Bring them in, Farr sub-vocalised so discreetly that only Tekton, in his privileged position of surveillance, could hear.
The cabin door flew open with such force that Tekton stepped back instinctively. Soldiers marched Samuelle into the room.
‘Get her out of that thing,’ Farr ordered.
At gunpoint, they forced the old ‘esque to shed her combat suit.
To Tekton’s acute mortification, the woman was naked underneath. Though her wiry physique had been kept well conditioned by the suit’s muscle stimulators, she was old, and her skin looked several sizes too big for her skeleton. It hung from her neck and belly and arms like a loose shift.
‘Lasper!’ cried Bethany. ‘This is unnecessary. Why are you doing this?’
Samuelle was the one who answered. ‘Cos he’s scared, Beth. Someone’s stolen his little god machine, and he’s shittin’ himself.’ She put her hands on her hips, refusing to be shamed.
Tekton found himself overcome by a gross fascination. He wanted to touch her old body, feel its age. But his attention shifted back to Bethany, who rounded on her brother with a quick, intense fury.
‘You’re insane, brother. Orion is being destroyed around us and you’re worrying about some ridiculous prescience device. Geni-carriers are being reported in thousands of star systems. Thousands of worlds aren’t replying to ‘cast signals, meaning that they’ve either disbanded their shift spheres or been annihilated.’
‘And why do you think that’s happening, Beth?’ said Lasper quietly.
She stared at him.
Samuelle cleared her throat and took a step forward, so that she formed a close triangle with them. Again, Tekton felt an overwhelming desire to touch her.
‘He thinks he can run things with it. One of those god-fuckers gave it to him, and he thinks he can make things go his way. Save us or fuck us over, dependin’ on what he feels like.’
Farr transferred the focus of his gaze to Samuelle. ‘You know nothing, you mouthy old bag of meat.’ He flicked one of the guards a look, and the ‘esque punched Sammy in the back, below the ribs.
The old woman went down without a sound.
‘Lasper!’ screamed Bethany. She leapt to Sammy’s side.
Tekton found himself clutching his own back in sympathy.
Straighten up, fool, free-mind told him.
You’re just an observer, logic-mind reminded him.
But Tekton couldn’t separate himself from what was happening. He knew Sammy, after a fashion. He’d shared a cabin with her for a short time, watched her sleep and dream, and worry. She was a good woman despite her flaccid old age.
Good woman! Both minds choked out an exclamation as Sammy regained her feet with Bethany’s help.
‘He’s rattled, Beth. Lost his grip. He’s blind without that device, vulnerable as you or me. More so, cos we can live without it. He don’t know what to do now. Can’t make a decision without it. And everyone’s waiting for him to do something grand.’
Bethany let go of Sammy and advanced on her brother. ‘I don’t have your device, Lasper. And neither does—’
But a pounding at the door stopped her.
Lasper blinked at one of the guards, who opened it.
Jelly Hob ran, out of breath, into the room. His mouth sagged open at the sight of Samuelle’s nakedness. ‘Aww, Sammy.’ He automatically began to remove his filthy tunic.
‘Hob? What is it?’ Lasper gripped Bethany’s arm and shifted her back out of the way. Her face contorted as he held her in a painful grip.
‘It’s yer device, Commander. I come to tell ya. Weren’t Sammy who took it! Or her.’ He pointed at Beth.
‘How do you know?’ said Lasper.
Tekton shifted his invisible presence to stand alongside Hob. Don’t tell him, Jelly. Don’t say anything, he shouted.
Hob draped his tunic around Sammy. ‘Commander, let her get dressed.’
‘Jeremiah!’ rasped out Sammy. ‘Think before you speak.’
He smiled at her, a wrinkled, heartfelt movement of his battered face. ‘Not lettin’ you take me blame, Sammy,’ he replied softly, and looked across at Lasper. ‘Was me, Commander. Least, not me that took it, but me that was there, and let it be took.’
Farr let go of Bethany. ‘Speak plainly, Jelly. Or I’ll skin that dry parchment that keeps your organs in place.’
‘You’ll be doin’ that anyways, I’d be thinking, Commander. Was the Godhead, Tekton, that took it! I found ‘im in here when youse was stationside. He was wearin’ Sammy’s other suit, and fetchin’ to get off the ship.’
‘Tekton of Lostol. On my ship? You’re sure it was him?’
No one spoke.
‘Beth?’
Tekton recognised the dangerous edge to Lasper’s tone.
Bethany did too, but she stood resolute against it. ‘I haven’t seen Tekton since Edo. I thought he’d returned home.’
She didn’t waver or flinch in her reply, and Farr turned back to Hob. ‘Are you saying that Tekton of
Lostol... Tekton... took my device? How...? Did you bring him on board?’
Hob shrugged and nodded. Sammy moved closer to him, her scrawny shoulder touching his.
‘I picked him up fallin’ free in the well on Edo. Not far from yer worshipping place. He wuz in a taxi, bein’ savaged by detrivores. Got him out jus’ in time. Whole thing disintegrated.’ He made an appropriate noise. ‘Can’t think what he wuz doin’ there.’
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 pre
sent, 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. ‘Pardon 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 hea
vily 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.’
Transformation Space (Sentients of Orion Book 4) Page 10