The Courtly Row was off the main tunnel and was indeed a row of large glass bubbles, each housing a separate accommodation. Sarah and Sazar had been given one on the very end which seemed slightly larger than the rest and was as brilliantly lit as the outside tunnel.
The first thing Sazar did when they got in and shut the door—which appeared to be both air and water-tight—was to find the lighting controls and turn the illumination down to low.
Sarah breathed a sigh of relief as soon as the relentless brilliance dimmed.
“Whew—they sure do like to keep it bright, don’t they?” she remarked.
“Yes, unfortunately,” Sazar growled. Despite the dark light blockers he wore, he was looking a little peaky, Sarah thought. She wondered again if he needed blood. Should she ask him? But the thought of walking boldly up to him and offering herself as she had the night before was now considerably complicated by the outfit she was wearing.
I don’t know why you’re hesitating to offer him your blood just because your boobs are out, whispered a sarcastic little voice in her head. After all, you’re going to have to ask him to suck them again eventually if you want to get the nipple jewelry off.
But Sarah didn’t want to think about that—it was too embarrassing. Too…stimulating. And with the honey pearls still rotating and vibrating between her legs, she didn’t need anything else to get her going. She wondered if now would be a good time to try and turn the darn things off—surely there must be a way! She would just slip into the bathroom, if they had one here, and do her best to find the off switch before they went to dinner.
She looked around, searching for a restroom and ended up studying the room itself instead.
Now that her eyes were adjusted to the dimness, she saw that the bedroom walls were clear glass but mostly obscured by hangings and tapestries depicting scenes of Alquon people both swimming and walking. Some of the water scenes made it look like they had pets with them—crab and lobster like creatures that swam along beside them on long leashes.
Sarah studied them with interest—she’d never thought of having a crustacean for a pet although she supposed it would be much more practical than a dog or a cat if you lived in the water half the time.
The tapestries and wall hangings were gorgeous and interesting but Sarah couldn’t help wondering why the Alquons would block out the view of the ocean, which she could catch little tantalizing glimpses of through the walls now that the lights were dimmed. She saw multicolored plants swaying in the currents and schools of jewel-bright fish darting around rocks and coral as well as some creatures that didn’t look much like fish at all. Sarah saw one that looked a little like a flying squirrel but covered in scales and another that looked like a cross between a sea turtle and a giraffe.
She wished she could get a better look at all this but the walls and ceiling were too obstructed. Well, maybe she could get a better view from the bathroom when she found it.
There was a large, round bed in the center of the room covered by a satiny aquamarine coverlet that seemed to ripple like waves in the sea. Beside it was a tall white set of double doors that Sarah at first thought must lead to the bathroom she was seeking. But when she pulled it open, she found it was a kind of free-standing closet.
Inside someone had thoughtfully placed her pink carry-all cube and Sazar’s luggage as well. Her anonymous benefactor had also hung her gold lame' outfit so it wouldn’t wrinkle. On a shelf beside it were the black atomizer bottle containing the compound for applying her nipple jewelry, a small box with more float dots in it, and a pair of strange looking, stretchy gold lame' panties which appeared to match her ball outfit. Sarah picked them up and studied them with a frown.
What’s the deal with these things? They have too many holes. One for the waist and two for the legs but…what’s this last one for?
“Is everything all right?” Sazar asked from right behind her.
“What? Oh, yes—yes just fine. I…I was looking for the, uh, the bathroom but I think this is just the closet.” Blushing, Sarah hastily pushed the gold lame' panties with their extra hole back onto the shelf and shut the doors.
“I think it’s over there—behind that large tapestry.” Sazar nodded his head at a colorful depiction of Alquons playing what appeared to be some sort of underwater game using giant chess-type pieces as large as themselves on a green and blue and red checkered board.
“Oh, thank you.” Sarah nodded gratefully and ducked behind the tapestry. Sure enough, she found a small door leading into an even smaller glass bubble which connected to the main room bubble.
Now this is more like it! she thought as she looked around. The bathroom’s walls were clear and unobstructed by hangings or pictures. She could see right out into the lovely depths of the ocean.
She didn’t admire the darting fish and swaying plants for long though, because the honey pearls were really driving her crazy. She reached into her split skirt and felt along the fine, silky ribbon-like fabric which made up the sides and back of the buzzing panties but nothing but smooth material met her fingers. All right—maybe the switch was somewhere on the double strand of black and green pearls themselves?
But try as she might, Sarah couldn’t find any way to turn the pearls off there either. She shifted her hips and tried wiggling out of the annoying undergarment but it was on her too tightly. She was getting desperate—maybe she ought to tear the panties off? Snap one of the sides and slither out that way?
But no matter how she tugged, the fabric stayed firm. Sarah considered trying to break the strand of pearls instead but they seemed really expensive. What if Sazar had to pay the equivalent of thousands of dollars for them?
Reluctantly Sarah admitted defeat…for now. She would try again before bed to get out of the vibrating pearl panties. If she still couldn’t find the switch to loosen and deactivate them, she would have no choice but to break them after all.
Sighing, she started to leave the bathroom. But then her curiosity got the better of her—she couldn’t go before examining the Alquon facilities.
There was something that might have been a shower—although the nozzle looked much too low and the bathtub was much too deep with very high sides. How would you even climb into the strange contraption? And once you were in, how would you get out again, Sarah wondered. It also had buttons instead of any kind of knobs—lots of them in several different colors. Weird.
Beside the strange shower was something vaguely resembling a toilet—at least, it appeared to be a low black bench with a lid. Sarah wondered if the Alquons flushed their waste right out into the open ocean. She hoped not since many of them spent a lot of time swimming out there. It wouldn’t be very agreeable to swim outside of Idd if everyone who lived there was flushing their toilet into the sea around the city.
Curiously, she opened the lid and peered in. She jumped back with a frightened gasp, nearly falling ass-first into the shower. About a foot and a half down, where an Earth toilet would have held water, was a writhing mass of long, slender black bodies which glistened in the dim light.
“Sarah? Are you all right?” Suddenly Sazar was at the door.
“I…there…” Sarah tried to clear her throat and found she could barely get the words out. “There are snakes in the toilet!” she managed at last. “A lot of them.”
“What? I’m coming in.”
Sarah hadn’t locked the door—mainly because she hadn’t seen any way to lock it—so the big Kindred was able to push his way into the bathroom easily.
“What did you say was in the waste facility?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
“Snakes,” Sarah whispered. “Or eels or something. I know it sounds crazy but there is something alive down inside the toilet—or somethings. Look for yourself.”
Sazar opened the lid and gave a low curse when a slender, snake-like head raised up to look at him with unblinking yellow eyes. He slammed the lid back down and frowned.
“Some sort of infestation. I’ll go and tell the manager of the property at once. Are you…”
He said something else but Sarah barely heard him—she was too busy looking at the scene outside the clear glass wall of the bathroom bubble in utter dismay and terror.
There was a creature outside—a huge creature with long red and black tentacles and an eye as big as her head. Sarah knew because that eye was currently pointed right at her. It looked like an undersea monster—a kraken or a giant squid or something.
The kraken, or whatever it was, was staring in at her like a little girl might stare into the window of a doll house—that was how great the size discrepancy was.
But I don’t know any little girls with dinner-plate sized eyes and eighty- foot-long tentacles, Sarah thought numbly. The tentacles were pulsing with light now—red dots glowing up and down their length—strobing like a neon sign in a bar window.
“Sazar.” Had Sarah thought her voice was hoarse before? Now it came out in a rusty squeak, like a hinge that needed oiling. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Sazar…outside…”
“Outside what?” he asked impatiently.
“I…I think we ought to get out of here,” Sarah whispered. “I…we…”
His eyes finally lifted to where she was looking and he gave a low curse.
“Seven Hells, what is that monster?”
“I don’t know,” Sarah moaned softly. “But it’s looking at me. Sazar, let’s get out of here—please?”
“At once. Out—now—move!” He grabbed her by the arm and pushed her out the door ahead of him.
Once she was out of the bathroom Sarah’s heart slowed a little but she still didn’t feel safe. That thing outside the bathroom had been so huge it would certainly be able to encompass their bedroom bubble easily with its tentacles. They had to get out of there!
Sazar seemed to feel the same way because he guided her quickly to the room door. But when he opened it, their way was blocked. The round-faced manager of the Courtly Row whom Chandra had introduced as “Blorg” before she had left them, was standing there looking as though he had been about to knock.
“Out of the way,” Sazar growled. “We must get out of this room at once.”
“What? What’s wrong?” Blorg had very prominent gill slits and they flapped open now in apparent distress, making him look like his neck was growing bizarre green wings.
“What’s wrong?” Sarah fought back a hysterical laugh. “Oh nothing if you don’t count the snakes in the toilet and the giant Kraken about to break into the bathroom.”
“The which and the what?” Blorg raised kelpy green eyebrows in confusion.
“There appears to be some kind of large sea creature with long tentacles and huge eyes about to break in to the fresher facilities,” Sazar told the manager.
“Oh, you mean you saw a tizen?”
“A what?” Sarah asked.
“A tizen. They’re big but they’re peaceful. And real curious. Here, let’s go have a look.”
He walked without fear back into the bed chamber they’d been given. Sazar followed him and after a minute of not hearing any sounds of screaming or glass shattering, Sarah followed as well.
“Yep—just a tizen,” Blorg was saying as he tapped on the glass wall of the bathroom, right where the giant eye was still peering in. “And I see the problem—you got the lights set too low. Either turn ‘em all the way up where they’re s’posed to be or turn the lights off completely. Anything else makes these big fellahs curious.”
He tapped the glass again and the huge eye slowly blinked, the lid coming down like a pull shade over a lighted window. Then the tizen swam swiftly off as suddenly as it had come, leaving nothing but a trail of bubbles in its wake.
“See?” Blorg said. “Ain’t no harm in a tizen. They’re just nosey.”
“All right, so maybe we overreacted about that,” Sarah said, feeling irritated. At least now she knew why the Alquons kept their clear glass walls obscured—they didn’t want nosey giant squids staring in at them! “But what about the snakes in the toilet?”
Blorg walked over to the black rectangular bench, lifted the lid, and peered in casually. Several long, slick, black heads rose up to regard him but he didn’t slam the lid down as Sarah had done or curse like Sazar. He just shrugged his shoulders and looked at them.
“Is this what you were getting all upset about?”
“Well yes we were upset about it!” Sarah exclaimed. “I mean, the toilet is full of those things.”
“Those are just yeechees,” Blorg said patiently. “They eat up the waste you send down to them and don’t make hardly any of their own. It’s a real useful arrangement. They get fed and we don’t pollute our oceans.”
“So…so I’m supposed to sit there and…and do my business right down on their heads?” Sarah could hardly believe it. Surely Blorg was joking!
But the heavy-set Alquon was nodding his head.
“Now you got the idea, little lady.”
“But…but what if they bite me?” Sarah asked.
“Oh yeechees don’t bite.”
“Good!” Sarah felt a wave of relief.
Of course, they might nip you from time to time if they get impatient.”
“What?” Sarah did not like the idea of being “nipped” in any area that was exposed while she was using the bathroom.
“Yeah.” Blorg shrugged casually. “Best advice I can give you is don’t sit down until you’re really ready to go—you know? The faster you do your business, the happier the yeechees will be and the less likely you are to get nipped.”
“But I don’t want to be nipped at all,” Sarah protested.
The manager shrugged again.
“Better do your business fast then, little lady.” He straightened up. “Now, is there anything else I can help you folks with?”
Sarah thought it might have been a good idea to ask how to use the high-sided, insanely complicated looking shower but Sazar spoke before she could say anything.
“We are fine now. Thank you for your assistance.”
“All right then. Anything else, just let me know.” He gave them a friendly grin and then, gill slits still flapping, left the room.
Sarah looked at Sazar.
“I don’t know about you, but I need to get out of here.”
“Agreed.” He nodded. “But before we go…this is the first moment we’ve had alone and I need to apologize to you, Sarah.”
“Apologize? Why?” Sarah was mystified. “What for?”
“For what you’ve been through.” He cleared his throat and gestured at her exposed breasts. “I had…no idea what would be involved in this mission or I would not have asked you to come with me.”
“Oh…” Sarah fought the urge to cover herself. She was getting used to being exposed but it still wasn’t comfortable. “I…I have to admit being dressed this way—or undressed—isn’t my idea of a good time. But you couldn’t have known about the Alquons’ weird fashion sense or the fact that they have snakes in their toilets and monster squids looking in through their walls.”
The corners of Sazar’s mouth twitched.
“No. If I had known all that, I am not sure I would have come myself.”
“Let’s go get something to eat,” Sarah suggested. “Everything will look better on a full stomach.”
“Let’s hope you’re right.” Sazar sighed. “Do you wish to try the seafood eatery Chandra recommended?”
“Oh yes, I’m a Florida girl. I love seafood.”
Sarah could already feel her stomach growling at the thought. She wondered if the Alquons had anything resembling coconut battered fried shrimp? She certainly hoped so although even if they didn’t, she thought she would probably eat anything that was put in front of her. She was starving.
“Come on,” she said, daring to take Sazar’s hand. “Let’s go.”