• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

‘Well, whatever, I figure to be evening it up one time. Showing you what I can do,’ he said.

Mira shook her head. Latourn’s intense manner and the idea that he thought he owed her something, made her uneasy. ‘There is nothing. No debt. Please, I must go to my cabin.’

His look was part longing, part annoyance but he leaned back for her to pass.

She hurried on, knowing that she had handled the interchange poorly. But he reminded her of Trin and Innis—damaged somehow. Rast, at least, was not like that.

Once inside her cabin Mira worked the sponge along the seam of her fellala to a worn patch. Then she tore a tiny hole in the robe to remove it and reached for the virtual-sight add-on attached to the wall by the bed.

Mira pushed the sponge into the insertion port and slipped the mask on. When her eyes had adjusted she began to wiggle her fingers along the conductivity pad.

Icons cascaded into her v-sight and a burst of nausea hit her. It was still too soon after the strain of res-shift to be back.

Audio sotto, she told it.

The speed and luminosity of the icons immediately diminished and a stream of murmuring took its space in her mind.

Mira let it saturate her, waiting for her senses to attune. As before, it seemed a better way to manage the clamour. She began to distinguish noises: the wave booms of their movement and the faint glub of Insignia’s organs processing amino fluids.

Then a small thing took her attention away from finding the data: a high-pitched whine that she intuited to be the farcaster.

‘Focus on farcast’ she told the v-sight.

All other sounds diminished.

‘Decode.’

Rast’s voice came through as intimately as if the mercenary was speaking in her ear. ‘... on Scolar. Who is it?’

The answering burst was on relay from the Scolar hub.

‘Retrace.’ But the stream split and disintegrated.

‘Half payment at pickup,’ said Rast.

Another burst.

‘Agreed.’ Rast gave a dry, deprecating laugh. ‘She won’t be a problem.’

Mira’s heartbeat quickened. Was the mercenary talking about her? What arrangement was Rast making?

The farcaster fell silent, the whine disappearing from the v-sight’s sound spectrum.

Mira sat for a few moments just listening and thinking. As long as Rast did not hamper her meeting with OLOSS, what harm could the mercenary do? And yet she continued to worry over it as she restarted her data search.

‘Reconstitute data from tertiary source.’

Mira listened intently.

Though the quality of the recording had deteriorated, the reason for the meeting between Marchella Pellegrini and the unknown purchaser remained clear enough. In return for the exclusive rights to a mineral alloy called quixite, the purchaser had agreed to pay a large sum of money and secure an apprenticeship to the godlike entity discovered near Mintaka.

Replay.

As she listened a second time Mira was struck by how different Marchella sounded. There was no hard edge to her voice, no mock-plains accent, and yet the determination was still there. Marchella had secured the deal she wanted.

Her final words to Mira flooded back. ‘There is a name you must remember. It is Tekton. Say it. Say the name. He owes me a debt. He owes this world a debt

Tekton had promised the God-apprenticeship. But why did Marchella want that so much?

Mira slipped the mask from her face. She pressed against her forehead and summoned the scraps of her various conversations with Marchella. Everything had been about the women of Araldis; her whole purpose had been to save them .. .

No, not that... to free them.

But why did she battle so? What did she hope to gain? They could never be free while their fertility was held to ransom—and worse, most did not even desire it.

Mira?

Si? she said automatically. Insignia had not spoken in her mind since their earlier disagreement.

OLOSS have sent a craft out to meet you.

W-what?

They wish a representative to come aboard — once we have been secured.

Mira felt the taut edge in Insignia’s tone as clearly as if bands had tightened around