| In a room within the pyramid, a group of four people are looking at
one another in bewilderment. That they have no idea where they are is the
least of their concerns. The Fred and Astra who had come through a portal
on a snowy mountainside see a pair of strange creatures some three feet
tall. One of them looks rather like Fred himself, but a very boyish looking
Fred. He has a ruddy complexion, and the ears and tail of a fox. The other
is much more foxlike, especially as regards her head, but she stands erect
and her torso - though largely fur-covered - has the shape of a voluptuous
human woman, but a very pregnant one.
Meanwhile the two demifoxes who have been snatched from the hands of
Ringroot are looking at near doubles of the people that they themselves
once were. The humans both look half frozen, especially the woman, who
is naked and is attempting to warm her hands by holding them in the opposite
armpits. However, demifox Astra is not paying that much attention to them.
Rather, she is looking down at her own very swollen belly in stunned disbelief.
A few minutes ago she had been in the early stages of her pregnancy, but
now she looks as if she might go into labour at any minute. Damn!
she thinks. Having a family was not part of my plans. And any
hope of Fred and me getting changed back to human seems to have vanished.
Just then she feels her waters break, and realises that she is going into
labour. "I don't suppose any of you happens to have any training in midwifery?"
she asks.
Meanwhile, in another room there is a rather larger group of new arrivals.
[14984] There are, from Terra Prime, Manfox Fred and his two wives (Alicia
and Alicia 3, the Shefoxes), who had been on vacation and were swept up
accidently by the Book. There are also Fred 5b, his sister Rowena 3, Thelma
2, Joan 2, Annafrid 2, Jarlath 2, Andrea 3 and Astra 9a (the one that Fred
5b mistook for "his" Astra). Pulled from a different location on the same
world is Astra 5b. She has (in addition to having had a similar vision
of her goddess as Astra 5a) been restored to her proper coloring and physical
condition before Rift messed with the Crystallic. She also has had her
pregnancy accelerated by the Book, and is looking in a dazed fashion at
her extremely distended belly.
All in this group are naked. [14984] Normally the Book would have brought
along the clothes of those whom it teleported, but it was in a bit of a
"state" at the time of this teleport. As a result, it picked up only living
organic matter and essential things like hair and fingernails (things not
alive but attached to the body and natural). Most of the group are not
too concerned by their nudity ('not again!' is a common reaction),
but Fred 5b and - especially - Rowena 3 are rather embarrassed by it.
More people being in this group naturally means there is an even greater
degree of confusion than with the other group, but the hubbub is interrupted
when Astra 5b lets out a loud groan, and then says: "Is anybody here a
midwife, by any chance?"
Elsewhere in the pyramid, things are rather more peaceful. There are
seven more Freds and seven Astras [11390], two sets of whom - together
with a Belinda [12107] - are currently in the library. They have been startled
to hear the Book start reciting dirty limericks [14830] when it got temporarily
scrambled from its bungled teleportation effort.
-
 Before they
can determine precisely which book is responsible, though, they
hear almost simultaneous loud groans coming from two different directions.
Go Back
|