Strange Trip

By the time the Crystal Room, recently and precipitously vacated by Kash, had closed itself off to begin its transformation, the incipient connection to a new world had already been reflected in the Inn's shops. Notably, after Valentine's Day, the boutique had begun to stock two new clothing trends. First came the heavily weighted apparel, almost like blankets for those on the autism spectrum, designed to hang against the body and stay against the body, most of them in fairly neutral shades and modest styles. Then came the exquisitely light, unusual fabrics, that seemed made for dancing and twirling. They often had extra fabric, tubes and ruffs, and layers that when caught in the wind would puff out into shapes. These tended toward the colorful, and while rarely what any 21st century Earth person would call scandalous, they often seemed to be playing peekaboo with spectators and the flesh beneath.

Other, less interesting, changes happened more suddenly. Every room had fresh water bottles delivered daily. The chef's chicken dishes inexplicably began to contain a great deal of cream, cheese, and cream cheese. The ice machines occasionally acted up and spit a stream of cubes at people passing without filling a bucket.

In retrospect, when the Crystal Room opened onto the deck of what might once have been some kind of space yacht but had become more the equivalent of an overcrowded tour bus for penny-pinchers and scholarship kids, it was more obvious than ever that where they'd be going, what they'd need when they'd get there, and the camouflaging of their arrival wasn't entirely random. The captain and passengers of the dirty, overcrowded space-bus SC Trolley couldn't possibly have cared less where the extra passengers came from, if they even noticed. And the docking crew on the pretentiously named Celadon Ring (third from the top, reserved for miner-leave ships and the odd 'leisure' travelers), was more interested in clan personal matters than in how many people were supposed to be on the ship versus how many left through its doors. After the first few hours of the ship's arrival, no one cared at all, which made it very easy for the people of the Inn to come and go.

Whatever intelligence lay behind their off-world jaunts could do little about their appearances, however, and their strange fleshy colors and hairstyles drew unpleasant looks from many on station. The Verineans in particular were none too thrilled by the appearance of a long-forgotten race, and behave more haughtily than ever. The Trovians poked them curiously and ran away. Most of the others avoided them. Only the Gunnii and the Diggers seemed to take them in stride.

Nevertheless, the noisy Hub with its welter of foreign tongues, the familiar patter of bargains and auctions, backed by the odd and occasionally terrifying structural creaks and groans, smelled of tarnished metal, less than fresh bodies, and commerce. Away from the pristine living quarters in the wealthiest petals, Asphodel was a trade station, and anyone with goods to trade and a will to trade them wouldn't be turned (too hard) away.

The rings and Paidia, the upper and the downbelow were something of a different story. Dangerous in the rings and the downbelow, downright welcoming in the Paidia, and off-limits without bribes on the upper, they had their own rules and their own essences. In truth, the station was large enough with so little in the way of true government, it might as well have been several small nations bound together by a gravitational system and air supply.

Regardless of where they planned to go, any visitor that exited a ship in one of the rings was made to watch a welcome video while waiting for the lifts. It contained the basic rules, offenses punishable by death, and an overview map of the station. Exchange rates in currencies unknown to the Inn were posted at the lifts exit doors. Yet whenever any first left the rings for the Hub or elsewhere on Asphodel they couldn't help but be unprepared.

By afternoon, the pale blue of the morning sky had bleached and deepened to an icy slate gray. Seagull cries haunted the beach gone missing in an impenetrable fog. Even the lighthouse at the point barely pierced the rolling boil above a choppy, murky, bottle-green sea.

All the living souls in Bonesville clung close to the lights of The Hangman's Grill, like terrified barnacles on a pier. Even the stranger and more criminal folk that made up the population of Bonestown avoided the ocean on days like this. Idiots who beach-combed in fog were how ghosts got made. Well, some of them.

So even had their (mostly) human gazes been able to make out the strange glowing as a new cave mouth opened at the base of the sea cliff, there was no one near the beach to do so. A very few ventured down to the cove on matters of "business" late in the afternoon when the weather settled to something slightly less legendary, but they appeared not to notice the new cave or anyone leaving it until they crossed onto more traveled paths.

For those at the Madonna Inn who had been there the last time a door opened to another world, the experience was familiar. The door to Room 144 had preemptorily sealed itself shut and refused to open until whatever happened beyond it had happened. When it did, the bank of windows that had been at the outer wall had disappeared and the rock walls extended out into a cave.

From within the room, the sounds of screeching seagulls and crashing waves carried and echoed, but none of the coastal moisture crossed the spatial-temporal barrier. And when the first to venture forth emerged, they were greeted by a slowly reddening nautical warning of a sky.