JO-JO RASTEROVICH

 

Rast called a meeting in the cucina after the biozoon calmed near Rho station. With the exception of Jo-Jo, they all gathered together around the table. He stood near the door, watching.

Randall sat next to Mira Fedor, a slight protectiveness that was new apparent in her manner. Latourn stood behind her, equally attentive. The scholar, Thales, leaned close to Bethany, his knee touching hers.

Jo-Jo had heard their muffled passion on the previous nights and found it hard to begrudge Bethany her pleasure even though he thought her taste in men was atrocious. Necessity changed perspectives—Jo-Jo knew that better than most. But the sounds of their ardour had only sharpened his own desire and it had plucked at his nerve ends. His craving for Mira Fedor had grown so powerful that he could not bear others to be close to her.

Get control of it, he ordered himself.

Only Catchut seemed detached from everything. Rast’s second in command rocked his chair back against the food compactus so that it made an annoying repetitive clunk.

Rast scowled at him and hooked her foot under his seat, toppling it over. ‘Desist!’

Catchut climbed to his feet and righted the chair without a word.

‘We need you to get us landing permission.’ Rast addressed Jo-Jo.

Jo-Jo nodded. ‘I’ll request a speaking tour.’

‘Catchut will go with you, in case there’s trouble. Once we’re docked Berniere will make his contact. Latourn will go with him to collect. I will stay on the ‘zoon with Beth and the Baronessa.’

Her last statement triggered a wave of suspicion in Jo-Jo. Rast Randall wasn’t the type to stay behind anywhere. Was she manufacturing time alone with Mira Fedor? No! He wrestled his paranoia down. There must be something else on Randall’s agenda.

‘I will go with Thales,’ said Bethany.

They all stared at her.

‘I suppose so. But stay with Latourn out of the way. I don’t reckon they would be expecting him to bring his woman: Rast ladled sarcasm onto the last two words.

Thales blushed and stared down at the table.

Jo-Jo clenched his fists. Did the young idiot think he was too good for Bethany?

‘All settled, then?’ said Rast.

‘Might be best if you went with Berniere,’ said Jo-Jo.

The mercenary’s expression became cool. ‘Might be best if I make that decision.’

‘Yeah,’ said Jo-Jo softly. ‘As long as you make the right one.’

His challenge was mild but unmistakable. The mercenary was running more than one job here, Jo-Jo was sure of it.

‘Just get on with your god-speaking, Rasterovich. Leave the protection to us.’

Jo-Jo shrugged. He didn’t need to say any more. They’d all heard him.

‘I need to use the shortcast.’ He gave a half-serious bow. ‘Baronessa?’

Mira Fedor stood up immediately. ‘Of course.’

As she moved behind Bethany and Thales her robe caught on the corner of Thales’s seat. It pulled tight for a brief moment and she wrenched it loose with quick, nervous hands. Her belly seemed unnaturally round on her slim frame.

Jo-Jo’s heart contracted. No. Surely not...

 

* * *

 

According to the visitor information, Rho Junction didn’t have a studium or any other such pretensions to learned institutions—but it did harbour a body called The Alliance of Free Thinkers. The TAFTers welcomed Jo-Jo Rasterovich with open arms.

‘It is timely,’ said their spokesperson, ‘that you should contact us just as we are about to hold convocation.’

‘Timing,’ Jo-Jo replied, ‘is one of my many talents.’ Like crap.

His bold approach had been rewarded and Insignia was granted landing rights along with priority docking. But the TAFTers’ enthusiasm and the proximity to Extropy space had made Jo-Jo jumpy.

The half-heads were unpredictable. Look at the Stain Wars. Just as Orion had looked set to be dragged into a protracted battle, Commander Lasper Farr had led an intervention backed by his own mercenary force, and the Extros had withdrawn. Just like that. Just like that.

Although Jo-Jo was pissed off with Rast, she was his best sounding-board. He sought her out again before he left the ship. She was in the armoury, counting ammunition, and halted only to give him a scowl.

Jo-Jo wasn’t going to be put off. ‘Why do you think the Extros pulled out so quickly when Farr entered the war?’

She logged a number in her filmtab and crossed her arms. ‘Funny time for a history lesson.’

‘Not a lesson,’ said Jo-Jo. ‘I’m about to go and hang my arse on the line about a few things. I want to know if it might get shot.’

‘Didn’t think you were the kind to worry about what others thought.’ Rast was being deliberately obtuse and Jo-Jo knew it. ‘Loner like you.’

‘I’m not and you know it. I’m also not stupid. This is too close to Extro space for my liking. Hell, just look at the station log-in—the place is teeming with them. Come on, Randall, you’ve seen them up closer than I have. What’s the deal?’

Rast counted and logged another shelf of ammo before she answered him. ‘Like I said to the Baronessa, they don’t think like us—or like any alien I’ve known. Maybe it’s something to do with the cryo process or the chemicals they use but it’s hard to get a grab on their logic. Maybe they don’t have any.’

‘What about Farr, then?’

‘There’re a million theories about why Farr had the juice to stop them. Most ‘esques don’t care, though—they just know he did and that’s enough.’

‘You’re not most, Randall. You make your living out of this kind of thing.’

‘You shoulda asked Lasper when you had the chance.’

This time Jo-Jo scowled. ‘Yeah, well, I’ll remember that next time we’re having beers together.’

He left Rast to it but continued to brood over what might await him as Insignia was directed to Bell Six of the mega-station: a huge, grey dome with multiple docking shelves affixed to its fluted outer shell.

When the Baronessa confirmed their arrival, he collected Catchut from the cucina and went to the egress scale.

On the outside, a long uuli escort draped in a scent- and-colour translator waited in the docking tube for them. Without turning, it undulated back along the tunnel and out into Bell Six, stopping next to a taxi.

As they followed, Jo-Jo noticed flakes of dried uuli excreta, like dry snow, swirling in the air. His skin started to itch and his throat thickened. What if he lost his voice? No voice, no God-lecture, no distraction for the idiot Berniere.

‘Convocation convenes in the Orb Chamber in Bell Four,’ said the translator in pompous Gal. Its lofty tone seemed ridiculous in contrast to the uuli’s soft, quivering movements.

Jo-Jo got into the taxi and peeled off one of the complimentary filter masks from the back of the headrest.

Catchut climbed in next to him. ‘Stink, don’t they? Why do they have to shit everywhere?’

‘It’s not shit,’ said Jo-Jo. He coughed. His eyes were beginning to water. “S mucus. Reduces friction when they move. Ever seen a mollusc?’

‘Eaten plenty,’ Catchut conceded.

‘Think of molluscs.’

Catchut laughed and licked his lips as the uuli slid onto the front seat of the taxi. ‘Probably best not.’

 

* * *

 

The trip to Bell Four nearly had Jo-Jo forgetting why they were there. Where Edo had been almost colourless in its meld of grey and silver parasite-polished metal refuse, Rho Junction was a riot of colour and movement and scents that forced their way past Jo-Jo’s mask and fizzed in the back of his throat like a scoop of sour sherbet.

While his mind tried to sort out the assaults on his senses, the taxi veered from the designated road and drove straight up the nearest wall. With a loud click it ejected a slide from a side panel which magnetised to the silver tracks snaking along the walls. Suspended there above the mêlée of foot traffic, Jo-Jo and Catchut were free to gape.

Jo-Jo had travelled more than most, first as scout and then as God-Discoverer, but nothing compared to the Arrivals Bell at Rho Junction.

‘What the shit is that?’ said Catchut.

He pointed to a group of transparent fluid-filled figures with large oval heads from which odd flaps protruded. The flaps resembled ears but seemed to be used for propulsion.

‘Extros, I’d guess,’ said Jo-Jo. ‘Heard they like to hang out in different bodies.’

The uuli translator spoke. ‘Msr Rasterovich is correct. Those are Extropists who have adapted siphonophores as their means of transport. The corporeal part of the Extropist takes many different forms. The forms designate rank and intelligence. It is a complex society that is difficult to decipher from the outside.’

‘Whassat mean?’ said Catchut.

The uuli paused as if retranslating the question. ‘Many of their forays into the post-humanesque form are neither successful nor aesthetic. We see many variations here, and each is a product of a particular faction or trend within Extropy culture.’

‘So they aren’t all super-brains swimming around in lumps of jelly like these,’ said Jo-Jo. Immediately the words came out he regretted them. The uuli’s skin flared crimson as if the creature was blushing. Or angry.

‘The siphonophore is one of their more common and successful forms. It is modelled on my own species.’

Fortunately the taxi swerved under an archway and then took a fierce upward trajectory to enter the Bell proper—bringing their conversation to a halt.

The pedestrians were now far enough away to seem insect-like in size. Above them, however, the Bell’s dome was busy with traffic: lightweight fragile flyers and butterflies, creatures without abdomens.

‘The wings you can see are another of their more successful forms,’ it said.

‘But they’re just flappers,’ said Catchut. ‘Can’t see nobody.’

The uuli’s body twisted its elongated torso into a knot as if it had suddenly been tied by an invisible hand. Jo-Jo got the impression that it was laughing. ‘Their post-human mind is impregnated into the large spots on each wing,’ it said.

Jo-Jo was intrigued. ‘How do they land, then? There’s nothing to attach their legs to.’

‘They don’t require legs,’ said the uuli. ‘Observe above them.’

Jo-Jo and Catchut craned their necks to view the dangling vegetation that grew from the apex of the dome. Broad leaves floated gently on stems that were attached to a network of vines and creepers. The Wings hovered above them and occasionally dropped onto them like slowly settling dust.

‘But how do they move around once they’ve landed?’

‘They don’t,’ said the translated uuli voice. ‘They spend their time hovering and settling. When they wish to take off, the vibration of their wings creates momentum. The leaf bounces.’

‘They’re pretty vulnerable, then,’ observed Catchut.

The uulu knotted up again. ‘Don’t ever assume a transhuman is unprotected, no matter how delicate or vulnerable its corp is.’

A sinister sensation crept up the back of Jo-Jo’s neck, making the roots of his hair stiff. Despite the marvels around him, he wanted to hurry back to the biozoon and get the hell off Rho Junction.

Besides, the place was clogging up his airways. He glanced at Catchut whose expression remained bland and untroubled, though he noticed the mercenary’s hand was resting against his pocket. There were no weapon restrictions for those entering Rho Junction, although Jo-Jo knew that he would be searched before he entered the convocation chamber.

‘How much longer?’ he asked.

‘Longer,’ the uuli answered.

Jo-Jo tried to fix his mind on the speech he was about to give, but other thoughts intruded. He shouldn’t have agreed to this. He should have got off the Savvy at Jandowae with the rest of the refugees. And something else was really bothering him. Something Jasper Farr had said. ‘Prediction is one of its uses’ The lunatic had a sophisticated device that correlated huge amounts of information. If he wasn’t using it to predict outcomes, what was he using it for? And where the hell did he get the design for it? Even the most advanced spintronics hadn’t produced anything like Lasper Farr’s Dynamic System device.

The sinister sensation began to spread out across his body until his skin was crawling with unnamed fear.