Part Four
"That's....it?" she asks, her mouth hung open. Her eyes run along the length of the nearer longhouse. The long, single story structure was made of rough, slightly distorted or aged boards of the same "hurn" material used to make braces and planks in the mines, poorly washed with some white stain. It stood on stilts almost a person's height off the uneven, rocky ground. She could see sections of a few others further beyond, each of which looked the same. All were separated from each other by a long, almost unbroken wall of living rock.
"Yeah, pretty big come-down after those mansions isn't it?"
Along a lengthy rough hewn wooden porch, miners were loitering in their procedure into a longhouse. All their interaction came to a quick halt when the first miner saw Ojo and the bare gray alien female saunter around the rocks of the path leading up to the longhouse and let out the miner's grunt to stop work. All eyes followed his gaze.
"Woa ah" Chiana looked down ahead and scratched her hair, glancing aside to Ojo "Well yeah....seen worse. Everyone stays in those long buildings?"
"All the miners, yes."
"Scarrans?" she asks, hooking one of her fingers with his, her eyes darting around while they walked along the path, now hidden between some massive boulders.
Ojo tugged at his collar. "No one" he shifted his voice back down to normal tone "No one knows where the Scarrans stay, somewhere in the Ernite city it's supposed. That comes with their being security."
"Well....yeah" Chiana came to a stop "but if they don't live with the miners, how do they expect to know what they think?"
"They don't care" Ojo snorted. "Just as long as no suspicious items get carried out by miners, they don't care."
"Good for us...." Chiana cooed, suddenly backing against the boulder behind her and pulling Ojo back with her.
"Ungh what the-?"
"Quick" she murmured to his ear, running her hands down his trunk. "Once here and ah" she kinked her head to another spot where the path was hedged by boulders "once there."
"Bu-but th-they might come!" Ojo whined while she roughly unfastened his pants. "Somebody might come over!"
"Quick quick" she breathlessly urged, coaxing his freed hardness with one hand and running the other along the small of his back.
With a curse under his breath, he ran his arms behind her. She hopped up into a straddle with a stifled squeal. Getting the sore staff into place suddenly proved a problem. It wouldn't flex much and her searching sex kept missing it. Finally, just when she began stretching the swollen lips of her sex around the hard tip, spasms wracked him, jabbing it around everywhere but in the target.
Grunting with frustration, Chiana tried grasping him and getting herself into place. But the brush of her crotch along his shaft sent a wave of orgasmic pleasure through him, sweeping control from him and his legs from under them. Chiana laughed while he tried sorting what happened to land them in a tangle on the dirt path. "What the-!"
"Look" Chiana extracted her legs from his, crossed her forearms on his chest and rested her chin on them. "You ever ahm....done this?" He looked horrified at staring her in the eyes and shaking his head affirmative. She saw through him, smiled broadly and looked aside. "Well. At least you almost made it. First thing" she quickly said and thrust up a single finger "....You gotta relax. Nnot here" she tapped his staff "here" she tapped his head. "Not here. Here" she repeated. "Okay? Control. Relax. I know....you wanna fly off, but you gotta have some kind of control where your flying or you'll ah" she looked around then rested her forearms and chin back across his chest "crash. Annsometimes that's good. Not here." He nodded agreement. "Good. We're making good progress. Now let's get your pants on before we get caught doing nothing."
He scrambled to get his pants up in a hurry, suddenly realizing he could be discovered any microt laying naked in the path with a female. Tumbled onto her rump on the dirt path beside him, Chiana blinked with her mouth agape for a microt before breaking into a smile. Shaking her head to herself, she stood up just as Ojo stood and turned, bending over to get his belt and hitting his rear into hers. Chiana blinked in her seat on the ground. "Hehhhhhhhy" she breathed out, grabbed his newly placed belt at his back and pulled him down to a rough seat next to her. "Watch it."
"Oh I'm uh" he fussed with his hands then tried to look more stoic "I'm sorry did I knock you over?"
Chiana closed her eyes at the awkward man. When was the last time she'd been with a male that naive? Several cycles ago, yeah, and he was much younger. But, frell it, he wasn't as charming as this guy. She spun one foot over the other leg, reached down and brought him up to her head level with a finger under his chin. "Gotta teach you a few things." She nodded to herself, then withdrew her hand and scurried over to peer around the boulders to the longhouse.
After recovering himself off the dirt path, he walked up behind her. She turned to him, holding up her nearer hand. "You know how to do this?" she asked, taking his hand and starting. He looked away shyly. She smirked and looked the opposite way, pulling him along. "Must be pretty crowded in those longhouses."
"Six to a small room, or thirty to a long room. Stacked in bunks. Twenty rooms in each longhouse. It's pretty crowded, but it's having no private space that gets to them."
"Yeah but if they all have the same problems...."
"Huh?"
"Ah, so which one's the quarantine?"
"That's up past these, in those rocks."
The path cut through a wall of brown rock that looked like the rounded, worn edge of a long dry ten foot high waterfall. It must have been formed as a floe of lava. Her hand released his and flattened against his stomach to bid him stay. He watched her walk in pulses until she was out of sight. Leaning into a boulder beside him, he held his hand over it and willed with all his might that she would be right.
In an equipment chest in an open room behind the building nearest what must be the isolation building, Chiana deftly picked through piles of supplies for the tie to the apron she'd found. "Ahhh" she triumphantly breathed when she pulled it out. Looking down at herself with the tie in place, it was obvious this apron, small, utilitarian and only intended to cover the front of some large males, would fit around her nicely. The block front with shoulder straps wasn't exactly sexy, but the bare back made it evident she wasn't clothed underneath the white apron. She made a quick straightening of her hair, checked around once more for anyone nearby, then hurried to the longhouse.
Sadness clutched her heart when she opened the door. The stench of waste and sickness was thick in the air, and the sounds of labored breathing met her ears. Even the illumination was partly inoperative. It was obvious there was much left undone. She backed out and returned to the equipment room.
"So she's looking around" one led.
Ojo bounced the clay ball between his hands and resumed the same stare out over the empty rocks everyone else on the porch had. "Just wanted to see."
"And she's immune to this" another added.
Ojo bounced the ball between his hands again. "Yup. Immune to that."
"Just wanted to see" another repeated again.
Ojo bounced the ball between his hands again. "Just wanted to see."
"Hu" several voices grumbled.
Getting on her knees on a chest, Chiana replaced another light filament.
"Who are you?" a voice asked from a bed behind her.
She turned and pursed her lips. "Well....somebody's up huh?" she softly approached the bedside. He didn't seem to focus on her until she ran the back of her hand along one of his craggy cheeks. He felt hot.
He exhaled, rolling his eyes up slightly. "Well so far. I just got put away here."
"So you're the new arrival."
"I didn't know they had...." he pointed to her.
"Don't. I'm ah, I'm just visiting. They told me it was dren in here and ah, I don't get viruses, my species, so ah I thought I'd come in and....clean. A little. The miners. You a miner?"
He nodded yes. "How did you get on this planet?"
"I ah, came in on ah, a stiff gust of solar wind. Water?"
"Gru yes I feel like I'm on fire."
"That's supposed to be a good thing" she smirked. He made an attempt at a smile.
"Water" another voice croaked nearby.
"Okay it's unanimous, I'll get some water." Looking around, she noticed there wasn't any water source around. Running outside, she saw a barrel with water. Pulling up the handle of the scoop, she gaped at the scoop full of slime and water insects. "That's....disgusting."
Marching into the equipment room, but there wasn't any sort of water source there either.
The newest victim bolted up in bed at the sound of the door slamming open. "I'm going to get water" the gray female hollered. The door then slammed shut.
Every man on the porch sat up or stood when the gray female came into view. But the smiles quickly faded to perplexed faces while the female continued past the fork leading to the longhouse. And the way she was pressing ahead didn't exactly look as though she was going for a pleasant visit anywhere.
Every man on the porch turned their gazes to Ojo. Looking to every side, Ojo shot up onto his feet and ran after the female.
"Do you think they're coming back?" one asked another guy still sitting in place while the rest of the group began wandering into the longhouse.
"Just want to see" he replied, with a wink.
Chiana placed one foot upon the support halfway up the side of the stool beside her, plopped the bucket down upon the bar, rested her forearm across the bucket and ordered "Water."
Kippet dropped all pretenses of wiping the bar and stared a microt. Finally he decided to ask "Pardon?"
"Water. So ah. Who's supposed to be taking care of the Klits victims?" Chiana glanced in the glass on the wall behind the bar to see the usual crowd had gathered behind herself. At least they kept a respectful distance of about four or five feet of space clear around her.
Truth be told, it was a distance with respect to visual perspective. Hugk's brow creased while he watched the alien's posterior. The tight, lean buttocks parted their curtain well to the sides, the sex standing out on display on the lean form. Its condition made him wonder just what has been happening to it recently. Hugk shook his head to try halting that brain-blinding train of thought.
Northlan didn't fare so well. Hugk heard the young man moan and fall backward to the floor in a faint, but like everyone else, Hugk's attention remained focused firmly elsewhere. Chiana looked over her shoulder with an alert, slightly incredulous gape. Everyone else broke into variations of smiles at her.
"Bucket of water, lady?" Kippet hoisted the partly filled bucket onto the bar. Closing her mouth, Chiana turned back to Kippet. "Thanks." Chiana grabbed the bucket, got off the stool and flung the contents of the bucket at Northlan, the crowd hastily parting for the flood. The water woke Northlan into a panicked daze. The crowd laughed and began to tease the dazed, soggy young man.
Chiana plunked the bucket back down upon the bar. "Gimme another water. And don't be stingy, old man."
"Double Bucket of Water coming up" Kippet duly took the bucket for a refill while the crowd kept up its amused ruffling of Northlan. "That's 'im" Kippet nodded toward the crowd.
"What?" Chiana halted her conspicuously sensual straddling of a bar stool to look at him with wide eyes, as though she hadn't heard him instead of having been distracted.
"What?" Kippet replied for similar reasons. "Oh. Caretaker. For the victims, that's him."
"What the guy-" Chiana looked over her shoulder, pretending as though she wasn't scraping herself on the edge of the bar stool during her repositioning. "That Sebacean looking kid?"
Kippet tried not to notice her almost annoyed squirming. He wiped his sweating brow. "Oh I don't know if it's a kid, he's g'Klarmik."
"What's he got?"
"His species." Kippet leaned closer to intimate. "You should see the female g'Klarmiks. You know Zenetins?"
"Aaa....too well. Yeah." More than the motion of her shoulders seemed to suggest that her hands were in motion somewhere around the vicinity of her seat. "Lot of the females look more like Sebacean males."
"Female g'Klarmiks look more like a big bipedal male Keedva."
Chiana stopped her squirming and mouthed a silent "whoa" in her wonder. "So he's a male g'Klarmik. Hard to tell their age?"
"Very hard" Kippet nodded. "They live longer than Delvians."
"So do lots of species. Done wasting water?" Chiana gestured down to him.
Kippet looked down to see the water running over from the bucket. "Oh heh!" Kippet turned off the faucet. Clearing his throat, he handed her the bucket. "Want a mop with that?"
"Wouldn't want to leave you without it right now" Chiana smirked, leaving the bucket on her bar stool and approaching the harassed Northlan. The crowd surrendered the one object of attention to the other. Chiana casually offered an arm and helped Northlan up onto his feet. Snapping into action, Chiana had the surprised Northlan bent back over the end of the nearest table under her forearm before the startled Northlan could react. "You the munificent ah "caretaker" of the Klits victims?"
Northlan nodded his youthful, good-looking head. "M-me."
"You ever find any of your work....deficient?"
"N-n-y-yes"
"Very good" Chiana smiled with a dangerous niceness. "I like an honest man."
Northlan's struggling arm found a glass within reach, but an opportunistic miner relieved him of it before it could be smashed on Chiana. The struggle intensified until Chiana leveraged herself back in control. "Woo resourceful too" Chiana cooed.
Northlan's nostrils flared at the heady, alien smells of the Nebari. Northlan let out a crisp gasp when the form trapped under Chiana's forearm clearly registered in the Nebari's eyes. The big black eyes widened, her mouth hung open and her head lifted back a bit more. A series of reactions seemed to pass just under the surface before the Nebari snapped into another unexpected action. Grabbing a handful of overall in one hand and the newly emptied glass from the miner with the other, Chiana pulled Northlan up and shoved toward the door. "You're gonna show me some things over there aren't you?"
Northlan glowered darkly but moved carefully toward the door, intimidated by the attitude of the skinny, glass-wielding Nebari if nothing else.
"Thanks" Chiana made sure to say to Kippet, picking up the bucket. She glanced back again on the way toward the door. "Don't slip on the water." Chiana made an aggressive growl while shoving Northlan out the door. The bar erupted into hoots and boisterous conversation the microt the door shut behind her.
Chiana kept slinking nearer in a quirky way until the winded Northlan backed into the outside wall of the quarantine longhouse. "Okay" Chiana jerked the zipper down, opened the overalls and jerked them off Northlan's slight shoulders "Missay....This isn't a mercy mission for you, is it?"
The young lady narrowed her already sharp gaze before looking away from Chiana. "No." When she glanced, Chiana had shifted attitudes again. Now the brazen creature was smirking.
"So what'd you do?" Chiana smiled. The lady's dark haired, almost masculine sharp gaze looked away again. Obviously she wasn't going to open up easily. Chiana tilted her head the opposite way and tried another approach. "Isn't what you planned is it?"
It hit. Northlan made a weak shove at Chiana's shoulder, walked a few steps away and buried her face into the rough plank wall. "I'd have been better off staying on the run."
"Yeah? You might have been really alone out there. At least maybe you could make some friends here."
"I can't get near!" she nearly shouted. Composing, she turned away from Chiana. "Nobody would touch me. I remind them of the sickness. It works. It's just as well....If anyone found out-" she turned a hard gaze to Chiana.
"Whoa then we can make a deal" Chiana seemed to light up under the snide, seasoned attitude of an experienced wheeler and dealer. "You keep yourself chaste in your hideout here and I get some cooperation for these guys" she gestured at the longhouse.
"What about them?" Northlan demanded, crossing her arms and stepping up to the even smaller and shorter Nebari.
The Nebari looked more impressed than intimidated, watching her shoulders. "Well. We're going to start by giving them some water."
"So they'll suffer longer?"
"Yeah. Maybe it'll be longer and less. Then you'll clean this place up. Then you'll tell me what and who you are. Then you're going to tell me what you know about this sickness. Right?"
Northlan glared again, but snapped her overalls back on and started for the door.
Again the packed house at Ulisies' made space for a little gray alien female. Many who were openly staring began talking to one another about her companion, tagging glumly behind like a black cloud following white clear sun and casting scowls at everyone. Barely noticed before, the loner was quickly becoming the subject of an intensive cross-germination of real and imagined memory.
Chiana enjoyed staring at the people staring at her. Zoning in on a bystander at random, Chiana halted, turned to the bystander and stood inches from him. Gaping with curiosity and wonderment, she seemed to perceive the person through some sort of instinctual mojo. She shifted from being slightly on one leg to the other. Then she'd seem to return to strolling along her way before zoning in on the next target.
"Why do you stare at everyone like that?" Northlan glowered at her while they both sat at a far table. It was a tiny, makeshift table crammed in along the wall near a corner, with supply barrels for seats. But it had a perfect view of everything in the place.
"Why do they stare at me?" Chiana rhetorically asked.
Northlan frowned and looked up and down Chiana. "Why do you think?"
"Exactly" Chiana answered.
Northlan squinted in confusion. "What?"
"Ooo here comes my friend" Chiana cooed at the approach of the unfriendly waiter.
"What do you want?" the waiter demanded, looking down at her.
"Water" Chiana ordered. "Two. Waters. Two" she holds up two middle fingers for emphasis, very amused at some private joke.
"Dren" the waiter announced.
"Well if it's that bad we'll take something else. Ah rezlak."
"Good choice from you" he sneered down at her.
The waiter left and Chiana gestured her fingers toward his rear a couple times. "So" she then suddenly turned to Northlan. "You're going to remember to leave here with water for the victims" she placed one index finger on the table top. "Aaaand you're going to help me pick out some of the best frells around here" she placed the other index finger on the table. Chiana then sat back, holding onto the table edge, craning her neck to look up at the blue curved ceiling above.
Northlan squinted in confusion. "What?"
"Hearing problems over there? You know that's the second time you said that."
Northlan squinted in confusion. "What?"
"See? Frell. How about that guy at the table behind not staring at me. Facing you. With the beard."
"How....about him?"
"Good choice for a frell?"
"Um" Northlan looked around like the answer was written somewhere. "I don't....um...."
"Uah!" Chiana rested her head between her splayed hands and her elbows on the table. "Why.....can't I hook up with anyone anything like me?"
"There's another like you?!" Northlan sat upright in alarm before catching the point. "Oh."
"Okay never mind" Chiana blinked a peculiar look at Northlan.
"How do they talk over this? I always feel like I'm yelling" Northlan yelled.
"You are" Chiana pointed out. "It's like lots of places out there. You get used to filtering through the frelling noise. You should try it with Nebari hearing instead of your deficient species. You're probably having it easier with yours."
Northlan snorted. "Deficient?"
"Remind me of Crichton."
"Who?"
"Average guy from some backwater planet, stranded out here but wants to get back. Simple. Very long story. Look. Can't see so well in low light. Can't take boiling point heat. Can't see as far. Can't jump. Can't take radiation. Can't hear as good" Chiana lifts a palm up in the air. "What do you think?"
"I guess" Northlan shrugged. "From what I could hear. I've told you what you wanted to know. Now can I go?"
"Go? Where? Back to some little hole where you can crawl into and be bitter about everyone, or stay here and try to be somebody's friend?"
"Whose?" Northlan scowled.
Chiana subtly lifted her head up and blinked. "Okay sister, you got two ways out" Chiana rested forwards on the tabletop on her crossed forearms "the front....or the back."
"What?" Northlan squinted in confusion.
Chiana placed a finger on the hip of the guy standing nearest to her. He bent down a bit. Chiana seemed to tell him something. Gesturing with her hand straight out, she moved it to a point and made like it fell off something. The miner looked up to Northlan, nodded, turned, and then made a loud whistle. A mob of miners congregated for the ceremony of the expulsion of unwanted visitors, consisting of lifting a startled Northlan from her chair, passing her along above everyone's heads and culminating in a distinctly unceremonious deposit of Northlan onto the walkway out front.
Northlan looked around in a daze, seeing she was suddenly quite alone. "Fine!" she shouted to the street and slapped her palms down onto the sidewalk. She crossed her arms and sniffed.
"What's fine?" Chiana asked, her head seeming to appear just above Northlan's left shoulder. Northlan looked to the right. Chiana's head appeared above her right shoulder. "Sure you don't want that friend?"
Northlan bolted up with a grunt, turned, pushed Chiana's back into the wall and pressed up to her with her mouth breathing in Chiana's ear. "I don't want a "friend"." Northlan breathed into Chiana's neck.
"Then...." Chiana kicked Northlan away into the street with one leg "you don't get one!"
Chiana brightly waved goodbye with her fingers and a smile while a transport cart sped by with its unexpected new passenger yelling in a panic from its windshield. "Don't forget that water!" she yelled out to Northlan.
Turning on one foot, Chiana stood at the door, bent slightly at the knees and lifted her arms with exaggerated grace. The miner nearest the door hoisted her into the air over his head and passed the now seemingly casually seated Chiana along the conveyor for desired guests, with the last miner seating her back onto the barrel she had been sitting at.
Chiana blinked in surprise to see Ojo seated on the barrel Northlan had been seated on. "Well I saw Northlan leaving and I thought...." Ojo bashfully ran a foot back and forth a bit on the floor and stared down at it. He stiffened and swallowed when her hand lightly began tracing along his thigh.
"Aaaahw" she sighed "so thoughtful. And the guys back at the longhouse had nothing to do with it?"
"Well I was going to ask if you were uh uh" he cleared his throat.
"Coming to visit? Mmmya good idea" Chiana stood. She looked to the waiter appearing at her side.
"Two rezlacs" he handed them at her.
"Thanks." Chiana grabbed his pants and dumped the contents of both glasses down the front, then let them snap back. The waiter hooted and danced in his steaming rezlac-wetted pants while Chiana slid her arm around the nearest arm of the standing Ojo. "Shoulda brought that water" she suggested to the waiter as Ojo led her past.
It was horror played out in a merciless slow motion. John Crichton could only hear that it was Aeryn's voice through the static. His eyes narrowed in a near flich, riveted to Moya's viewscreen. Exploding lavender balloons of combustible plasma with spiked tendrils of burning gasses peppered across the horizon, obscuring Aeryn's prowler from view. His heart and the universe seemed to stop, uncertain whether she was simply not visible or she had been incinerated within the fires.
Again the sound broke through. John's arms unfolded at the sight of the black speck that was her prowler racing back to Moya.
"Fine, she can gain enough inertia to be carried from the frelling Urten Reaper, she's made it, now we can get ourselves away from here while we still have the chance and pick her up later!" Rygel broke the long silence.
"We will not abandon her!" D'Argo pointed at Rygel.
"And who will rescue her if we don't survive?" Rygel attempted reason again. "I am sure she will comprehend that even if some of us don't."
"Oh no way. We are not leaving her out there!" John hotly demanded.
D'Argo looked to Rygel. Rygel sat back, seeing he finally understood. The Luxan was slow but not entirely hopeless. "Yes we are" D'Argo softly said, lashing out his tongue and knocking John unconscious before he could pull out his pulse pistol. "Pilot! Get us the frell out of here."
The leviathan seemed to crackle to life around them. "Yotz" Rygel shot at nobody in particular.
"Remember it was your miserable failure of a scam that made these frelling Urtens attack us!" D'Argo shot back at Rygel.
The nauseating din and sensations began to build. "I hate Starburst" Rygel grumbled for the umpteenth time.
"Even when it saves your miserable life!?" D'Argo shouted at Rygel.
"Exactly" Rygel retorted. "It saves my life but it doesn't prevent me from being miserable."