Dark Space - Marianne de Pierres [118]
‘What choice is there, Principe? We will either starve or they will come for us. Perhaps our only advantage is to take the initiative.’
‘We are not fighters.’
‘We have to be. Or they will wipe us out.’
Trin stared into the distance. Joe Scali was right. They would be wiped out. He would never govern his world. Never have a true heir. Unless... ‘I will wait below. Tell Djeserit to come to me.’
* * * *
Trin sat in the one of the many niches along the main tunnel. In the last few days this one had become his and Djeserit’s own.
‘Mira is here. Don’t you want to see her?’ Djeserit stood at the opening.
He stood up and pulled her close to him.
She stroked his hair. ‘You were worried about me?’
A shudder passed through his body. ‘Your leg is still not healed. You must not go out again—I fear the Saqr are too close.’
‘If I hadn’t gone out, those women would be dead.’ Better them ... he wanted to tell her. Better anyone than you.
Djeserit knelt on the thin film that they used for a bed, beckoning him. He sank down next to her, opening the front of her suit, roaming his hands across her body, examining her for further hurts. She smelled unwashed. Mixed with the naturally acrid scent of her skin, it both repulsed and attracted him, as everything about her did. Her skin felt hot. ‘Your suit is not working properly.’
‘None of them are. There are too many of us and not enough means to replenish them.’
She was right. They would not be able to stay here in Pablo much longer. Already the environmental converter was struggling to pump cooler air through and provide enough water for them all.
Djeserit sat up. ‘Don’t you want to see Mira?’
Now she was here, he did not. Trin did not want to hear her censure, her judgement of his decisions. He rolled away from Djeserit and pressed his fist into the rock wall until the physical pain brought unsheddable tears to his eyes. ‘Si.’
* * * *
The condition of Mira’s group, even in the dim light of the main cavern, appalled Trin. Their suits were ragged and without exception they were weak and dehydrated. Joe Scali and Seb Malocchi moved among them, organising food and lig water. Kranse bread and dates for those who could digest them; lig water for the others who had gone beyond that. They were low on medic already and there would be no help for the second group if they did not heal of their own accord.
Djeserit went to the korm and stroked its crest, encouraging it to swallow the meat proxy. Trin felt a stab of jealousy at the soft noises of pleasure she made.
A woman in the centre of the group climbed wearily to her feet.
Mira.
She helped someone next to her to stand up, a smaller, gaunter woman who was un-familia. They picked their way through the sprawling bodies towards him.
Trin didn’t hold out his hand in welcome. She wouldn’t take it, he knew.
‘Baronessa. Do you have the strength to tell me what happened in Ipo?’
Mira glanced down to those sitting closest and he realised that she did not want others to hear what she had to say. ‘Si.’
‘Come.’ He beckoned her to the side of the cavern where several TerVs sat.
Mira and the other woman followed him with painful slowness. He did not offer them his arm to lean on.
Djeserit joined them.
Panting, Mira sank into a seat and nibbled at her dates.
Trin waited for her to speak. With her hood down, her face looked thinner than it had ever looked before and the skin under her eyes was dark with strain.
She finished her mouthful and swallowed with difficulty. ‘This is Cass Mulravey. She is the reason why we are alive. She and Marchella Pellegrini.’
Trin stared in astonishment. ‘Tia Marchella?’
‘Si. She is the one who told us to come here.’
‘Eccentric, that one.’ He remembered their dinner at the palazzo.
‘Not eccentric. Clever and brave,’ Mira corrected him. She put another date to her lips and sucked at it.
Trin sensed an indifference in her towards him that not even her exhaustion could explain. Something had changed in her.
He felt a sudden compulsion to apologise. To say that he was