“Well, Penny, I’m glad I happened to come along when I did.” Shurla gave her a friendly smile. “Did you come in here looking for a job? ‘Cause I have to tell you, from one joy-girl to another, you’re doing it wrong. I mean, don’t mistake my meaning—that skin-tight suit you’ve got on is mighty sweet. But if you really want to tempt the males and get the most out of them, you’ve got to show a little skin—you know? She nodded down at her own ample, triple cleavage and winked broadly at Penny.
“I didn’t come looking for a…a job,” Penny protested, when she realized what Shurla meant.
“You didn’t?” Shurla frowned. “What possible other reason would you come in a dump like this, honey?”
“I…I just…” Penny’s throat worked and suddenly her whole story just came pouring out.
“I just wanted to trade a rare brantha hair toupee for an interstellar call back home. See, my ship got parked at the wrong end of the station and my shipmates got stuck in a time-suck—a temporal anomaly, I mean—and then an old lady with two heads led me here and gave me the toupee and told me to trade it for the call but the octo-chef—the multi-pod, I mean—grabbed it and chopped it up and now I don’t have any way to call home or ever get out of here,” she finished.
And burst into tears.
Sixteen
It wasn’t like Penny to cry in front of someone she’d just met—or in front of anyone, for that matter. She preferred to keep her emotional outbursts to herself.
But so much had happened to her that day, from nearly getting caught in the slow-time bubble to almost getting eaten by the Keeper to her strange encounter with Granny Two-two and then the menacing Hybrid V’rex coming after her, that she just felt overwhelmed.
Being grabbed by the purple tentacles of the multi-pod and nearly getting chopped up for stew meat was the final straw—that and realizing that she’d lost her one and only chance of ever getting home.
It was all just too much and Penny couldn’t help breaking down. Luckily, her new friend was understanding.
“Oh, you poor thing!” Shurla exclaimed, putting a comforting arm around Penny’s shaking shoulders. “Come on—let’s go into the ladies room for a minute.”
“Th-that’s what I was t-trying to find when I wound up in the k-k-kitchen,” Penny sobbed, trying to get hold of herself.
“It’s right down here,” Shurla told her. She led Penny past the kitchen, further down the hallway, and they went through another doorway to a room filled with sinks and stalls.
It looked a lot like a public restroom back on Earth, Penny thought. Well, except for the fact that the stall doors were all translucent so you could see right into them. She wondered why they bothered to have stalls at all if they were just going to make them see-through? Also, the toilets inside the stalls looked distinctly strange. They seemed to have spouts sticking out of them, which was weird…
But she was too upset to care much about the strange alien bathroom. She was still too devastated about losing her only way to call home.
“It’s okay—just let it out, honey. Just let it out.” Shurla rubbed her shoulders comfortingly and let Penny cry until at last she began to feel better. Well, if not exactly better, then at least all cried out.
“I’m sorry,” she said, sniffing and dabbing at her eyes with the thin, silky pink tissue Shurla handed her. “It’s just that I don’t know what I’m going to do now. The people back home don’t have any idea where I am and what’s happened to me and my shipmates, so I don’t see how I’ll ever get out of here!”
“And you just need to make a call?” Shurla asked, raising her eyebrows, which were a vivid pink that matched her hair.
Penny nodded.
“Only I don’t know how much it costs. But it really doesn’t matter because I don’t have any money or anything to trade to make the call.”
“Well, you just leave that to me.” Shurla patted her shoulder. “I’m good friends with the owner of the Lucky Lounge. I’m sure if we explain your story he’ll see his way clear to letting you make a quick call.”
“Really?” Penny looked at the other woman hopefully. “Oh, that would be wonderful.”
“I’ll just tell him you were nearly made into stew by Bubba,” Shurla said, grinning at her. “He’ll let you make a call rather than risk letting people know he almost had another kitchen casualty around here.”
“Thank you.” Penny nodded gratefully. “If you really think that would work…”
“Oh, I know it will.” Shurla arched an eyebrow at her. “Bubba’s the fasted cook on the station so of course old Tuber—that’s the owner’s name—doesn’t want to get rid of him. But folks have started complaining—especially the ones that have religious views on cannibalism, don’t you know. Several Beejan monks were here when our poor pot boy got made into stew.” She shook her head. “They were pretty upset when one of them found a finger in his lunch.”
“Oh, uh…I can see how that would be.” Penny nodded. “I’d be upset too.”
“Well, now that we’ve got that all settled, just excuse me a minute, hon,” Shurla said. She made a face. “I started down the hall in the first place ‘cause I had to use the ladies and now I’m just about to burst!”
“Of course.” Penny nodded and started to turn her head as the triple-breasted woman entered one of the stalls. She was prepared to look away and give Shurla privacy, but it turned out there was no need. The minute the stall door closed, it went from transparent to completely opaque.
Oh, so that was how it worked! It occurred to Penny that she really had to go too. It had been hours since she’d been to the bathroom and even though she hadn’t had anything to drink during
