Part Three
Sweat sizzled where it fell around her, and so did her feet where they met the stone walkways along the Ernite city transport lanes. The city was busy but no Ernites seemed to notice her. The exoskeletal beings occasionally turned a multiple lidded eye to her. None stopped or seemed to react. At least the bugs didn't care to give her a problem. If they were going to ignore her, that was fine, she could ignore them.
She had enough to worry about. Staying on this space blister was supposed to be time free of Moya and all it meant, but instead it had involved her again. Here, of all frelling places. She kicked a piece of litter. It was a canister. It reminded her that a cold rezlac would be drad about now. And maybe a little recreation....
At least there might be some peace of mind once the Scarrans were safely misdirected. Her fingers were still busy completing a reprogramming of the map, enhanced with a nicely fanciful agenda for the cruise ship Moya.
She leaned on her forearms, on the top of a streetside news information chip dispenser. Leaning her head into the chip receptacle she held in her hand, she closed her eyes and smiled to herself while imagining where she'd go if she were Moya. Sweat ran down the chip receptacle and the melting soft black elbow guards began bubbling on the hot metal. Lifting her head and rereading the list of possible places, she fell into the adventure of imaginary planning while the melting pads disintegrated.
"Mogo Prime yeah" Chiana breathed, recalling the tales of a lost city in the jungles there. After this place the jungle humidity would be tame. She eagerly "steered" Moya to Mogo Prime. "Thy? ....nnnever heard of it" she tocked her shoulder. Maybe there's something there. Why not.
The chip receptacle popped up another warning it was overheating. Quickly cutting off the annoying message, Chiana next "steered" Moya to the next place going the wrong direction on the map.
"Frell me! Ignal!" Chiana spread her legs in a ready stance, eagerly "steering" to Ignal first instead, then Mogo Prime, then Thy. If the stories were true Ignal had drad pleasure spots. Their pleasure tubes did everything to a body.
"Nonono, no not the Gurki Nebula...." So that's where the smuggler ship took her to. All the frell out here! Lucky thing she stowed away until it returned to where it came from. Her hips subconsciously flexed. Remembering the weeken spent in that frelling cargo closet still gives a tinge of claustrophobia. Whipping her head to shake it off, she urgently steered Moya's blip around the Gurki Nebula.
Her head slowly stopped into a stare at the receptacle. Ug'kush. Where had she heard of that? Porno games! She laughed and tocked her head. That might be interesting. But then if they gotta make all those porno games, maybe the real action is pretty dead. Might be worth finding out. She shifted on her feet and programmed Ug'kush for the next stop.
Finally the chip reported a new cruise for Moya. She reset the receptacle to try stopping its alarm from beeping that the overheating was critical. It just started beeping again. Standing upright again, she flexed her oddly numb hand after taking the steaming forearm off the metal. The chip held her attention while she started walking. The hand was soon busy with the buttons again.
The only thing left to do was to figure out how to erase the original map which the new one was written over. It was filed in a delete cache that wouldn't empty. Her eyes stared at the chip receptacle. Again everything blurred in spots. Shaking her head to refocus, she decided she'd had enough arns of this gadget. Didn't matter, she knew she would keep feeling Zhaan over her shoulder, telling her to keep Moya safe.
Finally she came to an environmental lock to enter the Pelian sections. She hadn't meant to find one, but maybe it was a good idea. Maybe one of them could help without needing to know what she was doing. Some of them might know something of Scarran chips with all that frelling Scarran security around.
Legle saw her the microt she came in. So did most of the crowd. While everyone except those she passed near tried to either get near or tried hard to go about their business, he just stared. She must have had a built-in detector for dumbstruck staring males because she was soon coming his way.
Had she been out in that heat? He was astounded at the thought, but the remains of her clothing clearly told him she had been. It had been in ruins when he'd first seen her. Now it was a heat distorted top of semi sheer material, shrunk or stretched oddly, torn open along the front and the arms. Some patches of black substance on her shoulders, back, ankles, wrists, knees and elbows were remains of some thicker material. Yet her hair was still shiny and full, kind of scruffy, but if anything shinier.
She hit his senses and another part of his body like a lightning strike. The way hard little female walked would arouse the dead, he reckoned.
"I know you?" she asked. He found himself frozen again. His eyes stayed glued to her lean hips and his mouth glued shut. The light charcoal colored stains decorating her silvery skin around the hips down looked as awesome as ever. She bent over and blinked in his face. "You an Ernite in a really good disguise or something?"
"No!" the first sound blurted out. At least it broke the freeze. "No I-I'm Legle."
"Well that's nice to know."
"S-sit down."
"Think I will. If you got a spare rezlac."
He bolted onto his feet and waved franticly for service. She cut her eyes up to watch, smiling while she went to sit down on the tiny stool opposite him. Her eyes cut back to the lanky young guy behind her. His head was turned almost all the way around to stare at her, eyes glued to her hindquarters. She looked back to Legle with a smirk while she straddled the tiny stool. "I got a hypo, hypothetical question for you guys."
He sat back down and stared. His long thin, big eyed face crowned by its tousle of thick short clumps of hair reminded her of some gawky bird life. Especially when it just stared and blinked vacuously like that. Again the server dropped the sloppily filled drinks onto the table and left.
"Excuse me." She pushed her way through the crowd to the server, a big, bitter looking Pelian. She shoved his shoulder. He turned around. "You always give lousy service or is it something personal?"
"Nothing personal, bitch" he replied a fraction of a microt before he was lost in the pile of bodies that decided to settle her score for her.
"Agh, you gotta ignore 'im" a barkeep appeared beside her, walking over a few bodies. "He's on this unofficial sun because he hates women. That was easy until you showed up. Now nobody talks about much else."
Chiana smirked and brushed the old man's cheek with her fingers before looking around again. "It's even more packed in here."
"Yes. The mine alarm" he explained, gently taking her arm and helping her over a few bodies back to her table.
"Someone set that alarm off?"
"No lady, they found some chemical compound in a side shaft in section 4. They still can't identify what it is. Blueish black pile of something they say, and kind of smells. Someone just said they found out it doesn't explode so it's a real mystery."
"Yeah" her mind raced to the side shaft in section 4 she had finally relieved herself in. "Can't....imagine." She swallowed a lump. She felt embarrassed. But she also felt a tickle of humor, and a stab of anger at that braggart Tangle's story.
"It'll open back up soon. Sure you wouldn't like to come up to the bar?" he began to steer her towards the bar.
"Na, got someone to talk to right now" Chiana steered herself back towards the table. "Maybe another time, if you got a rezlac around nobody wants." She returned over to Legle, making another subtle show of sitting down. "Nice guy. Barkeep." The lanky guy behind fell from his chair, taking the table with him.
"Yeah." They both looked over to the unconscious guy in the aisle. "Uh his name is....his name is....uh" he closed his eyes once he realized he was forgetting a name he used as often as anyone's. "Kippet. The barkeep. Er what was it you needed me to do? Us I mean?"
"You know I need to get samples out of the mine?" she asked. He nodded blankly. His eyes had riveted on her chest. She leaned forwards and got her face further in the way, tilting her face to keep his eyes. "So. I need, from you. I might need to frell with the Scarran security systems. You following me?" His eyes were, she just wasn't sure about his brain. "Any of you know Scarran info chips?"
"Hugk. Hugk does security checks at the estate he works for. It's Scarran security equipment of course."
"Hugk? The guy that was with you?" she gestured her chin toward him. "Your version of Mik?" Well, he heard, but it didn't look like he was getting much from what she was saying.
"Who?"
"Mik and Ojo. Muscle guy who did all the talking while Ojo did all the gawking. One wanted action but didn't get any....and the other did but wouldn't put out."
"Huh? Yes he is uh....What did you do to him anyway? Ojo? He won't even discuss it."
"Well. You know male....sensitivities. Yeah. Male egos. Well. You oughtta know, anyway...."
"What?"
"Never mind. Short guy."
"Yeah but....oh" Legle scratched his chin. "Can't imagine how he couldn't...."
"Good for you" he hand had suddenly appeared behind his right ear and was messaging his scalp. "But I was asking about Hugk....maybe the three of us can get together?" Her charcoal colored lips were near his and pursed in a grin. "Maybe between the two of you....you could do better for me?"
"Aaag! Quiet you krik the master might hear us!" Hugk gritted out at Legle. Legle had to shut up when he bit his lip, which he had to do when Chiana bit his hand, which was gagging her to keep her quiet. She smiled and nodded down to Hugk, who almost laughed. It was more like a grimace from the strain of thrusting hard into her and pulling her onto him with his arms around the small of her back.
Her hips flexed and tightened around the staff that held her off the ground when she playfully whacked her shins against his Legle's legs. Legle gasped, nearly collapsing. "Keep up you krik!" Hugk gritted at Legle when the balance shifted more to him. "I can hold her not both of you!"
Legle's hand flew out of her mouth after she nipped a finger. "Aw am I too much burden for you boys?"
"No!" both huffed back, Hugk into her chest and Legle into her neck. She smiled broadly while both fought to pull her bowed body closer to themselves. Rhythmically, she began flexing her body between them. Soon their pulls and thrusts fell into a hard rocking motion.
"Oh yeah" she moaned before Legle covered her mouth again. She worked through another climax. All her hard trained muscles kept working both staffs to climax. Hugk made it first. Working Hugk's harder while he came, she coaxed him to keep peaked until Legle finally came. All three bodies locked in an electric climax until Legle's legs gave out, sending all three into a pile on the floor.
All three moaned into the plush floor covering until Hugk stopped when Chiana's roaming fingers reached his member, making it immediately erect again. He tried to pull it out of her way but some noise that sounded like a snicker into the floor covering told him she knew it.
Suddenly some noises stopped all three. Footsteps? "The master?!" both males panicked, scrambling to find their clothes. The clothes were strewn all over the floor where she'd relieved them of it while she'd danced around the room, making a fabulous show out of destroying what was left of her own. Still she was hurriedly forcing on the pieces of the tattered top while they dressed, until Hugk pushed her into the space under the bed.
"Hey!" she snarled, but Hugk soon had her facing in under the bed, but her knees were bent so her hind end stuck up and out.
"Hide that! Quick!" Legle whispered frantically while he put some items around the room into some semblance of order.
Hugk tried shoving the hind end under the bed again. "But I'm trying!" Then he threw a small tablecloth over it. But the shape of the butt was too obvious.
"Hey...." she hissed "let me-naa! Hey!" she objected while the hind end was shoved, kicked, pushed and finally struck with a table leg until her legs spread wider and it was knocked further under the bed. Still it stuck out too far.
"Greeka sake hide that thing!" Engle pointed to the bare Nebari female hind end sticking out from under the bed. The door made noise. In panic, Hugk grabbed the foot stool at the end of the bed, pushed it back up to her hind end, and sat on it. Hugk crossed his arms, threw out his feet and laid back into the side of the bed to greet the intruder with a smile.
"Is everything in order?" a stern voice demanded.
"Yes sir" Hugk sounded all too happy. His smile dropped when the footstool started rocking when the hind end started rocking against it. "Eh heh!" he said to cover the snickers from under the bed. He swung his feet up and down.
"Then if it can be arranged, I would like some service sometime!" the stern voice announced and shut the door behind him.
"Greeka!" Hugk cried, getting up. He went on about how close that was and what chores they needed to do while Chiana struggled to budge. Naturally both males left. The hind end just kept slapping into that frelling stool but she couldn't get out.
Then some softer hands gently felt around her hind end and firmly pulled it free. She backed out and rose up on her knees. "Ojo! When did you get here?" He shyly looked away. Her hand ran over the sore hind end. "Thought you were just at Tangle's" she smiled. Her hands were lingering around her sex. He gave in and glanced. No they were doing more than lingering! What was even worse, he glanced to her face and saw her smile. What was worse than that was the stingingly foxy glint in her eyes!
"Ahh oo" he moaned. He was doing so well until that glint in her eyes hit him. He couldn't help it. It just reached through him and forced him hard on. It was so sore but after the pain the throbbing began feeling awful good. She walked the foot up to him on her knees and put her arms over his shoulders. "Thanks for the rescue." She nuzzled his neck.
He giggled. She broke into a smile. He tried desperately to relieve the stress. "I-um-I was going, bringing, I mean I was bringing" he gulped while her tongue ran on his neck "bringing things for Hugk, new chip for um, things."
She stopped and straightened up. "Whoa." Of course! Her mind raced. Perhaps if entered in the right sequence, a copy of the chip onto a new chip would be identical to the original, only she could leave out the delete cache and its original map! She grabbed his hair behind his head and kissed him hard. Then she went to stand. "Thanks!"
"F-for what? I didn't do anything."
"You're telling me" she winked. "Well okay" she set back into a squat. "Wanna do anything now?"
"Huh? Uhuh n-no it's um it's not exactly back to n-normal-" he cut off when her hands opened his pants and freed the member in the blink of an eye.
"No it's dradder" her finger ran over the bumpier, slightly uneven and slightly bigger staff. "But if ya wanna wait....your loss, timid. Just don't let something this drad get bored...."
"M-maybe uhm later?"
"Well." Her hands gently placed the pants back over it, then her eyes cut up to his. "For you....okay" she leaned forward and slowly brushed her tongue over his lower lip. "Mthanks" she softly whispered while she got up and hurried to the window.
"My chip."
She froze in place in the window sill. "Frell." She hopped back in and tossed him the chip. "Well. I can get another one somewhere else. But I like you better when you're witless" she teased. She waved from the window then turned and leapt out to a light post.
He ran up to the window and stared while she slid down onto her feet. He turned around and slid onto the floor with his back against the wall. He almost wished he could relax now and get the wild alien out of his head. But he couldn't. "Awesome" he breathed.
She felt a flush. Definitely seeing him later, she decided.
Chiana jerked her shoulder to reseat the distorting semi sheer top while she turned her head and smirked back at the Scarran's single transport. The enormous, frightening nerfer still didn't imagine she had broken in. This time it cost him another chip, one he'll never miss from a stack of blanks.
It now held a copy of the chip he wanted. It was a perfect copy of the data mapping, protocols, signatures, dates and the newly improved map. Everything to give a nice pleasure cruise to some Scarran pursuers. Free of any Leviathan sightings.
Moisture still sizzled on her body, louder than the different sounds from her footfalls while she padded from the stack of Yit pepper containers in the shuttered store. No one had entered she store since she had last, but they soon would, with the sun finally setting.
It seemed more like three days than one single day since she'd arrived and the sun hadn't yet risen. The days were longer here, she considered for a microt. No sense in caring about that. She was here, and she'd have to get used to it, that's all.
Still laboring to recover from a Yit pepper, Chiana tossed an unopened can up onto the ledge of the passage above the rear door. She then leapt up to the sill under the vent. Once up onto the sill, she opened the can and tried another one. Shaking her head reflexively, she had to admit these Yit peppers were one of the draddest things ever to scintillate her taste.
She took the can out with her, finished with shopping for a while. There was some business first, then time for some fun....she chanted to herself while she sauntered down the alley beside the store, interrupting the chanting to lean backward and drop in a Yit pepper.
Chiana ran her fingers over the long crystal cluster while the Scarrans conferred in private, behind her in the back of the store. Or they believed it was privacy.
Their rumbling tones were just perceptible to her Nebari ears.
"How can we afford to risk allowing that slightly cooked snippet of a female Nebari to go free?" the lighter voice, young Pil, was asking of his senior. "We have the chip."
"There is our agreement" the elder, Kul, insisted.
"What good is honor upon such inferior beings?"
"If that does not dissuade you, consider that we do not know where the Molite samples are."
"We can force the answer."
"She does not know."
"Are you certain?" the younger Scarran was certainly full of questions, Chiana smirked to herself.
Kul growled. "I was doubting the heat signature until she asserted she cares not who she works with. Of that, at least, I am certain the alien was telling the truth. The rest is immaterial."
Chiana frowned to herself. Hm, it wasn't as if she ever wanted to feel that frightened again, but the intense fear seems to leave them uncertain of reading any other responses on their Scarran lie detector. Would all intense feelings leave other responses ambiguous?
"It is in her own interests to discover the samples as well. Once she has, we may dispose of her. That is all we need concern ourselves with."
"Why not discover who holds the samples ourselves?"
"Have you been too long in the cold? Without the ability to mingle with the Pelians, we have little hope of determining which of them holds the samples. The alien is our best likelihood of recovering our samples."
"If she does not perish from the climate and her reckless behavior first."
"Then we can pronounce the whole matter fruitless and leave. We will insist on results until she produces them or perishes."
The older Scarran bulked into the shop. "Then we have a deal. You will find my other items quickly and return frequently with samples."
"As quickly as I wanna" Chiana turned to face him, running a finger on one of her cheeks. "But ah you gotta do to things. No spying on me, and don't expect explanations for everything."
"You are....on your own, alien" he assures her.
"When you deliver samples, be sure you are unseen" Pil adds.
Both Chiana and Kul look to Pil.
"Uh that's going to happen" Chiana sarcastically replies.
Pil just blinked blankly, like a rodent. Kul turned from him. "I expect the first samples before mid-day. If you do not make regular progress....we will terminate our arrangement" he pointed fingers at her.
"Yeah yeah I'll uh" Chiana nodded her head urgently "I'll do it early tomorrow."
"Good" Kul grabbed the remains of the top behind her shoulders and pushed her to the door. He opened the door and shoved her, the material staying in his hand while her body burst out of the material. He shut the door, both laughing while she stood on the doormat outside and tocked her bare shoulders.
"Males...." Chiana decided. "Lizards or not."
"Fine, then she gets nothing" D'Argo grumbled. "I have had enough of trying to talk reason into that frelling child."
The group stayed in place on the landing pad with the commerce city before them.
"So have I" Sikozu folded her arms.
"How can you have enough of something you didn't do" Aeryn wondered out loud in a very flat voice.
"If anyone is interested, there may be a reason that Chiana isn't answering your calls mm?"
"I don't think they're interested, Sparky" John unfolded his arms to follow the group.
Rygel shook his head while pushing the forward lever of his thronesled. "Sometimes" he said out loud to himself "I know exactly how she might feel."
Ulisies was just as packed as ever, but what would have been a struggle to push around the joint was made much easier by the crowd. Chiana tucked a smirk on her lips and hid her eyes under her bangs while the men around her made just enough room for her to slip around. She slipped through the mob to the bar proper, where Kippet the barkeep gestured to a glass and asked "Rezlac?"
Chiana hit into the music player, looked at it for a microt and figured how to turn it up. Her reply was lost under the blare of the twangy music, but her face and nod made it clear she was saying "yes."
"What do ya say?" Chiana looked down at herself and asked. She moved ahead following the pointing nipples with a tense laugh "that way hehah!"
It ran her smack into Tangle. He said something and gestured with the pink brew he held in one hand but she couldn't make it out for the blaring music. She tried to induce him to dance, but he didn't loosen up. Until, that is, she moved up against him and placed her fingers at rest on the bottom front of the undergarment covering his member. Then he began following her motions.
Somebody turned the music back down slightly, but she could tell his attention was fully fixed on her. "Why not let me come to your place where we can....get together" Chiana suggested to Tangle, running a thumb along the stiffening shaft.
"We can talk" Tangle took a deep sip of his pink brew and glanced grudgingly around at the crowd doing its poor attempts to appear as though it weren't ogling Chiana "on our way to the sample store."
"Don't waste time."
"It's best you're ready to leave when the vents first open. Night isn't that long here you know."
"Oh." Chiana found the rezlac thrust at her and took a long drink. "This rock is just great for everything, isn't it? You know....the lifts aren't going to get any more fun if you talk me there."
"I wasn't thinking of lifts."
"I wasn't thinking of talking."
The hard foam-like planks of the small balcony creaked. "Frell, this, this thing isn't gonna break off?" Chiana asked, peering down at the busy but poorly lit chasm below. Tangle put his ear closer to her mouth to hear her over the noise of all the mine transports passing every which way. "This won't break?"
"No it's made of Hurn, the same stuff that braces the shafts."
"Yeah?" her hands quickly worked his pants and undergarment free. "Wait till you try what I got to brace your shaft."
Ojo's mouth opened when he looked up from the walkway to see the silver female on the tiny observation balcony. She was with someone. Tangle! Her leg lifted and her mop pitched back.
He ran until he was nearly underneath them. A small crowd had gathered. They hollered hoots or insults to the man in that enviable position.
"Get someone who knows about shafts!" one shouted to the laughter of the crowd.
Ojo ran from the sight. He felt strange. He also felt heat at the thought of being the one with her. He decided he'd wait to find out what was next from Tangle, the bastard. Then he'd have to think of some way to get the silver female's attention.
Chiana barred her teeth. He'd bruised it all for certain, just like she figured he would. Now he was done, she turned to pick up his pants for him, not accidentally smashing his member between her buttocks and a balcony brace. "Aaah! Ouh eee eeh!"
Chiana stood, making sure to grind him between her hip and the brace. "What? Oh" she let him recover it. "Aw poor thing" she clasped her hands around it. "You should be careful where you stick this thing." She cut her eyes up to him and brushed the splinters from it "You'll get it hurt." He grasped onto the railing, cringed and groaned. She coaxed the staff. She wasn't sure at first if his reaction was from pain or from the stimulus of her hands, but she got the answer when the purple gel spurt onto her abs.
"There, that's better" she made like the splinters were her only focus "Now don't forget to clean it and ah- don't touch it for a while" she smirked, sauntering from the balcony into the cavern.
She heard Tangle bossing Ojo just outside the cavern and wiped the gel from her abs with a handy rock before returning to admiring the rock samples. Ojo soon walked in. "Change of the guard?"
"No he ah" Ojo looked over his shoulder "he hobbled, I mean headed along back. I'm going to....to tell you the route back to the town."
"Oh yeah? Don't think I can...." she broke off as she felt Ojo's hot shaft brush the small of her back "....find my own way?"
"No there's places....you should avoid. Ready?"
"Yeah" her rear thrust up.
"There's a valley to the side of this mountain. You'll leave to the south" he ran the hard tip down the recess of her back.
"Yeah let me get a, something to, to note with" she bent over, trying to raise up to his tip. Her hand found a piece of coal like rock before she found his tip. She pretended to fumble the rock and felt around for his tip. Her rear bumped back under his shaft. He gasped as it ejaculated over her back.
"He-ee! Eeehe said ssso-something" Ojo gulped, trying to recover speech and stop it from ejaculating and building further "about analyzer...."
"Yeah ah" his shaft brushed between her buttocks "I got arrangements made....he wanted."
"Good" Ojo winced as the shaft stopped ejaculating but erected harder nearing her entrances. It didn't hurt -yet- but he could see it was again over-erecting.
"Very good" she exhaled, nudging the nearest opening to his tip. "All I got to do is....deliver it."
She nudged back, but the wet tip slipped up along her back. He stared, unable to correct himself while spasms wrung through his body. Finally he managed to move the ejaculating staff toward the opening, but she stood just then, backing up on her tiptoes until she straddled the shaft and nuzzled her back into him. "Wanna give me directions?"
Ojo gulped. The staff strained even harder against her warmth, but it had stopped spurting. Her hand ran along the side of his lean face. "Y-yes, the first valley you have to avoid. You might be observed there."
"Mgood, go ahead" she made a small series of symbols on her wrist with the coal-like rock. The shaft pushed harder against her while it built. "I just go around?"
"There's a wall of mountain running a great length, you can't get over it except for one place....long way"
"Sure there isn't...." she leaned her hips out and offered her rear to his shaft "another way?"
"uuunghhuh" he confirmed. "There's the barren flats....go across them until there's a valley that runs along the opposite way of the town, west, there's a tall rock they call the sentinel at the end of that valley. You go east on the mountain, you'll find a little crevasse that cuts through the mountain."
"Then it's straight from there?" she nudged hot, moist lips of her sex around the tip.
"Straight in" he breathed through his teeth "to town."
"Sounds easy" she finished the last symbol on the palm of her hand and stepped away. He tried grasping her but she darted aside. "Heyhhh" she kept sparkling, amused eyes fixed on his while she picked up a container with the rock samples inside. She placed the tiny back-pack on her back, glancing at the hard straps on her shoulders for a microt. Her eyes cut back to his. "Look you up when I get back."
He bit his lower lip and clenched his eyes closed, waiting for the sounds of her scurry from the cavern to disappear. He placed his fingers on the tip where she had barely began to enfold him. "Too close" he gasped.
Making it through the labyrinthine ventilation system was surprisingly easy for her petite, limber form and her innate memory for complex passages. There was only one pause, and that to hurriedly pleasure herself. That scraggly Pelian Ojo had an earnest passion that just wouldn't let her be. If he wasn't a good frell, she suspected she'd like nothing more than to pleasure with him anyway. There was a feeling of attention he radiated that she just soaked up hungrily.
Making it out into the open, she crept along the bare rocky mountainside, taking a ravine that wound down forever until it made the bottom of the valley. A tiny rustle got her attention. A mass of tiny pink creatures scurried away from her while she passed through a flock of them. "Uaa!" Chiana yelled, scrambling up a boulder. She noticed they held to the shadows, retreating into gaps in the rocks. They seemed scared of her. Keeping a wary eye back at them, Chiana hurried along the valley floor.
Boulders dotted the rough, rocky ground in places, but the valley floor spread out to a plain of mostly flat rocky ground southwest almost as far as she could see. She kept to the foot of the mountain. The treeless desolation only became clearer while the sun slowly rose. The rocky, chalky earth took on a pink and orange cast.
Stiffly staggering back, Chiana gaped at the mountain beside her. It was high, sharp and craggy. No sign of a way over it yet. She shook her head and focused ahead. Sweat sprayed from her headshake. "What I'd give for a-a cold rezlac" her dry voice sounded alien in this desolate place. "Cold anything" she finished anyway.
The rocky outcrop was made by Ernites, she assumed, as it didn't look natural. The sentinel seemed to be a hulking figure with six stubby areas, probably depicting arms. Perhaps it was a squatting Ernite? It seemed alive, but that was just the rippling of the air. She seemed about even with it across the plain.
Her head quirked before she jerked her body into motion, walking among the baking rocks into what turned out to be an even hotter inferno of a pass over the mountain. There were odd noises breaking the silence of the wind, some kind of insect. Perhaps the same pink creatures she'd seen, singing from their nooks and crannies. The only other sounds were the crunch of footsteps which she'd long stopped noticing and a strange hiss from her body. Both the noise and the heat were amplified by the walls of rock while she passed through the pass.
Removing the hard straps of the sample carrier, Chiana whispered a curse at the marks it made on her skin. Stiffly bending into a squat, she opened the sample she'd snurched from the Scarran's vessel and compared it to the sample in the carrier. Nowhere near a match! "There's going through hezmona" she put back the samples and jerked the carrier back on her back "and then there's going through hezmona for no frelling reason" she rasped. "Frelling...." she rasped out a long breath, standing.
Ojo gestured to her from a window. Chiana shrugged and went over, climbing in while Ojo gawked at her steaming body. She made something that must be a laugh. Her head whipped. "Said I'd look you up when I got back" she teased. Her voice was dry, yet somehow still arousing like a stroke of her hand.
She made a show of taking off the carrier pack and putting it down, bending over with her rear facing him. Steam was rising from the somewhat dried looking sex, but it flexed. He grit his teeth as he erected at once. Fortunately, the pain felt rather good by the time she stood. Her hand had figured his state by the time she nearly pressed into him. She smelt like some kind of acrid yet sweet chemical. "Wanna hang here or show me around?"
"Frell yeah" he heard himself blurt.
"Ooo here?"
"Eh let me show you the, some places around here eh" he backed into a table and stepped around "m-miner boarding house" she kept sauntering up against him "let's get you a drink!"
She backs him up against the door of what must be a service closet. "Sure." Her hand reached around, opening the door. He fell back into the closet. She closed the door behind them. "Mmmbut we're gonna get you to put out first, shy boy...."
Chiana burst out of the closet and gestured Ojo to stop making that racket in the closet. He tried walking towards her when she turned her attention back to the windows, but the sensations peaked and he thrashed back into the rack of garments. "Quiet! What the frell you doing! Hey! What's that sound?" Chiana piped back in.
"Wo!" broke out of him while the climax finally passed. It somehow squeezed out one drop from the more stressed than ever staff. Finally she saw it work. Glancing twice, her focus fixed on it. Walking back in, the tapped it. "That's....it? You gotta work on that" she advised with a sharp affirmative nod. "What's that noise? Siren?"
Ojo tried replying between puffs of breath. "Medical evacuation. Someone got Klits."
"Klits? The um" Chiana beat the back of her hand on her forehead several times "infectious fever Scarrans get?"
"Yes there's a...." Ojo extracted himself from the contents of the closet "....there's a viral strain on this planet that Ernites are immune to. Scarrans too really. But it's so much like the Scarran illness that it's called that. Don't know what the proper term is. Now and then some poor devil will get it." He gestured her to look when the transport whizzed past the mansion. "There goes the poor guy now."
"What happens?"
"Oh it's fast. You get a fever then pow, you're on your back. They put the poor guy in the quarantine house. They languish in there. Hellish. It's highly contagious. It usually isn't fatal they say, but few people will risk getting near to care for them, even with full protection. Many die."
"No way."
"Yes way."
"No, no show me this place. This quarantine house."
"Huh! Not a chance."
"Show me. Nebari, we don't do viruses. We can't even carry one. Won't affect me. I can, I can at least bring them some water or something? Look, as long as I'm stuck on this molten rock I can do something besides move rocks around, right?"
She could see his jaw tensing as his eyes set heavily on hers. Finally, she could see acceptance in his eyes.
"And I know it looks drader than anyone else's like that, but at least get it up under your belt or something if you can't get it down."
Ojo double-took down at himself. In the blink of an eye he was in the closet, dressing. "You could borrow one of these overcoats. I think this one would look tolerable on a female."
"No....might carry the viruses. They have a sanitizing shower right?"
"Yeah. Look are you sure....?"
"Shut up and hurry up, hot stick, let's get this over with. I just....want to see."
Ojo opened the window and helped her out, watching her for a few microts before joining her outside. He had seen a kind of beauty and acute sensitivity in her before. He hadn't thought of her heart as being so strong.
He found himself wishing he could take the risks for her. She was probably right, at least he trusted that she believed she'd be fine. He briefly considered misleading her or at least discouraging her. But he climbed out and led the way. It was a sentiment he found too powerful to deny.