Chaos Space - Marianne de Pierres [17]
Mira? Insignia’s thought was filled with concern. Changes in your physiology show distress.
I am . . . I do . . . not want the mercenary s attention. It is important that she understands this. Mira climbed off the bed to enter the washspace. I wish to wash my face.
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 will 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