Part 23

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"But I-I can't leave her! I leave her trapped! Trapped! He's trapped and she's trapped! She'll-" Oshana stopped her panic and her frantic hand gestures the instant her eyes looked out the window. She placed her face nearly into the glass. "They are....Skarle...." she looked up to the Bannik holding the curtain aside for her.

"Believers have come" Skarle simply said.

"Yes" Oshana's eyes welled with tears and she clutched Skarle's arm. "They listened they-"

"It is the true Sister, they know as we do."

"Yesssss!" Oshana hissed her delight. "But! They are trapped! He's trapped and she's trapped!" she repeated, frantic until she suddenly leaned forward against the glass to look out.

"But you don't know the cause of the separation" Skarle reasoned, his hand moving right and left while the thoughts went through his mind. He looked at her in horror when he reached his conclusion. "There is nothing you can do but see if you can reach them again."

"Bursamen!" Oshana gasped at the window, seeing the Nebari rebel Bursamen following a Sebacean around a corner into the street facing them. "We must contact him. Go!" she urged.

Oshana turned to stare out at the crowd while Skarle hurried from the room.

---

The N aisle had been widened, John noticed while he walked into it. A series of tables were set up as if for a birthday.

All the usual guests of the library were there. The maid version of Chiana was fawning over a book, ignoring her cake. The librarian was making the most horrid screeches with a kazoo, ruining the musical notes the animated teapots all over the table were piping up. The other red head with the faint traces of painted silver scales on her pale skin was happily conducting the organ-like teapots with two spoons. The black haired lady at the far end was still stuck in her giant Romeo & Juliet book.

The only one missing was Harvey, and that troubled him. For once.

"Whay hey it's my unbirthday too, lemme hook my chops on some of that cake" John helped himself to a slice of cake and put an extra birthday hat on his head. "They're piping, but are they hot?" John wondered out loud, staring at a teapot while sitting down. He put his feet up. "Haaaaaar-vey!" he bellowed.

"Whhhhhhy?" a very aristocratic version of Harvey's voice wheezed out a heady breath of opium smoke. John's eyebrows raised. Harvey appeared to be a giant black centipede of sorts, taking up the middle of the bookshelf behind the ladies across from him. His upper end leaned out from the shelves toward John. As if Harvey's features on a centipede's face wasn't odd enough, there was the fact he was wearing a giant monocle and smoking hashish.

"Man talk about a bookworm" John commented while the maid Chi came over to sit in his lap and read. John looked around, a little concerned the real McCoy would come around and be less than amused. John sniffed, wrinkling his face at the intoxicating smoke blown his way from the bookworm Harvey. The table took on a different character while he watched. "Oh man....."

---

"Sister, can you spare a virth?" the ragged alien of unknown origin blocked Orren's path around the corner of the walkway.

"I'm not your sister" Orren replied.

"We are all within the same craft of our lives" the alien spread his hands away at eye level, waving his fingers like he was gesturing water. "So long as there is a we, we are all a brother and a sister."

"I'm not your sister" Orren repeated like the alien simply hadn't heard her. Orren frowned at the finger tapping on her shoulder. Then she looked back to Bursamen. Bursamen gestured to Orren to look around. Orren looked around. Orren saw the crowds of assorted beings that had gathered around them. Everyone was regarding Bursamen and herself in silent suspicion. Bursamen snuck a chip into the hand Orren had at her hip. Orren made a bad attempt at a smile back to the alien. "But I will help if I can" she held out the virth.

The alien kissed the side of her face, bowed and left. The crowd dispersed. "I had been avoiding them in my approach" Orren told Bursamen.

"That must have been a little difficult" Bursamen looked around. Both leaned forward to get a better look down the street and see if they saw what they thought they saw. Sure enough, a couple at the further intersection were having sex standing up. A crowd around them was cheering them on. Bursamen and Orren stood back upright and pretended they hadn't seen it. "There seems to be a great deal of them."

"The surrounding eight sectors are teeming with them" Orren told him while knocking the next panhandler unconscious and easing them into a seat behind a corner before any crowd noticed.

"Little wonder you have no currency left" Bursamen joked. His voice trailed off with his attention. The extent of the Fena crowd struck him. Ideas sprung into his mind. Bursamen grabbed Orren's elbow, stopping Orren from stepping away from the walkway to cross the lane to the back of Larran's estate. "Eight sectors?"

"Eight sectors is what I said" Orren reminded him impatiently. Both stood and watched while a Sebacean danced past them, half dressed in bright colored sashes and playing a jangling handheld instrument.

"What would the Authorities do with a crowd of that size in this area?" Bursamen wondered. Orren went to answer but she stopped herself. "You don't know" Bursamen smiled. "Neither will they. It never happens. I wonder. What could dissuade the Authorities from acting against the Fenas if Larran should call for them?"

"If the authorities thought the crowd was no threat and would be leaving...." Orren tried thinking of a reply. "But they're not leaving until they see her. The Sister. Chiana."

"Then we'll start some misinformation" Bursamen tapped his finger on her elbow while he thought. "They've doubtless already sent an enforcer to search the area....let's find that enforcer and let them believe the crowd is leaving in....say a solar day?"

"Fine but who will approach the enforcer?" Orren agreed and asked.

"I'll convince one of the Fenas, for the sake of peace" he raised his brow at Orren.

"That is a ridiculous plan" Orren answered. "All right. I will find a way in to Larran's estate. I will meet you here in two arns if I am not detected."

Bursamen blinked but nodded. "And if you are detected?"

"Then I won't be here" Orren simply replied and walked into the crowd toward Larran's estate.

---

Fairly short aisles led from either side of the central aisle John had led her down. Chiana peeked her head around another corner. Her black eyes blinked scantily, as if afraid to miss one instant. She felt the other one that had looked like Harvey could be lurking around anywhere and she needed to avoid him.

Chiana moved to the next aisle just as cautiously. The W aisle was also clear except for the ever present dust in the air.

One hand reached back to the bottom of the small but still loose bodice above her bare hips. The idea of being naked in John's mind had been fantastically arousing in a fantasy she had. To actually stand in his mind naked was at first both exciting and frighteningly invasive.

Though it clearly distracted him, he'd behaved in the way he seemed like he would. He had his negative, cruel thoughts about her, but unlike almost all of the people she'd known, he meant nothing malicious toward her. That was very comforting. She'd assumed that if he were that kind, even in his private thoughts, she'd find it nice but not exciting. Instead she felt sexier for being comfortable. Besides, she considered while her hand tightened the laces on the bodice, his private thoughts included some interesting ideas involving her.

A thought that the other Harvey might show up passed quickly by the back of her mind. Then he was there, looming in the now darker aisle several feet in front of her. Dust radiated from behind and around him. He glared coldly at her. Her head tilted and she made to speak. He stepped forward. She suddenly felt a piercing fear that this was a mortal danger to her. He stepped nearer and she felt her senses grow cold and fade.

Chiana moved back to the end of the aisle. Her senses swelled back with the distance. The shelving of the W aisle in front of her tilted and creaked, rocking once before falling over on the sinister version of Harvey in a crash of falling books and clouds of dust. Chiana hollered and ran backward a few feet before turning around to run faster. She found herself running into Harvey, wearing a skintight red and blue uniform and a billowing blue and red striped cape. Chiana hollered again and ran backward a few feet before turning around to run faster. Again Harvey was there. This time Harvey turned her around. "We'd better leave that buried for now and find Crichton!" Harvey urged her and ran.

Chiana stopped instead. "W-what was that?"

Harvey bared his teeth. "That is what Crichton needs to concern himself with" he managed to hiss out between his teeth.

Chiana gulped in apprehension but walked up to Harvey. Harvey sneered but she felt no danger. "You're Harvey but you're not.....that. Why...." Chiana's mind raced to figure some reason why one Harvey looking alien didn't scare her yet the other was dangerous in Crichton's own head.

"Trust me" Harvey smiled broadly.

Chiana cut a look at him from her brow. She narrowed her eyes. Harvey was sure to find Crichton anyway. She decided to walk alongside. "You do a very bad Crichton" she told him, very matter of fact. "And you look klept in that stupid costume. Did he come up with that dren or did you?"

"Either, but usually it's limited by his....limited and irreverent mind for context. Unfortunately I can't control it if the thought comes from him. This I thought was appropriate for your hero" he reminded her.

"So if I wanted...." Chiana tossed her head back and pictured the corset bodice fitting very tightly to her body. After a slight lag she snapped her eyes open and her head up. Looking down she saw the corset bodice fastened very tightly to her body just as she'd imagined. "Whoa."

"You have no idea" Harvey looked aside to her without turning his head "the things he imagines about you that go through his mind."

Chiana's lips parted. She looked down at the bodice, with its dangling cross ties making it look tacky. She looked lower at the bare hips, incredibly lean but plain. Throwing her head back, she imagined her hips partly covered by a bunch of pretty silver necklaces hanging down in the front and back from a wide belt covered with clear jewels strapped around her hips. Snapping her head up and eyes open, she looked down to see her hips adorned by the dazzling partial cover she'd imagined. "No? Well he can imagine that for a while" she thought out loud.

Without moving her face toward Harvey, she glanced sideways at him. She then focused her mind on an imagining of Harvey as a lizard, Harvey's same size and face but wearing a tan and red scaly and spiky hide. Looking over to him, she cackled at the lizard Harvey waddling in a huffy walk alongside.

Harvey stopped, looked down at himself and made a shout. He snarled at her and Chiana looked around to find herself surrounded by scornful looking Nebari conformists, all talking shamefully about her. Chiana glowered at Harvey for a moment. She then slipped the back of her pants down and unleashed a thunderous flatulence. All the onlookers passed dead out. Standing with her chin up, she smirked impudently at him. To spite, she produced a hand fan and waved the clouds of odor over to surround him.

The corners of Harvey's mouth passed his chin in disgust with the atmosphere surrounding him. He then looked around to see a crowd of Scarrans and Sebaceans looking at him with as much disgust as he'd had at the odor.

Harvey pointed a lizard clawed hand at Chiana. She looked down and saw herself in Larran's shoes. She held out her hand and saw Larran's hands. She ran her hand through her hair and felt Larran's hair. "NAAAA!" she yelled, stopping to glare down at Harvey.

Harvey morphed into a substantial Scarran. He yelled, aghast. Harvey seethed waves of heat from his mouth and pointed a clawed hand at Chiana.

"Wha!" Chiana looked down to see Larran's shirt burst open to reveal ridiculous, balloon like breasts swinging on her chest. She looked at Harvey from her brow. "Thaaaaat's disgusting." She tilted her head up, widened her eyes at him and sharply nodded her head.

Massive compound eyes popped onto Harvey's Scarran head. The small mouth at the end of his Scarran horsehead dropped open at the sight of a billion breast enhanced Larrans glaring wide eyed at him.

"So. We gonna drop in on John like this?" she placed her hands on her hips, the gigantic balloon like breasts swinging from the motion.

"III-" Harvey went to clap his hands over his eyes, exasperated. But his lizard hands stopped before smacking into his enormous pods of compound eyes. "Oovery well" he hissed. Chiana nodded with satisfaction to look down and see herself as she was before he'd changed her. She looked back to him, imagining him as he was.

Harvey straightened the super hero costume he was once again wearing. "I am not a lizard" he grumbled, continuing to walk oblivious to the "Cleanse Me" sign gued to his back.

"Well" Chiana smirked at him while her corset bodice began tightening. "You do a bad Crichton, a bad hero and a bad lizard" she wheezed while the bodice moved past overly tight. "There's something to be said for a consistent guy" she nodded and awkwardly resumed walking.

"Yes" Harvey agreed. "They're predictable" he grumbled.

Chiana looked around, interested to see they were actually moving closer to the N aisle now instead of passing an endless series of identical aisles. Chiana smirked with the side of her face not facing Harvey. "Just look for Crichton, leatherface."

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