Take A Sad Song
Page 3

---

Drep retrieved a bottle from the stash his great uncle had hidden behind the cupboards, pulled out a can of preserved meat from the stash his aunt had hoarded in a closet behind the toilet and hurried back outside in hopes the female hadn't gone too far. To the relief of his anxiety and increase in temperature of his crotch, she still stood where he had left her. "Hey Miss can I delay you a few more moments?" he called over. He waited a few moments for a response but nothing happened.

Staring sightlessly up the trail she had been taking, she seemed to be lost in her thoughts. At best. From her general size, neck and collarbones he could see that she was at least severely starved. It was more than possible that she was merely incoherent or faint from famine. Looking at her middle he could see that her stomach hadn't bloated, maybe because that didn't happen with her alien species or maybe she was beyond that. In fact her waist was lost in the fabric of her clothing but had to be the smallest he'd ever seen. Another possibility occurred to him as he closed in and she still hadn't moved. According to talk a local priestess had been knelt in the middle of some rite and found dead still in that position days later. Could this female have died and still be standing against the post gazing ahead?

The last thing he needed was to see more death, so he seriously considered leaving and never looking in this direction for a cycle or so. Besides being impractical he just plain couldn't help himself. He didn't want her to be dead and really wanted company. Well that and making love. So he tapped her arm. Then he was sent staggering back into and over a fence when she exploded into some sort of fighting stance. Her wild eyes calmed to a warm sparkle when she realized what had happened and saw him looking back up in shock from between his feet.

"S-ssorry" she smiled.

"I wasn't going to hurt you, I brought something!" Drep told her and held up the bottle "to drink." Where the can of meat went he didn't know, so when he stood back up he started looking and told her, "And something to eat. It's good, it'll still be good in a millennium. PAMS. Can."

"Can" Chiana repeated and started looking around too. At the same time they both saw it, sitting in an unrecognizable animal carcass. She stared at the little rectangular metallic can for a moment, at the carcass another moment, then the next moment grabbed the bottle from his hand, held it up and started toward the nearby building. "Gonna invite me in?"

"Yeah yeah yeah sure I was" Drep agreed while he stumbled into step along side of her toward the house.

"Do we have to hide in your room?" Chiana asked in good humor but remembered what he'd told her too late. Looking down around the ground and told him "Sorry. You said." Noticing the minced earth everywhere around the house she asked "What happened?"

"Tabegers" Drep said. "Roots, edible."

"Ate 'em all?" Chiana guessed.

"No no not me" Drep tossed his hand. "You haven't been here long?" he guessed, a little surprised from the looks of her.

"Not long" Chiana answered.

"Then how did uh" Drep gestured her over.

"Long story, bad trip" Chiana replied. "Ssoo?"

"People took everything" Drep explained. "Seen them in other places, digging with bare hands. They probably worked over the property. Except the livestock, it can....fight back. Besides we don't do that. Kill other's livestock. It's right next to frelling a sibling."

"That's a thought" Chiana smiled sarcastically. "But they don't want the PAMS either? Or this drink?"

"Couldn't find it" Drep explained and smiled because she was smiling. It immediately infected him and he thought how stunningly cute she looked. He was stunned, in fact. Standing with her in front of his door and staring at her for several very awkward moments while she shifted and flinched uncomfortably. "Oh" he opened the door for her.

To Chiana's surprise, the house, a square of two levels and what looked like four rooms in the lower floor, had some working lighting. Instead of climbing over as Drep did, Chiana did what Crichton used to call a "limbo" to pass under a fallen beam in the living area. That amused Drep and both of them laughed. She continued after him into a plain square room a couple heights wide where a crudely repaired table, chair and counter made up the remains of a kitchen. Drep pointed out the chair and apologized "Don't use the chair it's broken."

Chiana just stared at the bottle. Normally she would have been studying the bottle, feeling its textures and temperatures. But she was dimly realizing how worn she was that apart from bending down once to feel the dry shards of rock on a path, she had barely felt much of anything for some time.

Along another wall a collapsed bench heaped and Chiana went to sit against the top of it. Something sharp almost stuck her and she jumped and spun to face the junk. The object was a broken image frame and Chiana picked it up from the rubble. A man and a woman stared sternly back from the image. They looked like they could be Drep's parents. Her gloved thumb wiped over the picture and she was about to ask when Drep took the image.

"Missed one" he said and threw it out the nearby window. In a voice that Chiana took to be mocking one of them, Drep said, "Oh a big one will never hit around here."

Chiana had no answer for that, so she started trying to open the bottle. Her arm and hands shook but made no progress. Drep took the bottle and offered, "Why don't you get comfortable? I mean sit or find a cup or something?"

"Cup" Chiana repeated and probed around. Going to the standing counter, she put the cup down. "Comfortable" she repeated, peeled back her outer leather jacket and let it drop.

Although he was busy wrestling the bottle, Drep immediately looked over at her. A dark gray sheer under shirt with a scattering pattern of small black studs lightly veiled her. Underneath was a body closer to bone than he'd seen on anyone living and the skin colors, or more accurately shades, of her species seemed designed to accentuate that appearance. The attractive matte grays of her attractively taut skin and flesh varied from near ashen white at surfaces that would be regularly exposed to light or protruded to a charcoal dark gray to near black in areas that were recessed or would see less light. Her bowl of neglected hair followed the pattern, starting with black roots and quickly turning mostly shiny white for the rest of its length. A strange blend of beauty with deathly that he felt gave him an immediate taste for the macabre.

Strangely intrigued by her look, he turned his eyes back to the bottle but his mind kept thinking about her. Part of his mind anyway since he was preoccupied with hopes of making love after being alone for so long. If he'd spoken his thoughts he'd have been uttering prayers like, "If she were weak and frail, at least let her be flexible and easily mobile."

Chiana appeared at his side and Drep turned to stare at a small blade held up to his face. "Oh you f-found my uh uh uh kni-nife heh heh" he stuttered. Immediately afraid for his life as he was, if these were his last moments he was spending them looking past the knife. The front of her badly worn under shirt was opened completely. A fine final sight, he thought.

Drep didn't see her mouth drop open for a moment in astonishment and almost failed to notice her rolling her eyes up above his head and closing her eyes. Smiling patiently a moment later, she told him "Bottle. Give me the frelling bottle." He immediately did and she deftly worked the stopper free with the knife in microts. Pinching her lips in anger, she returned the knife by jamming it into a leg of the broken counter very near to his crotch.

Chiana muttered something about males and violence as she turned and walked to pour a cup of the drink. Drep just kept staring. "Ssoo do you want some?"

"Hey sorry about that but um" Drep said while he walked over to her, "it's been totally dead here so um. Yeah yeah I'll take a drink."

Drep enjoyed a drink from the cup while Chiana drank directly from the bottle. Refortified if only in his mind, Drep rested his forearms on the counter and asked her "What brings you uh. Here."

"To be among the living, a moment" Chiana replied with her hand purposefully sliding to a rest on his rump.

"I meant this planet" Drep insisted one moment before realizing he had been given the perfect invitation.

"Oh ho I just knew you would be here" Chiana sarcastically replied and baldly smiled.

His head dropped over his cup and garbled a laugh, pained from the suddenly clear need for laughter and frustration at his own dimness.

"I'll try the other side" Chiana said and moved her hand to the other side his rump. He laughed more easily and she patted his back. "There. Look. Why don't you tell me a little about this place while I drain your bottle."

"Hu" Drep barked. "I'd rather-"

"Drink" Chiana insisted. "You offered. Frelled the mood. Now I'm taking. Start talking."

---

"All they want is the rents and the duties and the kow tow" Drep was ranting when Chiana's attention returned from zoning off somewhere. "Soon enough I can't keep enough of these infernal Phoguls fed and my honorable land lord can have his land and see how much it's worth without its people. Bah. Won't cost him so what does he care."

Chiana summarized, "So the top one percent of the top one percent are going to be just fine but the ranks of the rest of the population is being moved down a few decimals. Happens to every so many worlds the Peacekeepers take over."

"They didn't take over" Drep told her. "Fools like my dad, they invited them. Peacekeeper worlds don't have endless conflicts like this system they said."

"But that's because" Chiana blurted but then decided she didn't have to argue the point to him. "I think you have an idea. Just be glad they didn't invite the Scarrans."

"Who? Oh oh."

"Didn't get around much did you?" Chiana assumed.

"No" Drep admitted. "Anyway I wasn't thinking about things like that."

Chiana smiled sadly. She learned that she should know "things like that" in childhood. This guy seemed like a naive child to her, one she envied in that way. Her mood lifted to be reminded how hungry she was for pleasure. "What aah, were you thinking about?" she leadingly asked.

"Uh. Getting ahead, something better than farming and livestock" Drep answered. "And uh."

"Naturally" Chiana said. "First thing I wanted to do was play and fool around and, you know. Had any luck?"

"Some but uh no" he said.

"Aw."

"I figured, get in a good position and" he shrugged.

"Sure" Chiana said then bumped her shoulder into his. "But I didn't go looking for the powerful" she told him. "Just what I liked, when I had a choice. Big shot. Beggar. Like me and" she frowned, shrugged and explained "maybe I'll like you."

"That is great" Drep said so adamantly that she could tell the drink was already getting to him. "That is great. That is what they all should be. All of them. Why couldn't I met you?"

"Wasn't there?" Chiana cast a wild guess.

"That's true, that's true" he sulked. He smiled at her and told her, "You almost make me glad I came back."

"Shouldn't have" Chiana confirmed. He nodded. Bored, Chiana told him "You're kinda cute."

"Thanks" he said. "You're cuter."

"Probably" Chiana had to agree.

"Huh" Drep said when he leaned his head back to look down at her from behind. "You look really skinny and gray, uh I mean you look good, I mean it's very different."

"Thanks" Chiana took that as a compliment she liked the sound of and made a fractured laugh Drep found endearing.

"You act kind of different too" Drep told her.

"Non conformist at heart" Chiana confirmed. "I gotta face it."

"That's great" Drep told her.

"Thanks" Chiana said again. "Why couldn't everyone be this agreeable."

Drep took a stiff drink, set the cup down, cleared his throat and told her with a deeper voice that sounded allot more awkward than he intended "Your lips look good too."

It took Chiana a few blinks but she finally agreed to humor the man in the hope they would get somewhere. Not that she always wanted instant gratification but she was feeling so awful for so long that love making couldn't come fast enough. Besides, some of her senses were stirring to a glimmer of former life.

Drep placed a nervous hand on her chin and placed a kiss on her charcoal lips. She hummed deep in her throat. "Mm" he hummed too and began to slide his hand along her face. To his amazement her skin was as silken to the touch as it appeared, a fascinating texture that seemed to urge his skin to touch. When he withdrew from the warm kiss he noticed the taste in his mouth. "Fresh" he described it.

Chiana shrugged. "Nebari. That can't be a curse in every way huh?"

"In no way I can tell" Drep said with a very big grin. Chiana smiled, wanly at first but warming. Drep turned his attention to pouring some more from the bottle into his cup and wondered, "Maybe I should get another can of PAMS." Chiana buried her face in her palms and put her elbows on the table. "What?" Drep asked. In case she was crying he stepped along side of her and held her against him by her other shoulder. "There."

Chiana dropped her hands onto the table, folded her arms and sighed dramatically.

Drep tore into a snicker and put down the drink. As soon as they turned to each other, Drep picked her up to place her on the counter facing him. Then he moaned and promptly passed out.

Chiana landed on her feet and tried to help him from falling. Despite her efforts the guy slipped from her almost like a boneless eel, sliding between her and the table, sliding between her legs and somehow ending up mostly under the table at the center of the room. She gaped at the pool of Drep for a moment before shouting a few nasty words and kicking at the deficient male, "Louse! Frelling cheekin! Drannit! You should stick with your animals! Frell you!" Flinging her arms, striking out at anything in sight, pushing in circles around the table and smashing the bottle on the table, she basically went fharbot until Drep moaned. Then she appeared over him, feeling the side of his face. "You-you okay?"

"Kind of....weak, what what happened?" he muttered.

With her anger simmering down Chiana remembered he was not in good shape and probably shouldn't have tried that at all. Her black eyes turned to huge pools of empathy and shame. Swallowing a lump then clearing her throat she told him, "Ah. Sorry. Umm. Gonna go. Thanks. It was uh. It was, that was nice."

"Yeah yeah" he groggily agreed but had no clue "it was. Was it?"

Chiana nodded. "Have a, have a PAMS. Rest up." With forced cheer she repeated "Gonna go. Bye."

"Huh?" Drep asked as he watched her get up and hurry out in a daze. "Wait. Wait!" he called. Moaning and groaning, he managed to stumble outside just in time to see her hurrying up the path into the purple mist, still fastening her jacket. "Oh frell" he groaned from the pit of his stomach and sank onto the ground near a post to rest in misery.

---

Next Page