BEFORE YOU CAN SAY COME AND GO

1563 4D

The final hours of Corsang Run brought the festival to a climax. Her foot banging absently on the long table’s frame, Marra waited fretfully in Zooture Self, the food burrow where she and Deen, two days earlier, had been tickling Jeddin‘s legs under the table. She pushed some leftover nut stew around her bowl with a finger. When would Jeddin get there? She rubbed her scalp. The newly-grown hair seemed fuller — she’d checked her reflection — and a good sac-bath had brought a silky sheen to her slowly-darkening skin. A new skinsuit, pale and stylish with slashes of richer reds and oranges, fitted her nicely.

She missed Aoriver. The two aliens hadn’t come back from wherever they’d gone to hide inside, and the chance to get into qaqanhialh with them (and maybe with Jeddin, Marra recalled with a hot shiver) was fast disappearing.

Jeddin arrived with Deen beside him. Marra sat upright, scowling, and said, “Deen! This was supposed to be my time with him.”

“Who said we’d take turns?” Deen asked, and went on, “I see you went shopping without me. Nice of you. Did you get that thing at the same place? It’s as tight as the last one.”

“Never you mind. Why don’t you go and get one? We’ll wait here for you.” Marra smiled at Jeddin, whose face betrayed, for an instant, a smirk. She patted the bench beside her.

He sat. “So you two, or is it you four? You’ve got a place here already? Deen told me a little.”

Deen sat on Jeddin‘s other side and leaned forward to say to Marra, “I invited him down for when we get things set up.”

“We don’t have anything yet,” Marra said. She looked at Jeddin. “You’ll be around for a while, won’t you?”

He leaned back a little and looked from Marra to Deen, then laughed. “Of course. I’ll be here for some time. Onnhasshakh and I are working on the ship, with Andrew and Turiosten. The relocs are suspended. We’re downsizing Arlen‘s andro farms, converting some to normal food generation and recycle, and the Coll Union will share all of it. It’s been a lot of work.” Jeddin sat forward and stretched his forearms out on the table.

“You two having something?” A tall andro server, his long nose majestically hooked, towered over Jeddin and Deen. His left hand twitched to the street beat.

“What she’s got,” Deen said, pointing at Marra‘s nut stew. “And a tank of brew, the purple stuff.”

“Just the brew for me, but make mine Black Flag,” Jeddin said. “Two of them.”

The server raised both eyebrows. “I suppose you want the peppers? Rep-style, as the locals say it?”

“No other way to travel,” Jeddin said.

“Before you can say, ‘come’ and ‘go.’" The server headed off.

Jeddin turned back to Deen and Marra. “The Coll Union now governs The South Power Complex and the zones adjacent to it independently, as the Coll Union Space. They’ll get their supplies from a part of Arlen‘s old holdings, including some of the mines and the transportation system.” Jeddin shook his head slowly. “I’ll be going up with Andrew to work out details in another day or two.” Then his eyes widened, and he grinned at both of the women. “In the meantime…"

Marra put her hand on his. “Are you sure you’ll get treated all right? That they won’t just throw you in a hole somewhere, or kill you, and take the ship? Maybe they’ve got aliens who survived and know how to run it.”

Jeddin looked thoughtful. “I can’t be absolutely sure of anything in this place. But Onnhasshakh and Turiosten know so much that I don’t think they’ll dare mess with us. Nearly all the other aliens are gone.

“I’m getting one of those feelings I always get just before the door opens and it’s time to run. But we’ll have friends with us. As it is, I’m glad we’re in the Coll Union Space. No government military or corpos get in here without a pass and escort.”

The brew tanks arrived, Jeddin‘s with a tiny dancing flame issuing from the top of a long sprig of spiny greenery in each tank. Marra leaned over and looked into his tank of syrupy dark-brown brew. “What is this?”

“Want to try it?” Jeddin‘s glance challenged her.

“Sure.” Marra took the tank in both hands.

“No, no, not that way! Douse the flame in the brew first, bite the stem of the pepper, then take a small swallow of the brew. A small bite, a small swallow.” Jeddin held his fingers close together to emphasize ‘small’.

Marra did as he said. The bite of the pepper had no effect at first. She shrugged and picked up the tank for a drink. Just as it reached her lips, the pepper spattered her throat and nose with fire. “Aahh!” She thrust her face into the upturned tank and drank a big slug of the brew to quench the peppers.

The fire exploded straight through her mouth and into her brain. She reeled. Jeddin‘s arm came around her. She swayed, speechless, gasping for air.

“I said ‘small’,” Jeddin said. He patted her shoulder. “Take a bite of the stew. It’ll help. You seem to be sensitive.” Marra scooped stew out of her bowl with both hands and stuffed it in her mouth. Aahh. Much better.

“Wait’ll you try some of her stuff,” Deen said. “It’s worse.” Marra, stew dripping from the corner of her mouth, glared across at Deen. This was why she hated being around men with Deen — along with the best, it brought out the worst in both of them.

“What stuff?” Jeddin took the tank, bit the pepper, and quaffed. “Is she a brewer too?” he asked Deen. The drink, Marra noted as her throat burned, didn’t seem to affect him.

You didn’t have to be rude.

Marra‘s eyes popped wide open. “Aoriver!” she said through the stew.

“What?” Both Jeddin and Deen stared at her.

“Aoriver‘s back.”

Did you miss me? You sound glad.

“Give me some of that!” Deen grabbed the second tank of Jeddin‘s brew.

“Not that one! Here,” and Jeddin passed the first tank to Deen. She followed Jeddin‘s example more precisely.

“Ooh. Morons, that does burn.” Deen rolled her eyes, and then a smile spread over her face. “Yes, I’m glad you’re back. I missed you too.”

We traveled deep inside. For Allashani we sang.

“You sing? You never told me you sing. When do you sing?” Marra wanted to jump up and down where she sat.

“They sing at their cusps,” Jeddin said, “the moments of their lives where the great changes come.”

Exactly. And we can talk now with Onnhasshakh, and sing together. All things have changed, and we are beyond the edge of our world now, moving into an unknown pole range.

Marra shrugged and took her own, much milder, tank of brew in hand. “We’re always beyond the edge in our world, moving into the unknown,” she said. Jeddin and Deen nodded as if they had heard the same words Aoriver had spoken.

For us that is rare. Your world is open to us, but we do not tell you what waits, closed, ahead of you — it would make you wither and die. But our world will sometimes close itself to us, and then we feel as you do.

Marra looked at Deen and Jeddin. “Are you hearing the same thing I am?”

Jeddin nodded. “They speak with the same voice, right now.”

The aliens said no more. Deen dug into her newly-arrived bowl of nut stew. Jeddin raised the second tank of brew, then quenched the still-smoldering pepper spikes, bit the pepper stem, and drank. To Marra‘s surprise, his eyes ran.

“I thought it was easier for you,” Marra said.

“This tank is for Grendel,” Jeddin said. “I loved him. I’ll miss him so much.” The tank between his hands on the table, Jeddin hung his head.

Marra slipped an arm around him, and Deen‘s arm came over hers. They sat quiet while Deen nibbled at her stew and Jeddin finished the brew. Marra closed her eyes. The new place was still nearly empty, except for bedmats and a low table and sitting-cushions. Jeddin might like it if they gave him a place to stay for a while. And qaqanhialh might still be finishing up. She smiled inwardly.