Indifferent amusement. But I do not think that you have much time.
Are you threatening me?
No. But understand. If there is no accord between us I will act without thought of you or your company. That is how it is.
Will you take us through shift now?
It is unlikely. Scol station security is maintaining an aggressive stance. They wish me to withdraw from the shift queue and dock. I do not wish for injury. My scales are already damaged. Self-repair is tiring.
Mira felt a pang of guilt. She had ordered Insignia to such an act without real thought of the effect.
Rast/Secondo: Tick-tock, Fedor!
Possibilities whirled through Mira’s mind and yet each led back to the same place: survival. Marchella Pellegrini had taught her that.
She ignored Rast and spoke to Insignia. If I agree to your desire for ‘rafa’ can I bring those I deem to be my familia with me?
Indeed. Your choice of family will be mine.
Will our contract be enduring?
Yes. Until you die.
Or you?
It is unlikely to be me.
One last, long silence. Agreed.
Mira felt luscious warmth spreading through her limbs, a cocktail of endorphins that were her reward for her agreement. Then Insignia made her ultimate demand.
I will need some assurance of your commitment until such time as you have retrieved the child Vito from Araldis.
The flow of endorphins thinned.
What is that?
Once your child is born it will stay with me. It must not leave me.
Mira gasped. No! But a baby needs to be fed, to be cared for by his mother...
I have the facility to do that. I can grow any tissue, replicate any nutrients. The babe will be cared for more adequately than if it is in your care...
A spinning, sickening feeling consumed Mira.
Rast/Secondo: Fedor—now or never.
Mira/Primo: What, Rast?
Rast/Secondo: We’re at a point where we can scrapshift from the refuse loop. But if we move any further in the queue we are stuck. Sec is already stationed on the final lip. Make the deal work, Mira. Now. NOW!
Insignia. I agree.
Prepare!
The biozoon’s visual shift-schema flickered and altered. Mira sensed adrenalin building through the biozoon like the bunching of muscles in an animal preparing to leap.
Rast/Secondo to the rest: ‘Find a nub.’
Impressions flared and extinguished: Latourn hauling the screaming philosopher to a tubercle, Catchut praying again, Rast fighting her desire to urinate, Mira’s own uncontrolled panting.
They were all caught in the building energy, helpless to affect it in any way.
At your mercy. The words stung. Then they began to blaze. Then every micro-measure of Mira’s body and mind caught fire. Not a hot white sizzling but a core-deep burning pain, as if holes were being drilled in her nerves while she lived and breathed and watched.
Rast/Secondo screamed. Latourn and Catchut and the philosopher too. Screaming... screaming.
But Mira did not join them. She folded the pain inward and clasped it close, smothering it with her own brand of coping.
It bucked inside her, contorted and fought her, building to a peak of pain-energy where she knew it would rend her open: disperse her.
But then its final rush came and a silhouette engulfed her, deluging her vibrating pain with stillness. The meeting of sensations trampolined Mira’s molecular structure high and wide, and as it fell back into an arrangement that felt more or less like her own she became aware of Insignia’s long and heartfelt Aaahhhhhhhhh...
* * *
When Mira could think again, a question waited in the forecourt of her mind. Insignia? The sentients who work on the Savvies. How do they survive this experience repeatedly?
She sensed approval of her questioning from the biozoon.
They have ways to soften the experience. My own biological adaptation makes it possible but not comfortable. I would not choose to do this under normal circumstances.
Mira wondered how the mercenary felt. Rast?
Yeah, Fedor. Everyone should experience this once.
Only a sadist would believe so, Mira thought back.
Your protected upbringing is showing again, Baronessa.
Mira did not bother to disguise her annoyance.
Where do we shift to now? Where do we find your Consilience?
We have found them, Rast answered.
Here? Insignia, virtual representation, per favore.
A stimulus passed through Mira’s occipital cortex. She sensed the mercenary’s brain pattern altering as she interpreted the same images. They both saw the biozoon’s unique representation of an ancient white- dwarf star in its dying phase, and the cool light it cast across a dozen AUs, and as many planets. The star system was unremarkable, even dismal, compared to Leah’s blue-hot brilliance.
An unbearably cold place, thought Mira.
Rast’s reaction was different. Mira sensed her satisfaction. Almost... pleasure.
She also felt an incongruity that she could not understand flowing from the ‘zoon’s data collectors.
How fascinating! Insignia’s excitement cut into her thoughts.
The map began to fill with detail: colourful representations of planet densities and a scattering of moving colours between them.
The moving lights are the Savvies, came Rast’s thought.
They are different sizes.
The smaller ones are the tugs. They tow things around.
What things?
Wait...
And there it was—the map overlaid its final detail, bringing the freezing barren system to bizarre awe-inspiring life.
Insignia: Akouedo.
Rast: Home.
Mira: Crux! What are they?
Rast: The things we once valued.
Huge glittering rings circled each of the twelve planets: moving bands of objects caught in an endless spin. Tugs darted in and out of them like firebugs braving the surf spray along the beaches of the Tourmaline Islands. Some reappeared towing a glittering mote to another location. Occasionally a gap in the ring would afford a better view of the planet beneath. Through it Mira saw swirls of brilliant colours: magenta, lime and burning gold.
How beautiful.
Rast: Poisonous gases. And refuse.
Mira: Ohhh—
Rast: Where else did you think it went?
I didn’t—
Rast: No.
Insignia: I have heard of this system but had not imagined it would be so beautiful. It is not recommended to my kind.
Rast: It was beautiful once. Wistful.
You are a native? Mira felt the mercenary’s nod: a small, sombre gesture. Almost vulnerable.
There are many of us now. That call Akouedo home.
Rast? Where do we go?
Rast’s energy shot to the seventh planet from the dying star. There. Take us there.
JO-JO RASTEROVICH
Mau, Bethany and Jo-Jo watched their approach to Akouedo’s seventh planet, Edo, on a tiny banged-up screen in an operator’s cabin next to the maglev gens.
Shift had been more comfortable this time—apart from the imitation Oort whisky. Loker kept his distance but the crew were keen for God-Discoverer stories over an evening of cards. To oblige, Jo-Jo told the story of his flight from the woman with the suffocating thighs. That tale alone—and his method of escape—got some of the crew refilling his cup for the duration, while the rest slipped off to their cabins for ‘private’ contemplation. What had seemed most agreeable at the time had turned into a gigantic hangover.
‘How does anyone navigate through this circle of junk?’ he demanded tetchily.
Mau shrugged.
But Bethany watched the screen with glittering eyes. ‘Each planet has a designated “chute” area for entry. Ingenious, really, but it’s disturbing to think that we produced all this rubbish.’
<
br /> ‘Who are we going to see down there, anyway? The garbage chief?’
Mau glowered at him. He pointed to a spot on the screen. ‘Here.’
The Savvy catapulted toward that very spot, a gap into a narrow channel kept clear by an elaborate cable-net system that reminded Jo-Jo of the shark nets on the beaches of Cerulea. It twisted inelegantly through the thick band of floating rubbish, leaving Jo-Jo with fleeting impressions of damaged solar arrays, discarded twirling metal stairways from space habitats, and endless torn sheets of reflectives drifting like glitter motes in water.
The view became brighter and brighter until the screen dimmed to compensate. Jo-Jo felt the Savvy straining against the acute angle of its dive and he found himself taking shallow breaths.
Bethany seemed to be doing the same, punctuating hers with little grunts each time she exhaled.
Apart from the thin sheen of perspiration on his cheeks and forehead Mau seemed unperturbed.
Only when they broke free from the ring of rubbish did Jo-Jo begin to breathe normally. He closed his eyes then, waiting impatiently for the Savvy’s chorus of docking noises.
When it finally happened he was deep in reverie.
‘Mr Rasterovich?’
Jo-Jo opened his eyes. Len the kid H-M was at his elbow. ‘Yeah.’
‘Captain Loker says for you to leave through the cargo hatch. Someone will be waiting for you.’
That was it? No fond farewell?
Jo-Jo nodded. The sentiment was the same from his side.
He held out his hand to the kid. ‘Find yourself a decent Captain.’
Len blushed and hurried away.
* * *
The three disembarked into a huge hangar that looked like a group of superseded docking modules that didn’t quite fit together. Everything overlapped and some things seemed to be duplicated. Jo-Jo could hear air blowing in from above but couldn’t see the vents in the dimly lit ceiling.
‘Ahem.’ A smartly attired Lamin stepped from the shadows to address them. Its tri-part nose quivered while it documented their scents and it pushed back a section of stiff black immaculately sectioned hair with fingernails that appeared to join straight to its wrist. Ridiculously cruel high heels attempted to flatter its stumpy shapeless legs.
Lamins usually worked as highly paid PAs for OLOSS politicians. This thought-caster was a long way out of the loop. ‘Step this way.’ It gestured towards a booth with plax walls.
As if to reinforce its demand two black-uniformed soldiers stepped forward. Each carried a lightweight firearm and wore a complicated blade kit around their waists.
Mau shepherded Beth inside the booth and Jo-Jo followed them. He stopped to watch through the plax as a small tug hooked onto the Savvy and towed it deeper into the hangar.
‘What a beauty!’ exclaimed Bethany. She was standing next to him but looking in the opposite direction at a large flat-winged ship floating against its dock.
Jo-Jo’s heart skipped: a biozoon like Salacious. ‘How much do you think?’ he murmured.
Bethany gave him a fierce stare. ‘You don’t buy that kind of creature. If you are lucky, it might pick you as a pilot. It’s not a hybrid that’s been hobbled.’
Jo-Jo looked back to the glistening scaled animal. ‘You mean it has an Innate?’
‘Yes, I would imagine so,’ said Bethany. ‘How lucky they are.’
The Lamin cleared its throat to gain their attention. ‘Edo is a closed port. While Mistress Bethany and Petalu Mau are welcomed home, we are not yet satisfied with the reasons for your presence, Mr Rasterovich.’
Home? Jo-Jo stared at Beth.
‘Lamin, he is here at my invitation,’ said Bethany.
Part of the creature’s nose twitched towards her. ‘I am sorry, Mistress, but it is required that he be questioned.’
She sighed and shrugged.
The Lamin continued. ‘What is the nature of your visit? Please be precise and accurate or you will be considered an intruder and isolated.’
Jo-Jo hesitated but the soldiers were inside the office as well now, gripping their weapons a little tighter. He could see little harm in the truth—in fact, he might be able to garner information from it. ‘Bethany wanted to come here. I helped her do that because she helped me. I don’t have business here as such. I am seeking a Lostolian named Tekton, an archiTect. We have some—err—business.’
A delay again. ‘You were involved in a Hera contract with this ‘esque.’
Jo-Jo took a breath, sensing Beth’s curious glance at him. Lamins made it their business to know everything. ‘Yes.’
But to his surprise the Lamin pursued it no further. Instead it asked them to follow. With the soldiers bringing up the rear it led them through a labyrinth of corridors. Each one was made of a different kind of material: foul-smelling singed plastics, extruded metal, synthetic tissue and wood. All were patterned by spreading fungi.
Jo-Jo realised after a while that the constant change was due to the nature of the building. The rooms along the corridors were actually giant packing crates cobbled together to simulate one mass.
The Lamin opened a hatch on a seemingly random crate and pointed inside with its long fingernails. ‘Sit and wait,’ it said.
It disappeared, leaving the soldiers guarding the door.
Jo-Jo crossed the interior of the bare crate and sat on a low shelf. Glancing upward he noticed that the light was coming in from under the unattached roof. Then the wall moved under his back, sending him straight to his feet again.
Beth came over and prodded it. ‘Cartilage. It was a popular building material for a while but was prone to bacterial infections. Modelled on the biozoon idea. People started to get sick from it, though. It was banned on OLOSS planets.’
‘Brilliant,’ said Jo-Jo between gritted teeth. The place had him on edge. He was already hungry and he needed to pee. It didn’t seem like the kind of place where you could do either of those things without a map and a day’s food supply, so he dug his hands into the pockets of his poker-won Savvy jacket and fell to thinking about recent events.
Their escape from Dowl still made him want to crap all the time; the closest he’d ever been to death and his bowels wouldn’t let him forget it. The terror of drifting in the black and the thoughts he’d had... they were with him still in the moments—like this one—when he let himself remember.
He looked across at Beth. She’d hauled him in on that tether, kept on talking to him, urging him to stay alive.
Did that make her a friend? Did he want her to be?
He wasn’t sure. He’d always thought himself perfectly happy without close company but she had put a tiny nick on the hard edge of his beliefs and now the whole damn thing had begun to tear. Nothing seemed as solid as it had.
The door opened again and the soldiers beckoned them back into the corridor. They were forced to walk between them this time, twisting and turning down the makeshift corridors again until they stopped in front of another crate. The walls on this one looked organic as well—but catoplasma this time, grown and modified.
Inside the crate/room a group of ‘esques sat around a low table. The ‘esque at the table end was flanked by more soldiers. Jo-Jo thought him unremarkable at first—an older man despite obvious rejuve, with cropped silver hair and a lean body.
Then he got close enough to see the man’s eyes. They were overly large for his face, and grey: dispassionate, intelligent eyes.
‘Beth?’ said the man softly. He did not stand or make any other change in his casual posture.
Beth blushed but met his gaze.
‘Lasper,’ she said.
Jo-Jo identified two of the other four people at the table as mercenaries. That left a soft-faced pretty young man who plucked at his sleeve with nervous fingers, and, lastly, a young woman. She was a small slender type like Bethany but dark-haired and fine-featured with vibrant crimson skin. She sat stiffly in a formal robe.
‘Are you going to introduce your friend, Beth?
’ asked the grey-eyed man.
Jo-Jo didn’t much like his attitude. ‘Josef Rasterovich.’
‘I know who you are, God-Discoverer, but I don’t tolerate poor manners. My sister seems to have forgotten that.’
‘Yeah, well, it’s possible that your sister’s got things on her mind,’ said Jo-Jo curtly. ‘Things shitty enough to bring her to you looking for help.’
Bethany froze. The robed woman stared at him. In fact, everyone in the room seemed suddenly on edge as if he’d crossed an invisible line of protocol.
The grey-eyed man leaned his elbows on the table and clasped his hands together. ‘Seems like you’ve found a champion, little sister.’
‘A friend,’ Beth corrected him. She balanced on one foot like an awkward kid. ‘You’ve always said I don’t have enough.’
Her brother’s mouth twisted into something that should have been a smile but wasn’t. He settled back in his seat. ‘Sit, please.’
It was not a request.
‘Mr Rasterovich, meet Baronessa Fedor and her companions. She is one of the last remaining royals from the planet Araldis—or so she would have me believe.’
The young Baronessa held out her hand to Jo-Jo. ‘I am pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.’
Jo-Jo couldn’t think of anything else to do, so he walked over and shook it.
Something appalling happened when his skin touched hers. The worst of things. Perhaps it was the incredible softness of her hand. Or the way her erect posture seemed to be a brace against the hard life she led. Or maybe it was the deep, deep look of desperation in her eyes. But in that moment, the something that had glued Jo-Jo together for his entire life came unstuck. He found himself stranded between diffident and nervous—a place he had never been before. ‘J-josef,’ was all he managed to stammer.
‘Now, Baronessa, continue your story,’ said Bethany’s brother.
‘But it is not the business or the interest of these people,’ replied the Baronessa.
‘I think it is. Now continue.’
The woman glanced at the soldiers. There was no mistaking the grey-eyed man’s imperative.
She took a breath. ‘My planet, Araldis, has been invaded by a tardigrade species known as the Saqr. A mercenary by the name of Ludjer Jancz, we think, is responsible for it. Mia sorella was killed in an explosion set by him. All the bambinos that she gave shelter to died as well: babies, barely able to suckle. The invasion is widespread with only a few survivors, who are in hiding. We did not bring this upon ourselves, nor are they likely to survive much longer if I do not bring help.’ She drew another shaking breath. ‘My bambino, Vito, is still there.’
The Sentients of Orion Page 50