Chaos Space - Marianne de Pierres [23]
He continued to spin her until she tapped his arm to tell him to stop. When he let go of her she flipped over and swam in slow circles of her own. Finally she surfaced, taking in great gasps of air as water drained from her gills and they shut.
Trin wanted to hold her again to reassure himself of the life in her. Instead he moved stiffly away to the water’s edge.
‘Principe! The scouts!’ shouted one of the men.
The lightening sky revealed three flat-yachts sailing in from the north. Trin recognised the type of vessels as those from the Palazzo’s marina, and identified Juno Genarro at the bow of the lead one.
‘There is cover amongst the thorn bushes on the closer islands. We must reach there before full light,’ Trin told the survivors. They had clustered into their two distinct groups: Mulravey’s women and the pitiful remainder of Trin’s men.
‘What about the palazzo?’ Mulravey asked.
‘You can see the AiVs as well as I,’ said Trin.
‘Perhaps they are survivors like us.’
‘Then you should take your group and find out. Mine will take cover on the islands.’ He swept his glance over her women and the couple of men with them. ‘Those of you who would come with me will have my protection.’
‘Protection?’ Mulravey made a dry, disparaging sound.
Yet as she did so the familia women left her group to stand, heads bowed, among Trinder’s men.
Mulravey’s face crumpled with disappointment. ‘You’ve brainwashed your women, Pellegrini, but when Mira Fedor returns things’ll change. They’ll listen to her.’
‘Deserters do not earn respect.’
‘Mira Fedor is no deserter. Careful whose reputation you dirty.’
Trin felt his anger rising again. ‘What is your decision, woman? We have no time to waste.’
One of her group pushed forward to the front; a morose male wearing a cheap envirosuit, threaded at the knees and shoulders. ‘Don’ talk to my sister like that.’
‘Lennie, stop!’ hissed Mulravey.
Trin sneered openly at her. ‘So you would take cooling robes from the backs of soldiers for your women, but leave your brother with one.’
‘She wanted me to give it over,’ said her brother. ‘Not that it’s good fer much.’
Mulravey held her head high but Trin sensed her chagrin. ‘You have not given up yours either, Principe,’ she countered.
Trin reached inside himself for self-assurance and righteousness. Of course I must be protected. I am Principe.
He turned to the flat-yachts rolling into shore on the breaking waves. ‘Make your choice.’
Sole
play’m play’m little creatures
scurry scurry in out ‘round
scratch’m deep, bleed’m
more luscious luscious
TEKTON
Tekton’s free-mind remained in a bad mood for days after his breakfast with Ra. It shouldn’t have been, really. Ra showed every sign of being rattled by Tekton’s project. Yet Tekton knew that Ra and the others were not to be underestimated.
Show/beauty had been Sole’s instruction.
It had taken Tekton so many months to settle on what God might find beautiful that he was not sure how advanced the other tyros’ projects were.
In truth, beauty had been a puzzle that he’d been unable to unravel. The evening, though, when he had seen Miranda Seeward’s thighs and arms rippling as she wrestled her lawmon colleague in the Mélange bar, the answer had come to him: the archiTect’s second creed, beauty is in the eye of the builder. Tekton would create beauty not for Sole, but for himself. And nothing—NOTHING—was more beautiful, more exciting, more ecstasy-beholden to his free-mind than the sight of undulating flesh.
Now that Tekton had located the exotic and rare mineral amalgam that would turn his vision into reality, he had just to keep it away from prying eyes while it was constructed.
To process the amalgam he would need a foundry of sorts and warehousing while it was sculpted. Logic-mind warned him that he would need to find a discreet workshop for the sculpting process. Manufacturing large quantities of quixite without OLOSS sanction would