‘I say we move, if he thinks we should.’
The support was unexpected, and a moment passed around the group, brief but significant, before they stood, ready to move on his bidding.
THALES
Thales’s desperation to see Aleta again settled after a few hours and left him bleak. He’d spent the hours sitting in a kafe on the main transit thoroughfare, watching Edo go about its night business. It was not a quiet world, even during the main sleep cycle.
When he finally felt he could face returning to his apartment, he left the kafe and washed in a public cubicle. As he splashed the flavoured water over his face, he felt neither remorse nor embarrassment for his evening’s dalliance. Yet decency told him not to return to Bethany smelling of intimacy with another.
Shame she had not extended the same courtesy to him.
He planned to simply pack up his small stock of personal effects and find lodgings elsewhere on Edo. The thought of accepting any more of Lasper Farr’s ‘hospitality’, or his sister’s affections, made Thales sick to his stomach. It seemed he’d learned a great deal about himself in a few short hours—not all of it pleasing or uplifting.
And yet despite his bleak mood, his experience with Aleta had given him some peace back. Glimpsing into the core of his own weaknesses and vice left him feeling stronger in some way. Liberated almost.
Perhaps now was the time to shed his upbringing and discover the person inside; the one without the ideals: the shallow, selfish, needy inner man.
He wondered if Villon had perceived that man within him, underneath the layer of naive idealism.
Strangely, the philosopher’s face remained clearer in his memory than Rene’s; the kindly eyes so interested in life. To the last. Villon may have had many of his own dark moments, Thales thought, and yet he’d remained buoyant and without bitterness.
I will never match Villon.
Nor was he sure that he wanted to. As he flashed his hand across the entry key to the apartment the bleakness lifted with that thought.
‘Thales!’ Bethany was curled on the couch naked. She looked startled, as if she’d been asleep.
‘I’ll just get my clothes,’ he said quietly.
She sprang up. ‘There is no need. I-I’ve been thinking a lot—and I want to talk to you. Why I did... that... and other things.’
Thales stared at her. In the darkened room she looked younger than her years and yet he knew the truth of her age, the truth of her desires.
‘There is not much to be said. You were right, Bethany. I don’t love you—it has been convenience, for both of us, and now that is finished. Listening to you won’t change that.’
She took a step towards him, reached out her hand. ‘Please, give this... upset a chance to heal before you make a decision.’ The quaver in her voice was unmistakable, but it didn’t move him.
He brushed past her into the bedroom and collected up his pitiful possessions. The total of the things he owned: a few toiletries, one set of overalls and another pair of loose travel pants and shirt all provided by Lasper Farr, and the aspect cube he’d brought from Scolar that stored his academic records and other private information. The credit clip that Rene had given him was wedged into the base of the cube. He was not completely without resources, but like Farr’s handout, he had no wish to rely on Rene’s guilt. On impulse he unbundled the clothes and left them on the bed.
‘What are you doing?’ Bethany was at the bedroom door. ‘Don’t be rash, Thales. It’s not like I’m a—’
He stiffened. ‘I know exactly what I want to do now and it doesn’t involve you. In fact, it’s important that it doesn’t.’ He swung the small bag over his shoulder.
She looked for a moment like she might try and block his path but with a sigh she stepped out of the way. He paused, and reached back to lightly touch her arm. ‘You’re a kind person, Beth, with a brother who is a monster. Get away from him. I hope you find your daughter.’
She didn’t respond until he reached the front door.
‘Thales. Wait! There’s something you should know before you leave.’ She switched the light on so that they could see each other properly and came over to him. ‘I have some contacts here. Friends. People that support me... not Lasper.’
‘The Mio?’
She dropped her head and then lifted it again. ‘Yes. The Mio told me that Tekton was booked on a ship to leave today. He didn’t make embarkation. The ship left without him.’
Thales shrugged. ‘Maybe he changed his mind.’
‘All his possessions were on board, including that ridiculous sculpture.’
Thales’s chest constricted. He didn’t like Tekton, but the man was of his own ilk and had helped them both—even if it had only been out of expediency. ‘That is strange.’
Bethany came close to him. Close enough to whisper. ‘My friends saw him being escorted by a Lamin to Lasper’s habitat. He hasn’t come back, Thales.’
‘You think...?’
She nodded. ‘It may be that he wants to keep word of the DNA you retrieved from Rho Junction from reaching the creator. I am scared for you as well. If you leave my protection then please at least use my... network.’
‘Leaving your protection?’ echoed Thales. ‘You think you can protect me?’
Her anxious expression faded and she pressed her lips into a stern line that reminded Thales of her brother. ‘Whether you accept it or not, while you’re with me, you’re safer. Lasper will consider hard before harming one of mine—and not give a second thought to your life if you are not.’
‘Are you saying you can control the Commander?’
‘Not control—but there are things about us that you don’t know—about me.’
‘More things, you mean?’ He gave her a humourless smile.
‘There is a group here that wants to replace Lasper with me as the leader of Consilience.’
‘But you’re a scientist, not a soldier. And the Stain Wars... I mean, it wasn’t you who averted the war. You told me that you were with the Mios.’
‘Yes. Near the Mio moons at the site of the last incursion. I was with a Mio ship, dissecting dead Extropists. Recorded history leaves out all the subtleties, Thales. As a philosopher you should know that. Look what happened to your prophet Villon.’ She rubbed her hand across the bridge of her nose. ‘What’s important is that you’re safe while you’re here.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that the truth about the war isn’t recorded anywhere official. The official stories don’t tell us that OLOSS was the original aggressor and that they used mercenaries to spark the fighting on Longthrow so that they could learn more about the Extros—what weapons they had and how they were evolving.’
‘How they were evolving?’
‘Yes, Thales. They wanted Extro fatalities so that they could find out their evolutionary secrets. Examine their Post-Species processes.’
‘But why? We don’t want their kind of evolution. That is the whole point of our division—our separation from them.’
‘No, we don’t want to follow that path. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want to know what they’re doing. The Extros have advanced biotechnologies that we could use.’
‘Then why don’t we just trade for it?’
Beth touched the bridge of her nose again in a little gesture of frustration. ‘It’s not as simple as mere trade. There’s fear and competition at stake, and a host of other things—territory and beliefs.’
He thought over what she’d just told him, and it made him even more restless. She was not the simple, sad woman he’d thought her to be.
She sensed his mood and stepped closer. ‘On the outer level, the one above the docks, there’s a woman called Samuelle. She manufactures the rust-eating parasite that keeps Edo clean. Ask around for her and she’ll find you. I’ll see to it.’
Thales pulled back from her. He didn’t want her help. ‘What will you do now?’
‘Find a way to help my child.’
She stared up at him. ‘That’s all there is.’
Thales nodded. He wanted to wish her luck again but it seemed pointless to say it. Luck would not rescue her Jess from Araldis. Likely nothing would.
He pressed the door open and left.
* * *
He walked most of the way back to the main recreation chamber. It gave him time to think and reconcile his feelings. Much as he no longer wished to be with Bethany, saying goodbye had been awkward, and the news of Tekton unsettling. Was Beth right? Had Farr disposed of Tekton? Or had her mistrust—her paranoia—about her brother made her leap to a ridiculous conclusion?
Today there was no sign of the Trade Fest. All the decorations had been packed away and the booths dismantled. Only the dais remained, and a Lamin with a recording dice, inspecting the walls and floors for damage. Several soldiers squatted in a corner playing a handball game.
Thales approached the Lamin. ‘Pardon me. Could you direct me to a place where I might seek employment?’
The Lamin’s nostrils flared and wiggled a little. It looked Thales up and down, eyes blinking.
Thales couldn’t tell if it was the same one who’d given him the voucher to Aleta, or indeed the same one who’d escorted them to meet Lasper Farr the day they’d arrived. There was a likeness about their race that his less than discerning eyes couldn’t recognise.
‘Why would you come here to enquire?’
‘There was an information booth here during the Trade Fest. I thought maybe it was a permanent fixture.’
‘Nothing is permanent on Edo. Identify yourself.’ The Lamin held out the dice for Thales to place his fingers on.
He hesitated for a moment, remembering Beth’s warning.
‘It is required that every visitor to Edo identify themselves on the request of an official employee.’
‘How do I know that you’re official?’
‘I am Lamin,’ said the creature primly. ‘Official is what we are.’ It twitched its head in the direction of the soldiers. ‘Your reluctance is suspicious.’
Thales clicked his tongue in irritation and grasped the dice. The display flashed a set of symbols that he didn’t understand.
The Lamin, however, pulled the dice from his fingers and peered at it closely. ‘Proceed to the docking level. Adjacent to the inspection booth on Dock 15 is the administration office. There are many jobs currently available.’
Thales nodded, ‘Thank you.’
He turned and walked out of the chamber, pleased to get away.
He caught one of the free taxis outside and rode it to the shaft. A group of workers dressed in identical overalls with a swirling logo and the name COG across the back crowded around the entrance to the pedestrian lifts. He listened in to their conversation. In the two short times he’d been on Edo, his preoccupations had kept him from acquiring any real sense of the people and their manner. If he was to survive alone, he mustn’t fall into the hands of another Gutnee Paraburd. He’d find employment and learn to be an ordinary working man. Then he’d put his plans into action without the help of Bethany or any other person.
‘How did the Fest treat you?’ everyone seemed to be asking each other as they filed into the lift. ‘Thank Edo it’s over!’ was the most common reply.
Thales let their chat wash over him, and relaxed into the sensation of speed without force as they ascended towards the docks. Already it seemed a very long time ago that he and Mira Fedor had caught the vehicular lift to see the Festival. She’d sought his company instead of the mercenaries’, then. What had befallen her? he wondered. She was a refined and gentle woman, if not a little unconventional. He had liked her well enough, despite that, and her ability with the biozoon was remarkable.
‘You see that big prick sculpture at the Fest? Was up on the dais,’ said a small, stocky humanesque to his taller companion. ‘Crux. And the prick who it was modelled on. He had an ego as big as his whang.’
‘I saw him,’ a woman chimed in. ‘He’s one of the Lostol tyros who’ve been studying that God thing they found over near Mintaka. I heard he balled Fenralia on the trip here and she liked it so much she made a sculpture of him and his better parts.’
‘Fenralia’s a she?’ The tall one sounded surprised.
‘Hard to say with ginks like that,’ replied the woman. ‘Fen looks like she’d stick those tentacles anywhere they’ll fit.’
Most of the group laughed at that: all except the short one. He lowered his voice. ‘Talking to the Jandos last night. Heard that the tyro prick’s gone missing up top. He must have done somethin’ to shite Farr off.’
The tall man nudged him and glanced to the back of the lift.
Thales followed his gaze. Behind the group who were crowded together, facing inward, as lifts forced passengers to do, was a solitary ‘esque, standing quietly, listening. Thales hadn’t noticed him before.
From what Thales could see, around the heads of the others, the man seemed unremarkable in every way, other than perhaps the intent expression on his face. He stood a little taller than Thales but was muscled and wearing different-colour overalls to the COG group. His dark uniform looked supple, the material almost elastic.
As if sensing Thales’s scrutiny, the man lifted his gaze and stared at him.
Thales found the contact disconcerting, and an uncomfortable sensation settled on his chest. He glanced away.
The COG group left the lift at different levels, each one calling farewell to the rest. Others replaced them, and the pattern of exit and replace went on until they reached the level before the docks. The lift emptied entirely then, except for Thales and the man in the dark overalls.
They stood in silence while Thales watched the icon flickering upward. To his relief, the doors pinged open to the dock, and an influx of passengers separated him from the man.
He hurried straight down into the main walkway, following the large numbering sequence on the walls. Although the docks were essentially one long mooring, a mess of conveyors and passenger tubes and service modules divided one bay from the next.
Dock 15 was the farthest from the lift and took him a decent amount of walking time to reach. So much so that he was beginning to get hungry and tired.
As he passed behind a wall of containers unloaded on Dock 14, the light altered. Dock 15 was almost in darkness; only the red glow of safety lights lent an outline to the mooring mechanism and its empty berth.
Thales couldn’t see an administration office or any other kind of official structure. His chest got tighter. Had the Lamin made a mistake? He turned and took hasty steps back towards the container wall.
The man from the lift jumped him before he reached it, and they both fell to the floor. Thales knew at once who it was, without seeing his face or even the colour of his overalls.
A heavy object pressed against his throat; he smelt food-sweet breath in his face. The man had just eaten, and then come to kill him.
‘Reckoned you might put up more of a fight,’ whispered the man.
Thales bucked against him but it was a miserable attempt against the man’s superior strength. He opened his mouth to shout, but the man forced a soft, round object between his lips that expanded as soon as it contacted his saliva. Suddenly his mouth was so full he could barely breathe. With his hands trapped underneath him, he could only writhe and twist his head from side to side.
‘Might as well enjoy it then,’ the man muttered to himself. He dropped the weapon and clamped his hand around Thales’s neck. The suffocation came quickly, intensified by the putty filling his mouth and throat.
He attempted to knee the man in the back but his legs wouldn’t work, flopping uselessly. Oblivion came quickly.
Even when the man’s fingers were yanked abruptly from him, Thales barely knew consciousness. Only loud cracking sounds and a short, cut-off yelp kept him connected to the world.
The slow return of oxygen helped his brain to realise his hands were free, and he began to frantically gouge the putty from his mouth.
Sitting up, he coughed and spat the material out onto the ground.
As the tears cleared from his eyes, the darkest clump of shadows on the dock became two figures: his assailant and another, his rescuer. His rescuer had the assailant trussed up by something attached to a long handle, a whip of some kind. The rescuer took what Thales thought was a spray tube from his pocket and sprayed the assailant’s neck. Then he wrapped his fingers around the assailant’s throat.
‘You liking that?’ A woman’s voice. Low and soft.
A woman?
The assailant fell slack almost immediately and she kicked the man’s torso over so that the whip could unravel.
‘We need to hurry up before someone gets curious about the noise. Can you walk?’ she asked.
Thales got onto his knees and pushed himself erect. His throat was on fire still, and his mouth felt like it was bruised and coated with dirt. ‘Who—are—you?’
She curled the whip into neat loops and hooked it onto her belt. She was taller than him by more than a head, and dressed in the plain station overalls favoured by most workers. He couldn’t make out the details of her face.
‘Friend of a friend said you’d needed a hand,’ was all she said.
Thales massaged his throat to help him speak. ‘Th- thank you. B-but I don’t—’
‘Suit yourself,’ she cut him off. ‘But you’ll be dead soon if you don’t come with me. This one here is the softest of Lasper’s men. He’ll send one of the good ones after you next and that will be that. I don’t plan to hang ‘round here while you think about it.’
She gave a little salute and walked past him towards the container wall.
It was her pragmatism that frightened him most; the dry, flat nature of a voice that didn’t bother with lies. Like the mercenary Rast Randall, but without the hint of malice in it.
‘Wait,’ said Thales.
She stopped, but didn’t turn around.
He snatched up the small sack containing his aspect
cube and tied it to his waist. Then he hastened over to her.
‘Pull your collar up and lean against me. Pretend we’ve been down here looking for a quiet place to shag.’ She draped her arm across him and pulled him into the crook of her shoulder. Then she leaned her head down against his and led him out into the light.
Mirror Space (Sentients of Orion) Page 17