Mirror Space - Marianne de Pierres [71]
‘You see that big prick sculpture at the Fest? Was up on the dais,’ said a small, stocky humanesque to his taller companion. ‘Crux. And the prick who it was modelled on. He had an ego as big as his whang.’
‘I saw him,’ a woman chimed in. ‘He’s one of the Lostol tyros who’ve been studying that God thing they found over near Mintaka. I heard he balled Fenralia on the trip here and she liked it so much she made a sculpture of him and his better parts.’
‘Fenralia’s a she?’ The tall one sounded surprised.
‘Hard to say with ginks like that,’ replied the woman. ‘Fen looks like she’d stick those tentacles anywhere they’ll fit.’
Most of the group laughed at that: all except the short one. He lowered his voice. ‘Talking to the Jandos last night. Heard that the tyro prick’s gone missing up top. He must have done somethin’ to shite Farr off.’
The tall man nudged him and glanced to the back of the lift.
Thales followed his gaze. Behind the group who were crowded together, facing inward, as lifts forced passengers to do, was a solitary ‘esque, standing quietly, listening. Thales hadn’t noticed him before.
From what Thales could see, around the heads of the others, the man seemed unremarkable in every way, other than perhaps the intent expression on his face. He stood a little taller than Thales but was muscled and wearing different-colour overalls to the COG group. His dark uniform looked supple, the material almost elastic.
As if sensing Thales’s scrutiny, the man lifted his gaze and stared at him.
Thales found the contact disconcerting, and an uncomfortable sensation settled on his chest. He glanced away.
The COG group left the lift at different levels, each one calling farewell to the rest. Others replaced them, and the pattern of exit and replace went on until they reached the level before the docks. The lift emptied entirely then, except for Thales and the man in the dark overalls.
They stood in silence while Thales watched the icon flickering upward. To his relief, the doors pinged open to the dock, and an influx of passengers separated him from the man.
He hurried straight down into the main walkway, following the large numbering sequence on the walls. Although the docks were essentially one long mooring, a mess of conveyors and passenger tubes and service modules divided one bay from the next.
Dock 15 was the farthest from the lift and took him a decent amount of walking time to reach. So much so that he was beginning to get hungry and tired.
As he passed behind a wall of containers unloaded on Dock 14, the light altered. Dock 15 was almost in darkness; only the red glow of safety lights lent an outline to the mooring mechanism and its empty berth.
Thales couldn’t see an administration office or any other kind of official structure. His chest got tighter. Had the Lamin made a mistake? He turned and took hasty steps back towards the container wall.
The man from the lift jumped him before he reached it, and they both fell to the floor. Thales knew at once who it was, without seeing his face or even the colour of his overalls.
A heavy object pressed against his throat; he smelt food-sweet breath in his face. The man had just eaten, and then come to kill him.
‘Reckoned you might put up more of a fight,’ whispered the man.
Thales bucked against him but it was a miserable attempt against the man’s superior strength. He opened his mouth to shout, but the man forced a soft, round object between his lips that expanded as soon as it contacted his saliva. Suddenly his mouth was so full he could barely breathe. With his hands trapped underneath him, he could only writhe and twist his head from side to side.
‘Might as well enjoy it then,’ the man muttered to himself. He dropped the weapon and clamped his hand around Thales’s neck. The suffocation came quickly, intensified by the putty filling his mouth and throat.
He attempted to knee the man in the back but his legs wouldn’t work, flopping uselessly. Oblivion came quickly.
Even when the man’s fingers were yanked abruptly from him, Thales barely knew consciousness. Only