Chaos in the Night 5

Chapter 5

The gray sloth moved easily in the branches of a mottled Ammonia tree. High above, the ever present dome sun flickered and she felt a sudden chill. If the powerful spotlight ever went out, even for a minute, every living thing within the Titan Dome would instantly freeze and topple over dead. Even the towering Ammonia trees, which were shallow rooted and extremely fragile. They grew only yards away from the big water/ammonia third Ring Lake and Annie lounged beneath their thick leafy branches while Simon Arturo wielded his brushes. The oils he used were genuine Titan pigments, gathered from phosphane lakes and rivers.

“Your chin is dipping, my dear.” She could see only the top of his head, where a dark pair of goggles rested. Annie looked up while Arturo dabbed a brown semi-circle onto the canvas. He peeked about the easel and tongued his upper right lip. “Are you cold?”

“Only for a moment,” she said, and eyed her frock. Suddenly she felt goose pimples and her pert nipples hardened noticeably. Annie shivered.

Simon rose from his bench and gathered up Annie's shear dress, draping it over her shoulders and covering her naked form. He packed his brushes and canvas and they started their light walk back to the Lakeside building, this domes main tunnel hub. Much earlier, Annie found that she couldn't bear the thought of going back to permanent tunnel life, not after experiencing the open air of Earth. This life went against everything she was taught, but after mere weeks she gave in and let the madames recruit her as a mistress. In a bizarre twist of fate, she was bought by a collector and farmed out to artists - men and women who were recruited to artistically document life within and on the surface of this amazing new world.

Within hailing distance of the tunnel doors, the sun brightened and brushed away the Titan winter. Annie shrugged the frock off one shoulder and breathed heavily. Normally the artists gave her free reign between posings, but this day Arturo took Annie's hand and led her to a fallen tree, where he sat her down and lifted the gown off her torso to drape it over a limb. Arturo knelt before her, fondling her modest breasts and he kissed her neck, working lips and tongue down to her cleavage. Then he thrust his way between her legs and together they gently rose into the low gravity, tumbling in the lush airs of the dome until they gently rolled as one onto the soft loam of Titan's earth.

–

Sweat dripped down Draybeck's back and stomach; it soaked the baggy shorts that he just kept up barely by use of some discarded wire twine from the tunneling bore. He was holding a pump over his head, clamping down the handle with a hand that was rapidly cramping up, and his arms were heavy as lead while an acidic wash frothed from the nozzle to cool the screws. His eyes were very nearly squinched shut and burned endlessly. He wanted to get a hold of a sharp splinter and dig them from his skull; the ammonia water had nearly destroyed his vision, so they were of little use anyways.

Down the tunnel Stephen was howling raunchy phrases and beating on the screws with a wire whip to loosen caked phosphorus. On the surface it may have been -170 C, but this far below the surface of Titan the temperatures swelled to between 45 and 50 degrees C. Together Draybeck and Stephen had come down to the mines with 10 men, most of them draftees from Earth, only to see half of them replaced with fresh bodies. Draybeck knew he wouldn't last much longer. His arms sagged as he staggered onto a craggy rock wall and fell over. The acid wash sprayed onto a neighbor who screamed and whipped at Draybeck with his tool. Stephen staggered forward and flailed at the man, pushing him aside.

“Get up, damnit, Dray. Get up and spray that hose, hose those screws you horny fucker.”

“Fuck yeah, fuck it,” cheered the crew, and they gathered their strength to attack the rock and drive forward, toward the end of their shift. Minutes remained, mere minutes, and if only they could live through the long seconds, a hard stone bed in a dry heat waited for them a mile up. They would drink the diluted water and gnaw on marrow and scraps from a stale larder, and so they would live, for another day, one more or maybe two.

–

Her portraits caught the eye of Elena Consuelos, and soon Annie moved to the apartments of the wealthy Spaniard who wore a tiara instead of an aura. Elena set her upon diamond pillars etched and vividly streaked by the torrents of roiling surface flows, and the best artists on Titan lined up to immortalize her. The cavern walls of Mademoiselle Consuelos showcased the artful posturing of Annie, as she stretched and arced and reclined in still life and landscapes.

Elena loved Annie so. She caressed and bathed her. They lay together every day and night, oftentimes to an audience or with many men who moved as instructed by their mistresses. Elena lived for Annie; she was so precious to her; hers was a sickness. Annie vomited every morning, but she decided eventually that she could live with the shame; better this. Even this - better this than to dwell like a rat in the tunnels running errands and sweating ammonia from gasping pores.

Sitting erect, high with a straight back, her green hue exchanged for blue, soon Annie found she was wearing the crown, while Consuelos bowed in her moist lap, prostrating herself to the glory of her mistress, eager to do homage and pay any price for Annie's attention.

Finally Annie recalled the reason she was here, on Titan; she remembered the sere men that crawled as insects and lay curling like parchment in yellow embers.