Hotel Andromeda

by Edited by Jack L. Chalker

  “I see.” Podvex compressed himself into a ball and from that somewhat more secure position said. “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

  It was said that the Kha’ak maiden’s reaction disrupted twelve banquets, twenty-two extramarital trysts, five sales conferences, and a bar mitzvah at various points throughout the Hotel Andromeda.

  “Thank you for coming with us, Frankmacgregorsir,” Podvex whispered, his voice echoing eerily in the disused servo corridor.

  “Least I could do in the name of galactic peace,” the Terran replied.

  “Shut up, the two of you, or I rip your heads off,” K’taen-ka’a growled. Despite her bulk, she moved with an uncanny measure of grace and silence, the legacy of generations of sentients whose main purpose in life was murder.

  “That wouldn’t be a good idea, K’taen-ka’amam,” Podvex murmured. “I’m the only one who knows the way to your bridegroom’s suite by this route, and once we get there you’ll need Frankmacgregorsir to help you recapture your lagbel while I keep watch.”

  “I still don’t see why you could not have simply sold me another one,” the Kha’ak grumbled.

  “I could have done that,” Podvex replied. “But if I had, you’d never have been able to do your ri’khak-umrow thing. Not so you’d be believed.”

  “Lagbels mate for life,” Frank put in. “When yours got away, it had to go straight to its mate, in Mairphot Garoo visTonktonk’s rooms. If you sent a substitute lagbel back to him, he’d have the evidence right there in front of him that it wasn’t his gift.”

  “Very well, very well, lead on.” The Kha’ak stopped talking altogether, except to subvocalize a nonstop series of curses in her own tongue all the way to her bridegroom’s quarters.

  There was an oversized air vent in the hygiene unit left over from the time when the Hotel Andromeda had had to retool several rooms to accommodate a party of Ffft! warriors, mercenaries who would do anything for a price except bathe. Additional ventilation was costly to install, but not nearly so expensive as having to deep space the whole block of rooms afterward had they not been so well aired out during the Ffft! occupation.

  Podvex peeped through the air vent and saw a deserted hygiene unit. “It’s all right. We can go ahead.”

  “You would be barbecue on my world for such laxity,” K’taen-ka’a sneered. “One empty room does not imply that the despised visTonktonk is nowhere in his suite.”

  “I called the room first,” Podvex replied. “There was no answer, and Frankmacgregorsir paid extra for a clandestine scan of the premises. The only place the scans won’t go is the hygiene unit.”

  “What a nicety!” The Kha’ak’s scorn was measurable by the bucket. “To honor privacy at the cost of valuable espionage information.”

  “It’s not that,” Frank said. “It’s just that vetting the scanners isn’t a job for a servo, and Hotel Security lost too many sentients when they tried scanning in-use hygiene units.

  Ma’am, have you ever seen what some beings do in the name of personal hygiene?”

  K’taen-ka’a gave a tiny shudder. “Point taken.”

  “Anyway, after I called the room, I sent out a blanket call to the hotel bars,” Podvex continued. “Your groom-to-be is in the Light of Arcturus Bistro, drinking with his wedding attendants.”

  K’taen-ka’a’s eyebrows twitched. “I would not have expected such competence of you, Dangvim. In gratitude, I shall purchase my next neural disruptor at your shop.”

  “We do carry a very nice selection of state-of-the-art color-coordinated—”

  “Shut up and stand aside. I have a lagbel to recover.” The Kha’ak maiden stiff-armed Podvex against one wall, Frank against the other, and punched out the air vent with one blow of her fist. There was a lot of grunting and squirming as she wriggled through the opening, but neither the Terran nor the Dangvim was fool enough to attempt giving her a friendly shove. At last, with a sound like a boulder being pulled out of a hog wallow, she was through. “What are you waiting for? Come help me,” she commanded.

  Podvex and Frank had no trouble at all slipping through the vent into the hygiene unit. K’taen-ka’a hadn’t waited for them but had barged on into the main body of Mairphot Garoo visTonktonk’s quarters, seeking her wayward courtship present. They heard her exclamation of triumph just as they stepped into the suite’s sitting-squatting-and-hunkering-down area.

  “Where is she?” Podvex searched the area in vain.

  “It sounded like it came from there.” Frank pointed at an open portal.

  “That’s not his personal chamber, is it?”

  “It’s wherever he’s keeping his lagbel. This is really a shame. I hoped that by giving her half a mated pair and Mairphot Garoo the other one, the lagbel’s natural tranquilizing effect would calm down these homicidal yahoos long enough for them to get safely married.”

  “But I told you, it’s the blending of the male and female lagbel musks that does it. You don’t get that effect unless you’ve got both lagbels together.”

  “Yeah, right.” Frank sighed- “And for all we know, the effect doesn’t even work on all sentients; just Tyrrhenians.”

  From the inner room came K’taen-ka’a’s voice raised in an imperious demand for assistance. Podvex jumped. “I’d better go stand lookout, and you should help her. I don’t think even K’taen-ka’a will have an easy time separating the lagbels. I know I had to use snooze-needles on them at the shop. Hurry, please. She doesn’t sound very happy.”

  “Oh well. It was worth a try.” Frank shrugged.

  The entire suite shook with the force of something very large and heavy hitting the floor.

  Frank dashed for the open portal, only to be bowled over by Podvex. “Oh my!” the Dangvim exclaimed, paws to mouth at the sight awaiting him. K’taen-ka’a lay full length upon the floor of the sleeping chamber, a goodly part of her overlaying the futon. Her hands were still outstretched toward the sonocage where a happily reunited pair of lagbels drowsed. Podvex tiptoed toward the cage and blinked at it to make sure his eyes told him the truth.

  “Not engaged,” he said, turning to Frank.

  “What?”

  “The cage controls aren’t engaged. No wonder: That cage isn’t big enough for two lagbels, so the P’toon just left it open. Someone must’ve told them about the animals’ habits, how faithful they are. Mairphot Garoo visTonktonk probably figured they wouldn’t try to run away so long as they had each other.”

  “Yes, but who could’ve told them—”

  “And look there.” The Dangvim didn’t give Frank a chance to ask a thing. Instead he pointed to K’taen-ka’a’s hands. Two spines of stiff gray hair stuck out of the flesh.

  Frank knelt cautiously beside the gently snoring Kha’ak, then glanced at the lagbels—“The male’s missing a tail spike,” he said. “So’s the female. If their musk was on those spikes…”

  “I guess the tranquilizing effect doesn’t just work on Tyrrhenians.” Podvex wore a sheepish smile. “Should we try moving her?”

  “I don’t think so.” A look of relief and revelation warmed Frank’s features. “I think we should just try moving ourselves out of here fast.”

  It was the wedding of the year, or the turn, or the tumble, depending on how one kept track of time. It was also performed rather hastily, with none of the pomp Juanita vanTeufel had planned, and certainly with none of the limelight spilling over onto her. Instead it was visiting dip-in-transit, Frank MacGregor, who received the accolades and thanks of Kha’ak and P’toon alike for having been so Johnny-on-the-spot with an accredited shaman able to officiate at the hurry-up ceremony immediately necessary once Mairphot Garoo visTonktonk staggered into his sleeping chamber and fell over K’taen-ka’a.

  “Once he saw her face-to-face, the die was cast,” Frank told Podvex. “They had to get married at once. And once she was married, K’taen-ka’a couldn’t start ri’khak-umrow or anything else without her new husband’s say-so. Small chance. The P’toon do
n’t raise any fools.”

  The Terran and the Dangvim were strolling through one of the better shopping areas of the Hotel Andromeda. It was not a neighborhood with the snob appeal of Splendel’s, but it did lie at the intersection of several heavy consumer traffic routes. Podvex had been perplexed when the Terran showed up at Splendel’s, tossed Mister Moogi a fat credchip key, and announced he was paying for a little of Podvex’s time. Now as their walk continued, he was growing more confused by the minute.

  “Ye-yes,” he stammered. “We heard all about it through the System. It was very gratifying to know that—”

  “Here we are,” said Frank. They had stopped before a pretty little shop front. “Here you go.” He took Podvex’s paw and pressed it to the lock plate. The shop door opened and all the lights came on. A host of shiny new servos glided forward to greet the newcomers.

  “Welcome to Podvex’s,” they said. “For the finest in gifts and gadgets, from soup to numps. Ri’khak-umrow contracts our specialty.”

  “It’s the least a grateful Terran dipcorps could do. One tumble’s lease, start-up stock, and your license as a paid-up member of the hotel Merchants’ Council. If you don’t like the name you can change it later,” Frank said.

  “Ah… ah… ah…” was all Podvex could reply.

  “You’re trying to say thank you?”

  “Na-na-na…”

  “Oh! You’re trying to say you don’t deserve this.”

  “Ah.”

  “If you don’t, who does?”

  “Some-some-someone else.”

  “The someone else who made sure that Mairphot Garoo visTonktonk found out about the habits of lagbels, perhaps, and suggested he could leave the sonocage open?” Frank patted Podvex on the back. “Well, until that someone else shows up, why don’t you just mind the shop?”

  Podvex’s eyes were shining as he took in the full magnificence of the well-stocked emporium. “Bingemass is coming,” he murmured. “It’s a good time to start up a new business. My, my. Won’t Mister Moogisir—I mean, won’t Moogi be surprised.”

  “To hear you’ve gone independent?”

  “No, no. To get his first Bingemass gift from me. An apprentice can’t afford to give anything away.” He toddled off down an aisle, then paused to look back at Frank and asked, “We do carry gnashcats don’t we?”

  The Happy Hookermorph

  Kevin J. Andersen

  The more appendages a client has, the better he tips. I know it’s presumptuous to make sweeping generalizations like that, with the incredible number of life forms in the galaxy—but, hey, I’ve been at this business long enough to spot trends, and a lot of different types come through the Hotel Andromeda. Trust me—count the tentacles, then count your fee for the night

  And this guy had twenty-three appendages—just look at ‘em! And of course it didn’t take much for me to figure out what the identical number of orifices on my adapted female body were supposed to be for.

  He gestured toward me with a pseudopod and eased back on his motive cushion of slime, flailing a few other tendrils in the air. I moved naturally, slithering into his room. I had altered my body to look exactly like a female Slugwump, and a knockout too, as best I could determine from the species listing in the Lexicon. If I didn’t get everything right, it might shatter the illusion for the client.

  “I… I’ve never done anything like this before,” he said in his own dialect, sounding like wet glue oozing from a tube. They always said the same thing, even the veterans—as if a hookermorph like me really cares about excuses.

  “You’ll be just fine,” I said to the lonely Slugwump, caressing him with one of my tendrils. “I’m already hot for you.” His eyestalks extended in nervous astonishment at that.

  Indeed, I was hot. Slugwumps come from a humid, haze-shrouded world about thirty degrees hotter than would have been my preference. But my Slugwump body adjusted to it in a few minutes as I glided in after him on his own trail of slime. They find that sort of thing erotic, you know. He closed the door portal behind us.

  Inside the room, he turned on some sort of subsonic music that sounded like very large bubbles bursting deep underwater. I had to be amorous and whisper into his auditory pickups while the surround-speakers kept going bloop-bloop-bloop. Humidity generators worked silently to keep the environment comfortable for him.

  In the middle of the room lay a corralled-off patch of powdery sand, which I took to be the area of repose. The client oozed over to a pedestal on which he had placed a large bowl-shaped flower that looked like a big water lily. With an igniter, he lit the tips of the petals, and as they curled down in flames, the flower exuded a fragrant pink smoke. A nice touch.

  He moved nervously, switching the igniter from tentacle to tentacle to tentacle in a hypnotic fireman’s brigade; he hadn’t managed to dispose of it before it burned one of his appendages, and I snatched it out of his grasp, tossing it to the sand in the sleeping area.

  “I keep wanting to make small talk,” he said, “but I can’t think of anything to say.”

  I nudged him over the rim of the corral into the sleeping area. His body elongated and he flowed over to the sand. “I don’t want to make small talk,” I said. “I want to make love to you.”

  Again, he goggled with his eyestalks. By now I could see that I would have to take things into my own hands—figuratively speaking, that is. If I waited for him to take any sort of initiative, we would be in his cubicle all weekend.

  When we actually got down to the business of mating, he proved perfectly willing and eager. Our pliant bodies squished together and rolled on the gritty sand, which heightened the pleasure at the tips of our exposed nerves. It took us quite some time to link up all his appendages with all my orifices, but I found it ultimately satisfying. I managed to fake an orgasm in nineteen of the orifices, and I think I had genuine spasms in four.

  The petals of the flower burned down to the pollen, where they burst in a flash of orange light before fading into dimness. The bloop-bloop-bloop music continued on endless replay.

  Afterward, my client looked exhausted and shaken, but pleasured all the way to his soft body core. I could see his membranes quivering as we sat against each other, shoring up the gelatinous bulk as we secreted off our outer coating of slime, washing away with it all of the irritating sand we had gathered in the throes of our lovemaking.

  “I just can’t believe it… a stunningly beautiful female like you even bothering to spend time with someone like me.” He condensed his body volume in what seemed to be shy withdrawal.

  “You aren’t so bad. Take a good look at yourself—and don’t sell yourself short.”

  In truth, how was I supposed to tell the difference between an ugly male Slugwump and a handsome one? And I didn’t want to remind him that this little service wasn’t free, after all.

  As I expected, he tipped magnificently, in addition to the normal fee. Twenty-three tentacles—see what I mean? Being a hookermorph isn’t necessarily easy, but it’s a living.

  I sauntered along the lobbyways in the hotel. This morning I wore a bipedal body with muscular legs, the kind that enjoyed walking. I felt refreshed and vibrant, having just enjoyed a long ultrasonic bath in the form of a creature that thrived on such things.

  Potted plants that may or may not have been hotel guests sat in the alcoves. Other life forms stood open mouthed in front of the ashtrays they had replaced, waiting for a snack of used tobac-stick butts. Motivator ramps tilted at various angles to accommodate life forms from worlds with different gravities, conveying hotel guests to adjacent biospheres.

  “So, how are you, Ilkiy?” said a voice from behind me. “I’m glad you finally decided to wear a body I can at least talk to.”

  I turned to see John-23, one of the cyborg members of the Hotel Security staff. He could always read my genetic ID code with a blink of his enhanced left eye. John-23 had lost his arm, his shoulder, and half of his face during a cargo-shifter accident ten years ago. Mos
t of the passengers in the stateroom container had died; they had been thrown from the high-pressure inner atmosphere of a gas giant, and turned into dripping tatters of flesh from explosive decompression. John-23 had spent a month or so in mech-regrowth, having new android body parts connected to his own body in a cell-to-cell match. To humans, he looked completely healed, indistinguishable from his former appearance, but whenever I looked at him through infrared-sensitive eyes, he looked all screwed up.

  “I feel good this morning, John-23,” I said, actually meaning it—and he could tell. John-23 and I have worked at the hotel for longer than either of us wants to admit.

  Unfortunately, my good humor was not rubbing off. He was in one of his introspective moods. “What are we doing here, Ilkiy? You’re so cheery. Have you finally figured out what you want out of life?”

  “There’s really nothing much I want. I enjoy life, I like my job. What else is there?”

  Indeed, I do enjoy my job. It’s always different, and I’m good at it. Oh, sometimes certain life forms can be a drag, and you can’t always tell just by their listings in the Lexicon.

  I remember that time with the Paramecon, a transparent cylindrical thing that showed all his pulsing internal organs; I had serviced him and taken my fee before I learned that Paramecons always mate for life. Luckily for me, Paramecons also die within a few days of mating; but he followed me around like a parasite for half a week, and I didn’t dare change form and shatter the illusion for him. When he finally bowed over and I watched his heart-equivalent pump stop pumping, I know he expected me to split open and shower the room with our offspring before dying beside him. But hookermorphs are sterile, as far as I know; I’ve never needed to use any form of birth control, and the Lexicon doesn’t give too much information on my own kind.

  Sometimes the job does get a little boring, though. One time I had to stand absolutely still for four hours while a plantlike male Dandel client budded and showered his pollen all over me. Apparently satisfied, but without a word, he paid his fee and shuffled out of the room on stubby mobile roots.