Drednanth: A Tale of the Final Fall of Man by Andrew Hindle Page B

the overall cathedral-like impressiveness of the space was diluted by the panels and wiring and safety strips.
    “We’ll select three hundred ables that will be most useful for you and least useful for us,” Z-Lin went on, “and get them signed onto your work details. In the meantime, anything else we can do…”
    “You know, all this – with the plant and your ables and our needs, all of it – it actually meshes quite nicely,” the Acting Controller said, leading them across the chilly, echoing space towards a gaping hole that had once been a freight scrollwalk but was now a steeply-sloping ramp with an elevator platform riveted to a rail. Janus thought he seemed preoccupied by something, and had been since Z-Lin had mentioned moving on to a larger Six Species world. He wondered if the Acting Controller was worried about evacuation, or maybe thinking about how many of his people could fit on a little starship like the Tramp . A lot, Janus thought – especially if their swollen population of eejits was replaced by humans and Molranoids.
    “Meshes, does it?” Z-Lin inquired politely.
    “Mm,” Bendis said again. “You guys drop headcount quantity in favour of quality, freeing up shipboard resources that you’re probably going to be forced to drop.”
    Z-Lin frowned as they jumped down onto the elevator platform, and Janus was reassured that she seemed to be as wary as he was, and had detected Lou’s veiled implication. There was a good five-foot gap between concourse and platform, but the low gravity made it easy. “What do you mean?” she asked as she landed and brought her heels back into contact with the metal, and Janus followed behind. Here comes the part where they try to commandeer the ship , he thought, steeling himself, and Sally blows the docking spar off at the roots .
    “Well, all this stuff,” Lou hit a push-button on the hastily-assembled old-style control panel and started them descending. He held up his brother’s old organiser pad, flipped it over the back of his hand one more time, and waggled it. “I mean, these are our priorities,” he said, as they bumped and rattled down off the spar hub deck and into what was left of the bowels of The Warm, “but it turns out we have a priority zero for you.”
    Decay looked up sharply from his own organiser. “You have an aki’Drednanth on board?” he asked. “She wasn’t on the manifest.”
    “Late arrival,” Bendis replied. They continued descending through the increasingly-cold and clammy depths of the settlement. “And you know they tend to stay off the official lists. I’m not actually sure how many people are left who even know she’s here.”
    “But she was here for the attack,” Decay said, “and survived? She hasn’t identified the attackers? What did she have to say?”
    Bendis chuckled and raised his hands. “Whoa, whoa,” he said. “One question at a time. And oh yeah, I don’t have answers to basically any of them. She hasn’t given an official statement or anything but a quiet all-clear from her habitat out on the metal. I’m told she’s been part of a couple of deep-freeze rescue ops but I was never involved, I just coordinated my deputies and then got the reports. She was down below when the attack came and that’s most likely why she survived, but then … well … aki’Drednanth, you never know. I mean, she could have used her abilities to escape somehow, or evade attention. Don’t ask me, I just work here,” the long-suffering Acting Controller was beginning to look harried under the Blaran’s piercing gaze, and the harsh engineering lamps that illuminated the sloped elevator shaft were particularly unforgiving on his tired eyes and ruddy bald pate. “I don’t know where myth ends and fact begins with the big buggers, alright? I’ve never seen an aki’Drednanth, and that includes Thord. I only know she’s here, and that makes her – and her needs – your priority zero by the AstroCorps