Dark Space - Marianne de Pierres [89]
Trin’s gaze was drawn to the matted clots of darkness in their faces. They seemed untouched apart from the bleeding holes that had been their eyes.
Automatically, without wanting to, he sifted the muddle of flesh, seeking out familiar faces. Not Joe Scali. Not Rantha. Please . . .
Rising acid burned away the glucose taste in his mouth. He wanted to run back to the launching pad, to Djeserit and escape this. Swallow or suffocate. He grappled with his bodily reactions for a few moments, trying to subdue his gag reflex. When he could, he called out hoarsely. ‘Genarro.’
His team leader had stopped praying and was watching Seb Malocchi’s team who had entered through the other door. One of Seb’s men ran to the pile of bodies and fell onto it.
‘Nathaniel!’ shouted Seb.
But young Nathaniel ignored him and began plucking at the mound of flesh, mumbling names. ‘Kosta, Lorrena Scali—’
Trin knew exactly what the young Carabinere was doing and the sight transfixed him.
Genarro climbed to his feet, purposefully, the shock waning. ‘Nathaniel, the Capitano needs our help. These people do not,’ he said.
‘What if there’s someone alive?’ Like a drunken dancer changing partners Nathaniel struggled to move the bodies. A woman in his grip slipped to the floor, her head rolling slightly askew.
Trin saw the face. It was Rantha’s.
His horror threatened to swallow him. He tore off his hood, peeling back the web to be sick. Rantha. No. She would never again hate the man who made her pregnant, never date Joe Scali, never hold her ‘bino. Rantha.
A hand grasped Trin’s shoulder and pulled him roughly to his feet. He stared into Juno Genarro’s mesh-distorted face. ‘Both teams upstairs to assist the Capitano. NOW. Except you.’ He shook Trin. ‘Can you fly?’
Trin barely made sense of the words. ‘Si.’
‘Go to the landing pad and tell the Pescares to have the AiVs ready to leave. You prepare the third one. You saw that woman’s head. These people haven’t been dead very long…’
You saw that woman’s head. Rantha s head. Instinctively Trin knew that Juno was right. The Saqr were still near. Maybe this had happened just as they landed, or as he’d put his webbing on, or as they crept through the quiet, empty corridors.
‘Nathaniel,’ said Seb again. ‘We must leave now.’ He approached the young Carabinere.
‘No,’ said Nathaniel. He lifted his rifle and waved it at Seb. ‘My familia are here . . . my friends. I wish to see them.’
Seb Malocchi nodded his understanding and edged slowly back to the door. The background noise on their shortcast was beginning to lessen.
‘Rapido!’ shouted Juno Genarro.
The Carabinere disappeared, pleased to move, for the same terror was upon all of them.
Trin was left alone with Nathaniel and the dead.
‘The Saqr did this.’ Nathaniel released his grip on Rantha’s body.
Trin wanted to run from what he could see. But what about Joe Scali? an inner voice nagged. Where is your friend? Is he in that obscene pile of flesh? ‘How do you know Saqr?’
‘I worked in Alien Ethnicity. Signor Malocchi thought the department was a waste of time but Principe Franco insisted that we keep it. Those holes in their eyes are caused by stylets. They bore for their food.’
‘I know,’ said Trin shortly. ‘I’ve seen them. Nathaniel, we must go to the AiVs now.’
Nathaniel smiled absently at him and nodded. But he didn’t move.
Shock. Trin recognised it. Mira Fedor had been the same. He retreated to the door and glanced out. There was a noise on the stairs. On the shortcast Juno murmured instructions to his team as he tried to raise the Capitano. But this noise was not made by the Carabinere. Something else.
‘Nathaniel,’ Trin urged. ‘Now. Prego.’
But Nathaniel was back on his knees among the bodies, laying them out in neat rows.
The sound got louder and Trin panicked. He ran through the cucina to the directors’ refectory. The security director was at a table nearby, his torso resting on a tabletop, dried trails of black blood in stripes across his clean scalp