Transformation Space - Marianne de Pierres [14]
She continued on to her cabin, where she bathed and brushed her hair, taking care to keep her movements slow and steady. When she was finished, she located an absorbent wad in the cabin cupboard and inserted it into her fresh underwear.
Feeling more ready to cope with what would come next, she sat on the bed.
‘Wanton?’
The Post-Species individual was where she had left it, resting on her bed covers against the tiny blisters of mycose. The pile had dwindled since her last visit to her cabin, indicating that Wanton was still in trouble.
‘Mira-fedor. Wanton is most pleased to hear your voice.’
‘H-how are you?’
‘The mycose has preserved my life. It is not an inexhaustible supply though. I would hope to heal the fracture in my casing before it has depleted much further.’
Mira leaned closer to the small gelatinous object. Its voice sounded plaintive, but she was never sure if attributing humanesque characteristics and emotions to it was appropriate. Did Wanton have feelings in the way she understood them? The Extro had helped her to escape her Post-Species gaol, and had displayed a very humanesque sense of self-preservation throughout their escape from the Hub world, but something was intrinsically different between them. Something she couldn’t qualify.
‘We are in Scolar space,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said Wanton. ‘The biozoon has been exchanging information with me.’
‘Insignia?’ said Mira with surprise. ‘And you?’
‘We have shared our knowledge of humanesques. It is surprising to see what information we both lacked.’
Mira sat back, annoyed and amused. Wanton and Insignia had been talking about her. ‘And what did you learn?’
‘Contradictory would seem the most appropriate word.’
Mira couldn’t control her defensive reflex. ‘I wouldn’t specify that as a solely humanesque trait. I have known you to be evasive, and Insignia to be contrary.’
‘It is true that both biozoons and Post-Species Hosts display minor idiosyncrasies, but with humanesques it seems to be … quintessential.’
‘What do you need to heal yourself?’ Mira changed the subject quickly. Together Wanton and Insignia, it seemed, would be impossibly superior.
‘I am not permitted to disclose the required healing substance.’
‘Then how can I help you?’
‘I will tell you when and how.’
Mira let out an exasperated breath. ‘Now who is being obtuse?’
Mira, interrupted Insignia, Thales is ready to contact Scolar.
Mira pressed her hand down into the bed to ensure that the mycose blisters rolled as close to Wanton as possible.
I’m coming.
BELLE-MONDE
The tyros filled the ménage lounge with chatter and the smell of fruit cocktails. Chief Balbao seated himself, stiff-backed, in a lounge chair in the centre of the small bar and waited for them to assemble around him: Miranda Seeward, Javid Javiddat, Labile Connit, Lawmon Jise, Ra of Lostol and the uuli pair whose names he could never remember.
‘What is so important, Chief, that you would brave us in our den?’ warbled Miranda Seeward.
The eminent dicter was perhaps the most irritating and repulsive of all the tyros, her rolls of loose flesh and superior attitude a counterpoint to each other, as though one gave the other credence. Unfortunately, she was thick with Lawmon Jise, who Chief Balbao had a great and wary respect for – the man who had sculpted the new OLOSS charter and was known for his diamond-cut intellect. Labile Connit was the other one that made the chief nervous. Rumours had risen around Belle-Monde that the geneer had dubious and powerful connections. Jividdat was less of a concern and kept to himself, and Ra was simply weird. Tekton, thank Sole, had gone on practical absence leave – something about overseeing the manufacturing of a construction – and not returned. On the one hand, the chief hoped that something terrible had befallen the tight-skinned hairless fop. On the other, he wished the greedy back-biter was here. He had one enormous problem, and these idiot Godheads were his best hope of a solution.
‘I have an announcement to make. Something unsettling