The Sentients of Orion Read online

  The agony and ecstasy of it all went on for several weeks until at short notice, Tekton hired a re-shift cruiser. Jo-Jo dumped Vatsyayan, Confucius and Mi as the cruiser’s stolen coordinates tumbled into Salacious II’s nav system and brought up a distant system on his holowad.

  Jo-Jo’s high-heeled-legs pointer danced about before settling on one of the system’s three inhabited planets.

  A set of pouting scarlet lips formed to rattle off a short briefing.

  Araldis World has been settled for two hundred and three years. Its major export is mineral. Haulers operating on the mag-beam network cart ore to the Dowl res-shift station for sale and distribution through the wings of Orion.

  Owned and settled by Cipriano Clan (aristocratic families from Latino Minor with ideologically Machiavellian roots) originally from Latino Crux.

  Racial breakdown: Latino humanesque 72%, other humanesque 26%, alien 2%.

  The pointer legs and lips vanished while the system diagram continued its elegant rotation in front of him.

  Jo-Jo propped his elbows on his knees, sank his chin into his hands and gave a gargantuan sigh. ‘The only things I hate more than tax collectors and Hera contracts,’ he said aloud, ‘are frigging aristos.’

  MIRA

  ‘You’re the last in,’ a voice shouted.

  Mira and Cass peered out through the dirt-smeared windows. Ipo was only a few mesurs ahead of them. A small TerV pulled up alongside where they had stopped between huge hydroponic tents and an ‘esque with crimson skin and gold miner’s tattoos across the bridge of his nose leaned out of the open door. He wore no protective suit, only a thin insulating robe with an open hood.

  ‘We’re sealing off the town—bunkering in. Then we saw youse coming. We only got a few minutes.’ He gestured back over his shoulder. ‘Anyone outside the fence’s on their own. What you got in the back?’

  ‘Nothin’ ‘cept a couple of women,’ said Innis.

  Marrat opened the doorbridge for him to inspect the vehicle’s interior and Cass and Mira climbed out of the barge to stand next to Marrat.,

  ‘What fence are you talking about?’ asked Innis.

  The ‘esque pointed to the array of tripods posted at intervals to their left and right. ‘We’ve rigged a laser around the town, using the mining levels.’

  ‘But half of Loisa is behind us on foot. What about them?’ Mira protested.

  He gave her a hard look and then shrugged. ‘Count yourselves too lucky.’

  Too lucky? Too lucky—to see a child crushed under the tracks of a TerV? Too lucky—to lose mia sorella? ‘The Saqr will kill them.’ Mira looked for Cass to add force to her protest but the woman avoided her gaze, fussing with the seals of her ‘bino’s oversuit.

  ‘You cannot deny them entry,’ persisted Mira.

  ‘Shut ‘em out or die, Rast says. Pretty straightforward. Now youse best go further in to town now. Gonna be some bazoom out here,’ said the ‘esque.

  Behind them a dull glow sprang to life across the road—a tinted distortion of the dawn like a not-quite fire. It spread in a wide circle around the town and high into the air.

  ‘All the way around.’ He laughed. ‘They won’t even know it’s there until they’re on it.’

  As they watched the fence flicker, the wind gusted, blasting them with dust and grit. Another TerV pulled alongside and its driver leaned out. This one wore a full but hard-worn protective suit.

  ‘These are the last ones, Catchut,’ said their escort.

  ‘Get ‘em into town.’

  Mira glimpsed Catchut’s face behind the film. It was pale and space-soft. An un-native who hasn’t bothered with melanin therapy. Not a miner. Not a farmer. A soldier, perhaps? But there were no soldiers on Araldis, only cowardly Carabinere.

  ‘Yessir.’ The miner slapped his fingers to his leathery forehead in mock salute.

  ‘‘Now, Rast says. Everyone away from the fence,’ said Catchut. He drove off.

  Mira and Cass climbed back into the barge and Mira checked on the korm. Vito was asleep, tucked against the large alien’s forearm. The scar bubbles left by the Saqr wound seemed smaller today, and the korm seemed content to lie and let its body self-heal. It needed food, though, like they all did.

  As the barge drove past the rows of hydroponic tents the guide wires sang in the wind. Mira pressed against the window. How much food is in them? Enough to feed the town? For how long?

  They wound along Ipo’s well-compacted dirt roads, so different from the redcrete viuzzas of Loisa, and skirted a small rectangular bore-field before entering the town’s centre. Mira knew of Ipo’s reputation as the harshest of the plains towns, a place where the hydro-farmers and the miners lived in uneasy proximity. The miners were mostly ‘esque but not familia, not Cip. Like Cass and Innis they came from planets all through the Orion system. They’d built their shanties—gumes, they called them—from materials discarded from the larger mines like Pellegrini A and B. In Ipo, the shanties outnumbered the catoplasma buildings and the mud-and-cellulose casas tenfold.

  It was easy to spot where the few familia lived. Their villas, though crude in comparison to those in Loisa, were solid, comforting outlines in the flat red-brown townscape.

  As they passed the quark battery, Mira caught a strong sulphuric stench and glimpsed people standing in line outside the pens. ‘They’re queuing for eggs,’ she said to Cass. The notion shocked her.

  Cass rocked her ‘bino in time with the sway of the barge. ‘Never had to queue for anything before, eh, Baronessa?’

  When the barge slowed and stopped Cass climbed out ahead of Mira.

  Catchut was waiting for them in a space half-filled with barges and trucks. ‘We need your TerV.’

  Cass gave him a steady look, one hand on her hip, the other still nursing her ‘bino. ‘Who wants it?’ Innis and Marrat joined them—Kristo stayed with the rifle.

  ‘Rast,’ said Catchut, as if that should explain everything.

  Cass smiled suddenly. ‘Perhaps I’d better talk to Rast, then.’ She turned to the others. ‘Innis, you and Marrat stay with the barge. Don’t let anyone take it anywhere. Get the rifle down. Kristo, see if you can find some food for us. Mira, bring Vito and come with me.’

  ‘Cass—’ Innis began. But she had already walked away.

  Mira followed her and Catchut down a wide dirt road lined with gumes on either side and across a dusty piazza to a large flat-topped catoplasma structure that looked like a public-utility building—the town salon, perhaps. As they stepped inside the coldlock, the recycled air made her shiver. At least some places were still cooled. She had never spent such a prolonged period outside and her body had felt constantly overheated and coated in a layer of dirt and sweat. Her fellala could not be working well. Or was it simply exhaustion that made her legs tremble with the effort of the walk?

  Vito mewled with hunger. She jiggled him tiredly.

  ‘Here,’ said Cass. She held out her own infant. ‘Take Chanee while I feed Vito.’

  Mira suddenly realised she had not even known Cass’s ‘bino’s name.

  With Vito still suckling at her breast, Cass walked calmly into the large middle room. One corner of it was furnished with stools and a hand-tooled metal table, the rest was empty. The walls were covered with shimmer maps of mine geography. At one end of the table sat an ‘esque with a battered combat hood half- pulled over stark white hair. Her pale face was so lean and hollow that it seemed as if the flesh barely covered the bone. Across her cheekbones she bore the red markings of a tattoo.

  ‘Rast,’ Catchut said, with obvious deference.

  Rast glanced up in irritation from a thin sheet of film. ‘Don’t—’ She broke off her sentence in mild surprise. ‘Well, if it isn’t Cass Mulravey—I might have known you’d survive.’

  Cass sat down, detaching Vito from her breast and settling him against her shoulder. ‘Loisa is lost to the ginkos.’

  Rast gave Catchut a dismissive nod before she replied. As he left the
room her gaze settled on Mira. Her stare was an assault of evaluation and immediate censure. ‘I know. Who’s this?’

  Mira forced herself to speak up. ‘Mira Fedor. I am trying to get back to Pell. The signorina helped me out of Loisa.’

  ‘Actually, she helped us. Picked up on the problem with the barge’s motor. Otherwise we’d be ginko shit by now,’ said Cass.

  ‘Fedor, eh? Not the Pilot family?’ Rast tapped her fingers on the table. Half of one—a little one—was missing.

  Mira nodded.

  ‘Heard about them. What does that make you? A princess or somethin’?’

  ‘My title is Baronessa.’

  ‘Well, things are bad at Pell, pilot-Baronessa. The bears have either overrun the place or destroyed it.’

  Mira’s stomach lurched at the blunt news. ‘They are called Saqr.’

  Rast gave her a curious look. ‘You know about them?’

  ‘A little. I am Studium-educated.’

  ‘You and I better have a chat, then. Maybe you know something I don’t. Or it may be that you don’t.’ Her lips curved in a cold, sneering smile that caused Mira to stiffen.

  ‘What do they want?’ asked Cass.

  ‘Pretty damn obvious what they want.’ Rast’s eyes narrowed in a way that made her look less womanly. ‘Your world is what they want. Why they want it? Aaah, well, you’d have to ask Franco Pellegrini that.’ She took a slightly ragged breath. ‘But he’s dead.’

  ‘Dead.’ Cass repeated the word tonelessly.

  Dead. The word had Mira trembling all over. The Principe is dead.

  ‘Mad damn scramble to find his son now—apparently he was out in one of the border towns doing penance for something. Talk about timing. Anyway, no one’ll be leaving here for a while anyway. We’re bunkered down until help comes—’

  ‘What about all the others out on the plains? There were so many behind us. On foot,’ Mira interrupted. She did not mention her knowledge of Trin. She did not want any reason to prolong a discussion with this woman.

  Rast’s expression became even more unpleasant. ‘Let’s get one thing straight, pilot. I’m not much for planets. I came here to do a job that’s gone arse-over and I plan to get my crew out. At the moment that means holding this shit-hole until we get some AiVs to get out of here.’

  ‘You’re going to fly the whole town out in AiVs?’

  ‘Let’s just say I plan to get us some help.’

  Rast’s hood began to ping loudly enough for Mira, on the other side of the room, to hear. ‘Want to watch the show?’ Rast slid the film along the table.

  Mira drew closer to Cass. The screen showed what looked like flares being set off indiscriminately on the outskirts of Ipo. Except they weren’t flares—they were Saqr, incinerating as they stumbled upon the laser fence.

  ‘Your idea, I suppose.’ Cass seemed older and suddenly weary.

  Rast gave a mock half-bow where she sat. ‘Just working with what I’ve got, Mulravey. My speciality, you could call it. We collected all the laser levels and sights in the town, any damn thing that could excite a proton, and set them up around the perimeter.’

  ‘But how can you keep it running?’ asked Mira.

  Rast tapped her temple. ‘Did you learn anything practical at your Studium, Baronessa? Or was it all manners and good taste? This town’s electricity runs off francium and fluorine gas, not hydrogen.’

  Mira raised her eyebrows. She had no real knowledge of chemistry. What surprised her was that this uncouth, uneducated woman did.

  ‘Apparently they keep things stabilised with zirconium and something like it... hafnium, I think. We can run the barrier all night by a reversal process but it means diverting all the town’s power there. Ever had a candlelit dinner, Baronessa? Not bad if you can stand the smell of ligs.’

  ‘How long can you maintain it?’ asked Cass.

  ‘Indefinitely. Food is the main problem, along with folk’s mental states. In my experience, people hate to be trapped.’ Rast worked her jaw a few times, changing options on the combat hood. The deskfilm flickered through viewpoints along the fence in synch with her movements. ‘This is a primordial species we’re dealing with. They eat and shit and fight. Maybe they’ll get bored and go elsewhere.’

  ‘Why do you want to use my barge?’ asked Cass.

  ‘Your barge? Oh, you mean the one with the Cip crest on the side.’ Rast showed a glimpse of pale teeth.

  Cass held a steady, guiltless gaze. ‘Cips don’t rule here any more, Rast. You said yourself that Franco is dead. I’d say the vehicle belongs to me now.’

  Cips don’t rule here any more. Mira felt sick. The Principe is dead. How could they sit there discussing it so... casually?

  ‘We’re rotating guards inside the fence perimeter. Your barge can fit a lot of bodies in it. It would help me to get them out there and back,’ said Rast.

  ‘First I want to know more about what’s going on.’

  Rast visibly controlled her aggravation. She glanced to the window where dawn had turned to blazing light. More sound leaked from the hood. She rolled up the film and stood, sealing her protecsuit. She was a head and a half taller than Mira, and muscular. A quick predator type that you didn’t usually see on Araldis. Araldis was two distinct things: court and custom, dust and mining. Not pseudo-military efficiency.

  ‘You’d better come with me, then. We’ll talk again, Mulravey, later: after the first wave. When you’ve had a chance to squeeze out your milk brain.’ Rast’s insult hung in the air after she left.

  ‘Who is she? Who has agreed that she should make the decisions?’ demanded Mira hotly.

  Cass dragged herself out of the chair wearily and handed Vito back to Mira. ‘She is a mercenary, Baronessa. And I say better her than the rest.’

  * * *

  They followed Rast the short distance to a glinting bore-tower with a narrow platform at the summit.

  Mira had to squint to see the tower properly. Her velum’s light-filter was malfunctioning and she wondered how many harmful rays it was allowing past. ‘But what is a mercenary doing on Araldis?’ she asked Cass.

  ‘All I know is I’m damn grateful for it.’ Cass said no more as she slung Chanee across her back and prepared to climb the ladder.

  Others were already up there. Mira recognised Catchut among them. He handed a ‘scope to her as she took her place among the spectators. She pressed the magnification button until the blur defined into something she recognised. The hydro-tents. She lifted the ‘scope higher, past them, until she settled on a growing line of TerVs, all with the same cargo. Saqr. Hundreds of them.

  War. It was being said over and over around her but some part of her had refused to believe it, because she had not wanted to, until now.

  The sick feeling returned. Could she have stopped them? How had these Saqr adapted to survive outside their water home? ‘Why?’ the whisper escaped her lips.

  ‘Si, Baronessa-pilot, your planet is mineral-abundant but why is it worth an invasion?’ Rast had moved to her other side. Sweat stood out on the strips of exposed flesh at her neck as she mouthed quiet instructions into the combat hood. ‘Deactivate the fence.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ exclaimed Cass from behind Mira.

  ‘Watch.’

  Mira put her eye back to the ‘scope. As the fence glow dissolved, Saqr climbed from the TerVs and examined the burned remains of their first scouts. After a few moments one of them crawled back and forth across the line of the fence without harm.

  ‘Come, pretty, pretty...’ murmured Rast.

  The individual returned to the group and after some moments a group of them shuffled across the line.

  ‘Now,’ breathed Rast. The fence flamed in a bonfire of incinerating chitin.

  Jubilant shouts rose from the watchers on the tower but Mira didn’t join in, didn’t feel their sense of triumph. How could she celebrate the deaths of primitive sentients with little capacity for strategy or planning when those responsible for the bombs
were alive? And what of herself? If others knew what she had seen and not shared, would they hold her accountable?

  ‘Hope you got some tricks in your suit for when they

  come from the air, Rast,’ said Gass when the shouting quieted. She had moved to the other side of Catchut now. She shifted the weight of her infant on her back.

  Mira suddenly felt the pangs of a different kind of fear. Chanee’s oversuit hung so baggily on him. She reached behind to touch Vito. Had dehydration and hunger permanently damaged him?

  ‘Their motor dexterity is limited. They are aggressive but they cannot operate machinery. What I want to know is, who is managing the auto-drives on the TerVs?’ said Rast.

  Mira watched her disappear down the ladder. I know.

  One by one the other observers followed Rast.

  When Mira reached the bottom she was surprised to find the mercenary waiting for her in the narrow strands of shade.

  ‘Tell me what you know about the Saqr, pilot.’

  ‘They are classified as a giant tardigrade and they come from a planet called Saqry, the largest moon of the gas giant Saqrshoanl. I read a case study... an OLOSS envoy went to determine their level of sentience. They removed all his body fluid and returned him perfectly intact to his planet of origin.’

  ‘They sound intelligent enough to me,’ said Rast.

  Mira couldn’t decide if she was joking. ‘They have a basic social structure but, as you said, it is designed around survival.’

  ‘Yeah, well, most things are.’ Rast began to walk on.

  With difficulty Mira and Cass kept step with her. ‘Is that why you are here?’

  This time Rast did laugh. ‘You have an interesting sense of humour, Baronessa. Let’s just say that the

  Principe had some concerns that he didn’t have faith in his own to deal with.’

  Cass made a contemptuous sound. ‘He was right. The cowardly cazzone left the city to burn, and us to die.’

  Rast shrugged. ‘Some might call it smart. Now tell me, Mira Fedor: if the Principe and his son are dead, who does the title fall to?’