Dark Space - Marianne de Pierres [28]
Mira stumbled straight into the co-pilot’s seat, her fingers skittering along the controls searching for the hatch command. If she could shut him out. . . but Jancz was there, leaning over her before she could finish her thought.
In the lug’s bright interior light Mira saw him closely for the first time. The irregularity of his features was not unpleasant so much as unusual, but his eyes were devoid of any expression that Mira understood.
‘Hands off, Baronessa. Or I will remove them for you, right there.’ Jancz drew an imaginary line across her wrists with a chopping movement.
Mira snatched back her hands and folded them in her lap.
Jancz turned and began checking the latches on the crates. One latch rattled and as he tightened it she caught an impression of neatly stacked sheets of a material that was unfamiliar to her. It resembled catoplasma—but hard and brittle-looking.
Jancz snapped the lid shut and climbed into the pilot’s seat. He set the navigation coordinates and the lug wallowed against the side of the ship. ‘Ilke,’ he said. ‘Release.’
Mira heard the coupling grate apart and felt the lug set free from the ship. She sank back into the harness and closed her eyes, thankful to be nearly away from the disturbed biozoon, thankful to have evaded the Cavaliere and the Carabinere.
When she opened them again the remnants of an Araldis sunset were streaming through the window. She watched with relief as Dockside’s graceless collection of buildings fell away behind them.
Within a short time they had crossed the fringes of the sprawling open-cut mines and pock-marked undergrounds. Evening had encroached, bathing everything in a pleasant vermilion haze; phosphorescent lights flared alive around the mines, charging the air with an eerie beauty.
Mira’s gaze was drawn to the distant but brightest display of all, Pellegrini A; the expansive ever-widening mineral-laden gouge that ensured the Pellegrini familia their wealth and power. Scattered between those open-cut scars were the rainbow glows of the underground mines, coded for night identification—the only evidence of some system, in fact the only system, among the mining melee.
Araldis’s abundant mineral and the Cips’ inferior geological expertise had been a lethal combination. Collapsed mines were common in the warren of diggings. Only recently under pressure from OLOSS, had Franco begun to employ seismic measures to avoid loss of life. Too late for those at the Juanita mine, Mira thought. The most recent accident had killed over a hundred. Faja had sent a shortcast of the news to her at the Studium.
Now, gazing out at the mines, Mira imagined what their thoughts had been as they ran out of air, trapped below the fall of baked rock. Did they feel as I do? she wondered. Right then she missed the comfort of Insignia’s presence. She strained to detect its hum but found only silence, as though the distance between them was insurmountable.
Where are you?
The engine thrum wooed exhaustion into her body and she dozed, not waking again until the lug abruptly changed altitude.
Jancz had not spoken to her during the trip—another thing to be grateful for. Mira blinked sleep-blur from her eyes and strained forward to see the city lights. ‘On the western edge there is a large AiV park.’
‘I know it,’ he said curtly.
His familiarity with the city bothered Mira somehow, but she didn’t dwell on it, wanting only to leave his company as soon as possible.
As soon as the lug landed she left the co-pilot’s seat and waited near the hatch. When Jancz released the lock, she spared no word of parting for him.
His words, though, followed her down the narrow hydraulic steps. ‘Forget me, signorina,’ he said. ‘And the Carabinere will not find you.’
Mira gave a tight nod, unsure that she could trust him with any such pact. Outside in the heat she sealed her velum and slipped into anonymity between the rows of AiVs. Strangely, though, the lug did not shift from its landing spot.
What is he doing, she wondered, glancing back, waiting like that?
* * * *