Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Penny tried not to stare, but it was hard not to. Having lived on Earth all her life and having only had contact with one kind of alien—the Kindred, who looked very human themselves other than being bigger, taller, and stronger than regular people—she had never seen anything like what she was witnessing now.
A man with blue scales and a long, lizard-like tail protruding from under his robe was haggling about the price of fruit with a woman who had orange skin and slit-pupiled eyes like a cat. Beside them, a mother with two sets of large purple eyes—one set directly above the other—pushed a likewise four-eyed baby in a hover-stroller. The baby was fussing but only the bottom set of eyes was crying. The top pair were looking around the marketplace with interest.
A man with two noses was selling perfumes across from the fruit stand and the woman he was selling to literally had eyes in the back of her head. They stared at Penny briefly and then looked disdainfully away as the woman continued talking with the perfume merchant.
“This is amazing…” Penny looked around her in awe. “I had no idea there were so many humanoids in the universe!”
“Oh, this is just a small little bit of the kinds and types as come here to Hell’s Gate,” Granny Two-two informed her proudly. “We’re a very popular destination, so we are.”
“So we are! So we are!” squeaked the little head.
“What’s that one called?” Penny pointed curiously at a nine-foot-tall, three-headed creature that looked like a troll out of a fairytale.
“Hey now, mind who you point at!” Granny Two-two grabbed her finger and lowered it quickly. “That there is a Trollox. You don’t want to run afoul of his kind. No you don’t!”
“No-no! No-no!” sang the second head.
“Oh, sorry,” Penny said, immediately chastened. “I’ll be more careful. Um, you said you would tell me where to make an Interstellar, uh, hook-up?” she added hopefully.
“So I did.” Granny Two-two nodded and pointed down the bustling hallway. “Down yonder, just on the edge of the marketplace, you’ll find a bar called The Hell’s Gate Lounge. Or, as most folks call it, the “Lucky Lounge.”
“Why do they call it that?” Penny asked, frowning. “Is there gambling there?” It sounded like the name of someplace in Vegas, she thought.
But Granny Two-two shook her heads—both of them.
“’Fraid not, child. They call it that on account of that’s where men and women find each other for connections.”
“Connections? Do you mean dates?” Penny asked.
“What’s dates?” Granny Two-two frowned. “I mean connections in their nether regions.” She pointed at Penny’s crotch.
“Oh!” Penny nodded. So it was a kind of meat market bar—the kind where everyone was just looking for a quick hook-up. The kind she strictly avoided back home.
Well, it looks like you can’t avoid this one! whispered a little voice in her head.
“So you see now?” Granny Two-two asked her. “It’s not a nice place to send a young girl—I’ll admit that, a’course. But it’s the only place in this part of the station as has an interstellar hook-up.” She frowned. “A’course, they ain’t going to let you make such a long call for free.”
Penny’s heart sank down to her boots.
“But…I don’t have any money,” she protested. She didn’t even know what passed for money here in the Hell’s Gate Spaceport. Or if they used money at all. But even if they were on some kind of a barter system, she would be in deep trouble. She had nothing at all to trade. Well, maybe her boots, but that would mean her feet would be freezing until Commander Sylvan could send some help, would be at least a week…
“You’ll have to give tit for tat, if you want to make that call,” Granny Two-two informed her, matter-of-factly. “As I said, the males in The Lucky Lounge are always looking for connections. So if you ask for the cost of the call as your price—”
“What? I’m not going to prostitute myself to make a phone call!” Penny exclaimed. “I won’t!”
“Well…” Granny Two-two frowned up at her thoughtfully. “Look here, I have an idea, so I do,” she said at last. She pulled the black and white toupee her quick-loris had stolen from the frozen party and handed it to Penny who stared at it doubtfully. It looked like something only a bald skunk would want to wear.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” she asked.
“The bartender at the Lucky Lounge is named Grunge,” Granny Two-two informed her. “He’s tall with silver skin and he’s bald as an ornbus egg. You give him that and tell him all you want for it is to make a quick call in return.”
“So…you think he’ll trade a used toupee for an interstellar call?” Penny asked. She wasn’t sure how much such a long-distance call ought to cost, but she wasn’t sure a fifty-year old toupee that had been stolen off a frozen man’s head would be enough to pay for it.