Trin glanced back over to the boulders. More ligs had alighted near the base of the rocks and were crawling into the cracks that they had just vacated. Why so many of them? Why so large?
They moved forward again, but it was only a few steps before one of the Carabinere gave a hoarse shout. ‘Principe! Madre di Crux!’
Everyone stopped again.
‘Principe!’
The second shout came from Juno Genarro. He waved in the moonlight to Trin, indicating that he’d found a way up the mountain through the tangle of brush.
Trin waved back to him, then turned to the group. ‘Cue?’
They had spread out—instinctively, perhaps—around a Carabinere, who was on his knees. Before him was a hole. A clod of dirt lay alongside, the hole as though a piece of earth had simply flipped open.
Trin moved closer.
It has. One of the cracked surface segments had been knocked from its place by pressure from below. Something dark and thick and moist snaked out from the hole and licked at the man’s worn boot.
He scrambled backwards, out of reach.
‘A tentacle,’ said Joe Scali. ‘Saqr!’
Trin heard the terror in his voice. Joe knew what the Saqr could do—what they’d done to his sweetheart, Rantha, and all the others in Malocchi’s enclave. Herded them like pitiful animals and drained the fluid from their bodies. Thrown them atop each other in a used pile. Trin would never erase the memory of young Nathaniel clutching Rantha’s body.
‘It’s the Saqr. The Saqr are here!’ someone else screamed.
‘No!’ said Trin quickly, cutting off the panic. He pushed past Cass Mulravey and her Thomaas, and knelt down to observe the flicking flesh. ‘See how it is thicker, closer down to the hole, and the way it is retracting. I think it is more like a... tongue.’
‘But what creature has a tongue like that?’ Joe asked the question that they all wished answered.
‘Trinder!’ said Djeserit. She placed a hand on his shoulder and tugged. He felt gratified at her anxious tone.
‘There’s another one, Principe,’ said Tivi Scali. ‘Over there.’ He pointed towards the point where the sandcreeper met the clay.
Everyone began to shift, lifting their feet, searching in the moonlit dark for anything unusual. Little eruptions began occurring all around them; more clods of earth overturned.
‘We should not wait to find out,’ said Trin, suddenly.
But his decision came too late.
A creature the size of a large dog erupted from the first hole, collapsing a swath of earth around it. It shook off the dirt with heavy, rolling movements and snapped powerful jaws at the kneeling Carabinere.
The man stumbled to his feet and kicked it, but it lunged at his leg, snagging his ankle. He punched its head and it let go, momentarily stunned. Dark, multifaceted eyes reflected dully in the moonlight. It seemed to be looking at the ligs feeding from the creeper—deciding which it preferred.
Trin saw the thick, ridged, red skin and long, sweeping reptilian tail.
Checclia. Huge checclia.
It flicked its tail, catching the Carabinere with an almost insolent whip across his forearm, and bounded towards the ligs. The insects tried to lift and scatter but seemed sluggish from ingesting the flowers.
The checclia leapt upon the back of the closest one, ripping its abdomen in half in one bite. It clawed the lig’s wings, which made a sharp crackling sound as they tore.
‘Vai,’ shouted Trin. ‘Vai! To Juno Genarro!’
The group broke into a run, energised by fear and fuelled by the weed stimulant. Even the weakest of the women found strength. But other checclia were emerging rapidly from their holes. Trin tripped over one, lurching to recover his balance.
Thomaas and Cass Mulravey and her ragazzo were next to him. One of the reptiles sprang from its hole and ran up Thomaas’s back, digging claws deep into his shoulders. He stumbled and fell, shrieking in pain.
Cass Mulravey stopped to help him, dropping her ragazzo to the ground. She beat at the checclia with her bare hands.
It twisted its articulated neck and snapped at her flailing arms, hissing.
Trin ran back and pushed her aside. He kicked the checclia in the side of the head with his boot, as the Carabinere had done. It stopped snapping at Mulravey and turned its attention to Trin. The dark, lidless eyes seemed to regard him in a calculating manner. In a considered move, it bit deep into Thomaas’s neck.
The man writhed with uncontrolled agony.
Panicked, Trin kicked it again and again until it released its hold. Dark blood trickled from its jaws.
It flicked its tongue to catch the drips and launched itself towards Trin.
He dived sideways, knocking Mulravey over.
But the checclia’s intention was elsewhere. It connected with a descending lig and hooked its teeth into the end of its abdomen. The lig struggled for altitude and lost, pulled to earth by the checclia’s weight.
Its fight was short-lived and pitiful.
A sweet and cloying scent filled the air as the lig perished.
Trin and Cass Mulravey dragged the small, thin Thomaas to his feet and forced him on towards the rest of the group, who waited in the shelter of the brushline.
Joe Scali had hold of Djeserit, who was trying to return to them. He pushed her into his cousin Tivi’s arms and came himself, but Mulravey wouldn’t relinquish her hold of Thomaas.
‘Can—do—it,’ she gasped. ‘Take—’bino and get back.’
‘Principe?’
‘Back—Joe,’ said Trin. ‘More—coming.’
Joe snatched up the ragazzo, and ran as the ground around them turned into a mass of emerging checclia.
Thomaas had become a dragging weight against his shoulder, and Trin’s own strength faded. He fought an overwhelming desire to shrug the man off and leave him. A flash of memory brought with it the same rush of emotion he’d felt in Loisa when the silos had exploded. Seb Malocchi had fallen as the fire rushed towards them. Trin hadn’t wanted to stop and help him. But the moment took him out of himself, to another place.
Suddenly, Thomaas wasn’t connected to the irritating
Cass Mulravey; he was simply a fragile ‘esque, one of his kind, and his kind were too few.
Trin fumbled in his pocket for a weed pod and crammed the stimulant into his mouth. He repeated the action, this time forcing Thomaas to take it.
‘Chew and swallow,’ he ordered.
Mulravey reached for her own supply, and did the same without waiting for his bidding.
Trin felt his vigour return almost immediately, and he hoisted Thomaas higher. Mulravey responded with the same energy. They covered the last distance on a rush of adrenalin, falling into the waiting arms of Juno Genarro and Vespa Malocchi.
The Carabinere dragged them deep into the shelter of the thick undergrowth, where they lay, breathing hard.
Trin’s muscles twitched compulsively, and his heart pounded. Djeserit crawled to his side as he jerked and spasmed.
‘You saved Thomaas, Principe,’ she said. All the wonder and devotion had returned to her voice. ‘We should have kept moving, as you said. You knew... you knew.’
She cradled his head until his tremors settled, and the constriction eased in his chest. And when he was able, she helped him sit upright.
Cass Mulravey was near him, resting against the thick trunk of a small broad-leaved tree. Juno Genarro knelt next to her, leaning over Thomaas, pressing his hand against the wound on the man’s neck.
‘The bleeding has almost stopped, Principe. The effects of the pod have slowed the flow. We’ll be able to travel again soon, but he’ll need help.’
Trin looked over Juno’s shoulder. The rest of the group were scattered through the undergrowth, within hearing distance.
‘The checclia seem to like the open ground and the ligs. I think it will be safe for us to rest here a while longer,’ he replied.
Juno nodded, but it was Cass Mulravey who spoke.<
br />
‘Your instinct was right, Pellegrini. We should have listened to you on this.’ She said it loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘Next time, we will.’
Then, more quietly, she added, ‘Thank you.’ Her face was worn out with effort and the after-effects of the weed.
Trin knew he must look the same. But a strong emotion buoyed him. He had been right. And now they would all look to him.
MIRA
Mira? Is our baby coming?
Mira shut Insignia’s concern from her mind as another cramp spread across her belly and forced her to curl forward and grasp her knees.
Thales Berniere stared at her helplessly. ‘What should I do, Baronessa?’
His look of fear steadied her panic. She must stay calm and think. The baby was too young to be born yet. These pains would settle if she could rest for a time. ‘I must find a-a room. Somewhere I can lie down.’
Perspiration stood out on his scarred face. He licked his lips nervously. ‘Can you walk if I help you?’
She nodded. ‘I think so.’ She stood slowly, grasping Thales’s arm. The pain had faded quickly, as if it had never occurred.
He glanced out into the emporium. ‘Where would we find such a thing?’
She pointed across to a brightly veneered kiosk, sandwiched between food vendors. From their vantage point behind the refuse bins, the attendant looked to be a Lamin hybrid. ‘Transit units.’ She paused, taking a couple of shallow breaths to ease a building discomfort under her breastbone. ‘Randall spoke of them. They have sleeping couches and comm-soles.’
They walked across to the kiosk, Mira leaning on Thales’s arm. The young man was stiff and trembling.
‘Try to be still,’ she whispered. ‘We mustn’t appear jittery.’
He took a deep breath and dropped his bunched shoulders but the trembling didn’t stop. She sensed a still-fresh trauma in him—something more recent even than the terrible disfiguration of his face.
‘What’s yir pleasure?’ The Lamin hybrid’s face was unusually broad and sallow. Mira studied it, trying unsuccessfully to identify its mixed heritage, while it wiggled its nostrils at them and blinked its sloe eyes at her enlarged belly. ‘Double, I presume?’ it said in a patronising voice.
Thales hesitated, glancing at Mira for guidance.
‘Twin. And we would wish to wash.’
‘Yaaas,’ it said, as if to imply that they needed it. ‘Is extra.’
Mira nodded and handed over Thales’s credit clip. She hadn’t asked him how he had come by it, but she doubted it was his. Although the Scolar emblem was reassuring—suggesting it wasn’t stolen.
The half-Lamin clacked its long fingernails through several booking screens and selected a pass-key from a storage sleeve. It handed the small pliable chip over and pointed to a narrow escalator on the other side of a crepe stall. ‘Turn left at the top. Numbers are on the door plates.’ Then, as an afterthought, it added, ‘Blood residues are extra; deducted automatically. Refer to yir contract.’ It activated the screen at the front of the booth and set it to scroll through the rules and regulations.
Mira frowned at the creature. ‘That won’t be necessary.’ She collected the chip and the clip and turned away towards the escalator. Thales hastened to position himself at her side and they rode to the next level in silence.
Fortunately, their room was near the beginning of a row that stretched back further than Mira could see. It would arc eventually, she guessed, and curl back until it met the escalator on the right side. The row was periodically inset with other escalators that allowed access to the units above.
Mira opened the door and light flooded the space, illuminating a cabinet that doubled as comm-sole and ablution station with a pop-up stool, and behind it, two beds. The room was no wider than the door, and only just long enough for the furnishings.
She ushered Thales in front of her and shut the door firmly behind them, checking it was locked. He stood awkwardly in her way, but she pushed past him and sank onto the lower bed.
‘Baronessa?’
‘Just let me rest a while, and then we will speak,’ she said wearily. The abdominal pains had not returned, but she suddenly felt completely exhausted. She yearned for the soothing replenishment of Primo vein, but it would be a while before she was reunited with her ship—if ever. If Landhurst found her... Necessary risk, she told herself as she drifted.
Her sleep was heavy at first—a good while of it—and then became interspersed with the sounds of Thales climbing down from the top bunk to wash.
He switched on the station news and she listened to the low, droning report of the OLOSS summit. Though she could barely hear the details, she recognised the newsreader’s solemn tones.
When Thales requested a search on someone called Fariss O’Dea, however, she jerked fully awake. ‘Stop!’ she gasped.
His hand obediently blanked the screen, and he swivelled on the stool to stare at her.
Mira licked dry lips, and struggled to an upright position. As she moved, so did the baby, giving a sharp, reassuring dig under her ribs. ‘Station communication may be monitored for anything suspicious. Searching for anyone specific may draw attention to our comm-sole. Even an idle search.’
He reddened. ‘I-I am sorry, Baronessa. I didn’t think. The woman—Fariss—who saved my life, I’m concerned to know her fate.’
Mira closed her eyes and rubbed them gently with her forefingers; she felt grimy from being inside the milk bladder. ‘I think it is time you told me your story. We must be clear on the risks.’
He nodded.
‘Change places with me, and speak while I wash,’ she said.
He did as she instructed without comment or protest. He hadn’t been difficult or assertive when they’d last been together, but even so, Mira sensed a change in him. His volatility seemed to have been replaced by compliance.
She closed the comm-sole and opened the basin segment, sighing with pleasure at the sight of the tube of scented liquid soap. Her life lacked even the most basic of pleasures. She squeezed some onto her dry hands and mixed it with a spray of water, revelling in the slippery, gentle feel of it. She craved to unfold the larger basin and wash her entire body, but modesty denied her. ‘Tell me.’
‘When you were taken from Rho Junction, we—the mercenaries, the God Discoverer, Bethany and I—all went our separate ways. Circumstance had brought about my meeting an educated Lostolian gentleman at the medi-clinic where I went to receive the DNA. The man was called Tekton. He is a tyro with the Sole Entity. A man I believe you have mentioned before—though at the time, his name meant little to me.’
‘Tekton? The archiTect?’ Mira stiffened. ‘What brought him to Rho Junction?’
‘He did not disclose the details of his visit, though he brought a metallist to the clinic for urgent medical help, so I presume his business was in that line.’ Thales screwed up his forehead, remembering. ‘A craftsman, I think. A filthy old man who looked more like a vagrant.’
‘Did they mention which metal? Was it quixite?’ Mira’s thoughts flew in several directions at once. Could this be proof of Marchella’s dealing with Tekton, the Lostolian? If so, what was he crafting from the alloy? How close she had been to meeting him...
Thales was speaking again, and she dragged her attention back to him.
‘... but something told me not to allow myself to be injected with it, and instead the gentleman helped me take it from the attendant—with some force.’
Mira nodded, encouraging him to continue. She felt his eyes fix on the movement of her hands as she moisturised them.
‘The gentleman and I exchanged stories, and he offered Bethany and me quick passage back to Edo. I accepted. It was a rash decision, but I was panicked by the things he told me. I wanted to get back to Edo as quickly as possible. And, truthfully, I was eager to be free of Rast Randall and her confidants.’
‘I understand that desire,’ Mira agreed. ‘They are not the finest company to keep.’
&
nbsp; ‘Please understand, Baronessa, that I was sorry for your disappearance, as was Beth. But I didn’t think myself able to contribute in any way to finding you. Lasper Farr had injected me with a virus that would break down the barrier substance administered by Gutnee Paraburd. Returning to Edo to receive the antidote was uppermost in my mind.’ He seemed embarrassed but not acutely so. His life had been under constant threat since before he left Scolar and she couldn’t blame him for his decisions. Hers might have been the same.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I saw you in the infirmary. Insignia told me the results of your blood analysis.’
He nodded. ‘I wondered if the ship was aware of such things.’
Mira pursed her lips. ‘Insignia is aware of everything but chooses to only tell part of it.’
Thales gave another nod, though his thoughts were clearly moving forward. ‘As it was,’ he said, ‘I became acutely ill on the return ship. Lasper Farr’s virus eroded the barrier substance sooner than it should have because my own HealthWatch had been compromised—tampered with—and my immunity was low. It is how I got this.’ He touched the ugly, blackened scarring on his face. ‘Necrosis set in. Fortunately, we arrived at Edo in time for me to receive the antidote.’
Mira damped her face with a disposable cloth. Applying a tiny amount of the soap to her cheeks, she began the same gentle pattern of rubbing. It helped her stay calm as she listened and absorbed. ‘Who, do you think, tampered with your HealthWatch?’
Thales’s expression became bitter. ‘I believe that my father-in-law did so. Sophos Mianos. He wished me out of his daughter’s life once I began to question their ways. You met him, Baronessa. Do you think him capable of murder?’
Mira leaned her face into the basin and let the spray rinse it. Then she smoothed the drops from her face with her fingers. She turned to look at him calmly. ‘Si, I do. So let us hope that he was flung into space when Insignia tore away from her docking connection. Let us hope that his insides boiled and burst from within him.’
Thales’s eyes widened and his mouth opened in surprise.
‘I am beyond wishing well to cruel and greedy humanesques, Thales. Now please continue,’ she said, not giving him time to dwell on the callousness of her comment.
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