Grim satisfaction settled on Lasper Farr’s face. What did he know about Miranda Seeward, Balbao wondered, that even her colleague and lover Lawmon Jise did not?
‘I would give you time to discuss your issues privately.’ Farr nodded at the guards.
They moved forward to escort Jise, Seeward, Ra and Balbao out of the room, leaving Connit.
Connit baulked, not wanting to be left with his father.
Ra, on the other hand, had no wish to leave the Commander’s presence, and jerked from their grasp. ‘Where is the device, Lasper?’
Farr’s lips pinched tight. ‘It’s gone. But you will make another for me soon.’
‘Gone? But I’d need equipment, and—’
Two simple arm movements from Farr decreed they all leave his presence, and Ra was unable to finish.
Balbao marched between the guards, grateful to be away from Farr, but his relief faded quickly when he saw where they were to be left.
‘We are not criminals,’ said Lawmon Jise to the guards. ‘We are refugees whom your Commander chose to take aboard. How dare you treat us like this?’ The tyro was so outraged that he let go of Miranda’s arm to push the guard.
A cuff from the soldier sent him sprawling into the containment cell. The rest of the refugees entered in shocked quiet, at gunpoint. Even Miranda was silent as she hurried over to Jise.
The containment field engaged, and they found themselves in a sparse space furnished with narrow fold-down bunks and a fold-down module that served as both washroom and san. There was no privacy, and the cell was already inhabited.
Two of the oldest ‘esques Balbao had ever seen sat together on a single bunk. One, a woman with an impossibly lined face and an oddly toned physique, stared openly at them. The other, a man almost as aged, gazed after the guards.
The woman got up and came over, hand outstretched. ‘Call me Samuelle. This is Jeremiah Hob. Whatever you’ve all done to piss Lasper off, I’m real grateful.’
Balbao and the others stared at her.
‘See, he’s plannin’ to kill us. Then he had to go off dodging Extros to catch up with you all. We’re bettin’ he’s had too much else on his mind to think about us,’ she explained.
The male ‘esque, Hob, slid off his bunk and began unfolding the others. ‘Too much tellin’, Sammy. Let ‘em catch their breath.’
He hobbled over to Jise and offered him a hand. ‘Let’s get you up on a bed.’
OLOSS’s most vaunted lawmon accepted the gnarled hand, and was helped to a bunk. ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Jise in a shaky voice. ‘Please excuse our disarray; we’ve had rather a rough time of it.’
‘When you’re ready,’ said Hob, ‘we’d like to hear about it, and about what’s happening out there. Could be our stories might interest you too. Could be we can help each other.’
Balbao was taken with the old fellow’s dignified manner, as, he could tell, was Jise.
‘Take a bunk,’ Balbao suggested to the others.
Everyone did so, except Ra, who paced the length of the containment. The old woman, Sammy, watched him, clearly fascinated by the Godhead’s strange appearance.
‘Where in the name of Crux did you get those eyes? Thought I’d seen everythin’, but I ain’t seen nothing like them,’ she said.
Her comment was straightforward, bordering on simple, but Balbao didn’t think that was a reflection of her mind. Her sharp eyes were busy assessing everything. What in Sole’s name, he wondered, could this ancient and seemingly harmless couple have done to enrage Lasper Farr?
He leaned back against the wall and lifted his legs onto the bunk. As if on cue, a dreadful fatigue washed over him. ‘Is there anything to drink?’
Hob got up and went to the washing module. He pressed a panel, and a tube filled with water slid out of a slot. He twisted the tube from the dispenser and tossed it to Balbao. ‘Don’t take too long to drink it. The tube dissolves after a while so it can’t be used for anythin’. Anyone else?’
Everyone except Ra murmured their assent. Hob busied himself doling the water out while Balbao drank his. It tasted faintly musty, as though the recycler need recalibrating. By the time he’d finished it, some of his distress had faded.
He got off his bunk and dispensed another. Settling back to drink it, he began to talk. Jise and Miranda still seemed to be too upset, and Labile Connit looked as if he might be in shock. Ra appeared angry above all.
‘Commander Farr rescued us from our lifeship in the Mintaka system. We are now, so we are told, on our way to Scolar.’
‘Scolar? Why there?’ asked old Sammy.
‘We went through imperfect shift, didn’t we?’ said Hob.
‘Yes. Imperfect shift. I believe that biozoons use it, but I’ve never heard of an OLOSS ship managing it.’
‘This ain’t no OLOSS ship,’ said Hob.
Balbao nodded. ‘Indeed. As for why we are going to Scolar...’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps it’s the only place left with the shift sphere still functioning.’
‘What?’ they both cried.
‘The Extros invaded Mintaka, destroyed our research station and an entire planet.’
‘A planet?’ Hob and Sammy stared at each other, faces crinkled with incredulity.
‘Balbao speaks truthfully,’ whispered Jise. ‘We are only alive because Lasper Farr came looking for his son.’ He turned a bewildered stare on Labile Connit. ‘Labile?’
‘I’m not his son,’ Connit insisted from where he huddled on his bed.
The eyes upon him were unconvinced.
Balbao thought he had a lean likeness to Farr, though his colouring was darker, his eyes brown, not grey. It was possible the shape of his face resembled the Commander’s, but that could have been his imagination.
‘This is not a time for lies, Labile,’ said Ra.
The geneer straightened and glared back at them. ‘Then I shouldn’t be the only one to tell. We all have secrets. Especially you, Ra. How do you know Lasper? What have you done? What was the device you asked about? Have you been working with him?’
Ra stepped closer, his paper-thin skin pale and taut.
Balbao noticed the slight peeling around his hairline. He had little enough hair to hide it.
‘Are you accusing me of something, Connit?’
‘All I know is that any collusion with Lasper Farr would be suspicious.’ Without warning, Connit leapt at Ra, his hands grasping the Lostolian’s throat. ‘What is it? What did you build for my father?’
Balbao and Hob both intervened. Hob knocked Connit back with a well-placed punch. The old fellow had been around, thought Balbao as he pulled Ra away.
‘Enough,’ he bellowed with full Balol ferocity. ‘If any violence is to occur, it will be from me.’ For the first time since any of them had known him, he bared his warrior’s teeth. For good measure he let loose a growl.
Neither Sammy nor Hob batted an eyelid, but Miranda shrieked and clung tighter to Jise.
‘What is happening to us?’ she wailed.
‘Miranda!’ Balbao growled again.
She curtailed her wail to a whimper.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘it is time we talked. All of us. And quickly. It may be the only—the last—chance we get. Labile?’
The geneer scowled at Ra as he spoke. ‘He is my biological father. But he didn’t raise me or have anything to do with me. I don’t acknowledge him.’
‘Have you met him before?’ asked Balbao,
Connit closed his eyes and nodded. ‘Once. He came to visit my mother when I was younger. To look me over, no doubt. He didn’t like what he found, and we never saw him again. Though he did help my mother to pay the studium costs.’
‘So it’s thanks to him you’re a geneer?’ said Ra. ‘That’s hardly uninvolved.’
‘The important thing from our perspective is that you aren’t one of his people,’ said Balbao.
Jise nodded agreement.
‘You mean, was I his spy on Belle-Monde? No. And I take offence at
anyone who would suggest it,’ Connit said hotly.
Ra made a disparaging noise and turned away.
Sole’s favoured Godhead was beginning to annoy Balbao beyond comfortable tolerance. ‘Ra?’
‘What of you two?’ Ra asked the cell’s original occupants. ‘Who are you? Other than old.’
Sammy opened her mouth to retort but Hob put a calming hand on her arm. ‘You heard of Consilience?’
‘Are you members?’ asked Miranda.
Hob smiled, somewhat proudly, thought Balbao. ‘Sammy’s one of the leaders.’
Ra froze.
‘And I,’ continued Hob, ‘was Commander Farr’s pilot during the war. And more recently. Until I happened to let Tekkie sneak off with some real important device that belonged to the Commander.’
‘Tekkie?’ shrilled Miranda.
‘Device?’ chimed in Ra.
Hob grinned at them. ‘Yeah, Tekkie. Tekton. He pinched the Commander’s future-readin’ machine.’
JO-JO RASTEROVICH
Jo-Jo set the coordinates for the first of the most likely islands. Randall had taken control of the AiV, and he sat next to her, watching intently in case he needed to fly it. Catchut lay across the back seats, exhausted from the climb to the villa.
They’d encountered no Saqr on the way, which made Jo-Jo uneasy.
‘Where are they all?’ he’d whispered to Randall as they entered the abandoned villa from a basement door.
Randall didn’t reply till they reached the catoplasma landing pad on the top of the building. Then she tilted her head to the sky. ‘You noticed anything up there?’
Jo-Jo took a moment to catch his breath and take in the glittering vista. Neither of the moons was up yet, and the sky was studded with the lights of alien craft. Less of them, though, than there had been.
‘They’re leaving,’ said Jo-Jo.
‘Yeah,’ said Randall. ‘Seems so. Gotta real bad feeling about this.’
Jo-Jo had to agree. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
The AiV lifted into the air without incident. Randall kept the landing lights off, concentrating on the flight panel, watching the altitude and infrared sensors.
Jo-Jo stared out into the darkness, wondering what stretched below them, besides the desert. What a Crux-forsaken world to have been born into. He felt a pang of sympathy for Mira Fedor. Dust and repression had been her life while his had been so free.
‘You plannin’ your funeral?’ said Randall.
‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Shoulda passed the Extro ship by now. Can’t see nothin’ down there, though. Unless it’s sunk into the sand.’
Randall checked her map. ‘You’re right. No sign. Wonder when that moved?’
Jo-Jo glanced out at the sky. ‘Mebbe it’s got something to do with things shifting around up there.’ He kept staring until his attention was caught by something lower on the horizon.
‘Looks like a fire,’ he said eventually.
As they drew closer, the glow cast a dim light and moving shadows across sand dunes. ‘That a town?’
‘Was Loisa,’ said Randall, consulting the flyer’s map again. ‘Fedor’s hometown. She had a villa there with her sister. Thought it’d be all burned out by now, But this damn atmosphere’s lethal. Keeps stuff smoulderin’ for ever.’
Jo-Jo felt Mira’s presence keenly again, as though she was in the cabin with them. He clenched his fists.
‘Funeral again?’ asked Randall.
‘How far, Capo?’ asked Catchut from the back seat.
‘Day and a night, mebbe. Depending on whether we luck upon them. That’s all the fuel we got, anyway.’
‘Maybe we can pick up some extra fuel cells on the way.’
She nodded. ‘If we see anything. If it’s safe to put down.’
They fell silent again, Catchut dozing while Jo-Jo scoured the murky landscape for wreckage or landmarks. Randall set the AiV on auto and sat almost motionless.
Maybe Jo-Jo slept for a while. He must have, because Randall’s nudge to his shoulder and curt ‘Crux!’ jerked him to awareness.
He rolled his tongue over his teeth. They felt coated with neglect. He blinked a few times and stared out into the dark—by now, the not so dark. Far off to Randall’s side of the AiV was a fiery glare: not the orange glow of fire but the stark white of electricity.
‘Whassat?’ he slurred sleepily.
Randall checked her settings and fingered the location map to take them closer. They executed a wide sweep of the area, keeping their distance from the light.
‘Saqr there. Plenty of them, by looks,’ said Catchut. ‘But what’re they doing?’
Jo-Jo strained already tired eyes across Randall’s shoulder. ‘Looks like they’re all over the Extro ship.’
‘Well, least we know where it went,’ said Randall.
‘And where they went. Where are we?’
‘AiV’s map says it’s a mine called Juanita, between the Pablo tunnels.’
‘Means squat to me,’ said Jo-Jo.
‘Lost two of my original crew in there. Tunnel collapse. Still ain’t convinced it was accident. Always had an inklin’ I knew who did it.’
‘Tough,’ said Jo-Jo. ‘But so what?’
‘Juanita mine had somethin’ goin’ on. Namely, quixite. The Pablo mine next door has the longest tunnels on the continent. We had a tour down into one of them where there’d been some trouble. Fedor said she left Pellegrini and the survivors inside the Pablo shafts. She thought he’d follow the tunnels south, get as close to the coast as he could.’
Jo-Jo stared at the eerie sight of Saqr crawling all over Extro ship. ‘Can we get closer?’
Randall was obligingly conversational for once. ‘I’m figurin’ they already know we’re here. If we keep on movin’, chances are they’ll be too caught up in what they’re doin’ to come chasm’ us. We go in close, who knows? They might just blow us out of the sky.’
She was probably right. Their curiosity wasn’t worth the risk of attracting attention. Yet something itched at Jo-Jo. Something important was happening there. He knew it.
Randall reset their direction, and within a short time Medium had faded into the distance and the dark.
Sunrise came a few hours later, a gradual lightening then a blinding raw incision of light into the scorching world. The cabin windows automatically dimmed, and the AiV’s environmental struggled to keep them cool. Despite wearing the fellalo he’d stripped from the dead Latino, Jo-Jo was hot. The flowing robe with the interior webbing of cooling nanites felt like a shroud.
They discussed the water situation and agreed how best to stretch out their supply.
‘They reckon these robes can recycle your piss into something palatable, if you need it,’ Randall remarked.
‘Got none to spare,’ said Jo-Jo. ‘Haven’t pissed since we left.’
She shrugged and stared out across the endless red desert.
* * *
By the time they saw the first glint of water, Jo-Jo’s tongue felt twice its normal size. None of them had spoken for several hours.
Randall tapped the map, changing direction.
‘What you doin’?’
‘We left an AiV on the Principe’s island. It’s how we got to the biozoon. Mebbe the fuel cell’s got some life in it.’
Jo-Jo nodded and blinked away the stinging sweat that ran from his hair into his eyes. The AiV turned on a northerly bearing and followed the coast. The islands beyond were dots of grey relief in a brilliant stretch of ocean. Somehow, it soothed Jo-Jo to see so much water.
‘Most of them are nuthin’ more than spits of sand,’ said Randall, nodding towards the islands.
‘You think they made it this far, Capo?’ asked Catchut.
The mercenary’s ankle injury from being stuck in the Extro goo was festering. Jo-Jo could smell it. Hopefully, Catchut’s Health Watch was enough to overcome the infection. He seemed lucid enough, and without fever.
‘Here? Yes. But how they’d get over to th
e islands?’ Randall shrugged. ‘Maybe the palazzo’ll give us some ideas.’
On the back of that statement, she sent the AiV into a descent. Ahead of them and to the left Jo-Jo saw an island marked with wide-arched buildings, incongruous on the scantly vegetated tract of sand.
‘They like things to look like home,’ commented Randall, as if reading his mind. ‘You been to Latino Crux?’
Jo-Jo nodded. ‘Once. The women were too quiet for my liking.’
Randall laughed and gave him a sideways glance. ‘Funny how things work out, huh?’ She stopped short of saying, funny that you fell for one of them anyway, but the implication was loud and clear.
Jo-Jo bit back a retort. Things had been amicable enough between them on the flight, and he didn’t need to fan any flames. He craned forward over the dashboard. ‘Any life signs?’
‘Don’t seem so,’ said Randall. ‘If there were, they’re gone now. I’ll land as close to the hangar as I can.’
In descent, Jo-Jo got a clear view of the extent of the Pellegrini holiday chalet, a main building with numerous outhouses connected by covered walkways. The largest of the outhouses had a partially open roof. He took this to be the hangar Randall had mentioned. Wide sand beaches were segmented by empty jetties, and paths wound through the low brush. On the beach closest to the chalet sat another AiV, partially covered in sand.
‘It’s still there,’ said Randall with relief. ‘There’s a half-arsed infirmary in the chalet. Or there was. Lat used it.’ She glanced over her shoulder at Catchut, her face grim.
‘He knew the risks, Capo. We all do.’
It was the first time Jo-Jo had ever heard Catchut attempt to reassure Randall.
Losing your crew was a disturbing thing—even Jo-Jo, who’d spent most of his life working alone, scouting for minerals in the far reaches, understood that. And Rast Randall had lost all of them, apart from Catchut.
‘Let’s check the infirmary out first,’ said Randall. ‘See if there’s somethin’ that’ll help yer ankle.’
Catchut nodded his appreciation.
They put down close to the hangar on the wide courtyard and got out, pulling up their hoods against the heat. Randall led the way along the path into the chalet.
The Sentients of Orion Page 108