Transformation Space (28 page)

She jumped down lightly, despite the hours cooped up in the AiV, and stepped nimbly down the hill. ‘Cass Mulravey.’

Jo-Jo climbed more slowly out of the passenger side.
He let his legs adjust to weight and movement before demanding anything from them. As he edged around the AiV to stand by
Randall, he noticed something amiss. Blood. All over the woman and two of the men.

A thin, crimson-skinned ’esque with an aquiline nose that dominated his gaunt hawkish face stood up. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

Randall ignored him. ‘Cass. Don’t you know me?’

The woman slowly lifted her head. Her face was ravaged – dark brown and blistered with sun exposure – but her expression was
the shocking thing: heartbroken and defeated. The child she held was dead.

She licked her lips and whispered, ‘Rast Randall?’

‘What’s happened, Cass?’ asked Randall softly.

‘He’s … he’s …’ She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

‘I’m Principe Trinder Pellegrini. Who are you that you wear Pellegrini fellalos?’

This time Randall directed her gaze to him. ‘So Franco’s pup did survive. Fedor was right.’

‘You know Baronessa Fedor?’

Randall nodded to Jo-Jo, and back at Catchut in the AiV. ‘We all do. She’s the reason we’re here. She told us about you.’

‘Is she alive? Does she bring help?’

‘Can’t answer either of those questions. But maybe there’re some others I can.’

The Principe glanced up into the sky. ‘Then we should talk inside the cave. Sunrise is close.’

Randall gestured with her hand, indicating that she would follow him. She and Jo-Jo waited as they passed: Trin Pellegrini
first, Cass, carrying her dead child, and
then the two others who had been standing either side of her. The latter were still casting angry stares at each other.

Jo-Jo tried to work out what had happened. The way Randall’s eyes were flickering around, she was too. She signalled for Catchut
to follow them. The AiV would soon be too hot to stay inside without the engine to cool it.

They were greeted at the entrance to the caves by a ragged group of ’esques and one emaciated korm, who towered above them
all.

The survivors huddled as close as they could to the growing light, curious about the newcomers. As Jo-Jo cast his gaze around
the semicircle, one of them stood out from them in both appearance and manner. She was slim without being thin, and her facial
skin was tight as a mask, flattening her nose and eyes. Not attractive, and yet something about her seemed … significant.

He knew he was right when Trin Pellegrini moved to stand close to her.

The girl looked him and Randall over, then immediately left Trin’s side to go to the woman, Cass Mulravey, leading her away
into the cave’s darkness. Some of the other women followed, and the circle closed again.

‘There was an accident,’ Pellegrini explained.

Jo-Jo felt the weight of unsaid things in their tense manner; saw the complex mix of expressions on the watching faces. What
had these people been through to survive?

‘Do you have water?’ asked Randall.

‘Of course.’ Trin nodded to one of the women. No one spoke until she returned with three shells of water.

Jo-Jo drank quickly. The liquid smelled of fish, just like the cave itself. The air burned despite the cave’s shade, and he
longed to be back in the sky, in the AiV’s cooler cockpit.

‘How did you find us?’ said Pellegrini finally.

‘Could take a while in the telling,’ said Randall. ‘Might be you want to sit down.’

Pellegrini hesitated, then agreed. ‘We have a meal at this time. Before we sleep. Eat with us, and talk.’

It was not an invitation.

Randall nodded on behalf of all of them.

The group shuffled around until they were all seated close enough to the cave mouth to see.

‘Not all of you have cooling robes. How can you stand it?’ Jo-Jo asked, thinking it was time he spoke.

‘If you keep out of the direct sun, it’s bearable after a period of adjustment. We manage better than visitors who don’t have
our melatonin-rich skin,’ said Pellegrini. ‘Your name?’

To his surprise, Randall didn’t jump in, but waited for him to answer.

‘I’m Josef Rasterovich. Not a survivor from this terrible invasion, but a new arrival.’

A murmur went around the group which Pellegrini silenced with a word. The young Latino Principe spoke like a true leader.

‘Before I tell you more, OLOSS does know what happened here,’ Jo-Jo added.

‘Tell us how you got here,’ demanded Pellegrini.

Jo-Jo glanced at Randall. She’d folded her arms and
was leaning back against the rock wall. She seemed calm and attentive, but he knew she was cataloguing everything she could
see. He had to give her time to gather information. Get the group members to reveal something about themselves.

‘We were hired to escort your Baronessa Fedor to a place called Rho Junction. She was trying to make a deal to get you people
rescued. OLOSS didn’t want to do anything in a hurry, and she didn’t want to wait, so she was using other means. Shit happened,
and we ended up stranded on an Extro craft – fuckin’ weird drum-shaped thing. Damn thing landed here a few days ago. We managed
to get away. Found a flyer up on the mountain, and flew ourselves here. Fedor had said you’d head to the islands.’

‘And Mira?’ Pellegrini’s voice rose.

‘She got taken by Extros on Rho Junction.’

‘She is dead?’

‘No. At least we don’t believe so.’ He didn’t tell them about the biozoon signature that they’d picked up with the com-cast
or his feeling it was Fedor. Mira hadn’t said much directly to him, but he knew she didn’t hold Trin Pellegrini in high regard.

‘She tried to find us help?’ This came from Cass Mulravey. She and the girl Jo-Jo had noticed earlier had returned to the
circle. Even in the dim light, Mulravey’s face was distorted with anguish, though her voice sounded steady. She stepped to
the front and sat down. ‘I knew she wouldn’t leave Vito. Or us.’

‘Vito?’ Jo-Jo glanced between Mulravey and Pellegrini.

‘Her ’bino,’ said Mulravey.

‘Not her own,’ corrected the young Principe. ‘An adopted ragazzo.’

Randall made a slight jerking movement, as though someone had scraped a knife against her skin. Jo-Jo could just make out
the tight outline of her jaw.

‘And you?’ Pellegrini asked Randall directly. ‘What were you doing on Araldis?’

‘Franco was expecting trouble. Brought us in to assess things.’ She made a dry sound. ‘Seems he left it too late.’

‘My papa hired mercenaries?’

‘Yep.’

‘Are you saying he knew about the invasion? About the Saqr?’

‘Nope.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘But he knew something was wrong. Maybe some deals he’d done had come back on him.’

The group fell silent as they digested this, particularly the young Principe, who seemed lost in thought for a few moments.

‘How did you get off Araldis during the invasion?’

‘Fedor. Someone gave her an AiV and sent her looking for your flagship.’ She stared straight at Pellegrini. Jo-Jo didn’t need
to see her face clearly to read the hostility. ‘She picked us up on the way. We were caught in a firefight out in the desert,
with the Saqr. She could have left us for dead. But she didn’t. That’s not her way.’

‘
You sent her!
’ burst out Mulravey. She spoke to all of them, but her face turned towards Trin. ‘She didn’t abandon us. You sent her.’

‘No,’ said Pellegrini, seeking the attention of the girl next to Mulravey. ‘Djes, that’s not how it was.’

Jess?
Jo-Jo’s mind threw out an anchor. That was what Bethany had called her daughter. He scrambled to remember the girl’s description
and came up empty, other than the half-Miolaquan heritage. He wanted the girl to step closer to the light, so he could decide
if the strangeness he’d noticed before fitted with being part fish.

‘It’s all she talked about, in fact,’ added Randall. ‘Finding a way to get back here to help you all.’

The survivors began to murmur among themselves again.

‘Quiet!’ Pellegrini ordered.

Jo-Jo clamped his lips together. The Principe applied his arrogant manner with ease, and mostly they seemed ready to accept
it.

‘You’ve seen the lights in the night sky? Tell us what is happening. Is it OLOSS?’ the Principe asked.

Jo-Jo waited for Randall, but she didn’t say anything. After a moment, he spoke. ‘We got no way of really knowing, but we
can guess. We think the Extros have made a move to invade the OLOSS worlds – the same way they did here.’

‘So we’re at war, like before. Does that mean there’ll be no help?’ said a woman from the back.

‘Can’t honestly answer that,’ said Jo-Jo.

Randall suddenly spoke up. ‘We flew over some-thin’ brewin’ near one of the mines. The Saqr are all over it. Mebbe we can
learn somethin’ from there.’

‘You’re suggesting we go and spy on them?’ asked the girl, Djes.

‘Recon,’ said Randall. ‘Yeah. If OLOSS is at war with the Extros, then we need to do what we—’

‘We’re fortunate to be alive,’ interjected Pellegrini. ‘The toll to reach safety has been significant. We are not mercenaries.
It would not serve us to antagonise our invaders; there are not enough of us to fight. I will not allow it.’ He ground out
the last of his words with grim authority.

‘Seems mebbe the others might like a say in that.’ Randall tone was sardonic.

‘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 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 had extinguished her light,
and he could barely make out her outline in the moonless sky.

She took his hand. ‘Follow, don’t speak.’

He reached for Fariss and felt better when her hand engulfed his. They walked slowly, connected like this, along the side
of the house and through the lanes to the edge of the settlement. Magdalen led them with little hesitation, as if she’d practised
this dark walk many times.

Not a word passed between them until they belted themselves into a small AiV. Even then, as they lifted into the sky above
the town, Thales could barely believe their escape.