Part 12

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"Hey look Harv, no river" John remarked when the taxi stopped. Harvey didn't seem to relax. John looked around. It was anonymous as could be. Just a bunch of 20 story, boring buildings on a dirty, boring street. "Whoa man. Give me Blade Runner. Pris. Damn, reminds me of Pip" he muttered. "Okay where do we go for you to work me over."

The lady finished her smoke and kicked her door open while she waved the pipe up and down to put it out. Harvey took the opportunity to bail out. "You get out here." She closed her door again without getting out. "Wish I could, hunky, but you'll meet a guy in the nally."

"Alley?"

"Nally, musclehead, where else do you piss? He'll take it from there."

"Doesn't sound like I'll go with a smile on my face."

"That's a frelling shame" she kicked the back of the driver's seat. "See you around, get a shave" she told him as the driver shoved John out, closed the door and took off.

"Like I could find a barber shop around here" John rolled off of Harvey's back onto his feet and helped Harvey stand up.

"Do you think I need a shave?" Harvey asked.

John looked at him. "Let's find the handy W.C."

"Do you think I need to go?" Harvey asked.

"If you don't know by now....there we are" John led them to a doorway which had the man symbol on it. "It really is universal. I'll be darned."

"Gos ahead boss. I'll keeps a-da eyes peeled out hear at da dow."

John cut him an odd look then walked in. "Well it ain't Italy" he looked at all the partitioned stalls. "Hey anybody here wanna see me?" he called out. "I'll be, it even echoes like a good old loo back home. Smells different though. I guess if your an alien.... man who broke the bottle of Windex!"

A Nebari man came out of one stall, grabbed John by the collar and shoved him into the nearest stall ahead of himself, closing the door behind. He quirked his head out of the stall. "Follow me" he whispered. John followed him to the stall he'd came out of. "Close the door you retard" he tipped his chin at John. John closed the stall door. The Nebari opened a seamless door in the wall and stepped over the shiny, tall device that passed for a toilet into a hidden room. John followed.

"You're it?" John stopped to find the man sneering down at him.

"You guys do tag too?"

The Nebari's narrow black eyes narrowed further. "You John Crichton....that controller must've scrambled your brains bad."

"Nope. Fogged the memory but I was always this weird without a gal."

"Partially fogged the memory or completely scrambled your brains, that's great. Hey. Is she Chiana?"

"Hey keep the zipper up. Who the hell are you and where the hell are we?"

"I'm....a contact of somebody in Nerri's Resistance Militia. We are here in an abandoned area we use for secret meetings. You're going to impress on me that you'll keep it a secret by convincing me she's Chiana."

John shot a breath between his closed lips. "Buddy, the only person that can convince anybody Chiana is Chiana is Chiana. You guys dragged me out here. I didn't stumble around this butt-ugly city of homogeny to find you. You're gonna impress on me why I should keep it a secret by convincing me you're going to help Chiana and incidentally, the faithful slave to a good woman, Johnny boy."

Something in the Nebari man's eyes looked as if the thought it could be Chiana drove him half mad. John decided he was winning the moment a more respectful tone came from the man. "If we have to get her out first, we will. We daren't risk attacking Larran's estate as directly as that. How can we arrange her escape?"

"Uh" he looked witlessly up to the man. "I was kinda hoping you'd have a clue, this being a little closer to your home turf than mine, you know? And what's the name?"

"Bursamen. If you can slip her from the estate, we can arrange a quick escort from this sector to a safe area before he can attempt recovery."

"Yeah. Three problems with that, persimmon. One, how do I know where you're sweeping her off to? Two, how do I know I'd want her going there? Three, Chi's never going to be safe with Larran around so I want that sick bastard laid out in his marble lined family mausoleum."

Bursamen gave him a look that made John think he'd just won a friend. "Right" Bursamen crisply responded, turning from John and leading him.

"Where we going?"

"Out the other way of course. If you need support in your errands, Tannac will be around."

"Who? Isn't that a root or something?"

"Tannot? Tannac" he repeated with a mutter. "She brought you."

"She's a hover craft?"

That stopped Bursamen for a blink or two before he decided to preserve his sanity and continue. "She was in the craft. A bony assed bitch frelling near addicted to marnnat. If she doesn't drop dead she'll protect you until you can be freed without confronting the Minister."

"Oooh yeah the Sinister Minister Larran. Got you. She's my bouncer. But she's going to be shadowing me or what? You guys got to suspect Larran's got a watch on me." John almost ran into Bursamen when Bursamen turned and fixed an intense gaze at John.

"He has. Nothing as obvious as that. She will simply be making arrangements such as prepaying debts so that you appear to succeed without getting your eema beaten. Both of you will have to find ways to share your assignments so she can assist, without your being observed. There is a Bannik trailing you at great distance, relaying in their ways to another observing Bannik from Larran's. They are not wanting to discover anything amiss in your activities, but they can only block so much should you be too careless. And not incidentally, if you are serving Larran you must find what satisfies his suspicions to avoid probably lethal inquisitions to you and Chiana." He looked away for a moment. "Chiana...." he whispered.

"Damn." John nodded and they continued through the abandoned building to a door leading out another way. "Why do abandoned buildings look the same in every darn planet I see?"

Bursamen paused. "Any other questions?"

"Two. Why aren't I going back out the way I came in?" John waited.

"This way the Bannik will know you are now in communication with us. Therefore, they'd believe, in cooperation with their Oshana. If the Bannik's lapse in tracking you is discovered, he will be blamed without too much suspicion upon you."

"And I want that on my conscience? Okay other question. Why the hell hasn't Chi escaped that place by now?"

"For one thing, no one ever has gotten free of that "sick bastard." For another...."

"Yeah?"

Bursamen's eyes widened slightly with a bizarre humor. "Are you sure you want that on your conscience?"

John closed his eyes. "No" he winced.

Bursamen gestured to the door. John walked out and squinted at the sunshine. "That and we don't have a clue where to go if we did get out" he completed the thought out loud to himself.

---

Chiana bolted up from her sprawl across the bed. Somehow it felt like there were pins or bugs, yeah she decided, scratching her head, bugs, inside of her. They just wouldn't let her rest or truly unwind. Aimlessly wandering around to the other side of the bed, she grew even less comfortable. Pacing around in a cell wasn't going to help. She knew that all too well. Chiana stiffened her back to keep from bending over while intense hunger picked up another gut gripping spell.

"Nuuua! Aaaaeuah!" Chiana assaulted the ornate night table beside the bed, only succeeding in hurting her body further and working up to tears. Chiana collapsed back against the night table onto the floor along with some destroyed objects from the table. Deep whines and murmurs came out between hyperventilated breaths. Folding her arms she just tried to fight the shaking that seemed hezmona bent on taking her over.

The hard cold fears that she was losing her mind and control of her senses knocked her out of worrying about her entrapment. He wanted to see this. Larran wanted her to break and change like what must have happened to all the others he probably trapped. Give them a weeken, maybe two without freedom, activity or nourishment and they'd break. The vision of some she had seen in such captivity when she was caught in the Yunbik penal moon flashed in her mind. They were empty yet haunted, and so pitiful and pathetic, she could see and feel it all as if it were in the present. She escaped. Most didn't.

Chiana dropped onto her side on the floor and moaned out loud to steady the shaking. Couldn't think why she'd remember that and seem to be forgetting so much else, but she knew inside that it was getting to her. She began crying harder. How could she overcome or even tolerate what nobody else could? John he, he seemed to expect her to. But she was so deeply scared now, she couldn't do it. He'll see it, he'll just see her break. Distantly, she heard herself screaming.

It died back and reality returned as if she'd been unconscious. That was it, she would not go there anymore. Clutching her folded arms tighter, she fought to steady her quivering. Her voice was saying it was okay. She didn't really know why she was saying that. It wasn't. She finally got herself to stop doing that. That was it, she decided, nobody can control her, not even the self she wasn't in control of. That was it, but she was still so scared. Could she go on and do anything even if she didn't think she could?

"Take the stone" she exhaled through a tight jaw, a smile forced onto her tear streaked face.

She had. She really had done it. Where it was, or why she didn't remember, but somehow she knew what it meant and that she had done it. She knew it would mean so much to her someday. Here was that day, she smiled warmly. She had proven herself able to face anything, to overcome all. She'd survived.

Her body made a choke, but she shot upright. She sat to get a few more breaths then stood. It was almost time to be guest of disgrace at another lunchless lunch.

---

Chiana kept her eyes tracing the shiny gold patterns twining around on the turquoise ceiling decoration. They were pretty. She liked following them.

Anyway it was better than letting the food on the table drive her wild. It still threatened to. The deceptively delicate jeweled collar that held her neck to the bolted chair by a deceptively delicate shiny chain still rested on bruised flesh. The consequences from last time the aromas reached up through her nose and forced out her wildness was enough to hold it in check.

Besides. She didn't need it. Didn't, need it. Her head tocked up to follow the ceiling lines better. Her hand instinctively went to reach up to run a finger along the patterns before her eyes. The deceptively delicate jeweled "gift" bracelets chaining her wrists by deceptively delicate shiny chains to the bolted table prevented that. She liked to think she was as deceptively delicate but her still blued and raw wrists were testimony of the last time she tried proving it.

A tear pricked at her eye. So she smiled and jerked her head, making an amused noise to drown the whine. She locked the eyes at John. "My manners? Offend you?" she taunted through her dry voice and extreme entreating head quirk. Her eyes held a dangerous glint. But John kept mopping the plate clean with a Khuhukian Glu patty he called a "biscuit" like nobody's business.

"M'mon Chi-ana" he left a bit of the biscuit on the plate and wiped his hands with a fancy napkin. He nodded to Larran then gestured to Chiana. "Gotta get us some better lunch party man."

"Yes I can see where you might have a point" Larran quirked his glance to Chiana then quirked his brow to John. "Our guest's charm seems to be wearing a little....hm, thin." His eyes ran over her body.

Chiana whipped her head and leaned as far as she could toward John. Her eyes fixed on his plate. Her dry throat tried to swallow. "H-hey....m-myou wanna give m-m, the the rest of tha-that m-m bezkuits" she urged. It hurt so deep and so hard to beg now that it forced her to straighten and look away. No more. No more.

John ran the biscuit near her dry lips. A gasp escaped her but she kept her face away and she didn't try to bite it. Or him. He seemed somehow almost relieved. "Well" he blustered "darn right they're good. Not quite my Aunt Jemima, but hell, had worse." He ate the last bite while her eyes followed his fingers.

John removed the napkin from his lap. Larran watched that habit and had begun to emulate it to humor the alien. Chiana's eyes hungrily drifted to the table, seeing through it in her mind, and through his clothes. There was always her most favorite flavor of all flavors....the desire for pleasure rushed through her, raising desperate energy and heat. It washed away the hunger again, replacing it with an even more desperate hunger, but one she feasted herself in ever more often, ever more intensely.

"John" she spoke breathlessly "can, can if you're not" her head whipped and a smile crackled onto her face "not v-m-too busy after lunch can we talk...."

"Hell Larran's gonna show me his new wheels."

"m-w-wheels?" her tongue licked her dry lips by instinct. Her eyes stayed on the table.

"It's no problem" Larran assured "It looks like the lady is....mhm.....hungry for....something." Larran ran a piece of meat under her nose. She turned to him with a snap at his hand. "Oh!" Larran laughed. "Perhaps not."

"Not now" she tried to settle suggestively into the chair. John stood and ran a hand along her shoulderblade up into her hair. It was sexy and affectionate, with a demanding roughness, just like their frelling. She sighed with her mouth slack. She knew what he wasn't saying.

"Let's go see those wheels" John walked out. Larran chuckled to himself and followed. It would be arns before anyone would remove her. Chiana rolled her head back and abandoned herself to the arousal and the thoughts of that touch.

---

"Hey hey cool" John looked over the latest hover car in Larran's expansive parking pad. "It's so DeLorian. Or was that DeLuxian? Yeah it's foxy. This is a boxy one. Looked like they come in very boxy or very bubble-like, I wonder which one is more appropriate with the PTA types. And it's all in gray and black gosh you guy's imagination bowls me over." John traced a hand along the sleek lines and bent under the front of the car, trying to figure how it works.

"It has seating for 10" Larran remarked, more interested in John's behavior.

"Or 20 Chi's huh?" John was amazed to see that it looked very simple. Air blew from multiple well-placed adjustable vents. Lasers traced the distance to the surface from each vent to make quick adjustments in air pressure. "Think if it wasn't for the too powerful oil Sheiks and OPEC we'd probably have things like this at home. Not that I know where that was" John muttered, already wondering to himself what OPEC meant. "Don't suppose you do your own oil? Do any mods?"

Larran turned his head slightly.

"You know, boost the power, scour some pavement. Come to think of it, I can't see Nebari breaking speed limits. Scratch that."

"It's what is inside" Larran opened a door to reveal what looked like a bevy of Nebari girls in a limo complete with drinks and drugs. "And it's available to take you on your rounds. No need to taxi."

"Yeah but it looks like it could get taxing. Only missing the swimming pool" John remarked, looking away at finding Harvey raising a glass in the middle of the bevy of girls.

"Come on in John. It's a gray day but it's really quite warm in here. And this may be your lucky day."

"Close it" John said.

Larran shrugged at the crowd and closed the door. "Is there some reason you don't feel free to recreate?"

"Recreate" John looked straight ahead. "No but you just reminded me of something. How'd you like to come in from a fight and have all the babes see your beat up sweaty self huh? Ooooh that's a hot idea."

"Maybe" Larran suggested over John's shoulder "I should take the car and your clothes and let everyone see your beat up sweaty self hm?"

"Not happy seeing Chiana's? Buddy, you can't make me" John turned with a pat grin on his face.

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"Why is it never easy!" John yelled on his back and shoulders, on the sidewalk and a rock in the edge of Larran's yard, rubbing the side of his beaten face. "You guys just screwed your futures!" John pointed at the guard slaves that had thrown him from the window naked and beaten.

"Let me at them!" Harvey snarled, making threatening gestures at the window.

"Fat lot of good you did Harvey!"

Harvey stood over him. "At least I didn't get my ass kicked, John."

"Harvey, you idiot, we share the same ass."

"You have point I'm afraid" Harvey sat down in a thinking pose next to him.

"Uuuuungh" John groaned and dropped his arms and legs.

It seemed like only moments passed before he noted the skinny lady he'd met in the taxi standing near him in a black overcoat smoking her pipe. She took a good look over him and let out a sharp exhale. Amused. "I will have to ask you to tell me how this happened sometime."

"Well I will have to ask you not to ask me. Hell, you guys" he thrust a finger up at her "have to meet with me, so I had to refuse that bastard's vicemobile without looking like I was sore over missing Chi. Now I'm sore all over. Man what a mess. Damn. Why! It's never easy!"

"Well when you didn't show I decided I'd come by here and case it."

"Just in case?"

"Bursamen seems to be entertaining radical thoughts, impulsive brat."

"Yeah Persimmon's a good one, Tonic. You know I just figured why you guys don't just arrange some plan with these Banniks. Besides they're nuts."

"Tannac" she breathed out another breath of amusement looking at him. "Yes we don't trust them that far. Follow me then and we'll get you on your rounds" she turned and started walking without looking back. "And incidentally bandaged and clothed. I don't think the slaves watching you will care where you got the clothes so long as they don't have to watch you naked. Just strip when you return."

"Yeah you going to help with that too?" he asked her back getting up.

"Always helpful" she took another drag of her pipe and kept walking. "I live to help poor bungling suckers with cute faces."

"Hey I guess I'm in luck" he hurried after her, looking around and feeling fantastically stupid. "But then my luck could only go up."

"Here's hoping it's not the only thing."

"Very funny" he remarked.

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