TRIN

 

Trin watched the mercenary closely. Two, nearly three days had passed since one of the arrivals had stolen the AiV in which they’d come. Randall had been fit to murder when she’d seen Rasterovich go, swearing all kinds of revenge.

Trin told Juno and Tivi to watch her too. He sensed her volatility and suspected that only the solemnity of the burial they gave Cass Mulravey’s child kept her anger from spilling out. Respect for the dead. And the mother.

Mulravey herself seemed broken. Though she still fed and tended to Vito, the child Mira Fedor had left behind, her manner was reflexive. Her physical body had become a shell that housed no spirit.

Trin almost missed the antagonist he’d become accustomed to fending off. Despite her disruptive manner, Mulravey had been a clear and quick thinker, a person worthy of notice. Trin felt the need for good opinions.

Innis had disappeared again. His woman, Liesl, was feeding him, slipping extra food in her robe and stealing away in the darkness to meet him. Trin thought to send Tivi and Juno after her, to bring Innis to account, but for now he needed them close by, watching Randall and her man Catchut.

He didn’t think that the survivors could tolerate a sentencing at this moment. The group had come so close to splitting. Only the arrival of the strangers had halted that, yet still he felt it could happen at any time, with Innis hiding and Liesl agitating the others.

‘Principe, food is prepared,’ Djes called out to him.

Trin turned back from where he stood at the edge of their camp, staring at the bright objects in the night sky, and walked back to the dinner circle.

Spirits were low; he saw it in the dispirited postures and lack of conversation. Randall and Catchut sat apart from the rest, with Kristo.

Despite Djes’s catch of bass and squid, and the sweet paste that Tina Galiotto had made from berries and water, Trin felt as despondent as the rest.

The arrival of the AiV had resurrected thoughts of rescue in all of them, and now its loss and the accidental death of Mulravey’s boy deepened their collective misery. For the first time since they’d begun their flight through the Pablo tunnels, Trin had nothing to give them. No hope. No direction.

He sat next to Djes and ate in silence. What would become of them? Would they gradually kill each other off with surprise attacks, such as the one Innis had attempted? Or would they simply die of disease when their Health Watch ran out? And what about Djes? Did she prefer Joe Scali’s company to his?

The howling noise in the distance took some time to register in his consciousness, so deep was he in despair.

Djes nudged him. ‘Trinder? What’s that?’

He stood up. From the east came the sound of rushing wind.

Other heads lifted; bodies stiffened.

Trin craned his neck skyward, searching for the source. Fear spiked through him. ‘Take cover!’

The survivors picked up their food shells and hastened to their caves, staying close to the mouths so they could still see out.

‘There!’ Joe Scali pointed east, just above the tree-line.

Trin saw the shadows in the sky, like giant moths given dim outline by Tiesha’s glow and the backdrop carpet of satellites.

‘AiVs,’ said someone.

‘No!’ Randall laughed and walked out into the open. Trin couldn’t see her face, but her voice was filled with sudden energy. ‘Biozoons. Crux-damned biozoons.’

The shadows passed over the mountain crest and swept on out to sea.

‘They’ve missed us!’ Josefia Genarro exclaimed.

Others joined in her cry of disappointment.

‘No.’ Randall again. This time she turned and walked straight back up to Trin. ‘They’ll have to land down on the beach, in the water. You got someone who can show me the quickest way down?’

Trin hesitated. ‘Who would be in the biozoons? Why would they come here?’

‘Not sure who the second is, but one of them’s got to be Fedor. We picked up a ‘cast back on Pell, her ‘zoon’s signature from orbit. Not sure how the hell she made it down here without getting banged up, but I warrant it’s her, and that she’s come for us.’

Trin stared back into the sky with disbelief. Mira Fedor.