Mirror Space - Marianne de Pierres [32]
‘Mira-fedor,’ said a faint voice.
She peered into the near-dark for Wanton-poda. ‘Where are you?’
‘I am close by. There will be daylight soon and I would warn you, I will seem different.’ The cephalopod sounded so quiet and distressed.
She kept her voice as soft. ‘Where are we? And how are you different?’
‘The Bare World exists outside our reality. Post-Species Hosts do not come here at all. It is merely a structure, if you please; a platform for the worlds that Hosts have chosen to live in.’
‘If the islands and the seawater are only virtual, then why did they feel so utterly real? Why didn’t I need some device to perceive them?’
‘Post-Species Host worlds are not virtual, at least, not in the primitive sense that Mira-fedor means. What Mira-fedor experienced actually existed - with some modifications. Wanton-poda, however, is different because it no longer has its Host body. Poda did not survive the transition into the Bare World.’
‘Oh,’ Mira whispered, shocked. ‘I am sorry.’ Tears spurted from her eyes and she pressed her fists to them. ‘Are you in pain from losing it?’
Wanton-poda didn’t baulk at her direct question. ‘Yes. In many ways. Wanton would ask for silence now while it adjusts. Wanton will look different. Don’t be frightened by the change.’
‘Are we in any danger while we wait?’ It had been so long now that she had feared one thing or another that it seemed a logical concern.
‘Wanton does not believe that we will be followed here by its kind. However, Wanton has not been in the Bare World before, though prediction would say the dark is safe enough.’
‘I have one last question, Wanton-poda.’
‘Hasten, please, Mira-fedor.’
‘The creature being birthed on the island, the Saqr, what do you know of it?’
‘Wanton-poda sensed Mira-fedor’s extreme fear of it.’
‘Si. Is it a Post-Species Host like you?’
‘It is a Host body being prepared for use. Wanton had much to do with its regenesis.’
‘For use by one of your kind?’ Mira tried to keep the impatience from her voice.
‘Not necessarily,’ said Wanton-poda. ‘Some Host bodies are used for other things - in the way humanesques have used lesser species. Post-Species do not use barbaric behaviour modification, however. Redirection at the DNA level is much more efficient. Now, Wanton requires Mira-fedor’s silence.’
Mira uncramped her legs and sank into a more comfortable position. Her questions would have to wait. She turned her attention back to her surroundings. The temperature was reminiscent of Araldis and her skin seemed to welcome it. She glanced behind her. The darkness seemed thicker there as if it harboured an object. Yet she didn’t trust her senses while her body was in so much turmoil.
She continued to stroke her belly, talking to the baby in her mind for the first time in the way she did with Insignia. I’m not sure how you helped me but I know that you did. What manner of person are you to exert such force of will from the womb?
Unlike Insignia, the baby did not respond. And yet she felt the beginnings of attachment. Somehow the child had helped her. Perhaps it would not be like its father.
So the baby seemed to settle within her, and for some precious long moments she relaxed onto the sand.
And then the dawn came.
It crept upon her as she dozed, a subtle change of colour: inky to something less dense and then a true, colour-filled lightening. It was a sound that woke her though.
For a moment she thought a child cried. But as her senses focused she knew it not to be crying but a whining; pain-infected.
Her eyes roamed the grainy landscape ahead. Arid like Araldis but rocky, close by at least. She reined her gaze in closer to locate the sound.
It came, she thought, from a tiny dark stain on the sand, not far from her feet and no bigger than the palm of her hand. She pulled her knees in to move her feet away from it.
As the day struck in a bold dash of gold and stark ochre, she alternated between examining her surrounds