Chaos Space - Marianne de Pierres [68]
Jo-Jo ignored the insult, thankful, for once, for his reputation.
‘Well, God-Discoverer, according to our recog your HealthWatch has expired,’ said the sec guard helpfully. ‘Better get that fixed.’
‘Yeah,’ said Jo-Jo. ‘Well, I’ve been a bit busy.’
The sec guard turned his attention to Beth.
‘Bethany Ionil, biologist,’ said Beth calmly ‘Recently on the Miofarr.’
‘The Miofarr. She’s been here plenty,’ said the guard.
They stood and waited while the recog confirmed Beth’s story. ‘You left the Miofarr at Dowl. Why?’ he asked.
‘My relationship broke down. He was a Mio.’ Beth let a small waver creep into her voice. Jo-Jo couldn’t tell if it was real or acting.
The guard made a disgusted noise. ‘Always found those Mios slimy sons-of-fishes.’ He smirked and turned finally to Mau.
‘Petalu Mau?’
‘Work on Savvies. Now work for Mr Rasterovich.’
Mister Rasterovich. Jo-Jo sucked on his lip to keep his mouth shut.
Loker was doing the same, his instinct for paying customers warring with his desire to see them off his ship.
The sec guard ran the same checks on Len the H-M and then nodded at Loker. ‘Let’s move on, Captain.’
Loker dragged himself upright. ‘Yeah. Riveting stuff,’ he said dryly.
They disappeared down the corridor.
Len hauled his weary body out of his sink. ‘Going to catch some sleep before we shift again. We got no spare cabins but there’s a crawlspace above the maglevs. You might want to stretch out.’
‘Thank you. Yes,’ breathed Beth.
They followed Len to a narrow floor space that vibrated and stank of burned oils. Mau lay down and rolled onto his side, facing away from them. In a few moments he was snoring.
Jo-Jo lay down and watched as Beth removed her outer layer of clothes.
‘You going to tell me what’s going on with you, Beth?’
She sat cross-legged between him and Mau: the floor space was just large enough for the three of them to lie side by side. ‘How much do you know about Orion politics, Josef?’
He shrugged. ‘As much as the next person, I guess. There’s OLOSS. And they spend their time worrying about the Extropists taking over. In between the two there is Consilience, who like to keep everyone off balance.’ Jo-Jo settled his hands under his head and stared at the low bulkhead. It was coated with a thin but perceptible layer of oil. ‘I never really understood why the Extropists are such a threat to OLOSS. Guess I’ve spent too much time on my own—away from it all.’
Beth slid down now, head to toe with him. She propped her head on her folded clothes. Her colour was drained by fatigue and she looked suddenly much, much older. ‘Who knows really? I mean at the most practical level. But I’ve always thought it was about God. OLOSS want to protect their notion of evolution. They want it to be a “natural” thing. The Extropists have forced evolution in a direction that they don’t like. They see the Extros as non-spiritual. Although I’m not so sure that’s really the case ...’
Jo-Jo thought about Sole. From the beginning many had called the strange entity God. What do the Extros think of that? he wondered. The Sole voice had been absent from his head since before Dowl and his mind seemed almost like it used to be. ‘What about the Entity? What do you make of that?’
Beth yawned and rolled towards Mau’s back. ‘You’re the expert on that, Josef. What do you think?’
For the first time Jo-Jo tried to put his experience into context, thinking back over the moment when his propulsion had died. His impression had been of a bloated energy-shaped leech overwhelming him and his ship. He remembered dying. At least, that was what he had thought. But something eluded his memory, a shadow around the corner that disappeared every time he turned to catch it.
Afterwards, his mind had altered. The tyros of Belle-Monde referred to it as ‘shafting’. Sole had required them to undergo the transformation to make it easier to communicate. But no one knew that Jo-Jo had been shafted. No one knew that Sole could reach out to him, wherever he was.
Then,