Dark Space - Marianne de Pierres [117]
She waited.
After a time more ligs buzzed in. Their wax scent was almost as strong as that of the Saqr.
The checclia ventured out again but as Mira moved the rifle to target it a cramp seized her leg and the animal disappeared as she writhed in pain.
The game of silence and patience continued between them until Mira’s shoulder blades stung and her fingers became numb from holding her position. Her body refused to stay alert and she dozed, waking with a start to find the checclia three-quarters of the way out of its tunnel.
She jabbed her finger on the discharge button but nothing happened.
The checclia sensed the movement and went springing away.
Mira crawled onto her knees, weeping with frustration. The korm would die because she was so inept. She took the rifle and swung it at the thorn bush in a storm of fury. The spikes quivered but clung to the bush with the same will that had defeated the dust storm.
‘Leave your rifle. Move away from it.’
The sound of another voice was so unexpected that Mira did just as it asked. ‘It is malfunctioning,’ she said. The anger drained from her in an instant and she turned around, unable to stifle a dry sob. ‘I need food for my korm. Please . . . help me.’
A ragazzo stood there, pointing an ancient rifle at her. He stared at her, looking for something that would identify where she’d come from.
Mira didn’t care that he seemed nervous enough to kill her because tiredness rose up in her like the wall of dust that had just blasted the plains.
‘Where’s your korm? I don’t see no one else.’
She couldn’t answer. Her tongue felt swollen and unnatural in her mouth, like a lump of unchewed food.
The ragazzo became agitated by her silence. ‘Tell me where the others are or I’ll kill you.’ He glanced over his shoulder repeatedly. ‘Where are you from? How did you get here? You one of them?’
His questions ran together faster than Mira could think, and standing had become much too difficult. She felt her limbs begin to give way. Would he shoot her if she fell down?
‘Stand still.’ He lifted the rifle to his shoulder.
But Mira could not.
The rifle followed her movement.
‘Alt.’ Another voice.
A figure moved into Mira’s dimming vision. ‘Alt. I know her,’ it said.
Mira tried to control the lolling of her head. It was hard to make sense of the blurring outlines. ‘Djeserit?’
* * * *
TRIN
Trin waited at the top of the Pablo mine, ‘scoping the plains. He saw them when they were still mesurs away a smudge on the dust-tinged horizon.
Djeserit had sent word ahead that she’d found Mira Fedor and a hundred or more Ipo refugees—women, mainly—alive but suffering from dehydration and hunger. After speaking with the Scalis and Cabones Trin had sent what water and food they could spare on the back of a TerV, enough to last them until the cells on their transporter regenned.
Now he watched the barge’s progression with mixed emotions. Ipo had fallen to the Saqr before he could bring help. His world continued to disintegrate around him.
My world. Franco was dead, he was sure. Whether he approved of his son or not, the succession had passed to him. Or the ruins of it, thought Trin bitterly. For what had been left him? A ragged community of ‘esques—more than half of them not even familia—and some uneducated ginkos.
When he had learned the proportion of ginkos hiding in the mine he had wanted to cast them out but knew he could not, not when his own woman was one.
Trin was pleased enough that Mira Fedor had survived. But what trouble would she bring with her? She was a Crown aristo and had certain rights in the eyes of others. He had never expected to see her again, but this was not the first time he’d thought that about Mira Fedor.
Joe Scali stood next to him, straining to see into the distance with his naked eye.
Trin slipped the ‘scope rig off and passed it to him.
‘How will we feed them?’ Scali asked.
‘We cannot.- for long—while we stay here.’ Trin turned to his friend. ‘You