Transformation Space (Sentients of Orion Book 4)

by Marianne de Pierres

  He tried to raise his head to look properly, but his neck muscles refused to comply. Even so, a number of things registered: he’d been pushed from the rock above; he was injured but alive; and he would die from heat exposure in a matter of minutes if he didn’t find cover.

  The latter realisation took priority over everything, and he rolled over, looking for options. The water was coming from underneath the overhang of the slab he had fallen from, a strong enough flow to carry it down the hill before it drained through a lattice of rocks.

  Crawl under the overhang. Crawl or die.

  Bringing his knees up, he used his feet to push him forward. One leg felt odd, numb below the knee but with sensation still in his foot. He didn’t stop to look. It wouldn’t matter, not if he was still lying in this spot in a few more minutes.

  Sharp rocks gouged his stomach underneath his robe, and pebbles scraped his hands. His fellalo was so worn now that it barely cooled or gave protection. And there was blood. His blood, though he was unsure where he was bleeding. And the aching. Back. Head. All over.

  Don’t think about it. Crawl. Crawl or die.

  The first fingers of direct sunlight burned into his legs as he dragged his torso into the shade. He rolled onto his back and jack-knifed his knees into his stomach, then rolled again until his whole body was in shade.

  He lay like that, slipping in and out of a consciousness, for a long time.

  Concussion, he told himself when some clarity returned. He made an effort to sit up. This time his neck and back obeyed, and he managed to lean himself against the rock. The spring was within arm’s reach, so he leaned over and cupped a mouthful. It tasted tepid but clean. After several handfuls he felt a little revived.

  Who had pushed him? The hands in his back had been decisive, and large. Not a woman’s hands, and not someone who’d had second thoughts.

  Innis Mulravey. Had to be.

  Anger burned in him. How dare the filthy ‘esque attempt to murder him? I will have him exiled. No. Killed.

  Cass Mulravey would resist, but on this he would not weaken.

  * * *

  Trin opened his eyes. What had he been thinking about? Where was—? He blinked. Water, rocks and blinding, scorching sunlight only just past his feet. His heart pounded and he sat upright.

  Calming breaths helped him better observe his surroundings, to think. Leah was on the wane. He’d been asleep most of the day, and his throat felt raw and his skin dry. Dehydration.

  He flopped over to the running water and submerged his face, taking deep gulps. Coming up for air, he repeated the action several times until his belly distended with water.

  Within a short time be began to sweat profusely, and the robe tried to cool his overheated body. His heat tolerance was much greater now from the constant exposure, but nothing could stand the direct sunlight on Araldis. Nothing except the Saqr.

  For the next few hours he stayed under the overhang and practised moving his limbs, testing them to see if he could walk. The numbness below his knee was still there, and would hamper his climbing ability. I need a crutch.

  He looked out from his rock shelter. Immediately below him lay another band of rocks, but below that stood an odd cluster of stunted trees. He would crawl to them when it was dark and find something to lean on, then return to the spring and drink his fill before starting back to the caves.

  He considered that plan. Would his leg slow him down too much? Would he be caught in the sun again? Perhaps he should wait for Juno Genarro and Djes to come for him? With their help, the trip back would be much easier. And they would come for him. He knew that. But how long until they did? And what trouble would Innis Mulravey have caused with his lie that the Principe had maybe perished?

  Options and strategies stacked up in his mind as the day finally darkened and lost some heat. As Leah sank away, he made a decision. The trees not only offered the makings of a walking stick, but the possibility of edible roots. He was hungry now, the rumbling in his belly overtaking even the thumping in his temples and the shooting pain along the leg that wasn’t numb.

  He fumbled for one of the two pods in his pocket and chewed a piece from it. Within a short time he felt the tingle of stimulant. Levering onto his hands and knees, keeping more weight on the uninjured knee, he crawled down with painstaking care. A slip this time would mean his end.

  Without the moonlight, progress was slower than he’d anticipated. He reached the first few bushes just as Semantic cracked the horizon with a sliver of moonshine. Exhaustion forced him to rest a while before he could attempt to find a stick.

  He lay, examining the trees, discerning their difference from those on their side of the mountain. These seemed more lush by comparison.

  He reached up to a trunk and stripped a section of bark away. Sap leaked freely onto his palm. He sniffed it, tempted to suck its nutrients, but the scent was unappealing, like dead, crushed lig.

  Using the bark, he gouged near the tree’s base, searching for its roots. They were shallow, and pliable enough for him to break off a piece. He brushed it off and bit into it. It was hard and earthy, but he forced it down, gagging on the taste of dirt.

  For a moment his stomach rebelled, the pod’s stimulant effects rejecting the notion of food, but he swallowed repeatedly until the sickness faded. Within a short time, he began to focus better, and his limbs gained strength. He was able to stand and reach for a lower branch. Tearing it off, he broke the twigs from it, modelling it to the size he needed. It seemed strong enough to take his weight and balance him against the lack of sensation around his knee.

  Satisfied that it would do, he hobbled to the edge of the grove. The moon was high now, and lit the direction he wanted to go. He glanced back to the spring and the rocky overhang, memorising the surrounding landmarks.

  Innis Mulravey’s ill intent had brought some reward with it. They could have searched for weeks before locating this spring, which was hidden beneath the rock. Now they wouldn’t have to descend the mountain to the beach spring and risk encountering the giant ligs.

  Trin grimaced. He wouldn’t let the discovery count in Innis’s favour. Attempted murder of a Principe required a dire penalty. The carabinere would see to it.

  Determination settled in his belly, but as he began to limp forward, something glanced against his face. His dashed it away and walked on. Within a few steps, though, it happened again, and again. He caught one of the objects and examined it. Lig.

  He heard a noise, a kind of crackling accompanied by a hiss. A shadow appeared over the mountain top, obscuring the moon, and then descended in jerky stages. A swarm of normal sized ligs, heading directly for the grove in which he stood.

  Instinct drove Trin to the ground. He lay on his stomach and covered his face, but the ligs engulfed him, crawling inside his robe and hood, all over his skin, searching and probing between his closed fingers.

  He forced himself to breathe slowly and evenly; they were mere insects, he reasoned. Nothing dangerous like the giant ligs from the spring at the bottom of the mountain. They will move on.

  And they did, lifting from his body at some unheard signal, leaving him itchy and shivering.

  He sat up and peered behind him into the grove. The moonlight was enough to show black clusters of the insects, which covered the branches of the trees like gloves. He groped for his stick to help him stand, only to drop it as ligs moved beneath his fingers. The stick was covered, like the tree trunks in the grove. He poked it with his shoe, and most of them rose and flew off.

  He reached for the stick. The sap was gone, leaving only a trace of stickiness.

  He wondered if there was there a connection between the giant ligs near the beach and this swarm. He’d never seen so many. It was not normal for them to behave this way.

  He levered himself up and began the laborious climb. There was plenty to contemplate on the trip back to the cave.

  TEKTON

  From the safety of his cabin, Tekton used Lasper Farr’s d
evice to run near-future prediction scenarios. The data stream led repeatedly, and almost exclusively, towards the annihilation of the OLOSS worlds and their allies. There were survivors, but the residual pockets of life were gradually snuffed out through loss of contact with the wider worlds; trade was impossible, and the communities lacked the infrastructure to self-sustain.

  In nearly all its long-term projections, the device gave a dismal prediction for the longevity of the humanesque species and other alien sentients. Tekton witnessed the end of his kind through Lasper Farr’s DSD again and again, and after several days of it, fell into a terrible depression.

  As an antidote to his misery, he developed cravings for both a lotion bath and sex. Neither seemed a remote possibility, so instead he lay curled on his bed, moving only to relieve himself and to visit the galley to gather food and drink.

  Much of his misery time was spent in reflecting on his life to that point, and on those with whom he’d shared it. No one really, save Doris Mueller and a stream of warmly ridged vaginas to which he could no longer attribute names or faces. Oh, there had been Miranda

  Seeward, briefly. But she was now involved with Lawmon Jise, and not to be trusted.

  Tekton experienced a sudden longing for his own kind—educated politically devious sorts whose rules he understood. Were the other tyros under threat from the Post-Species? Were they still on Belle-Monde? He even thought nostalgically of his room there.

  Inevitably his thoughts returned to the Entity. How strange that Sole would give the knowledge for the creation of such a profound device to his cousin Ra. What was it trying to do? Had it known of the Post-Species’ plans? Had Sole seen all this coming?

  Perhaps Sole was warning us by giving Ra the knowledge to build the DSD, free-mind suggested. Giving us a chance to change things.

  Somehow, Tekton thought, that did not fit his impression of Sole. He’d been afforded a glimpse into the Entity’s mysteries, and he’d not seen anything resembling compassion among the terrifying dizzying universe of knowledge and experiences he’d been plunged into.

  And now that he thought more about it, he couldn’t fathom why the Entity had given him that glimpse. As far as he knew, the other tyros had not had similar experiences.

  Why me? Why share with me? Unless...

  Tekton jerked bolt upright and engaged with the device. Frantically he searched streams until he located a feed on Belle-Monde. The only eges in place appeared to be on the res-station satellites, broadcasting images of closespace around the pseudo-world; nothing on Belle-Monde itself, no view into the ménage lounge.

  Right now, the sight of Miranda Seeward’s thighs would be as close to a homecoming as Tekton could imagine. He perused the views of res-station near space with irritation and disappointment. He’d hoped to learn something more about the Entity, but there was nothing... just empty, dusty space.

  Nothing! shouted logic-mind. Can’t you see? Nothing!

  Tekton toured through the images again, wondering what logic-mind meant.

  It’s gone, free-mind wailed. Sole’s gone. Belle-Monde is destroyed.

  A light sweat broke out over Tekton’s body. His minds were right: the gaseous distortion of space that signalled the Entity’s presence had vanished. Empty space.

  Another rush of suspicions piled on top of the ones he already had. Tekton began reviewing some of the general feeds of random star systems, looking for Sole. Instructing the device to set a timeline record, he found an emerging pattern. The Entity had not left Orion, but was appearing in different places, each time close to where the Geni-carriers had deployed their incendiaries.

  Sole appeared to be tracking the destruction.

  Tracking it? That makes no sense, said logic mind. Observing, perhaps.

  Tekton disengaged from the machine and lay back on the bed. He sipped on his reconstituted juice, letting his minds swirl with possibilities and questions.

  Why had Sole given Ra the knowledge to create this device? Why? Not for the good of the sentients of Orion, he was sure.

  Could it be simply a tease? A game?

  Yes, screeched free-mind. A game. Of course, of course! Sole wants us to play.

  Perhaps not a game. Logic-mind sounded sour and peeved. More likely a challenge. A competition.

  Tekton’s akula swelled in a way it had not for some time; shades of Fenralia’s statue of homage to him. In fact, he hadn’t felt so hard since the time he’d had Miranda Seeward and Doris in bed together on Scolar. Logic-mind was right, he felt sure. The Dynamic System Device was a clue and a tool, and it was he, Tekton of Lostol, whom it had fallen to; he must unravel its meaning, and he must prevent the Post-Species destruction of humanesques and their allies.

  Whether by accident or design, Tekton knew he stood a chance of becoming the most famous sentient Orion had ever known. So why, he begged his minds, in a sudden plummet to nervousness, do I feel so inadequate?

  MIRA

  According to farcast bulletins, the Dowl res station is still open. Do you wish to shift directly there, Mira?

  Si. This time it was she and Nova who replied simultaneously. Nova’s response was less a formed thought, more a sense of agreement.

  It is probably best, Insignia conceded. Many of the stations are disabled, or in the process of disabling. We may be caught somewhere we have no wish to be. There is news of Post-Species presence in Mintaka. And there is something else.

  Si?

  The relevance of this information is dubious, but it has been reported that the Sole Entity has disappeared.

  Mira found herself unexpectedly disturbed by the news. Marchella Pellegrini—Trin’s rebel aunt—had wanted Mira to become a tyro to the Entity, had seen it as a way to help the women of Araldis escape their repression by learning how to reverse the Latino male control over fertility. To that end, Mira had harboured a wish to secure a place of study among the brightest minds in the galaxy. And now it was too late.

  But what had it all been for? she wondered. Why did the Entity make contact with us? And what had it gained, or lost, that it chose to leave now?

  Mira wasn’t even sure why she thought it looked to gain anything. Perhaps Josef Rasterovich’s conversations with Rast Randall had influenced her thinking.

  That thought brought back sharp memories of the pair. Were they alive? Insignia had abandoned them aboard the Post-Species ship which had left Extro space along with the Geni-carriers.

  I have set shift. Insignia interrupted her musings. Now tell me, how do we ensure our safety?

  You said that you had a history of trade with the Post-Species.

  Yes. That is so. They trust us in that capacity. But we have nothing to trade.

  Tell them we have one of their own. One who is ailing, and requires Non-Corporeal healing. Mira pondered for several moments. And I want you to broadcast our signature as we shift.

  A full identity ‘cast?

  Perhaps the survivors will hear.

  They are on the run.

  It is still possible, thought Mira, stubbornly.

  And if they do?

  I would give them hope.

  This is a foolish notion, Mira. Have the pregnancy changes within your body affected your mind? Even more?

  Insignia left the latter part unsaid, but implicit.

  Mira refused to let the biozoon’s opinion discourage her. I survived outside the Hub in the Bare World. I was there, in a place you could reach me, when you came.

  But we have a telepathic bond. It’s quite different.

  Vito is down there. And the korm. And Cass Mulravey. I will find them. Her stubbornness rose again.

  Those names mean little to me.

  Mira flinched at Insignia’s deliberate provocation.

  Then an infusion of warmth started in Mira’s head and flowed through her body, easing the tension between them. A sensation that didn’t come from the biozoon.

  Nova?

  She could hear Insignia talking to her child. The one-sidedness
of the conversation—Insignia’s side—made it hard to follow, but it seemed that Nova was mediating their argument in some way.

  Mira sent a wistful thought to her child. Why can’t you talk to me?

  Can—Mira. Take—time—you. Biozoon—simple.

  Nova!

  Will—better.

  Mira dwelt in a moment of sheer pleasure. She and her child could communicate telepathically. It was something that she’d never anticipated. Nova, please, call me Mama.

  Mama. Nova repeated the thought.

  A swell of something powerful swept through Mira. I would prefer it—for a while, at least.

  Si—Mama.

  Insignia joined their conversation. We will shift soon. Are you ready, Mira? Whatever happens once we are there, Nova’s safety is my priority.

  On some level Mira found herself smiling. Insignia could be stubborn and sometimes omitted information, but she never flinched from stating the truth. Never.

  Never, what? Insignia asked.

  Nothing. I am ready. Nova’s safety comes first, but I will decide my own actions.

  The biozoon’s resignation to the latter notion was palpable.

  As the colours and layers of shift vibration began to engulf her, Mira bathed in a joy and comfort she’d not felt for too long. Had thought she would never feel again. Family.

  That moment was something she struggled to hold on to as they shifted into a nightmare.

  Geni-carriers circled Dowl station and Araldis like predators, their buffers up against the debris from the ships they’d destroyed.

  Fewer escaped than I anticipated, Insignia remarked.

  If Mira had not been submerged in Primo, she would have been sick. As it was, the biozoon’s nano-membrane adjusted her electrolyte balance and released an antispasmodic into her system to counteract the shock. Had we not had the benefit of imperfect shift, that could have been us. We could be those fragments of... of...

  She began to sob. Not in any physical way, but in her mind, a completely sorrowful utterance triggered by the sight of the ruined ships and tiny bodies strewn about shift space.