“You’ll find a ReGen wand in all of the community areas. In the work areas as well. They heal minor injuries, but if you’re truly hurt, you can go to the medical stations, that’s where they have the ReGen pods.”
“It heals things quickly, too, like that boy’s knee?”
“Yes. They’re actually called Regeneration Submersion Units, put we call them pods.”
Wow. I had visions of a coffin-style pod, straight out of a sci-fi movie. Lie down in the pod, wait a few minutes, completely healed? Earth could really use something like that.
And the ReGen wand? It was portable, easy, quick. It could change the face of medicine on Earth, but we didn’t know about it. I had to remember to look for the one Mara had said would be in a community area. If all else failed, I would have to swallow the bitter distaste rising in my throat and steal the ReGen wand in the preschool. Surely, they would replace it immediately. They had to have thousands of the things.
I accompanied Mara to a large cafeteria-style dining area, which was mostly empty. She showed me how to order food from the S-Gen unit, told me I could also order food in my room, but that eating alone was frowned upon in Prillon society and the warriors and their mates would take it as a slight if I did not join them in the common areas, especially me, their commander’s mate. Their Lady Zakar.
Great. Now I had princess duty complete with politics and public appearances? That was more than I’d bargained on. A lot more.
The food was strange, crisp noodles that tasted like a mixture of orange peel and peaches. A strange purple fruit that was shaped like an apple, but tasted like tart cherries, like the ones my grandmother used to use baking pies.
I did my best, I truly did, but my distaste must have shown on my face. Mara laughed at me. “You know, you can ask the commander to request our programmers include some dishes from Earth.”
“I can?” Thank God. I could survive on this stuff, but it wasn’t going to win any blue ribbons at a county fair. It would certainly help my waistline.
“Yes. Give him a list. Once he’s signed off on it, we’ll submit the list to the programming teams on Prillon Prime. They’ll request the dishes from Earth, analyze the content and program them into the S-gen unit for you.”
“Thank you! That would be wonderful.” I wanted to hug her, I truly did.
“We must go now.”
I nodded. She’d spent nearly the entire day showing me around the ship, introducing me to everyone we met. I was fine smiling and nodding and generally doing my best to be a people person, but even I had my limits, and they’d all been tested the last two days. I was ready for some peace and quiet. I needed time to think, to figure out what I was going to do.
I followed her out of the cafeteria, down a series of corridors until we arrived at an odd counter. Mara walked up to it, the woman behind it reminded me of a pharmacist at a drug store or even a ticket seller at a movie theater. I wasn’t sure exactly what the woman’s role might be.
“One ATB, please.” Mara requested.
The Prillon woman glanced at me briefly, nodded, then went into a small room behind her to retrieve one. She handed it to Mara, who handed it to me.
“What is this? What’s an ATB?” I took the box, about the size of a small shoebox, and tucked it under my arm.
“ATB stands for Anal Training Box. That’s not the official name, that’s just what we ladies like to call it.”
Chapter Ten
Amanda
“What?” She did not just say what I thought she said.
Mara took off down the hallway, clearly expecting me to follow. “I must go to work, so I will return you to your family quarters. Doctor Zakar assured me one of them would return to you soon. I do not want them to be worried if they have already returned.”
Neither had, in fact, come back. Alone, I opened the box, curious as to what was in it.
ATB. Anal—seriously?
Within was more than a dozen oddly shaped tools with bulbous ends, strange twisting middles, and open-ended tools that looked more like wrenches, or something that might be used to fix a car. Shaking my head, I ran my fingertip over the long, bumpy length of one extremely odd, silvery item that appeared to be glowing.
I had no idea what any of them were used for, and none appeared to be anything used for the…um…anal area. I had to assume at least one of them would be something Robert might want, like the ReGen wand. The agency sought technology and here was an entire box full. No matter what its use, I was sure the agency’s scientists could reverse engineer something useful from it. And the healing tool. I had to get my hands on one of those things, and figure out a way to transport it back home.
I rummaged around and found one item that looked unusual. Pulling it out, I fiddled with i
t, wondering what it was. It was a bar about six inches long with two circles at each end. Made of lightweight metal, it was fairly basic, looked like a double ended socket wrench. Weird.
Holding the strange item, I wandered through our quarters, fiddling with the ends, trying to figure out what, exactly, it might be used for. I was near the couch when I heard the door slide open, and Grigg call for me.