Descending Road - JAMMED IN A CORNER by Dana W. Paxson

JAMMED IN A CORNER

1560 4D

Knives danced on dark air. Grendel and Jeddin, their skins ghost-pale in Engrammatic‘s muted barroom glow, flicked seven lethally sharp glass blades back and forth the length of the eight-foot table, their hands blurring, their brown-clad bodies and their white faces absolutely still. Picking up the pace of their throws, Grendel kept cadence with his boot.

Dark-skinned spectators howled with delight and shushed each other. The blades spun, flashing the barroom’s manycolored lights; a coruscating net fanned from Jeddin‘s throat to Grendel‘s widespread arms, a cat’s-cradle of hypnotic fire, a focused spray of razor edges.

The two steadied and held their pace, Jeddin‘s elbows resting on the table, Grendel‘s arms darting out to catch and return the knives. Sweat fell from Grendel‘s expressionless face onto the table. He counted beats, seven against two, and watched Jeddin‘s eyes dilate, saying to him, We’ve got them hooked now.

Jeddin smiled: time to switch. Grendel nodded, registering a squint-faced watcher pushing a little too close over table’s edge. Grendel stamped double-time; the glistening fan reversed itself. Jeddin stabbed out with his arms to catch the spray while Grendel drew in his hands to finger the knives where they all came spinning together a hand’s-width in front of his mouth.

Shouts of delight and fear: andro blood at stake. The squinter jostled to keep his own blood out of it; Grendel smiled inside as the man backed between two others and lost his tight steel cap, letting it fall with a clang to the floor.

Grendel reached 4900 in his count, and he and Jeddin slipped one knife from their weaving to pitch in a high lazy arc above the table, madly spinning, sailing slowly back and forth above the bullet-flat trajectories of the remaining six blades, just missing the clustered globular lamps hanging from the darkened steelweb ceiling.

At 5600 two blades flew lazily glittering in the high arc, in opposite perfect trajectories. Grendel studied the awed dark faces in his side vision; these humans feared him. If he and Jeddin had doubled the pace again, as they could, most of these people would be scared off, and the take would suffer.

Coins rattled from hand to hand, piling up. A black-skinned man finally reached out below the shuttling knives to drop a stack of twenty-, fifty– and hundred-pieces on the table midway between Grendel and Jeddin. Grendel mirrored Jeddin‘s blink without breaking pace; as the donor began to withdraw his hand, a loud sputter ended the flashing dance of light.

The stack of coins stood palisaded by a razor-edged pentagon of stressglass knives, each one flat and thin and as long as a hand, embedded vertically in the scarred and stained tabletop. The donor of the coins stood frozen, bent over with his hand extended, immobilized.

The last two knives, spinning from opposite ends of the table, had passed each other just above his wrist, and slanted their points into the wood, pinning his hand under razor-sharp glass.

A flash of ecstasy hit Grendel: We’re good at this. He closed his eyes and replayed the final second in a long breath: the last two blades rotated slowly past each other, just over the man’s umber skin, and settled into the tabletop like stakes in the earth. He opened his eyes again into total silence.

Jeddin‘s teeth flashed white. A roar erupted around them. Grendel stood up, pushed his way to the side of the table, and pulled the two knives out, freeing the man, who stared at him in wonder. “Thanks,” Grendel said to him.

The crowd thinned and backed away to other tables to talk, heads shaking at each other as they called to the andro servers for drinks. Fully crowded, the bar alone held eighty or more people. The size of Engrammatic, three large downstairs rooms holding over three hundred chairs and stools with room for fifty more standing, made this knife game a rich one.

In a high soft chitter of birdsong anjive, Jeddin said to Grendel, “Eight fifty. They gave us two hundred more at the end.” Grendel grinned and scooped up a bowl of crisp sweet tubers from a table, ignoring the rapid surprised nods of the three human men who sat there.

Jeddin found two places at the bar and skimmed a fifty-piece to the barman, another andro, who bore several deep fleshy furrows raked through the dark hair on the side of his pale head. “That should stack about four tanks of the best, and two for you,” Jeddin told him in human voice, crooking a finger. “Fill ours with Black Flag.” The barman nodded, touched two fingers together in thanks, and reached up to a shelf packed with canisters labeled in Ancient-Earth fashion.

This was an andro sess with drugs of all kinds: collect names and symbols out of the Colonization archives, even those recorded from long-gone Earth itself, and use them for the newest mixtures of intoxicants. Next to the Black Flag container with dead bugs adorning its label stood a screw-top can labeled WD-40, displaying a cranking piston, and next to that a jar with a mushroom cloud, an odd horizontal knot, and the phrase ALL THE TALK OF THE MARKET.

“Two each,” said Grendel as he came up. “Put peppers in mine, lit up.” The barman chittered a soft acknowledgement in anjive.

They drank. Grendel scanned Jeddin, slight and handsome and now sweaty, his dark hair curling down over his forehead. “You never tell me much,” Grendel said.

A splash of pain crossed Jeddin‘s face. He switched back into the high-pitched andro speech. “Skerrish?”

The darkness filled Grendel‘s mind, the way it did every time he thought of innerspace and Periliath. No, he wasn’t going to talk with Jeddin about that, not yet; and he wasn’t going to skerrish in innerspace with Jeddin or anyone else. “Not here.” Grendel tilted his head furtively toward the noisy knots of men and women at tables behind them.

Some looked up at them, trying to catch their eyes, and smiled and waved. The three whose snacks Grendel had taken argued with an andro waiter, trying to get another free bowl. The waiter nodded many times at them just the way they had at Grendel, and scurried away. Grendel shook his head and scowled, anger surging up in him, clean and pure.

“What’s bothering you?” Jeddin asked.

“Forget it.” Grendel looked away at the wall. Why did this place seem so tight, as if he was being jammed in a corner?

Jeddin moved to face him. “Want to be outside for a bit?”

“Yes.” They sidled past knots of andros and humans, and found their way out into a cold, breezy night filled with starlight.

Grendel stared up at the night sky. He could read the spectra of these points of light burning impossibly far off, and they spoke to him of their makeups and their ages in a kind of visual poetry. “I’d love to go out there,” he muttered.

“Why? You’ve got all the space you need right here.” Jeddin tapped his temple with one little finger, the sign andros used when they wanted to skerrish in innerspace.

“Don’t you want to be somewhere else sometimes? Away from all this?” Grendel gestured at the inn, its noise making it vibrate in his vision. Why was Jeddin pressing him?

Jeddin went on, “You’re andro. Why don’t you–“

“Stop this! I don’t want to talk about that. I don’t go there. Just leave it for now.” Grendel took two fast steps away and turned. “People keep crowding me.”

Jeddin held up a hand. “Not me. I’m sorry. I’ll stay back here, and you can have all the room you want. I’m your friend, not your–“

“Owner. I know that.” The tension faded. Grendel wanted to find words to apologize, but he couldn’t bring them out. Other words leaped up in him. “My ten years is coming up soon.”

“Clock.” Jeddin lowered his head, shook it slowly.

“What?”

“Ever hear Thringe singing about all that?”

“All what?”

“Andro death.”

“Who’s… Thringe?”

“Winjilles Thringe. She’s an andro singer. I just got her and her band out of the City and up this way. They’re playing up at Buzzchicken.”

“So what’s this got to do with my life ending soon?”

“Everything. It tells you you’ve got company, and it tells you there’s hope.”

“Hope for what?”

“Come and hear her, and decide for yourself.”

Story List	SURPRISE ME	Author Page
USER SURVEY	PUZZLE ME	MAKE ELM MARK

HOVER Lucida Bright BARE	HOVER Lucida Bright FULL	HOVER Palatino Linotype BARE
HOVER Palatino Linotype FULL	HOVER Times New Roman BARE	HOVER Times New Roman FULL
PAD Arial BARE	PAD Arial FULL	PAD Lucida Bright BARE
PAD Lucida Bright FULL	PAD Times New Roman BARE	PAD Times New Roman FULL


	JAMMED IN A CORNER 1560 4D Knives danced on dark air. Grendel and Jeddin, their skins ghost-pale in Engrammatic‘s muted barroom glow, flicked seven lethally sharp glass blades back and forth the length of the eight-foot table, their hands blurring, their brown-clad bodies and their white faces absolutely still. Picking up the pace of their throws, Grendel kept cadence with his boot. Dark-skinned spectators howled with delight and shushed each other. The blades spun, flashing the barroom’s manycolored lights; a coruscating net fanned from Jeddin‘s throat to Grendel‘s widespread arms, a cat’s-cradle of hypnotic fire, a focused spray of razor edges. The two steadied and held their pace, Jeddin‘s elbows resting on the table, Grendel‘s arms darting out to catch and return the knives. Sweat fell from Grendel‘s expressionless face onto the table. He counted beats, seven against two, and watched Jeddin‘s eyes dilate, saying to him, We’ve got them hooked now. Jeddin smiled: time to switch. Grendel nodded, registering a squint-faced watcher pushing a little too close over table’s edge. Grendel stamped double-time; the glistening fan reversed itself. Jeddin stabbed out with his arms to catch the spray while Grendel drew in his hands to finger the knives where they all came spinning together a hand’s-width in front of his mouth. Shouts of delight and fear: andro blood at stake. The squinter jostled to keep his own blood out of it; Grendel smiled inside as the man backed between two others and lost his tight steel cap, letting it fall with a clang to the floor. Grendel reached 4900 in his count, and he and Jeddin slipped one knife from their weaving to pitch in a high lazy arc above the table, madly spinning, sailing slowly back and forth above the bullet-flat trajectories of the remaining six blades, just missing the clustered globular lamps hanging from the darkened steelweb ceiling. At 5600 two blades flew lazily glittering in the high arc, in opposite perfect trajectories. Grendel studied the awed dark faces in his side vision; these humans feared him. If he and Jeddin had doubled the pace again, as they could, most of these people would be scared off, and the take would suffer. Coins rattled from hand to hand, piling up. A black-skinned man finally reached out below the shuttling knives to drop a stack of twenty-, fifty– and hundred-pieces on the table midway between Grendel and Jeddin. Grendel mirrored Jeddin‘s blink without breaking pace; as the donor began to withdraw his hand, a loud sputter ended the flashing dance of light. The stack of coins stood palisaded by a razor-edged pentagon of stressglass knives, each one flat and thin and as long as a hand, embedded vertically in the scarred and stained tabletop. The donor of the coins stood frozen, bent over with his hand extended, immobilized. The last two knives, spinning from opposite ends of the table, had passed each other just above his wrist, and slanted their points into the wood, pinning his hand under razor-sharp glass. A flash of ecstasy hit Grendel: We’re good at this. He closed his eyes and replayed the final second in a long breath: the last two blades rotated slowly past each other, just over the man’s umber skin, and settled into the tabletop like stakes in the earth. He opened his eyes again into total silence. Jeddin‘s teeth flashed white. A roar erupted around them. Grendel stood up, pushed his way to the side of the table, and pulled the two knives out, freeing the man, who stared at him in wonder. “Thanks,” Grendel said to him. The crowd thinned and backed away to other tables to talk, heads shaking at each other as they called to the andro servers for drinks. Fully crowded, the bar alone held eighty or more people. The size of Engrammatic, three large downstairs rooms holding over three hundred chairs and stools with room for fifty more standing, made this knife game a rich one. In a high soft chitter of birdsong anjive, Jeddin said to Grendel, “Eight fifty. They gave us two hundred more at the end.” Grendel grinned and scooped up a bowl of crisp sweet tubers from a table, ignoring the rapid surprised nods of the three human men who sat there. Jeddin found two places at the bar and skimmed a fifty-piece to the barman, another andro, who bore several deep fleshy furrows raked through the dark hair on the side of his pale head. “That should stack about four tanks of the best, and two for you,” Jeddin told him in human voice, crooking a finger. “Fill ours with Black Flag.” The barman nodded, touched two fingers together in thanks, and reached up to a shelf packed with canisters labeled in Ancient-Earth fashion. This was an andro sess with drugs of all kinds: collect names and symbols out of the Colonization archives, even those recorded from long-gone Earth itself, and use them for the newest mixtures of intoxicants. Next to the Black Flag container with dead bugs adorning its label stood a screw-top can labeled WD-40, displaying a cranking piston, and next to that a jar with a mushroom cloud, an odd horizontal knot, and the phrase ALL THE TALK OF THE MARKET. “Two each,” said Grendel as he came up. “Put peppers in mine, lit up.” The barman chittered a soft acknowledgement in anjive. They drank. Grendel scanned Jeddin, slight and handsome and now sweaty, his dark hair curling down over his forehead. “You never tell me much,” Grendel said. A splash of pain crossed Jeddin‘s face. He switched back into the high-pitched andro speech. “Skerrish?” The darkness filled Grendel‘s mind, the way it did every time he thought of innerspace and Periliath. No, he wasn’t going to talk with Jeddin about that, not yet; and he wasn’t going to skerrish in innerspace with Jeddin or anyone else. “Not here.” Grendel tilted his head furtively toward the noisy knots of men and women at tables behind them. Some looked up at them, trying to catch their eyes, and smiled and waved. The three whose snacks Grendel had taken argued with an andro waiter, trying to get another free bowl. The waiter nodded many times at them just the way they had at Grendel, and scurried away. Grendel shook his head and scowled, anger surging up in him, clean and pure. “What’s bothering you?” Jeddin asked. “Forget it.” Grendel looked away at the wall. Why did this place seem so tight, as if he was being jammed in a corner? Jeddin moved to face him. “Want to be outside for a bit?” “Yes.” They sidled past knots of andros and humans, and found their way out into a cold, breezy night filled with starlight. Grendel stared up at the night sky. He could read the spectra of these points of light burning impossibly far off, and they spoke to him of their makeups and their ages in a kind of visual poetry. “I’d love to go out there,” he muttered. “Why? You’ve got all the space you need right here.” Jeddin tapped his temple with one little finger, the sign andros used when they wanted to skerrish in innerspace. “Don’t you want to be somewhere else sometimes? Away from all this?” Grendel gestured at the inn, its noise making it vibrate in his vision. Why was Jeddin pressing him? Jeddin went on, “You’re andro. Why don’t you–“ “Stop this! I don’t want to talk about that. I don’t go there. Just leave it for now.” Grendel took two fast steps away and turned. “People keep crowding me.” Jeddin held up a hand. “Not me. I’m sorry. I’ll stay back here, and you can have all the room you want. I’m your friend, not your–“ “Owner. I know that.” The tension faded. Grendel wanted to find words to apologize, but he couldn’t bring them out. Other words leaped up in him. “My ten years is coming up soon.” “Clock.” Jeddin lowered his head, shook it slowly. “What?” “Ever hear Thringe singing about all that?” “All what?” “Andro death.” “Who’s… Thringe?” “Winjilles Thringe. She’s an andro singer. I just got her and her band out of the City and up this way. They’re playing up at Buzzchicken.” “So what’s this got to do with my life ending soon?” “Everything. It tells you you’ve got company, and it tells you there’s hope.” “Hope for what?” “Come and hear her, and decide for yourself.”