Travel Agency: Scouts free porn video

=== Travel Agency: Scouts === by Trismegistus Shandy This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Feel free to repost or mirror it on any noncommercial website or mailing list. The Travel Agency setting is used with Morpheus' permission; thanks to Morpheus for beta-reading the first draft. "Travel Agency: Scouts" first appeared on the morpheuscabinet mailing list in January 2013; a slightly different version appeared on BigCloset in July-August 2013. ===== "Toys, charms, ornaments -- rare woods and fine workmanship." The voice was not the loudest or shrillest in the bazaar, but it carried well enough, and conveyed such an unostentatious confidence as to bring its possessor a steady stream of business throughout the day. The man who called out this announcement was gray of hair and beard, with a deeply lined face, and enormously strong arms ending in sturdy hands with surprisingly delicate fingers for one of his size. Observant customers noticed that no legs protruded from the hem of his not unusually long robe; but they politely made no comment, except on the quality of his workmanship and their great regret that their extreme poverty did not allow them to pay him the kingly price it deserved. The toy-carver, in turn, deprecated the work of his hands and urged it on them as a gift, poor, indeed, and not worthy of their estimable character, but the best he could offer. After five or six exchanges of this sort, a compromise would be reached, and money would change hands -- five, six, ten, sometimes twenty or twenty-five dinar for an unusually large and fine piece. As the sun lowered to the west, and shadows grew long, and some of the traders in the bazaar packed up their things to return home, a shadow fell across the toy-carver's booth. He looked up from the long stick of mahogany which he was carving into the likeness of a dragon -- a strange beast of the far north which few people in that city had ever seen, though the toy-carver himself was one. "Ul-Kalsim!" he cried. "It has been long since I saw you. Come, embrace me. Return to my home and eat and drink with me!" He set aside the knife and the wood and held out his massive arms; the other man knelt and they hugged, then kissed one another's cheeks. Ul-Kalsim was a tall man, some ten years younger than the toy-carver, his hair still black with hardly a gray hair. He wore a white robe of fine silk, jeweled rings on three of his fingers, and a scimitar at his belt. "Tariq," he said, "accept my apologies for not coming to see you sooner or more frequently. The duties of my post keep me busy day and night, as you know better than anyone." "Yes, for I filled that post longer than you. Come, let us return to my home -- business is slow for the last hour, I may as well close up." "I would, my friend, but I need you to meet someone. And is your home conveniently sized and situated to host a camel-centaur?" "No," Tariq replied, his eyebrows raising. "It is on the second story of a house not far from here. The stair is perhaps too narrow for a camel-centaur, and my room is certainly too small... Where to, then?" "A house on the street of the glassblowers, perhaps half a mile to the west. How will you go?" "Following you, of course, since you seem to know the way." Tariq took up the four corners of the cloth on which his wares were spread out, tying it into a bundle. He opened a large box and set the bundle inside, then, closing it, lifted himself with his massive arms and sat astride the box. Only then did ul-Kalsim notice that the box had wheels on it. "Lead the way," said Tariq. Ul-Kalsim glanced uncertainly at him, then walked slowly to the west, followed by Tariq, pushing the upper rims of the front wheels. They kept to the walls, avoiding the donkey and camel traffic in the center of the streets, and proceeded south along the bazaar avenue a short way to a side-street, then west on the street of the silversmiths, which became the street of the glassblowers after a quarter-mile. At last they reached their destination, and entered a house with a high, wide door. Its large windows illuminated a high ceiling and several tables and cabinets, most of them too large for most humans to use conveniently, plus two low couches of human size and a lower table. On one of these couches reclined a human seemingly in early middle age, but with eyes that spoke of long experience and hard-won wisdom, wearing a green robe. Standing beside one of the higher tables was a camel-centaur, nude after the custom of his people, except for a small knapsack slung in front of his hump. "Greetings, ul-Kalsim," the camel-centaur said. "Is this the man you told us about?" "Tvalenn, this is Tariq, my predecessor in office, disabled and retired six years ago. Tariq, this is Tvalenn, one of my best sources for events in the western desert. The Subtle One," gesturing to the green-robed man who was now rising to greet them, "you know as well as I do." Tariq bowed to Tvalenn and the Subtle One as best as his handicap would allow. "I am honored to meet you," he said to Tvalenn. "And you, Your Mystery, look no older than the day I retired." The Subtle One bowed in acknowledgment. Tvalenn bowed too, lower than one not familiar with camel-centaurs would have believed possible. The camel-centaur, apparently their host, then called a servant and gave her orders; soon tea was served, and generous portions of sweetbread, roast lamb, and pickled olives. "Well," said Tariq to ul-Kalsim, "I know that this was not merely a social call. What do you need my advice about?" "Not only your advice, my friend, but your help." "Help? What help can I give, in my condition, other than my advice? But say on." "You shall hear. Tvalenn, would you be so good as to explain to Tariq and the Subtle One what you told me this morning?" Tvalenn nodded and began. "About two months ago I first heard rumors of a mage from the far north who had appeared in the western desert, in the foothills of the mountains. He calls himself the Gray One, and he claims to be able, for a moderate fee, to send people to another world and bring them back some days later. I have not yet seen him myself, but a few days ago I finally managed to find and speak with someone who had supposedly traveled to this other world." "What is this other world like?" Tariq asked. "I was not able to gain a clear account," Tvalenn admitted. "My informant was a young camel-centaur, perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old, who was enthusiastic but not terribly coherent in describing his experiences. I am not entirely certain that the Gray One is not simply inducing hallucinations in his marks. One thing was clear, however; if this voyage to another world is real, it involves sending the soul and leaving the body behind. While in the other world -- or while hallucinating about another world -- he had, or seemed to have, the body of a human, eight or ten years older than his true age. He told me of a great city with buildings taller than mountains, of magical carts which roll far faster than a gazelle can run but are pulled by nothing visible, of small ovens which cook a meal in a few heartbeats... And these things are the possessions not only of the rich, but of nearly everyone. If the tale is true, it seems the other world is much richer in magic than our own." "Possibly," said the Subtle One. "I will reserve judgment until I meet the Gray One and see how his spell works. If he can truly send a person's soul into another world and bring it back, he is a greater mage than I; but if he is merely inducing hallucinations, then I am greater than he, and will be able to detect his deception, and protect the rest of you from it." "I see," Tariq said. "If he is a charlatan, we cannot allow him to continue to prey on the sultan's subjects unpunished. And if he is truly the great mage he claims to be, we need to know more about him, whether he is a threat to the security of the sultanate." "We also need to know more about this other world," ul-Kalsim said. "If the Gray One can send people from our world there, quite possibly he can bring people from the other world hither, or there may be mages there who can send their own people here. Can they send them in large enough numbers for an invasion? What weapons do they have? What are their intentions, to make war on us or trade with us or simply ignore us?" Tariq nodded. "Whom, then, do you plan to send? Tvalenn for a local guide, of course, and the Subtle One to investigate the Gray One's spells or hoaxes. I suggest young Ghantim, if he is still in your service -- he has traveled in the desert and foothills before, and knows the local languages." "I was thinking that we four would go," ul-Kalsim said, "with perhaps one other, who will join us on the way." "We four? But I --" Tariq gestured toward the hem of his robe. "I would not be much help, beyond the streets of the city." "You forget," said ul-Kalsim, "that if the Gray One's magic is real, and we succeed in finding him, you and all of us will have other bodies in the other world. You will be able to walk; and there your experience and quick wits will count for more than Ghantim's youth and strong legs." "Oh..." A light came into Tariq's eyes and a broad smile slowly spread over his face. ----- They set out on the morning of the second day following. Tariq had returned to his rooms and paid his landlord in advance for two months, then entrusted his most valuable possessions to a friend who lived in the same quarter. He met ul-Kalsim and the others at Tvalenn's lodgings that evening, and spent the night with them, going over their plans. ul-Kalsim requisitioned three fine camels from the sultan's stables, which the humans were to ride. He offered to help Tariq mount, but his old friend shrugged and said it wasn't necessary; he barked a command at the well-trained beast, which knelt, then lifted himself onto its back with his thickly muscled arms and situated himself in the saddle before ordering the camel to rise. They left by the western gate well before dawn, Tvalenn in the lead, and traveled until nearly noon before they stopped at the first caravanserai to rest from the heat of the day. A few hours later, after a meal and a nap, they moved on, and kept going until the moon set some hours after the sun. That night, as they lay curled in their blankets looking up at the stars, ul-Kalsim asked Tariq, "Why did you leave?" "For several reasons," Tariq said, and was silent for some moments. Then: "I don't want you, or the sultan, to think I wasn't grateful. You saved my life, and the sultan rewarded me well for my years of service -- as well as he knew how. But living in the palace, with so many servants... I was growing soft. Having servants to lift me out of bed, and put me in the bath, and set me up in a chair when I had visitors, and carry me to the council chamber when the sultan wanted my advice, I was growing weak and sickly. I resolved to do without them as much as I could; I pulled myself out of bed one morning, and dragged myself to the bath, ordering the servants to stand by and do nothing but bring the water. By the time I reached the tub, I was exhausted, and had finally to let the servants lift me into it; and I was good for nothing else that day. But day after day my arms grew stronger, and I grew bored with palace life. I could no longer travel as I used to, but I could at least go out into the city, and I did. And as I was going through the bazaar one day, I remembered how my father had taught me to carve wood, and thought that now would be a good time to take it up again." "You do it very well. But I think you serve your country better with your other skills." "Perhaps so." ----- Early the next day they passed a caravan going east. Two camel-centaurs, man and wife, together with their three children, led and drove a train of twenty ordinary camels laden with bags and boxes. Tvalenn called out to them in Sikva, the language spoken by most of the camel-centaurs in the western desert, and they answered, telling him of conditions on the trail ahead. Tariq knew the language well, though he had not had occasion to speak it in recent years. An important oasis two days ahead had been partly buried by a recent sandstorm; a team had been dispatched to dig it out, but it was unlikely that they would be able to get water there when they arrived. That night they reached what, because of the buried oasis ahead, would be the last place to get water for nearly five days. This was no hardship for Tvalenn, but the humans would get more than a little thirsty by the time they reached the next usable oasis. They went on, stopping each day a little before noon and going on when the sun was well past its zenith. As their water ran low and their throats grew dry, they spoke less and less. They passed the buried oasis in the afternoon of the third day, and found four male camel-centaurs working with shovels to remove the sand from the pool and the bases of the date-palms. Tvalenn greeted them, but they did not stop for long. Finally, when there seemed to be only a sip or two of water left in their last flasks, they reached the next oasis. Its date-palms were inhabited by a small family of pixies. Both Tvalenn and Tariq knew their language, though pixies were rare in the desert and unheard of near the cities. After greeting their hosts, they drank greedily and refilled their water-flasks, then began trade negotiations. Tvalenn had brought small flasks of the grape-wine and rice-wine brewed in countries to the east, and spools of fine thread, which after much banter, they traded to the pixies in exchange for some of their dates and a small flask of the finest date-wine to be found in the sultanate -- only a few sips, but each one worth a whole bottle of the ordinary stuff made from the dates that grew near the city. They remained there the rest of the day and through the night, trading stories and songs with their tiny hosts. Tariq carved a likeness of the matriarch of the clan out of palm-wood, and gave it to her with his thanks. The desert grew more and more beautiful as they continued westward. The deep drifts of sand receded and rock formations of eerie shapes and a thousand colors took their place. These gave better landmarks than the seemingly trackless sands, but to those unfamiliar with them it was as easy to get lost here as among the dunes. Tvalenn led them unhesitatingly and unerringly through both. They passed several more eastbound caravans, most of them consisting of camel-centaurs leading baggage-laden camels, but now and then one with human or dwarf passengers. One morning, when they rose well before dawn to begin their day's journey, the Subtle One led them on a detour into a box canyon. Tvalenn protested, but ul-Kalsim said it was necessary, and the camel-centaur fell silent. When they reached the end of the canyon, a sheer wall twenty or twenty-five feet high, the Subtle One spoke in a language Tariq didn't recognize. There was a long silence, and then the rock... twisted, shifted. It wasn't a rockslide, nor anything so simple as a door in the rock sliding open, but one moment the rock was solid and an eye-watering moment later, there was an oval hole in it. A creature stepped out of the hole, and the party stepped back to give it room. It stood higher than the walls of the canyon, and Tariq wondered how it could have fit through the hole. It was more like a man than a camel-centaur, but with iridescent bat-like wings whose upper tips caught the dawn light coming over the walls of the canyon. The creature spoke in that unknown language, in a voice like crackling flames. The Subtle One said: "Greetings, ul-Balimmu. Please do us the favor of speaking in a language my companions can understand." "Greetings, Subtle One," the creature said. "And you, Tariq, ul-Kalsim, Tvalenn. What brings you to my home?" "We have a proposal," said the Subtle One. "Have you heard of a mage called the Gray One?" "No... it is many days since I came above ground. Perhaps many years; one loses track. Is he a child, younger than your august self?" "He is no child; he may be older and more powerful than I -- or he may not. But he is new to this land. And if he is a danger, I thought the ifrits would want to know as well as the sultan and his servants." "You thought correctly. Where is this Gray One, that I may see him and sift his heart?" "I do not know, but the last we heard of him, he was somewhere to the west. In the foothills, probably, or in the mountains. We go to seek him and assess whether he is a threat. Will you come with us?" "I will." "You might wish to take another form, which will not frighten those who mean us no harm." "Your idea has merit." Then, with a twist and a shift which made Tariq's eyes water again, the ifrit became -- or took the appearance of -- a camel-centaur, about Tvalenn's age but with darker hair. The oval hole in the rock closed up at the same time. They returned to the caravan-trail and Tvalenn led the way again. As they went, the others filled in the ifrit on the stories they had heard about the Gray One and his other world. They were five more days passing through the canyons. Sometimes Tariq would wake during the night and see only one camel-centaur silhouetted against the stars; if he lay awake long enough, he might see a shape like a coyote or big cat slink into the camp, twist and shift and become a camel-centaur once more. Finally they reached the foothills, where the soil was better though the rainfall was hardly more frequent than in the rocky or sandy desert. All the agriculture here depended on irrigation, water brought by tunnels and pumps from the river which collected itself from a dozen streams out of the mountains only to spend itself uselessly in a salt lake far out in the sands. These hills were inhabited by camel-centaurs and humans in nearly equal numbers, visited fairly often by dwarf traders from the mountains. When they reached the large village at which the caravan-trail terminated, they made inquiries about the Gray One. Had anyone seen him? Had anyone taken his offer to travel to the other world? No, no one here had done either, though several said they had heard of him. Perhaps they might find him in one of the villages to the north, someone said. So the next morning they set out northward along the ridge. They stopped at three villages before nightfall, asking everyone they met about the Gray One. Still they met no one who had seen him, though as they continued they met more and more who had heard of him, and finally, in the village where they stopped for the night, they were referred to some adventurous youths who had gone out looking for him, and come back giving dark hints that they knew much more than they would say. The next morning they found the boys, a camel-centaur and a human, who had supposedly met the Gray One and gone to the other world. They bribed them with date-wine (of good quality, but not the pixie-made brew) and coaxed them to talk. "No, we didn't see him," said Baltvai, the camel-centaur. "But we found one of his servants, and he took our money and put the spell on us -- his master had given it to him, already cast, ready to use on whoever could pay. He said it wouldn't take effect right away, but within a day or two. And then, just a few hours later, we were in that other world..." He trailed off, looking past ul-Kalsim's shoulder into the distance. "There was a flash of blue light," said Saluq, the human, "and I lost all my feeling for a moment, and then I was in another place, in another body." He flushed and took a long swig of wine. "What kind of body?" asked the Subtle One. "Human," Saluq said shortly. "We were both human. Shorter than our real selves, and with pale skin and yellow hair." There seemed to be something he wasn't telling, Tariq thought. "Anyway, we were in a little room, lit by bright lamps set into the ceiling, and there were big metal cabinets all around. And there was a mage there, or anyway a man with a wooden staff like I hear tell mages use, and he introduced us to another man, who was supposed to be our guide to the other world. And then... he led us outside, and we looked up, and up, and up." "The buildings there were incredible," Baltvai said. "As tall as ten houses. No, fifty, some even a hundred -- I couldn't be sure." "And the carts!" Saluq said. "They went so fast, with nothing pulling them. Someone would sit inside -- they were nearly all of them covered with roofs, like a little house, but with glass-covered windows all around. And they'd turn a wheel and make the cart turn this way or that. Some of the carts we rode in were as big as houses, long and narrow ones with lots of benches for people to sit on." "Consistent with the other boy's story," Tvalenn murmured. The Subtle One asked more questions about the room where they'd first found themselves, and the man they'd seen with the staff. (The Subtle One's own school of magic didn't go in for staves; he'd once, when he and Tariq got drunk after a mission, scoffed at mages who depended on them as lazy and unimaginative, and then, getting drunker still, confessed that there were some spells -- ones far beyond his ken -- for which even the most powerful mages needed a staff as focus.) But the boys hadn't been very observant; all they could say was that he was middle-aged, bald, and pale of skin like their new bodies, and that his staff was of a dark wood they didn't recognize. "It wasn't palm or lemon," Saluq said. "What about your own bodies?" Tariq asked. "Did you have someone watching over them while your souls were in the other world?" "Didn't we tell you?" Baltvai said. "The people whose bodies we used, their souls came and lived in our bodies for the two days we were in the other world. The Gray One's servant who put the spell on us said he would guide them while they were in our world, keep them out of trouble and our bodies safe, and he kept his word -- we were with him when we came back, and healthy and sated." Ul-Balimmu asked where it was that they had met the Gray One's servant, and what he looked like. An hour later, after further questions which yielded nothing certain or useful, they set out in the direction the boys had indicated. ----- It was two more days before they found the Gray One's servant, or rather, he found them. They met several more people who said they had been to the other world. Their stories were consistent on many points -- all mentioned the tall buildings and the fast, donkeyless carts, and all of them, whether camel-centaur or dwarf or human, said they had been human while in the other world, and had seen no non-human people while there. One woman they met told them shyly that both she and her husband had been men while they were in the other world; hearing that, Tariq thought he knew what Saluq and Baltvai were keeping back. They were sitting one evening in the common room of the inn in a small village near a dwarf warren. Dwarves sat drinking ale around the low tables at one end of the room, while camel-centaurs stood drinking date-wine around the high tables at the other, and humans in between; Tariq and the others sat and stood by one of the human-sized tables. A man in a gray tunic came in, looked around, spoke with one some of the camel-centaurs near the door, and then approached their table. "I am Barsiq. I hear you have been asking questions about my master," he said, sitting down in the empty chair next to Tariq. "Do you serve the Gray One?" ul-Kalsim asked. "I do. Are you interested in visiting the other world?" "We are." "Hmm... there are five in your party, are there not?" "Yes -- myself, ul-Kalsim; Tvalenn; Tariq; ul-Balimmu; and Sumalm," nodding toward each as he said their names. Sumalm was a name the Subtle One sometimes went by when he did not wish it to be known he was a mage. Barsiq nodded thoughtfully. "A party of five may be difficult to match with a party of the same size from the other world," he said. "But it can be done. It is a matter of time. Come with me, and I will prepare you." After they had paid for their meal and drinks, they followed him out of the village, past the irrigated terraces, and past the entrance of the dwarf-warrens, to a deserted place hidden from view by surrounding hills. The Subtle One and ul-Balimmu asked him questions about his master and the magic he would use to send them to the other world, and Tariq and ul-Kalsim asked him questions about the other world, but to the former he mostly answered, "I do not know," and to the latter, "You will see." "All of you stand very still until I say you can move," he warned them, once they had reached the spot. He walked widdershins around them, taking a bag of blue powder from his tunic pocket and sprinkling it on the ground in a circle around them. Then he watched the sky, licked his finger and held it up to judge the wind (which was not blowing strongly in that hollow), and finally said: "You may return to the inn. I will communicate with the Gray One, and tell him you are ready, and then return to wait with you. He will bring you to the other world as soon as he finds a group of five natives of that world who wish to visit ours." "How long might that be?" Barsiq shrugged. "It may be hours -- more likely days. Probably not more than a month. You should all stick close to one another, and to me, as much as possible while we are waiting." "Will that affect the spell?" the Subtle One asked. "No, but it may cause trouble for the visitors from the other world, if one or two of them are separated from their friends and their guide when they arrive." So they returned to the inn, and were joined there by the Gray One's servant a few hours later. They passed two more days in that village, mostly in the common room of the inn. All of them heeded the man's advice to stick close together, except for ul-Balimmu, who slipped out each night to wander none knew where, in none knew what shape. But even he stayed with them during the day, and mostly kept to the same camel-centaur form he had assumed when he joined their mission. One afternoon, when the common room was nearly deserted and the scouts were growing bored beyond reason, Barsiq suddenly started up from his doze and said: "It is nearly time." "Have you heard from the Gray One?" ul-Kalsim asked. "Yes -- he has a group of five, and is preparing them now. You will have the best of the bargain, I think," with a meaningful glance at Tariq's missing legs, "-- they are all young and healthy." He smiled. "Perhaps when you return we can compare our experiences in the other world. I know you have been frustrated that I would not speak of it, but really, until you have exper-" Tariq could guess that he was probably going to say something like "...experienced it, you would not believe what I say." But just then he saw a blue flash of light, and felt momentarily dizzy. The bright blue light was replaced by a dimmer but still bright white light, and he was standing -- Standing! On whole, sound legs! He didn't see them at first, but he felt them! He was standing in a room, smaller than the common room at the inn. It was less cluttered than the room Baltvai and Saluq had described, with only one cabinet and no other furniture. But the first thing he noticed was that he was surrounded by women -- four young women, perhaps twenty years of age, and one woman about his own age or a little younger, with gray hair tied into a bun. None of them wore veils; the younger women wore tight tunics and trousers, and the older woman wore a looser gray blouse and a long black skirt. Two of the young women were acting strangely, looking down at themselves and cupping hands to their breasts in a most immodest way. Another was looking around the room curiously, just as Tariq was. The fourth was staring at the older woman -- who, Tariq now realized, was holding a wooden staff. The Gray One? The boys they had questioned had described the mage as a man, but Tariq had seen the Subtle One assume a variety of appearances for different missions; a mage could look like anything they chose. He looked down to see his new whole, healthy legs, and got a shock. He was wearing a tight-fitting tunic not unlike those the young women were wearing. And it was tight enough to clearly outline the shapes of two breasts. They were not so large that he could not see past them to the feminine legs covered in tight trousers of a mottled blue fabric, or the flat crotch where those legs joined. "I'm a girl!" exclaimed one of the young women who was holding her breasts. "We all are, apparently," said the much calmer voice of the woman who was looking around the room. "Surely you considered the possibility? There was that woman we spoke to who became a man while she was here..." "Never mind," Tariq said. "I'm just happy to have legs again! I haven't been able to pee standing up for the last six years anyway..." "You must be Tariq," said the other woman who had been touching her breasts -- though now she hastily stopped and put her hands on her hips. "I'm ul-Kalsim." "I'm ul-Balimmu," said the woman who'd been looking around, turning her attention to ul-Kalsim. "I'm Tvalenn," said the other woman who was still cupping her breasts, twisting and looking behind her -- at her missing camel-hindquarters, Tariq supposed. "And you are the Gray One," said the fourth woman, who had been looking straight at the older woman the whole time, and bowed to her. "Yes," said the gray-haired woman. "I see I must teach my servant Barsiq to recognize a mage when he sees one. But no harm done. I mean you and your sultan no harm. I will allow you a few more minutes to become accustomed to your bodies; you may come out when you are ready." And with that, she withdrew through the only door in the room, taking her staff with her. "I was resigned to being human," Tvalenn fumed, "but a woman...!" "Calm down," ul-Kalsim said, taking a deep breath herself. "As ul-Balimmu said, we should have been prepared for the possibility that some of us might get female bodies... I feared as much, though I did not expect we would all be female, or so young. How can we pursue our investigations in such low-status forms?" "Come, ul-Kalsim, we are clever and resourceful," said Tariq. "We will learn much -- perhaps even more than we could in men's bodies, if we adapt to our new selves quickly and use our advantages well. -- O Subtle One: is it your professional opinion that we are not hallucinating?" "We certainly are not," she replied. "Or if we are, it is a finely detailed hallucination created by magic far beyond my powers. We weren't simply drugged with something Barsiq put in our drinks. Indeed..." She looked around, puzzled. "There is so little ambient magic, I don't know how the Gray One, powerful as she is, managed to bring us here. Certainly she could have brought nothing material over, and even bringing our souls must have taken incredible skill and great effort." "Well," Tariq said, "let's go. Or do you wish to 'become accustomed to your bodies' for a while longer?" "Not here," ul-Kalsim said. "You're right; we must do the best we can in these bodies." All five were young and healthy, as Barsiq had said. Tariq's borrowed body, and the Subtle One's, were a little darker of skin than their original bodies, with black hair; the other three had much lighter skin, almost pale, and ul-Kalsim and Tvalenn had yellow or whitish-yellow hair, while ul-Balimmu's was a light brown. It was hard to judge of their height, with no familiar objects to compare them to, but ul-Balimmu was the shortest of them and the Subtle One the tallest, with Tariq somewhere in the middle. Most of them, including Tariq, had small handbags on long straps hanging from their shoulders. Tariq led the way from the room, marveling at the play of the muscles in her legs and hips. The way she walked in this body was not the way he had walked before he was bitten by a ghoul and had to have his legs amputated before the rot spread to his torso, but it was deliciously wonderful. The door led to a short hallway; Tariq heard low voices coming from her right, and went that way. She found the Gray One speaking with another young woman, about the same age as Tariq's new body, in a large room whose walls were covered with brightly-colored pictures. Some of the pictures reminded her of some of the places he had seen in his travels as a young man; verdant forests, sandy beaches, snow-capped mountains... Others were strange, so strange that it was hard to make out what if anything they represented. "Here they are," said the Gray One. "Honored visitors, this is Melanie. She will be your guide during your stay in this world." "Hi," said Melanie. "I'm sure we'll have a blast." "I'm sure," Tariq murmured, becoming suddenly aware that she and the others, since their arrival in these bodies, had not been speaking the chief language of the sultanate, nor Sikva, nor the dialect of the foothills, nor any language of their world. It was only when Melanie spoke, using that curious colloquialism, that Tariq became aware of it. (When she said the word "blast" Tariq saw a vague mental image of fireworks, superimposed on a group of young people drinking and feasting.) The others followed her down the hall into the main room, and Tariq introduced them. Melanie smiled at each of them and repeated their names, pronouncing most of them more or less correctly. But then she said: "You might want to learn the names of the girls whose bodies you're wearing. And when we're in public, call each other by those names -- your world's names will sound strange to people who don't know where you're from." "Of course," Tariq said, for whom assumed names lasting only the duration of a mission were nothing new. The others agreed as readily. Tariq's body, it turned out, belonged to a young woman named Keisha. Ul-Kalsim was to be called Stephanie; ul-Balimmu, Natalie; Tvalenn, Rae Nan; and the Subtle One, Lauren. "And, Keisha -- you don't mind if I start calling you that now?" "Of course -- it will help me learn to answer to it." "Indeed," said ul-Kalsim -- Stephanie -- "let's use those names among ourselves for as long as we're here. Let there be no slip-ups, people." Melanie looked surprised at Stephanie's serious tone, but went on: "So -- Keisha, the girl whose body you're wearing gave me a note for you. Here it is." She took a slip of paper from the high desk at which she stood and handed it to Keisha. "I've got one for you, too, Natalie," Melanie said, as Keisha read her note: "Dear body-borrower, "I hope you have fun in my body and my world, but not *too* much fun, if you know what I mean. You're welcome to sleep in my apartment and wear my clothes, and eat the food in my kitchen (within reason; don't open any bottles of wine that aren't already open, that stuff's expensive here), but don't move stuff around so I can't find it when I get back. And don't you *dare* have sex in my body. I promise not to have sex while I'm in yours, -- unless your people have Pon-Farr or something while I'm there and I can't help it. Anyway. My credit card is maxed out just now from paying Ms. G. for the vacation, so don't try to use it, but I have some cash in my purse that should last you a week if you don't waste it and mostly eat from the groceries I have at home. Most of my friends have gone to Fort Lauderdale for Spring Break, except the ones who are going to your world with me, and my boyfriend, who's gone home to visit his parents this week. He might be back before I am; if so, or if you meet anybody else who knows me and thinks you're me, pretend you're in a hurry and say you'll talk to them next week. If my phone rings, just let it go to voice mail. Never mind, I'll just turn it off before I go. "Your host, "Keisha Grant." "I understood most of that, I think," Tariq said, reflecting that she'd magically acquired a knowledge of this language's written form as well, though that part of the spell didn't seem to work perfectly. "But there are many things that puzzle me." "What parts?" Melanie asked. "Do you mind if I look...?" Tariq held it out to her and pointed in turn to a few words and phrases that baffled her. "Let's see -- credit card, that's a sort of tool for buying things without having to carry coins around. Like keeping a tab at an inn, sort of. Pon-Farr -- um --" Melanie blushed. "It's a long story. An allusion to a famous play... Um, don't some of the peoples in your world have sex only at certain times of year, and then they can hardly stop themselves? Merfolk, for instance? Not like humans or elves, who can take it or leave it any time." "I've heard of merfolk, but never met any -- I wouldn't know. I'm human myself, as are, um, Stephanie and Lauren. Rae Nan is a -- um --" She hesitated, not finding a ready word in this language she was speaking, and coined an ad-hoc compound: "a camel-centaur. And Natalie is an ifrit." That word wasn't quite right either, but it was a closer fit than simply calling Tvalenn a "centaur", which here seemed to refer exclusively to the horse-men of the north. "Cool...! Anyway, if you're a human your body should be fine when you get back; she's not going to get you knocked up or diseased while you're gone... What else? Oh, her phone. It's a little machine for talking to people a long way away. You don't know anybody here but me, and I'll be with you for most of the day every day, so you probably won't need it, but I'll show you how to make an emergency call... Spring Break? That's a time when college students have a week of vacation -- right now, in fact." Tariq put the pieces together. "Then these bodies we wear, these women whose souls are now in our bodies -- they are scholars?" Melanie laughed nervously. "I don't know about scholars, but they're all students, yeah. And Stephanie there, I mean the real Stephanie, she's a lot better student than I ever was -- I don't know about the rest, they're Stephanie's friends, not mine." Tariq wondered why Keisha's other friends would be traveling to a fortress during this vacation from their studies; perhaps to carry on affairs of gallantry with the soldiers? But many other questions drove that one out of her mind, and she never did find out. ul-Balimmu -- Natalie -- had been puzzling over her note from her body's original inhabitant, and conferring with the Gray One and the other scouts over the unfamiliar words. They looked up now and ul-Kalsim -- Stephanie -- said to Tariq: "Keisha, what does yours say?" She showed her commander the note. Stephanie wrinkled her nose and said, "I have *no* intention of sleeping with a man; they have no reason to fear that we will defile their bodies... What's this about the 'credit card'?" Tariq explained. "What about the note from, ah, Natalie? What did it say?" Stephanie said, "Natalie says we shouldn't stay in the 'dorms;' apparently that is a lodging house for young scholars -- female scholars, can you imagine? She recommends that we all stay over at Keisha and Lauren's apartment 'off-campus,' a mile from the university, during our stay. She thinks too many people will recognize us if we stay at the student lodgings." "That could be awkward," Tariq said. "We might blow our cover if we meet someone who knows the real Keisha or Stephanie." "You've all got driver's licenses, and Stephanie at least owns a car," Melanie said -- again puzzling the visitors with the imperfect way the language-acquisition spell seemed to have worked -- "but none of you know how to drive, Ms. G.'s acclimation spell isn't that thorough. We'll just leave Stephanie's car in the parking lot the whole time, and I'll drive you around, or we'll take the bus and subway." "I understood very little of that," Tariq said, after exchanging puzzled glances with the other scouts, "except that you will arrange for our transportation during our stay...?" "Yes, exactly. Let's go -- we've got time to see several neat things before I drop you off at Keisha's apartment for the night." "Good day," the Gray One said. "I will see you back here in six days. Melanie, call me at once if anything goes wrong." "Sure thing, Ms. G." The young woman turned toward the outer door, beckoning to her charges. "Wait," Stephanie said, panicking. "We can't go out like this, can we? I mean -- we're hardly dressed. Where are our veils?" "Women don't wear veils here," Melanie said, turning back. "You're fine the way you are -- that's how the girls your bodies belong to were dressed when they got here, how lots of women dress in this weather." "It does seem strange," Tariq said, when she saw that Stephanie was still hesitating, "but even in our world, the women of the north do not wear veils. We must trust our guide to tell us how women such as we appear to be dress here." She followed Melanie out the door, and the others followed her. ----- They stepped outside the office and looked around. Tvalenn -- Rae Nan -- said, "Where are the tall buildings we were told about?" The building they had just come out of appeared to be a single story, with one section that rose to perhaps two stories. It had many large glass windows, but other than that was not greatly different from some of the buildings Tariq had seen in foreign countries in his travels. The forecourt of the building was paved with some black substance marked with white lines; oddly shaped carts, painted in bright colors and with glass windows, were scattered around it, but Tariq didn't at the moment see any of them rolling along faster than a gazelle under their own power. In the distance she could see other buildings, in unfamiliar architectural styles, but none higher than two or three stories. "I suppose you've talked to some other travelers?" Melanie asked. "-- This way, please. Yes, we have some really tall buildings here, but not in this neighborhood. We just moved to this office in the suburbs from a place downtown, where the tallest buildings in the city are. -- Here," she said, having led them to one of the larger carts in the forecourt, a silvery-gray thing with a smoothly rounded front end. "I get to drive the company minivan all week." She took keys from a pocket and unlocked two doors in the side of the cart, gesturing for the scouts to climb in. "Wait," she said, "I just remembered -- we need to get Stephanie, Natalie and Rae Nan's suitcases out of Stephanie's car, so you'll have something to wear when you're staying over at Lauren and Keisha's apartment. Stephanie, can you get your keys out of your purse?" Stephanie dug around among the things in her purse and finally came up with a ring of finely-tooled keys. It took some time to figure out which of the cars was Stephanie's, and which of the keys on the ring would open it, but finally they got three large semi-rigid bags and put them in the back of the "company minivan." There were two benches in the back of the "minivan," which word Tariq recognized as a specialized term for cars of this particular shape; she vaguely felt that she knew many other words for differently shaped and purposed cars, but couldn't remember them at the moment. Tariq wound up sitting in a chair in the front of the minivan, next to Melanie, while the others situated themselves on the back benches. "Fasten your seatbelts," Melanie said. "Like this," and she demonstrated. Tariq could see her clearly, and followed suit, but most of those in the back couldn't see and took longer to figure out what to do. When they were all secured, Melanie turned a key in a lock on the side of a wheel, and there was a sudden loud noise, at which nearly all of them shrieked -- then looked at one another in embarrassment as Melanie laughed. "That's just the engine starting up," she said. "Nothing to be afraid of. Come on, I'll take you downtown to see the skyscrapers." The minivan started moving, slowly at first, and then, as Melanie steered it out of the "parking lot" (Tariq suddenly remembered the word), into the street, faster and faster. Tariq gasped; she was getting conflicting information from her different senses, her sight telling her that the landscape and the other carts in the street were moving past at an incredible speed, while she felt no wind in her face such as she would feel on the back of a galloping camel... Of course, that was what the glass windows were for. Without them the wind would be so great at this speed that they could hardly breathe. "How does it go?" the Subtle One asked no one in particular. "There's not enough magic around to move something this massive! And I don't sense any spells on the wheels or body of the carriage..." "It's not magic at all, Lauren," Melanie said. "We don't have any magic here, except the Gray One's spells. And they only work in certain places, and sometimes those places move around -- that's why we had to move recently, the patch of magic around our downtown office shifted and we had to follow it." "Then how does this minivan move, without any animal pulling it?" Tvalenn asked. "I don't really know," Melanie said. "I told you, I wasn't a good student, especially not at science. I vaguely remember the term 'internal combustion' from my high school science classes, but I can't tell you what it means." "Can you take us to someone who knows?" Tariq asked. "Maybe... Natalie said you should stay away from the university in case somebody recognizes your faces. But -- oh, I know. We'll go to the Science and Technology Museum tomorrow. Does that sound interesting?" Strange echoes resounded in Tariq's mind when she heard the words "science" and "technology." She wasn't sure what they meant, but she knew they were important. "Yes," she said at once, a moment before ul-Kalsim said the same. Tariq had thought the minivan was moving at an incredible speed before, but soon Melanie turned them off the wide street they had first entered into a much vaster road, wide enough for four of the self-moving carts to go abreast, and increased their speed even more. Tariq gripped her seat tightly and said nothing, though she watched the large signs raised on stout poles above the sides of the road, and the increasingly tall buildings visible in the distance, and stored up questions to ask later when she wasn't so nervous. From the silence, it seemed that the others were similarly affected. The tall buildings grew closer and more numerous, until they were surrounded by them. After a short time Melanie turned them out of the wide road into a narrower street, and said: "Ah, the joys of finding a parking place downtown... Say, I thought you guys would have more questions. You've been awfully quiet." Natalie said: "We -- at least I was savoring the experience of flying and sitting still at the same time. It was exhilarating." "Exhilarating?" the Subtle One -- Lauren -- said in a strangled tone. "I felt like I would be sick, going so fast..." They had already slowed down a great deal, and were frequently stopping and starting, as this street was much busier than the wide road they had been on. "Oh, I'm sorry. Some people are affected that way; I tend to forget. The last couple of visitors I was guide for enjoyed the speed, like Natalie. I'll try to stay off the expressway for the rest of your visit... Ah, here's a good place." She turned the minivan off of the street into a high, wide open door leading into a dark building, full of cars, minivans and similar vehicles; after circling around for a while, she found an empty space between two of the others and stopped the minivan. "Here we are," she said, unfastening her seat belt and opening her door. "I figure we'll walk around downtown for a while, eat supper, maybe go dancing, before I take you to Keisha and Lauren's apartment." "The dancing will not be necessary," Stephanie said. "We are here to explore and learn." "All right, what else do you want to do...?" Melanie opened the other doors and let her passengers out; Lauren and Rae Nan looked ill, and Tariq was glad to be on her feet again -- just having feet was such a wonderful novelty, even if they were a woman's feet. "First, find a privy," Lauren said. "Oh!" Natalie said, her eyebrows raising. "I think I need that too." "All right, there's a public restroom in the Macy's, just up the block. Come on." They followed Melanie through the dimly-lit building to a metal door, where Melanie pressed a knob, one of several, which lit up. "This is an elevator," Melanie explained, and Tariq felt a vague idea stir at the sound of the word, but still wasn't sure what it meant. Moments later the door slid aside and revealed a tiny windowless room. "Is that the privy?" Lauren asked uncertainly. "No, silly, come on -- it's easier to show than explain." They nervously crowded into the "elevator", and watched as Melanie pressed another knob -- it was labeled with a symbol for the number one, Tariq noticed. The door slid closed, and a moment later they all felt light-headed. Rae Nan started hyperventilating. "Calm down," Stephanie said, putting her hand over Rae Nan's, though she was breathing none too steadily herself. "I'm sorry," Melanie said. "Maybe we should have taken the stairs... But see, it's almost over." A moment later the light-headed feeling went away and they felt momentarily heavier than normal, then the door slid open. They hurried out and followed Melanie to the high, wide doorway into the street. There were many people walking this way and that along the sidewalk, and many minivans and other carts rolling along in the street. The traffic was heavy, but seemed orderly to Tariq, with all the cars going in a given direction staying to the same side of the street, and taking turns at intersections to let others pass. The people -- every one of them human -- were of a wide range of skin and hair colors, most of them lighter-skinned than her but some as dark or darker. Many of the young women were dressed like the scouts, in tight trousers and short-sleeved tunics, but some wore skirts or dresses, many with the hem above the knees, to Tariq's astonishment and indignation. Some had low-cut tunics or blouses that revealed nearly half of their breasts. Only a handful of them were dressed more modestly than the scouts had found their borrowed bodies dressed, with longer sleeves, looser trousers or higher collars; none wore veils. "In here," Melanie said, and led them through a double glass door into a vast open space filled with what turned out to be racks of ready-made clothing in all the styles they had seen on the people in the streets and then some. As they followed Melanie to the privy -- which turned out to be a particular kind of privy called a "restroom" -- Tariq looked around, and was puzzled to see no tailors or seamstresses working, in spite of the vast amounts of clothing. Nor did she see any bolts of cloth for making the clothes. Melanie led them through an opaque swinging door with the word "Women" emblazoned on it (after so many glass or half-glass doors, and the sliding door of the elevator, Tariq no longer took it for granted that a door would look or function normally), and said: "I'm not sure if you've got indoor plumbing in your part of the world...? They didn't in the places I've visited, but Ms. G. tells me it's a big place, and some parts of it are more advanced than others..." "I don't know the phrase 'indoor plumbing'," Lauren said, "so we probably don't have it. I've noticed that the Gray One's language spell doesn't give us knowledge of words corresponding to things we don't have in our world." "Yeah, that's a kink she's still working out of it. She's already improved it a lot, though. Our visitors used to have trouble with idioms and figures of speech, but you can handle them fine; it's just words that don't match up to concepts you already have that don't make sense. So, let me show you..." Melanie opened another swinging door, one of several in the room, to reveal a fine chamber-pot, as comfortable as the best in the sultan's palace, except that it had no backrest. "Sit here and do your business, and when you're done, press this lever here --" She demonstrated, and there was a *whooshing* sound. "That flushes it away. Oh, and use the paper on this roll to wipe with. Sorry if I'm explaining anything obvious -- I've been to several places in your world, but not to your country yet." "That is clear enough," Lauren said. "Excuse me." She took Melanie's place in the little sub-chamber and closed the door behind her. Natalie, who had been exploring the room, had already closed herself into another sub-chamber, and moments later Stephanie and Rae Nan decided they ought to do the same. There were only four of the screened-off chamber-pots, so that left Melanie and Tariq alone in the outer room. "We'd probably better go while we're here, once some of them are done," Melanie said. "Some of the smaller places we'll go tonight won't have public restrooms." "I suppose so," Tariq said. She was nervously looking forward to having a moment's privacy and seeing her new legs without the trousers. "So... do you have any more questions for me about what you've seen so far?" She asked about the clothing-market they had come through on their way to the privy, and learned that it only sold ready-made clothes; the clothes were made in another place far away, a "factory," and brought here in "trucks," self-moving wagons like the minivans but far larger. At the word "truck" Tariq suddenly remembered seeing some of them on the "expressway," though she had not then recognized them or recalled their name. "Hmm," Melanie said. "They sure are taking a long time in there..." At that, they heard a low moan and a gasp from one of the stalls -- Tariq thought it was Rae Nan's. "Ah, I see. Some of them were guys back in your world, weren't they...?" Melanie smiled knowingly. "We were all male," Tariq said. "I thought the Gray One had told you?" "Oh," Melanie said, and laughed. "Well, take your time, when they finally give you a turn. I remember the first time I wound up in a guy's body in your world, I couldn't wait to get away from my guide for a few minutes and look at my new equipment. I like being a girl better overall, but getting to be a guy sometimes when I visit your world is --" Just then another woman came into the restroom, about thirty, leading a little girl by the hand. She looked at the closed stall doors and said to her daughter, "Be patient, honey." "But I gotta go *now*," the little girl whined. Melanie, who had abruptly stopped talking when the other woman arrived, called out: "Hurry up in there, slowpokes. We've got a potty emergency out here." The *whooshing* sound Tariq remembered from earlier followed moments later from a couple of the stalls, and a few moments after that Stephanie opened the door of her stall and stepped out, followed by Lauren a little later. "You can go first," Tariq said to the woman with the little girl. The woman thanked her, and led her daughter into the stall Stephanie had vacated. "So..." Melanie said to Stephanie as Tariq entered the stall Lauren had vacated, "what do you do when you're at home?" Tariq heard Stephanie giving Melanie a vague but not entirely untruthful account of ul-Kalsim's official duties, as she figured out how to latch the door of the stall, then took a deep breath and started fumbling with the fastenings of her trousers. They turned out to have two different fastenings, one easy to undo and the other a little trickier. Finally she pulled down her trousers, then her undergarment -- a lacy little thing much smaller than anything he had ever removed from a woman he had loved when he was young and handsome -- and sat astride the chamber-pot. It was full of clean-looking water, which surprised her -- she hadn't had a good vantage point when Melanie had been demonstrating the use of it. Was she supposed to pee into that, and defile good water...? But she remembered her youthful travels in the east and the north, and how he had once seen an inlet of the vast ocean; water wasn't scarce everywhere, and it must be abundant here as it was in some places in her world. She finally relaxed and let out a wide splattery stream of piss. She tore some paper off of the roll Melanie had shown them -- it was much softer than the dried leaves they used at home -- and gently dried the pee off her female parts and pubic hair. Then -- wondering guiltily for a moment whether someone else might be waiting her turn, like the woman with the little girl -- she explored down there with her fingers. She gasped, and decided that anything further could wait for another time. She didn't want to embarrass herself with loud moans, like Rae Nan; and she'd have six days in this body. Plenty of time to learn more about it later. When she emerged, Melanie instructed her how to use the washbasins and their faucets which automatically pumped a continuous stream of hot or cold water. Lauren shook her head. "That's not magic either," she said. "There's even less magic available here than there was at the Gray One's office. I don't know how they do it." "I'm not sure either, but we'll try to find out tomorrow," Melanie said. "Everyone done washing up...? Okay, let's go." ----- Sometime not long after that, the perpetual novelty -- one new and unfamiliar thing after another ever since she arrived in this female body and this strange world -- finally became too much for Tariq. She was never afterward able to clearly remember the events of that evening between leaving the clothing-market and collapsing in exhaustion in her host's bed, later that night. Vague images of inns, bazaars, and markets, sampling strange merchandise and tasting strange food and drink, loud eerie music, crowds of strangers in exotic dress, all tangled up in her mind and came back to her in bits and pieces over the next days and months. Tariq woke the next morning to find a strange woman in his bed. It had been so long since he had been young and healthy enough to attract a woman to sleep with him that the pale hue of her skin and her yellow hair, or the strange surroundings, at first seemed no stranger than the idea that such a beautiful woman would share his bed... certainly he had been drunk last night, on something stronger than ordinary date-wine. Then sensations from his changed body, and memories from yesterday, snapped into focus. She was Keisha, or wearing Keisha's body, and this woman lying next to her was Stephanie -- ul-Kalsim, his old protege, later his successor in office, his commanding officer for this mission. Had they...? Apparently not; she was fully dressed, wearing the same tunic and trousers she'd worn yesterday, although she or someone had taken off her shoes and loosened the waist-fastenings of her trousers. Stephanie was dressed as modestly as she had been yesterday, though that wasn't saying much, but had apparently changed clothes before she fell asleep. A pressure from her bladder induced Keisha to get up, trying not to wake Stephanie, and search the room for a chamber-pot. Not finding one right away, she remembered the curious water-filled chamber-pot in the clothing market, and wondered if it might be in a separate room. That turned out to be the case. A little later she emerged from the bathroom after peeing, washing her hands, and experimenting with the knobs on the large bathtub. She met Natalie waiting outside the door and greeted her: "Good morning." Natalie, looking bleary, went into the bathroom, not bothering to close the door behind her as she dropped her trousers and sat down. Keisha explored the place, finding Lauren and Rae Nan more or less asleep in another bed; Lauren blinked and looked up at her as she looked into the room, but didn't say anything. She remembered from the note yesterday that the original Keisha had said she was welcome to any of the food and drink in the apartment, except for the wine. She explored the kitchen and found a number of things to eat and drink, some of which did not require cooking -- she had a vague memory of someone trying to explain the use of the automatic-but-not-magical cooking tools, but didn't trust herself to experiment with them just now. While she was scrounging bread, cheese, raisins, and milk (kept cold in a marvelous cabinet), Natalie came into the kitchen, followed soon by Lauren, and eventually by Rae Nan and Stephanie. They were mostly silent, preoccupied with their own thoughts, except for desultory "Good mornings." Finally Stephanie said: "We need to compare notes about yesterday, and make plans for the next few days. Melanie said she would come here this morning to take us to the Science and Technology Museum -- does anything know what that is?" "It is a repository of lore," Lauren said. "She seemed to think that we could learn there how the cars work, how the toilets and sinks make water flow without our having to work the pumps, and so on." "You're absolutely sure it's not magic?" Keisha asked. "As certain as I can be. There was little magic in the place we first arrived, less in the downtown area where Melanie took us to eat and drink, and if there is any at all here, I cannot sense it. And as low as the ambient level of magic is, it isn't being used at all, by anyone but the Gray One, and that only in the building where we first arrived." "Can you do anything with it?" Stephanie asked. "Perhaps I could levitate something tiny, an ounce or two, if we return to that area near the Gray One's office. I couldn't do even that with the paltry level available downtown, and nothing here." "I can't stand it!" Natalie burst out, rubbing her arms together. The others looked at her in surprise; tears were running down her cheeks. "I got more and more uncomfortable all yesterday evening, and then I felt okay when I slept, but now it's worse than ever. I'm stuck in this form and I can't change!" "We're all stuck in these bodies until six days have elapsed," Stephanie said. "Is it really so bad...?" "She is used to changing her form at least once or twice per day," Lauren said sympathetically, and put a hand on her shoulder. "Shh, calm down. You'll get accustomed to it within another day or two, I hope. I felt terribly uncomfortable being a woman at first, but this morning it doesn't feel so strange." "Being a woman is nothing," Natalie said. "I've been men and women, male and female dwarves and camel-centaurs and even merfolk. But having to stay in the same shape for six days! I don't know if I can do it." "You must, therefore you can," Lauren said. "We will be here to help you." Keisha put an arm around Natalie's other shoulder and held her while she sobbed. Finally her tears gave out and she said, "Thank you. I'll try to be calm." "Is there anything we need to do to get ready before Melanie arrives?" Keisha asked. "We should change clothes," Stephanie said. "Melanie said that people here wear different clothes every day, and different ones for sleeping. But you were too drunk to change clothes, so we just put you to bed in what you had on." "And we need to bathe, too," Rae Nan said. "Melanie said people here bathe every day." "She said something about a 'shower', didn't she?" Natalie said. "When she said that word I had a vague image of water falling from the sky, like rain, but indoors..." "Oh!" Keisha said. "I was experimenting with the knobs on the bathtub, before you woke up, and I found that you can get water to fall on you from above. That must be the 'shower'." Since Keisha had started eating first, and was already sated, the others let her have the bathroom first while they ate some more. She found clean clothes in the drawers and closets of her host's bedroom and took them with her into the bathroom before taking off her clothes. There was a full-length mirror on the back of the door, and she took a few moments to study and admire her reflection. Keisha was a good-looking woman, not among the most beautiful Tariq had ever seen, but more to his taste than most of the women he had seen here, such as Stephanie or Rae Nan with their pale skin and yellow hair. She gingerly felt of her breasts for a few moments, then ran her hands down her sides and rested them on her thighs... Suddenly she remembered the note from the original Keisha: "And don't you *dare* have sex in my body." Too much self-exploration would violate the spirit of that, if not the letter. She resolved to be circumspect. Further inspection revealed that Keisha was a virgin. After that, she turned her attention to the knobs on the bathtub. Some little experimentation got a fine mi