Dark Space - Marianne de Pierres [113]
Only Marrat, the tall woman and three others voted against Pablo. Innis didn’t vote at all. He sat apart from the meeting toying with a rifle.
Mira worried at his lack of interest. She also worried that the sudden fierce dryness in the back of her throat wasn’t triggered by thirst. Dust.
Cass must have sensed it too for she added her voice to Mira’s. ‘Fill everything you can with water,’ she told them all. ‘We should move on.’
The women and ‘bini packed tight into the barge again, leaving the side vents open for airflow. But within a few hours they were winding them shut.
* * * *
They journeyed for two days in a pall of mounting red haze. At night they huddled on the canopy in the lee of the barge, stomachs sore from hunger, stale bread and dirty water. Few slept for the noise of coughing and the wind-howl. Some already struggled for each breath. With no storm filters to attach to their protecsuits Mira feared for them.
Unable to rest, she stood guard over the shadows-mass of bodies. Cass had told her it was pointless to set a watch but she could not sit there among the suffering.
‘If the dust thickens much more the cells won’t work.’ Cass said quietly. She stood close enough for Mira to sense that she was crying.
Those worst affected should travel in the cabin, Mira thought, listening to the gasps. The filter in her velum was more efficient than those in many of the protecsuits and yet she still felt the tightness at her chest, could taste the dust with every breath.
Cass moved closer. ‘Mira?’
‘We must keep going.’
Cass lifted her arm in a gesture of helplessness. ‘In this?’
A fierceness rose in Mira. ‘Maybe the mine is closer than we think. Or maybe the dust storm will blow out tomorrow. Are you wishing us dead?’
The other woman stiffened and anger replaced her tears. She turned and walked away without replying.
Mira returned to watching and listening, straining to discern anything over the burning howl of the wind. She wondered if she’d said enough to provoke the other woman. If Cass lost belief, so would they all.
* * * *
They travelled slowly the next day with the dust whipping screeds of gravel against the sides of the barge. Mira sat crammed against the doorbridge with Vito and the korm.
Innis was only a few bodies away from her; she could hear his voice. They’d argued when Mira had insisted to Cass that those with breathing difficulties should replace the men in the cabin. Marrat and Cass’s man, Thomaas, had supported Innis. Only Kristo had backed Mira.
‘The Baronessa is right. The environmentals in the cabin are better. They will help filter the dust,’ he’d said. While they’d argued he’d disappeared inside the barge and returned, carrying a ‘bino. Her breath had rattled and her neck had been corded with the effort of breathing.
Suddenly the others’ argument had lost ground.
The child whimpered as she crawled inside the cabin.
‘But I’m the driver,’ Innis whined.
Mira felt gut-sick from having even to speak to him. ‘And you take up enough space for two.’
‘Who do you think you are to tell me what to do, Baronessa? Your brains would’ve been sucked dry by the Saqr if it weren’t for us.’
Cass stood between them, unsure of what to say. Mira knew that she was still angry from the night before.
The tall outspoken woman, who Mira had learned was named Liesl, strode into the centre of their huddle. ‘What’s the hold-up? I might not want to go to the undergrounds but I surely don’t want to stay here.’
Innis suddenly changed tack. ‘I’ll ride in the back,’ he announced.
Mira watched, perplexed, as he disappeared around the back of the barge.
Cass shrugged. ‘It’s decided, then.’
They quickly transferred the worst cases into the cabin and Cass climbed behind the controls.
Now Mira sat pressed against the ramp with Kristo and Josefia next to her, wondering what had caused Innis’s change of heart. She listened to the tone of his voice—his words were muffled—and realised it was punctuated by low, warm responses from Liesl.
* * * *
Sometime during mid-afternoon