Dark Space - Marianne de Pierres [90]
Trin ran past him without stopping. Malocchi is dead. Malocchi is dead. The realisation pursued him down a forgotten, malformed corridor. He bit down to extract the last squirt of glucose as he ran. When he reached the door of his office he hammered at the lock. As the door slid open, a deep-rooted survival instinct sent him dropping to his knees.
A pistol discharged into the empty air where he’d been standing.
He scrambled against the wall, feeling warm wetness flood his groin. Trin Pellegrini had never in his adult life pissed himself before. He fumbled with his rifle, jamming the charge in his haste. Visions of himself on the pile with the others, his discarded flesh being laid out by Nathaniel, took control of his mind. No.
His rifle flickered in readiness. He lifted it and fired at the doorway. The pulse hammered into the ceiling, blasting out chunks of catoplasma. Fear racked him and he couldn’t bring himself to move any closer to the door.
‘Familia?’ a hoarse voice called into the silence.
Trin’s heart lurched and he began to breathe again. He knew that voice. He knew it. ‘Scali,’ he rasped. Then again. ‘Scali, is that you?’
‘Don Pellegrini?’
‘Si. Si, Nobile.’ Tears of relief spurted from his eyes.
Scali stepped into the doorway, sobbing too. His fellalo was torn and soaked with blood.
He saw Trin on the floor and fell down beside him.
They stared at each other in silence.
‘You stink, young Principe,’ Scali finally said, hugging him. ‘But you came for me, Don. I will never forget that. You knew where I’d be hiding. I hoped Rantha would think of it. Have you seen her?’
Trin swallowed slowly and painfully. ‘No, Nobile, I have not. She must have got away. Now you and I must do the same.’
* * * *
MIRA
The Saqr encircled Ipo like maggots working the edges of a carcass. Rast tried to keep order, organising work parties, but many wanted to fight away their fear.
Mira volunteered to pick grain from the crops in the hydro-tents. At the end of her first shift, Rast was waiting for her outside, sitting in a TerV. ‘Get in.’
Mira ignored the mercenary, walking back towards the town centre behind the truck that had brought them to the tents. Now it was loaded down with kranse.
Rast rolled the TerV alongside her. ‘That’s an order, Fedor.’
‘I do not take your orders,’ Mira said softly.
Rast raised her rifle and pointed it casually out the window. ‘Do as I say, Baronessa.’
Mira stopped still, biting her lip. The others on the work detail walked on, heads averted, not wanting any part of her problem. She stood, undecided. She found the mercenary abrasive and rude but she sensed it was not wise to test Rast’s anger so she climbed into the TerV.
‘Your manners are appalling,’ she said in her stiffest aristo tone.
‘Manners?’ Rast laughed so hard that she sent the TerV jerking from side to side of the track as she drove it past the tents toward the east end of the town.
They pulled up near a section of the fence through which they could see a handful of Saqr tending a row of yellow globes half-buried in the ground. Mira could smell the cloying sweetness.
‘Tell me what these things are—everything you know about them, and how you know it,’ Rast demanded.
Mira paused to collect her thoughts. It seemed hard to remember things and harder to concentrate, as if a heavy impermeable shroud had been cast across her mind. ‘I studied other sentient cultures at the Studium and the Saqr were one of over five hundred life forms I referenced. I did not receive a neural fact-augmentation because it was not deemed necessary. Not for a woman who would never truly hold a position of importance. So I can only use ordinary recall and it is possible that I may be confusing them with other species. My knowledge hardly qualifies as expertise.’
‘Try.’ said Rast.
‘I believe the globes are cysts.’
‘You mean eggs?’ Rast asked.
‘No. Each one is a fully formed Saqr in a state of cryptobiosis. Hibernation,’ Mira said, softly.
‘Impossible. The globe is too small.’
Mira shook her head. ‘I saw one hatch