Mirror Space - Marianne de Pierres [47]
She grasped the Extro and wrenched it from her skin, tossing it up on top of a higher boulder.
Immediately some of the weakness left her body. With renewed energy she searched for a crevice in which to wedge her feet. Using it as leverage again, she forced her torso upward until she was able to flop backwards onto the top of the rock, alongside Wanton.
Rolling onto her side, she scooped up the Extro and knotted it into a section of her torn robe. Then she began to scramble higher, finding better hand and footholds on the dry boulders above.
The water slapped and frothed around the base rocks but she kept her eyes on her ascent, willing Insignia to hear her - to find her. But the climb exhausted her remaining energy, and she collapsed on a ledge just short of the summit. For a time she heard and saw nothing.
‘Mira-fedor?’
Wanton’s thin voice eventually drew her back.
And the baby. One sudden and intense movement that brought her, gasping, to an upright position, gripping her abdomen.
‘Stop. Stop!’ she pleaded, hunching over.
‘What is it, Mira-fedor?’
As the wave of pain abated, Mira’s breathing slowed and she raised her head to gaze at the flood. The water had risen to swirl only a body length below her, gushing around and over the larger part of the mamelon. She moved onto her knees to see better and elongate her tender abdomen. Further out, the desert tributary she had run along to reach here had transformed into a fast-moving river shaped and fed from the nutrient walls.
And yet something even stranger revealed itself from the vantage of height. While at ground level the Hue had seemed endless and seamless with the sky or the not-sky, but from here, looking down, Mira could see a dimpled surface - a roof - that looked like buttons pressed hard into an overfull cushion. ‘What are they?’
‘Please, Mira-fedor, Wanton cannot interpret data from this position.’
Mira fumbled for the knot in her wet gown. With clumsy fingers she untied it and let the Extro drop onto her palm. She raised it to eye level, holding her hand flat.
‘You told me that if I carried you, you would take nothing from me, but you drained my system. I almost drowned.’ There was no heat in her accusation - she didn’t have the energy for it - but she made her mistrust plain. If she wanted to, she could toss the creature away into the rushing water below. It would survive, no doubt, but she would be free of it.
‘Wanton took only the smallest amount for nutrition requirements. Nothing that would interfere with your own functions,’ it protested.
‘But when I removed you I felt my strength return.’
‘Wanton is not sure why that would be.’
The Extro sounded genuine enough but how could one ever know with such a creature? ‘Are you misleading me?’
‘That concept is confusing.’
‘Confusing!’ Mira climbed to her feet. Emotion trickled into her belly. ‘You pick and choose when you wish to understand me, Wanton. That is lying. That is misleading. Now tell me what those circular objects on the surface are.’
She held her arm outstretched and trembling. It would be so simple to tilt her palm and . . .
Mira.
Insignia!
I am closer. I have located you but it is an uncommon habitat.
It’s a planet, I think. Covered by a substance they call the Hue. They live inside it and draw raw materials from the earth outside. The planet is in flood, for regeneration, and I am stranded above the waterline. Her thoughts tumbled out. How far away are you? Are you alone?
Some of the humanesques travelled with me to Extropy space. But circumstance has dictated that they are no longer aboard.
Circumstance? Are they alive? Thales Berniere?
I was forced to leave Rho Junction in haste to keep close to our mind-bond. The scholar and Bethany Ionil did not return in time.
Then who travelled with you?
The mercenaries.
Rast, Latourn and Catchut?
Yes.
That is all?
The God Discoverer as well.
Josef Rasterovich? Mira felt a mild disappointment that Thales was not among them.
‘Mira-fedor.’ Wanton