Part 5

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Larran sat at the head of the long table as Oshana finished the last pieces of setting up a small banquet on it. He motioned to her as John came through the arched passage way. The Bannik woman quickly moved to the wall behind Larran, standing in wait beside another table of towels and basins.

John made no expression even though water rushed into his mouth. His stomach growled, twisting with hunger pains into his gut as he moved in. His gaze was dead set on Larran, approaching with a determined ease that seemed to unsettle the Minister enough to open his cloak to reveal a Nebari pistol of some kind holstered to the inside of his arm. John's eyes never strayed from his as he pulled back the chair next to Larran. Larran waited, seeming to expect him to swing it at him when John turned the chair around and sat in it with the back of it to his chest. He rested his hands on the top of the chairs back, his expressionless glare unstraying even as Larran turned to sipping his drink and Oshana moved around him, opening the lids to roasted meats.

"I noticed the search Chiana and yourself had attempted through my data bases," Larran stated finally as he motioned Oshana away from placing a ladle of some stew into the bowl next to his plate. "I've found it very intriguing ... you seem interested in Nebari Resistance and chronological record. It were as if you've forgotten far more than damage from a mental control collar would cause."

"Hey man, I don't know nothin!" John stated loudly as he jerked his head away and turned to piling what looked like king crab legs on his plate. "Chiana's the Nebari right? I'm just the servicer, resistance is futile. I did notice though ..." John looked over the petite servant. He recognized her as Bannik, very human like, and associated them with slaves, and something about the face plate over her right forehead ... Stakira. A special type of Bannik. Something about spiritual passage, he seemed to think. He could remember so many things, but so little that made any meaningful sense to his life.

The Stakira avoided catching his gaze, almost in a kind of fear. The face plate covered her right forehead up to her spiky head of short unkempt black hair and down to her upper cheek. Her eyes appeared normal. She didn't seem to bathe often enough, but she was a cute young lady for all that. He seemed to think they should have a tendency to be neurotic and slightly schizoid, and already he could sense something like that about the way she acted.

He creased his brows as he leaned over the table. "No butter, frell - but you had this damn thing in your 'puter about resistance stuff and Chiana just digs the crap out of it. She seems to think we come from it somewhere. Maybe we knew something at one point hu? That Nerri's Resistance Militia seems to ring some bells ..." He cracked a leg, pulling out the white meat as Oshana set a small bowl of a dark brown broth beside him. "Damn shame, about the memory loss and all."

"Care to see if a full meal will jog it any?" Larran asked.

John shrugged as he ate. "So that's why you wanna keep me smelling fresh, but who's to say" John forked up a chunk of what looked least alien with the serving fork "we didn't run into something that brought it up before we got sidetracked at the Las Vegas Hilton here."

John set to carving the meat with a huge knife and the serving fork while he chewed. After a microt he gestured the serving fork at Larran "You can't tell me you know what we were up to before the goon squad started chasing us down."

Larran shifted in his chair. "No I can't" he admitted. This alien was odd indeed, he considered. In fact he was interesting dinner company at that. "Hm. I shall know in time, you may trust."

"You may think, or what we want you to think anyways. Turkey?"

Larran tilted his head aside holding his hand up in a declining gesture.

"Yeah brings new shades to Thanksgiving don' it?" John eyed Larran oddly.

"Sometimes victims of intensive damage do regain some memory in time. It is an associative process. Of course there are no guarantees. Perhaps an assistant could arrange that you both are able to plan sessions to stimulate memory."

"Hell no thanks dude." John sucked his thumb clean. "We'd have to plan stuff. One thing I can remember, our plans always suck," he snorted, his face flushed as he tipped a large chunk of the crab meat at Larran and then stuffed it into his mouth. "Never work, we always get frelled, people die," he gave a look at Larran for a moment. "Must be why we were arrested. I think if any one knew us, they wouldn't claim to now."

"I can agree," Larran tilted his head watching Crichton's manners.

John nodded as he drank from his glass in quick gulps. "Holy Tabasco! That dip is hot! Well, anyway, guess you'll just have to turn us over to the Establishment. I mean, there's also a good chance someone might, on the other hand, take notice and stand up for our rights. That'd be worse for you, wouldn't it? I mean, with the N.R.M."

Larran opened his mouth, drawing in his breath as he leaned back in his chair with a slight tilt of his head. The very gesture almost reminded Crichton of someone ... scary that he only dimly recalled. Larran watched John carefully as he rested his elbow on the chairs arm, tapping his upper lip with his index finger. "You're doing well, that's observant. Your ... mistress. What is her largest interest with the Resistance?"

"Ah, well, why don't you invite our little mistress to the table and ask her?"

"She's that important to you?"

"Are you kidding?" John eyed him briefly as he sucked the juice of his thumb. "What do you think about me and you running down to the Resistance hang out? You slip me into the bat-cave and I'll clunk some heads together, get some answers before the N.R.M. gets wind of us and find out before either one of us does."

"You're very right," Larran smiled wryly as he continued to eat. "It's the doubt that keeps you safe here."

"I got into this with Chiana," John stated flatly without looking to him, cracking open another crab leg instead. "And I'm going to get out of it with Chiana."

"I wouldn't think of parting Chiana from her servicer ..." Larran sighed lightly to himself. "But I'm satisfied that you know nothing else. I'll allow our mistress to join us!"

---

Larran stepped out, drawing to Chiana's room. He came to her doorway, smiling as he saw her sitting on the top of her couch with her feet to the cushions, her back to him.

"The force shields to the doors are coded to specific idents," he started as he stepped inside. Chiana spun her head around to him as her arm came back. She narrowed her eyes on him through her hair as she lowered her head, her lips parting in an angry, scruffy look he found more alluring than posing any sort of threat. "I've brought you a gift," he smiled as he produced a small box from his cloak. "If you wear it you can join us to dinner."

She swung her legs around, planting them on the floor without straying her gaze from the box. He opened it as she stepped closer. Inside were three metallic black bands about two inches in width and raw hide thick. Each were intricately stenciled with gold designs that accentuated red sapphires and blue diamonds. Two were just large enough to be for her wrists, the larger one obviously meant for her neck. She tilted her head up at him. "I don't like collars."

"But you would like to eat," he smiled.

"Oh yeah," she breathed, chuckling as she tossled her head, wild eyed. "I seem to be the - the only one who hasn't forgotten about that ..."

"Take them," he insisted.

"This?" Chiana smiled wryly, shifting at her shoulders as she took the edges of the box into her hands, searching his eyes as she tilted her head. "Can I thank you for it?"

Larran narrowed his eyes on her with a small smile. "You can try ..."

Chiana jerked sudden and hard, her knee coming up into his crotch like a battering ram. Larran threw his hips back in only a scant of enough time to save himself from the impact. He pulled back with the box, swinging it with all his force against the side of Chiana's head. Her head swung to one side with the force, dropping to her knees as the cuffs and collar tumbled across the room. She shook her head, staring dazed at the floor with a flex of her jaw. Larran snarled, seething at her as he more gently pressed his foot into her back, giving a push with the tip of his boot. Chiana fell the rest of the way to the floor, her eyes fluttering as she drew unconscious.

---

"So ..." John looked to Oshana as she cleared away the dishes he had cleaned out. "How'd you get stuck being this guy's help? I think he needs some, seriously, like the professional psychiatric kind. I'm Crichton by the way ..."

"I started out as a guest like you," she spoke quietly as she took a plate from beside him. She looked into his eyes as she moved a strand of her black hair from her face. Her own were a deep royal blue. "I am Oshana, a Bannik Stakira."

"I've heard of Stakira," he frowned slightly. "From some where."

"It's why he added me to his collection," Oshana continued as she returned to putting things away. "He is the Minister. The sole one sanctified to have Stakira ... Is that why he's kept you and ... Chiana, because you're something to the Resistance ... or do you want him to only believe so? Who is she? Everyone always has something unique about them."

"Chiana," he looked her square in the eyes. Her eyes grew wilder and she looked away. "I think it's the fact we landed in his door step with a thousand Nebari cops on our tail and don't know why," John sighed, becoming full as he only picked at his plate now.

He moved to stand, grabbing the arms of his chair when his legs refused to rise with him. It was only then he realized he had been strapped down to the chair by straps going around his thighs and waist. They must have latched around him while he was so busy eating and playing badminton with Larran. What did he even say? He groaned as he rolled his eyes up at the ceiling, feeling too groggy to really care about being pinned down. "Frelling figures."

He looked back as Larran came back in, dragging Chiana with him with her arms looped over his. Oshana walked backward all the way into a wall.

"Yo Larran!" John shouted as Larran pulled Chiana up against the table across from him until she began to stand on her own, slowly opening her eyes. "Is this the only way you know how to keep company man? I mean, isn't this something like how they lock the theater doors to make the audience stay?"

Larran glanced at him from Chiana's shoulder, saying nothing as she gaped down at the food in front of her. He let go of her, setting the cuffs and collar he had given her in the plate she stood before.

"Maybe a new perspective will help you decide," he muttered, grabbing her arm when she tried to sit.

John stayed silent, expressionless as he watched Chiana wobble in place. She looked a little dazed as she slowly reached down to the collar.

"There's an improvement," Larran smiled darkly on John as he pressed his lips to her neck, sliding his hand down her arm. "They will look very becoming on you."

"I'd rather starve," Chiana narrowed her eyes.

"Are you so sure?" He asked as he held tightly to her waist, trailing his fingers back up her arm with his other hand. "You'll make it so much more difficult on yourself refusing to comply."

"Bring it on," Chiana smiled darkly as she brought her hand behind her, sliding it down his thigh to the inside of his crotch. "Who needs this dren anyway."

"Hmmm," he smiled to himself, looking to John again for his expression as he took Chiana's wrists. "I thought you may need a few days longer ..."

He pushed her down on the table, forcibly placing the cuffs on her wrists and chaining them to each other as she jerked at her shoulders to try to get away. He turned her over, pressing against her until she stopped struggling. He took up a piece of fruit, waving it in her face but she refused to look at him. He smiled to himself as he opened her bodice, revealing her creamy grayish skin, shadowed around her breasts. He began to trace around them with the fruit, rubbing the soft, juicy pulp across her dark nipples as they hardened. He smiled softly again when Chiana finally began to respond, her lips supple as she tried to coerce the trailing fruit to meet them. Her legs slid up along his sides, wrapping around him as she strained to gently suck the sweet juice off of his hand. She trembled, an incoherent whimper escaping her as she pulled him tighter against her in squeezing her legs, turning her face to one side in following his hand with the piece of fruit. She reached with her tongue, a whimper escaping her again as the tip just barely met the dripping corner of the rich pulp.

John poured what was left of his bottle of raslak into his glass and began to drink it, looking to nothing with a hard expression as Larran began to pull at Chiana's pants.

A drop of juice dripped from the pulp to hang and sparkle at the tip of a nipple. "How messy" Larran clicked his tongue, taking up a napkin. Chiana instinctually urged her breasts toward him to lick clean, but Larran took the napkin in his fingers and wiped her nipple. While she choked back a reaction, he gripped the black nipple hard and twisted one way and then the other. He glanced to John while she shuddered. John kept his gaze fixed to his drink and clenched his jaw.

"That's better" Larran ran the napkin down her chest. Drool trickled back down onto the breast from Chiana's open mouth, her tongue busy hungrily caressing the fruit in Larran's fingers. "Dirty again. What a shame. Let's finish cleaning it. You may as well make the most of those remarkably firm breasts.....while you have any" he smiled wickedly. John watched Larran wet the napkin in the silver pitcher of ice water. John considered what he'd do with that pitcher if he could only reach it. Perhaps he could.

Larran forced her to face John, standing against the edge of the table with himself behind. He barely dabble the ice water wet napkin at the tip of her smarting nipple. A trace of blue soaked into the napkin from the damage he'd done to it. She shuddered from the intense cold on the intensely sensitive nipple. John found himself wondering why he knew the nipple was slippery smooth and remarkably hard when like that, when he can't remember when he'd handled it. Stop it, he snapped at himself. Don't think, just don't acknowledge the sicko dude with the babe.

The peripheral of John's vision fixed on the view of her quirky braced stance. Her silken smooth stomach curved and rounded with each muscle tone, shadowed dark around her shallow navel. He found his eyes fixed on her, his glass almost permanently poised to his lips to drink as her lean hips came slipping away from the pants Larran pulled away from her.

He could remember that moment in the other bio-dome before they wound up here, pulling things away, gazing down to her forested mound of white silver, dark along the edges of her - but just as flesh pink as her tongue within. He looked up to Larran, realizing then he was watching him. His face flushed as he swallowed down a gulp of raslak hard, filling the glass again as Larran leaned over Chiana once more. He traced the fruit around her lips, catching her tongue as she tried to lick it clean into his mouth. She gasped deeply as he slowly pressed his hardness into her, moaning into his mouth.

John creased his brows, rubbing one closed eye with his finger as he watched his glass of raslak in front of him begin to shake with each, slow, forceful thrust Larran forced against Chiana and the table.

John brought the bottle up to his lips, blowing into it to get a winded tone out of it. "Testing, one, two, testing," he spoke gently, as small smile crossing his face as he looked to them again. "And Larran at the hole. It's an unprecedented day here at the green. Larran is sizing up the distance for his shot. If he scores this one he'll be the first Nebari to enter the grand poobar's of club doofus and they don't want no home cookin. He's really pounding out the pressure for the all state competition who has two shots ahead of him to win this one ... and it looks like he's going to use the putter ..."

Chiana started to chuckle as Larran glared up at John. John smiled wanly, hiding the smile behind his hand holding the bottle up as he tilted his head. "Putt-putt for the fun of it ... rusty nails. Road kill - I know, how 'bout Chiana and me pound you out? What'ya think Chi, want me to wrangle this pip-squeak around so you can get a shot at him?"

"Mmmmm," Chiana giggled again into Larran's neck. "Sounds like fun ..."

"I'll get the pickles started!" John shouted enthusiastically as he picked up a handful of sauce and slung it at them. "Oops! Wait a second here, I'm sure there's something around here. Hey, where's the damn beef!"

Larran stood, forcing Chiana up with him as she let out a sharp laugh. She breathed sensuously into Larran's chest and then tilted her head up at him, giggling through the breath she released through her nostrils. "Pickles."

"Clean this up," Larran ordered to Oshana, glaring towards her as he began to leave with his grip tight on Chiana's arm. "Leave him."

---

"What's the matter Larran?" Chiana cooed richly in her breath, swaying her head as he shoved her by her arm back into her room. "He spoil the mood for ya?"

"Terribly," Larran admitted as he turned her around. He admired the disheveled look about her. Her bodice was hanging off her shoulders, the flesh beneath it still sticky and golden where he dripped the juice on her. Her pants sagged off of one bony hip. She jerked her head, trying to get the strands of hair out of her eyes as she stared back. It was then he realized Chiana was very observant, her eyes shining as she took in his every little move and expression into those clever little data bases going on in her head. He smiled as he took her chin. "I didn't expect you to have such a - frelling crude man for a servicer."

"Lewd, crude and rude," she smiled back, shying away from his hand with a coy tilt of her head. "He's a drad frell. What about you? Wanna - pick up where we left off?"

"Ahhhhh," he sighed with regret as he drew away from her. "Unfortunately that mood has ended - and you still need some time I think."

"C'mon," she urged to him as he released the chain from her cuffs but left them on her. "You're just wanked, for - for your little game backfiring on you like that ... you're not used to having ... "

"Having what?" Larran persisted when Chiana paused, pressing her lips together as she turned her gaze away. "Guests like you?" He smiled again as he drew back into the hall, resting his hand on the doorway. "You don't exactly show the class of - Higher Establishment, Chiana ..."

Chiana didn't turn to him, waiting until she felt the subtle presence that he had left before she turned her gaze to the door. "Putter," she chided under her breath, narrowing her eyes as she eased up to the door, not quiet daring to see if the force shield was still up on it.

---

Chiana restlessly searched the room, pulling out drawers, digging through the drinkless bar, and foodless the kitchenette, searching for anything that would resemble something to eat, or something useful to help her and John get the frell out of here.

She narrowed her eyes at the thought of Larran standing on that balcony, sneering down at them so smugly - like ...

She tilted her head, setting her jaw as she ambled back into the lounging area and into the sauna. She shifted at her hips, giving the bamboo of the balcony a wild look as she licked her lips.

... like he could really keep her here.

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