Part 14

---

Chiana played another round of improvised notes on an improvised flute she'd made of a hollowed reed in Larran's vast garden. Her knee drummed a rhythm of her own with no particular relation to the tunes. The drumming of her knee bumped the end of a stick. The stick made a bowing wooden thump when it hit the little hollow post holding up one side of the three posted little tent of branches and leaves folding over where she sat cross legged on the floor at the bottom of the stair to her room.

Some of the intended notes were actually starting to come out as intended, she noticed each time with satisfaction. After another successful note, she looked at the flute. "Getting kind of good at this" she told nobody in particular, knowing exactly nobody was around. A sudden noise like something fell over came from the top of the stair. She cringed at the flat note the surprise caused her to make. She flopped the flute up and away with snide annoyance. Something always seemed to break her peace when she was contentedly playing.

Then curiosity overcame her. There couldn't be anyone up there where she slept. There wasn't anything that could fall down on its own. The tent came apart when she stood, turning to look upstairs. "Hello?" she called. There was only silence, and not the kind of silence that felt like someone was trying to be quiet.

Chiana walked up the fancifully carved metal railed stairs, careful not to make any noise. She kept to the quietest places of the pink carpeted stair. When she saw the loft with her massively outfitted bed, there was nobody around.

She then stared at the floor. Part of the wall seemed to have fallen away, a little section only a little taller and wider than herself. The fancy wall covering was ripped around the opening as if it was completely covered over. It seemed a very unlikely place for an opening since the wall tilted diagonally away from the ceiling and the loft was free standing away from the wall by a few feet. The panel now bridged the gap where it had fallen. It was different from the rest of the wall and was clearly meant to open. How it had opened through the wall covering wasn't obvious.

Cautiously, she crossed the narrow plank-like path leading from the loft into the ceiling. The hip-high railing narrowed so severely it barely allowed her hips to pass. It looked like the railing posts had been cut and crudely fixed back on to make this path so narrow. The path entered the ceiling and suddenly cut side-to-side. The railing scraped her hips even while she stepped sideways along it. "What's so frelling secret!"

A narrow space between walls led down along what might be a passable direction. But it was just as narrow as the frelling railing. So she instead followed the railed path. It straightened again. Chiana strolled through some fancied empty attic space until it suddenly opened into a huge room.

A massive pool took up most of the cavernous, richly decorated room. The walls were decorated with soothing green designs and the floors were white and gray stone with some areas stained blue. The opposite end of the room was a wall of windows, making a semi-circle around to the sides. The panorama of the biodome it overlooked was awesome. Everywhere the room looked as if it were pretty ancient, and not as well maintained as the rest of the place. Across the pool before the windows was a descending banister, which she guessed must be another hidden entrance.

She gaped around her. She observed she'd come through an open panel in a wall of shelving, like it was a secret passage. Chiana lightly closed it and looked over the shelves. The wall was filled with shelves that were filled with fluffy towels, bathrobes and a mind-boggling assortment of exotic lotions, oils, soaps, scents and bath salts. Chiana picked at any in reach, opening scores of different bottles, bath salt canisters of every description and touching every cloth. She sniffed everything until her head rang. Her tongue dashed under her upper lip while she looked over the pool. This could get to be a really drad diversion.

Some strange but not menacing sense pricked her attention. Chiana looked around. "Hello?" The feeling someone else was in the slightly hazy, strangely still room was so strong, she could have sworn someone had entered. Still, no one was there.

Chiana wandered over to a smaller pool just off the large pool in a crouch. It was making a soothing noise from all the jets raising air bubbles up through it so that it looked like it was boiling. She lowered her hand in. It was deeply warming, even a little hot. The sides of the smaller pool were seats so that people could recline and enjoy the warm water. The water from this pool cascaded into the larger over a short wall that separated the pools. She scurried over to the main pool and found its water was much cooler.

Chiana ignored the steps and leapt into the smaller pool. Her head tossed back and a long breath escaped, turning into a tiny cackle at the bubbling water tickling her nipples. She pursed her lips and slipped under the water. Walking out by the steps, she whipped her mop to fling away some of the water. The warmth then chill of the air was invigorating. Dropping into the water of the main pool was somehow more shocking! Chiana slipped through the water quickly and climbed quickly out, eager to see what was down the stairs.

The stair started at a fancy rusted metal arm rail which was the only topside sign the stairway was there. She followed the wide, dank, dirty stairs down until it ended at a wall. Her wet hand carefully pushed on the wall that appeared to block the bottom of the staircase. To her surprise, it opened into a familiar parlor near the massive closets. And Oshana was there.

"Oh!" Oshana started. "Oh a hu a I-I was c-com-ming to see your needs. To your needs. If you wanted anything. It's nothing about me, it's about you."

"Not me, you, me, you, look FacePlate, I get the me you distinction fine. I'm not confused. Maybe you are. I'm not. You confused. Me not. Okay?"

"Me, me yes of course, I'm sure you're not, I know you do, I know, yes."

"Goooodhhhhh.....now. Why are you" Chiana pointed to the Bannik girl's chest "here" she pointed to the floor.

"C-came up to...." Oshana's eyes darted around in thought "check the wooooter. It's recently reopened, and I.....have to check it's woooorking." Oshana nods.

"Oh" Chiana kept her mouth agape at this nut. "You wanna check the water?"

"Yes. Yes. The water."

"Well." Chiana grabbed up Oshana's shirt in her fists, pushing and shoving the protesting Bannik woman up the steps until she finally tossed her flailing into the pool. Chiana laughed while Oshana flailed around. "How's the wooooter? It woooooorking for ya?"

"gkgk! Yeghghssss!"

Chiana helped the poor drowned looking girl out of the water. She found it strange the nut didn't even think to be cautious that Chiana might let her tumble back in for a laugh. Chiana entertained the thought. She'd do it to tee off John. But the girl's touch was just too trusting to drop. "Were you that weird feeling I got in here?"

"Weird feeling!?" Oshana's eyes opened wide. "Nooo" her eyes shifted around the floor, away from Chiana "I don't know anything about that, I wouldn't know anything, no nothing about any weeeeird feeling." She fussed with the wet clothes with one nervous hand.

"But I would."

"Yes, yes I'm sure....yes."

Chiana smiled and stepped around behind Oshana. Seldom ever saw such a terrible liar! She looked at the cute short hair on the cute neck and ran her eyes down the girl's petite form. Larran hadn't been starving her. She was naturally slight but fairly shapely. "Well let's help you get out of these wet clothes....." her hands began working around to the pants fastener.

"Oh nono I can't!" the girl stepped away and turned around, holding a hand out. "I thank, thank you, oh I thank you so much but nooonono I-I couldn't!" she darted down the stairs as Chiana gaped.

"Tooooo weird...." Chiana shook her head, tocked her shoulder to her ear and sauntered toward the bathing salts. "Gotta get Crichton herehhhh...."

---

The big book slapped shut, a cloud of smoke sent out. "There are things I've found that you should know about" Harvey shook the book toward John and glared with beady eyes through the spectacles he wore.

John lifted his head from its rest against his fingers and let his feet down from the chair facing his at the end of Harvey's old desk. After a brief closed look at Harvey, John wandered over to a bookshelf.

"John" Harvey frumpily scurried toward him. "There are things you should try researching!" Harvey was shushed. Both Harvey and John look behind him a ways. A woman with long black hair moved her giant book of Romeo and Juliet down enough to scowl at the guys for a moment.

"Keep it down, Harv." John blew and waved some dust away from the book spines he was glancing over. "That why you hang around down here, Harv?" John gestured his head to the annoyed Romeo and Juliet reader.

"Not me" Harvey assured him. "I've been working, for you I might add. No I have no time for fraternizing with the readers." Harvey leaned closer to John. "Although you might find her in black leather around the A's, if you're so inclined to wander that way sometimes" Harvey hopped a bit with leering glee.

"Black leather aaaall riiiiight, right up your street Harv" John picked out a scrapbook with pictures of dogs in it.

"If you don't be quiet, I shall see to it that you will no longer be able to access the library." John and Harvey both looked up a ladder a few feet behind Harvey to see a young lady with curious airbrushed metallic seeming scales in places on her skin and her red hair in peculiar knots around her head addressing them with seeming contempt.

"That's the librarian in my head?" John's forehead was creased with his disbelief.

"No she is not" another more piquant voice answered, belonging to another red haired young lady who appeared behind Harvey, stopping under the ladder. The young lady looked with snooty neon green eyes at John before looking up the ladder at the other red head. "But she does need to be brought down." With that she pulled the ladder out with one arm, sending the surprised red head on the ladder flying to crash down in another aisle.

"You're the librarian?" John asked while looking closely but tactfully at the strange ridges around the neon green eyed young lady's extremely receded hairline, where her kinky hair braided into rows leading up to an elaborate bun.

"Someone intelligent must manage this primitive and less than fully functional library. If that's what you can call this place" she slightly growled with contempt. John grimaced at her kinky hard leather clothes, trimmed with metal bands around her generous cleavage. "I am the librarian as you so quaintly put it."

John scratched his temple for a moment and inhaled in a sniff. "Well. I wanted to look something up. What the heck did they call those robot toys you could change into other things?"

The lady rolled her eyes, annoyed. "Pop Culture reference aisle" she sighed, leading John away down rows of narrow aisles. "You should know that perfectly well, it is the only section you visit with any frequency."

Having had a generous helping of her cleavage, John was amazed to look and find her rear was covered by what looked like a solid black plastic exterior bustle over her clunky leather skirt. He cringed again. "Uh, what's your name?"

"That is under the N aisle, which as you know is buried under dust."

"So much for that" John said, wondering for a moment where all the frelling dust was coming from. At that moment, he spied what seemed like a glimpse of a grim looking variation on Harvey at the end of the F aisle, working a machine that was spewing out blasts of dust. John dodged right back and looked, but all he saw was an empty aisle and loads of dust in the air.

"Do you think I enjoy being stuck in a room full of your inferior intellect?" the librarian stood looking back at him with her arms folded. The answer was obviously negative. But her attitude dared him to say yes.

"You love it here. You got that costume from my K aisle, right?" he replied.

She narrowed her eyes and led down the Pop Culture reference aisle. "Your invaluable Pop Culture reference section is not accessible to anyone else. Which might explain your being partial to it. I certainly can't fathom your interest in this insipid culture. But here's your answer."

John took the book she handed him. "Transformers. Man the first cartoons were awful. Not He-Man but close enough." He snapped the book shut and coughed from the dust. "Who's supposed to dust this place anyhow?"

"I put her on it 24-7, but it's hopeless. She just keeps going by the S aisle and keeps her nose in those books anyway. It never helps" Jool rolled her eyes and walked away after pointing down the aisle.

John looked down the aisle to the Nebari in the slightly old fashioned black and white business blouse and gray skirt, dusting the shelf with one hand and fixed on a book in her other hand.

John walked closer, observing the slim young lady from her neatly coiffed hair bun and trailing strands in front of her ears to her extremely tight skirt and black high heels. His eyes caught on the top of her skirt, where a bit of bare skin of her lean waist was visible. A slim silky strap was partly glimpsed around the waist and visible as a line under the skirt, giving a hint at her negligible excuse for a thong underneath.

"Holey Victoria, nice secret" he remarked, smiling at the side of her face, confirming it was Chiana. "You the cleaning lady, Miss?"

She turned around, looking at him through her slim reading glasses. "Yes" she simply replied. "I'm the only one."

"Why? Can I get you to take some time off?"

"I've got the duster" she held it up for his attention. "And no" her eyes ran down his chest. "But you can always read to me."

"Never was much of a reader, thanks."

"You'll like this one. Especially this part" she swayed at the hips slightly and read. "He couldn't bear to take her until her electric hand brushed his staff. All other cares dissolved in her presence while her cool touch brought him to the fullest arousal. He felt himself beginning-"

"-Whoa hey, stop there Missy. You're gonna make me wanna stop you from cleaning this place. Then where'd we be?"

"Under the dust with me" she breathily replied.

"John!" Harvey appeared next to him, tapping his shoulder while John cozied his arms around the cleaning lady. "There are things you should look into at the W aisle."

"Go look under the B aisle for butt-out, wouldju buddy?" John tossed his thumb over his shoulder while his other hand slipped over the cleaning lady's hand and snapped her book closed in a cloud of dust.

"Huh?" John's head lifted up.

"John, will you- will you snap out of it already?" Chiana asked, her arms trembling to hold John under his arms to keep him from slipping under the water.

"mnuoh! Damn!" John caught himself and moved back into a seat in the spa. "Harvey" John mumbled.

"Look" Chiana was gritting her teeth, more than a little annoyed "I know a message in a hot spa is relaxing, but do you have to fall asleep?"

"Harvey" John announced. "Hey you got me tuckered out! I'm not used to being a jackhammer. Besides, you've got a nice touch there. I just drifted off for a second and Harvey got my mind."

"Why not? You don't seem to want it" Chiana dug at him while her fingers affectionately caressed his shoulders again. "So how'd you get it back?"

"Hey. I'm a guy" he creased his forehead and turned his head to look back at her for a moment. "Harvey couldn't keep my mind from you babe."

Chiana made a little snort but kissed his earlobe.

---

Next Page