The BLTS Archive - Bite The Bullet first in the Riding The Tick series by R.Schultz (cousindream@aol.com) --- Disclaimer: All rights to Star Trek belong to Paramount Studios. At no time do I wish to deprive Paramount of any money. I'm just borrowing a universe or two. I promise to return it as good as new. Honest Injun. Story mine under common-law copyright. 6,250 words long. February, 2000. Spoilers: This story is set in a time frame many years before "Farpoint" and 'our' ENTERPRISE. May be archived. Warnings: In here is much violence and bad words. Loving relationships between (fictional) consenting women (f/f love) are mentioned. If this bothers you, please do not read. There is lots of Angst but no explicit sex. Even so, be warned. --- Somewhere on the planet Turkana IV, it is raining. The Chop Madchen was staring at Ishara with eyes round with fear. Too bad. It had been a pretty face on that cute little oriental body a moment ago. No longer. The oriental girl's legs were spread wide as she leaned back against the three-wheeled Vemi. Her dress was a mess, with blood from her throat. Her face had already attained that waxy blue they get when they're finishing it. Chop's looked just like anyone else when they're sliding. I hissed at Ishara again: "End her!" The driver moaned something, from where he lay in front of the vehicle. Imke put a charge into the side of his head, the barrel actually in his ear. He jerked once, and ceased his moaning. I watched the spent plastic wafer from the mini-Angstrom describe a smoking arc through the rain. I looked around swiftly, then slowly, again. My rain-cowl made it hard to see, so I threw it back. It was extremely important to get a good peep. Making sure no one had scanned us. There were still no inn's or by's in eyeball to complicate matters. Who would have to be killed. However, there were an awful lot of bright lights here, and it made me really nervous. The three Grab's were doing nothing fast, except bleed. I was pretty sure I had toasted all three of the muscles, guards, with my first rounds. Nonetheless, I dropped a charge each in the heads of the nearest How's. This time smoke issued from the blacktop underneath them, as the blasts went through and charred the surface. The middle Grab was on his back, and when I stood over him, his eyes popped open in surprise. He blinked first at my face, his lips moving. Then he saw the little plastic Angstrom in my left hand. If he was thinking about anything at all at that point, it was very likely he was thinking how the plastic weapon explained why their alarms hadn't bawled. He focused his eyes on the barrel when I pointed it at his head, then he forced his eyes closed. "Bhis'mi'llah!," he rasped faintly. Then I gave him a charge in his open mouth. That left the Tax Collector herself. I tried to wipe the rain out of my eyes, impossible to do in these plas gloves. I was ignoring the stinking smoke this ambush had left even in this downpour. It was beginning to come down harder, and I smiled at our luck. It was turning out to be a perfect night for a shooting, for an ambush. I could feel a hint of the screaming edge leave me as everything looked better and better. Ishara, however, was still staring into the black eyes of the Chop woman. Not good. The barrel of her slug thrower was not quite touching the cheek of the pretty young woman. The look on Ishara's face was not reassuring. Even under her cowl and face-shield she looked almost as bluish as the Tax Collector did. The barrel of her notch was most certainly shaking. Maybe it hadn't been such a great idea to bring the kid along. "You know the rules," I quietly said. Leaning close to her ear, I hissed harshly at her, making her jump. "You don't do the toast, you don't get the big K's. All you get is the fall-back C's. Do you want 'em, or don't you? Being my sister doesn't cut any foam with me. Rules are rules!" In response Ishara turned a slack-jawed face to me. Maybe she was trying to plead, maybe she was in shock. There had been an awful lot of blood when I'd toasted those Alliance Grab's. Old type charged-round weapons tended to be brute force things, them and the slug-throwers. Nothing so elegant as a good cauterizing phaser, or disrupter. Or a nice sliv, for that matter. Just have to watch out for the splatter with a sliv, that's all. However, now the Chop was looking at me, trying to plead for her life. Hell, this needed to be finished. With a brittle bite to my voice, I reminded Ishara of a few facts. "Fat Freddy'll give you two or three thousand C's any day of the week. Just be his little girl for an hour. Would you like that instead? Spend a few hours with Fat Freddy?" I put my mouth close to my little sister's ear, and yelled suddenly: "END IT!" Ishara jerked, and so did the notch in her gloved hand. A small cartridge case spun across my line of vision, the case already shredding in the rain. The compoloidal-coated plastic bullet made the Chop's head slap hard against the vehicle's side. Her face ballooning instantly as the gas from the discharge got under the skin. Like someone had shoved an apple under her cheek. Ishara looked in bad shape, and I cursed softly to myself. "Once more, Ishy, once more," I firmly demanded of her. She jerked the trigger again, and the impact this time prompted the Chop woman to slide sideways to the ground. That face didn't look pretty anymore. "It gets easier after a while," I crooned to Ishara through my rain-shield. Ignoring her sick look. "Now let's get OUT of here!" I grabbed my sister's scrawny little arm, harder to do than I'd thought. We were all wearing plasgloves, and our new rain-suits were making noises in the sudden silence. As I pulled her away from the three-wheeled Vemi, I congratulated myself on how tidy everything had been. Excepting the bodies and the bleeding. There weren't even many holes in the vehicle. Little purebond and it'd be good as new. The rain paused for a minute, and Imke sauntered up to the Chop, bending over to gaze at her closely. Amazed despite myself, I observed Imke pull at the corpse. Lifting the woman's antique short dress. A sliv appeared in her hand as she cut apart the Madchen's dark and fouled underclothes. Imke ripped the last of them off, and gazed intently down at the female, adjusting a leg to expose her more. Not that the Chop was in any condition to object, but it struck me as a very weird thing for anyone to do, even Imke. Imke may be my slot, but sometimes she acts funny. The lull in the rain continued for a few seconds, until I was able to ask her: "What in hell are you DOING, bitch?! You lost your rats entirely? You bounced out of your skull? You want to face some toasted Chop or WHAT? Start treading meters, you dumb slot, we've got to absent this down scene!" Hair wet even under her cowl and face-shield, Imke had a pleased smile twisting her face. My little blond jerked the skirt back over the exposed and toasted Chop. Pleased with herself, She twirled the little Angstrom around her gloved trigger finger. She slowly walked towards me, her touch of overbite showing in a smile that was suddenly not quite as sexy as it had been that morning. Every once in a while Imke had the ability to take even me by surprise, and I'm not very pleased with surprises. Surprises are for people who don't have control of their own lives, and I was tired of surprises. Mostly Imke was just pleasantly lacking a few rats in the brain pan. Just enough to make her fun in bed. This was more, this was surprise-making. It was disturbing, and I didn't enjoy not being able to keep a surmount on all the problems. "Don't act like you're gettin' dry-fucked, sweet-butt," Imke offered with as much snap as she could manage when her hair was as bedraggled as it was. "Just satisfying a little curiosity." I must have had a strange look on my face, because Imke lost a lot of her arrogance at that point. "Li'l Bump told me Chop women had their slots on sideways," Imke explained. "Didn't believe her none. But she also said they didn't have any hair there. She was right on that!" She waved back at the corpse, continuing with; "Did you see her? Just a little wart's worth at the top, and that's all!" With a wicked grin she added, "Except for that, she's as bald as little Ishy here." Ishara heard that, and tried to lay a nasty look on Imke. "You been peeping on me again, you old dyke bitch?", she asked. Yes, old, a year younger than me. Old. Fourteen T-years. "Relax, pocket size," Imke chuckled, "you don't give me no itch." Imke tried to flip her skirt at Ishara, impossible to do under these raincapes. "Get a pair of milkers on you, and maybe I'll change my mind," she drawled. I glared at her for that remark, making an audible growl in the back of my throat. Imke immediately quieted down. I reminded them we had a pitching to accomplish. Had to retro the notches. In seconds we were nearly a block away, in the entrance of an alley. First we took off the near-transparent bootlets. We were always looking around as we worked to get the covers off our regular boots. This part of our ambush was dangerous. Someone could have put the Razzer's on us already. Ishara was complaining, so first I had to cuff Ishy to get some rats back into her head. Move on, get all the protective gear off, stop playing. In seconds our clear crinkling over-capes had joined the boots on the pave. The thin Medico gloves were used as raingloves. The nose filters. The transparent face shield, mouth catch, all of our filtering gear went on the pile. Just to be safe I had insisted we include our weapons. All of them. Even sliv's. We were now innocent unarmed civilians, as planned. Everything guilt-making sat on my spread rain slick. Outer jackets, gloves, sliv's, guns, filters, face protectors. Everything that could possible have a trace of ambush on it. It made a sizable plastic and deadly pile in the gutter. I popped the cap on one container of Pyro, Imke the other. Both bottles of Pyro were carefully squeezed over everything. We gently laid both open bottles on the weapons and backed away. Already the chemfire was melting down and spreading over everything. No longer connecting us to what had gone before. When the pile appeared to be covered by a glowing green paint, I turned and left. Imke and Ishy were already loping past the corpses and their vehicle on the other side of the street. If a line was drawn from the bodies to the meltdown, it would lead away from the direction we really took. Also at an angle from our real dispersal plan. Rain fogged my vision for block's, until it let up again. I sprinted happily past Ishara and Imke for a good block before slowing down. Ishara didn't have the legs to keep up for long. Kids. Imke caught up first, not even breathing hard. As we slowed to await a lagging Ishara, Imke linked an arm in mine. If we looked hard, we could still make out a greenish glow far behind us. Back there, the meltdown was glowing a hot green in the rain. Someone had probably spotted the chemfire by now. By now there was nothing left. Imke leaned over to caress my cheek and breasts. "Natasha," she purred in the rain, "I wanna fuck now. I wanna fuck you. Right now!" Her hands continued to roam, as Ishara came up. "Let's go someplace real nice," Imke crooned. "We got enough C's for a fancy room, maybe with satin sheets. Stuff ourselves with shishlek. Smoke a little good gwana, and drink some real sweet wine, and after I'm through you'll walk crooked for a month. We don't have to go back for another week. The cap don't expect us until then, there's no hurry." Ishara gave Imke a dirty look, hands in the pockets of her short jacket, rain dripping off her little nose. "And what'll we do with the kid?," Ishara whined through the rain. "Tell the little lizard to stay in the closet? Or spend the night in meat rack park and meet interesting people, na? Or maybe I should hold the lube this time, and start improving my education, eh, Big Sister?" I stopped suddenly and pivoted, grabbing Ishy before she could dance away. In a panic she jerked out of my hand, and rubbed her wet arm as I quietly reminded her of the law according to Yar. "You're my little sister, Ishara, but TASHA...ME....I...choose who I spread my legs for. Not you. And if I face some Mad, if I face Imke, that's my tab. Not yours." Imke was nervously patting my arm now, distressed at my tone of voice. In a much more normal tone I looked at the sky and continued. "It's going to rain all night, dear Madchen. Let's get going, now, and get to Franco's. The sooner I get a few meth's under my skin, the better I'll feel." --- LATER, A KLICK AWAY --- Inside of twenty minutes we were inside Franco's, enjoying the excessive warmth. I felt much better. I was at my goal, and it felt wonderful to get under cover from the rain. Some of the old Croc's along the stand-up bar gave Imke appraising looks when we came in, but turned away when I stared at them. Ishara practically ran to be first in the dumper, and Imke chuckled in my ear. "She's probably going to be avoiding me now, afraid I'm going to palm her hard little butt." Imke caressed my own ass possessively when she saw I was being scanned by a plump young Mad in a long robe. "Pardon me while I go rearrange my hair. Maybe I'll also pat Ishy on the rear. She HAS got a tight little rear." Probably all Imke was going to do was tease Ishy, but I didn't like it much. Trying to look at my baby-doll with a forbidding frown, I replied; "Green fruit'll give you a bellyache if you eat it." Imke stuck her tongue out at me, then licked her lips slowly. Imke followed Ishara into the Madchen's, and I went in the dumper marked with a green and toothy Crocodile on the door. Soon afterward I was in the corner of a booth by the dance floor. Dripping on one of their benches of real Ironwood. Feeling more than a bit down as the adrenaline high began to recede. Franco herself came over, favoring her old knees. Wheezing softly as she plopped a fruit juice down for the kid, and two meth's for Imke and me. She was one of that useful breed of keeps who remembered preferences and patterns of her customers. Come in twice and she remembers. She gave me a look, but didn't ask any questions. Nobody asked a lot of questions at Franco's. Of course, some of us could be above and open about our lives and the females we loved and cranked. Lucky them. Too many of the rest of us slot's in Franco's lived secret lives. Here we could kiss our girlfriends. Out there we had good jobs, boyfriends, or husbands. Out there we had too much to lose. "You shouldn't take the kid out in this sort of weather," Franco said. She had never asked what I was doing being shadowed by an eleven-year-old, T. She simply felt that here was not where the kid should be. It was okay for me to be here, with my old Lifter's jacket, and military boots. I was a Croc, nothing else. I belonged here. It was okay for Imke also, with her pretty skirts and heavy make-up. She was my Madchen, my woman, and Franco's was a place where women like us could show we cared for women. It was why we came here. Franco's was a place where I could feel my chest untightening. Where my fists unwound into hands. Where I could allow myself the freedom of staring at another woman. It was just unfortunate that Franco's was in an Alliance town. Later, I let the warm air make me drowsy. Later, I replaced my first meth with my second. Dear Imke dozed against my chest. And Ishara ate her fourth Baklava. She loved that stuff, that and shish. I stared across the minuscule (and empty) dance floor at the dark-haired Madchen. The pudgy one with the spit-curls who had eye-balled me when we first came in. Cute, but soft. Not my type. Eventually the door irised to admit a long robe, her (date?) (lover?), an equally pudgy brunette. It took me a bit to figure out which one of the two was the Croc. A bigger shock was realizing this older woman was a Bajoran. The nose ridges were not too obvious, and the Bajoran earring (no two ever alike) was on the other side of her head. Maybe in her forties, or older. Quality clothes, good taste, strong jaw line, a little bit...? Arrogant? Maybe a challenge. I wondered if Bajoran women had anything else exotic about them besides the nose ridges. I blatantly stared at her now. Not just old. Experienced. Strong. Able to do what was necessary. Bold? I liked. She stared back, and the Madchen beside her unhappily noted the exchange. Me and the Bajoran, we were playing a game, a dance, a contest which had few losers. In the end it was a dance where few of us ever walked away from whole. Now she was asking me if I was Croc enough to turn her into my Madchen, she was asking with her look, her attitude, could I flip her, top the Croc? Abruptly the game ended with the entry of the Razzer's. There were six of them, rain glistening on their shiny teal-colored weather suits. One, his blast shield up, stood by the door, his big phaser rifle on a sling in front. Bad placement. Another Razzer stood alongside him, phaser drawn, both men covering the room. Then two more Razzer's came in through the back, making it eight. They took up positions against the wall. Franco bustled up to the Officer in charge, trying to be courteous despite the abrupt intrusions. She had to be. She had to live with them. With as much naturalness as we could fake, Imke, Ishy and myself maintained a relaxed appearance. We'd come to Franco's deliberately. Whenever there's any trouble, the authorities always toss places like Franco's first. However, they're rarely expecting to find anything. It's just what they ALWAYS do when there's any trouble. The harassment is mandated reaction. Not serious searching. This place, and the men's place down the street, were probably, right now, the safest places to be in this entire joke of a country. Now was the crucial point, for one man was carrying a back-pack sensor unit. He listened intently to the whistling sensor music of his device. His hands played lightly with two knobs set on his belt. Carefully he picked out a few patrons with a pointing finger. Preoccupied, efficient. When he looked at me, a look of hesitation came to his face, but he failed to point us out. I was not clean, but the machine told him what I had fired must have been something months ago. Even a year. The sensor only registered levels. Not duration. The unlucky five, those with traces of firearms recently fired somewhere on their skin or clothes, they were pulled to the side. To be interrogated more closely. With that as a signal, two teams of Razzers quickly began to work their way through the room. Closely scanning everyone's papers. Running them through the Razzer checking Padd's they all carried. Routine, make-work, official harassment, no expectation of finding anything more here, not tonight. Imke slowly let her breath out, and Ishara deliberately turned back to her pastry. It appeared that it was indeed as I had been told. The Razzers in this town could not yet detect any recently fired weapons, IF some protection was worn. I smiled inwardly, and rubbed Imke's neck in a loving caress. The two Razzer's by the side wall were talking in a low tone, but I could hear them clearly in the subdued atmosphere here. The one with the long stringy mustache was asking his companion; "ALLE lesbisch? Alle Damen gehen mit keinem mann?" The shock on his face was plain to see, and the other was smiling at his young partner. "Oder Bifis, bisexuelle Frauen. Doch gelegentlich hin und wieder Mann ficken, Hamed?" He poked the other on the arm, and managed a leer for me. Like most men he was probably thinking HE could show me what a real man was capable of. As if I'd willingly go with one of the retro cubics from around here. When I heard the phrase "haremlik", safe room, I decided to cease listening. I hate people, men, who think women should be locked up in a room somewhere. As our papers were scan-tested by the Razzer, I deliberately fondled Imke's breasts, lifting them, playing with them. Watching the Razzer stand mesmerized as I tried to provoke Imke's nipples into stiffness. Enjoy your peep. My papers said I was nineteen. Imke's said her age was eighteen. Lies, of course. Only Ishara's papers gave her right age. The Razzer in front of us, a short man with evening stubble, was looking unhappily at Ishara while he was examining our papers. To allay his suspicions I added, "Sie ist meine Schwester, bitte, Herr Offizer." He noticed we were all from across the local border, but did not pursue the matter. Why bother? This was make-work to them. And, of course, our papers were the genuine article. El Jefe himself had issued both Imke and I legitimate passbooks that gave us ages four years in excess of what we really possessed. Unfortunately, even with her heavy make-up, Imke had probably roused the Razzer's suspicions as to her true age. Again he didn't make an issue of the point. After all, the sensors had failed to detect any forgeries or weapons residue on any of us. To them we were just more legal woman, even if we were perv's. The gloves and filters probably couldn't have fooled the sort of devices they had in Starfleet. But this was just a bunch of Razzers in a poor Deutscheturk nowhere. It felt good to beat the odds again. Behind us, a Razzer was trying to tug off the cowl on the Bajoran, when the Officer in charge intervened. He examined her papers, and snapped her a crisp salute. He barked the Razzer away, and was dripping courtesies on the Bajoran as he returned her papers. I noticed he didn't try to see her face. The passbook she had just passed to the Razzers must have been very interesting. As the Razzer's began to leave Franco's little establishment, one Razzer muttered a farewell of; "Die schrillen Schoner der Nacht." We all breathed a little easier as the room quietly emptied of the double-damned male presence's. Except for one in civilian clothes, also a Razzer. He lounged in an air of shabby disregard, in his worn tule colored civilian wrap-suit. Rain still glistening on his shaven head. Large archaic mustache, just like most of these Deutscheturks. Eyebrows were a single line across a head creased with wrinkles. Whatever his Trueage, he looked older than it. He was talking to one of the old prostie's in the far corner. An old swa from the look of her clothes, her hair, her worn and tired eyes. It wasn't good news he was giving her, and she had the appearance of a ripe Nymphe fruit being slowly cooked. She was shriveling up, collapsing from the inside out. Eventually he patted her on the arm, an aura of listless helplessness rising from him like dust from an old coat. He finally spoke into his PADD, ignoring the prostie, ignoring us, ignoring his uselessness. Within me, however, a very scary, very sick feeling was growing, feeding on my stomach. I think I was knowing what this Razzer and the prostie had to talk about. I think one of us, a woman like me, she had just died, she had died hard. Finally he left, and Franco's came slowly back to life. Much like an old woman who had been cuffed. Then eventually rises back up, and continues on her way. For a little while more, the women in Franco's could live in their own reality. Outside, there in the real world, all of them had to live in a pretend-reality where women like us didn't exist. Inside here, for a short while, we could live in a reality which did not include THEIR lies. Together we had a reality, we knew we existed. We denied their delusions as we sought comfort in each other's arms. It was old music on the discoxer, "Sylv", or "Red Tubors", or "The Whispers". Women's voices were in the air, so we could try to forget everything but the presence of other women. A few couples moved out onto the dance floor, holding tight to their women. Already dreading returning to the world where they were supposed to like men. The Bajoran was working hard now to mollify her Mad, and they joined the others in slow circles. Cowl back, she ceased looking my way. Except once in a while. Imke was the first to realize something was changed. She sat up, looking at me, all without a word. Ishy picked up on it then. Staring at the fists my hands had become. White across the knuckles, sweat on my forehead. Ishara stared at me, not saying a word, crumbs of pastry still on the tip of her small nose. "Tash...," she began, but I lifted my finger to her, then brought that finger around to touch Imke's lips. I softly brushed the hair over her ears with the back of my hand. I leaned forward to that ear to softly speak. "Take Ishy back to the bag," I told (asked?) her. "Get some stuff to eat and drink, let Ishy go ahead and get fat if she wants to." Neither of them were accustomed to hearing orders from me crouched in the tones of a request. "Don't play with her ass none, even if you're just teasing. She'll get upset if you do," I added. "Just take the both of you out of here. I have something I have to do." I breathed tightly, and closed my eyes, wondering what stories I might see painted on the inside of them some day. If I ever dared to look at myself, at the stories revealed in a full light, where only I could see them. "Please," I asked. I opened my eyes to see Imke and the kid looking at each other. "MOVE IT!" I rasped, throat tight. Imke nodded, and slid from the booth, Ishy following. I got to my feet, hurrying after. We stood by the exit, the three of us. Two Madchen's with hands in their coat pockets, one tall Croc with fists balled against her hips. "I love you," was all I could think to say, the words hurting as they tumbled from my chapped lips. We kissed, my hands pulling her face and lips to mine, my mouth tense, then quivering. "It's the Bajoran," Imke challenged, "isn't it?" She had not responded to my kiss, withdrawn within herself, away from me. I shook my head, unhappiness and headache slowing my reactions. "It's the swa, the prostie," I explained. Stopping to explain myself was in itself quite unusual, and Imke knew it. "I think we just toasted her Mad." I'd never toasted one of us before. It felt bad, inside. Thinking I could kill ours. Human. They both turned to stare at the woman, obscured by six or seven Croc's clustered in protective phalanx about her. Petting, comforting, sounds swallowed up by the enormity of her loss. "Should we expect you back tonight?" Imke was still challenging, one step away from defiance. Like she always did. It was one of our little games, but tonight it made me sick. For a nanosecond white washed behind my eyes, but my rigidity melted as soon as it came. Imke was not cowering, no weakness in her. Deep inside a sigh escaped me. It suddenly seemed less important to dominate her, to enjoy that quick sickness of goodness that came from controlling her. Much was less important, now. Why did we always have to fight? Weren't we lovers? We stood facing each other and shook ourselves out as we both realized we were still lovers. Two into one in a world where men said we couldn't exist. A pit had opened up behind me, I could feel its depths glowing yellow just behind my heels. I was afraid to walk backwards into it. There might be something in it. Me. I leaned forward again, fists to my sides, and with a slow turn Imke laid her lips to me. Eyes wide, neither of us closing them, neither of us hiding behind our eyelids. We held the kiss for minutes, soon hard and hurting, bruising lips. Then soft and questing. Our tongues asking questions which our lips could not answer. We did not touch except through those lips. Except through our love. For one spell of time we were just two more women together, neither Croc nor Madchen, just chaff in the wind. Imke bit my upper lip, and blood salted both our tongues. Yet I did not flinch, nor object, as she licked and sucked my blood. We broke apart, and she bit the side of her hand, tears springing to her eyes as the rent began to run with carmine. A sharp, vicious movement, final, tearing her own flesh. She offered me her blood, and I licked it from her, copper salty in my mouth. bitter in my throat. Whatever the future we still loved each other. We stood for a second, then she turned and left, Ishy in tow. I walked backward. Into the pit. --- IN THE CORNER --- Her name was Ola, and her love had been named Toy. At first two of the Croc's were going to deny me any possibility of reaching her, but Ola herself drew a tired body erect and straightened her arms out to me. They reluctantly made room for us, and we began to circle on the dance floor. I had expected a curt dismissal from the swa, and instead received compassion and comfort from she who I had come to .... Comfort? .... Help? ..... Give me answers? Questions? No, I had come seeking answers and compassion and .... forgiveness. Her gray eyes were still dry, a bad sign. She was still living in that tight cavity where you try to deny the reality of a pain, though you must embrace it as a lover. For now. Just for a while. However, eventually all such acids must find a route out, they must be released, escape. Next year. Next day. Next decade. The next twenty minutes. Maybe during the sour slantings of a cold morning, loneliness an ache in your shoulders. Maybe when you try to enjoy the touch of a blue silk shirt, or when you've reached the bottom of a bottle. Eventually the tears will come. Alone, or shared with a friend. Ola must have assumed that I had been told the outlines of her now-sundered life. Certainly she talked easily into my ear, as if to a friend, as we circled the floor. We both completely ignored what music reached our ears, not quite dancing, listening to the whispers Ola breathed into the night. Within the music other dancers heard were occasional snatches of shrill or whining voices. Women proclaiming love, betrayal, revenge, hope, lust, as one reef of words followed on the shipwrecks of another. Neither Ola nor I heard them. Neither music nor other words were part of us anymore. Ola talked easily, if you discounted the dry spasms that shook her, and her memories. I could say nothing, for fear of my memories. With a fragile happiness, Ola remembered a period of romance she and her woman had shared. Time they had spent together in some high woods a quarter continent away. They had shared nights of biting insects, and lingering kisses by the lights of portable glows. Finding together, hand in hand, a patch of Terran blackberries that had somehow taken hold in a wild glen. Of gorging, then smearing juices upon each other, licking stains off each other's naked bodies. Splashings in totally frigid little streams. Of days of waterfalls pouring on naked skins, and chilled evenings of huddling inside thin and aging sleeping bags. Of making love until it seemed there could be no end to it. For both there had been a lake, seemingly of smooth glass. A cold lake swathed in robes of fog, where they might feel the inquisitive brushes of fish on their morning skins. Then feel the ripples of lust, in the warm sun of a wnrm afternoon, while creatures in trees above commented and compared. They also had modest plans of building together a holding, north of Bukhjara. Something complete with livestock and dogs. And children. Toy...well, some things, some faults still cannot be cured. If your womb was shot out of you once, sometimes your ribo's can't make a new one. Certainly not one with eggs. Ola's large breasts moved softly against mine as she held me close. Maybe it was then, when she told me their child was to be named Morgana, then the postule broke inside me. Then it turned into salty leakage on my cheek. I never cried. Not until now. Ola was over seventy T-years, she said. Managing with the sort of rejuv treatments available on Turkana, and some surgery. Keeping her in an artificial prime. At the usual steep costs associated with our primitive Lifelong's. No children. In a CryoBank outside the city lay some of the eggs laid away in Ola's own youth. Laid aside for a future, for a donor which had never come. In the same CryoBank lay the near-ultimo-zero sperm of Toy's brother Thran. Many years ago he had become a victim of some forgotten border squabble. Not even a soldier or Grab, just an innocent being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thran was the only son of her father, the abrupt termination of a line tracing itself back over six hundred years T-time, back before the Diaspora. Working itself to fruition within Toy's small womb had been the hopes and futures of both her families. No chancy bottles here, Toy bore within herself the gift of a fertile future from Ola, an egg. A stable human ovum. It was sufficient, even on Turkana. That egg of Ola's had been carefully fertilized by Toy's own brother, her long-dead brother. The last of a line. It was a good match the geneticists said at the clinic. Strong lines, in effect no traces of recessives in either branch to be snipped out, they smiled. Good genes, strong children. They were as proud as Ola and Toy. The decision had been made long before, and over the grumblings of an old man suddenly flushed with hope. The decision was made to allow chance to determine the sex of the child. It had culminated in a daughter-to-be. Random-chance at work. The first of many gifts from the past to both women from one long dead. In her womb rode the prayers of an old man full of traditions, and loss, who suddenly had visions of a grandchild filling his days. A child from his own long lost son. A granddaughter now, maybe a grandson someday. Next time, maybe. Hope. For now a granddaughter would more than suffice, would warm his soul. A granddaughter. Able to hold, to love, even to carry on the family line as a son might. This was a new home, this planet, and old attitudes had had a chance to change. She would be able, some day in the future, to dress in white and throw hellmoney over his old man's casket. Some day. For now there was hope. A black-haired child with eyes of brown, a child who would top Toy's height in the future, taller by many centimeters. A child to grow into the love two women might provide, to warm and swell. Finally, like an elm tree shedding its seeds, Ola began to shed bits and pieces of her love, to bury her dead with living tears. They flowed down her face in ugly erosion, each one tearing acid channels in me. In those tears, right then, Toy began to be lowered into the cold love of an unseen pit, a bitter grave. Long before Ola could put on her own black cloth, or strew her head with ashes; long before she might wear white clothes, and fire off the demon-warding firecrackers; long before that, now, here and now, good-byes were being said to someone who had been dearer than life to Ola. Long before Toy's father could be transformed into an old dead man still living, bent under the weight of his white funeral suit. Long before his white grief, before he could shed tears of good-bye. Long before that grieving soul could burn incense over his daughter's grave. Long before there even was a grave site lit by fiery mounds of burial money and firecrackers; long before that the healing process had begun for Ola. I envied her that. There was nothing I could do for her, and I now feared there was nothing I could do for myself. In time other sisters, other homest women with teary streaks on their cheeks, they led this woman away from me. Away from me and my bleeding fists and my bloody hands. They probably thought me a kind and loving Croc to spend so much time listening to Ola spill her story, her grief, her tears, on me. I looked about me, as I stood so very, very alone. Still standing on that dance floor. My nails still tearing at the insides of my hands. Blood dripping slowly onto that beautiful hardwood floor. Lost. I looked about me and saw the walls of my pit. Why hadn't I ever seen them before? --- continued in the second story in the Riding The Tick series 'Outlands'