MIRA

 

Mira watched Cass nursing Vito. Despite the heat and the lack of food there was no hint of hopelessness, no surrender in her face. Her resolve reminded Mira of Faja and the similarity was like a wound. She couldn’t think of her sorella without her breath catching in her throat.

Cass’s older ragazzo played nearby in the dirt with the korm. The korm’s bleeding had stopped, leaving ugly grey lesions on its blue flesh.

In a few days they’d travelled most of the distance to Ipo: unbearable, hungry days and hot-wind nights. They’d taken the rougher mining tracks towards the place. Cass had pronounced the proper roads too dangerous and crowded.

In some ways Mira was relieved by her decision, for every person on foot they’d have passed would’ve been another person they should have stopped for, every ragazza another one at risk of being run over.

Mira found herself moving automatically through the days but at night, when the TerV’s depleted solar cells forced them to stop, her mind swirled in an agony of confusion and denial. This could not be happening. Her world, as much as she had felt a misfit in it, was being torn from her and crushed. She grieved for her displacement and for the ugliness that desperation caused. What would be the end of it? What would be her fate?

Each of them had been allocated a watch period. Innis declared that he would share his with Mira but, to her relief, Cass overruled him. Instead she took her watch with Kristo.

On the second night they had stopped in a shallow gully at the side of the track to shelter from the worst of the winds. They’d seen no one all afternoon but, to the east and west of the track, lights dotted the night. Miners guarding their leases, Cass had said, and refugees.

Like us.

Kristo tapped his fingers along the barrel of the rifle in a release of tension and Mira worried that in the quickening dark he might shoot her accidentally. ‘Stop that.’ She couldn’t keep the imperious edge from her tone.

‘Innis is right,’ Kristo said. ‘You’re a nervous type. Guess that’s ‘cause you’re an aristo.’

‘What do you mean?’ She found she had little patience left for their ignorant bigotry.

‘Youse aristo wimmen up on Mount Pell are protected from real life.’

Mira stared out into the dark. His criticism bothered her. Was she like the familia women? She didn’t—had never—felt like them. ‘I am not just aristo -1 am a pilot.’

‘All I know is you ain’t like Cass,’ Kristo said simply. ‘Though I guess she’s learnin’ it hard since her man died.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘He was killed just a week back when the Juanita mine caved in. They set a blast at one of the open cuts close by. Shouldna done it. Area was too unstable. Brought the tunnel down,’ Kristo said.

‘How long have you been on Araldis?’

‘I was born in Loisa. Ma and Pap came from Inkla’s

World along with Cass’s folk. We grew up here together. First-generation mining stock.’ He thumped his chest proudly. ‘I’ve been here as long as you.’

Mira stared out at the plains. Semantic and Tiesha would soon be up together, bathing the iron ridges with their scarlet light. ‘I know the area. I have been there once.’

Kristo looked at her, surprised.

‘It was a study trip from the Studium,’ she said, embarrassed.

‘Didn’t think you aristos set foot off Pell.’

‘I was made t— I lived in Loisa with mia sorella at the Villa Fedor,’

‘I heard of that place. The aristo woman there’s been taking in ginkos. You lose her—your sister?’

Mira nodded.

Kristo screwed up his face in sympathy. ‘Lost my place too. Lost my ma. Pap’s out on the mines somewhere. He doesn’t even know.’ He stifled a sound of sorrow and turned his head away.

‘I will watch the other side.’ Mira left him to struggle with his grief. She had enough of her own.

 

* * *

 

Mira and Cass shared water at daybreak while Marrat reattached the rifle to the roof. Mira felt a slight searching pressure on her back that was gone a heartbeat later, then Innis leaned in so close that, his breath fanned her velum. She stepped away in alarm.

‘I got news.’ He seemed jumpy. ‘Talked to some folk over at the next camp. They’re holed up on their lease. They reckon those ginko things are everywhere. Swarmin’ like ligs on a thorn bush. Rumour says a merc brought ‘em in. The merc set the bombs off in Loisa. They’re using ginkos to do the rest.’

‘The aliens are called Saqr. I learned a little about them at the Studium,’ Mira said.

‘The Studium, huh? Well, this ain’t the learnin’ room now, Baronessa. They’ve gone and overrun Dockside as well. Ipo’s still holding, though. When we get there we’ll stand against the spit-sucking ginks.’

Mira turned away from his swaggering to face her own realisation. Jancz. Jancz was the mercenary. Her limbs became heavy and her mind thick with the guilt of her knowledge. Gould she have stopped this? Could she... ‘What would they want with us?’ she whispered.

Marrat came to stand next to her. ‘Where are all your aristos now? Where are your Carabinere?’ he jeered at Mira. ‘Dead, most like! Useless pricks.’

‘The miners reckon the ginks have come to take us because their own world is dead.’ said Innis.

Kristo joined them as well. ‘They’re getting closer,’ he warned. ‘You can hear the gunfire.’

Cass hauled herself up and passed Vito to Mira. He squirmed in Mira’s arms, uncertain now where his main source of comfort lay.

‘We’ll find out more in Ipo,’ said Cass. ‘We need to get there quick now. How much in the cells?’

Innis shrugged. ‘A few hours. They’re old. Not holding too well.’

‘What about the spares?’

‘Smashed.’

‘Why didn’t you say something?’ Cass said in exasperation.

Innis’s face fell into its usual sullen arrangement.

Cass sighed heavily. ‘Let’s go.’

They climbed into the barge, Innis driving with Marrat alongside, Kristo atop with the rifle. This time Mira rode in the back with Cass and the bambini. Through the window she saw their pursuers strung out across the horizon like dark beads.

Cass watched from the other window. ‘They’re on the road. If they beat us to Ipo we’ll be cut off.’ She took a knife from inside her clothing and passed it to Mira. ‘Keep this and use it.’

Mira tried to push it away. ‘I could not. We do not arm ourselves.’

‘What about your Vito? If these Saqr catch us he will die.’

Mira was spared the need to reply as the barge began to weave, tossing them across the floor. She heard a loud thump on the roof where Kristo clung to his rifle mount. He will be thrown. Like the ‘bino. She couldn’t bear that. Not ever.

Crawling over to where the korm lay, she wedged Vito under the alien’s forearm and took a cable from a side-hook. Then she scrambled to the inside ladder and climbed to the roof hatch.

It snapped open with the force of the wind and bounced up, wrenching her arm with it. Mira moaned from the pain as it dragged loose from her fingers. Kristo slid across the roof, his boots scrabbling for purchase. Not time for pain.

She threw the rope out to him. It snaked, slapping against his side and away. She reeled it in and tried again and again until, finally, she felt the tug as Kristo caught it and reeled in the slack.

To one side of the barge the dark beads had grown into TerVs: a line of huge barges. They were coming. Mira half fell back inside, leaving the hatch open, and wedged herself next to the korm and Vito. Cass’s knife pressed against her side. Can I use it if I have to? No.