Chaos Space - Marianne de Pierres [15]
‘It?’
‘I—I’m not sure of Insignia’s gender.’
‘Thought you Inbreds were supposed to know everything about them?’
Mira wasn’t in the mood for Rast’s provocation. ‘Innate. You were in vein-sink as well as me—what do you think?’
Rast stabbed the half-chewed lump of kranse with her fork. ‘I don’t recall sensing any hard-ons, so I’d go with female.’
Catchut sniggered.
‘You are wrong. They do not have a clear distinction between male and female,’ said Mira.
‘Self-fuckers?’ said Catchut.
Mira winced at the crudity. ‘Not hermaphrodites. No. They need several of their own kind to reproduce. Two are not enough.’
‘Bonus.’ Rast smirked. She slouched and slung her arm along the back of Mira’s chair. ‘We could learn something from that.’
Mira shifted forward to avoid any physical contact. The mercenary loved to goad her. ‘Will it be so humorous if the biozoon decides not to allow us to stay aboard?’
‘What’s it going to do? Dump us?’ Rast touched Mira’s neck as if brushing away an insect.
She refused to flinch. ‘That is possible.’
Rast stopped her teasing and returned to shovelling in the last mouthfuls of food. When she finished she pushed the disposable container away, belching. ‘You’re shittin’ me. Right?’
‘No.’ Would Insignia harm them? Mira didn’t know. Right now the biozoon murmured comfortingly, almost lovingly, in the background of her mind. ‘Insignia is a highly evolved tetrapodomorph, not a humanesque. I have no way to predict its actions.’
Rast exchanged looks with her companions. ‘So what does the ‘zoon want to renew the contract and not spit us into the vacuum?’
Mira hesitated again, not wanting to sound ridiculous. ‘Insignia was bored on Araldis. I think it seeks . . . stimulation.’
Rast guffawed. ‘Now you are definitely shitting me.’
‘It had not realised it would have such a long period of inactivity.’
‘It’s like living inside a cooked ribcage. Even smells like it.’ Rast stared at the densely fleshed ceiling and ribbed walls of the cucina. ‘Can it hear me?’
‘If it so chooses.’
‘Frickin’ creepy,’ muttered Catchut.
Latourn began to cough, his body racked by the effort. When the fit passed he laid his head on the table in exhaustion.
‘Get him out of here, Catchut,’ said Rast. ‘He’s hawking spit all over the place.’
Catchut hooked Latourn’s arm over his shoulder and pulled him to his feet. He gave Rast an unreadable look and shuffled Latourn out.
The mercenary leader watched them leave, then turned to Mira. ‘So when does this so-called contract run out?’
Mira suddenly wanted to slap Rast for her indifference to what they had left behind on Araldis. Surely even a mercenary had regrets for her own dead team.
And yet, in the same moment, Mira could not help but envy her. No male would ever force himself upon Rast. ‘Insignia has not said—other than that it is soon.’
‘Ask it then.’
Mira listened for a moment to the background hum. ‘It does not choose to answer.’
Rast made an impatient noise. ‘Well, then, Baronessa, I suggest you get to know your tetrapodo-whatever a bit better so that you can bargain with it. Whatever its tastes are, I can probably get hold of it. Even the bizarre—’
‘No!’ Mira stared at Rast in disbelief. How could the mercenary think that way?
Rast saw her expression. ‘What, then?’
‘I will... see,’ Mira said.
Rast dropped her hand onto Mira’s shoulder and squeezed it hard. ‘Thing is this, Baronessa. I don’t fancy your exploding eyeballs being the last thing I ever see. But, one way the other, it will be, if you don’t make a good deal with your ship.’
Rast kept away from Mira en route to Scolar after that, other than to check regularly on their progress. Catchut found a library of entertainment sims in one of Insignia’s many cabin spaces and the mercenaries spent their evenings drunk in one another’s company.
Mira spent her time in the biozoon’s buccal, enduring her early-pregnancy nausea. Although she avoided total vein-sink, she let the Primo vein sucker adhere gently to her skin, massaging her body. The connection allowed the biozoon to help subdue her illness—mainly