Chaos Space (Sentients of Orion) Read online

  Tekton took half a step back. It would not do to get the fellow overanxious. ‘I understand discretion better than most,’ he soothed. ‘I have a need that you can help me fulfil and you have a secret that needs to be kept. It is quite simple.’

  ‘No. It is not simple. Lasper and I do not have a close relationship. Fatherhood is not his strong suit.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We are estranged.’

  ‘But only for the purposes of distancing yourself from his nefarious activities, surely?’

  ‘No.’

  Tekton could see that Connit was recovering some composure.

  ‘What of your mother, then?’

  ‘She is dead. And she is the reason.’

  Tekton felt the edge of frustration rising. He should have realised that the politics of such a family would be fraught—yet he would not lose his advantage. ‘It would not matter to an OLOSS inquiry who speaks to who. You are Lasper Farr’s biological son. You must have access to information outside OLOSS channels. Find me a place and this will be the end of it.’

  Connit trembled again and the pair stared at each other for long moments.

  ‘Very well,’ said the Geneer. ‘Send me a list of your basic needs and I will find you suitable premises.’

  Tekton beamed. ‘I’ve always admired your common sense.’

  Connit took a deep, settling breath. ‘There is NOTHING at all that I admire about you. Or your cousin!’

  THALES

  Thales counted the days of his imprisonment, five now, which he’d spent largely in meditation. In the moments between contemplations he pondered Amaury Villon’s fate and the future of his own marriage. Did Villon’s beliefs have some sound basis or were they simply the imaginings of a brilliant mind left alone for too long? And what of Rene? Thales was angry with her, sure enough. But more than that, for the first time in their life together he questioned the compatibility of their values, their ideological harmony. Rene had always—to him—been the most beautiful of minds.

  ‘Msr Berniere?’

  Thales relinquished his inner world slowly.

  The door to his prison was ajar, and expressionless Brown Robes stood in front of him. One of them extended his hand to assist Thales from his meditative position on the floor.

  He did not take it. ‘Is my fate to be the same as Villon’s?’

  The guard dropped his hand. ‘The Sophos Mianos wishes an audience with you.’

  ‘He wishes an audience? And what if I refuse? It appears to be a fallacy that one is able to maintain a free mind and spirit on Scolar.’

  The guard did not react.

  Thales uncoiled and stood without assistance. He gave one sweeping glance around the prison apartment remembering all he could: remembering Amaury.

  The guards escorted him, one before him and one behind, in a brisk march along narrow corridors and up dimly illuminated stairs. The stairs gave way to the high, elaborately-carved ceilings and diamond chandeliers of the Sophos assembly halls, and finally to the Eminence offices.

  Sophos Mianos, Rene’s father, had one of the more prestigious rooms. Thales had been there, once only, to ask for permission to wed the man’s daughter. As he entered it now, he experienced the same impression of beauty and opulence.

  An aquarium occupied one entire wall, while another was decorated with a huge Mioloaquan wall-hanging that reflected from its scales a soft rainbow of lights across an intricately pearl-inlaid escritoire. This time, though, Thales was not nervously seeking acceptance into a family.

  ‘Berniere,’ said Sophos Mianos without preamble. ‘It is a grave occasion when I have to talk to you about the circumstances of several days ago.’

  Anger rushed through Thales but he smothered it, knowing that Mianos needed little excuse to find fault with his son-in-law. ‘Four days and six hours, Sophos, to be precise. I remember every second with great clarity, particularly my precious moments with the prophet Amaury Villon.’

  ‘Aaah, he could not resist telling you who he was? Well, I had hoped you would learn something from the experience.’

  ‘On the contrary, Sophos, it was your politic guards who informed me. And what I learned is that the Sophos are as autocratic as the most backward feudal planets, and that free thought is endangered on Scolar.’

  The skin around the edge of Mianos’s nostrils whitened. He stood and walked over to the aquarium wall. With a tap of a dispenser he loosed dried blood flakes into the water. A flotilla of tiny scalpel fish nibbled the disintegrating pieces. ‘Your foolish impudence is divisive, young man. You have seen now what happens to those who choose the path of agitator. Our great world, indeed our species, needs harmony and unity, not—’

  ‘Not what?’ Thales interrupted. ‘Challenging, inventive thought? Harmony does not mean that we must all agree. It means that we must be able to agree to disagree.’

  ‘Are you lecturing me, young Thales?’ Mianos returned to the escritoire and rubbed his fingers against the side of his aspect cube. ‘Disguise your poor and irrational behaviour how you will, but know the consequences of your behaviour for yourself and your wife.’

  ‘I want to see Rene.’ We must leave this place.

  ‘But she has no wish to see you.’

  ‘Liar!’ Thales accused.

  But as he spoke a screen on the darkest wall of the office began to unfold. It blinked alive like a watching eye.

  Rene appeared, standing against vast glazed windows—Thales could not place where—her thin figure outlined by filtered sunlight. She clutched the ruche of the curtains as though they were a support and Thales had a sudden fierce desire to take her in his arms and kiss her extreme pallor. She seemed agitated and distressed. ‘Thales?’

  ‘Why will you not see me, Rene?’

  ‘I’m not sure that I can trust your reaction to... me. Father thought this way would be best.’

  ‘You are a grown woman, my wife. Could you not make that decision for yourself? Could you not trust your heart?’ Thales asked her softly. ‘I would never hurt you.’

  Rene turned to stare out of the window. ‘My head is my heart, Thales. You know that.’

  Thales sensed Mianos’s satisfaction. It compelled him to provoke Rene.

  ‘I met the prophet Villon. He was in the room in which they imprisoned me.’

  She turned back sharply. ‘Villon? What nonsense is this, Thales?’

  ‘Nonsense, Rene? Why do you assume that I speak nonsense and your father speaks the truth?’

  ‘Villon left Scolar many years ago when he discovered that his extreme propaganda left us unmoved. He took it to the Extropists. They have need of belief. Any belief.’

  Thales was struck by the naivety of her perception. Did she really believe that the Extropists had no beliefs?

  ‘Everyone has beliefs, Rene. I am saddened that ours have diverged so. But know the truth of this. I have seen Villon.’

  ‘Your words are delusional, Thales. You must seek help.’

  ‘I don’t need help. I need someone to believe me.’ Why am I the one she can so easily deny? Anguish swamped him. She would not leave with him. Not now or ever. ‘The Pre-Eminence had Villon—’

  Mianos touched his aspect cube and the screen folded away, breaking Thales’s link with his wife.

  ‘Now remove yourself from my sight, Berniere. Your imprudence is dangerous. If you were not married to my daughter I would not have allowed you out of detention. She has pleaded for your release but you will stay away from her. And you will hold your tongue. Or you will lose it.’

  * * *

  The same politic guards took Thales to the foyer of the Eminence building and watched him walk across the marbled floor to the doors.

  ‘Msr Berniere?’

  Thales turned, his heart pounding.

  It was not the guards, though, but the concierge. The humanesque extended a note-film to him on a glass salver.

  Thales snatched it up and read it. Rene had rented him an apartment
off the Eminence Boulevard. His possessions were already there, waiting for him. That was all.

  He went straight there, bagged a selection of clothes and his personal aspect cube and crossed town where he checked into a boarding house in the Hume quarter. The boarding house’s facade was differentiated from those of the many other buildings by the unsightly aubergine-striped awnings tacked onto the window frames, and a stand of large potted plants gathered around the entrance.

  The location made his journey to the Jainist temple more arduous than he would have liked—he had to travel back across the city—but in truth he had little stomach for meditation right now. Restlessness had beset him.

  * * *

  For the next few weeks Thales sought company in the seamiest klatsches, hoping that carousing would crowd his thoughts enough to give him some peace. But was it peace he sought? Or was Rene right? Did he really seek conflict for its own sake?

  He found himself drawn to a circle of Skeptics: young humanesques and aliens who followed the ancient philosophy that everything could, and should, be doubted. Thales hoped that they of all clusters would question the Sophos.

  ‘Thales Berniere, Jainist,’ he said, seating himself in the narrow corner section of the couch.

  ‘Welcome, new face. I am Pascale,’ said a tall, thin Pagoin fellow.

  ‘Or is it new?’ offered another from the group. This fellow was short and solid and had gill scars on his neck. A Mioloaquan, perhaps, who had had the change.

  ‘Don’t mind Lieffried,’ said Pascale. ‘It is our... joke.’

  Thales bit his tongue. Did they really think that he would not understand their juvenile humour? He summoned an engaging smile. ‘I would like to introduce a topic to your discourse. I apologise if it is not new but I am in need of some intelligent debate, having recently found such discourse to be lacking. Do you not think it contemptible that we are unrepresented to the new Entity? OLOSS really must be challenged on their selection process.’

  ‘Which Entity?’ a Balol/Lostol hybrid asked.

  Thales searched the circle of faces. Could it be true that they did not know about the discovery of the godlike Entity?

  ‘If you mean the energy anomaly out near Mintaka that we are calling God, then we have little interest in goblin tales, Thales Berniere,’ said Pascale.

  ‘Why so, Pascale?’

  ‘We are bored with discussions of God. Even if the Entity’s existence is well cited, we believe that our focus should be on the demonstrative.’

  Thales did not disguise his incredulous tone. ‘Demonstrative? You mean your belief is based only on what you can see before you? Here on Scolar?’

  Lieffried stood up and stretched. ‘Frankly, who cares what the southern sector busies itself about? Or if it is even there.’

  The circle of listeners tittered.

  ‘But your attitude is so... exclusivist,’ Thales protested.

  ‘You sound like you are a probable-ist, Thales. Perhaps you would do well with the archiTects of Lostol,’ said Pascal.

  ‘One can see why you would make that judgement, Thales,’ added Lieffried. ‘But we are done with vastness and mystery. Concretism and pragmatics are our new muses. And they are so rewarding.’ He added slyly: ‘As is the Pre-Eminence when one adopts their beliefs—twenty thousand gals.’

  ‘You are being paid to believe?’ exclaimed Thales. ‘That is outrageous. You stagger me.’

  ‘Why do I think that you are not being complimentary?’ said Pascal.

  Thales stood and placed his drink on the table, unsure if inebriation or shock caused him to sway so. ‘How can we inspire and lead our species with such a prosaic and self-centred ideology?’

  ‘Inspire?’ said Lieffried.

  ‘Lead?’ said the rest of the group in unison.

  The tittering started again.

  ‘What about Villon? What of his teachings?’ asked Thales.

  ‘Villon? Villon was of the past,’ murmured Pascal. ‘I heard he was dead.’

  ‘No, no,’ corrected Lieffried. ‘He joined the Extropists. They are far more concerned with evolutionary possibilities than anyone else. It was best for all.’

  Thales leapt to his feet. ‘He did not join the Extropists,’ he shouted. ‘He is a victim of our own—’

  The kafe’s entire sea of faces turned upward to him, their owners as eager for rumour as the scalpel fish in Mianos’s aquarium had been for blood flakes.

  Thales felt their attention and thrust back from the table before his mouth betrayed him further. In doing so he collided with a Mae ji in a black kaftan and full veils. ‘Careful, young Sophos,’ the Mae ji murmured.

  ‘I am not Sophos!’ Thales cried. He grabbed her arm to emphasise his point, but the looseness of her clothing caused him to misjudge her shape. His hand grazed accidentally against the softness of her breast.

  He withdrew his hand as if stung. ‘I a-apologise—’ he said.

  The Mae ji froze but her companion gave an affronted cry.

  The circle of Skeptics watched. Behind the bar the klatsch owners began whispering to each other. One of them disappeared.

  ‘I-I meant nothing. That is, I did not mean to touch you in that way,’ whispered Thales.

  But the weight of the judgemental stares told him that his apology was wasted. The patrons were hungry for agitation. He edged towards an exit as a commotion of voices drew everyone’s attention to the rear of the klatsch. Four robed guards entered with their batons loose in their hands. Their appearance sent a ripple of comment from one table to the next. Thales did not wait for the whispers to reach him.

  He ran.

  MIRA

  Res-shift from Dowl had been shadowed by guilt and relief: relief to be clear of Araldis and its heartbreak, guilt for the fate of the ship that had crossed their wake, and for having left Vito and the korm and Cass and her children behind.

  Res-shift from Intel was a thing beyond horror. Quanta streamed by Mira’s virtual vision at shocking speeds, signals flared and flashed compelling her to make instant decisions. They backlogged so quickly that the virtual display became an aurora from which she had trouble distinguishing command prompts.

  Assign default positions. Switch to audio only, she instructed.

  Instantly her mind became invaded by noise.

  Vibration calibration only.

  Mira listened to the whispering of resonator readouts. The tuition modules at the Studium on Araldis had said that most virtual-run craft could res-shift on Autonomy as long as the pilot primed the correct vibration, and allowed the V-I to operate a background safety default.

  With the biozoon Mira was not sure how enmeshed the installed V-I was with the creature. Her tutor modules had not been able to be precise. The degree of Autonomy varied, dependent on what augmentations the individual biozoon allowed. Then there were those who had been hobbled and had had full V-I forced on them.

  Like Sal.

  An uneven hum started up as Mira began to prime the biozoon for shift.

  That’s not right. It should be steady.

  She switched back to virtual vision and hunted for the anomalies in the shift field. The display showed nothing abnormal but the vibration still ran in shuddering bursts.

  The biozoon’s surface temperature fluctuated wildly and Mira heard a terrifying roar like the onset of a ferocious gale. She lost consciousness of everything save the shiftspace. What was causing the vibration irregularity? What had she forgotten? What had she overlooked?

  Diagnostic reports crashed in waves of data. Normal... normal... normal...

  It’s not normal! she shrieked at no one.

  Then she saw it. The biozoon’s cephalic fins weren’t at optimum span.

  The roar geared to a higher pitch. Audio told her that she had 6.2 counts to even out vibration or... they would go into shift ripping apart.

  Too late now. Is there pain with annihilation? Mira wondered.

  6.1 counts: visual sweep. Station security gathered around
the edge of shiftspace—ticks sucking a warm body. Their weapons primed. Waiting for her to abandon her course.

  5.3 counts: terminate shift—how much damage?—face Landhurst.

  3.8 counts: or shift and die—certain.

  2.2 counts: nothing

  1.4 counts: nothing

  1.1 counts: untie me

  Insignia?

  In a rush of adrenalin Mira found herself straining out of her seat as she frantically relinquished control of the vibration sets.

  The hum steadied.

  03: shift imminent

  Mira clung to the add-ons as the Autonomy sink wrapped around her, supporting fragile flesh. After the suffocation it came... the exquisite, stabbing, devouring, mind-inverting pain of shift and then the release...

  * * *

  ‘Fedor.’

  The voice was a welcome intrusion into Mira’s dark, swirling, unhinged thoughts.

  ‘You did it, Fedor!’

  Somewhere among the tendrils of requests and screeds of location data Mira knew Rast’s twang.

  You may relinquish everything now, Mira. I am healed enough.

  Insignia sounded disappointed and just faintly amused, Mira thought, like a parent who had watched their child try and fail. She detached herself from the add-ons and plucked the lozenge from the sink. Blinking brought the rest of the buccal into focus. She coughed and manoeuvred her body to the edge of the sink where she sat with her head in her hands.

  ‘Fedor.’

  Rast again. This time, though, the woman stood in front of her, swaying. Her hair was slick with tubercle secretions, her face shiny.

  ‘Are... are you well?’ Mira enquired politely.

  ‘Am I well?’ Rast gave a snorting laugh. ‘You’ve just taken us through res-shift and you’re asking if I’m well?’

  ‘No, I—’ Mira stopped. Perhaps it was safer for her if Rast believed it. ‘Yes, I mean... I guess so,’ she finished limply.

  ‘I guess so?’ Rast laughed again but this one was belly- deep and tinged with relief. ‘You’re even beginning to sound like one of us. We’ve got some bodies to get rid of and then we’ll be up in the mess celebrating. Join us when you’ve got your head straight. How is the ‘zoon doing, by the way? Things were messy down there. Those bastards took a blowtorch to her.’