Chapter 7: Rumblings on the Eddy, Part 1

I must admit I was impressed. He led me to their banquet room. The smells made my senses reel. When you have been moving through the Darkstreams out there without of course the feeling of movement and everything that you see and touch is made by machines and smells like tyron, or greestan, or even plista, you forget the natural smells you opted to give up as you traveled. "Beyond the Viande" was filled with the crackling smells of bahkin, the warm odors of baking breads, biscuits,rolls, bubbling gravee. Fresh vegetables were displayed: green, purple, orange, yellow; some hot and beaten, diced with sugar and spices, others chilled and icy sharp from natural juices, soft and loose or sharp edged. Coil, chabazzo, keely-corn, squin. There were pots of bubbly most-meats and sauces red, red-brown, balls and chops, slashes and gooey cartasches, soft, chewy, sinewy, mild and fresh and, purposely mouldy. And then the rices and chifflins and mifflins; it was grand. And then the desserts! Light or heavy, heady and alcoholic whipped, frosted, covered with syrup. And all with fresh, hot gofeh. It was wonderful.

There was a married couple on the same bench next to me who had been to the Eddy before but were still enjoying themselves mightily. They were almost done eating, were sweeping up crumbs tidily and drinking something stronger than gofeh.

"Mica, have you been to the Changing Room?" asked Jerd, the husband; "it's quite amazing. But don't let them give you anything to drink," winking his one large eye.

"Oh, no" tittered Milbeth his wife clutching his arm.

She used a long sharp skewer to raise a succulent cube of stube to Jerd's mouth, but he held her wrist gently, tenderly, and kissed her hand before accepting the gift.

His act, so loving, made me groan inwardly.My mind flashed back to a small kitchen on Marble.Olive seated next to me on a green and yellow paddy bench. She had just raised a morsel of, I think it was spicy Bengal, to her lips and I softly stroked her beautiful black hair. It seemed to crackle with energy as her eyes smiled soberly at me.

I thought also of being at work one afternoon in a glassy tube. I had just entered an obs bubble, quite useful actually. Stepping out to stretch and yawn, I heard the pads of another silicat coming and here was Olive. She stopped and stepped down from her cat with an armbag. She looked so fabulous in every way; her heavenly self. She had sought me out and brought me a surprise lunch. We stood there staring at each other and we ate, balancing our food and gofeh onthe hard yellow shell of her cat in that warm dim cave. She was wearing a yellow snapskin with a thin black zipslip line up the middle.

"Whoa," hollered Milbeth as the whole pleasure palace shook with a wrenching grind.

As if on cue, Shaw was suddenly by my side "Well, Mica are you ready for a bit of challenge in the Changing Room?" You can pick up more money than you came with, or you can lose it! As I say it's a challenge; are you as game as you look?"

I turned to Jerd and Milbethwho were leaning against each other like a couple of toothy Rudbirds. Milbeth made a circle of two of her three fingers, smiling. "Just remember what I told you," said Jerd.

Shaw led me to a rough brown door. He turned and looked at me as if he were about to let me in on a secret. I entered what seemed to be a forest. Thick barked trees, gray-green moss, lichen covered rocks. I stopped at a crystal pond and marveled. The moist air held a hint of what I'd guess were spores; It made my throat tickle and my head whirl. And as I regarded the wet rocks and ferns, the pool's far edge seemed to split and the whole shore spread out in a sandy line.The beach and sky went on forever. The light increased and waves broke from an endless ocean. Underfoot were bits of white and black shells, warm sand and seaweed- we were at the ocean. A seagull sailed in a blue sky, an orange crab shell a briny smell---. "Shaw, this really is a changing room it's amazing" --- But Shaw had disappeared again.

A series of soft clicks. I walked down the beach to a cove. The noise came from several tables built into the cliff. These were attended by a number of young women who wore only the bottoms half of swimming suits. They beckoned to me and introduced me to some games.

I had to buy tokens and tried the apparently simple game of "Snap Dragon". My eyes were so often drawn to the half naked sirens, that my usually single point concentration was spoiled. I moved on to Whirl. Here I was handed a drink in a green goblet, but now the ladies' attire became more formal and I realized that the beach had turned into a riverside city loud and teeming with beings. As I purchased a larger supply of tokens and guzzled my second drink, I remembered Jerd's repeated warning . I shrugged my shoulders, staggering just a trifle or was the floor itself moving again? I continued to play and admire the girls as their clothing changed to suit their environment; at times collars of fur coats turned up under their chins in the snow, at times almost naked in the jungle or rain forest. I continued to lose at the games.

I lost track of time.

"Well, Sailor, it looks like you might be ready for a change of pace like maybe you'd like to pop into the Hot Room. And if you like the personnel here, you won't want to miss the damsels of Hot Room. They know how to make a sailor feel at home. It's a little pricy, but you can't spend your loot out in the Darkstream."

I confessed that 150G had been spent. It didn't seem to phase him at all.

"Don't you still have some R's rattling around? Why don't you turn over 75 to me and I'll get you 100G?

That sounded fine to me although some thing in the back of my mind said things weren't calcu—er—adding up.

But as I pushed through the ruby door of the Hot Room, I forgot my finances completely. First, a wonderful smell, spicy, perfumy, floral. The room itself was softly iridescent pink and divided up into many discreet bowers and private arbors. The floor was soft too and something in the air made me almost unable to stand on my feet.

Fortunately a bare hand and arm reached out and caught me. A captivating female drew me close and settled me on a pale blue couch that was enclosed in an opalescent open giant pearl pink shell.

"Hi Mica. I've been waiting for you," She was clad in a soft short white gown with a loose white belt and soft hood . "I'm going to sit down beside you." As she gracefully sat, her gown opened a little to reveal beautiful soft tan skin.

"Please join me," She held out a silver cup. Speechless, I drank half the miraculous liquid. I tried to offer the rest to her. Taste of something hot, spicy, brandy, and something else. Instantly I was aroused as I neverdreamed to be.

My dazzling companion drank too, her eyes holding mine over the rim. I reached over what seemed like a vast space to peel back the rest of her robe as she smiled openly. Her hood fell back revealing her long black hair.Olive! She's looking like Olivene. But she was not Olive.

I tried to stand, stumbled, took two steps in the direction I thought the door had been. My knees gave out and I fell on my side smacking my head on the floor.

My head hurt dully and my stomach heaved. The air had a peculiar odor of sticky unwashed people and old food.. It was totally dark. I moved my hand in front of my face, saw nothing. This was Not the Hot Room. I heard the scrabble of tiny feet on the floor. "Hello!" I yelled.

The room lightened somewhat. Enough to make out some shiny creatures crunching crumbs on the floor. The rough material I lay on was stained and there was a brown drip stain on the wall next to me.