Chaos Space (Sentients of Orion) Read online

  Water flowed through a skin fold into a cavity on the wall.

  You are angry? asked Insignia.

  Mira was surprised. ‘With you? No. Why?’ she said aloud.

  It is important that I understand your needs. I am in a position to protect you in some ways but I must know when it is necessary to do such a thing.

  ‘O-oh,’ Mira stammered, speaking aloud again. ‘Thank you.’

  She washed and returned to the bed. Lying on her back she stared at the silken canopy that disguised the lumpy flesh of the ceiling. ‘The mercenary is no threat to me. At least... not if I comply with her wishes.’

  But that is not how you behaved.

  Perhaps, then, it is time that I shared this... Mira took a breath and let the painful memories break the surface of her mind. Somehow the biozoon’s presence sharpened the images until she became lost in them again...

  * * *

  ‘Listen. We will retreat to Chalaine-Gema. If the Saqr are there we will cross the southern range to the Islands and wait for help,’ Trin had said.

  ‘What else do you want?’ Mira had replied. ‘What does that dogged face you present to me mean?’

  He’d hesitated then as if listening to an inner voice. ‘There is no manner in which I can make this less brutal, Mira. I have thought it through.. You can resist or you can accept.’

  ‘Accept what? To go to OLOSS?’

  ‘No. That is decided already... I wish to make a bambino. Now. An heir.’

  The fear had come to her then. ‘Loco!’

  ‘I am truly,’ he’d agreed. ‘But there will be another Pellegrini and he mil be Cipriano. You are the only patrician blood left.’

  She had tried to flee him but Seb and Vespa Malocchi had wrestled her to the ground and held her there. One of them had pushed the filthy hem of his fellalo into her mouth. It had tasted of iron and sweat.

  Trin had forced her robe open and himself inside her. His tears, as they fell on her face, had meant nothing to her. Nothing at all...

  * * *

  That appears to be an unnatural violation. But we are very different from you humanesques. Respect for each other is intrinsic in us.

  Insignia’s voice jerked Mira roughly out of the past. She swallowed several times and licked her dry lips. Remembering had only made her misery grow. No peace came from reliving it; no amity. Among my kind it is accepted that a man will decide when he will be fertile. This occurs between marriage partners, though, and is not forced upon acquaintances. She wiped wetness from her eyes and rolled on her side, tucking her knees to her belly to relieve the ache that had settled there.

  Insignia remained quiet for some moments. And now you do not wish to be touched.

  ‘I do not wish to be vulnerable.’

  What of the foetus? Do you care for it?

  Mira huddled on the bed, wondering what the child inside her would be like: a Fedor or a Pellegrini? ‘I do not know,’ she whispered. ‘I do not know.’

  JO-JO RASTEROVICH

  Jo-Jo found a farcaster in the node of banking and news booths that acted as a wall for one side of a small kafe. He entered his ID.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Bethany was a few steps behind him but ahead of Petalu.

  While the ‘caster processed Jo-Jo’s request he turned and grabbed her arm. The public node-way was unnaturally quiet: only a few upturned stools and a puddle of spilled drink dotted with undissolved sugar crystals, as if there had been people there only minutes ago.

  ‘Listen, I have to do something right now. You don’t have to stay with me. Whatever the hell’s happening here, I’d be grabbing the first ship in another direction.’

  Bethany trembled, her face paler than the flickering cursor on the screen. ‘But I don’t have any lucre.’

  Petalu lumbered up behind her. He was sweating from the short walk. ‘Petalu skint too. Have to contact Mama-Petalu.’ He looked hopefully at Jo-Jo.

  Jo-Jo groaned and turned back to the ‘caster. The Health Watch update informed him that it would take several hours to process his application and that should he experience diminished health he should proceed to an infirmary or medi-centre until the update was approved.

  He swore and kicked the booth in frustration. The screen flickered and died.

  ‘Crap.’

  A moment later the overhead lights dimmed. Then the whole area went dark.

  ‘Josef?’ Bethany’s whisper was filled with terror.

  Jo-Jo reached out and found her hand. ‘Steady now.’

  ‘Not good feeling,’ Petalu muttered.

  ‘Mau, you know any way off the station?’

  ‘Petalu come in on Savvy.’

  ‘One of the waste contractors?’ Jo-Jo’s stomach did a flip. Without his HealthWatch in order going near one of those things could be a risk. ‘Where do they berth?’

  ‘Topside port,’ said Mau.

  ‘But that’s the farthest one,’ said Bethany.

  ‘Safety regs, in case there’s a leak. Don’t want to nuke the planet as well,’ said Jo-Jo.

  ‘Maybe ship’s still there. Maybe not. Savvy don’t like trouble much.’

  A siren set up a belated whine and emergency floor lights flared. In the red lighting Mau’s face looked puffy. Jo-Jo could barely see his eyes for folds of skin. He had no idea if he could trust the man. ‘You know the way there, Mau?’

  ‘Think yes.’

  ‘But we don’t even know what is happening. Maybe there’s an organised evacuation and we are being left behind,’ said Bethany.

  ‘Smell smoke,’ said Petalu.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jo-Jo. But what concerned him more was another odour. Something sickeningly sweet and pungent. ‘Which way to the top port? Central Truss Lift?’

  Petalu nodded. ‘Think there other ways. But that easiest one.’

  Jo-Jo searched his memory for the station design. Most res-shift stations had the same basic layout. The jail/confinement modules were usually separated from the main station by a sequence of unity nodes. If there was a breakout, the stationmaster could slam the door on a node and pop it adrift. A quick blast of radiation and everything in the module would be fried. The main station was designed around the Central Truss Lift. Everything else spiralled off it. There were secondary lifts but each one only travelled through a couple of floors.

  ‘Let’s try the CTL first.’ Jo-Jo ran a few steps and picked up the leg from a broken stool. ‘Grab something,’ he told the others.

  Bethany retrieved a smaller part of the stool while Petalu wrenched a strut longer than himself from the wall.

  Jo-Jo stared at him, astonished. ‘I know where I’ll be standing when the shit hits, mate—right behind you.’

  ‘Strong,’ Petalu informed him. ‘Not quick.’

  Jo-Jo headed towards the access-way exit. The unity node led into another and another. Each was as deserted as the last and had minor damage to the cablework. Some cables dangled loose from the ceiling while others had been gouged from their conduits along the sides of the passage. The air was tainted with gas, and puddles of oil and lubricants made the floor slippery.

  ‘It’s like something has attacked the walls,’ whispered Bethany.

  Jo-Jo had been thinking the same thing. ‘Yeah. Well, maybe we’ll find out soon. We should be nearly through to the bottom level of the trade court and the CTL. Through this last join.’

  But the mating adapter that connected the final node to the main station began creaking ominously.

  ‘Quick!’ Jo-Jo flung himself over the lip of the join. If the passage integrity had somehow been breached, the station would lock each one.

  He reached back and grabbed Bethany, hauling her through after him. She was lighter than he expected, or maybe gut fear was making him stronger, but she flew from his grasp, slamming into the bulkhead with a light thunk.

  Petalu lumbered over next. He stumbled on the lip and fell; part of his body on one side, part on the other.

  ‘Come on, man. This thing
sounds like it’s gonna snap.’ Sweat ran from every pore on Jo-Jo’s body.

  Petalu’s face was drenched as well. The big man tried to get up but his shirt snagged on the roughed-up plastic of the lip and he lost balance again. On either side of the join floor panels began to flash. An automated voice gave instructions that were lost beneath the noise of the sirens.

  ‘GET OUT OF THERE!’ bellowed Jo-Jo.

  Petalu didn’t bother trying to get upright; he just rolled his body over the lip like a giant worm and flopped onto the other side. As he hit the floor the join irised shut, tearing his shirt off, leaving Petalu bare-chested and shaking.

  The whole node began to judder.

  ‘Mama,’ Petalu cried and scrambled to his knees.

  Jo-Jo grabbed one of his huge flailing arms and helped him to his feet but the juddering threw them both against the wall. Bethany lay on the floor moaning.

  The groaning noise got louder and louder until there was a crack, more deafening than any thunder.

  The juddering stopped.

  Jo-Jo squeezed out from underneath Petalu’s sweat- slicked stomach folds and looked for somewhere to wipe himself clean. The big man had, unsurprisingly, pissed himself.

  He staggered over to look through the peephole at the join. ‘Fuck me,’ he said. ‘It’s gone. The whole thing has broken off.’

  Jo-Jo wanted to sit down then and collect himself. Take it in. No—he wanted to lie down, smoke some changlo hemp and go to sleep.

  Instead, he shepherded the other two along the passage.

  Bethany nursed her shoulder.

  ‘Must be blessed, eh?’ Jo-Jo said to her. ‘A few minutes later and—’

  But Beth’s stare was fixed ahead to where the passage opened into the vast bottom level of the station’s trade court. ‘Maybe it would have been better if we’d been in it,’ she whispered.

  The trade court was under a light pall of smoke that didn’t hide the wreckage: broken tables and chairs, booths that had been torn from their footings, racks of fellalos strewn across the floor and stained with the contents of an overturned Kafe Kart, a food warmer slammed through a glass-vendor’s display shelves.

  But there was worse than that.

  Creatures, taller than Petalu Mau and encased in sticky insect-like carapaces, were moving slowly through the mess. Each had six clawed legs and a head but no visible eyes. A few of them grouped together, their long thin probosces extending downward under a table into a tangle of humanesque arms and legs. An overpoweringly sweet scent pervaded the entire court.

  ‘What—are—they?’ Beth whispered.

  ‘A problem,’ Jo-Jo whispered back. ‘Don’t move while I think for a moment.’

  She began to sob.

  ‘Stop!’ He clamped his fingers around her wrist, jabbing his nails into her skin. ‘Do nothing to attract their attention.’

  She closed her eyes and bit her lip. ‘What are they doing to those people?’

  ‘Don’t look at it, Beth. Just listen to what I have to say.’ Jo-Jo scanned the thick central column that housed the CTL. The row of lift doors that normally flashed icons and blared music were blank and silent, their outlines dimly visible through the smoke. ‘The emergency service lift should still be working. Mau?’

  ‘Over there.’ Petalu Mau nodded towards the farthest wall where a faint red light pulsed slowly.

  ‘Had to be there,’ muttered Jo-Jo under his breath. He released Bethany’s wrist and slowly turned his mouth to her ear. ‘We are going to crawl over to the emergency lift. You follow behind me. Understand?’

  She turned her face to his. Her eyes were wide open with fear and so close to him that her eyelashes almost brushed his cheek. ‘Don’t let them do that to me. Will you?’

  He nodded.

  They crawled in a slow single file around the perimeter of the trade court. From floor level they could see humanesque bodies fallen everywhere under the tables. The creatures clustered near them.

  As they reached the halfway point a creature broke from its group and crawled in their direction. Jo-Jo froze, feeling the thump as Bethany knocked into him and then a harder one as Petalu did the same.

  The creature stopped at a dead body only two tables away, from them and began to probe the flesh in a methodical manner. The corpse was partly disrobed, as if it had already been examined. It was male. Jo-Jo could see a beard and the side of a boot.

  As the creature continued its search Jo-Jo saw that it had no definable face but that the feelers uncurled from a set of mouth lobes. Each feeler ended in bulbous tips that appeared to be tasting the body. When the tips reached the dead man’s face they paused, hovering above the closed eyes. A needle-like probe shot out from one of them, directly into the man’s eye socket.

  Jo-Jo was overwhelmed by a putrid sweet scent that made him want to gag. Hot burning liquid climbed through his throat, causing such a sharp pain in his chest that he had to clamp his mouth shut to prevent a moan escaping. Bethany’s fingers clawed at his foot.

  Keep it together, Beth. Keep it to—

  Then he heard a deep, distressed sob. Not Beth. Petalu Mau. But Jo-Jo didn’t dare move his head to look.

  The creature stopped its feeding and retracted its feelers inside its mouth lobes. The upper part of its torso rotated in a semicircle as if it were straining to detect the source of the noise.

  Jo-Jo wondered which its strongest senses were. Clearly it could hear—but how well could it see?

  It crawled closer to them—only a table length away now—undulating as though it was caught in a strong wind. Extending its feelers again it ran them along the tabletop and down the closest legs.

  Bethany let go of Jo-Jo’s foot. She was going to run. He knew, because that was what he wanted to do himself. He felt his leg muscles bunching.

  The creatures seemed slow-moving enough. Maybe they had a chance if they were.

  He pressed his palms against the floor, ready to push up, when he caught a movement from the corner of his eye: a humanesque figure running straight towards the CTL column. The creature near them spun with freakish speed, bunched its body and sprang after it.

  Jo-Jo raised his head.

  In several agile bounds the creature covered half the distance to the column. But those closer to the column beat it there. One of them knocked the ‘esque down with its raking mid-claws and the group fell on him, feelers intertwined and fighting for position.

  Jo-Jo hugged the floor and began a furious belly-crawl towards the service lift, his adrenalin stoked by the victim’s cries. He crawled over bodies, barely feeling the flesh beneath their clothes. He didn’t look at their faces—didn’t look anywhere but at the red light pulsing gently above the service lift.

  When he was only a few body lengths away from it he became aware of movement at his elbow. Bethany scrambled past him, blood spattered over her grimly set jaw.

  She reached the lift first and hit the button to summon it.

  Jo-Jo pulled her back down, but across the trade court the group feeding on the fallen ‘esque retracted their feelers and started up an odd swaying motion.

  They’d seen her.

  ‘Be ready,’ Jo-Jo rasped. He watched the lift icon pulsing downward as the lift itself descended from the top tier of the station.

  One of the creatures bunched its body and sprang towards them.

  As the lift icon hit the midpoint of its descent Jo-Jo jumped up and grabbed a chair, ready to swing.

  Bethany threw herself at the lift door, pounding the summon button repeatedly. ‘Please!’ she cried. ‘Please!’

  Jo-Jo raised the chair. Time, he told himself. Just buy some time.

  Then he felt a hand on his arm.

  Petalu wrenched the chair from his hand. The big man’s torso was heaving from exertion and sweat still poured from his plump face. But his earlier fear had gone. His eyes were quite calm. ‘Me.’

  Jo-Jo dropped back, looking for another weapon, but there was nothing within close reach.
He backed up against the lift door next to Beth.

  The creature bunched to spring as the door opened. Bethany fell inside with Jo-Jo after her.

  Then Petalu took one almighty swing...

  TRIN

  They felt the water a long time before they saw it. It reached for them with fleeting salty touches on their skin and a stinging flavour at the back of their parched throats, giving heart to the misery of their flight. In the lightening sky Trin saw the outline of the high dunes and the hint of sea mist.

  A few hours only.

  He had ordered Juno Genarro and his scouts not to return this time unless trouble threatened but to save their strength to swim to the palazzo marina and bring back transport for the rest of them. He had held out against Cass Mulravey, insisting that the scouts retained their cooling robes.

  Despite walking through the darkness of the night, those without suits or robes were dehydrated. Trin tried to keep Djeserit close to him but she insisted on helping those who struggled most. Her own skin was blistered and flaking from the searing nightwinds.

  More of them had died during the night. Some were his men—those who had surrendered their robes on his orders. Trin’s fury collected in a mental space reserved for Cass Mulravey. She nursed her women as though they were more precious. And her presence was a constant reminder that Mira Fedor had left carrying his child.

  He fretted that Mira would not return with aid, that she would turn her back on her world. He held endless conversations with her in his mind, arguments that always ended in the same place, with the same look: him demanding and her accusing.

  ‘Principe.’ Djeserit was next to him.

  ‘Si,’ Trin said. ‘We must cross them now.’

  He knew that her gaze followed his to the towering shadows that were the last line of red dunes. ‘They must be as high as Mount Pell,’ Djeserit gasped. ‘How can we climb them?’

  ‘We will not if we wait for the daylight,’ Trin said grimly. ‘Ever.’

  In the east the sky grew lighter. He did not need to explain himself to Djeserit. Her practical sense was greater than his, and her selflessness shamed and angered him. She had helped the weakest—man and woman—despite her own unhealed injury. And when they stopped to rest she always attended Trin, listening while he spoke with Joe Scali and the others, serving him a little food and water, soothing him with her presence.