Transformation Space - Marianne de Pierres [52]
Mira half-slid down to the ground and, clutching Nova, hurried quickly away from the AiV towards the entry of the sprawling port.
JO-JO RASTEROVICH
The next night they went out again. Abandoning Randall’s plan of a methodical search pattern, they spent the day using the ’scope to scour the mountain for the smaller villas. Rast identified one on the east side of their building, on a direct line with the studium.
Mira Fedor had spoken of the Araldis studium many times. From overhearing bits of her conversation with Randall and Thales Berniere, Jo-Jo had learned how she had studied geneering and astrography at the same time as her degree in alien genera and literature. Only a determined individual would pursue such a workload. And despite her apparent physical fragility, Mira Fedor was definitely that.
He remembered her frequent stoushes with Randall, and understood her frustration. The mercenary could be so pragmatic and capable, and then with the curl of her lip turn moody and stubborn.
‘Shouldn’t take too long, there and back,’ said Randall, craning to get the ’scope around the edge of the door.
‘Me too, this time, Capo?’ asked Catchut.
She shook her head. ‘Not till you stop getting the sweats, Cat. You’ll dehydrate too quick.’
Catchut made a frustrated noise and smacked his palm against the wall. The merc hadn’t taken well to being an invalid.
‘What if we run into Saqr?’ asked Jo-Jo, ignoring Catchut’s tantrum.
‘Been thinkin’ ’bout that. Need something to even the odds a bit if we do. Normal weapons don’t work so well, their exoskel is too tough,’ said Randall.
‘What did you have in mind?’
‘Need to get into the studium. Fedor said she studied alien genera there. Gotta be info about the Saqr in their data films. Something we can use on them. If the data sys in this place was workin’, we could access the studium sys from here. But it ain’t, so we gotta get up there.’ She pointed to the impressive expanse of architecture up near the crest of the mountain.
‘Which first, then?’
‘We split it. You go to the studium, I look for an AiV.’
Jo-Jo stared at her, not sure what to make of her plan. What did Randall really have in mind? Was she planning to find some transport and fly out to the islands, leaving him behind?
‘Get that paranoid look off your face.’ She slapped him on the back. ‘If I wanted to get rid of you, I would have done it long before this. We need an edge on the Saqr. Think about it. If we find the survivors, what we gonna do? Hide out with them until we all get old and die? We want to get the hell outta here or, failing that, we try and take the place back.’
She handed the ’scope over to Catchut. He was using his leg more, but a fever beset him every evening, as though something foreign from the Extro ship had entered his body, through the broken skin on his ankle. ‘And I’m thinkin’ that there won’t be any help coming for us. OLOSS looks like it’s got too many of its own damned problems.’
‘What about Farr?’
Randall rubbed her eyes with yellow-stained fingers. Their skin was still carrying the taint of the Extro fluid they’d been trapped in. ‘Carnage will do what suits him. And that can change quicker than you and I can spit.’
Jo-Jo grunted. Randall was right on that score. Farr could be counted on not to be counted on, especially if Mira Fedor had disappeared. He’d no longer be tied to their agreement – if Farr could be tied to anything.
Randall was also right about the Saqr. If they managed to find any survivors, then they needed to have a plan. Like the mercenary, Jo-Jo had no intention of seeing out his days on this lonely scorching dust bowl.
‘Agreed,’ he said.
She almost grinned. Her mouth moved in that configuration, but he hadn’t seen any real humour in Randall since they’d escaped the Medium. The Extro experience had changed something in her, hardened even her sense of humour.
‘You’re not too stupid, for a mappie,’ she said.