Dark Space - Marianne de Pierres [121]
‘What was the Lostolian’s name?’ Mira demanded.
‘The name was blanked from the recording.’
She turned the data sponge over in her fingers. ‘Marchella Pellegrini saved us in Ipo. She could not have caused this invasion.’
Trin felt none of the distress that showed in Mira’s voice. He wanted to survive; he did not want to feel sorry for those lost. ‘Yet this mine—her mine—was stockpiled with food and medic. A mere coincidence?’
‘She is a clever woman: a woman with foresight.’
‘Or maybe she is a scared woman? A woman of guilt?’
Mira made an impatient, unhappy noise.
Trin changed tactics. ‘You are the only one who can fly Insignia, Mira Fedor. The only one who can take word of this atrocity to OLOSS.’
He saw her tremble. ‘You would have stolen my Inborn Talent, Trin Pellegrini. Torn it from me and left me to drift into insanity. And yet now you ask me to rescue your world with it.’
‘Your world as well, Mira. Your sorella’s world. Your papa’s world.’
Mira’s trembling increased. ‘Do not speak of Faja. Do not use my familia. I am no longer a ragazza like Djeserit who will worship your royalty.’
‘Djeserit is not a ragazza, she is a woman.’
‘If that is so then you have forced her to be so—you have stolen her youth from her. It is indecent, what you have done.’
Trin took an angry, impatient breath. Mira’s forthright manner offended him even though he knew her for an eccentric. ‘I have an AiV ready for you but you must leave now.’
‘What of Vito?’
‘He will stay here. Djeserit will care for him.’
‘No,’ Mira said. ‘I will do nothing without the ‘bino.’ Her voice took on a cold, stiff quality that familia women used against their men.
‘If you refuse to do this then we have no chance of survival,’ Trin said.
‘You would blackmail me?’
He stepped close to her. ‘I would do far worse than that, Baronessa.’ And will. And will.
Mira shrank from him, but her voice stayed firm. ‘You cannot coerce me, Trinder Pellegrini!’
‘And you will not fail me. Your Vito is my guarantee that you will go to OLOSS and make them listen—make them come.’ Trin’s voice rose to a near-shout. ‘I swear that Pellegrinis will not lose this world to ginkos.’
Mira turned to run from him.
Trin saw her intention and raised his hand in a beckoning gesture. Vespa and Seb Malocchi appeared behind her, each seizing one of her arms.
She tried to pull away from them, but they held her fast. ‘What is this, Trinder?’
‘Listen,’ he hissed. ‘We will retreat to Chalaine-Gema. If the Saqr are there we will cross the southern range to the Islands and wait for help.’
‘What else do you want?’ Mira whispered. ‘What does that dogged face you present to me mean?’
Trin hesitated one last moment. ‘There is no manner in which I can make this less brutal, Mira. I have thought it through. You can resist or you can accept.’
‘Accept what? To go to OLOSS?’
‘No. That is decided already... I wish to make a bambino. Now. An heir.’
‘Loco,’ she whispered in horror.
‘I am truly,’ Trin agreed. ‘But there will be another Pellegrini and he will be Cipriano. You are the only patrician blood left.’ He reached into his borsa again and selected his last remaining bravura. As he slipped it under his tongue he began the silent release mantra that would trigger his fertility.
Seb and Vespa Malocchi wrestled Mira easily to the ground and held her there. One of them pushed the filthy hem of his fellalo into her mouth.
As Trin forced Mira’s robe open, and himself inside her, it was, at last, his turn to cry.
* * * *
MIRA
The AiV flew on autopilot out of Pablo. The dust had begun to settle and Mira watched dawn became a blazing mid-morning sun from a position of numb awareness. What has he done? What has Trinder Pellegrini done? She couldn’t bear to think of it and yet her senses were ablaze with her violation.
Beneath her the Araldisian plains unfolded, their endless flowing rock and sand punctuated with dark flecks that might be bodies or wreckage. An invasion seemed impossible with so much earth and so few living things.