Chaos Space (Sentients of Orion)

by Marianne de Pierres

  ‘Time you told me about your brother.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’ asked Beth.

  Mira thought she sounded defensive.

  ‘Start with how long since you’ve seen him and fill in the blanks around it.’ Rasterovich was peevish and kept scratching his nose. ‘I don’t like being manipulated—by anyone.’ Josef gave Bethany a level stare.

  She reacted immediately. ‘I’m not manipulating you, Josef. But I want Djes back. I’m desperate. Even you must understand that. I thought I was going to die back on Dowl. It makes you sort through things.’

  He took a deep breath as though he was unsuccessfully seeking patience. ‘Your brother is a power-broker, Beth. I’ve got an allergy to those sorts of people, but when I have to get involved with them I like to know what’s going on. So start talking.’

  It was the first time that Mira had heard Josef Rasterovich be curt with Bethany, and the older woman’s face regained its worried expression.

  ‘I haven’t seen him since a while before I joined the Mio ship. Lasper paid for my education but he wanted me to work in his labs here. I didn’t like some of the things he was playing around with—’

  Rasterovich raised his eyebrows but Bethany wouldn’t be stopped now that she’d started. Mira sympathised with her need to unburden herself.

  ‘I’m an embryologist, Josef. Lasper had some... disturbing ideas. I figured if I got far enough away he’d find someone else to do those things, and would leave me alone. It’s hard when you owe a debt to someone whose beliefs oppose your own. Worse when it’s family.’

  ‘What did he want you to do for him?’

  ‘I-I can’t tell you that but you need to understand. Akouedo was only a poor, struggling economy here when Lasper purchased Edo. He’s brought wealth and employment and hope to all the planets in the system. When someone does that, word spreads. People actually move here to live now. Imagine that. Moving to a system full of rubbish for a better lifestyle.’

  Rasterovich shrugged. ‘Makes for an interesting tourist brochure and I guess it beats starving somewhere else.’

  ‘Everyone in this system owes Lasper something and he knows how to collect on debts. He hooks them in, one generation to the next. And that was before the Stain Wars. He’s a hero now as well.’

  Rasterovich looked unimpressed. ‘You’re still telling me stuff that I already know. Were you with him in the war?’

  Bethany shook her head. ‘But the Mios hate the Extropists more than OLOSS. The ship I was on was research-based but during the war we were diverted out near Saiph to give some expertise to Consilience.’

  ‘What kind of expertise?’

  ‘Ionil, m-my... man, he’s a molecular pathologist. They wanted someone out there who could examine the captured Extros.’

  ‘He did the autopsies?’

  ‘Yes. We were ordered there by the Mio Assembly. Ionil thought it was a great honour but I think Lasper was behind it. He wanted to draw me back in.’

  ‘So what does he want from this?’

  Beth rubbed her hands over her eyes. It should have been a simple gesture of tiredness but seemed to be more an ordering of her mind. ‘I don’t know exactly. You saw into his virtual world. What did he show you? Maybe you can guess.’

  Jo-Jo Rasterovich stared out of the taxi window. They were almost back at the huge lift well. ‘He’s got hold of something that he shouldn’t have. No one should have.’

  ‘That sounds like Lasper,’ whispered Bethany.

  TRIN

  At twilight Trin roamed the perimeter of the tiny island, waiting for Djes to return. He was not alone. Food had revived the spirits of some and they stayed all night down at the beach line, talking and cooling their skin in the tepid water.

  Trin pondered a strategy while he waited. He had flown over the island belt twice in his life, and could still picture the jigsaw puzzle of islands, beginning with a sprinkling of dots that gradually turned into clumps and then decent tracts of land. The shape of them was what had intrigued him most: bizarre scribbles that at one time had fitted together as a solid land mass. There were caves in some, he was sure—he had seen the dark-holed cliffs. And there was thick vegetation; creepers strung in veils over what he imagined were clusters of trees—not the stunted spiny-leaved bushes under which they had passed the day.

  They could live in caves. But how long would it take them to find these islands without navigation aids? They would need method and determination. And faith.

  He would send Djes ahead of them during daylight to scout directions and any perils. The rest would wait until twilight. The flat-yachts were stable enough at night but sluggish in their rudder response and slow.

  They had to be certain of reaching the next island before each sunrise.

  ‘Pellegrini?’

  It was Cass Mulravey. Trin did not answer or even look at her—he was not yet ready for her questions.

  But Mulravey was not one to be put off. ‘The women have voted to stay with you, but we want to know what you are planning.’

  ‘The women? Does that include you, Signora?’

  ‘Frankly, I’m not con—’

  A low cry and splashing—louder than the gentle breakers—from further along the beach interrupted her.

  Djeserit!

  Trin ran as quickly as he could to the huddle of shadows. To his annoyance, Cass Mulravey kept pace with him.

  ‘What is it?’ he demanded when he stopped.

  ‘Out there, Principe,’ said one of his men.

  Trin strained to see. In the wane of Semantic he saw a boat’s outline as it bobbed over the break towards the beach; a small pinnace without oars.

  ‘Looks like it’s gonna roll,’ Mulravey warned Trin. ‘You’ll need swimmers to help those aboard.’

  Those aboard? Trin peered harder. Mulravey was right: two figures clung to the bow. ‘What if we don’t want them with us?’

  ‘You’d let them drown?’

  ‘What if they are with the Saqr?’

  ‘They have no sail, no oars—what are the chances?’

  She was right, Trin knew, but he detested her arrogant manner.

  ‘Where is Juno Genarro?’

  ‘Here, Principe,’ said a voice behind him. ‘I heard the boat and came.’

  His best scout was puffing slightly from running, and Trin knew that if he could see Juno’s face in better light it would be thin and lined with utter exhaustion. But Genarro was tough—maybe the toughest of them all.

  ‘There’s a rope in the water,’ called one of the men standing out in the shallows. Tivi Scali, Trin thought, Joe’s cousin.

  ‘Boat’s over!’ called someone else, a woman standing further along the beach.

  ‘Juno!’ said Trin.

  Juno waded straight into the water, calling for Vespa and Joe Scali. Trin watched them swim towards the capsized boat, their heads just black dots in the grey swell.

  ‘Principe? It’s Djeserit! Here!’ cried Tivi.

  A quiet cheer went up from the group. Nearly all the survivors were there now, crowding around to see.

  Trin shouldered through them and strode into the shallows. He dropped to his knees and scooped Djes close. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘No,’ she gasped. ‘But—I have—two with—me. They—cannot swim.’

  He lifted her higher, wanting to pull her right out of the sea. But she protested. ‘Let me—rest—tired—couldn’t row—towed—them...’

  She’d towed them from the palazzo. Trin felt a surge of anger. How could she risk herself like that? And for who? Who had she found there?

  He let go of her and Djeserit submerged, staying near his legs. He let his hand stray under the water so that it contacted her. She grasped it and he forced himself not to recoil. The webbing on her fingers had grown thicker and longer, almost down to her finger tips; the Mio part of her was overtaking the ‘esque. Soon she would be lost to him altogether. Was she choosing to become incompatible with him?

 
‘Principe!’ Again.

  Juno Genarro was only a small mesur out now, towing someone in the crook of his arm. Behind him Vespa and Joe Scali struggled with another figure between them.

  Trin waded towards them and pulled the figure from Genarro’s trembling grasp. A young girl, he thought, and a face he might have known had the light not been so dim. He handed her to Tivi who had followed him. ‘Take her out.’

  Then he waited for the roll of the waves to bring in Vespa and Joe. The person he took from them was much older and frail. She clung to him, sobbing and sobbing; a pathetic, trembling bundle of saturated flesh that he did not need light to recognise.

  ‘Trinder,’ she choked out. ‘Caro... caro...’

  ‘Jilda,’ he replied. ‘Madre.’

  JO-JO RASTEROVICH

  Jo-Jo filled the time it took to reach the Saif system by stewing over his situation and quizzing Bethany more about her brother. They had taken cabin space next to each other with Mira Fedor on the other side of Beth and the mercenaries and the scholar, Thales Berniere, a stratum below.

  Jo-Jo managed to extract two pleasures from his current situation. First was the sense of familiarity. The Insignia craft was larger than Salacious but with less interior cartilage and flesh on show, although each stratum was lined with tubercles that puckered and shrank dependent on the ‘zoon’s biorhythms. He wandered the strata, enjoying the whisper of the ‘zoon’s life force around him, trying to ignore his second pleasure—his closeness to Mira Fedor.

  Every moment in her presence seemed to intensify his longing. Between trying to fathom Carnage Farr’s plan, and his own bitter thoughts about Tekton, Jo-Jo dissected his reaction to the Latino woman. It made no sense. He detested aristocrats and had a preference for confident women (although not as confident as that crazed academic who used her suffocation techniques on him). Mira Fedor was reserved, uptight and had obviously been damaged by her experiences.

  For some unfathomable reason, the combination aroused Jo-Jo to the point of obsession. He wrestled constantly with a desire to follow her around the ship, or to do something stupid and heroic so that she would look at him with more interest.

  Instead, he avoided her company, and when they were together, he tried to ignore the fact that she only noticed him when he spoke to the others of the places where he had travelled. In those moments, and only those, he earned her full attention.

  But it did not stop him fantasising like a hormonal adolescent. And hoping.

  So he took refuge in exercise.

  The crew fell into a pattern where each attended their tasks for the first part of the shipboard day. Mid-cycle each of them drifted to his or her individual pursuits; and in the evenings they assembled for a meal.

  Although Mira Fedor attended the evening gatherings she drank little and seldom contributed to the conversation unless goaded by the mercenary, Rast Randall. The tension between the women, Jo-Jo guessed, was born of their experiences escaping Araldis. He envied their bond, just as he envied the gentle, almost shy glances that the Baronessa bestowed on the scholar, Thales Berniere.

  Jo-Jo would have cheerfully vacced the useless prick but that would have deprived the mercenaries of their sport. The three whiled away the hours of boredom playing childish tricks on Thales: locking him in obscure sections of the biozoon, stealing his clothes and spiking his drinks with disinhibitors.

  Jo-Jo enjoyed the pranks. He found the mercenaries better diversionary therapy than the cheap wine that Lasper Farr had provided for them—especially Randall. She was tough, not easily offended, and could laugh at most things.

  Most days he joined her on her daily run through the ‘zoon. Inevitably, when the gradients got too steep, or their legs became too fatigued, they fell to a walk and conversation. Rast showed him all the biozoon’s inner chambers, including the scarred lower walls near its intestinal system.

  Jo-Jo gave a low whistle when he saw the ugly ridges of discoloured tissue. ‘Even a ‘zoon can bleed to death from those kinds of cuts.’

  ‘You know Landhurst at Intel station?’

  Jo-Jo nodded. ‘By reputation, at least.’

  ‘She went to him for help. He figured a lone woman in a ‘zoon would be easy pickings.’ Rast laughed. ‘Didn’t figure on her passengers, though.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time Landhurst’s seen an opportunity and stepped outside the rules.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Randall agreed. ‘But Carnage Farr makes him look giddy and soft.’

  Jo-Jo felt a sudden urge to hit something. He’d spent his lifetime avoiding these kinds of involvements. ‘What does Farr want, anyway? Why’s he sending that soft cock Berniere to do business in Extro territory?’

  Rast’s eyes narrowed. ‘He wants him to pick up DNA.’

  ‘What sort of idiot would accept a bio-courier’s job?’

  The mercenary threw him a look. ‘Carnage must figure it’s worth it. He’s been keeping the balance between OLOSS and the half-heads since the war. Guess he’s got plenty to gain if neither gets the upper hand. Trade mostly. To both sides.’

  Jo-Jo reached to the wall and ran his fingers along a length of raised scar. It was slightly sticky and warm. ‘Beth says much the same. Are you sure he’s keeping things on balance, though? Might be that’s what he wants everyone to think...’ He tapered off.

  Rast laughed. ‘You’re a paranoid bastard. Waste of time trying to second guess Farr, though.’ Randall walked ahead, bored or uncomfortable with the conversation. Jo-Jo couldn’t decide.

  ‘You one of his people?’ Jo-Jo wasn’t sure if he’d get a straight answer but it was worth a try. The mercenary seemed direct enough when it suited her.

  Rast stopped and turned back to face him. ‘Yes and no. He’s paying me well for this job and I mostly like what he stands for—but I’m not partial to being anyone’s bitch. I like to pick where and when I work—and when I leave.’

  Jo-Jo saw the opening and took it. ‘Stain Wars vet?’

  ‘Yeah.’ The white-haired woman shot him a sharp look. ‘Why?’

  ‘You got that manner about you. Good crew?’

  ‘Yeah. Mostly dead now, though. I was in the first wave on Longthrow. Not many survived that.’

  ‘Aaah,’ said Jo-Jo. ‘You were the meat that OLOSS were prepared to waste.’

  ‘You know the real story, then.’

  Jo-Jo nodded. ‘If there was a real story. I heard a few versions. One that sounded most likely reckoned that OLOSS started it on Longthrow by sending in a bunch of mercs to spoil a kosher deal. Things went cone-shaped.’

  ‘Glad to see not everyone believes the history fastloads. That was pretty much how it was. When Longthrow got going skirmishes broke out around about the Saif system. If you could draw lines from one to another you’d say that the Extros were poised and waiting for a chance.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Could be they were. Could be there would never have been any trouble if OLOSS hadn’t provoked things on Longthrow. Thing about Extros is that you can’t always pick them out from normal aliens or ‘esques. Depends on what body they’ve snatched. On Longthrow they were their weapons. You shoot one down and it just slides across into another machine.’

  Rast stabbed the toe of her boot into the stratum wall and twisted it as if she was gouging a hole.

  ‘Oww!’ She pulled her foot away and shook it. ‘Damn thing stung me.’

  Jo-Jo laughed. ‘What did you expect? It’s alive.’ He wanted to ask her then who her Capo had been, but he didn’t want to make her suspicious. He tried coming at it from another angle. ‘So how did you come by this line of work?’

  She gave him a narrow look. ‘You really interested or you pissing into the black?’

  Jo-Jo shrugged. Following Rast’s lead he started to stretch. He wasn’t one for regular exercise but right now it was the only thing that kept him from making an idiot of himself in front of Mira Fedor. ‘Take it how you want.’

  Rast bent down and touched her
toes, pressing on her boot to ease the pain. ‘I grew up on Edo Lesser. Not much of a place. Cold and boring. We lived underground most of the year in something not much better than a rut in the ground. Petalu Mau was next door. He had sixteen brothers. They taught me how to fight. Seemed I was better at that than anything else.’

  Jo-Jo eyed her lean frame. She was built like most mercenaries he’d encountered, strong without too much bulk. Her hands though, were bigger than they should have been, the knuckles more scarred. He wondered how many people she’d killed.

  ‘Pet wanted to work for Farr right from the start. Everyone on Edo Lesser did. Farr’s more than a hero on our world. He’s our economist. Our standard of living got way better when he purchased Edo and began to dump Orion’s shit on it. People’ll do anything for you if you keep their bellies full and their living comfortable. Crux, he even paid for education.’

  ‘Lasper Farr?’

  Rast nodded. ‘Yeah. Not directly. But he paid a bonus to our government for every person who joined his corps or his other forces. Our govs put that into a fund to educate the ones who were interested, or smart enough.’

  ‘What happened to the rest?’

  ‘Everyone got accelerated-learning basics but that didn’t teach you much more than how to work the different tech tools. You were supposed to do the rest yourself. Course, no one did.’

  ‘So why didn’t you want to work for Farr?’

  ‘I got the education. I guess it changed things. I began to look for more but I was still only good at one thing.’ Rast blushed. ‘My ma was a gov.’

  Jo-Jo couldn’t suppress a grin. ‘A gov’s girl, eh? What’s she think about your line of work?’

  Rast pinned him with a flat, unemotional look. ‘She died in the war, representing Akouedo on peace talks. Wrong place, wrong time. It could have been me—should have been. Ma had ideals. I’ve just got grudges. Nowadays I don’t get caught up in the games of supremacists. Not unless they pay me what I want.’