SF: Now It's Your Turn: Dragon Scales

[cloudbusting]

Jewel Scales
by
Peg Fisher

Who knows what word that lauds or rails
Shall tip the balance of the scales...

Departure

The decrepit public announcement system sputtered and hissed, then
blatted out, "Now boarding for Outbound Systems - Hecate, Rampsworld,
Prydaine, Styge and Myers."
"Damn strange names they're givin' 'em now," muttered the elderly man
on the bench down from her. Meara gave him a nod as she wearily rose from
the butt numbing plas seat, hitched her carryall up onto her shoulder and
started off through the milling passengers, toward the gate.
No one was there to see her off. Alwyn and she had said their
goodbyes a week ago. No need for her to take comp time off from her data
processing job to do that, Meara had agreed. Even as kids, she and her
sister had never been that close. No, they could share a meal at Alwyn's
precise, tidy cupboard of a cottage and say their goodbyes quietly over a
glass of her homemade wine. Meara was content to have it so.
Nor had Josh shown up. With that she was not at all content, but she
was resigned by now, despite her unreasoning hoping. A deep ache arose,
and she suppressed it quickly. Still, her thoughts rebelled on her,
turning back to their last night together. She had wanted candlelight and
soft music, a last lingering tenderness. A romantic beneath her practical
surface, she'd _wanted_ parting to be a sweet sorrow. No such luck!
Instead the tension had begun to build before they had barely lifted a fork
at dinner. Why, why, had he had to bring up Roberto's offer _again_? And
on that, of all nights! The nerve of him! And the gall of Roberto for
putting him up to it! Thinking that all he had to do was make sad eyes at
her and say -
"But Meara, if you stayed, we could be together..."
"I'm going!" she cried. "Don't try to wheedle me, Josh Baxter! Think
I don't see the recruiters buzzing around you, treating you like the fair
haired boy, the hot prospect? Think I don't see you getting sucked in by
the Institute, just like I was, two years ago? I know how they are!
Roberto put you up to this, didn't he!"
"Meara, it's not like that!"
"The hell it's not! I had to fight every step of the way to get _out_
of there, and I'm finally free, I'm finally outbound, and right at the last
minute you think you can snag me back in? Think you're so subtle I won't
notice the little nudges and hooks you've been sending at me ever since you
walked in the door? Didn't you even notice I'm blocking? I've got years
of practice fending off that kind of manipulation. But I didn't expect to
have to deal with it from you!" He at least blushed.
"I tell you what, Josh Baxter. If you care so much, you show up and
get on board that shuttle with me. _Then_ I'll believe it's you wanting
me, not Roberto!"
Well, realistically, she'd known he wouldn't. The Institute had him
too firmly in its grip now to allow it. He'd be off back to his psi
training, they'd not post him on a permanent assignment until he was
finished that. Roberto had wasted no time roping him in as her
replacement, oh no. It was Josh's latent psi abilities that had drawn her
to him in the first place, and drawn Roberto right along behind her,
angling to reel him in. And he had, oh yes. She'd known that's how it
was, ever since she'd had to raise shields against Josh. She'd known it
was futile to hope. Still one sad, wistful backward yearning had longed to
see him stride down through the waiting room to meet her. But of course,
he didn't.
*Damn you, Roberto Ushigue! You take, and take, and _take_ from me.
I've got nothing left to drain, and still you want to suck me back in!
It's done, it's over! Let me go!*
Meara kept her guard up even now, despite having seen no overt sign of
them for the past few days, despite the psi traces being only minor and
fleeting. Could it really be, were they were releasing her at last?
Still, she'd stay wary until the shuttle hatch closed behind her. No sense
taking needless chances. Dealing with Roberto for two years had left her
more than a little paranoid.
She did allow her thoughts to turn ahead, finally. Once in the haven
of the ship she'd be safe. Roberto wouldn't touch her there, it was too
public, too much risk of bad PR. If he tried anything else it would be
here at the terminal, with its alcoves and back hallways to pull her into,
out of sight. Get beyond those, get aboard the shuttle, and she could
begin to relax. Only there could she finally let the stress begin to
unclutch from around her heart. She made her way cautiously towards the
exit, the last barrier between herself and freedom.
Meara clutched her ID card tighter as the boarding line dwindled ahead
of her. There was nothing illicit to detect, oh no - nothing to hold her
back, not she, she'd gone over every item excruciatingly. All non
exportables were disposed of, all the letting go was done, there was only
the final interminable waiting, and even that was almost over. She was
nearly there. "Just let me go, Roberto," she muttered to herself. *I want
_out_ of here! Away!* She broadcast that intensely, not caring who in the
crowd might be sensing.
She was passing the scanners now, nothing to blip, ah no. *Let me go,
let me go. There's no future with you, not now... My mind's made up, stop
tormenting me with old lost dreams!*
Just beyond the scanners was a last row of comm booths. The sound
system there was even more decrepit, to the point of working not at all.
It emitted only a muted crackling, nothing resembling speech. So it was
the flashing of the overhead announcement sign that caught the corner of
her eye, making her turn reluctantly to see her own name, Martinez, Meara,
blinking repeatedly, insistently, in red. Almost she walked away from it.
Then she sighed, threw back auburn hair from her forehead and went to glare
into the retina scan. Better to get it over with.
"Martinez, Meara. Confirmed," a mechanically neutral voice chimed,
and the screen filled with the recorded message.
Robert Ushigue looked out at her, his Institute grays impeccable, his
black hair waving crisply back from his brow. his smile white and wide.
*And false as your heart, you demon. Let me be!*
"...just wanted to wish you a Good Journeying, Meara," she heard his
oily tones say unctuously. "No hard feelings, eh? Bygones be bygones and
all that..."
*I doubt it. I _seriously_ doubt it.* Something was prickling at
her. Irritating, like an itch in the back of her thoughts. Surely the
fool hadn't tried to influence her _that_ way? He knew she was
resistant... She blinked and looked at the message slideways. Yes, sure
enough, there was the encryption. He must be doing it just to be annoying
then, he knew it'd never work. She scowled at the screen, where he was
saying, "And well - if you ever change your mind, you know where we are..."
*It'll be a cold day in the Netherhells, Roberto. That, I promise you!*
Swiftly she stabbed the delete button and listened with a small tight
flare of defiance as it proclaimed, "Message erased." She shook her head.
*So like him, though. Get myself braced for a last big battle and he does
some petty, spiteful little thing instead. That's Roberto all over.* She
turned and sped with long legged strides to the shuttle, and up the ramp.

Back in Robert Ushigue's office Josh Baxter frowned at the screen.
"No good, she's still going. The subliminals didn't work, and she's
got some sort of shielding raised against me now, I can't get through to
her at all. Damn. I'd thought sure we'd sway her somehow..."
"Oh, let her have her show of defiance!" Robert waved a dismissive
hand. "I've had her sent to the most boring pest ridden mudball in the
entire Outmarch! Six months on Myers has brought more than one would-be
defector to their senses. Many and many have come creeping gratefully back
to a berth at the Institute after there. Let her go! We know where she
is, and her file's flagged, she can't get passage out again without my word
on it. She's safe enough. Couple of months from now I'll send you out
there to check up on her, and she'll be singing a different tune, I
guarantee it."
Josh frowned. Behind his own shields he thought, *Oh, but you don't
know her like I do!* Aloud, though, he said nothing.

"Everything looks fine, Seria Martinez - " said the ship's own medtech
politely, as he checked her in from the shuttle. An old-fashioned
courtesy, it was not required, and yet she found that it pleased her for a
fellow practitioner to take time to greet her in person. She smiled.
"Call me Meara."
"Well, Meara, I see you'll be getting off at Myers. It's our last
stop on the route. Most of the boomers are already down there prospecting,
all we've got this time is a load of processed food, assorted supplies and
equipment, two months mail, and you. Sorry you won't have any company on
the flight down."
"Oh, that's all right. I'm solitary minded by nature."
"Um. That's a good thing, probably, where you're headed." He paused,
tapped in an entry on his comp pad, then fidgeted absently, eyes down.
*He's concerned about something,* she realized. *Wants to talk with
me, isn't sure how to start?* She smiled at him reassuringly, and sent the
small psychic nudge, *I'm listening...*
She felt him respond, and he turned his eyes to meet hers again. She
looked at him enquiringly. "Yes? What can you tell me about Myers? I had
the standard briefing, but that's not like firsthand observation..."
"Got a concern to mention," he started in. "We're the only legitimate
transport that runs out far as there. I've got all the passenger rosters,
health records, all the registered deaths and departure listings. There's
damn few people down there, only 583 at present. 584, with you. It
doesn't look to be a world folks want to settle, what with New Terra and
Reachfar and Oz II opening up. They all have better climate and low rates
on land, much more attractive for settling minded folks. So Myers gets
just boomers, trying to earn a stake to pay for one of those grants, and
then move on to claim it, or else move on to look for a better and bigger
strike. Only families that went there have done that, and gotten out. So
what I'm trying to say is, it mostly loner types down there now. Hermits,
strays and not a few crazies. You need to know, you'll be one of the few
females at all on the planet, even."
Unconsciously her hands splayed out from her waistband, fingers
massaging an ache, an emptiness... He noticed the gesture, face softening
briefly, sympathetically. She looked him squarely in the eye, not avoiding
the sympathy, yet not yielding to it either. "Oh, it's all right. I
haven't been female for a while, now."
"Miss it, do you?" he asked gently.
She sighed. "Aye. But it was the price of getting off Earth. No one
with hereditary defects goes out fertile, you know that."
He nodded, understanding. He asked no questions, yet he seemed
willing to listen, and she found to her surprise that she wanted to talk
about it after all. His quiet attention comforted her somehow.
She drew a deep breath, then began, "There's diabetes on both sides of
my family, all the way back. That's what kept me wrestling with the choice
to stay fertile, or to give it up and go. Alwyn, that's my sister, she's
content with a tiny scrap of land and a garden. I was never so. I think,
underneath, I knew I had to be out and away."
"But not in the first rush..."
"No, nor even the second. It took me a while to decide. I must've
knocked through half the temp jobs and all the former frontiers of Terra
before I could sort myself out. *Before the Institute chewed me up, and I
dragged myself free.* Finally in Alberta I went for med tech, after I had
the," she swallowed. "The hysterectomy. That particular giving up was not
easy. I always wished for a daughter, it was hard to set that aside. Yet
by the time they'd gengineer a child they'd let me bear, she'd be more
theirs than mine, anyway. *And the Institute's had too much from me
already.* "I had to choose as I did. Even so, it was hard. Very hard.
Well, anyway. Here I am, in the 3rd rush, bound for the most
backwater planet they could find me, at my own request." She gave him a
rueful grin.
"And that turns out to be Myers?"
"So they tell me. Something about the place, delicate machinery keeps
breaking, nothing they do works. So they need a live medtech, that can't
break down like the autodoc, the job posting said. Though how you can
break an autodoc is beyond me, they're such tough little boggles."
"Beats me either. Guess you'll find out pretty soon, though..."
"Yeah, I reckon..."
"We'll wake you at your port of call then, Ser- err, Meara.
Oh, and I'm Rick, by the way. Richard Stuart Gray. I always forget my own
name til last, somehow." He grinned and offered a strong brown hand. She
took it and grinned back.
"Thanks for letting me know about that, Rick. And thank you for
listening. That was kind."
"My pleasure," he said softly, and left.
My word, she thought as the coldsleep settled over her, I believe he
really meant it. How curious...

Meara roused. The pallet she lay on was blood warm and vibrating
enough to equal a rousing shake of the shoulders. An insistent
announcement was whining, "Landing in 3 hours. Repeat, 3 hours. All
passengers wake. Report to shuttle. All passengers wake..."
"Stupid machine. I'ma on'y passager left," she mumbled, and managed
to sit upright. The announcement stopped, but her head spun dizzily.
"Oogh. Sleepin' sickness..." But she knew better than to lie back
down. The bloody annoying announcement would start bleating again, and
that would be worse. Blearily she staggered to the head, stuck herself
into the shower pod and cycled for 3 seconds of needle mist, ice cold. The
resulting shock cleared her senses and set her brain working at normal
again, even if her body was still sluggish. She dried, dragged herself
into a coverall, fastened up her tote, and descended to the shuttle bay.
Rick was there to greet her. "Down so soon? Plenty of time yet."
I get restless. As well fidget here as there. Be ready when it _is_
time, that way."
"Ah. Well, that's fine, not a problem. Lt. Connell will be here in a
while to pilot you down, he's monitoring the equipment loading at the
moment. Gives me a chance to say goodbye." He paused, then added a bit
bashfully, "Y'know, it's been a pleasure meeting you, Meara."
She smiled warmly at him. "I've enjoyed talking with you too, Rick."
To her suprize, she found that was a truth, not mere pleasantry. "And
though it sounds like Myers has little or no attractions to offer for R&R,
still, look me up if you ever do take shore leave there."
"Hey, it can be pretty boring up here just riding herd on a bunch of
shipping pods, let me tell you! Fair warning, I might well take you up on
that!"
"Good! We'll plan on it, then. When will you be back?"
He made a face. "Not for 2 months, I'm afraid. But when we do
return, I'm bound to be dropping off supplies to the infirmary, which you
are bound to be checking in. So I'll find you there and we'll go out for a
meal or something. Sound ok to you?"
"Sounds like a plan indeed! See you in 2 months, then." *Almost, I
wish it were sooner. Still, I'm too raw from Josh just now. Two months is
a breather. Enough time to lay some memories to rest. So, Richard Stuart
Gray, I _will_ look for you. We'll see if you remember...*
She knew she could plant herself indelibly in his thoughts if she so
chose. Yet that kind of psychically imposed influence was exactly what
she'd left the Institute to get away from. No, if Rick Gray remembered,
he'd be doing it on his own. Then it would be for real, and worth waiting
for...
A tall dour faced man appeared, walking toward then down the hangar bay.
"Well, here comes your pilot. Have a good flight, and I'll see you
when we get back."
Then he was away out the port and the pilot was silently motioning her
aboard. Lt. Connell seemed as reticent as Joe was open, she observed. She
took her position and strapped in, then meditated during the instrument
check, and slid from that state back into renewed drowsing.
It was the movement of the shuttle that roused her again. The air had
cycled out now, the hatch opened, and they nosed forth, down toward a dull
and muddy looking little orb. Myers.
"OK, new life, here I am," she whispered to herself. "Wonder how this
is gonna be..." Better, she hoped. Freer, anyway...

Doldrums

Two weeks later Meara knew exactly how it was going to be, and she was
bored stiff with it already. This did not bode well, she feared. She had
the routine of her new job down, and wished she didn't. What little she'd
brought with her was unpacked, all her supplies were inventoried, and she'd
explored the length of Main (also One and Only) Street. There was the long
shed that served the boomers for a sleep barracks when they came in from
their claims. There was the Post Office/General Store. There was the
bank, which was mostly a vault built into the hillside, and used almost
exclusively for storing the boomer's gemstones until the shuttle got back
to take them offworld. There was a small, empty Universalist chapel that
looked much the worse for wear these days, and harbored little lizardlike
beasts. Last, there was Striker's Bar and Grill, conveniently located just
across the street from her own infirmary. Once she'd seen all these places
there was precious little else to do in there in Rock Gap, beyond have a
drink in the bar, of an evening.
Yet it was odd, she kept having the nagging feeling that there was
something she'd missed finding, something important, but she couldn't for
the life of her tell what it was. It kept her nerve endings tingling with
anticipation, her senses reaching out trying to find an elusive something
that stayed just beyond her reach. She lost sleep over it, to the point
where she overcame her distaste for Jack Hogan's spiced beer and began
nursing one while she sat and talked with the sandgrubbers, late into the
night. Passed the time, and put her to sleep after.
Days, though, she had really begun feeling restless for lack of
something to turn her hand to. The miners were an aggravatingly healthy
lot. They brought her little or nothing to do. She played all too much
solitaire. She was even beginning to think seriously about trying to
repair the autodoc, just to have something even remotely task oriented
going on. Not that she was anybody's mechanic. Far from it. Still,
considering that all the little bot would do now was generate a strange
wailing hum and burp out Parson's Digestive Mints in odd nauseating shades
of purple and mauve, she doubted that she could make things very much worse
by having a go at it.
At least there'd been three Strike days already to brighten up the
tedium, with the boomers all stopping in to show off their findings. Well,
she could be a new audience for them, admire their prizes, anyway. That
was something. And truly there was beauty in the stones of Myers, a sharp
contrast to the dull muddy dreariness of its swampy terrain. She'd
marveled at star opals and vermilion jade, watched the blinkstones take
fire and begin to pulse one by one as they warmed in her hands, and grown
awed at the rainbow sheens in the odd vertebra-like discs that Yanni Samms
and his partner Mole Minkowski had found. Dragonbones, Yanni called them,
and gave her a triple joined one. "Bring you luck!" he said with a wink.
Mole had nodded her grizzled head, beaming agreeably. The two of them were
brother and sister, despite the names.
"Mink upped and died on me, last strike but one," Mole had confided,
"and Yanni's buddy Sedge took off with a synth player, so him 'n me, we
teamed back up again. Doin' all right for ourselves too, got a good run on
local amber, to start, then hit blinkers like you see there." She stirred
the glowing pile on the table before them with a gnarled forefinger. "And
y'know, 's funny, but things do seem to be runnin' smoother since we found
them dragonbones. Water pump stopped losin' pressure, 'n then we found a
nice little pocket of irisite." She passed over an indigo crystal cluster
with deep purple veinings. "Rare, that is. Don't find it every day.
Worth quite a bit. So, I do believe they're good for luck, myself, after
that."
"Bout all they are good for," mumbled Reds Turner. "Ain't nobody buys
'em!"
"Oh, but they're lovely!" Meara exclaimed. "_I_ would!"
"Well, now, ma'am, you save your credit for stuff from offplanet,"
Yanni said. "Mole 'n me, we'll bring you all you want of this - enough for
a whole jacket if y'like. We got tons."
Yanni was a calm, cheerful, balding but full bearded bear of a man who
could and often did settle arguments at Striker's by simply strongarming
the two arguers' heads together. He carried a bottle of headache remedy
which he thoughtfully offered the combatants when they regained
consciousness. Refilling that for him was becoming her one and so far only
regular event during office hours. Even so simple a thing as that, she'd
begun looking forward to, to her dismay.
"I need a hobby," she declared over her beer that night. "You guys
gimme nothing to do."
"Bored?" asked Jack the barkeep. He raised a laconic eyebrow.
"Too right! Everyone here's healthy as a horse."
"May be why we lose so many medtechs. That, and they get tired of the
rain." Something else lurked behind that in his thoughts, too, but she
couldn't quite catch it. Or she was imagining? She wasn't sure, even just
one beer made her sensing muzzy. Ah well, no matter...
Yanni nodded agreement. "Medtechs come, medtechs go, and only us
sandgrubbers stay. We got the disease, see. The gotta-get-mores."
"Well I got a suprize for you, Yanni Samms. I got no plans to leave.
So I may just have to turn into a sandgrubber myself. You reckon I could
get somebody and their partner to show me how to prospect? Looks like
there's more than enough unclaimed land around. Some of it not even that
far from here, I heard Red say..."
"Well, now, ma'am, I guess me and Mole, we could show you 'round after
a whiles."
"Sure," piped up Mole, "Just let me get ol' lazybutt here to finish
sortin' and gradin' the stuff we got from our last dig, so we can get it
turned in for cred before the shuttle comes. Got a new hydro processor to
pay for." The short woman fixed Yanni with her trademark nearsighted
squint. "Brother Yan there, he loves to sidetrack, just give him a chance,
he runs with it. But work's gotta happen, even so. Lemme haul him back to
it for now, and when we get done, we'll give you a holler."
"OK," Meara had agreed, then finished the beer and took herself back
out through the drizzle.
"What _is_ there about this place," she kept asking herself, as she
crawled into bed. "It's hot and squodgy dank, muddy and torturously dull,
except for Strike days. So why does it keep feeling like that's all just
some strange kind of cover, a camouflage to keep me from knowing what's
really going on? I feel like something big is waiting to happen, something
wild and exciting and dangerous. Dangerous, ha! Fat chance!"
"Still," she argued with herself, "my senses are always on alert.
Yeah, but why, there's been nothing to spot! I'm in a gray town by a brown
swamp where my biggest business is dispensing detox tabs. Anybody and his
brother's bot can do that, what do they need a medtech for? So far it's
about as dangerous as a hangnail. Except maybe the rumors... But that's
nothing I can pin down yet."
Ah yes, the rumors. No one wold tell her, the newcomer, what they
were. The gossip buzzed behind her, fleeting, just tantalizingly out of
reach. She'd seen the sideways glances, there in the bar, noticed after a
while how certain conversations dwindled and died as she came in, then
rebuilt gradually into mumbled whispers she could only pick up snatches of.
Fragments like "...scaly. With big..." And "...teeth, I'm tellin' ya,
pointy...!" And "...never did find ol' Sanders..." Bit by bit she'd begun
piecing together those snatches, but what she'd learned was, as yet, full
of holes as a cobweb, and about as substantial. Still, she began to build
up an impression of something lurking back in the far-marshes, or up in the
high hills where prospecting was chancy and only the desperate and strike
crazy dared to go. Something huge, reptilian, menacing, mysterious, and
something that the miners as a group were trying to keep her from knowing
about.
*Ah! Maybe there's more than one reason why Yanni so determinedly
thumps heads at the brawls. A guy who's out cold can't babble secrets and
let things slip to me. Hmmm...* With that, she had drifted off into
slumber herself.

The next day she was playing her 17th form of archaic solitaire for
the umteenth time when Yanni stopped by to refill his supply of headache
medicine.
"Yep, we had a real humdinger of a brawl last night!" Yanni's eyes
sparkled cheerfully. "Just after you left, it were. Gus Simonson took a
swing at Rafter Louie over some fool thing or other, so Louie clocked him a
good one an' broke his nose. Blood all over ever'where. Jack swears he's
gonna charge the cleanup to their tabs this time. Went into a grand
freeferall after that. Me'n Mole went back to back, fendin' 'em off.
Quite a ruckus there for a while, wonder you didn't hear us."
"Yanni, I had a beer. One beer. I don't get drunk on just one, never
that, but I do sleep like the dead from it. Back at school I slept through
a fire drill one time," she explained, adding, "well, drat. Little enough
goes on here. Wish I'd seen it."
Yanni nodded. "Man oh man, it were lively there for a while!
Cleaned me out of my last dose of the remedy." He held up the now empty
bottle. "I could use to get me a refill if ye're not too busy..."
"Busy, hah!" She waved towards the cards. "I wish! Prince of a man,
grant me this task, however small. It at least brings some variety to my
day." She took his bottle and went into her pharmacy alcove, automatically
reaching for the correct stores. "Y'now," she said as she filled the
bottle for him, "I just about wish you all would have one of these brawls
when I was over there myself, instead of over here falling asleep from beer
and boredom. I'd feel like I was at least doing something useful, patching
you back up. But nobody even lets me _see_ a busted nose, much less set
it. All the good I do here is just doling out ache meds to you." She
deftly ran his credcard through the meter, then handed it and the bottle
back to him.
He ducked his head sheepishly. "Aw, ma'am! The boys don' want
t'bother you with that little nothin' stuff. We c'n handle it."
Meara rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well so can _I_ handle it! I've got
certification in emergency field treatment, why don't you guys let me _use_
it?"
"Um. We didn't want to scare you off? Last tech but one, he left on
the next flight from the one that brought him. And the one in between him
and you, she took one look at Main Street in mudtime and went right back up
on the shuttle she'd got in on. Didn't even stay the night. So now you're
here, nuhbody wants t' do nothin' t' make you wanta leave." He turned the
bottle around in his hands, looking at it and not at her.
*And something else, Yanni, I can feel it. What aren't you telling me?*
She sent a query at him, and he blurted out, "Fever season's in
another couple weeks, we'll need you desp'rate bad then!"
"Ah. And the next shuttle leaves six days from now. You were afraid
I'd be on it?" He nodded dolefully.
"Well, tell the boys they don't have to worry. I got nothing to go
back to, and an ex I'd just as soon never see again. Like I said, I'm
staying."
"That's good news, ma'am," he smiled, brightening up. "Real good!
I'll tell 'em, sure. Mole, she'll be glad too."
"Yeah, well, tell 'em to start letting me do my job too, will you?
Send that guy with the busted nose in, I want to check it."
"Will do, but Gus is a touchy feller, kinda notional. I can't promise
he'll listen."
"Then maybe I'll have to hire you to fetch him for me."
He grinned widely at her. "If I c'd catch 'im. Gus ain't much
thicker than a sapling, but he's quick as a bogsnake. Slippery. He don'
want to do somethin', he's of into the swamps, snugged tight in some
bolthole of his and nobody's gonna pry 'im out."
She shrugged. "Ah well. Ask him to drop in for me anyway, just in
case. Oh, and speaking of asking, got a question for you myself."
"Oh? What's up?" He gave her a wary look, and seemed to be bracing.
*Not the reptile creature, not yet. Let's test the waters here. I'll
give you my _other_ concern, to start.*
"I gotta admit, I've been wondering about this," she told him. "Why
is it that none of you guys has even made a pass at me? Not even one? My
face is ok, I don't stink or have rat breath, but nevertheless I've been
here nearly two months, and I might as well have checked into a nunnery.
What gives? I'm beginnin' to think I've landed on a planet of
heterophobes, or something."
Yanni dropped his shoulders, clearly relaxing.
*So. Whatever you're worried about, that one's not it. Still, we'll
start with that, and see where it takes us.*
"Now, ma'am, it's not you!" he assured her. "Purty as a pitcher, you
are. No ma'am, it's us. But it ain't that either, cep' for Jethrie 'n
Martin, and Tyler 'n Amos. They're ol' married men anyway, been together
years. No ma'am, it's somethin' way different 'n that."
"Well, what? Will you tell me?"
"Yes, ma'am. It's the fever dreams. Comes a night out on the swamps
when it catches you up, and you burn high and hard, and you gotta have
clear water or you won't make it through, and there's some each season as
dies just from that. But during the burn, if you sweat enough, then
there's the dreams. Wilder and sweeter than sex, or finding, or
_anything_! That itself's enough to keep some men here. Jan, for sure,
he's addicted. Gonna overburn one night, but ya cain't tell 'im. Well, we
all go t' hell in our own way."
"And these dreams, they reduce desire somehow? Cause impotence?"
"Wun't say reduce so much, more like replace. Once you get deep into
fever dreamin', it eats your whole life up somehow. None o' yer other
needs seems t' matter anymore. Only the need to burn again and take up the
dream where you left off." He leaned close, and his voice dropped to a
cautious whisper. "There's some burners who's disappeared! Vanished
altogether. Ol' Sanders and his kid, Roolie, then Clase, Silvie Mott,
Seamus and Feral, all of 'em, just all plain gone. Never even found the
bodies, not a hair, not a bone, nothin'! Why, they say - "
Suddenly the port swept open and thin, haggard man with a black eye
and a badly swollen nose half fell, half lunged through it. He lurched
toward them, wildeyed, staring and terrified.
"Speak o' the devil... Gus! What's wrong?" Yanni grabbed him by the
elbow to steady him. Gus raked breath back into his lungs.
"You gotta help me! You gotta go to him!" He clutched desperately at
Yanni's sinewy forearm. "Hurry! It's my partner Jan! He's dyin'!"

To be continued...

Copyright 1997 by Peg Fisher.