The Sentients of Orion

by Marianne de Pierres

  Farr’s eyebrows lifted almost imperceptibly. Surprise. And irritation.

  Tekton danced a few restless steps around them all. Yes, you psychopath! he shouted. I’m not dead! And I’ve got your precious device.

  ‘And you brought him aboard?’

  ‘Didn’t know what else ta do wiv him, sir. He wuz kinda lost. I wuz thinkin’ ta drop him off at Intel. Let him be on his way.’

  ‘With my device?’ Farr’s tone had lost its quiet control, a note of wildness creeping in.

  ‘Din’t know he’d nicked it. Found him here all right. Figured he wuz just bein’ nosy, you know, seein’ how a fancy Commander lives and stuff. I took him down to the cargo bay and let him out. He musta taken yer thing when me back was turned.’

  Hob’s explanation was so simple and ingenuous that Farr seemed confounded by it. Fists clenched, he stalked to a corner of the room and stood there, processing the situation.

  Tekton watched Samuelle take Jelly Hob’s hand and squeeze it. She gave him a grateful smile for protecting her part in it.

  As Hob grinned at her, Tekton was filled with conflicting emotions yet again. Delight led the field; he’d annoyed and trumped Lasper Farr in no uncertain terms. But worry undermined his pleasure—what had Lasper thought to use the device for? How had he planned to prevent the Extros from taking Orion? What would the repercussions be?

  Then another kind of concern began gnawing. What would the insane Commander do to Jelly Hob now?

  Of all the ‘esques Tekton had ever met, Hob was the only one to have stirred any real sense of gratitude in him. Tekton didn’t even hold it against him that he’d told Farr who’d stolen the device. He was right to protect Samuelle. Consilience—their independent political organisation—might be the only group capable of stopping the Extros. And for Consilience to operate, Samuelle and Bethany needed to survive.

  As Lasper stepped out of his corner and paced one quick circuit of the cabin, Tekton placed his imagined hand on Hobb’s shoulder, willing the old fellow to do something clever to save himself.

  Then Tekton saw the Commander become very still, as though shocked into immobility. After a long, uncertain moment, he cleared his throat.

  ‘Kill the pair of them,’ Lasper told his men. Then he pointed to Bethany. ‘And lock her in her cabin—for now.’

  BALBAO

  Debris from Belle-Monde battered their lifeship. With each collision, Balbao’s desire to survive grew stronger. Chunks of flight instruction broke free of his long-term memory and floated into the present, and he began frantic res-shift preparations: check buffers, trajectory parallels, co-ordinate sequ—His hands shot out of virtual arrangement as the ship shuddered under the impact of something large.

  He righted himself, snatched the vessel back into position and began acquiring damage feed. The view outside the ship showed a frightening minefield of flotsam between them and the Geni-carrier.

  We must stay unnoticed long enough to make shift. That meant... No! A sliver of panic crept in. I-I can’t... pilot as well as...

  A thin-fingered hand touched his knee. His eyes refocused on Ra.

  ‘What is it, Balbao?’ asked Ra. ‘What do you need?’

  ‘With no moud, I must prepare for shift manually.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The Geni-carrier will detect us if we don’t use the debris to hide.’

  ‘You need someone to pilot while you prep?’

  Balbao nodded.

  Ra undipped his safety net and teetered across the small space. His light frame fell against Balbao’s as the internal gravity fluctuated wildly.

  ‘Strap me in with you,’ said Ra. ‘I am able to pilot without a moud.’

  ‘How so?’ asked Balbao, fumbling to secure them both.

  Ra’s strange segmented eyes rippled as if lit from within. ‘Sole’s reward. Release the backup.’

  Balbao banged a panel to his right, and a sensor piece dropped out. Ra slipped it across his forehead and pressed the interface point to the back of his neck. He lifted his hands above his lap and waited for the virtual field to activate. ‘I will keep us as well hidden as I can.’

  His fingers began to twitch and twirl. Almost immediately the buffeting stopped.

  ‘Thank Sole!’ Miranda exclaimed with relief. ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Start thinking,’ said Balbao curtly. ‘Work out what the hell is going on and, if we survive, what we should do about it.’ He didn’t bother to look at her. ‘And for Crux sakes do it quietly!’

  With half an eye on Ra, Balbao fell back to his task. Only a tiny portion of his mind registered Ra’s manoeuvres, but enough that he would remember his skill for ever. However long that turned out to be.

  His own virtuals showed him that the remains of Belle-Monde were spread in a shining metallic landscape across Mintaka’s outer system. The lifeship’s EM scanners were giving similar information for the space between them and the shift station. He double-checked his coordinates. Min Minor, the closest planet, wasn’t where it should be. Instead, there was a giant expanding dust cloud.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Balbao, with full Balol anger intonation.

  Ra didn’t pause or react.

  Labile Connit did. ‘Bad news?’

  ‘Min Minor,’ said Balbao. ‘It’s gone.’

  ‘Gone? A planet can’t be gone.’ Miranda lifted her head from whispering in Jise’s ear. Her face was puffy.

  Balbao might have been disgusted by her appearance, had he not been distracted with his own fury. He wanted to bellow and break things to vent his upset. ‘The fucking planet is fucking gone!’

  ‘It’s the Extros... My God, they’ve wiped out a planet,’ said Connit.

  ‘Fifty million sentients,’ said Jise. ‘Fifty million.’’ He spoke slowly, as if trying to absorb what it meant. ‘That can’t be. It just can’t.’ He banged his head back against the seat.

  ‘Fifty million and five, if we don’t get out of this system,’ said Balbao. ‘Ra?’

  They waited a long few moments before the Godhead answered. ‘I can keep us hidden for a few more hours, but on this trajectory we’ll soon encounter the worst of the dust from Min Minor. I’m not sure the ship will withstand it.’

  ‘Can we go around the worst of it, Ra?’

  ‘Not without finding clear space and being noticed.’

  ‘Then what do we do?’ asked Miranda.

  ‘There are a number of larger ships in the area. Most are hastening to the shift station,’ said Ra.

  Miranda’s bottom lip dropped. ‘Can we contact some of them? They would take us aboard, surely? We’re refugees!’

  ‘Our signal will pinpoint our position,’ said Balbao. ‘And it’s unlikely they’ll come for us. Everyone with any sense will be leaving as quickly as they can. They’re all refugees.’

  A glum silence fell over the cabin as Ra and Balbao went back to concentrating on their tasks.

  Miranda laid her head on Jise’s shoulder. ‘I wonder where Tekton is?’ she said softly.

  ‘Being carnal somewhere, no doubt. Why?’

  ‘He always was lucky,’ she sighed. A tear trickled down her nose and plopped onto her hand.

  Jise squashed it with his thumb and squeezed her wrist. They hunched together in mutual support.

  Opposite them, Labile Connit closed his eyes and mouthed something prayer-like.

  Who’d have imagined this? Balbao mused as the ship’s computer ran shift-algorithms. Though someone should have. The Extros fled quickly from the Stain Wars. OLOSS should have guessed they were rebuilding. No wonder Sole has disappeared.

  Disappointment stabbed him. The entity had not bothered to warn the tyros of the danger. Whatever the nature of its sentience, compassion surely did not feature. Or perhaps the timing was mere coincidence. Perhaps Sole had no foreknowledge.

  He considered that notion for a while, then discarded it. Sole knew all right. ‘Your god abandoned you,’ he said aloud.

  Jise lifted his head. ‘Pard
on me?’

  ‘Sole. He didn’t warn you, and he left you to die.’

  ‘What evidence leads you to believe Sole knew what was about to happen?’ demanded Connit.

  ‘What evidence is there that Sole didn’t?’

  Any answer was stalled by a sudden vibration.

  Miranda sucked in a noisy breath. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Rock showers from the dust,’ said Ra. ‘We should activate the buffers.’

  ‘But they won’t protect the ship enough,’ said Connit.

  ‘Do you have any useful comments to make?’ snapped Balbao.

  Connit glared at him. ‘Do you understand the forces at work, Balbao? Ra can’t dodge the remains of an entire planet.’

  ‘I don’t have to be a geneer to know that.’

  ‘Then change direction and head away from the dust cloud.’

  ‘It will catch us anyway, Labile,’ said Ra.

  ‘For Crux sakes, ask for help,’ pleaded Miranda. ‘It has to be better than disintegration.’

  They all stared at each other. Doubt laced their moment of mutual agreement. Was it?

  Ra sighed. ‘I’ll ‘cast a distress signal and buffer the cabin. At least the planet fallout will make it harder for the Geni-carrier to notice us.’

  Within moments of his words the vibration stilled.

  ‘How long will the ship hold together?’ asked Jise.

  Balbao shrugged. He’d done everything he could, and it hadn’t been enough. It seemed so unfair that his brilliance should be wasted on such an untimely death. ‘Impossible to say.’

  Miranda grasped Jise’s hand and then reached out for Connit’s. ‘Then I think it’s time we prayed.’

  ‘Who to?’ asked Ra.

  ‘The Entity,’ said Miranda. ‘Surely if we concentrate our thoughts, it will hear us.’

  ‘And you truly think it would care?’ Ra again.

  Miranda rebuked him with a stare. ‘You, of all of us, should be the closest to Sole. You could at least try.’

  Ra sucked his thin lips inside his mouth and nodded. He removed the pilot interface, loosed the safety web around him and twisted around so that he could reach the others’ hands.

  Balbao watched them with despair. What nonsense were they on about in the face of their own demise? He bared his teeth and let loose a small growl. His frill stiffened in agitation. If only they would use their supposed intellects for something helpful.

  Alarms dragged his attention back to the ship information flow. The scanners told him that they were heavily mired in the fallout from both Belle-Monde and Min Minor now; data was escalating; stress limits approaching. Among the confusing accretion of information, he nearly missed the response to their SOS.

  Breath on hold, he sent a pingback before alerting the others. When it confirmed itself as an OLOSS ship, sweat oozed out from under Balbao’s scaly skinplates. He sent their coordinates immediately, and was rewarded with an estimated rendezvous of less than an hour.

  Balbao opened his mouth to share the joyous news with the others, then promptly shut it again. The four tyros were still communing silently.

  He leaned back in his seat and took a deep relieved breath. Let them keep working for it. Let the annoying bastards work for it.

  TRIN

  ‘Do you see them, Principe?’

  ‘Si.’ Trin struggled to keep irritation from his reply. Of course he did; the night sky was filled with them, yet Joe Scali had still deemed it necessary to ask, like a child repeating unnecessary things to a parent.

  Trin’s patience with his friend had been short since he had seen him standing so close—so intimately close—to Djeserit on the darkened beach.

  ‘What do you think, Principe?’ asked Juno Genarro. ‘OLOSS, perhaps?’

  Trin stared at the hundreds of lights floating across the night sky, high enough, it seemed, to be in outer orbit. ‘I would like to say they are our salvation, but something tells me not.’

  The three men stood on the peak of the mountain. From the same vantage point he and Djes had seen the circular-shaped ship descend several days before. He had not told his people about it, but the appearance of thousands of satellites changed things.

  Now a deeply troubled feeling beset him. ‘Juno, go down and call everyone together. I will follow soon.’

  As he had since the early days of the invasion, Juno complied without argument or question. In many ways, aside from Djeserit, he had been Trin’s best ally and aide. Trin felt Juno’s respect and their common desire to keep the old ways alive.

  ‘What concerns you, Trinder?’ asked Joe Scali, when Juno had left.

  Trin meant to dismiss the question. Instead, he found other words coming out of his mouth. ‘You have developed strong feelings for Djes.’

  Under the glow of the thousands of satellites he saw Joe shrink a little, as if punched. The man had never really regained his equanimity since the Saqr had killed Rantha and her unborn child. Nowadays, Scali wore his emotions openly, and with less control than a young girl. Trin saw him weeping often.

  ‘I... we all... have great regard for her.’ He stumbled over his reply. ‘Djeserit has saved us. Kept us fed. Brought us here.’

  ‘That is true,’ Trin allowed. ‘But it would be foolish to mistake your feelings of gratitude for anything else. Wouldn’t it?’

  Joe Scali bowed his head. He shifted away from Trinder in obvious discomfort.

  ‘I am clear, signor?’ asked Trin softly.

  ‘Si, Principe.’

  Trin had expected meekness and embarrassment, but Scali’s tone held a trickle of stubbornness.

  Should he say more?

  No. He would speak with Djes. At the moment there were more important things to address. ‘We should join the others.’

  He turned his back on his friend and made his way back down the shoulder of the peak to the caves.

  The group was assembled outside. Over the previous days the women had swept and moved rocks to make a space that would accommodate them all, while the men had begun fashioning beds and tables from the small bushes that cloaked the mountainside.

  Trin had instructed them to take the brush selectively, so as not to plainly show their presence. Djeserit had returned to the sea, taking Tivi Scali to wait on the beach and help her carry her catch. For several meals now they’d dined on white fish and roots that Cass Mulravey had identified as safe to eat. The food was still raw, but their bellies were almost full, and many of them had brush cots to sleep upon. Given time, they could make themselves even more comfortable.

  Trin glanced into the night sky. But would they have that time? He stepped into the circle of bodies and crouched in the middle. The division between Mulravey’s women and the rest had lessened since their encounter with the giant ligs—as though Trin’s warnings of imminent danger had finally brought real acknowledgement of his authority to lead their group.

  The women sat interspersed among his men, and already he could see pairings beginning to develop. Juno Genarro and his cousin Josefia, Tivi Scali and Tina Galiotto. Cass Mulravey’s brother Innis kept close to his sister and the tall outspoken woman Liesl. His surly expression rarely changed, and of all of the survivors Innis Mulravey made Trin the most uneasy.

  They quietened as one, waiting for him to speak, but their excitement was unmistakable. He wanted to reach out and take Djeserit’s hand for reassurance, but she was next to the korm, and now wasn’t the time for a physical display of need.

  He took a breath. ‘You would all be hoping that the lights that we can see are the precursor to an OLOSS rescue.’ He glanced up. ‘I would too... but you must know that it’s not so.1’

  Everyone spoke at once, a clamour of questions and protests.

  ‘Quiet!’ he cut across them sharply. ‘On the day of our arrival at the caves, Djeserit and I climbed to the peak. From there, while you rested, we saw a craft enter the atmosphere and land. It was alien in shape to anything in OLOSS.’

  ‘Could it be an
ally still, Principe?’ asked Tivi Scali.

  Trin regarded Joe’s younger cousin. He had a quick resourceful mind, and had not been affected—disturbed—by the Saqr invasion in the way that Joe had. ‘It is possible, Tivi. But unlikely. The look of the craft—it was round like a disc, but deep as well.’

  ‘How would we know what’s out there, stuck on this backwater planet? Could be OLOSS has a whole fleet of ships shaped like that. What makes you so sure it’s not them? I say we start a fire on the beach. Let ‘em know we’re here,’ said Innis Mulravey.

  Trin shot him a quelling look, but its impact was lost in the moonlight.

  ‘I saw the ship as well,’ said Djeserit. ‘And I agree with the Principe.’

  ‘Yeah, but you would.’ Innis’s laugh was deprecating, almost dirty.

  ‘Innis!’ Cass Mulravey placed a warning hand on her brother’s shoulder.

  ‘There will be no fires lit. It is more imperative than before that our presence goes unnoticed,’ said Trin. ‘If the ship that landed is part of the Saqr invasion, then it is only logical that the lights we can see in the sky are more of the same.’

  Innis pushed Cass away and stood up. ‘You just wanna keep us here, so you can play lord. Well, I’m sick of takin’ orders from Your Highness of Nuthin’ and your half-breed missus.’

  Trin’s body went rigid at the insult, his mind narrowing to a single point of fury. He stood up slowly and took a step towards Innis.

  Tivi, Juno and Joe all jumped to their feet as well, but Kristo, Mulravey’s man, beat them all. He threw a quick hard punch at Innis, which sent him sprawling backwards.

  ‘Shut yer stupid mouth,’ said Kristo. ‘If it hadn’t been fer the both of them, you’d be dead. Like as much, we’d all be. I don’t hold to their royalty, or whatever it is, but like it or not he’s made good decisions. I’d listen to him and quit yer mouthin’.’ He kicked Innis in the thigh for good measure. ‘And don’t badmouth women. Last time you treated a woman bad, you nearly got yourself killed. That mere was gonna rip yer guts out. Woulda thought you’d learned from that.’