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She fiddled with the weird, hypermodern controls at the end of the tub until she finally got the water to turn on. Rather than pouring from a faucet, it rose from the bottom of the tub, filling it slowly with sweet-smelling, steaming water that was pale blue in color. Though Mia looked closely, she couldn’t see where it was coming from. The bottom of the tub appeared to be completely solid and smooth, not porous at all.
After awhile she gave up and looked around for some bath salts or some bubble bath to put into it. She couldn’t find anything, unfortunately. It made her wish she’d packed a case with some basic toiletries. How was she even going to brush her teeth while she was here in the PPP Dome?
She took another look at the mirror, which seemed to be fixed to the wall. Could it possible be like a medicine cabinet back home? Mia didn’t think so but she tugged on it anyway, just in case.
To her surprise, the mirror suddenly split in two right down the middle and opened outwards. Inside, hanging on small hooks, were two long white sticks with round, bristled heads on one end.
When Mia picked one up, it started buzzing in her hand. With a gasp, she dropped it in the sink where it lay, buzzing and humming like an insect. The short, black bristles that covered one end of it had begun to foam alarmingly, emitting a sweet, slightly hot scent that reminded her of cinnamon.
“Mia? You all right?” Sev’s voice rumbled from outside the bathroom door. He must have heard her gasp, Mia thought. She knew that Kindred had incredibly sharp senses so it wasn’t surprising.
“I’m fine,” she called and opened the door, since she was still dressed. “It’s just these weird things I found inside the mirror—have a look.”
Sev stepped in and frowned down at the buzzing, foaming thing in the sink.
“What the fuck is that?”
Mia shook her head.
“Don’t know. I picked it up and it just started buzzing. There’s another one too.” She nodded at the space inside the opened mirror at the other bristled stick.
“Hmm…” Sev picked the second stick up and it promptly began buzzing and foaming as well. He held it in his hand without dropping it though and studied it. “Looks like a dental hygiene stick,” he said at last.
“Oh—a toothbrush? Do you think so?” Mia felt stupid. She had just been thinking that she needed to brush her teeth and she hadn’t even recognized the toothbrush when she saw it. Though, in her defense, it didn’t look like the toothbrushes she was used to back on Earth and it seemed to be emitting its own toothpaste—if that was what the cinnamon-smelling foam was.
Ofcourseit didn’t look like a toothbrush from Earth, she thought—after all, they were on an alien planet filled with mostly alien people. She wouldn’t even be able to understand what they were saying if it wasn’t for the shot of Translation Bacteria she’d been given on the Mother Ship.
“I think that’s what it is—just a dental stick.” Sev placed the bristled implement back on the hook he’d taken it from and it stopped buzzing abruptly. Mia did the same with the first stick—rinsing the foam off under the sink first, which poured water from a faucet instead of filling mysteriously like the tub, she noted—before putting it back.
The second stick stopped buzzing as well but there were other things in the mirrored compartment to look at.
“What is this—some kind of deodorant or soap?” She picked up a lump of something gray and sniffed it. It had a fresh, clean aroma that she liked at once. Just like the pale purple Nutrient Crème, it didn’t look like much but it seemed like it could be very nice.
Sev shrugged.
“Use it in your bath and find out.”
“I think I will.” Mia put the gray lump—which was slightly smaller than her fist—down on the edge of the sink beside the golden shot glass filled with the Nutrient Crème. She frowned as she did so—hadn’t she been meaning to dump the pale purple stuff down the sink? And yet somehow, she hadn’t done it.
“What’s this?” Sev reached over her shoulder and plucked something else off the shelf. It looked like a small, flat metal disk about the size of a quarter.
“I don’t know—a coin of some kind?” Mia asked.
“I don’t think so—I think it’s a projection disk,” Sev rumbled thoughtfully. “Let’s see if we can make it work.”
He rubbed the disk between his thumb and finger as though feeling for something that Mia couldn’t see. After a moment, he seemed to find it because he made a noise like, “Ah-ha!” and cupped the disk in the center of his broad palm.
The silver disk started glowing and then, to Mia’s surprise, a 3-D holo image of a young woman appeared above it. She had the same pale blue skin and silver hair of the other Chakiouns and she was wearing a loose white dress—the female uniform here in the PPP Dome. She was kneeling with her eyes cast downwards and her hands clasped in front of her—to Mia it looked like she was either praying or meditating deeply. Just when she thought that was all there was—just a holo of the young woman praying—the woman began to speak.
“The Rules of Conduct, as laid out by his Holiness, the One True Prophet—he who Speaks for the Universe,” she began in a low, melodious voice. “I must memorize all these rules in order to be a good and obedient wife and so my husband had set me to learning them—which I will do, I promise!” She clenched her hands tighter as she spoke, as though trying to make herself believe it.
“Rule number one—a woman may not speak to a man who is not her husband unless she is addressed by him first and her husband gives her permission to speak,” she recited rapidly.
Mia and Sev exchanged glances but neither said anything as the girl on the holo continued to recite.
“Rule number two—a woman must respect and obey her husband at all times, in all things, without question.”
Mia rolled her eyes. So far the “Rules of Conduct” were about what she would have expected. Again, they weren’t that different from the sect she’d been raised in where women were expected to be submissive and subservient to men. But then the girl spoke again.
