Dark Space - Marianne de Pierres [96]
A great sob broke from Scali.
Trin tugged his hand again. ‘Now come, Nobile. Please.’
This time Scali climbed after him into the small space.
Trin shuffled sideways, scraping ahead with his gloves to clear the fallen rock, ignoring the pain of his compressed flesh and the panic of claustrophobia. His only thought now was to get back to Djeserit.
* * * *
Sole
little creatures/juices juices
call’m hormone/flowing flowing
cause‘m/deeds deeds
secrets mak’m progress/little creatures use’m/hormone hormone * * * * TEKTON Her skin heated. He sensed the rise in her body temperature, bringing it closer to something he might want to touch. Un-Lostolian humanesques were so cold and slippery. Like fish. This one, though, was approaching her monthly fertile peak. She wore the signs like a banner. This will help my negotiations. Tekton stood patiently silent as his aides applied lotions to keep his skin from drying in the harsh Araldisian climate. The window of his guest chamber gave him an inspiring view of a harsh, red-barren territory, blemished by the clumsy workings of mining. At the sight, his free-mind swamped his body with a rush of akula. It left him rigid-tight with pleasure. The ambassador’s embarrassment deepened. ‘My apologies for any offence, Ambassadress Pellegrini. The sight of your beautiful planet excites my physiology. On Lostol it is not a thing we hide. It prevents much deception when you can see what excites a person.’ Marchella Pellegrini made a small choking sound. Tekton felt a small irritation at being attended by a diplomat with such obviously limited experience. But she is a Pellegrini, his logic-mind reverberated up through the current of akula. She cleared her throat. ‘God-Tekton, please call me Marchella. I have arranged a tour of the main equatorial mines for you. Our transport will depart shortly after breakfast.’ Tekton acknowledged her inaccurate use of his title with a gracious smile. How would a savage know that he wasn’t—yet—a God? ‘Will you be accompanying me . . . Marchella?’ ‘That would please mia fratella, God-Tekton.’ ‘But will it please me?’ he teased, half serious. Marchella stared through the window, putting distance between them. ‘The variety of minerals on Araldis is due in part to its unusual geography. As you may be aware, Araldis has no polar land mass like most other inhabited planets. Large subduction plates collide at each pole, creating the maze of islands that sprinkle the breadth of each hemisphere, ending in the ranges that fringe the belted land mass on which we live and which we mine. Araldis’s climate is extreme. While the polar waters are warm, due to the underwater volcanic activity, the islands are cool and wet. The Equatorial Belt, in the rain shadow of the ranges, is perennially hot and arid.’ ‘I have familiarised myself with Araldisian geography, Marchella Pellegrini,’ said Tekton, feeling his akula quicken as she spoke. The knowledge of the raw materials on this planet stretched his arousal painfully. His free-mind rampaged through new designs and diagnostics for edifices that would use Araldis’s resources, carefully storing them for sharing with his builder sycophant. But he must be careful not to show his lusts. ArchiTects were regarded with suspicion throughout the galaxy: their known avarice for raw materials was a delicate matter. And Tekton had only one purchase in mind. Something he must have. Quixite. Large amounts of it! How amusing to think that this unassuming orb on the outer galactic arm would have what he so desired: this place of ridiculously crude architecture and primitive conditions. Even the mines, according to his moud, were a catastrophe of
Tekton stepped energetically from his immersion bath, his free-mind filled with a sense of prescience. Beneath it his logic-mind flowed with its usual lava of inexorable reason. The tension between the two left him aroused. He turned to the Araldisian diplomat without bothering to cover his body.