Dark Space - Marianne de Pierres [75]
Cass slipped her tunic from one shoulder and bared a soft, limp breast. ‘I’ll give him what I can but I’ve heard they don’t suck too well, these Pagoins. Funny mouth.’
Mira had to look away from the woman’s immodesty but in spite of it gratitude welled inside her. Cass was the second woman to help Vito in a matter of days. Mira stood there, not knowing how to say thank you.
‘Baronessa, love,’ Cass said quietly, ‘you said you had some learning. Go see if you’ve got any clues to help them fix the damn mover or we’ll all die here.’
* * * *
Mira stared over Innis’s shoulder into the TerV’s tracks. Her knowledge of electric motors was entirely theoretical but the problem seemed self-evident. ‘The copper contactors have melted,’ she said.
Innis scowled. ‘So what?’
She gave him a puzzled look. ‘There should be replacement components here.’
An ‘esque crouched to one side of her tilted his head up. He had a broad face with flat, plain features. ‘Can you recognise them?’
‘I think so,’ said Mira.
He stood up. ‘I’m Kristo. I’ll come and help you.’
They searched the workshop shelves for a replacement component with Innis hovering closely behind them.
‘These,’ Mira said after a time.
Kristo took them back to the TerV and began refitting them. Innis glowered over his shoulder while an ‘esque they called Marrat worked to fix the rifle to a mounting on the roof of the TerV.
Shots outside made Mira jump.
‘You scared, pilot?’ said Innis.
She knew he wanted to say more, that he had disliked her from the first moment but Marrat burst into the conversation. ‘Ginks outside know we are fixing it. Reckon they’re gonna come and try to take it from us.’
Innis pushed Mira aside. ‘Kris?’
‘Load the spare solar panels and anything else you can find,’ said Kristo. ‘And get everyone in the barge.’
‘But there’s only four of us, and four bambini. We could take more,’ said Mira. What sort of people were these? No worse perhaps than the familia who had abandoned them.
‘We decide that, aristo . . .’ Innis tapered off. ‘Now get up the front there where I can see you.’
* * * *
Innis drove out of the hangar with Mira alongside him. Cass, Kristo, the korm and the bambini were in the back. Marrat was on top with the rifle.
‘Esques leaped at the sides of the TerV but Marrat fired at them. Seeing a woman in the cabin, a desperate mother lunged for the running board, hoisting her ‘bino towards the window. ‘Please take me and my child,’ she screamed.
Mira leaned out to help her but the ‘bino slipped from her grasp as Innis veered the TerV sideways. She watched, stunned, as the infant fell under the barge’s tracks. The mother’s scream pierced right through her.
Innis leaned across the cabin and hauled her back from the window. ‘We take no one else!’
The crowd fell away behind the mover, screaming in shared anger.
Innis relaxed his grip on Mira as they tracked over the fallen fence and cleared the confines of the compound. ‘This is no aristo world anymore, Baronessa. The rules are ours.’
Mira could think of no reply. In the rear-view mirror she could still see the mother bent over in grief.
* * * *
TRIN
Dodging between smoke pillars, the Carabinere AiVs flew a close formation towards Pell. Below them on the parched ground Trin glimpsed food barges overturned, their contents spilled and crates of spoiled food left to dehydrate.
Loisa wasn’t the only place in trouble. The Carabinere transceiver band fired off numerous reports. Dockside was overrun and Station Central was lost. Trin listened as Christian repeatedly tried to contact Malocchi.
Trin glared across at the pilot. ‘Tell Montforte that Malocchi has gone already. I know it.’
‘It’s possible he’s right,’ said a voice behind him.
Trin strained to see who had spoken but the bonds around his neck and chest held him tight. He couldn’t see Djeserit though he thought he could hear her crying softly.
‘Ragazza ... are you