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"One Night In Paradise" copyright December 17, 2022, by Gary E. Andrews.

In the Emoilihn language of the natives;
Coblo Ho Gondas.
English translation;
Table Of Contents.

CHAPTER:
Book Part One;
1. DAMNED PATRICK; Eenunh & Tinunh. Into The Hive.
2. WELCOME TO OUR HOUSE; Greenies, Orangies, And Meatballs! Dream of Earth, Mother.
3. DNA; What In This World?
4. GREENIES, ORANGIES, AND DRAGONS; Eight Seconds.
5. THE BATHS; Chesty and The Thin Man. Thimiannh.
6. YOU HAVE TO GIVE ME CREDIT; Holy Holey Underwear!

Book Part Two;
6. CREDIT PART TWO; Lizard Head Offense.
7. COME THE WRIGGLIES; And A Harvest Of Birds.
8. EVICTION NOTICE; An Unfamiliar Feeling.
9. GROCERIES; The Machinist's Rag Bin.
10. A STAR IS BORING; Zapped!
11. STRINGS AND THINGS; An Alien Arrest!
12. ATTICUS FINCH; The Lawyer. Dodaensus? Sodaensus.
13. TO KILL A LANGUAGE BARRIER;
Koobah = Judge. Koobahbahnnh = plural, Judges. Emoilihn = The People. Promina = Lawyer.
Rasamannh = intent, premeditation. Commannh = cops.
14. TREK TO THE PINES; The White Road.
Albanh = wood, tree, forest.
15. THE WHITE ROAD; Into The Pines.
16. BLUEBLOOD BERRIES; Blind Man; No Bluff.
Neh = yes.
17. THE OLD SWIMMIN' HOLE; Naked To The World.
Casah = cold.
18. HOMEWARD BOUND; The White Road. Night Terrors.
19. ALMOST HOME; A Family Proposal.
20. A PRISON VISIT; The Interpreter.
21. SCHOOLBOY IN PARADISE; Family.
Entemannh Garibe = Entemannh, a man's name, and Garibe = 'city'.
22. THE TERROR WARS; May The System Work For You.
Talah = alright, okay.
23. SHUTTLE DIPLOMACY; Sodaensus Secrets.
24. SODAENSUS SECRETS; Atticus Finch.
25. SODAENSUS SCHEMES; I've Got A Gig!
26. BLACK MARKET BEAUTY; A Berry Blue Matter.
Hika = Mr. Bah sahn = Thank you.
27. HARD CURRENCY; Whatever Money Will Buy.
28. COSTARAMANNH GARIBE; Turomay.
Turomay = Appeal. Costaramannh Garibe = Costaramannh City. Costaramannh is a hero of the Terror Wars.
29. HELL HATH NO FURY LIKE A MOTHER'S IRE; The White Road.
30. THE SNOWY WHITE ROAD, SOUTH TO COSTARAMANNH
31. ENTEMANNH; The Peacemaker.
Entemannh is a hero of the Terror Wars.
32. HIT THE WHITE ROAD, JACK; And Hit What You Aim At.
33. TREACHERY AFOOT; In Costaramannh!
34. COSTARAMANNH CITY LIMITS; Treachery Unlimited!
35. TREACHERY; The Beneficiary Of Death.
36. MILITARY MISSION; Grocery Shopping In A Wilderness Of Mirrors.
37. GO NORTH ASS OOMAM; And Seek Your Future.
Casah Sagribe Garibe. City Of Strong Cold. Sagribe, a hero of the Terror Wars.
38. GLOOM IN THE ROOM; One Night Stand.
39. Cemetery Reality Check; Homeward Bound.
Aloyan Entemannh.
40. NORTH, TO ENTEMANNH GARIBE; Home.
41. A THICKENING PLOT: Treachery On The Home Front.
42. OCCUPYING TOURISTS; None Of The Government's Business.
43. A TALKING CAMPAIGN; Show Biz Must Go On.
44. TO CASAH SAGRIBE GARIBE; A Lonely Little Caravan.
45. NORTHERN TREACHPITALITY; Animal I Am.
46. INTERROGATION; Crime Scene Investigation. The Enemy You Know.
47. LOVE IS SLEEP; Sleep Is Love.
48. WEDDINGS FOR SOLIDARITY; Paronde Cos Revondennh! New Beginnings.

"ONE NIGHT IN PARADISE" Copyright December 17, 2022, by Gary E. Andrews.

1. DAMNED PATRICK: Into The Hive

Eenunh's slender green fingers set the bottle upright, deftly snug the cork back in with her right index finger, linger there, then drop to curl 'round the neck of the green bottle, hang there, by middle and ring finger, and thumb, index finger atop the cork, pinkie finger extended. Her nails are short, pointed, but short. Her hand is... proportionally beautiful.

She is focused on the children, toddlers, teens and young adults, I assess, near the opening to the outside. Rain has begun to fall out there in heavy, blowing waves. It hisses on the hot stone of the vast patio. I imagine it soaking in the desert sand. I smell it. A cool mass of air exchanges in the room! Cooler than the summer heat, constant since... we came down. I've never seen it rain here before. She brought me here, in out of the desert just in time!

The... cave... cavern... room... is full of... people... these... people; these green people. Their strange 'voices' murmur, buzz, rising and falling in unison and in contrast. It's like a... noisy cafeteria, a restaurant, a pub. They laugh! There's no mistaking laughter! They rock back and forth, slap each other on the shoulder or back, just like... humans.

I scan the room, males in pants, pullover shirts; women in pullover dresses; consistently. One style, everything male, everything female. Some females wear pants under their dresses. There are two shades of brown, tan and dark brown, three of green, light, dark, and olive drab, three of blue, light, dark and a pretty azure. There's a flat... gold, or maybe... dull yellow. And that's all.

Attendants in the lighter shade of blue serve from a counter, come out and clear tables when... people... leave. There are green bottles, and blue bottles, brown bottles, gray stone mugs. White plates, white... cutlery. Something smells good, cooked meat of some kind. I'm hungry. It's been... days, rationing what was left of my food.

Leather boots, work shoes, men and women. They have wooly-looking hair, curly, sort of burnt brown. It's... becoming... with their green faces. They're not dark green like... like plants, the... cacti in the desert. It's just a light tint... a... noticeable tint of green. They all wear their hair parted in the middle, men and women, some shorter, some longer, all very... same looking. The hair; not the faces. They're beautiful, symmetrical, smiling, grinning. They laugh. They're... joyous!

I look at the structure of Eenunh's right arm, still hanging off the bottle, the green tint of her skin, the profile of her face. Her face... all their faces, the women anyway, are quite pretty, quite... Human-like. She seems aware of my gaze but doesn't meet it. Her eyelashes flutter down, she lifts her gray stone mug, and sips with shapely lips. The men, my crew of miners, speculated that they were insects, big insects with segmented, double-elbowed arms, double knees. They're not. I haven't seen her knees. But others, out in the desert while we were mining.

I lift my mug and sip. It's a sweet wine, a tang of alcohol? Or, just tartness? I look at the children by the doorway tunnel, then at Eenunh again.

Eenunh's golden irises shutter, the pupils more open, less open as she watches Tinunh, her small daughter, in the little crowd of young at the opening. I look. They jostle each other, playfully pushing each other out toward the rain. No one tries in earnest. Older ones pull younger ones back. It's very... familial. Tinunh is... boisterous; holds her own with the bigger kids, pushes back, laughs.

Eenunh's came to get me today. She must have known... I was in trouble, and that this rain was coming! I've never seen it rain here. We never saw clouds before today!

Tinunh carried a paper box, not like cardboard, more like... like a hornet's nest, gray, maybe woven paper, rectangular, but with rounded corners, looking like it's made of ragged strips, pieces put together, papier mache' style.

Eenunh's buzzing speech is incomprehensible to me. They came in the barracks pod. I think I heard them knocking but didn't get up in time to go to the door before they opened it, came into the darkness, out of the bright sunstar light outside. I sat up on my bunk. I had a candle lit. There are no windows in the pod, a container for ore, modified into a barracks. It... it kind of... scared me! There in the dark, by candlelight, they both looked at me, buzzed vocalizations at me, their attempt at my name, learned from a previous 'conversation' out at the mining site. Golden irises, flickering. We had... talked many days ago. They were the only ones who ever came close enough to me to talk, or stayed long enough. I'd seen other crewmen seem to converse with some others, but the conversation never lasted long. At mealtime the men speculated that they were insects, like... like bees or hornets, because of the buzzy voices, the green skin. The gray paper box makes me wonder anew. But... no... they're... people, mammals... I think.

Was it Captain Briggs who suggested maybe they had stingers in their tails? I didn't see anything to suggest that in the back of their dresses, Eenunh, and Tinunh. In fact, they had very... nice... figures, even the little girl. Green tint, buzzy voices, and... the hornet's paper box... well... We all make mistakes. We're... human.

They looked at me, talked, gestured, looked at each other. Finally Tinunh looked away from me and at her mother, her mother looking back, golden irises flickering, like camera shutters, no vocalization, and Tinunh just began putting my books in her box. I watch her empty the shelf. I'd brought ten paperbacks down. I have the entire Pulitzer Prize list up on the Deutche L. A.! I've read most of them, I think. I like to find interesting parts and read them again. They packed everything up around my bunk, my windup alarm clock, my shaving kit, the empty brown bottle I'd brought back from... the hive... when I went there before.

The two of them indicated, I perceived, that I was to come with them. Tinunh seems to have no trouble with the weight of the box. She looks like a lean little athlete! She's maybe... eight... nine? She holds the box on her hip, grins at me, touches my arm consolingly.

I tucked my two dirty towels and hoodie in my sleeping bag, rolled it, secured it. I had on my black cowboy boots, put on my ball cap. I tied the strings of my work boots and draped them around my neck. I picked up my dirty laundry bag. The clothes I have on are no cleaner than the ones in the bag. Tinunh came back around my bunk, set the box on the floor, reached under, picked up my sneakers, put them in the box. I picked up my guitar case. I put my white hat brim in my left hand with the handle of the guitar case, pinched the brim between thumb and forefinger, put on my ball cap, took a look around, dirty mattress with my sweat stain, hot metal walls and floor, empty bedframes, picked up my candle, and went with them. Any option had to be better than staying here... starving... thirsty... alone.

Eenunh led me through the kitchen by my candlelight. The crew hadn't left much, partial food packages mostly. I had rationed it, ate small... meals. Now this was all I had left. Some packaged food; three to be exact. Mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, mixed fruits. Without refrigeration I wasn't sure it was still edible. I'd been eating it cold, as cold as the refrigeration system had retained. The crew took the solar collectors, the batteries when... they left me. Eenunh put the packets in Tinunh's box and gestured with her head to go.

The hot desert air is stifling. It's late afternoon. I turn to shut the door. I don't know what's going on. I'm too tired and hungry to try to figure it out. But I may want... need... to come back so... Tinunh takes my candle, blows it out, puts it in her box. I take it back out, take the lid off the bottom, put it on the top, stopping the little stream of smoke. She takes it, back in the box.

I've listened to Eenunh talking before. She made their names clear days ago, at the... the... hive, where they live, touching her chest, pointing at Tinunh, who touched hers, repeated the sounds, after... the incident.

She pointed at me and I said my name. She tried it a few times, got it right in that buzzing vocalization; then, in a very human voice! She eliminated the buzz! Just once, but once was enough. They say we like the sound of our own name, spoken by others. I nodded when she did, grinning like a fool! It wasn't just close; it was perfect! She spoke to Tinunh and mimicked my nodding. She repeated my name, but with the buzz. Tinunh mimicked the nodding. I try their names and they giggle. Ee-nunh. Can't get the nasal 'nunh' they do. And the double E is in there, E-e-nunh. Ti-nunh. Ti-... Can't. It's like the noise someone makes when they're sleeping and you start to wake them up; unh. No. Just... more... vibratory.

When we first came down from the Deutche L. A. cargo ship, Eenunh was the first to try to communicate with me. She came near, stood under a kind of saguaro cactus shade, watched me shoveling, made noises. I hadn't seen... one... up close before. Most of the ones I saw kept their distance. They would return a wave, but soon lost interest and went away, it seemed. I was working away from the others that day, sifting small pieces of lithium ore from the red sand. We'd mined it out in big chunks. Captain Briggs wanted it all, these smaller bits that had crumbled in the process.

Finally she came right over. I got to see that beautiful face, those scary eyes, golden irises, flickering like a camera shutter. Tinunh was with her. They had bags strapped over their shoulders, tools in hand, trowels. I think they... hunt... gather... in the desert, I guess. I don't know what. I walked up out of the pit and watched them when they left, across the desert, stopping here and there near a cactus to poke at the sand. I don't know what they were poking at. Tinunh saw me looking, told her mother. They waved. I waved, went back to work.

After the crew... left me... she came every few days, twice, pointing at the sky, as if to query why the shuttle and everyone else was gone. Then she came every day, now for... well... days. She could see I was alone, not working. She talked. One day she came inside, looked around the facility. Some of the others came too, that day, exploring the barracks, the kitchen, sleeping quarters, bathrooms. The crew hadn't left much behind. The barracks pod is pretty much stripped. I think... Briggs may have decided it wasn't worth taking the pod back up, with that last load of lithium ore. Or maybe he's coming back to get it. I don't know. I don't know anything.

Seeing me, candle-lit there in the dark, the visitors would retreat. The males were kind of scary but there was something apologetic in their manner, like they didn't know anyone was still here and were sorry to intrude once they found me. I shouldn't be here. The bastards left me. The bastards left me! The bastards.

While we were mining lots of them would venture closer, out there, up on hills of red sandstone, nearer on the rip rap piles of sandstone Angelo had set aside to get at the ore. They'd watch Angelo on the dozer, their buzzing voices seeming bemused, I thought, at our labors. I could hear the voices change and sound like laughter. I could hear what sounded like questions, an interrogative tone. There was always that 'unh' buzz sprinkled throughout their conversations. And I clearly heard the words... or... sounds, 'Ass Oomamnnh'.

It was a vein of lithium Captain Briggs detected from orbit, shaped like it had been 'splashed there' in sand, he said, a big 'molten teardrop, by some geologic event long past'. I'd never seen lithium. This was a purple crystalline structure, not 'molten'. Angelo broke it off, picked it up with the dozer in big chunks, dropped it to break it, so we could get more in the ore pods, more in the holds on the D. L. A. We were 'gleaning' smaller bits out of the sand, trying to fill our last holds with this prize. We were homeward bound, back to Earth with a big payday! The bastards.

Tinunh picked up a piece, a chunk about the size of her two hands, admired it, that first day they talked to me. She kind of gestured to her mother, and me, seeming, I thought, to ask permission. I raised my eyebrows, nodded. I... never thought to smile. Her mother must have given approval. She put it in her bag, looking at me, as if asking permission again. I nodded. I smiled. She did too. They have beautiful white teeth; all of them.

The sand around the site isn't purple; just red sand. It's a lovely hue, the purple, and crystalline. Briggs wanted it; all of it. It was fairly easy to mine, breaking easily with just one small dozer, and lots of shoveling to pick up every piece of the light purple crystal ore. I figured one little girl could have a sample for her rock collection. I bet she had a rock collection. She grinned with perfect white teeth, like her mother, golden irises a'flicker.

Patrick. Damned shovel. Damned Patrick. He was a temperamental son of a... He complained daily of the tedium of separating ore from sand. I offered to switch with him, driving the ore cart to the cargo shuttle, and let him shovel. He tried it, but didn't like that either. I was left standing at the shuttle a lot waiting for him to bring a load to sort. Briggs made us switch back. I never had any relationship with Patrick. Well, nobody did. It seemed to me Patrick had a conflict with everybody on the crew at one time or another. He finally got around to me.

I saw the pattern. He always started a conversation, challenging something or nothing. With me it was nothing. I'm going to call it 'nothing'. He wanted to know... if I liked rabbits. He said it just like that, "I want to know... if you like rabbits."

I said, "I've never been around rabbits. They seem interesting."

What do you say in answer to, "Do you like rabbits?"

Yeah. Me neither! LOL

I was going to tell him about seeing a documentary where a rabbit unburied its young to feed them, nurse them, and then they went back in the hole, apparently a burrow, and the mother covered the entrance over again. I didn't know they did that. I never got to tell him.

He started cussing me, saying I didn't know anything about rabbits.

I wanted to tell him that's exactly what I'd said; I'd never been around rabbits. I'd seen them, back on Earth, not in the wild, only in captivity. There's something that bops around in the desert here but I never got close enough to see one. They move like rabbits. I don't know anything about rabbits.

But Patrick was all in his own thing by then, ranting, spitting, incoherent, incomprehensible, waving his free arm around, transferring his shovel to wave the other arm around, same pattern and practice I'd seen or heard or heard about with every other crew member; same-same, except for the shovel in hand. That difference made all the difference... that day.

Damned Patrick! There is something psychologically or organically wrong with that son of a... Ya don't find out about some people until you're out somewhere with them; stuck with them.

Briggs was the only one Patrick paid any deference to, the only one who could calm him down, redirect him, and Briggs was in the cargo shuttle, prepping to leave the planet with our last load, I think, that night or the next day.

Suddenly, the little bastard hit me with the shovel!

I didn't know if the 'bong' sound was in the shovel or in my skull. I had jerked back. It wasn't a super hard hit, but a hit nonetheless!

Suddenly the... local... was there, green face, shrill voice, buzzing!

I didn't see him coming, don't know why he came, but he came too near to suit Patrick. Patrick thought they were creepy. Yeah. He was the one who thought they were bees with stingers, segmented limbs. Not Briggs. He swung his shovel and hit the thing in the face! Green blood began to flow down its face and shirtfront. I pushed Patrick. He was drawing back to swing again! He swung, the shovel bouncing off my head again with a resounding bong! I had jerked back again but he still caught me pretty good. I threw my left hand in his face and swung with my right!

I knocked the crap out of him! He lost his balance on the gritty slope, kept trying to stay on his feet and he slid down the hill, into the pit! From the bottom he scrambled back up, using his hands on the slope, sans shovel, face contorted in a snarl of anger, mouth, nostrils, eyes of rage!

I stood my ground! I wanted to pound him again! He glared at me just out of fist range! My head hurt. I was afraid I'd pass out.

He backed up and stalked off!

I turned to the bleeding creature. I took it by the wrist and led it through the rip rap, into the desert toward the... the hive. We called it 'the hive', the stony red... mountain. Have you ever seen Uluru? That big... rock... on the continent of Australia? I've seen pictures. It seemed like that to me. Just one big rock sticking out of the ground.

I'd seen the bays and balconies and dark holes up the cliff face. We speculated on their hive-like behavior, 'Waspish things!' Angelo thought, but with very human-like heads, faces, friendly smiles, golden eyes that seemed quite sentient and kind. Their irises that seemed to flicker, opening and closing the pupils rapidly. Scary! The men said they had two elbows in each arm; two knees in each leg. Yeah. Freaky. But they don't. They usually walk, with no apparent difference from a Human walk. They wear clothes. Females have breasts, nipples that show underneath, even the little girl, thin waists, shapely hips. Males vary in the development of their torsos. They're... some kind of... people.

This one allowed me to lead it, blood in its eyes probably keeping it from seeing. I'll bet it was a good hour's walk. The late afternoon heat made it an ordeal. I stopped several times in any shade I could see, the cati shadows, to get my breath. It seemed to breathe only a little better than me. I gave him my neckerchief to apply pressure to his forehead with his left hand, where the blood was coming from. I figured it was bleeding good enough none of my sweat or germs would get in, with the blood coming out. I worried about pathogens in his blood getting on me. I hooked his right hand into the crook of my left arm and pulled it on toward the mountain. Fingerprints; I saw fingerprints in the blood on my arm. The green blood was getting on my arm!

As we came near, others came, from there in the desert, from out of the... hive... and took him by the arms, leading up a path up the slope to an elevated flat level, and into a large oval opening into the base of the... mountain... the rock. I moved back out into the desert to watch them go across the flat, disappear into that hole. There was a rise of buzzing voices. I thought they might... swarm out and... get me.

Eenunh came out to the edge of the flat level. I recognized her; a friendly face. I didn't know what to say... what to... try to say. I figured the guy was still alive and could tell what happened. I don't know why he was there. Damned Patrick!

The Sunstar was going down. A red ball on the western horizon. Night was falling, and falls fast here. She gestured for me to come up off the desert floor, gestured with her left hand, pointed with her right toward the sloping path up, and toward.. the hive. I'm afraid. But I'm more afraid of what wanders around in the dark at night here. I've heard something at night, yipping like canines, in a pack!I hesitated. Could I run that hour distance back, before dark? Hell no. I turned back toward her. She gestured again, with her hands and head. I came up the slope and stepped on the flat, stony surface, a vast patio of sorts, crushed stone, flattened, packed, almost cement-like but obvious packed aggregate. It looks like the red sandstone, but marbled whitish, like it has been broken, or cut out of the matrix. It was hot. Heat came down from the Sunstar and up off the stone. There was a green blood trail across the patio! Green blood had dried on my arm. I rubbed at it and it flaked off. I worried that rubbing more might rub it into my skin! Germs! Contamination! I wonder if she saw my panic! I know she saw my panic.

She gave up gesturing, went in. I hung around there on the patio, as night fell, the red sunstarset painting the desert. It got cooler, but still hot. There was nowhere to sit but on the hot stone. The... people came up out of the desert, and into openings to the left and right, and into this one near me. Some saw me, stopped, stared, went on in. When I saw that there weren't any more coming in out of the desert I moved back out to the edge, sat with my feet down the rip-rap slope. The Sunstar was down, the sky very red, very orange. The distant mountains... they... they look strange, more... uniform along the horizon. I... think it's... it's not the western mountains. It's a cloud mass coming over the mountains. We never saw clouds here. We talked about it. Hot. Dry. No clouds. Not one. Now... I'm sure that's a cloud mass, even, dark, north to south, over the distant hills I know are out there to the west.

Eenunh came out several times, trying to coax me in. I... pouted I guess, ignored her, and she went back in. Then, after dark, I was standing there looking out over the desert, the million stars in the sky, moonlight casting the moonshadows here on the patio, lighting the desert like a painting.

Eenunh came out and took hold of me! She had my left wrist, in her left hand, pulled at my elbow, with her right hand! Very strong! She stepped behind, still securing my left wrist, now withher right hand, pushing on the small of my back with her left, pushing me toward the opening! I was scared by her strength! I stopped resisting. She let go my wrist, simply touched my back intermittently, gently.

There was a... a passage about fifteen feet up, a ramp, and... a wooden divider in the middle of the opening. It was dark. It was dark in there. I'd heard lots of voices earlier, a buzz, sounding like a big room full of people. I noticed it got quieter, then, it sounded like it emptied out in a minute or two. It got totally quiet. Now the room was dark, and empty.

I veered to the left. She let me go. I felt my way around the sandstone wall, came to a rounded corner. I went along that wall, came to the next corner in the back, and sat down on the floor. It was dimly lit by stuff on the walls that glowed when I moved around close to it. In that dim light I could see high-top tables, tall chairs. Eenunh came and sat at a nearby table in the dark, and buzzed at me. I didn't make any attempt to listen or talk. The heat had taken a lot out of me. I was very scared.

She went away, came right back with a... a canister. She turned two chairs to face each other, sat in one, reached toward me, waved at the wall. The light came up. She offered her hand. I took it. I stood up, sat in the other chair. She pulled my green-bloody arm away from me, and I felt cool water spill on it. She had some kind of cloths and wiped at my arm in the dark. She wet a clean cloth, wiped lightly at my face, my neck, put the wet cloth in my hand. She was... very thorough. I... felt refreshed.

She went away again, came back with a bottle. It had a cork in the top. She set it on a table, and filled a mug. I was afraid to drink it. Finally, she left me there. It got dark in the space again. I laid down on the floor and fell asleep. Some time in the night I got up and sat in a chair. It was an odd shape. The chairs sort of let you sit your butt on a platform and then lean with your legs. I got used to it. I managed to sit on it, to lay my head on my forearms on the table and sleep a little better than on the floor. I woke up with a start, in the dark, total blackness, and felt for the bottle, the cork, pulled it out, smelled it. I waved my hand at the wall, and the glow came up. I found the mug, poured from the bottle, sipped. It tasted like grape wine. I took a bigger drink. I emptied the mug. I re-corked the bottle, laid my head on my arms, slept.

I wake up! It's morning! There are a couple guys moving around on the other side of the chamber. They had closed up the opening somehow in the night. It may have been the noise of opening it that awakened me now. I heard that noise in the night, in the darkness, saw those... shapes... moving there. There's light coming in. It's morning. I get up, take the brown bottle, go out and across the wide patio. It's early, the light kind of white, starting to tint red, the hive shadow stretched long across the desert floor. Coming out and looking back, I notice the oval opening, one of several along the 'patio', is divided by a long wooden wall in the center. That must be the... closure, the door. It pivots on a central spindle. I have not seen any trees here. We didn't roam around over the month we'd been here; just mined.

I go down the slope, back across the desert. The cargo shuttle... is gone!

Sons-of-bitches! They left me! They left me. They left me.

I'm... reliving... remembering. That... was then. This... is now.

Eenunh and Tinunh have led me up the slope now, this day, across the patio, in past the wooden divider, the spindle door. Inside the large chamber where I spent that other night in... I see it's a... a restaurant... or... something, a pub. There are tables and the oddly tall chairs, people, these... people... sitting, eating, drinking.

There is a rising murmur of their voices as I come in.

Then... near silence!

My skin prickles like a chill. It's still hot this evening. This... is... a fright chill!

The Sunstar shines brightly outside the opening. That morning I left it last there was a bright white light in the sky. Now, evening sun, a swath of red light, split by the shadow of the divider door, across the middle of the room, on up a ramped passage opposite the... door. It's been overcast out through the western sky for days, a visible grey cloud mass, north to south, just seeming to hang there. Now the Sunstar is shining just above the overcast, setting. In a moment... the light is gone. It's very dim in here.

A pack of males murmur shrilly, immediately rise together from a table to my right at the other side of the cave, and approach us.

Males are smaller than Eenunh, shorter. She's smaller than me, her shorter by about three inches, them shorter by another three. I look around the room. I think mature females are all taller.

Eenunh ignores them, follows Tinunh to a table toward the back of the room, near the passage that ramps up, out of the room, gestures for me to sit. I sit. Tinunh sets the box at my feet. Nudges it with her knees to get it back under the table more. She grins at me, speaks, irises a'flicker. She has perfect white teeth, like her mother. She's beautiful, like her mother. She turns and walks away through the pack of males who have followed us to the table. They get out of her way, opening a path, closing it behind her. I take my work shoes from around my neck, set them on the floor. I try to play it cool; my heart is thumping! I look at their faces, lift my guitar case with my right hand over the table and down on the left side of my chair. 'Don't mess with my guitar boys!' I try to fix my face like Eenunh's, disinterested.

Eenunh sits, studies her hands. The ones that come closest behave aggressively... I think. They're silhouetted, dark shapes outlined in the yellow light coming off the ceiling. Their voices become louder, in unison at times, like they're saying the same words, and rising to shrill. I hear, "Ass Oomam" several times. Eenunh's voice doesn't change. She doesn't say much; short answers. She seems to calmly tell them in few words how things are, gestures dismissively, I think, with her left hand. Some calm down, walk away. One big guy, bigger than the others, same height, but broader chested, bigger arms, continues to berate her, I think. Two others stay and flank him, one behaving supportively, the other more passive, all vocalizing in unison at times. What are they saying that they can all say it at the same time? It's scary! 'Ass Oomam' is just one of their unison comments. Their irises flicker, focus, flicker, head-turns from her to me. Arms wave, oddly. "Ass Oomam!" I lean forward on my alien elbows, look passively from one to another, focus on the big chested... leader, the... agitator.

Eenunh remains steadfast, stops answering, looks about as if they aren't there. Big Chest gets loud, leans toward her over that edge of the table.

Eenunh springs up! It startles me! They all shrink back! Eenunh gives one shrill... chirp!

Conversation over!

They all leave, the passive one up a passageway deeper into the stony mountain. The other one back across the room. Big-chest guy, Chesty, just goes back to their table on the far side of the room with the other guy. He sits, stares at us, murmurs to his remaining companion. I see his lips moving. His companion doesn't seem to respond, and looks away from our direction.

Eenunh sits. I had stood up too, not... aggressively... just... defensively. She scared me more than they did! I sit. Tinunh returns with the green bottle and two gray stone mugs, friendly grin, touches my forearm. She and Eenunh exchange a couple sentences. She goes away again to join a crowd of five about her size at the door, two boys, three girls, and others, varying sizes, maybe a couple young male adults.

It begins to rain out there! I've never seen it rain here! It's pouring! It's loud, splattering on the... patio! The red light is gone. It's darker, if not dark. I can see a small bit, out into the desert. The air in the room moves, literally windy, gets cooler, comfortable. The windyness stops, but the air still feels like it's moving.

Soon, we are sipping what tastes like sweet grape wine, I'm admiring the beauty of her hand, listening to the rain. I'm sleepy.

She is watching Tinunh again, in the group of children at the opening, Eenunh's golden irises flickering, smiling. I turn to look that way, out to the patio.

A great bolt of lightning strikes out in the desert!

It is huge! Very wide! Very near! I saw it!

Instant thunder echoes in the room! All the voices scream! My chill is back!

Some of the older ones hop away from the doorway! They're laughing! Some go on up the passage in a hurry, laughing, others just relocating within the room, joining others at tables. The voices seem... exclamatory. Parents fetch their small children away from the door. The children resist. Parents compromise, taking tables where the children can see out. Apparently the lightning was phenomenal to them too! The thunder had been instantaneous! Very close! I feel the electricity in the air, in my hair, the hair on my arms!

Tinunh comes out of the little crowd of small ones, arms stiffened at an angle down at her sides, shaking her hands as you might to rinse them in water. I think it's a faux fright gesture! Her face is... comical! Her eyebrows are up, golden irises are fixed, not flickering! Her face is... bemused... not frightened! I laugh. She looks me in the eye. Her small face grins. She comes up on my side, climbs deftly up the right side of my chair, right foot finding purchase somewhere down the side, toe of her left shoe finding space beside my thigh on the seat, heel of her right shoe finding space by my left thigh, her left hand on my right shoulder, grinning, gazes wide-eyed, flickering golden irises, into my eyes as she steps across, to her mother, who lifts her in her hands and settles her on her left leg facing me. They buzz to each other, laughing, faces close together. Tinunh crosses her hands over her chest. Beautiful hands. They have beautiful hands. Eenunh puts her right hand there on Tinunh's chest and they get wide-eyed and laugh again. I wonder if they're feeling her heartbeat.

They note their brown hair standing out with the electricity. Tinunh touches the hair on my arm, grinning. It stands up like she's 'charged'. Or I am!

The room suddenly goes quiet. Two people, one male, one female, have come out of the passage into the room. They're wearing dark blue uniform clothes, yellow symbols on their biceps, left side of their shirtfronts. Not many people wear dark blue. I only saw a couple sitting in the pub earlier. The two men who seem to run the pub, in the lighter shade of blue, come out from behind their counter and converse, in passing, head down the ramped opening, about ten feet, the same as the ramp continues beyond the central wooden unit.

I'm studying the two in dark blue... I think they're like cops... when I hear a now-familiar noise to my right. I look to see the wooden divider at the opening being spun on a central spindle, scraping, squeaking. One male pushes near the inside, to the right. Another is out toward the outside, pushing to the left. The wooden barrier pivots, grinds on the sandstone, and closes. A small spindle-door on the left of the big one opens and the one on the outside comes in. Lightning strikes again, somewhere further away, but still powerful, near enough, loud thunder almost instantaneous with the light.

The cops... I think they're cops... have walked close to that door, turned and are looking back toward the passage they came out of. The few people still here are getting up to go up the passage. I'm afraid again. The cops get into the crowd and people step aside to let them go ahead, up the passage. Then the others keep going out and up the ramp. I think it's... closing time... perhaps a curfew.

As the crowd clears I see Chesty, still staring, glaring, still sitting.

Soon the room is empty but for us, him, and the men in the lighter blue. They clear the tables. They begin picking up chairs and carrying them up the passage. The dim light in the walls gets dimmer except close to where they're moving. Eenunh sets Tinunh on the floor. She stands, taps the cork and gestures with the green bottle in her right hand for me to come with them, throws her head toward the passage way. I tip my mug, empty it. She empties hers.

It slopes up; the passage. I gesture to the corner where I'd made my bed on the bare floor the night I brought the injured man back. The next day, the shuttle was gone. I'd been out there half expecting them to come back. Half knowing I wasn't worth it to Briggs. Damned Patrick.

Eenunh does a negative nod, left and right. Points to the passage with the bottle in her hand. Tinunh has lifted the box of my things. She grins at me, does the head toss, turns and moves toward the passage.

I stand, drape my work shoes around my neck, pick up my pillow, sleeping bag, laundry bag, guitar, hat. We go... into the hive.