To more fully enjoy this story in living, breathing HTML,
please visit our website at:
/~vivian
Now offering over 140,000 words of pure prurience!
--------------------------------------------------------
Jasmin (part IV)
by Vivian Darkbloom
We were sufficiently within range of Syrene to resume the use of
propulsion. The cloaking field was effective for preventing
visual or radar detection of an inert hull, but the intense
infra-red wavelengths of thruster propulsion were too much for
the algorithm -- as currently designed -- to handle.
But it would have to be a pretty cheeky Inquisition ship to risk
the consequences, both physical and political, of trespassing the
boundaries of the Syrene starsystem territory. Those who had, had
swiftly discovered the determination with which the deceptively
gentle Syrene authorities would seize their ships and cargo upon
a the slightest hint of Inquisition activities, and there were
inquisitioners still serving harsh sentences in Syrenian jails.
The sentences were quite just, given the threats the
inquisitioners had levied on local citizenry, and no amount of
petitioning or threats by the Inquisition itself had been
sufficient to release them. Not that Syrene culture was
repressive -- quite the reverse. They simply had no tolerance for
repression imposed by other entities, social, political, or
religious.
I figured I'd visit an old pal of mine from college days, my
friend Xavier Garcia who (last I heard) lived here in a
spacestation with his fiance Rosa. I looked him up and, sure
enough, he was listed right there in the central directory, so I
gave him a buzz.
He answered after three rings, and his face popped up on the
screen, a few more grey hairs, a tad bit more dimpled with age
than the last time I'd seen him, but looking well enough.
He burst into a grin when he saw me. "Xithnous, what in the
galaxy are you doing way the hell out here? It's good to see
you!"
"Us X- named people gotta stick together."
"Well, I wasn't exactly expecting you. Now this is bizarre, I
have a trigonometric fix on your location, but I can't get a
visual lock on your ship."
"Oh right. Here..." I waved away the holo-projected screens my
PDA had splashed across the air, and brought up the control panel
for the cloaking application that had been running in the
background. I twirled my fingers in the air to shut it down.
A look of astonishment crossed his face as he watched the ship
appear on screen beside him. "OK dude. Two questions. First, how
did you come up with a cloaking algorithm and when are you going
to upload it over to here so I can use it. And Second,..."
"Actually, that was two questions already."
He looked suitably annoyed. "OK, wise-guy. See, this is why I
never have conversations with a mathematician. You know I never
learned how to count."
"Dude, did you even graduate?"
"Look," he protested. "All those rumors about someone hacking
into the school computer to up my grades so I could graduate...
all lies. Complete fabrication."
"Hm. Which would sound plausible to anybody who didn't happen to
be the person who hacked into the computer to change your grades
for you."
"Whoa. Dude, was that you? Boy, that was some rasta-weed we just
got in here. Steenky kind buds with little red hairs, you know
the real tight kind. And just a hint of pine in the aroma.
Mm-mm-good. Speakin' of which, you gotta come by and have a few
bongloads."
I laughed. "I think I'll pass on the bongloads, but I'd be glad
to come by and borrow your dock while I take a ferry to the
surface."
"Quicker to just take the elevator, but whatever. Mi casa es
tuyo, amigo, you're welcome to borrow the space dock anytime.
Which brings me to my second question..."
"Third question."
"Whatever, where in the galaxy did you get that ship?"
"Oh, just kind of floating around in space," I said.
"It's mine, actually," piped in Jasmin, who had appeared behind
me.
His eyes widened even wider still. "OK, and who are you?"
"Jasmin McCloud," she said simply.
Xavier looked off into space thoughtfully. "Name rings a bell,"
he said. "Isn't there some park somewhere by that name? Anyway,
charmed and delighted to meet you. So when are you coming by to
visit?"
"Would right now be OK? We're trying to get to the surface to
find a shuttle to replace the one that went missing from the bay
of this ship."
"Sounds like I need to hear this story in person. So drop on by,
here are the orbital parameters." (he dropped them into the
hypertext transfer channel, from which they popped up underneath
the screen displaying his picture) "Whoo boy, a Sabre parked
outside my place. Are the neighbors going to be jealous or what?
Now is that a DX or one of the MX series?"
"DX-42. Top of the line," I boasted.
He gave a low whistle. "Well, we'll see you shortly."
"And Xavier,"
"Yah?"
"Please don't go around telling a bunch of people we're here. I'd
like to keep it sort of low-profile."
"You got it buddy. Mum's the world."
The screen blinked off, and I sighed.
Jasmin encircled my shoulders with her arms and gave me a little
kiss on the cheek.
"Interesting friend," she said.
"Suppose he could say the same thing about me." I looked up at
her, swiveling around so she was in front of me, and she sat on
my lap facing me. "I suppose I could say the same about you," I
replied.
Today she wore what looked like a school uniform, all in white
with a knee-length pleated dress, neatly creased all around. And
white knee-socks with black-strap schoolgirl shoes..
"I'm glad you're my friend," she said.
"Me too."
"Glad that you're your own friend?"
"No, I mean I'm glad you're my friend, you little brat. You knew
what I meant."
"So did you really break into the school's computer?"
"Hey look. It was a long time ago, and all I changed was just one
`D' he had gotten from a teacher just on account of personality
conflict, and we all agreed he didn't deserve it. He would have
graduated anyway. I never should have done it. It was the wrong
thing to do, but it's too late to go back and change it."
She blinked at me with waifish anime-wide eyes. "Not even for
me?"
"It just wouldn't be right, sweetie."
She gave a lustful grunt and shifted on my lap. "I love it when
you talk about doing the right thing, right and wrong, and stuff
like that."
"Ethics?"
"Yeah. I love it when you talk ethics. It makes me all hot."
Panting softly, she lifted her neatly-creased schoolgirl dress to
reveal the spot of moisture in the center of her scrunched-up
panties.
Before I knew it, she had ripped open the front of my jeans and
was slobbering all over my rising member.
I gasped for air, glancing quickly at the comsystem console to be
sure all outside communications were switched off. Then I gently
and lovingly cupped her head in my palms as delicately and
passionately her skillful tongue sent my mind spinning into
whirls of ecstasy.
We fucked on the carpeted floor, right there in the bridge. She
didn't bother taking off any of her clothes, only her panties
that flew across the room as she looped them over her black dress
shoes and flung them.
Her face was flush with passion as she spread her legs up high,
ankles behind her ears, and I delicately kissed her crimson lips
as I rammed myself hard into her slimy wet orifice, which was
invisible beneath the crisply ironed impeccably pressed skirt.
Again and again I dove into her, eliciting moan after moan of
blissful excitation.
Nearly dressed as we were, it was almost like we were just having
a casual conversation. I could have been the classroom teacher,
me and the schoolgirl just having a tiny chat, with a special
little hidden interaction going on under the table, a delightful
secret that only the two of us shared.
Her orgasms grew and climaxed, tantalizing and coaxing until
finally the anticipated release built up steam, and as I drew up
for the ultimate thrust, she ferociously devoured my lips with
smacks of loving passion, and nestled so cozily in the intimate
caverns of her delicate young body, I found my sweet surrender to
convulsions of careening, satisfying squirting of my slime into
her slippery chambers.
____________________________________________________________
We decided it would be best to wash the dress, so we tossed it
into the laundry unit, which correctly identified the nature of
the substance(s) that had stained it, along with an illuminated
menu of possible remedies. For a delightful hour or so, she
pranced about the ship in nothing but her frilly little panties.
Plus, of course, the knee-high white socks and black schoolgirl
shoes.
As we approached Syrene, the comsystem beeped with the an
autoloaded document it had received, that contained the hundreds
of pages of pertinent regulations for spacegoing vessels along
with a five page summary. It required a signature, which I gave,
and we proceeded on our course to space-station beta, where
Xavier lived. Ah, bureaucracy.
All in all, I'd say it was a pretty smooth border crossing. Some
of these places they want to board your ship and search the whole
thing with bio-scanners before you can even establish a sensible
orbit, but Syrene was know for being cool and collected, and
promoting an atmosphere of trust. So far it had served them well.
The spacestation was enormous, one of a dozen or so orbiting the
planet, home to about a hundred families and individuals who
resided there for various reasons. Some worked in the shipping
channels of the interplanetary or intergalactic space, so shaving
off the extra part of the commute from the planet surface added a
few hours to one's day.
Others, like my friend Xavier, simply preferred life in a
lower-gravity environment, plus all the excitement and culture
the station drew to it. Indeed, there were some theatrical and
musical shows that never toured outside the station circuit,
often taking advantage if the lower gravity for special effects,
and the space-station show had become a veritable institution and
subculture of its own with groupies and regulars and
professionals who devoted their lives to it.
I wish I could describe the shape of the station better. I'll do
the best I can: From the distance, it looked sort of like a
glittering metal, gigantically large, spiked ball. Imagine the
skyline of an ordinary planet-bound city, with skyscrapers and
different designs of buildings and such, only that the structures
all radiated out three-dimensionally from a central point. Then
you begin to picture what we saw in the viewscreen as we
approached.
A key difference between a planet-bound skyscraper and a
zero-gravity one, is that people are inclined to extend the
latter in bizarre Escheresque directions, sending a branch at 90
degrees in an "L" shape, or a T shape, or an X shape (though the
letters in the Sorlolian alphabet are shaped in ways which lend
themselves particularly well to architecture, and are often
applied for such a purpose).
Given that the orientation can be shifted simply by altering the
projected gravitational field, the ceiling of one space might be
the wall of another, two adjacent rooms might be gravitated in
the exact inverse, one upside-down of the other. In fact, there
were some who specialized in deliberately replicating the bizarre
spatial effects of M.C. Escher's engravings.
As we got closer, we began to grasp the enormity and complexity
of it, and details of the windows, and people inside the windows,
and ships twittering about all around, flashing beacon lights,
the occasional person in a space-suit wandering about. The
spacestation never sleeps, as they say.
We entered the coordinates Xavier had given us into the station's
guidance system, and it proffered a convenient conveyance beam,
asking us to please shut off all onboard propulsion (which we
did) so that it could guide us safely and efficiently to our
destination.
On all sides, ships buzzed by, huge multi-storied windowed
buildings loomed ahead of us only to vanish around behind, inside
the windows we could see a boy watching television here, a
lesbian couple preparing a salad there, a woman at a computer
over there, glowing curtains closed on a lot of them to
concealing the mundane or secret sexual activities going on
behind.
Eventually we turned down a deserted orangish-tan alleyway, with
square bay door, and a glassene kitchen-window above it, with
white curtains decorated with light-blue trim. The bay door had
slowly flashing white lights all around it. It was was marked in
large industrial black letters with a multidigit number (now
forgotten), above which was a fancy colorful artistically
handpainted sign, three-dimensional confetti letters done all up
in garish colors reading "Xavier and Rosa's place."
As we approached, the bay doors opened diagonally in front of us,
and lights came on inside to reveal a typical space-garage,
populated by a funky old two-seated cruiser, plus a ridiculous
hodge-podge of the sort of junk that accumulates in such places,
a worn out oil-splattered pump from here, a rust-covered spare
thruster manifold set from there (just needs a little fixing up!)
and huge piles of stuff filled with objects whose original
purpose in life I could only begin to guess, and whose main
usefulness at this point was to participate in a series of
bizarre ever-shifting set of sculptures, consisting of odds and
ends cherished by an eccentric junk collector.
Xavier's grinning face flashed up on one of the smaller console
screens. "That old honker of a ship won't fit in my tiny little
bay, so we'll just anchor it there and I'll send out one of the
pods. The pod's a bit small, so I hope you all don't mind getting
a little cozy for a bit." He gave a kind of kinky laugh.
The anchor cables snaked out from the walls, puzzled for a moment
over the ancient protocols from several hundred years ago, until
the Sabre and the spacestation docking system reached a tentative
accord, and we could hear the faint metallic echoes through the
hull as the anchors attached and then pulled tight to secured the
ship in place.
I'll spare you the details of my conversation with Xavier. Rosa
was smart. She greeted us, smiling, then promptly left to go off
and do something worthwhile. Within a few minutes, Jasmin began
fidgeting, yawning, and drumming her fingers, and she eagerly
followed my suggestion to locate Rosa and see if she couldn't
find something they could do together.
Being men, Xavier and I of course did not discuss anything of
genuine emotional import. The closest we got was a brief
investigation of the relative merits of various female body
parts, but that awkward topic soon passed and we got onto safe,
manly matters, such as the current political situation with the
Inquisition, and the status of various advances in the current
technology.
The conversation was regularly punctuated with the sound of him
taking bong hits, and though I did not indulge, the musky
second-hand smoke made my head swim a little. At regular
intervals, a topic of discussion would trigger some memory of an
event we had both witnessed or mischief we had both participated
in, which would yield minutes lost in reminiscences and fond
retelling of the old myths.
He was curious about my cloaking algorithm, so I let him download
it and we chattered about installing it in his cruiser, but of
course didn't get around to actually doing it. We discussed the
best way to find a shuttle craft with which to populate the bay
of the Sabre, and he knew somebody that was selling one, but it
needed a new infra-ray transformer.
I talked half-heartedly of needing a new ship for myself, and he
offered similarly useful information. I thought (but did not
share with him) that perhaps it was time to seek a quiet,
planet-bound lifestyle for awhile, to settle down and relinquish
all the excitement of space-travel.
We then spent a significant amount of time speculating about what
would be the best transport route (within the spacestation) to
get to the surface-to-orbit elevator, and arrived at a perfect
solution. Unfortunately, it turned out to be completely
fallacious when Rosa returned (with Jasmin) and, pulling out a
nearby drawer, produced an actual map and schedule of the
transport shuttles. After glancing at it for a few seconds, she
underlined with her thumb the optimal route to our destination,
the elevator that would land on the planet's surface adjacent to
the H.G. Wells Spaceport.
"Why are you heading way the hell out there?" demanded Xavier.
"They only just built it, so there's nothin' there really. Other
than rolling green hills and a bunch of farms and orchards."
"Call it a hunch," I replied, trading glances with Jasmin.
Rosa gazed lovingly at Jasmin, with wisdom and kindness. "I do
wish you the best and most gracious speed in finding your mother
and father."
"Thanks," she whispered back, shyly.
"It must be a terrible feeling to experience such a loss, but I
know they loved you very much."
Jasmin had a tear in the corner of her eye.
Rosa took Jasmin into her arms as she wept silently.
Now it was Xavier's turn to fidget, yawn, and drum his fingers.
"If they loved me, then why didn't they come looking for me?"
Jasmin demanded quietly.
"I'm sure they did," said Rosa. "The thing about space is, there
is a lot of it. It's impossible to search everywhere, dear. It
simply can't be done."
____________________________________________________________
The descent in the space elevator is a spectacular experience.
First there is the elevator itself, resembling in decor a giant
version of the art-nouveau glass-windowed elevators in one of
those fancy hotels with enormous interior courtyards.
The obvious design would have been for an anchor point in
geostationary orbit. Unfortunately, given a planet such as Syrene
with approximately the same mass as the Earth, this would have
called for about 35,000 kilometres of cabling.
Fortunately, by strategically altering the gravitational
spacetime characteristics by proper application of the G-field,
and incorporating a series of mathematical manipulations of
complexity beyond the scope of the current document, the
engineers of today have achieved the ability to maintain
stationary orbits at a much closer radius. On Syrene, the
spacestation and the anchor-point of the elevators hangs out at
about 330 km from the surface.
Intimate awareness of the construction of the cables would be a
bit disconcerting to the average tourist, given that the main
weight-bearing portion is only a millimetre or so in diameter,
consisting of specially fabricated microlinked steel particles
manufactured using a relatively new technique.
The cable is surrounded, however, in opaque black
ultra-strengthened plastic, several centimetres thick. This is
for a couple of reasons. One is simply the visually reassuring
effect to the rider. The other is that the tiny support cable,
possessing such an unexpected strength given its near
invisibility, would act like a razor-edged blade to any object
coming close to it. Any ship that attempted to plough through it
would be sheared in two, and for that reason the whole length of
it was decorated with glittering lights and radio beacons to warn
all who approached of the danger.
Once you step in, it is like a cross between being in the quietly
hushed, richly carpeted hotel room, and gazing out the window of
a ski-resort gondola, only much higher up.
My twinge of financial anxiety began to surface as we stood at
the door, waiting to board the elevator. The gentleman in a blue
conductor's uniform and glasses and a salt-and-pepper moustache
was checking peoples' identification as they boarded. "Syrene ID
card? Thank you. ID please? Thank you."
We were in the front of the line. "Syrene ID?"
"Um, we're travelers, not residents."
"That will be three drotchklings. And the young miss? Are you
under twelve?"
"Yes," I answered for her.
"No charge, then."
She gave me a dirty look. "That's not quite being honest," she
said. "If you go by my birthday, I'm 212."
The conductor looked at her curiously. "And you don't look a day
over 211."
"I was in cryo-stasis," she explained.
"Ah. Well in that case, you qualify for our senior discount,
meaning that, there is no charge."
I set down my luggage, and reached into my pocket to dig out the
three drotchklings to pay him, then followed her to a seat by the
window.
"What was that all about?" I asked, as we wheeled our luggage on
board and found a couple of adjacent cushioned velvet seats.
"It isn't right to lie," she insisted.
"Well it's not entirely a lie. It's more a question of meaning."
"Right."
"No, seriously. If you look at the intention, the spirit of the
law, which is to provide assistance to those less able to afford
the fare, then you're justified in accepting the waiver of fees
which, you'll note, the conductor agreed with to." Her pelvis
squirmed. She leaned over and whispered in my ear: "I love it
when you talk ethics," then leaned back smiling.
That gave me a tingle in the right place.
"Besides, dear, I have to be careful with spending. I only have a
thousand or so drotchklings in my bank account."
Her smile faded. I don't think she had ever needed to worry about
money.
The elevator door closed, and we began our descent.
____________________________________________________________
Once I had the privilege of taking a flight in an refurbished
antique 20th century aircraft, a Boeing 747 I believe it was. I
have no idea how people could stand being cooped up in one of
these primitive things for hours on end. Amazing what human
beings can adapt to.
For some odd reason, the descent to Syrene reminded me of that
flight's landing, by way of stark contrast. First, compared with
the terrible racket of the airplane flight, there was the silence
of the elevator. The elevator had quietly sumptuous music
playing, one of the glorious 22nd-century symphonie-electronique,
I couldn't identify the composer. The perfect backdrop, at once
mysterious, sublime, powerful, and humorous.
Then, the view. Who could believe those ancient airliners only
had tiny little windows to peek out of? Compared with being
surrounded with clear glassene, which auto-adjusted its tinting
to compensate for the harmful UV rays of the outer atmosphere. A
full 360-degree view, just like being in the gondola of an even
older hot-air balloon, only much higher up in the air.
How can I describe the refreshing mist of the atmosphere as the
late-morning sun refracted and reflected through clear,
microscopic particles. The aura of life surrounding the planet,
clinging to it, rising like subtle vapor.
Then there is the simple drama of proximity, the simplicity of
concealment and emergence, not from behind or through anything,
but with the straightforward act of being closer or farther away.
The spacestation that had seemed so huge receded above us until
it was the size of a head, then a hand, then the tip of a finger,
then a speck of grey barely visible. And meanwhile, the contours
of the planet below us revealed the plenitude of its details as
we drew closer. Embracing us, reaching out to us, offering us
life as we returned from the emptiness of the void to the
surroundedness of glittering enormous turquoise-aquamarine oceans
looking like living, moving cake frosting, of mountains looking
like gingerbread dusted with powdered sugar, of green forests
frozen in boiling dances across rolling hills, dotted with
shining mirror lakes of different shapes and sizes like writing
in a foreign language.
Scratchings in the dust became roads, dots became squares became
the roofs of houses, grains of sand became boulders became
mountains, and magically we arrived with a swirl of chatter and
smiles of awe and wonder.
Gently the elevator set down, the doors slid open with a
pneumatic `hiss,' and we whisked out of the compartment with the
rush of the crowd, wheeling our suitcases down the aisle of the
terminus (following the holo-signs that guided us) onboard the
monorail car.
Here, there was no dispensation for the under-12 (or over 65),
but a flat 4-drotchkling fee for each of us. I noticed that
residents seemed to be able to ride for free, simply by
presenting their identification card for visual examination.
The railway cars were clean and modern. Soon, we found ourselves
staring out at the lush green landscape gliding effortlessly by,
on the way to the H.G. Wells airport.
I asked a lady sitting by us the story on riding for free, and
she cheerfully explained how on Syrene, all citizens are
guaranteed housing, sustenance, transportation and medical care,
but can earn extra buying credits by taking on work -- but only
in a field which they enjoy. There was a strict battery of
psychological tests to ensure that people would only work at jobs
that gave them satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment and
self-worth.
It sounded unrealistically utopian to me, but in the course of my
skeptical questioning I started to understand how it had
resoundingly succeeded for several centuries.
"You should become a citizen," she said. "What is your
profession, if I may ask?"
"Oh, I'm a mathematician," I said.
Jasmin surprised me by whispering under her breath: "He's truly
amazing."
The lady smiled. "You would have no trouble at all finding things
to do. You'll find that around here, people who make a positive
difference are generously rewarded."
She stood up, as her stop was coming up. "You seem like nice
people," she said. "I hope you think about it!"
By the time we got to our stop, the H.G. Wells Spaceport, there
was nobody else on board the train.
When the door opened, I almost didn't want to get off. We were
greeted by warm tropical air, and the rambunctious chatter of
insects and amphibians invisible in the trees and foliage that
surrounded us. Carting her luggage behind her, she plunged ahead
of me, and vacantly on autopilot, I followed.
The train departed in a mechanistic `whoosh,' without pausing to
ask if this were really where we wanted to be, or did we wish to
reconsider? No, the dutifully streamlined iron horse had
schedules to keep, and better places to be.
I looked around the platform. Not much variety, just trees and
shrubs, with all sizes of leaves ranging from enormous to tiny
needles, exotic flowers in several different colors and shades,
pink, purple, yellow, and orange, and a combination of black and
red that with a sort of marble stripe through it. There must have
been a dozen birds (or some similar animal) within earshot, and
the sound of each individual call was astoundingly rich and
complex, to say nothing of the astonishing effect of hearing them
all together in different parts of the space everywhere around
us.
The only sign of civilization was a dirt road that led away from
the platform, so wordlessly, we followed it, each of us with
suitcase wheels bumping along the rocks and pits in the dust.
Making me wish I had sprung a few extra drotchklings for the
model with smooth-ride G-field antigravity support.
I began to wonder if we could just catch the next train back, to
wonder if we had even correctly heard the words on the videotaped
message her mother had left, that had flown by so swiftly. Had we
even gone back and listened again to make sure of what she had
said? I don't think we had, but I couldn't distinctly remember in
this heat, as I loosened my outer shirt and finally took it off
and tied the sleeves around my waist.
After awhile on the dusty road, we came to an fork leading off
into two directions, with a sign indicating the direction of each
fork. The sign was handpainted, neatly, and (I noted with a small
measure of relief) did not seem to contain spelling errors.
The arrow to the right said "H.G.Wells Spaceport 15 km" and to
the left: "Old New Oldtown 1 km."
As we stopped to consider, I put in my vote by pointing to the
left. "Maybe we can find some sort of vehicle to take us to the
spaceport."
She looked up with a glint of defiance.
"Sweetheart, I'm not about to walk 15 kilometres in this heat.
Don't be ridiculous."
She shrugged, but gave in, and we proceeded down the twisting and
winding road to the left. It got better a little ways up, with
something actually resembling pavement, and therefore a smoother
surface for the suitcase wheels to roll upon.
In a little ways, we began to see signs of human incursion on the
landscape, in the form of surprisingly modern-looking buildings
neatly arranged on either side of the road, that seemed totally
out of place in the middle of such unkempt wilderness.
We walked up to the first one, which seemed to be a general
store, and pushing through the pressure-sealed tinted glass door,
found ourselves in a refreshingly air-cooled shop, populated by a
lone attendant, a girl maybe 15 years old with neatly combed hair
in a ponytail, dressed in athletic-style clothing, intently lost
in a dramatic TV show playing on a moderately sized screen above
her.
We looked around a bit, and Jasmin wandered impulsively over to
the display of candy bars and jellybeans, right in front of the
cooler full of soda pop.
I approached cleared my throat several times before attaining an
audience, but finally the girl looked up and said "Yes, hello.
May I help you?"
"I was wondering, is there a motel nearby?"
"Uh, yeah. There's only one around here, and it's up the street
on the left." I could sense her attention being magnetized back
to the magical screen of drama above her, when a grinning Jasmin
plunked down a pile of assorted candies and chocolates onto the
counter.
"Please?" she begged me.
"What are you trying to do, love? Break the bank?" She looked so
disappointed. "Look, five drotchklings worth. That's it. We're
about to get lunch, anyway. Which reminds me," I turned back to
the girl behind the counter, who was staring at the screen again,
"Is there a restaurant nearby?"
"One in the hotel," she said, eyes still glued to the screen,
"and another one around the corner. Chinese, I think. It keeps
changing"
Jasmin was performing triage on the assortment of sweets, and
finally, with reluctance, pushed a much-abridged edition of the
selection towards the girl to ring up.
As she was flashing all the items in front of the scanner, I
asked Jasmin, "Now, would your mom and dad really have let you
buy all that?"
She gave a comically absurd "No."
Sighing, I handed over the drotchklings, which soon disappeared
into the cash-register, as the candy deftly disappeared into a
carrying bag, save a transparent, radioactively luminescent
orange bar, which she quickly tore open and began sucking on. I
did not want to even begin to imagine what it tasted like.
With the other hand, Jasmin started to pick up the orphaned
sweets to reshelve, but the other girl said laughingly "Oh never
mind. I'll put them back."
We left the refreshingly cool air to plunge back out into the
searing heat, down a few doors to another spiffy modern building,
marked "Old New Oldtown Hotel." It towered three floors above us,
and as we stepped through the pressurized door we once again
found ourselves inside an aircooled room.
This time, the person behind the desk was an older woman, hair
full-headed grey. She sat on a stool, straight-backed, and hands
spread across a book she was reading that lay on the wood-grained
desk in front of her.
She looked up curiously as we entered. "Room for two?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Syrene ID?"
"Um, no. We're just passing through."
"Mmm. You do have ID, though?"
"Sure," I fumbled with my things."
"I have a double room for 50 drotchklings a night,"
"Oh, we don't need two beds," said Jasmin, through the crackling
wrapper of the sucker in her mouth.
I looked at her with alarm. She looked back at me sheepishly,
"Just trying to save money," she said.
"How much is the single?" I asked.
"35..."
"He can sleep on the floor," Jasmin continued.
"Beg pardon?" I said.
"I can wheel in a roll-away for another 5 drotchklings," said the
lady behind the desk.
"No, it's OK. She likes to sleep on the floor."
"Hey!" protested Jasmin.
The lady took down a key and slid it across the counter as she
completed the paperwork. "Just let me know if you need anything."
Was it my imagination, or did she enjoy watching our
relationship?
As she accepted my money, she said "You should really consider
becoming a citizen, you know. We need more free-thinking people
around here."
"Thanks. So, out of curiosity, is there anything to see in this
town?"
"Aside from the institute, there's a park beyond the plaza at the
end of this street."
"Thanks."
____________________________________________________________
The relief of setting down and opening the suitcases inside our
newly found abode, opening the curtains for a scenic view, from
the third floor.
"What next?" she asked.
I shrugged. "A stroll in the park?"
____________________________________________________________
next part
_______________________________________________________
For more stories, please visit our site:
/~vivian