Transformation Space - Marianne de Pierres [102]
‘But how will you get on board?’
‘Just put your foot in my hands,’ he shouted hoarsely.
Sal, we can’t reach the egress scale.
Step away, Mira Fedor. Step away. ‘Josef,’ she said. ‘Step up!’ he screamed at her.
She made a fist and punched Jo-Jo in the side of the face.
He dropped his hands in shock.
‘Sal wants us to move away. Quickly.’
She grabbed his hand and pulled him. Together, they climbed the closest dune. Halfway up, Mira began to tire. Jo-Jo’s grip grew tighter, and their positions reversed. He was pulling her, urging her onward.
As they reached the peak, the sand began to vibrate. Behind them Sal was moving, rocking back and forth with gathering momentum. In front of them something else was happening. Medium glowed brighter than ever. The last of its outer skin sloughed away to allow a ghastly, glistening birthing.
Fluid sprayed forth in great bursts, sizzling as it touched the hot sand. A bulbous shape, the size of a dozen biozoons, had emerged. Then the shape split wide in another spray of fluid and a cavernous yawning hollow opened before them. Huge triangular-shaped objects glistened around the edges of the hollow. Teeth.
Jo-Jo fell to his knees, hands covering his face. ‘No!’
Mira couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but watch the Extro craft transforming. Behind the maw another wad of skin unfolded, a body that seemed to expand until the scaly quivering length of it went further back into the dark than she could see.
An overpoweringly sweet scent assailed them; gusts of it had them both choking. Then the sand began to quake again.
Mira gripped Jo-Jo’s shoulder and pointed back to the two biozoons. Sal had rocked itself until it had dug deep down into the sand. They could now reach the egress scale.
This time they helped each other, holding hands, pulling each other along. Josef had no more strength than she did, and tears poured down his face. Their only words to each other were encouragement or instructions, until they’d climbed in through the egress scale.
When the scale closed, they both collapsed onto the floor.
‘Josef?’ whispered Mira. ‘Are you … ?’
He sat up suddenly, words tumbling from his mouth. ‘We have to get out of here quickly. The survivors are on the islands to the west, like you said they’d be. We should go there.’
Mira pushed up onto an elbow. All her strength had gone, drained by the heat and the effort and the fear. ‘Then I need to get to the buccal.’
Jo-Jo nodded. She saw he was still crying, a steady stream of tears of release that made him neither gasp nor sob, but which did not stop.
He tried to stand, but his legs buckled underneath him. His whole body trembled, but he got his knees underneath him and crawled to her. ‘I – I, Mira, I c-can’t carry you—’ This time he sobbed. ‘I’m sorry.’
Mira reached out and clasped his hand, letting him know that she understood. She’d thought him so rough and self-reliant, closed off, when they’d been together in Insignia before. Like Rast Randall, though more predictable and with a peculiar type of integrity. But this man who’d come to help her was altogether different, raw and open and unsure. When he’d pulled her from the liquefying floor of the Extro ship, she’d felt nothing but relief to see him. Now something else stirred. An emotion she’d not felt before.
He brought her fingers to his face and held them against his cheek. He was trembling, as if needing her close. She felt the hot wetness of his face against hers. Felt his exhaustion to match hers. He turned and pressed his lips into her palm.
Instead of pulling away, she welcomed his contact, letting her hand cup his jaw. They were alive.
‘Baronessa?’ A quiet and totally unexpected voice intruded into their space. ‘Let me help you.’
Josef pulled away, and both of them turned in the direction of the voice.
A slim tight-skinned ’esque in a worn robe stepped around the bend of the stratum. ‘My name is Tekton of Lostol.’
JO-JO
Tekton!