Mirror Space - Marianne de Pierres [126]
The corridor was eerily deserted. So were the escalators. The three of them moved unhindered to one of the subsidiary lifts. The only people Mira glimpsed were gathered around a public screen, riveted to the events unfolding in the summit room.
‘Where’re we going?’ asked Fariss, as the lift door closed. Thales straightened and tried to take his own weight. Colour had returned to his face and he wiped the saliva from his chin.
‘Sub-25, below quarantine. A shuttle will be waiting,’ said Mira. Insignia?
Fariss nodded and pressed the button. She stared at the moist patch on Mira’s pants.
‘You piss yourself?’
‘M-my waters. I think . . .’ Insignia? Is the shuttle here?
Fariss’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You having a fuckin’ baby? Now?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Shit.’
Mira dropped her hands self-consciously in front of her. Insignia? she pleaded.
It is waiting.
Thank Crux.
When Ley-al’s shuttle attached seamlessly to the egress scale, Mira stepped on board first. As she hurried along Insignia’s ribbed stratum to the buccal, cramps bit into her lower belly. Fluid soaked steadily down her legs onto the pants of her borrowed soldier garb.
The baby couldn’t be coming now? It couldn’t be. It was only a few months old in her womb; too young to be born. Too young for a humanesque bambino. Too—
The biozoon’s buccal pucker was already dilated, waiting for her. She heard Fariss close behind, swearing under her breath, while Thales moaned with effort.
‘Put him in the second vein,’ Mira gasped, as she fell into Primo. The biozoon’s symbiosis function folded around her in a loving embrace. Nano-sensors slipped in through the pores in her skin, reading electrolyte levels, gauging dehydration and trauma. She felt the flush of replenishment.
Fariss staggered across to the Secondo vein and laid Thales in it.
Mira?
See to the scholar.
I will see to you both. Our baby is distressed.
My amniotic fluid has ruptured. Can you repair it?
I can slow the fluid loss but I cannot prevent the birth. This is what I feared.
No! Anguish tore right through Mira and turned her mind inside out.
She’d warned OLOSS about the Extropists’ amassed weaponry. She’d risked everything to bring them news of the great threat. Wasn’t there some grace in that? Some balance that should swing in her favour? Some universal justice?
Insignia, please. Please. My baby must not die.
Sole
bring’m home/pretty pretty
bring’m baby/know’m all
bring’m baby/burn’m others
The End
Table of Contents
Sole
JO-JO RASTEROVICH
MIRA
TRIN
TEKTON
JO-JO RASTEROVICH
MIRA
TRIN
THALES
TEKTON
MIRA
JO-JO RASTEROVICH
THALES
MIRA
TEKTON
TRIN
JO-JO RASTEROVICH
Sole
MIRA
THALES
TEKTON
JO-JO RASTEROVICH
MIRA
TRIN
THALES
TEKTON
JO-JO RASTEROVICH
THALES
MIRA
TEKTON
THALES
TEKTON
MIRA
THALES
MIRA
THALES
TEKTON
TRIN
MIRA
THALES
MIRA
JO-JO RASTEROVICH
MIRA
Sole