Chaos Space - Marianne de Pierres [80]
‘Indeed, Rast Randall. I would not imagine it.’
‘Rast?’ said Petalu Mau suddenly. He had not sat with Bethany and Jo-Jo but had positioned himself at the wall alongside the soldiers. ‘It’s Petalu.’
The mercenary twisted around in her seat to stare at him. She held out a hand which Mau stretched across to slap.
‘Mau? I didn’t recognise you under all that fat.’ Rast gave a laugh, and then offered Lasper an explanation. ‘We grew up next door to each other on Edo Lesser. Went our separate ways. I went to work for myself, and he . . . came to work for you.’
He came to work for you. Jo-Jo ransacked his memory. Who was this man? He’d been in enough bars, heard enough rumours, enough crap talked, to work it out. But the Baronessa’s proximity seemed to have numbed his mind.
‘There is always an opening in my ranks for someone like you, Rast Randall,’ said Lasper. ‘You were with us in the war. Did a good job, I heard. Dren speaks highly of you.’
The mercenary with the stark white hair nodded her thanks. ‘Predate the offer, Carnage. But I don’t like to lock myself into things. You know.’
Carnage? Carnage Farr! Jo-Jo’s balls jerked up inside him and refused to come down: the Commander of the Stain Wars? Even in the direst farouche bars Farr’s name inspired fear talk.
‘Ahem ... my name is Thales Berniere.’ All attention shifted to the nervous young man who had finally summoned enough courage to speak. ‘I do not want your help. I have been brought here against my free will and I wish only to leave.’
The Baronessa sent the young Thales an imploring look that caused Jo-Jo an irrational stab of jealousy.
‘Let me guess, Mr Berniere. You are from Scolar, perhaps? A Jainist or Buddhist?’ asked Carnage Farr.
Thales’s shocked look made Rast Randall laugh again.
‘The Baronessa had agreed to take me to Scol station after I—’ Thales began.
‘After you assaulted an OLOSS dignitary and jumped ship,’ finished Rast. ‘You’re lucky to have your skin on.’
‘W-what do you m-mean?’ stammered the scholar.
‘I mean that you should be grateful we hijacked your plans. If Scol security had caught up with you and the set of “instructions” you are carrying, you would have been imprisoned without trial. Maybe executed. I haven’t met a sanctioned bio courier yet. Whatever you’re collecting’s gotta be illegal, no matter what they told you.’
Thales swallowed hard. ‘You’ve been through my room!’
But Jo-Jo’s curiosity wasn’t piqued. His thoughts were racing ahead. Why are we all here—together? What is Carnage Farr planning?
As if sensing Jo-Jo’s paranoia, Orion’s most infamous man stood. He placed his fists, knuckles forward, on the table, displaying the faint scars from old military augmentations. ‘While I am neither a Jainist nor a philosopher of any one doctrine, I am a believer. And this is what I believe. There is a pattern in everything and a reason for it. I have on one side of the table a woman desperate to raise an army, and two mercenaries who will work for her if the price is right.
‘I have on the other side my own sister whose child is lost on the very planet the Baronessa wishes to save, and an entrepreneur—a God-Discoverer—who has unfinished business with a Lostolian academic under the new god’s tutelage—an ‘esque, as it turns out, who had recently visited the Baronessa’s planet.’
Farr clapped his hands: a short, emphatic noise that made everyone jump. ‘You have much in common and you arrive on my doorstep at the same time. A pattern is emerging from seemingly random events. Someone has begun something that has had consequences for you all. And I... I am another part of it.’
Glances intersected all around the table but the Baronessa spoke first. ‘Then you will help us?’
Jo-Jo’s heart pounded just to hear her voice again.
‘Please, Lasper. You can’t ignore this,’ added Beth softly. ‘There is more than territorialism going on here.’
‘I think your sorella is right, Mr Farr. I have in my possession some . . . some information that would suggest a precious mineral