Transformation Space - Marianne de Pierres [91]
‘We have barely enough to eat. We are too weak to contemplate such a notion.’
‘You want to starve to death or die of some disease while the rest of Orion fights?’
Randall was deliberately baiting him. They had no way to ferry any of the survivors back to the mines. The AiV would barely make one trip, let alone several. Yet Randall was seeding dissent.
‘You should rest now,’ said Pellegrini. ‘We’ll talk more when everyone has slept.’ He stood up. ‘Djes, find them beds.’
On his cue, the group dispersed; some disappeared past the narrow overhang into the next cave.
The girl, Djes, took them to an area on one side of the cave, a little way in from the entrance. An ’esque followed them with an armful of brush. ‘We shake it out so there are no insects. You can sleep in peace,’ she said, as the ’esque divided the brush into three piles.
Randall and Catchut dropped onto their piles, but Jo-Jo sidled close to the girl. ‘Djes,’ he said softly. ‘Is your mother Bethany Ionil?’
She stiffened. He smelt a waft of something salty from her, as though she’d been shocked into exuding a scent. ‘You know my mother?’
Jo-Jo took a deep breath to counteract a surge of emotion. Beth’s daughter was alive. ‘I do.’
‘Then keep away from me.’ She turned and walked deeper into the cave.
The emotion trickled out of him, and he sank onto the brush alongside Randall. What else could he have expected? Beth had abandoned her.
‘Good job,’ said Randall with quiet sarcasm. ‘Didn’t her mother dump her here?’
‘How did you know that?’ demanded Jo-Jo in a fierce whisper.
Randall rolled away from him without answering. He thought he heard her chuckle. Or it could have been a snore.
He lay on his back, ignoring the prickling of the brush. The cave harboured a confusion of smells, but unwashed bodies and the pungent odour of fish battled for highest honours. No doubt that was how they’d survived – on fish.
He thought about Bethany as people muttered and moved about him. Bethany had made him swear that he would find her daughter and tell her how her mother regretted what she’d done. When he’d agreed to that, he’d never for a moment thought that his path would actually cross with Bethany’s daughter’s. It seemed stranger than he could imagine, and too difficult to fathom how fate had brought him here.
But was it fate?
Some odd notion lurking in his subconscious thought otherwise. A notion? Or a presence? Fatigue made it hard to tell, and despite the strange surroundings and the presence of half-starved strangers, tiredness won over everything else and soon he was asleep.
THALES
Thales woke in darkness, pain shooting up the side of his neck. ‘Fariss.’
‘Here,’ she whispered.
He blinked and wiped his eyes, trying to clear his vision. It didn’t help much. ‘Where are you?’
‘Up near the hatch. Found some lumps in the side of the catoplasma, like you said. Can get real close to the lid, but something heavy’s on it.’
Thales levered himself upright and tried to rub the crick from his neck. He’d been sleeping, curled around, on the floor of the tank. ‘I could get on your—’
‘Sssh!’ she said. ‘C’n hear somethin’.’
Thales’s heart pounded, sending a rush through his body. He bent down and rubbed circulation back into his legs. Had the Politics found them?
The hatch opened without preamble, and a light flashed down on them. He saw Fariss braced against the wall, ready to spring.
‘Thales Berniere?’ said someone from above.
He recognised the voice, vaguely. ‘Who is it? I c-can’t s-see you.’
The light moved, shining away from his eyes and onto a rope ladder which dropped into the space between him and Fariss.
‘Climb, Thales. Hurry.’
The voice again. He knew it … ‘Magdalen?’
‘Yes.’
Thales grabbed the bottom of the rope ladder. ‘Fariss. Come on.’
The soldier slid down from her vantage point and boosted him up several rungs. As he laboured up the moving ladder to the lip of the tank, she was behind him, nudging his feet.
Then suddenly they were both outside, breathing clear night air, peering into the dark. Magdalen