Transformation Space (Sentients of Orion Book 4)

by Marianne de Pierres

  ‘What?’ hissed Randall.

  ‘Nothin’,’ he replied.

  ‘Then stop talking to yourself. You’re creepin’ me out.’

  He refocused on the climb through the darkness. Much of the mountainside was smooth, bare rock, or scree slopes of slippery gravel. Randall did her best to stay on the harder surfaces, but several times they found themselves slipping back in tiny rockfalls.

  ‘At this rate, we’ll have them all over us,’ she said as they stopped to rest.

  Jo-Jo pointed through the dark to the solid shadow above them. ‘Something there.’

  He heard her suck in a deep breath, even though her hood was up. ‘Okay, let’s back up a bit and try climbing a bit further out. Even if we have to go higher and come back. We need to stay on the hard rock.’

  She climbed off sideways for a while, and then began to ascend again.

  Jo-Jo worked on keeping her feet in sight, as the sweat poured from him and his muscles began to tire. The night winds burned the exposed skin on his cheeks. He wanted to close the hood, but he wouldn’t be able to see Randall clearly if he did.

  By the time they reached the footings of the closest building, the mere act of breathing hurt his dry lips and swollen throat.

  He grabbed Randall’s ankle. ‘Water. Stop,’ he rasped.

  Randall slid down close to him. ‘What?’

  He mimed drinking.

  Randall glanced up. ‘Better in there. Night winds—bad tonight. Mebbe—storm—brewing. Drink up—let’s move.’

  Jo-Jo poured fluid past his stinging lips and forced himself to climb on until they reached the side of the building. Thankfully, the door unsealed without a protest, and they found themselves in a building with a very similar configuration to the one they’d left.

  ‘More offices,’ pronounced Rast, after they’d caught their breath. She sounded disappointed. ‘Need to get to the villas. Better chance of finding an AiV in one of them.’

  Jo-Jo gulped water as he leaned against the wall, and wished his body would cool down. Randall didn’t seem bothered by the same discomfort.

  Jo-Jo felt another wave of begrudging respect for the woman. Resilient didn’t even begin to describe Rast Randall. The only chink he’d seen in her armour was a psychological one. Trapped inside the Extro ship, unsure whether they were actually alive or just an aggregation of sound bytes, Randall had nearly lost it.

  Whatever the Entity had done to Jo-Jo’s mind when he’d first stumbled across it, it had somehow enabled him to survive and function in the Post-Species environment. Better than Randall had, anyway.

  Maybe he owed Sole something for that.

  He hadn’t felt the pull of the Entity since Edo, and he hadn’t missed its presence. The way it had drawn him to Belle-Monde and into Tekton’s clutches, and then his irresistible impulse to accept Lasper Farr’s deal and travel to Rho Junction with Mira Fedor... it was like having strings attached to his limbs.

  ‘I’ll take the top levels. You do the basement,’ said Randall. And she was gone before he could argue.

  Jo-Jo made his way down the stairwell. Like the one they’d just left, the building was a catoplasma structure, with some of the quirks and problems that came with spontaneous gro-materials. The basement ceiling bulged so low in one spot that he had to bend over, and as he ran his hand down the wall alongside the stairs, he felt how it had buckled inward.

  With his eyes well accustomed to the dark, he was able to make out shapes. The basement looked like a storage area. Jo-Jo moved among the shelves, feeling along them where he could reach. Some familiar objects, some unidentifiable.

  He was fingering a narrow and compact case when Randall called down the stairs to him. ‘Trouble. Move.’

  Jo-Jo stuffed the object in the pocket of his fellalo and scrambled up the stairs.

  Randall was already at the exit door, a bundle of shadow, crouched low. She grabbed his arm and squeezed, a signal that he took meant to keep quiet.

  Without warning, she turned and shoved him back down the stairs. Sliding alongside him, she flattened herself against the pinched catoplasma steps. Her hand found the back of his neck and pushed his head down.

  At the same time he heard the pop of the door seal. A strong, sweet, familiar smell pervaded the air. Scraping sounds rasped along the floor.

  Jo-Jo fought a compulsion to raise his head and look. As if sensing his desire, Randall pressed harder on his head.

  He concentrated on his breathing, keeping it light and quiet. On Dowl station he, Bethany and Petalu Mau had escaped the notice of the Saqr for a few minutes by keeping low, crawling until they’d reached a service lift.

  Quiet. Still. Pray. Jo-Jo imagined Randall spitting the words out in that order.

  Maybe not pray. She hadn’t shown belief in anything much, other than her own ability. Even when things were bad in the Extro ship, he’d never heard Randall call for any god’s help.

  The sweet scent grew stronger; the scraping sounded right above them. A single Saqr? More? Don’t move. Don’t!

  Jo-Jo’s muscles twitched with an uncontrollable desire to spring up at the creature. Attack it before it could find him, surprise and aggression as his weapon. Not crouch here, shitting his pants, waiting for its maw to open and the bone-piercing stamen to extend down and skewer his skull.

  Jo-Jo remembered how it was: ‘esque bodies flung across the floor of the food court on Dowl, Saqr gorging on their body fluids. The adrenaline that had poured through him then now threatened to overcome his self-control, but Randall kept steady pressure on his head, pressing so hard that the pain across the bridge of his nose began to overshadow his fear.

  She’s breakin’ my nose!

  How long did they stay in that position? The only thing Jo-Jo registered clearly was when the pressure suddenly eased and the acute pain across the bridge of his nose faded. He turned his head sideways. Randall’s breath was warm and slightly rancid in his face.

  ‘We go quiet and quick,’ she whispered. ‘Straight home while they’re inside here.’

  ‘What if there’re more out there?’ he whispered back.

  ‘We’re fucked.’ Then she added, ‘But we’re fucked if we stay in here. If there’s more, split up. They’re slow to make decisions. But once they have, they move real quick.’

  He heard her quiet intake of breath as she bunched up and leapt lightly up the stairs. He followed, his movements as quick and agile as he could make them, controlling his breath so that he didn’t gasp.

  Outside, he could see better. One of the moons was beginning to rise, its soft glow bringing form and feature to the dark. But the wind was a buffeting torrent of heat.

  Randall sped off, sure-footed, to the bare rock, then dropped to her arse and began to slide. He copied her movements, shuffling over the hot dry surface as fast as his limbs would allow.

  He didn’t look back until they were once more under the overhang of their own building.

  Randall barrelled inside, but Jo-Jo paused to look back. As he did, the moon cracked the horizon and bathed the whole of Mount Pell in bright light. It was a harsh and eerie sight.

  ‘Get in here!’ Randall whispered fiercely.

  Jo-Jo dropped to his hands and knees and backed up. When the door was closed, Randall hauled him to his feet.

  ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Sightseeing? Who told you to stop?’

  Jo-Jo stared at her. He couldn’t see much in the gloom, just the outline of her figure and the blunt edge of her features.

  ‘I—”

  ‘You just wanted to bring them right here. Fuckin’ Crux!’

  ‘What is it, Capo?’ Catchut limped down the stairs.

  ‘This fuckin’ idiot decided to stand in the moonlight and wave to the Saqr,’ said Randall. She grabbed his arm. ‘Give me a single reason not to break your neck.’

  Jo-Jo’s face burned even hotter than the night winds had made it. He fumbled inside his pocket and pulled out the flat pack he’d
found in the basement. Shaking off her grip, he thrust it at her.

  She snatched it from him without a word and snapped the cover open. Inside were a pair of field binoculars, a nav aid and a friction light.

  Her grin showed pale teeth. ‘Well, that’s a start,’ she said.

  ‘Might be we can scope out the right place. Save us stumbling around all over the mountain,’ said Jo-Jo.

  She nodded. ‘Next time, though, you don’t stop anywhere unless I tell you to. Got it?’

  He could have argued, but she was right. He’d made a mistake that could’ve gotten them killed. Could still get them killed. He glanced back at the door.

  ‘Go get some sleep,’ Randall said to them both. ‘I’ll watch the door for a while. Do some figuring as well.’ She patted the binoculars. ‘With these little babies, we can work out where the islands are, and how long it’ll take to fly there.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jo-Jo with feeling. ‘Now all we need is a way to get there.’

  THALES

  A rush of memories assailed Thales as he entered the port terminal and led the guards and Sophos Lauda to the kaffe where he’d first met Paraburd.

  He explained to Lauda how the owner had become furious when he didn’t have lucre, only credit. ‘That’s how Paraburd and I made our acquaintance. I was out of cash, and he offered to pay for my drink. We got to talking. After a while he offered me a job. I saw no reason not to take the opportunity. I was desperate.’

  ‘Accepting a courier job from a complete stranger seems more than little naive, Msr Berniere.’

  Thales flushed. ‘I know that now. But at the time I was distraught and lost. Both my marriage and my future had been derailed.’

  Lauda nodded, as if vaguely satisfied. ‘And where did you go then?’

  Thales walked past the kaffe and looked around. This section of Scolar’s main terminal had not seen refurbishment for some time, and the scent of fried foods mingled with mould. Thales found the door into the service ways easily enough, but then became confused. Months had passed since his brief walk through them, and so much had happened in that time.

  He closed his eyes, trying to block out Lauda’s impatience and the guards’ silent scepticism. He drew the memory to the top of his consciousness by reconnecting with his feelings of betrayal and anger. Rene hadn’t stood by him, and Villon... the Sophos had taken Villon.

  He remembered how grateful he’d felt towards Gutnee Paraburd, and his surprise that the warren of service corridors even existed. A lesson, perhaps, that life wasn’t always the way that it seemed, or the first blow to his naivety.

  Gutnee had led him inside and turned left.

  Thales began to walk that way, replaying their conversation in his mind, hearing his innocent questions and Paraburd’s slippery evasions. His foolishness embarrassed him now, and yet in another way he mourned his lost innocence.

  He walked until he found himself standing in front of a featureless grime-smudged door.

  ‘Here, I think,’ he said.

  The four Robes pushed him aside and drew weapons. They burst into the office, and their curt observations floated back out to him almost immediately. It was empty.

  Thales and Sophos Lauda followed them inside.

  It was the right room, Thales thought; he recognised the damp, the desk at which Paraburd’s Balol assistant had sat and the remnants of the shelves that had contained a mess of medical supplies.

  Thales knelt down and retrieved the plastic end of a syringe. ‘This is it. His interior office was there.’ He pointed to the marks on the wall that showed a screen had been attached there. ‘He gave me the uniform and then took me almost straight to the ship.’

  Lauda’s lip curled in disgust at both the premises and Thales’s feeble explanation. ‘You may be convinced, but I am not. Escort Msr Berniere back to detention.’

  Thales’s heart sank. Mira Fedor had been right: nothing would persuade the Sophos to believe him. They were too comfortable to be aware of the insidious mediocrity creeping up on them.

  As one of the Robes grasped his elbow and pulled him to his feet, Thales protested, ‘I am hardly a risk of any kind, Sophos Lauda. What is there to be gained by holding me captive?’

  ‘You are a dissident, Thales Berniere. That is patently apparent. You spread lies and falsehoods. You even claim that Villon was murdered by the Sophos—’

  ‘Not all the Sophos! I think that Mianos—’

  ‘And now these wild accusations of biological warfare being waged on Scolar. What is not apparent is for whom you are working. Is it the warmonger Lasper Farr? Or even the Post-Species that you pretend to abhor? Who pays you to cause dissent on our peaceful world?’

  Thales mouth fell open. ‘Who pays me? I could well ask the question of you, Sophos Lauda.’

  Lauda flushed. ‘Take him back.’

  ‘Please... at least believe me about the Post-Species threat. You must close the shift sphere!’

  But Lauda left without answering him.

  With the Sophos gone, the Robes handled him roughly, shoving him between them. One of them punched him below his ribs. He doubled over, gagging for air.

  But they gave him no time for recovery, dragging him along.

  For some reason his thoughts flashed to Mira Fedor. He prayed that her circumstances were better than his, that her good fortune had held.

  Let her babe survive.

  He didn’t know who he prayed to. The concept of God had always been problematic to Thales. Now, having seen some of the wider galaxy, he felt even further from belief than before. Right now, he felt further away from a god than he ever had. Justice had never seemed more irrelevant. He’d failed.

  But as they reached the door to the terminal, a large body hurtled through, slamming it shut and smashing the lock mechanism down with an implement.

  The Robes grabbed for their swords, but giant fists wielding a large iron bar dealt with the four of them in a few short breaths.

  Fariss stepped away from their fallen bodies and lifted Thales up by the shoulders. ‘I don’t mind you doin’ your thing here, trying to save your world and all. But I ain’t about to let ya rot in some gaol.’ She leered happily. ‘I got plans for you.’

  Thales stepped into the big woman’s embrace, burying his face into her chest. ‘Fariss.’

  She hugged him tight, then set him on his feet so he could see her face. ‘We need to get out of here till these Sophos fuckers have forgotten about you. You got any ideas?’

  TEKTON

  Thankfully, Jancz and like left Tekton well alone while the hybrid ‘zoon navigated away from Intel. Hybrids required much more command attention than unfettered biozoons—they were less inclined to think for themselves and had to be watched for neuroses. Or so he’d heard.

  This one, he guessed, would be in deep in neuroses; any creature as unhealthy and abused would be.

  So Tekton used the time getting the DSD to propagate outcomes from the Post-Species threat. The device, he knew, could be utilised to change things—to alter history before it became so. But how to identify at what point change should be introduced to the system? With so many potential transformations, Tekton felt lost in a sea of possibilities.

  Even logic-mind floundered.

  In desperation, Tekton focused on Lasper Farr, tracking the Commander’s movements and wishing he could somehow glean an idea of what to do from mere observation. He spent hours and hours on this pursuit, stopping only to steal the short distance to the galley, procure something edible and hasten back to his locked cabin.

  Of all the thousands of scenes that he viewed, one image cache particularly caught his attention—Farr and Bethany Ionil on the bridge of his ship, arguing.

  Tekton still couldn’t fathom how the device captured such extensive visual feed, or how it reliably relayed the information. One of Sole’s secrets, no doubt.

  If only cousin Ra was here to ask. Not that the obstinate fellow ever gave Tekton a straight answer about anything.r />
  The mystery of the device left logic-mind with grave doubts. How could Tekton even know if what he watched was authentic? The events could be randomly generated imaginings, not real occurrences.

  And yet free-mind wanted to trust it. After all, Sole was behind its creation, and Tekton had glimpsed briefly—terrifyingly—the depth and breadth of the Entity’s intelligence.

  He shuddered, remembering the assault on his senses, the deluge of knowledge and the overwhelming enigma of the universe. It had left him floundering to recover, saturated in the shock of his own limitations.

  ‘Focus on Lasper Farr,’ he told the device. ‘Closer.’

  The star-verse of glittering motes brightened, and he fell forward again, using facial movements to direct and slow his focus. Bethany was there with Lasper, in the place he fell to, and so was a bulky round-faced ‘esque who towered over the pair. The three stood in a large cabin aboard a ship. Lasper’s ship, Tekton thought, recognising the stark lack of decoration in the Commander’s cabin.

  Tekton stepped closer to Bethany, assessing her mood and state of mind, all the while wondering how it could feel so completely and utterly real. Did they... Could they know he was there? Was this the present, or had this already played out? A thousand questions tugged at logic-mind, while free-mind let go and immersed itself in the surroundings.

  ‘Where is it, Beth?’ asked Farr quietly.

  Tekton had never seen the Commander look so pale or tense. His displeasure would’ve given Tekton great satisfaction, if the man’s wrath hadn’t been directed at Bethany. She was smart and sweet, and direct in a way that Tekton had found refreshing. She’d also resisted his advances, which made her even more desirable than she’d originally been.

  Stop it! Tekton clamped down on free-mind’s akula rush and listened.

  ‘I don’t have it, Lasper. You’d do better to question your enemies, not your sister.’

  ‘I’m comforted to hear you say that.’ Her brother gave her a small and humourless smile. ‘Unfortunately, I don’t believe you.’