RIP, JANGLE AND CHIRR

1563 4D

By the time they reached Engrammatic four days later, Marra and Deen grumped at each other. They had walked painfully on their callused and sore feet; they had eaten the little food they had scavenged from the farm; and the weather, offering mixed rain and wind for three nights, had left them chilled, soaked, and bedraggled. After a few tries at encouraging them, Aoriver and Oortonel had retreated into silence, relying on offering chemical replenishment as a better form of support. The arrival of sunshine again on the fourth day, followed by a cart ride offered by a farmer who overtook them, raised their spirits a little.

Late in the afternoon, through a stand of evergreens, a flickering sign with the word Engrammatic caught their eyes. “Aoriver, can you tell what that flashing means?” Marra asked softly.

A pause, then: No. Your optical neurosystem can’t get anything but the flashing. It’s very rapid. Look right-left-right, very fast. Yes, that’s it. I can tell it’s coded, but not stable, like a chaotic signal. That’s all I see. It’s for andro eyes.

“Thanks,” Deen said to the farmer. “We really appreciate the ride. Ouch.” Her feet touched gravel again.

“No problem,” he said. “Your folks have helped me out lots.”

"‘Your folks’?” Marra asked Deen as he urged his cart into a space under the trees.

“He thinks we’re andros.” They hobbled to the front entrance to the inn. The door, solid metal inscribed with an intricate tinted pattern, opened as they reached it, and two tan-skinned men in green coveralls came out smiling. They noticed Deen and Marra, and stopped.

“Well.” One of the men, tall, with weaving sawtoothed collechi scars on his neck, said the word as a command. From Argazindar Coll. Bad. The Argazindari, a coll that specialized in warfare, treated women like clay pots: useful, cheap, easily smashed in anger, easily forgotten and replaced.

Marra eyed him warily. “Well what?”

The other man, his scars blazoned on his forehead, nudged his companion, saying, “Well, please!” Deen tried to move ahead through the door, but the two men shifted slightly, blocking her path.

“We had service here already, but after we saw you, we’d like more. From you.” The necklaced man faced them squarely, his feet apart, his hands on his hips.

“Go cook your sausage somewhere else, pig,” Marra retorted.

Pig. Sausage. Appetizing.

Marra ignored Aoriver and studied the scowling man. Years before, she had known several like him. But then she had been prepared.

“You don’t talk to me like that, spook lady.” He shot out a long arm and took her wrist. She pulled away but he held on, his teeth and eyes flashing in a snarling grin.

A pale female face appeared in the doorway behind him. “Trouble, friends? Who are these ladies?”

“Friends of ours,” the forehead-marked man tried.

“Nonsense,” Deen said sharply. “We’re new here, we’re tired, we’re hungry, and these bzztchkchk fweee chch are getting in our way.”

A high-pitched chatter. That must be laughing, Aoriver noted. A large, muscular andro woman shouldered her way past the men, shoving them both aside like sticks of wood.

“That’s too bad,” she said. She took Deen‘s arm and Marra‘s, and sputtering enthusiastically at them in anjive, pushed with them past the pair of men again.

Deen caught Marra‘s eye. That’s one of my four phrases, she mouthed. Marra nodded slightly. The woman led them to a table, fired a burst of chitter at them, smiled, and stalked off.

“Now what?” Deen muttered.

“Let’s get some food,” Marra said.

“And pay for it with what?” They exchanged foolish looks. Marra remembered Linas. Why hadn’t they searched his pockets? Or his pack? She had been in a hurry to bury him; he had been so nice. Not like the two just outside. But then, even they could have been useful…

“Maybe we should have—" Marra raised an eyebrow.

“Not with those two.” Deen rummaged in her bundle. “Are you carrying anything you can swap or sell? I’ve just got the herbs and stuff.”

“No,” Marra said, “just the same things you have. And how will we pay for a night’s rest here?” They both looked around. The broad dining room was filled up with andro workers. No humans. Above the sounds of dishes and tableware bounced the rip, jangle and chirr of conversational anjive.

Well, you know, Aoriver‘s voice said inside her, if you feed us, we can feed you. I’ve never seen so much meat in the pasture. As long as none of them sees me…

The cold climbed Marra‘s legs and into her already-tired body. “No,” she said, “I want some regular food, like that.” She pointed at a bowl of fried tubers. Her mouth watered. It had been a long time.

Oh, no. They’ve spotted me. In innerspace. As Marra glanced at Deen, she knew Oortonel was saying the same thing.

Four squat, powerful andro men surrounded their table almost immediately. As if a signal had been given, the whole room, with more than a hundred people in it, went silent. “Come outside,” one of the men rasped, in human speech. “We have a few things to discuss with you.”