Chaos Space (Sentients of Orion)

by Marianne de Pierres

  The uuli translator spoke. ‘Msr Rasterovich is correct. Those are Extropists who have adapted siphonophores as their means of transport. The corporeal part of the Extropist takes many different forms. The forms designate rank and intelligence. It is a complex society that is difficult to decipher from the outside.’

  ‘Whassat mean?’ said Catchut.

  The uuli paused as if retranslating the question. ‘Many of their forays into the post-humanesque form are neither successful nor aesthetic. We see many variations here, and each is a product of a particular faction or trend within Extropy culture.’

  ‘So they aren’t all super-brains swimming around in lumps of jelly like these,’ said Jo-Jo. Immediately the words came out he regretted them. The uuli’s skin flared crimson as if the creature was blushing. Or angry.

  ‘The siphonophore is one of their more common and successful forms. It is modelled on my own species.’

  Fortunately the taxi swerved under an archway and then took a fierce upward trajectory to enter the Bell proper—bringing their conversation to a halt.

  The pedestrians were now far enough away to seem insect-like in size. Above them, however, the Bell’s dome was busy with traffic: lightweight fragile flyers and butterflies, creatures without abdomens.

  ‘The wings you can see are another of their more successful forms,’ it said.

  ‘But they’re just flappers,’ said Catchut. ‘Can’t see nobody.’

  The uuli’s body twisted its elongated torso into a knot as if it had suddenly been tied by an invisible hand. Jo-Jo got the impression that it was laughing. ‘Their post-human mind is impregnated into the large spots on each wing,’ it said.

  Jo-Jo was intrigued. ‘How do they land, then? There’s nothing to attach their legs to.’

  ‘They don’t require legs,’ said the uuli. ‘Observe above them.’

  Jo-Jo and Catchut craned their necks to view the dangling vegetation that grew from the apex of the dome. Broad leaves floated gently on stems that were attached to a network of vines and creepers. The Wings hovered above them and occasionally dropped onto them like slowly settling dust.

  ‘But how do they move around once they’ve landed?’

  ‘They don’t,’ said the translated uuli voice. ‘They spend their time hovering and settling. When they wish to take off, the vibration of their wings creates momentum. The leaf bounces.’

  ‘They’re pretty vulnerable, then,’ observed Catchut.

  The uulu knotted up again. ‘Don’t ever assume a transhuman is unprotected, no matter how delicate or vulnerable its corp is.’

  A sinister sensation crept up the back of Jo-Jo’s neck, making the roots of his hair stiff. Despite the marvels around him, he wanted to hurry back to the biozoon and get the hell off Rho Junction.

  Besides, the place was clogging up his airways. He glanced at Catchut whose expression remained bland and untroubled, though he noticed the mercenary’s hand was resting against his pocket. There were no weapon restrictions for those entering Rho Junction, although Jo-Jo knew that he would be searched before he entered the convocation chamber.

  ‘How much longer?’ he asked.

  ‘Longer,’ the uuli answered.

  Jo-Jo tried to fix his mind on the speech he was about to give, but other thoughts intruded. He shouldn’t have agreed to this. He should have got off the Savvy at Jandowae with the rest of the refugees. And something else was really bothering him. Something Jasper Farr had said. ‘Prediction is one of its uses’ The lunatic had a sophisticated device that correlated huge amounts of information. If he wasn’t using it to predict outcomes, what was he using it for? And where the hell did he get the design for it? Even the most advanced spintronics hadn’t produced anything like Lasper Farr’s Dynamic System device.

  The sinister sensation began to spread out across his body until his skin was crawling with unnamed fear.

  THALES

  ‘You’re weeks late.’ Gutnee Paraburd’s contact had his privacy screen on, but even with voice distortion he sounded suspicious. ‘Figured Gutnee stiffed me on this one. You got the guarantee? ‘Cos if not, I got another buyer comin’ in soon. Mebbe I’ll use them anyways. I prefer reliable.’

  Thales attempted to keep his face calm. The mercenary, Rast, had told him that they would run identity checks and reaction analysis—skin colour, pupil dilation—from the shortcast. If that checked out, he’d be given a meeting place and time.

  ‘If you get it right,’ Rast added.

  The mercenary scared him: her stark white hair and the mouth that switched between maliciousness and laughter in an instant. Mira Fedor was at least the type of woman he could comprehend. Mira Fedor had manners and breeding.

  He sighed. Not so Bethany.

  She held his hand now, out of sight of the shortcast viewer, leaning against one of the many tubercles in the biozoon’s buccal. He’d never met a woman like her. Despite her toughness she seemed so willing to do things for him, to listen. The respect she gave him was intoxicating. She loved the way he spoke, and his ideas. And her lovemaking was so natural. It made him forget that her flesh had lost its tautness and that her hair was thin and lacking lustre.

  Rene’s hair rippled like poured water.

  He pushed away that memory and concentrated on the ‘cast. ‘I ran into some trouble travelling. I had to pick up an alternative route.’

  ‘What kinda trouble?’

  Rast had prepared him for this. ‘There’s a rogue stationmaster hijacking cargo.’

  ‘Where and what name?’

  ‘Landhurst at Intel.’

  ‘You came through Intel?’

  Thales regurgitated Rast’s ready-made story. ‘I got diverted there from Scolar station. Seems there are some problems on a planet in one of the outer systems. Refugees are choking the shift queues.’

  ‘How come your ‘zoon’s showing high traces of mercury?’

  Thales resisted a panicked glance at Bethany. He tried to give the impression of bewilderment. ‘We had an encounter with a refuse ship. It tried to shift out of sequence, right into our space. It must have left us with some—er—residue.’

  ‘Damn Savvy bastards. That Carnage Farr thinks he’s got free run of everthin’.’

  The voice fell silent.

  Thales maintained a steady forward glance. He could think of nothing else to say, so he sought the space between his fear and his anger.

  ‘Well, your visuals check out, Thales Berniere. Get yourself over to Heijunka section on Rho One. Find bay GG. Wait in the reception area. And a word to it—don’t be squiddin’ me. My supplier’s got more pull than a gravity well. She’ll slice you up and use your DNA for paste.’

  She?

  The shortcast finished abruptly. Thales pulled his moist palm from Bethany’s and shook the feeling back into his fingers. ‘You’d better stay behind. They mentioned your brother.’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Rast from the sink of thick biozoon tissue she called Secondo. ‘Good catch on the mercury traces, scholar. Residue. Hah! Maybe you did learn something from all that studium time.’

  Thales clenched his teeth. ‘Education doesn’t equate to idiocy,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘Does in my worlds,’ Rast guffawed.

  Thales tried to relax his jaw. The mercenary was an expert in the art of belittling and she wasn’t particular who she practised it on.

  ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ agreed Bethany. ‘It is possible that I might be recognised, or linked to Lasper. My brother has more enemies than friends.’

  Thales gave her a warm look. ‘It would be safer.’

  Bethany stood and moved behind him where she rested her hands on his shoulders. He was sitting in what Randall had called Autonomy, a larger nub with recognisable add-ons that moulded to fit its occupant. With the virtual display pushed aside he could view the entire buccal with a glance.

  Rast had closed her eyes. ‘Better move, then. Don’t know how long Rasterovich can keep most of the attenti
on his way. We’ll all leave together. I’ll take Bethany and the Baronessa sightseeing. Act like you’re doing the same. According to the tourist map, Heijunka section is right next to The Hoes in Bell One. Take a detour through The Hoes like you’re after some distraction—anybody that’s watching will lose interest the moment you get there,’ she said.

  ‘What are The Hoes?’ asked Thales.

  Rast opened her eyes abruptly.

  He felt Bethany’s lips at his ear. ‘The Hoes is another name for the sex parlours,’ she whispered.

  Thales’s whole body flushed with heat. Scolar did not have such places. Carnal pleasures were NOT something philosophers paid for... though nothing would surprise him about those Pragmatists. But even they would not be tawdry about it. There was no sex industry on his planet. He imagined Rene’s repulsion at the very notion.

  Mira Fedor entered the buccal and frowned over at Randall. ‘The port authority has finished their scan of the ship. We have been given permission to disembark.’

  Rast leapt from her prone position with an agility that caused Thales a stab of envy. The woman was more of a man than he was in so many ways. And though bigoted and coarse, she was not a fool either.

  Thales felt a sudden desire to shirk off his upbringing—his beliefs—and become someone else. A person of action—not a piece of flesh manipulated against its will by a Lasper Farr or a Sophos Mianos and especially not by a Gutnee Paraburd. A strange coagulation of certainty occurred deep inside his chest.

  He could change.

  * * *

  Thales and Latourn parted from Rast, Mira and Bethany at the market stalls that lined the docks near their berth and took the suspended fast-trak to Bell One. The wavering overhanging tube only afforded brief glimpses of Rho Junction when it stopped and the doors flashed open and shut. There were no windows on the fast-trak, only bright dancing icons that recorded their journey with meticulous precision.

  Thales sat opposite Latourn, who kept his eyes on their route marker. He tried to find his meditation space again, to keep out lurking fears about the disease with which Lasper Farr had infected him and the new biological cocktail that he was about to receive, but it eluded him still...

  ‘Scholar?’

  Thales glanced around.

  Latourn stood in the doorway of the fast-trak forcing the sensors to keep it open. ‘You comin’?’

  Thales scrambled to his feet and joined the man.

  The fast-trak sped off, leaving them to ride a steep conveyor down to the floorspace of Bell One.

  The descent gave them a broad view of the layout. The conveyor led straight into an area of rooftops that resembled an ocean of rust-coloured waves, peaking but never quite breaking. They were divided periodically by large and bawdy sculptures.

  On the distant side of the Bell another city of high-rise factory buildings loomed through light haze.

  Thales sniffed the air. An acrid taste like pepper caught at the back of his throat, sending him into a coughing spasm.

  Latourn surveyed the vista with a curled lip.

  ‘Ventilation ain’t too good in this one/Extractors must be cheap. Or old.’

  ‘They sh-should be able to get rid of s-smoke at least,’ coughed Thales.

  “Taint smoke, scholar. It’s flakes.’ Latourn held out his hand and Thales watched tiny particles settle on his skin.

  ‘W-what f-from?’

  Latourn nodded at the uuli ahead of them on the conveyor. ‘Them, mebbe.’

  ‘Y-you mean their skin?’ Thales swallowed. ‘But we do not have that p-problem on Scolar.’

  Latourn jerked his head to indicate behind him. ‘Yeah, well, guess you don’t get so many. Or them, either.’

  Thales turned to the group overtaking them: transparent round-bodied creatures with strange flaps tagged in an irregular pattern across their skin. They balanced on long suckered feet that exuded unpleasant odours with each quick-flowing step. Within moments he and Latourn were left behind in a swirl of floating wet skin flakes.

  Both coughed violently.

  Latourn spat when he caught his breath. ‘Extros. Filthy skin-shedding Extros.’

  Thales couldn’t rid himself of their smell. It besieged his senses and he rushed to the edge of the conveyor to vomit. The hot liquid splashed onto his robe and splattered across the girders below.

  When he dragged himself back to Latourn he expected the man to taunt him, but the mercenary was already staring ahead at The Hoes. Thales appreciated, for once, a mercenary’s lack of finer feelings.

  They left the conveyor and walked into the first row. At the forecourt of each building was an exhibitor’s bubble where humanesques and aliens performed samples of the pleasures on offer within. Buyers crowded to each bubble.

  Thales wanted to vomit again when he saw the enactments. Latourn was wiping his hands against his side and swallowing, repeatedly.

  A humanesque female approached them wearing a stiff rainbow-thread robe not unlike the one that Mira Fedor had worn to greet Sophos Mianos. Her hair was secured under a silver-wire headdress and her face had been lightly sprayed with heavy silver paint that disguised any real expression.

  The woman spun slowly around. The back of her body was entirely bare, the edges of the fine clothing sutured to the skin at her sides. A belt slung around her waist carried a sheathed dagger that fitted snugly against the line of her backbone. Her bare flesh was a ghastly mess of raised scars and newly crusted cuts and the backs of her thighs were grazed raw.

  She pulled the dagger from its sheath with a practised hand and offered it to Latourn. He took it and fingered the blade.

  ‘We mustn’t stop,’ whispered Thales, terrified.

  But the mercenary was transfixed. ‘Go ahead, then, scholar. I’ll catch you up. Stick to this route,’ he said hoarsely. He unhooked the map from his ear and pushed it against Thales’s chest, shoving him away.

  Thales opened his mouth to protest but the words never formed; he was better without the surly man. Instead, he turned and kept walking. Confining his gaze to the view directly ahead, he held the bud to his ear and let the map navigate him through the centre of The Hoes. He did not need protection, he told himself. He had changed.

  Whether through luck or destiny no other trader approached him, though he felt the weight of their curious stares.

  At the edge of The Hoes the architecture changed with no space or allowance for the transition; wave buildings turned into a layered hive.

  The smells were different, too; the spicy musks and florals were replaced by something less salubrious, less hearty. The factories of the Hiejunka were made from grown technology; dirty catoplasma tubes squeezed on top of each other like the inner workings of an insect mound.

  The map steered him to bay GG and Thales found himself in front of a modest narrow popped doorfront bearing a medi-lab symbol.

  He hesitated before entering, glancing around. None of the factory units had windows. Are they all interconnected? he wondered. A hive of darkness.

  The factory unit on one side was much, much larger. A balol lounged against the wall of the other side, picking under its neck frill and inhaling from a small tube. It seemed oblivious to Thales’s presence.

  He reached for the door and pushed inward.

  A cooling chill and polycoated grey rubber greeted him. He walked to the desk and pressed on the reception pad.

  For a long time nothing happened.

  Thoughts streamed through his head. Wait for Latourn/press for attendance again/call out/leave/no! He had to get the DNA and return to Edo.

  As Thales reached for the pad again, a four-legged figure in mask and overalls scampered out from a doorway behind the desk. He propped his prehensile paws up on the counter and did not offer any introduction.

  ‘Your DNA profile correlates with our visual scan. Welcome to Junction, Msr Berniere. I have sent a farcast to our associate on Scolar to let him know our deal is in progress.’

  Gutnee Paraburd. Thales
felt a stab of anger. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It would be good for Mr Paraburd to know that I have received the DNA.’

  The lab-rat pressed a paw on the corner of the counter. It sprang open to reveal a small, cold-storage space full of vials and instruments. He selected a capsule and slotted it deftly into a gene gun.

  ‘Please hold out your arm.’

  Thales licked dry lips. What if the naked DNA combined with the bacterium to break down the barrier substance more quickly? What if he did not have as much time as Farr had predicted? Would there be a warning?

  He wanted to ask the lab-rat but any questions would arouse suspicion.

  I can change.

  He pushed up the sleeve of his robe and held his arm out.

  ‘The other side,’ said .the lab-rat.

  Before he could proffer the other arm a commotion broke out.

  A moment later the door burst open and a thin well-dressed Lostolian male staggered in supporting a filthy old ‘esque who was naked from the waist down and gasping for breath.

  ‘I need urgent medical help,’ cried the Lostolian in a commanding tone. ‘This man MUST NOT DIE!’

  TEKTON

  ‘Do you understand? He must not die!’ Tekton repeated himself slowly and with unmistakable vehemence.

  A lab-rat in a laboratory uniform of mask and frock coat edged out from behind the counter and hopped around as Tekton dropped Manruben on a chair. The old craftsman’s colouring had turned from chemical- ruddy to an unhealthy shade of white.

  ‘What is it?’ hissed the lab-rat.

  ‘Heart failure, I would surmise,’ said Tekton. ‘I believe he has no HealthWatch.’

  ‘I have a temporary patch,’ said the lab-rat. ‘You want it?’

  Tekton stamped his foot and gave him a fierce glare. ‘Are you mentally impaired? Of course I want it!’

  The lab-rat blinked and twitched but it didn’t move.

  An oddly dressed young man stepped from the corner of the counter into the ensuing silence. ‘I think... what he means is... well... who will pay.’