Chaos Space (Sentients of Orion) Read online

  But she was riveted by his clumsy movements and obvious desperation. She saw his ill-fitting torn uniform. Who is he? Why does he help us?

  ‘Please go!’ he cried again. ‘Do not trust him.’

  As Latourn dragged Mira into the connection matrix, the uninjured guard grappled with the inept dissident and ripped the visor from his face.

  Mianos gasped. ‘Thales! What in Kant’s name are you doing—’

  ‘You would imprison this woman as you did Villon? As you did me?’ The young man’s voice was impassioned. Wild.

  The guard caught the dissident’s arm and jerked it hard behind his shoulder, twisting it to dislocation point.

  The dissident roared with fury rather than with pain. His shouted words became incoherent angry sobs.

  Mira’s heart beat harder at his distress, but Latourn showed no such concern. He was pounding at the egress scale.

  Mira stayed where she was in the centre of the connection matrix. ‘Help him,’ she said.

  Latourn stared back at her, incredulous. ‘No,’ he barked.

  ‘Insignia will not open the egress scale until I tell her,’ Mira told him.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Help the dissident and I will instruct Insignia to open it.’

  Latourn’s eyes widened. ‘Capo said not to go with you—she said you were loco.’

  Rast had said that? Mira kept her expression impassive. Perhaps she was. ‘You are a fighter. So fight for me.’

  Latourn made an infuriated noise. He unbuckled the belt around his fellalo and plunged back through the matrix into the other ship’s link chamber.

  Mira followed him.

  The uninjured guard thrust the dissident aside roughly, bent swiftly to retrieve his weapon from the floor and turned it on Latourn. But the dissident threw himself against him, spoiling his aim before he fell sprawling.

  In a deft, quick move Latourn looped his belt around the guard’s throat and twisted hard, snapping the man’s neck. He pulled the dissident upright and tossed him from the link chamber into the matrix. He landed almost at Mira’s feet.

  Mira ran to the egress scale. Open for us, she instructed the biozoon.

  The scale peeled back and she scrambled through first. A moment later the dissident followed with Latourn behind him.

  Insignia’s presence filled her. She felt stronger and lighter. Thank you.

  Then Rast had her, pulling her to her feet by her throat, shaking her into the present.

  ‘Whatisit!’ The mercenary demanded. ‘What’s happening? And who the fuck is this?’

  Mira peeled Rast’s fingers from around her neck. Pushing back her disordered wimple she glanced down and saw the dissident’s face clearly for the first time. She did not think she had ever seen a more beautiful man.

  Insignia, break away from the other ship. She looked back at Rast. ‘I really do not know.’

  JO-JO RASTEROVICH

  ‘You’re the God-Discoverer.’

  ‘Some call me that,’ said Jo-Jo.

  ‘I’m Loker.’ The round, sweaty man shot out his hand. ‘My H-M picked up your heat signature.’

  Jo-Jo shook Loker’s hand. Then he turned in the tight confines of the small cluttered bridge and nodded his thanks to the scruffy glassy-eyed kid seated in the immersion sink.

  ‘Tell me, what was the God-Discoverer doing floating around tethered to a station lug? Shouldn’t you be toastin’ your naked backside on a beach somewhere?’

  ‘Bad Timing’s got no manners,’ said Jo-Jo in a noncommittal manner. ‘Am obliged to you for picking us up, though, seeing as you’ve already got a fair load.’ They’d climbed over the bodies of ‘esques and aliens in the corridors of the Savvy’s ventilated section.

  ‘Yeah. Too many. We’re thinking of going for a scrap- shift. Get these people off my ship as soon as I can.’

  ‘Scrapshift?’

  ‘Can’t see much in the way of alternatives. Maglev is working to the outstations but there ain’t nothing out there but a bunch of satellites and some demounts on one of the moons. If we don’t go while scrapshift is still working we might get stuck here. I only got a week’s food left, and that’s for a crew of ten. No knowing what those ginkos will do, either. Or how long until help comes.’

  Jo-Jo realised why they’d been brought to the bridge. Scrapshift was a shitty experience. Sometimes people died from it. The Captain needed a second opinion—or someone else to blame. Jo-Jo had done it once before but he’d been in a half-decent can and unconscious drunk to boot. Afterwards he’d still felt like he’d been shredded. ‘You got extra vibration cans?’

  ‘Yeah. But not enough for everyone. We got a ton of bodies sardined into a Savvy rated for thirty. My ventilators are crapping themselves while we stand here flapping our gums suckin’ air.’ The Captain sounded cool enough but tension played around his mouth.

  Jo-Jo thought about it. He couldn’t see many options either. ‘Tough call, though, Loker. Might lose some.’

  The Captain shrugged. ‘I figured you’d seen a bit. You got anything better?’

  ‘Can you distribute people onto the other craft?’ asked Bethany.

  Loker ran his fingers along his com-sleeve and a low-resolution image of Dowl res-space flickered into life in front of them. It reminded Jo-Jo of acid hour at the Vega swap meet. ‘Each ship is in the same situation, only they can’t do a scrapshift—their ships aren’t built for it.’

  ‘Maybe we could take a vote. Those who don’t want to risk it can get off,’ suggested Beth.

  Loker’s face seemed to expand with annoyance. ‘This ain’t a frikkin’ election, lady. I’m betting we’ve got an hour before life-support craps itself completely, which will at least spare us death by starvation. Every damn ship out there is in the same situation. Either we put down on Araldis or we risk an unattended scrapshift.’

  Beth blushed but she didn’t back down. ‘I see the dilemma, Captain, but you’re making a decision that might kill people. I wouldn’t want that on my conscience.’

  ‘So it’s better if we all die, then?’ said Loker hotly.

  Yet Jo-Jo could see that Beth had rattled him. He was a Savvy captain. Life-and-death responsibility didn’t come in the job description.

  ‘I think we should put down on Araldis,’ Beth insisted.

  The Captain gave her an incredulous stare. ‘The place is burning. We can see it from our sats.’ He tapped the sleeve again and a primitive slide-show of images replaced the shift-space representation.

  Beth sagged when she saw the grainy pictures of billowing smoke. ‘Araldis has a high oxygen quotient. The fires will take a long time to burn out,’ she whispered.

  ‘What’s not burned is desert,’ said Loker.

  Mau put his arm around Beth’s shoulder and squeezed her gently. ‘Scrapshift best.’

  Jo-Jo nodded agreement. ‘Where’s the nearest station?’

  ‘Jandowae.’

  Loker lifted his sleeve and spoke into it. ‘Get everyone into the buffer cans.’

  ‘Captain?’ replied a crew member from somewhere on the ship. ‘There ain’t enough roo—’

  ‘I know. We’re scrapping in eight minutes.’

  The virtual representation of their position vanished and reappeared in the air above the H-M’s sink, flashing between schematic and sectioned real-time views.

  Loker muttered into his sleeve, his eyes half-closed as he became absorbed in interface. The H-M was slack- jawed as well; spit bubbling at the corner of his mouth.

  Jo-Jo felt a tightening hand on his guts. Gould the kid handle this?

  A third crew member entered the bridge and grudgingly handed out antispasmodics. ‘Scrapshift is rougher than most—even in the cans. Need two of these normally but there ain’t enough to go around. Should save you from the worst, though,’ he said.

  Jo-Jo slipped his into Beth’s hand. She frowned at him and shook her head.

  ‘Mothershit!’ cried the H-M.

  Jo-Jo
didn’t have to ask what was wrong. The schematic showed another ship crossing ahead of their shiftspace trajectory. Not a Savvy. Something bigger, creating an uncommon energy signature.

  ‘Where are they going?’ cried Jo-Jo. ‘I thought normal res-shift was buggered.’

  ‘H-M?’ Loker’s voice quavered.

  ‘Must have entered at the same time as us, Captain. It’s an organic. A ‘zoon or a biobe,’ said the young kid. ‘They don’t need working res. They just need the—’

  ‘Coordinates. I know,’ finished Jo-Jo. Was it Salacious?

  ‘They’re going to squirt.’ Loker lifted his sleeve. ‘We’re in their slipstream. Secure the vibration cans. NOW!’ he screamed.

  ‘Josef,’ Bethany wailed.

  Mau grabbed her hand—the one that held the anti- spas—and twisted it. She opened her mouth to protest but he forced her palm to her lips and made her swallow the caps.

  ‘Loker,’ said Jo-Jo sharply. ‘We go in on their tail and we’ll pixelate.’

  ‘Not if we stay close enough.’

  ‘Close enough? We’d have to be fucking ‘em!’ Jo-Jo roared.

  Loker was staring over the edge of his own indecision: shaking; eyes blank.

  Calmer, thought Jo-Jo. Be calmer. ‘Loker, pull out and we’ll go again.’

  ‘He’s right, Captain,’ said the H-M. The kid was shaking worse than Loker but he was still thinking.

  ‘No, too much damage,’ insisted Loker. ‘We tuck in tight. Don’t argue, Len.’

  The Savvy started to groan as though the long- married seams were planning a separation. Jo-Jo felt the start of a tooth-rattling, bone-deep vibration where there should be none.

  ‘Cans are malfunctioning, Captain.’

  ‘Why?’ demanded Loker.

  ‘Slipstream’s causing a vacuum. Can program’s getting the wrong data.’

  ‘Change the parameters.’

  ‘Take too long,’ said the kid.

  Mau looked at Jo-Jo.

  Jo-Jo nodded at him, then slung his arm through one of the grips that hung from the ceiling. ‘Don’t damage the sleeve,’ he said softly.

  Mau made a deep-throated noise and pushed Bethany down into a wall cavity. Then he launched at Loker with his undamaged shoulder, knocking the Savvy captain out of his crib onto the floor.

  ‘H-M, peel out,’ shouted Jo-Jo. ‘NOW!’

  The kid looked at Loker. The Captain was unconscious.

  He punched his fist into his palm and nodded.

  For as long as Jo-Jo could stay upright and keep watching the schematic he didn’t think they would make it. Then he lost his handgrip and flew across the cabin to crash into Mau and Loker.

  Sound replaced sight: Mau’s swearing, the H-M grunting as though lifting something heavy, and the distant but persistent screams.

  Jo-Jo lost his grip on Mau’s leg and juddered across the floor, whacking the side of his face against the bulkhead. The pain was nothing compared to the agony that had overtaken his body: cramps in every conceivable muscle—legs, arms, stomach and, worse, his lips and cheeks sucking inward as though he was trying to swallow his own mouth.

  Then the Savvy broke out of the slipstream with an unforgettable jolt.

  The vibration stilled.

  The H-M stopped grunting and took in dry gulps of air. So did Bethany.

  ‘H-M?’ Jo-Jo rasped when he could speak. ‘Report?’

  Young Len gave a lunatic’s high-pitched laugh. ‘I think we’re good to go again.’

  * * *

  They re-entered scrapshift thirty minutes later. Jo-Jo felt the relief of comparative stillness as they reached the optimum speed and the vibration buffers kicked in.

  Even so, his bones felt as though they’d been compressed and mixed into a paste. Mau lay atop Loker, swearing still, and Beth was curled into a ball. Only Len seemed to be functioning.

  Tough kid.

  ‘We’re calm,’ Len pronounced wearily a few moments later. ‘Jandowae.’

  None of them moved or spoke for a long while.

  Loker surfaced from unconsciousness. Pressing the back of his head with one hand, he kicked free of Mau and checked his sleeve.

  ‘Jandowae,’ he said, and smiled. ‘We slipstreamed it.’

  Jo-Jo waited. It was the H-M’s call; the kid had to work with Loker.

  But Len stayed silent.

  The Savvy captain bestowed a sneer upon all of them, then climbed to his feet and stumbled from the bridge.

  * * *

  Jo-Jo helped Beth to her feet. She was trembling but composed enough. He couldn’t see any signs of bruising on her.

  He touched his own cheekbone and winced. Better than me.

  ‘I want to go back to Araldis,’ said Beth.

  Jo-Jo stared, not sure if he had heard her right.

  ‘I want to get help and go back.’ Her expression had a weird kind of intensity about it that he’d only seen once before. ‘My daughter is there,’ she whispered.

  ‘Help? You go to OLOSS for help and they’ll tie you up for years asking questions. And mercenaries cost lucre that you haven’t got.’

  Beth nodded dismissively and turned to Len the H-M. ‘When do you drop your load at Akouedo?’

  ‘We were on our way there when this shit happened. I guess that’s where we’ll go when the Captain clears things.’

  She nodded again. ‘I want to go with you.’

  Len tried to sit up straight and rub the exhaustion from his eyes. ‘Captain might take you.’ He looked at Mau. ‘Then again, he might not. Depends on the lucre.’ He crawled up out of his sink, his legs shaky. ‘Better go see if I can help out.’

  ‘Why there?’ Jo-Jo asked Beth when the kid had gone.

  She hesitated. ‘I know someone who can help. Not OLOSS.’

  ‘A mercenary?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  There was silence again. Jo-Jo’s face throbbed and he felt a sudden powerful hunger, making it hard to concentrate. ‘Well, Beth, I’m sorry about your girl but I got no need to go back to Araldis.’

  ‘What do you need to do?’ she asked curiously.

  ‘I need to find someone.’ And then what?

  ‘You’ll want your own ship to do that, won’t you?’

  He thought of Salacious and felt a surge of anger.

  But Beth wasn’t giving up. ‘I can get you one on Akouedo if...’

  ‘If what?’

  ‘If you can convince Captain Loker to take us there.’

  ‘Us?’

  Mau was sitting on the edge of Loker’s platform, looking like he wanted to say something but was waiting for permission.

  ‘It’s OK, Pet,’ Beth said.

  Jo-Jo didn’t like the feeling he was getting. The one that meant he’d been left out of a secret.

  ‘Petalu is my guardian. My brother insists I have one,’ said Beth.

  ‘So all that Mama Petalu and Savvy stuff was crap?’ Jo-Jo turned on Beth. ‘Why do you need a guardian? And who’s your brother?’

  She glanced at Mau again.

  Jo-Jo realised what an idiot he’d been by not picking up on the protectiveness.

  ‘I c-can’t explain yet. When we get to Akouedo, Josef,’ she said. ‘Please can you convince Loker to take us there? He won’t listen to me.’

  Please? She’d lied to him, yet she was also the reason he was still alive and feeling belligerent—he owed her this favour at least. ‘I’ll talk to Loker,’ he said.

  * * *

  Jo-Jo stepped out of the tiny bridge and straight into the slippery stink of blood and urine. People were spilling from the vibration cans into the corridors.

  He forced his way along to where Captain Loker knelt over an injured woman. ‘Loker!’

  The Captain glanced up at him, annoyed.

  But Jo-Jo wouldn’t be deterred. ‘I don’t want to get off here.’

  ‘Station security is about to come aboard. Everyone’s off then.’

  ‘I want to go to Akouedo. I’ll pay
,’ said Jo-Jo. ‘Me and my two friends.’

  But Loker’s attention was drawn away from him to an eruption of shouts as the hatches opened.

  Jo-Jo knelt down next to him ‘Loker!’

  The man swung Jo-Jo another look. ‘Fee is ten thousand gals. Now get out of my hair unless you know something about this...’ He lifted his hand from the woman’s thigh and blood seeped down onto the floor. She moaned in a way that made Jo-Jo want to crap himself.

  Loker clamped his hand over the wound again. ‘Crux, where are the fucking medics?’

  * * *

  Jo-Jo returned to the bridge and warned Beth and Mau not to leave. They crouched on the floor space around Loker’s platform, saying little to each other.

  After a while Len appeared, looking haggard. He went straight into his sink without a word.

  When the station security guards finally shouldered their way into the cramped bridge space Jo-Jo was first on his feet. Loker swayed in the door, well past exhausted. He pointed. ‘That’s my H-M and these ones are paying customers on their way to Akouedo,’ he said.

  ‘Smells like they’re going to the right place,’ said the station-sec guard closest to Petalu Mau.

  ‘Stand against the wall,’ ordered another.

  ‘Loker?’ said Jo-Jo sharply.

  ‘Station sec thinks some of the refugees might not be genuine.’ Loker’s stare met Jo-Jo’s. ‘Are you working for the nasties, Rasterovich?’

  ‘What’s your business in Akouedo?’ said the sec guard with the most stripes.

  ‘My ship was stolen from a berth on Dowl. I need a short-term replacement. Thought it might be the place to pick one up cheap.’

  ‘And these two?’

  ‘My crew,’ said Jo-Jo without hesitation.

  The sec guard checked them all with his recog-ware.

  ‘So, you’re the God-Discoverer. Figured you’d be bigger, somehow. Smarter-looking.’

  Jo-Jo ignored the insult, thankful, for once, for his reputation.

  ‘Well, God-Discoverer, according to our recog your HealthWatch has expired,’ said the sec guard helpfully. ‘Better get that fixed.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jo-Jo. ‘Well, I’ve been a bit busy.’