We’re now halfway through my SciFi-focused month-long Writing Exercise. Here’s the first part of the back half.
Copyright J.B. Norman
“It was awfully nice of them to give us a complimentary room for a couple days,” Kathryn says, lying on the biggest bed she has seen in years, wrapped in a Hotel Bezlotek’s bathrobe as she awaits the return of her begrimed clothes from the hotel’s laundry service.
“I shall have a bath,” Amarantha declares. “Because somebody—” She glowers at Kathryn. “—decided to smother me in grease and grime and general disgustingness.”
Meanwhile, Dunstella is scrolling through the holographic room service display. “That. And that. And one of those. Oh, that, too. Three of those.”
Kathryn would be horrified at the expense of her sister’s black hole of an appetite. If she couldn’t directly bill one of the largest trade consortia in the galaxy…
Kathryn bolts upright when she hears Amarantha shriek from the bathroom and momentarily wonders how the Kraken Special Squadron managed to sneak into their bathroom to try to kidnap her again.
“Everything okay in there?” Kathryn asks cautiously.
“Captain!” she cries from the other side of the door, with an emotion Kathryn’s brain needs a minute to recognise as happiness. “They have Muspel Fireblossom-scented bubblebath! Do you know how hard that is to find? Back in the palace, it was my favourite! But I’ve ever been able to find it since.”
“Well, yeah,” Kathryn mutters. “We live in a spaceship. But, like, if it means that much to you, I’m sure I can get my mom to ship us some.”
“Oooh,” Amarantha sighs happily through the door. “Wonderful.”
“Four of those,” Dunstella continues, still scrolling through the room service menu.
At her own bedside terminal, Kathryn queues up information about the Crystal Labyrinth.
“The Crystal Labyrinth,” the informational hologram tells her, “is the premiere tourist destination on the Ice Moon of Ledu and rightly regarded as natural wonders of the galaxy, counted among the likes of the Fire Fields of Muspel Prime and the Great Equatorial Reef of Maritimus Australis.”
Kathryn presses a button and the hologram continues.
“Formed by millions of years of cycles of freezing and thawing, combined with geological movement and erosion, the Crystal Labyrinth is the largest glacier Ledu and is known through the galaxy for the purity and clarity of its ice. Miles of naturally-formed tunnels running through the glacier have given it is name. Nevertheless, the Ledu Geological Survey is proud to note that its extensive documentation of these tunnels mean that no traveller has ever been lost inside the Crystal Labyrinth since it was first opened to the public.”
Suddenly there’s a knock on the door.
Kathryn rises, crosses the room, and opens the door. A Penguinian bellhop in a little hat is standing there looking up at her.
“Honk,” the Penguinian bellhop announces. With a wave of his flipper, a long procession of other bellhops pushes a whole wagon train of carts into the room.
Kathryn looks over her shoulder to her sister.
“How much did you order?”
“Honk?” the Penguinian bellhop asks hopefully.
“Yeah, yeah,” Kathryn says, pressing her wrist communicator. “I know it’s customary to tip.”
TFW when Amarantha smells her favourite bubble bath:
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