Mira’s heartbeat quickened. Was the mercenary talking about her? What arrangement was Rast making?
The farcaster fell silent, the whine disappearing from the v-sight’s sound spectrum.
Mira sat for a few moments just listening and thinking. As long as Rast did not hamper her meeting with OLOSS, what harm could the mercenary do? And yet she continued to worry over it as she restarted her data search.
‘Reconstitute data from tertiary source.’
Mira listened intently.
Though the quality of the recording had deteriorated, the reason for the meeting between Marchella Pellegrini and the unknown purchaser remained clear enough. In return for the exclusive rights to a mineral alloy called quixite, the purchaser had agreed to pay a large sum of money and secure an apprenticeship to the godlike entity discovered near Mintaka.
Replay.
As she listened a second time Mira was struck by how different Marchella sounded. There was no hard edge to her voice, no mock-plains accent, and yet the determination was still there. Marchella had secured the deal she wanted.
Her final words to Mira flooded back. ‘There is a name you must remember. It is Tekton. Say it. Say the name. He owes me a debt. He owes this world a debt...’
Tekton had promised the God-apprenticeship. But why did Marchella want that so much?
Mira slipped the mask from her face. She pressed against her forehead and summoned the scraps of her various conversations with Marchella. Everything had been about the women of Araldis; her whole purpose had been to save them...
No, not that... to free them.
But why did she battle so? What did she hope to gain? They could never be free while their fertility was held to ransom—and worse, most did not even desire it.
Mira?
Si? she said automatically. Insignia had not spoken in her mind since their earlier disagreement.
OLOSS have sent a craft out to meet you.
W-what?
They wish a representative to come aboard—once we have been secured.
Mira felt the taut edge in Insignia’s tone as clearly as if bands had tightened around her own body and clamped across her head. Was it usual, she wondered, to experience such a sympathetic physiological reaction? Is Rast still in the buccal?
Yes.
I am coming.
This time Mira ran. Women should never move quickly or with visible purpose... Yet at this moment, she wished that her robes were less cumbersome and her body more accustomed to action. Though her muscles were firm from youth they did not respond now when she demanded more from them. Did the baby hamper her as well?
Hamper. She must not think so. Otherwise how could she care for it? How could she care for it, anyway?
Rast was still seated in Autonomy, murmuring. Catchut was there as well; standing beside her, watching over her.
The mercenary’s eyes flickered open. ‘Don’t let them on board,’ said Rast aloud. ‘Don’t let those OLOSS fuckers in.’
It was more than belligerence. She was hiding something, Mira thought, the way her fingers gripped the armrest.
‘Why?’
‘You’ve arrived here squealing trouble. They will want to be sure you are who you say.’
‘Then why should I deny them? My plight is genuine.’
Rast grunted and slapped the armrest. ‘You are so damn naive. Now don’t let them on.’ She ground the last words out.
Mira stiffened at her intimidating tone. She took a side step towards the safety of Primo—an instinctive reaction. ‘I have no wish to antagonise them.’
‘I would be more concerned, Baronessa, about antagonising me,’ said Rast softly.
And there it was: the open threat, and the switch to hardened mercenary. Gone was the humour, the amused admiration and the begrudging gratitude.
‘What are you hiding from them?’
‘What you don’t know can’t be tortured out of you,’ Rast replied matter-of-factly.
Catchut laughed at that.
Mira frowned, glancing between them. ‘You brought something on board, onto Insignia at Intel. I saw a satchel. What was it?’
Rast stood slowly, loosening her muscles in a way that made Mira’s throat go dry. ‘What makes you think that, clever Baronessa?’
‘It explains your behaviour.’ And the conversation I heard. ‘It also explains...’ She had a flash of intuition. A day for it—as if her mind had only just begun to work again after the events on Araldis. ‘It explains why Stationmaster Landhurst was so eager to stop us and more importantly’—she gambled on the last bit—‘why Captain Dren and the other warships backed us.’
Rast slipped her hands into her pocket. Did she have a weapon in there? She always carried a weapon. ‘Like I said: clever little Baronessa.’
Mira swallowed to ease her dry throat but she did not retreat. She had learned with Rast that you did not show weakness. ‘Do not patronise me, mercenary. I think the scale of favours between us is currently balanced. Even you should respect that, if indeed you believe your own propaganda.’
Catchut’s sharp intake of breath sent a pang of fear shooting through her chest. Don’t weaken. Don’t...
But Rast surprised her again by giving a belly laugh. She withdrew her hand from her pocket and rubbed her chin.
Mira felt a flutter of relief but she did not relax her guard. What had Rast brought onto Insignia? She moistened her lips. ‘What would happen if they were to search Insignia?’
‘Have you ever been in prison, Baronessa?’
‘Prison is not simply walls or containment fields,’ Mira replied.
‘Yes. But when it is you understand what freedom means.’
‘Then why do you risk yours?’
‘You of all people should understand that. Didn’t you run from your Principe because he wanted to steal your Inbred talent?’
‘Innate,’ corrected Mira automatically. ‘How did you know that?’
‘I’ve been working around injustices all my life,’ Rast replied. ‘I don’t like dictators.’
Mira saw something then, behind the callousness and the bravado that Rast wore closer than her own skin—a tiny, tiny glimpse of the real woman. She tried to vanquish the flicker of perception. Rast was governed by no set of rules that Mira understood. Yet the flicker persisted, an illumination, a hope. ‘What have you brought aboard Insignia?’ she breathed.
Rast’s gaze did not waver for an instant. ‘Cryoprotectants.’
THALES
Thales took a roundabout route to his apartment to be sure that the Brown Robes had not followed him, staying off the boulevards of the Hume quarter, hugging the crowd-laden alleys jammed with bok-kafes and barsomas.
Scolar’s skies were crisp with cold and busy enough with air traffic, the precision lights of Orbit-To-Earth vehicles flashing in regular landing sequences. It made it hard to see the stars from Scolar’s denser locations. But Thales had grown up in the thin strip of farming land on the far northern reaches of the planet and he still remembered the blazing star showers and his father’s enthralling tales of distant planets with moons circling around them.
‘In many places the moon is as heavily populated as the planet it circles,’ his father had told him.
Afterwards Thales had spent many hours wondering how it would feel to have a large object in the night sky and how much it would impede his view of the galaxy. He also wondered what it would be like, knowing millions of moon-based dwellers stared back at your planet, night after night.
He decided, then and there, that Scolar was the most special and beautiful world in Orion because it was free from prying eyes.
Suddenly he longed to feel that way again: exultant and free. Instead, the last week weighed on him as if Scolar had a moon, and a million prying eyes were bearing down on him.
He longed for the comfort of Rene’s soft, thin body and the fall of her long hair across his skin. How could she... how could...
As Thales turned the c
orner to his boarding house something jolted him from his thoughts; a difference in the air or the night sounds. The awnings cast deep shadows on the imitation cobblestones, causing the stand of potted plants to seem more like an army of men lying in silent wait.
He braced himself to cross the road, knowing that he’d become fanciful and paranoid. He could not, however, stop himself from climbing the stairs as quickly and silently as he was able.
With relief he shut the door behind him and leaned against it in the dark, catching his breath. He had not been followed. The bar episode was merely a misunderstanding: no one would have given it another thought. He reviewed the evening with logic and a calmer mind.
‘Thales?’
The anxious whisper came from the couch against the window. He glimpsed a shadowy profile against the curtainless window and knew at once who was there.
‘Rene.’ He stayed where he was, not sure whether to throw himself at her feet or throw the door wide open and order her out.
‘Don’t turn the light on. I have been watching the street.’
‘How did you get—’
‘I am the daughter of a Pre-Eminent, Thales. You are as naive as a child sometimes.’ There was no sting in her voice, no criticism, just a sad fondness. It hurt him more than cutting words. Had she always treated him like a child?
‘If we are to speak of naivety, Rene, then perhaps I am not alone in that fault.’
‘You are speaking of my father.’
‘Not just your father, dearest. The entire Sophos.’
Rene did not reply to that and Thales had a sudden desire to shake her from her silence. Couldn’t she see?
He rushed on. ‘They had Villon murdered. He never went to join the Extropists. The Sophos incarcerated him until he was forgotten and then they quietly took him away and executed him.’
‘How can you know such a thing?’
‘I told you that. I was imprisoned with him.’
Rene gave a faintly derisive laugh. ‘Why would they do that, Thales?’
‘To frighten me, to show me what would happen to me if I challenged them.’
‘If only you could hear yourself. You sound like a million other young men, brimming with conspiracy theories and paranoia.’
Thales made a noise of frustration. ‘You dismiss me so easily. Doesn’t your conscience prick you just a little? Can’t you see how little our world has become?’
She glanced back to the window. ‘Where are your facts? If you were incarcerated with him as you said, how could you know where he was taken, or that he was not an impostor?’
Thales stepped towards her, closing the gap in two strides. ‘It was him, Rene, I swear. If you could have heard him speak, felt his presence. A man does not acquire such a presence from practising fraud. And the guards—they knelt before him, asking for forgiveness.’
Rene turned back to him, her hair slipping around her shoulders, releasing wafts of her personal scent. ‘There are politic police on the street!’ She reached out for him, their argument suddenly dismissed.
But Thales avoided her embrace and brushed past her to locate the uniformed bodies and purposeful gait. ‘Something happened in a kafe klatsch in Kantz: a misunderstanding. Now they have found me but I will explain it—
Rene clutched his wrist. ‘I fear they will not listen to anything you say. That is why I am here. Trouble has nested in you and laid its eggs. They will not let go.’
Thales felt the sharp edge of an object against his skin, pressing into his palm. A Gal identity clip.
‘Leave Scolar. This will assure that you have money wherever you are.’
‘You want me to leave!’ His heart folded in pain. ‘You want rid of me.’
She pulled his hand to her mouth and kissed it.
He felt the wetness of her spilling tears but shock prevented him from moving. Leave Scolar without her.
‘I wish many things, dearest Thales, but the most desperate of those is that you are alive... have a chance to live. I-I am not sure what I believe now but I know that the Sophos do not trust you and that I cannot protect you.’
Thales wanted to return her kiss then, finally. To take her shaking hands and clamp them tight against him. ‘Rene, I...’
‘Please, Thales.’ Her voice was hoarse beyond emotion—it was an order. ‘Leave now. Find your truths.’
He took the identity clip and jammed it in his pocket. ‘What good is the truth,’ he said harshly, ‘when you and I will not share it?’
Rene raised her head, her tears and emotion in check now. She reached down to a small pack resting against her legs. ‘There will be someone... I have packed you some things. You must leave the rest and go.’ She handed it to him, then turned away and peered through the window. ‘They are at the entrance. You will need to leave by another route.’
Thales pushed open the window. The street was empty now. The Brown Robes were already in the building. He climbed out onto the slated roof and slid down to the guttering. He looked back at Rene one last time before he jumped—but already she had become indistinguishable from the shadows.
* * *
Thales ran to the closest conduit and entered a busy carriage on the up-station line, using Rene’s clip to pay. The press of bodies was comfortingly familiar. If he concentrated on them he could pretend for a few moments that he was on his way to the upashraya and that Rene was at home, working on her treatise. He clung to the self-deception, but as quickly as it had settled on him it evaporated.
He was running from the politic: running from Amaury Villon’s murderers. The prophet’s words were like a bleeding cut in his hindbrain. He used them to try and form a plan. He needed a destination.
But Thales was not used to making decisions. Rene had always been his guide. She had told him to leave. But to go where? To do what?
Fool! He chastised himself. Fool of fools for not knowing myself! What should I do?
As the conduit disgorged its passengers into the sprawling terminal, Thales let himself drift amid the throng. He searched the outbound displays for something that resonated but every destination was somewhere too far from Rene.
He wandered further, past the elevator walks and gleaming shopfronts that lined the exit gates, along the less salubrious rows of moneylender booths, finally settling at a drab kafe where he ordered a chocola drink and lard-chips.
The boost of sweet nutrition raised his spirits a little.
When he had finished he gave the attendant his clip to pay.
The despondent fellow shook his head. ‘Not here, Msr. Damn things cost more to process than it’s worth. You give me lucre.’
‘But I have none,’ admitted Thales. ‘Can I offer you some service to pay for my drink and food?’
The attendant shook his head. He reached for his ‘cast. ‘Politic’ll deal with you.’
‘No!’ Thales leapt towards him, grabbing the man’s hand.
The attendant tore his hand away and produced a jolt weapon from under the counter. Before he could use it on Thales, a third man intervened.
‘Let me pay for the gentleman’s drink and offer him another,’ said the intervener, a man with soft wavy hair and a high forehead. His wide-spaced eyes were full of sympathy.
The attendant glanced between them, caught between an urge to redeem his lucre and an offended ego.
Lucre won. He snatched up the cash.
Thales’s rescuer ushered him to his table and took a seat next to him.
‘I-I th-thank you, sir,’ said Thales. ‘An awkward position I found myself in.’
The man held out his hand. ‘Gutnee Paraburd.’
‘Thales.’ He did not offer more than that.
‘A man of your calibre at this end of the station is likely game. I would recommend that you should not flash a Gal clip around. You could maybe get rolled for such a thing.’
Thales coloured. ‘Of course. How naive of me—but I have been somewhat out of sorts today. Not thinking, perhaps.’
&nb
sp; ‘Down on your luck, poor fellow?’
Thales felt a quiver of pride. ‘No. Not at all. Affairs of the heart.’
‘Aaah. I understand completely. Then you are not in need of lucre. My mistake. Let us enjoy our drink, then, and forget our woes.’
‘Agreed,’ said Thales with relief. The man was clearly a kind enough fellow and he must make an effort to reward that. ‘And what pastime is your pleasure, Mr Paraburd?’
‘Import and export—of the medical kind. Not an easy life, pandering to the whims of laboratories. And it’s hard to find reliable employees.’ Paraburd smiled in a confiding kind of way that made his eyes seem wider. It was an ingenuous face and friendly. ‘But you must know the sort of problem,’ he added.
Thales sighed. ‘Not really. As you may have guessed I am a philosopher. But I am considering embarking on a change of lifestyle. I am truly interested in what you say.’ At least to distract me from my own troubles.
Paraburd settled comfortably in his chair and Thales marvelled at the man’s familiar, easy way. ‘Today, for instance, an employee of mine was supposed to leave to collect a naked DNA sample from a mesa-world laboratory in Saiph. He was to return with it so that our own medical facilities can begin the process of upgrading our Health Watch against the next year’s influenza. The DNA, as you can guess, will prevent many deaths. But just a moment before I met you, my office notified me that the man has failed to appear. Thousands of lives are at risk for a single man’s folly.’
Thales was shocked. ‘Without a hint of warning. Is there no one else who can go in his stead?’
‘It is not so easy to find biological couriers, philosopher Thales, at a few hours’ notice. It is the job for only a special few who wish to serve their community. We have become such a selfish and inert world. Even money will not entice them.’
‘Y-you pay?’ Thales stammered.
‘Most handsomely, Thales. A million lucre for little more than a leisurely trip abroad.’
Thales felt a rush of heat in his body. A million lucre could finance a trip to Belle-Monde and he would not have to rely on Rene’s charity. With that amount he could be independent. ‘A m-million lucre? That is indeed generous. Are there risks?’
Chaos Space (Sentients of Orion) Page 14