

  He also wondered how many places on the island had fresh water leaking from the ground. He knew precious little about ecology and even less about fauna—the mining belt on Araldis was home to nothing more than checclia and lig beetles—but here, amongst real vegetation there was room for other creatures. Animals that would need to drink fresh water.

  And yet they had seen no sign of their presence—no droppings or scrapings of anything other than a few small, timid checclia flicking their tongues into the fresh water. Perhaps his unease was merely a reflex. Or perhaps he sought a way to prove himself against Djeserit in the eyes of the others.

  No.

  Surprisingly, Jilda’s voice came to mind. Believe in your birthright, Trinder, she’d told him when he was younger. One day you will be Principe.

  The memory of her words shifted his thinking, and his confidence resurged. Jilda was right. Perhaps he owed his madre more than he thought.

  * * *

  While the others dozed amongst the shade of the boulders, Trin kept his vigil, energised by the weed pods. For the first time since leaving the Pablo mine shaft, he felt aroused both mentally and physically. It enabled him to concentrate well enough to mind-map the area right up to where the clay disappeared into the thick vines and brush at the base of the island’s small mountain. Volcanic mountain or sand dune? he wondered.

  It was hard to tell without getting close enough to see and feel the soil.

  He felt the urge to stand and pace to order his thoughts, but he stopped himself. In this heat he would use more water than he had brought across in the shell. The weed had stimulant properties—there was no doubt. He took note of the duration of the effects and estimated how many pods it would take to get them through a night’s walking.

  * * *

  When Leah finally dipped below the horizon, he rejoined the group around their rock table for more of the xoc. Juno Genarro had left the carcass to lie in the relative cool of the rock spring during the daylight, and it tasted waterlogged. Some of the briny taste of the sea had faded from its flesh and been replaced by a strong, earthy mineral flavour. The bite was like pepper and it disquieted Trin even more.

  Yet voices sounded stronger tonight, and some of the women who had previously been unable to walk had joined them. Djeserit had been right to advise patience but he could not afford for her to be seen as more capable, more intuitive, than him. He called Tina Galiotto over.

  ‘Where is the weed?’

  ‘In the spring. Djeserit said it would dry out if we left it in the sun.

  ‘Retrieve it,’ said Trin.

  As she moved to do his bidding, faces turned to watch. Trin stood up and stepped into the circle close to the rock table.

  ‘We will head up into the mountain tonight,’ he said.

  The evening light was enough that he could see the reactions. None of them wished to leave the water. The Carabinere stayed silent, but not so Mulravey’s lot and the Pablo miners.

  A woman sitting next to Mulravey’s brother stood up also. She was taller than most of his men. ‘You been doin’ most of the talking for us these past days but it can’t just be that way. I think we should stay here. There’s water and we’re close enough to the beach for Djes to fish. When we’re stronger we can help her.’

  ‘Liesl’s right,’ said Cass Mulravey. ‘There’s no need to move. We should vote.’

  Vote. Trin’s stomach clenched. Djeserit’s persuasion had eroded his status.

  Voices joined Mulravey in agreement: the Pablo miners and her brother.

  Djes and the Carabinere remained silent, still. Trin saw their discomfort. Juno Genarro and Joe Scali exchanged glances. Djes looked into her lap,
hands clasped.

  ‘What’s yer reason?’

  The question surprised Trin; not that it was asked, but who asked it—Mulravey’s man Kristo. He sat on the other side of Mulravey’s brother. His hair was so long and wild now that Trin could barely see his eyes. They were all like that, except for the women who bound their “hair back with strips of thin weed.

  ‘In truth, I have no reason, other than to say that this place does not feel safe. While we are exhausted still, these pods’—he waved at the weed that Tina Galiotto had brought dripping back from the spring—’will give us energy to climb. In the mountains there will be bigger caves and we’ll be at a better vantage to see distance.’ He avoided saying ‘rescue’.

  ‘What danger?’ Kristo asked. ‘We’ve seen nothing. Only checclia.’

  Trin shrugged. ‘Perhaps that is it. Nothing. Surely other creatures must drink from this water. Why haven’t we seen them?’

  ‘Araldis is not a place of animals,’ said Djes. ‘What are you expecting, Principe?’ Her tone was utterly deferential, but Trin felt the underlying sharpness of the question.

  ‘Not the Araldis that we know. But these islands are new territory, and there seems enough flora to sustain something that could harm us. Juno?’

  ‘The Principe is right, Djes.’ The Carabinere scout glanced around the circle to make sure everyone heard him. ‘I have flown over similar with Principe Franco. We saw birds and other small things.’

  ‘Small things.’ Innis guffawed. ‘Mebbe the checclia might bite our toes.’

  Trin contained his anger at the man’s disrespect. It was not the time for tempers to be lost. ‘Only fools are brash in strange places.’

  Innis continued to laugh, inciting the others near him to join in, but Kristo cut across them all.

  ‘He’s right, Innis. We’ve got this far on his say-so. Why would we go breakin’ what ain’t broke yet?’

  ‘Even if we can’t see a reason?’ said Mulravey.