Mirror Space - Marianne de Pierres [73]
They walked in that fashion for longer than he thought the habitat could possibly stretch; through thick foil tubes and over endless adaptor couplings that joined mismatched modules. The distance and speed of their movement returned blood to his limbs and the trembling began to settle.
He began to notice that nothing they passed through seemed stable or purpose-built. On the lower public levels near the main recreation chamber, everything seemed durable enough, but here...
Fariss didn’t speak until they veered off through the narrowest section of a tri-coupling and came to an old-style iris hatch.
She let go of him then, waiting while he steadied himself. The light in the tube, though dim, enabled him to see her face square-on for the first time. Her cheeks and forehead were broad and her nose straighter than any he’d ever seen. Beneath it, her large mouth was shaped by thick, sensual lips.
She stared back at him with equal intensity. ‘What the frig happened to your face?’ she said straight-up.
Thales suddenly realised his mask had been lost in the scuffle. He automatically touched his skin. It felt rough and scaly, but not wet with infection or blood, ‘I . . . it . . .’
Fariss saw him struggling to find the words. ‘Beth said Lasper had given you a rough time. He do that to you too?’
Beth? Thales cleared his throat. ‘The Commander was responsible, indirectly.’
Her broad face coloured at the sound of his voice. ‘That’s a pretty sweet little accent you got. Where’re you from?’
‘Scolar,’ said Thales automatically.
Fariss smiled. ‘Well, we better get you out of harm’s way until we can teach you a few survival tricks.’
‘We?’ he enquired politely.
She reached up to the wall and peeled off a lightweight breather mask with oxygen sacs from a large dispenser and threw it to him. ‘The air’s a little thin if you’re not used to it. Come and meet the family.’ She leaned forward then and blew into a tiny hole below the hatch’s icon-pad.
The iris spiralled open.
This time she stepped through alone and waited for him to follow, as if it was somehow important that he did it without her help. She watched to see if he’d follow.
He fitted the mask, which sent a little blast of oxygen into his nose. Squaring his shoulders, he managed the step-over without tripping. The hatch shut immediately behind him, sending a rush of air against his back. The cool blast on his hot skin prickled his hair. He blinked a few times, not able to make exact sense of what he saw.
He and Fariss stood on a small platform that jutted directly into a vast hollow of space. The space wasn’t empty, though. A huge building spun sluggishly inside it as though suspended from invisible cables. From the narrow tubular section of its spiralling structure to the larger, honeycombed end, it was almost an exact replica of an uncoiled seashell.
‘Welcome to Ampere,’ she said.
‘What is it?’ Thales could barely understand his own voice through the mask.
Fariss was smiling, though, and seemed to know what he asked. ‘It was an island resort once built up straight from the sea onto limestone. But the owner got sick of the design and wanted somethin’ new, so they plucked it off its anchorage and dumped it on land. Planetary regs said it was too large to leave there, so the owner paid to have it picked up by Savoir Hauling - Lasper Farr incorporated - and brought to Edo. I’ll tell you the rest while we commute.’
She waved at the small tug that was rapidly approaching them, a flat-backed vehicle with railings around the seating like a sightseeing boat. The operator waved at Fariss and swung the tug neatly against the platform so they could step on board.
Once seated, Fariss took up her narration. She spread her large body across two seats, legs crooked up on the armrest, torso turned towards Thales. She was quite magnificent, he thought, and frightening with it. Rast Randall, the mercenary, had been a strong, capable woman, but something about Randall’s narrow, lean physique and callous