The Sentients of Orion Read online

  In a matter of tumbling minutes after boarding the tick he was disembarking through a tube into the dismal welcome station.

  Couldn’t Sole have chosen a more hospitable sector of the galaxy in which to reside? he wondered.

  The livery, a basic modifiable, approached with Tekton’s face on its display. When Tekton touched it for confirmation, it bowed deeply.

  ‘Welcome back to Belle-a, Belle-a—’

  Tekton had a surprising urge to slap its malfunctioning resonator. Instead he followed it to the taxi. Physical force was not something that Tekton had ever considered using before.

  At least—not his own.

  After instructing Tekton to take a seat and wait, the livery attached itself to the outside of the taxi. Tekton sat primly in the swaying dark and opened himself to the fleeting impressions as artificial lights and sentient heat flashed by.

  An appreciable time later the taxi stopped. The livery disengaged itself and held the doors aside. ‘Please follow me, candidate Godhead.’

  Tekton’s bags were already waiting in his new rooms.

  Though well enough ventilated they smelled of cleaning fluids and the soft-edged furniture suggested that an uuli had once occupied them. One wall in the living room showcased a rather kitsch 3D of a gigantic Selenat waterfall, while another displayed an illuminated map of Belle-Monde that doubled as the taxi phone.

  ‘Is Godhead Ra in similar quarters?’ he asked.

  ‘I believe so, Godhead Tekton.’

  ‘Good.’ Tekton walked slowly through to the Studium node and sleeping room and back again. He examined every surface for emission: uuli excreta would not be acceptable.

  Not at all.

  TRIN

  ‘Trin darling, could you not spend tonight at home?’ the Principessa pleaded.

  She leaned against the mock-ornate dressing-room door, drunk and weepy, her formal fellala crumpled and stained. Her thinning dark hair was captured into lank strands and had been wound through a royally jewelled hairpiece.

  Franco hadn’t slept at home for a week. He had a new young mistress, or so the servants said.

  ‘And do what, mother? Pour your drinks? You have an entire family of Galiotto slaves for that,’ Trinder said coldly.

  ‘Servants are not company.’ The Principessa smoothed the fellala with a vein-knotted hand, choosing her next words with care. ‘I hoped we could celebrate your graduation. I w-would enjoy your company. You go out so often.’

  The Principessa Jilda Pellegrini had a talent for eliciting guilt, just as she was gifted with many faces. For Trinder’s father, Franco, she maintained a calm, accepting mask that never questioned her husband’s string of affairs with young, eager women. Privately, though, like now, she shed that face for another—one ruined with sorrow and swollen with drugs.

  When he’d been younger Trin had thought the finest off-world whisky was her perfume. She would lie on the edge of his bed at night and weep. Perhaps she thought that, in the dark, he wouldn’t know. He hated the wetness of her cheeks, the heaviness of her body draped across his legs in bed.

  He’d sought his father’s company to escape the suffocation of the Principessa’s need but Principe Franco Pellegrini always dismissed him with the same excuse—a world to rule.

  Trin sensed other reasons for his father’s lack of interest, only he dared not seek them out for fear of what they might tell him about himself. Instead he nursed his hurt and turned it on Jilda.

  Tonight he chose his words with precision and delivered them like thrusts. ‘You should bathe more often, mother. It might make you more attractive to others. And besides, I am spending the evening with company of my own age.’

  The Principessa pressed her tumbler to her mouth to stifle a sob. She turned and left without another word.

  Trin dispatched his guilt to the same corner of his mind where he kept his anger, and finished dressing. Dismissing his valet, he flew his AiV down Mount Pell to Riso’s Bar. His friends were already there, crowding up the tables around the ginko-containment films: Thomasi and Kotta Pellegrini, the Silvios and the Elena cousins—his gang.

  Riso’s was as daring a place as they would risk, even for graduation celebrations. In most of the Dockside bars familia were not welcome and not safe.

  When he became Principe, Trin planned to drive all the familia-hating ginkos out of Pell. Only the ones that served or provided entertainment would be permitted to stay. Franco and Grandfather Aldo had been stupid to allow them entry to their new world.

  Trin knew the arguments for it—he’d just spent three years in political science at the Araldis Studium. The immersion-texts were full of explanations of how the Cipriano Clan had purchased and settled Araldis and had then realised that they had neither the population nor the breadth of skills to sustain a mining economy.

  But how short-sighted to accept just anyone. Hadn’t they learned anything from the cultural catastrophe of Latino Crux? The one time he had challenged his father about it he’d received a cold, unforgiving stare.

  Trin strode towards his friends, putting Franco from his mind.

  ‘Trin!’ called out Thomasi.

  ‘Cousin! Pilot First, by Crux,’ said Kotta.

  ‘Don Trinder, you un-bastard, where have you been? We have had to drink without you. Congratulations.’

  Trin soaked in the salve of their clamour for a moment before taking a seat between Chocetta and Lancia Silvio. They fell apart like halves of sliced moistfruit, making room for him against their ample thighs. Lancia threw lima pellets at the containment film around the uuli, and clapped as the creature changed colour.

  ‘You know that it is the pain that makes them change,’ Trin commented idly.

  Lancia laughed and threw another handful.

  The uuli squealed, its membrane flaring luminously. Most eyes were drawn to it.

  Trin looked away, annoyed. Its helplessness bothered him. How could the stupid creature allow itself to be treated so?

  Chocetta slid her hand along his leg. ‘My turn tonight, Trinder?’

  Picking up the jug of wine, he drank deeply from it. ‘If you say so. I have lost track.’

  She lifted her aquiline nose in the air, mock-aggrieved. He’d been sleeping with the Silvio Marchesas on alternate nights, and sometimes with both of them together, during their last term at the Studium. He knew it should have been exhilarating, two women, but their constant need for reassurance and attention spoiled things. He could smell his mother on them and the same weak familia-women’s way. No doubt both wanted to bear a Pellegrini child. But it would not be them that he chose. Never them.

  As if sensing his distraction, Chocetta leaned closer, pinching the flesh of his forearm under his fellalo. ‘Did you see Mira Fedor go loco at the announcement? How unsurprising.’ She raised her skilfully drawn eyebrows.

  Mira Fedor. Trin hid a flare of embarrassment with a shrug as the memories ambushed him...

  * * *

  Crimson-grained Tourmaline Island sand.

  ‘Why did you invite me here, Trin Pellegrini?’ Mira Fedor asked.

  She sat away from him on the shifting line between wet and dry as he wallowed in the surf. ‘Is the eccentric Fedor female not beneath a Principe’s son? Or do I make you curious? Or maybe it is simply that my familia is too distant to have me properly chaperoned?’

  ‘Which do you think?’ Trin parried, shocked at her directness, her perceptiveness. He could see the outline of her body through her bathing skins. Strange to be close to such a thin, fine-boned female.

  ‘I cannot decide.’

  He let the waves roll him closer to her.

  Mira did not retreat so he kissed her on impulse, to see what she would do.

  Surprisingly, she kissed him back. Her hands slipped down the outside of his bathing skin. She touched his stomach with tentative fingers that created only fear in him.

  His ardour softened.

  What if she told people that the Principe’s son was soffice?
>
  Suddenly, he pushed her away.

  Mira rolled up onto her knees as if slapped but he could not tell her that she scared him—that women scared him.

  Without another word Trin ran to his AiV, leaving her behind... stranded...

  * * *

  The consequences of that night had lived on, for the next day Trin had purchased bravura from a dealer at Dockside. A safeguard, he told himself. So it would never happen again.

  It never had—the bravura kept it that way.

  While Trin and Mira kept their distance from each other, she excelled in her studies and he began to fail. Bravura addiction ruined his concentration and stole his focus. He hated her for it, but he hated his father more for what he had done this evening. Trin did not want Mira Fedor’s heritage. He had no wish to fly Insignia—in truth the thought frightened him. But mostly he did not want the guilt of her insanity upon his shoulders.

  This evening, when Mira had fled the grand anteroom before the entire Studium, whispers began immediately—would she go the way of her most famous ancestor, mad Lancio Fedor?

  Now, as Trin drank Riso’s wine, the Cavaliere would be taking her to the palazzo to see his father.

  ‘What is wrong, Trinder?’ wheedled Chocetta.

  ‘He is moody over Mira Fedor,’ said Lancia.

  ‘That’s because he dated her.’

  ‘I did not date her,’ Trin said harshly. He pulled Chocetta onto his lap and called for another jug.

  Chocetta began to kiss his face while Lancia stroked his neck and hair, but their thick oil-perfumes made it hard for him to breathe. Their giggles and dirty whispered promises suffocated him. He stood abruptly, pushing them off, making an excuse that the wine was poor and that he would demand another. Then he stumbled to the bar and ordered a fresh drink, slipping two tiny bravura slices under his tongue. When the wine and bravura collided, his confidence returned. Trin took some steadying breaths and returned to the table. But the Silvios had moved on to his cousin Thomasi, and ignored him. Annoyed at their capriciousness he looked around for an alternative to satisfy the stirrings that the bravura had awoken.

  Riso’s—apart from their tables—was filled with non-familia. He contemplated leaving but the court bars and ristorantes on Mount Pell bored him. Dockside was safe enough while he was with friends—but not when he was alone. Perhaps he should AiV out to the border towns for some variety?

  As Trin stood, undecided, a group of familia women entered, dressed in seductive brocade evening fellalas. They headed straight for the bar, trailed by two Palazzo Cavaliere.

  The most beautiful, and oldest, of the women bestowed an inviting smile on him as she passed. Her breasts showed through the lace of her fellala and her hips swayed in a way that sent tremors through him.

  Trin picked up his drink and followed her.

  She told him that her name was Luna and teased him with her eyes over the rim of the drink he bought her.

  The Silvios stopped necking with Thomasi, and watched.

  Aware of their jealous scrutiny, he leaned closer. ‘Luna?’ he laughed. ‘Are you madness?’

  She caught her bottom lip with her teeth. ‘I have been called that.’

  Trin felt the bravura heating him. There was something dangerous about her. Her slenderness suggested she might be an eccentric, like Mira Fedor—only far, far more beautiful. Intoxicating. With eccentrics you never quite knew... A few such familia, picked for their special talents or attributes, had been permitted to come when the Cipriano Clan abandoned Latino Crux. Fedors had been selected for their piloting skills. Trin wondered what Luna’s familia had brought to the new world—aside from sheer magnificent beauty.

  ‘Are you going to dance with me or simply admire?’

  He glanced at her minders. Something in their aspect nagged at him. ‘Who are you to have Palazzo minders, beautiful Luna?’

  She flushed a little. Her eyes flashed. This close he could see the tiny age lines round her lips. ‘Don’t you know?’ she whispered.

  Trin ran his fingers along Luna’s brocaded arm and—brushed the palm of her hand. ‘Tell me.’

  She slipped off the high-backed chair and melted into his arms. ‘Later, perhaps. But first I would like to dance with a handsome young man.’

  Her slight emphasis on his youth prickled a warning against his skin but the bravura’s urge was stronger. Insistent.

  Luna chose the dance—formal courting steps usually reserved for couples on their wedding night before they left the celebrations and went to the marital bed. Using it in this context—a ginko bar with a stranger—was so shocking that it heightened Trin’s exhilaration.

  He mirrored her ritual movements. His arousal had him sweating and breathing heavily.

  She finished coyly with her back to him.

  Indifferent to who was watching now and what they were thinking, Trin thrust his hips against the crease of her flanks and slipped his hands around her to cup the stiff brocade that hid her breasts.

  Luna jerked her head back with a little faux cry.

  By some unspoken agreement, her minders, hovering close, pulled her away from Trin.

  Before he could react they had cloaked her and hustled her out. He staggered as if he had been robbed and left punch-drunk.

  The Silvios pounced on him in a moment, pulling them back to their table.

  ‘Did she dump you, Trinder?’

  ‘Trinny, Trinny.’

  ‘Did she leave you rovente, poor darling?’

  ‘Ohh. Aah,’ they mocked. ‘Take it out on us.’

  Furious, Trin brushed them aside and grabbed a jug from the table, swilling down the entire contents in several gulps. The bar began to swirl around him. Cold shivers crawled across his overheated body. He looked around wildly for a focus, something to quell the nausea.

  Uuli.

  It slithered dejectedly in its transparent containment film. Streaks of mucus coloured the sides, creating a kaleidoscope. Its pathetic manner infuriated him. For Crux sake...

  Trin climbed onto the table and smashed the empty jug into the containment film. It gave a pressure-change thud as it cracked open.

  ‘Get out. Get out,’ he shrieked at the uuli.

  It blazed scarlet and shrank from him.

  He reached in and grasped it with both hands, intending to release it. But it shredded, lumps of mucus sloughing onto his fingers.

  ‘Trinder!’

  ‘Trinny—no!’

  They were shouting at him now. All of them. Not just the Silvios.

  ‘Come here,’ Trin shouted at it. ‘I’m trying to help you.’

  The uuli screamed and churned through a rainbow of colours.

  Rough hands dragged him down and took him to Riso’s den.

  Riso stood by his desk, rigid with rage, staring through the wall film into the bar. He turned slowly. ‘If the uuli dies, even Franco won’t be able to afford the bill. Here’s my favour to you,’ said Riso, his voice thick with fury. ‘I will not call the Carabinere. Go home and sober up. Never come here again. Your behaviour blasphemes against the name Pellegrini.’

  Trin laughed at him.

  ‘Spurious idios,’ spat Riso. ‘Throw him out.’

  * * *

  Trin’s father woke him the next day.

  Half drunk still, Trin dragged the covers up over his chest like a ragazzo shrinking from a bedtime monster.

  ‘I risked a great deal last night for your future,’ said Franco, coldly. ‘Making you Pilot First will cause discontent.’

  ‘I did not ask for that honour, father. I do not wish to be Pilot First. I wish to be Principe.’

  Franco’s thick lips contracted into a cruel line. ‘Then you must learn the value of things.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Trin.

  ‘I have decided that tomorrow you will accept a position in the Carabinere, working for Jus Malocchi. The cost of replacing Riso’s uuli will be deducted from your gratis.’

  Trin grappled for the piece
s of the previous night. ‘It died?’

  ‘Yes. Aside from its visceral injuries, that particular subspecies of uuli does not tolerate the Araldis atmosphere. That was why it was sealed. You should have known that. You have bought an OLOSS humanitarian inquiry to my door when I have other matters, more important matters of concern.’

  Trin hid his shock behind a sullen look. ‘I thought the containment was just an affectation, one of Riso’s circus tricks.’

  ‘The only circus tricks at Riso’s were yours.’ Franco stared at his son.

  Trin sensed another unspoken grievance threatening to upset his father’s composure.

  ‘Why did you attack it?’ Franco said eventually.

  Trin opened his mouth to explain but the words wouldn’t form. Franco would not believe him. He sat up straighter instead, forcing himself to drop the covers. ‘You care nothing for ginkos, Papa.’ He used the diminutive deliberately.

  But Franco was unmoved by it. ‘No, I do not,’ he admitted.

  ‘Then why are you doing this? I do not wish to work for the Malocchis. The entire family is loco. Like the Fedors.’

  Franco’s stern expression softened the tiniest bit. ‘In that case, my suggestion is that you are on time for your interview.’

  MIRA

  Liveried vehicles crowded the tarmac behind the Studium cucina, their chauffeurs trading insults and boldly nudging each other as they waited for the graduation festivities to end.

  Mira pressed the biometric stripe on her inner arm to the lock of a battered TerV that crouched between a large passenger AiV and a victuals haulier. When the door sprang open she slipped inside and dimmed the windows. If any of the chauffeurs had noticed her, they would be too distracted by the mayhem—she hoped—to realise that she was the Baronessa Fedor.

  She fumbled with the navigation screen until it displayed a map for the Fleet hangars in Dockside. There! She set the tack, and as she watched for a gap among the jostling liveries, her mind ricocheted between past and present. Insignia’s entreaties had become such a constant in her mind that she hardly knew it from her own inner voice. Had it been so for her father—this endless monologue? Perhaps the stories of her ancestor Lancio Fedor were true? Perhaps insanity had truly claimed him? Indeed, it felt as if it would take her at any moment—due to fear and anger and disappointment at the very least.