Scene 1. Wonderland

Lilly lifts her head from the soft sleeping mat and looks at the wall with the motion light switch. The room lights come on with her movement. She is back in her room in Apollo’s world. And she is back in her quadruped-animal form. Okay, okay, I am not surprised by this. She then thinks, this world seems to be free of chronometers and calendars. I wonder how long I have been gone from here. Lilly retires to her special side bathroom and conducts her morning constitutional. I guess this will be a routine, every time I return. It must be natural for my other self. Relieved, washed and refreshed, she walks to the bedroom door that vanishes with her approach. She then pauses, feeling a familiar feeling between her legs. Uh oh, I feel like I am going into ‘rut’. I hope that I don’t cause a stir. She walks to the kitchen to see that Apollo is already there and has breakfast ready. He announces, “We have to get going. There is a lot to see and to do today.” “I am taking you with me to my work.” Cool!

“We are walking to work today, even though it is a bit away." "I want you to see the city,” “so that you will be able to find your way back home, if we get separated.” Don’t leave me!

After breakfast the two walk towards the end of the living room. A wide doorway suddenly appears, open to the outside. And they are off, down the street. Lilly looks around and they are alone, Where is everyone? No cars, buses or people.

They walk across a large city square with a few green lawn areas and a large water fountain in the center. Everything is neat, clean and white. There aren’t any birds, or any other animals.

“Also today we will visit your friend ‘Billy’.” 'Billy' is my Friend?

They walk a fair distance further into the city to what appears to be the industrial district. They approach one of the buildings and a door suddenly appears, no surprise to Lilly this time. Inside is a reception desk and a long hallway with short entrance ways, apparently doorways, but different from the others. The walk up to one but the will does not immediately open, there is a delay, the doorway leads to a small square room with several people resembling Apollo. Lilly is almost overcome by the smell, Whew, does it stink in here!

One of the figures turns to Apollo and looks down at Lilly, Should I be on a leash?

The figure speaks, “Is today bring your stinking goat to work day, I didn’t see the notice.” “Don’t let it crap on the floor!”

I am fresh and clean from the goat-washer, I’ll have you know. The stink is coming is not coming from me. It is coming from you all!

Apollo does not react, he just replies, “You know this is one of my experimental subjects, and it is very well trained. I have permission to walk it around the facility myself.” There is no further discussion. Lilly looks at the wall where they entered, thinking, I can read the thoughts of the others, in addition to Apollo, apparently. And now I’m an ‘it’?

The door appears, into a hallway but it is not the same one. Lilly quickly determines that these small rooms take the place of stairs in this world, perhaps lifted by motors as in one of her sculptures.

Scene 2. Hall Of Science

The two walk side by side down the halls of the institution, getting stares from everyone that sees them. Lilly looks at the other ‘humans’ thinking, Doesn’t anyone else ever walk their goat here?

They enter a large ‘instant’ doorway and proceed into a large hall. The hall is so large that the far walls are not visible. The ceiling is high overhead with hanging fixtures emitting bright illumination to the floor below. Lilly looks around, amazed one again, “We must be below ground as nothing I could see walking in could house such a large room.”

The room is filled with tables, of various sizes and shapes. On the tables are what appears to be apparatus of various designs and functions. Some of the devices were recognizable: motors and other electric-motive devices, although the designs had been streamlined, likely for their applications. Lilly is allowed to carefully examine these first tables. Lilly looks at the other tables, These tables seem to be arranged to show the apparatus in the increasing order of complexity, gradually incorporating new physical phenomena as it was discovered then applied.

Lilly stops at the next table to see the motors and solenoids incorporated into a figure of a large bipedal doll. All of the devices can be demonstrated by pressing buttons on a display placard at the front of the table. The Placard also had what appeared to be text, likely describing the devices and their operation. Lilly is frustrated, I have to learn how to read all of this! Lilly had already started a notebook, back in her world, listing the simple primary numbers that she had seen here, as well as some of the symbols from the road-signs.

So far Apollo has been pressing the buttons for her. Lilly thinks, I can do this! She sits down on the floor, on her haunches, in front of the doll-table. She then reaches up with her right fore-hoof and presses a button, and the doll starts to move.

Lilly watches the doll move, fascinated. Apollo is aghast! He quickly reaches down and places her fore-hoof back down on to the floor. Apollo whispers to Lilly, “Let’s not have any more of that!” Lilly looks at Apollo and nods, Okay, I guess I am unusual here in this world and I must avoid giving myself away.

Lilly continues to sit at the doll-table and shakes her head until Apollo has pressed all of the buttons and completes all of the doll demonstrations. The doll performs a number of complex movements. It looks pretty freaky to Lilly who then reflects, I wonder if this doll has something to do with the ‘fear of dolls’ my ‘other self’ has? And how are these actuators controlled for such complex motions? I don’t see a wind-up clockwork control, just wires to a small box. The box seems too small to fit in anything mechanical, it must work on another principle.

Lilly looks up at Apollo, “Ready to move on?”And Lilly nods, I hope 'nods' are okay here. Even animals can do that in my world.

The next table displays different types of simple chemical electrolyte batteries. Lilly had many of these types in her world. She was a little surprised that few of the battery types were any different, I guess battery technology has not progressed much in this world.

And then on to the next table. This was the first table to demonstrate phenomena unknown in her world, electric illumination by means other than arc-light. Lilly looks at the small bright lights thinking, where is the gas, oil or wax for these? Only wires leading up to the glass spheres and long tubes of various sizes. One demonstration had a large magnifying glass. Apollo motions to Lilly to step up. She has to turn her long nose sideways to look through the lens with one eye. She sees a thin coiled wire filament, glowing red when Apollo presses the button, then it becomes a dark when he releases the button. So these lights are just hot wires? There must be more…

Apollo shows Lilly an apparatus at the end of the table, an electric motor connected to a pump with a belt. And then another device, apparently a pump using the liquid metal, mercury. Mercury was mostly a novelty in her world, although sometimes it was used in gravity switches, and for rat poison. But this device was using mercury for a very different purpose. Apollo presses a button and the motor starts driving the mechanical pump. An inductive-interrupter coil begins to buzz. After a short time one of the long tubes begins to glow with a long red electric discharge. Then the mercury pump begins by pumping a column of mercury up into a vertical glass tube, the valves change position and the red glow becomes bars of red as the tube is evacuated. The bars fade to a glow around one electrode at one end as the tube is further evacuated. The valve to the filament demonstration is opened to evacuate the filament tube. Apollo presses the button and the filament now produces a very bright light with the electrical current. I get it, materials can only be electrically heated to the high temperature required for white light in a vacuum, and a pretty thin vacuum at that. Lilly looks back at the mercury vacuum pump, and this mercury pump device is the secret!

Apollo is now staring down at the smiling, knowing, Lilly, “Lilly, you're scaring me. You are grasping these principles too quickly.”

Lilly, excited for more, gallops to the next table. This table has an array of glass tubes laid out across it, apparently to demonstrate what happens when an electrical discharge is sent through the different types of gasses. The tubes glow in an array of colors, blue, violet, pink, and one a bright orange-red. There are cards identifying the different gasses in the tubes but Lilly cannot read the text. Apollo’s reading of the names is also unintelligible. The same as when he tried to read the names for the materials used in the batteries. As usual, no proper nouns are allowed for me. I guess I will have to do some experiments if or when I get back to my world. Oh boy! The table also display's something else, next to each glowing tube is a metal slit facing a small wedge of glass. Behind the wedge of glass is a card where the wedge projects a series of lines of different colors, arranged in the order of a rainbow. Each tube had a unique series of lines. And so you can identify each gas by its series of lines? Apollo is looking at me, looking worried again.

“I think this is enough for today. Let’s go visit ‘Billy’.” Apollo is now looking more relaxed as he herds Lilly out of the hall with his knees. Lilly. of course, wasn’t finished with the hall tour, and keeps looking back. I want see more of this!

Scene 3. Billy

They are back in the seemingly endless hallways again, walking for what seemed to be miles. The another ‘floor transfer’ box ride to a hall with overwhelming smells. It smells like a farm. They enter another great hall, but this one has a variety of pens and fences. Lilly can see the heads of animals peering at them from over the fences. Some of the animals are calling out to them. She walks up to a pen of sheep, they see her and run over to meet her and call out to her though the pen rails.

She detects no thoughts from them, Nuts!

Apollo is still walking to the farther side of the hall. They approach a large pen with only one individual, a large, white, billy goat. The goat is chewing on hay. He immediately stops when he sees Lilly and runs over toward her, calling out the whole way, "Baaaaaah!" His body display's his excitement, once he is close enough to smell Lilly. Lilly observes, I can see that you are happy to see me. Lilly is happy to see him too. She has been very uncomfortable with her ‘rut’, then she gets a whiff of his smell. Oh Lord, may I order a few bottles of that smell?

Farm assistants appear with halters, hoof covers and horn covers. “We don’t want you to kill each other in your excitement!” But Lilly suddenly notices something else, her mind is faintly receiving some of the billy’s thoughts, not yet receiving clearly, but it is unmistakable. She tries an experiment, she stares directly at him, pulling her lips tight and squinting. She thinks the phrase slowly, several times, “My name is Lilly.” “My name is Lilly.” “My name is Lilly.”

The billy goat suddenly steps back and stares at Lilly, with eyes wide, “My name is Alabaster.” Lilly clearly receives his projected thought. And her thought to him is the first communication that she has sent to another entity in this world. And she finally finally and clearly received an intelligible proper name, also for the first time in this world. She is overjoyed and bounces up and down, “At last, a conversation! And sex!” 'Al' stares at her, still smiling, “Careful now, I can hear you!”

Apollo sees that the goats have likely linked minds but he carefully resists acknowledging it. Apollo looks down and smiles at Lilly, “How would you like to spend the night here, with billy?” Lilly continues to bounce. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.”

Lilly allows the farm hands to lead her to a pen where she is then fitted with protective 'mating' armor. She is then released to the greater pen to ‘meet’ with her new friend. They look at each other in their goat armor and laugh, as only goats can, audibly, and in their thoughts. It is a joyous ‘meeting’ and it is not long before he 'introduces' himself in the traditional way. Lilly kneels down on her front knees, to allow Alabaster even further inside her, and she sequels with pleasure and she reflects, “Wow! Sex in this body is even more overwhelming than in my world!”

She then receives a thought from Al, “You have another body?”

Lilly shudders, “It’s a long story.” “That’s right, you can read all of my thoughts! Oh my!” “But thank you for ending my ‘rut’”

“The pleasure is all mine!”

After their long congress, the two collapse from exhaustion. After they catch their breath, Al shows Lilly to the food dispenser. Al demonstrate it by bumping one of the levers with his nose. and an apple falls to the tray below. “I want to try it!” And Lilly lifts a front hoof to a lever. Al quickly pushes Lilly back and shakes his head. “Don’t use your hoof, or anything but you nose!” “Unless you want to get dissected!”

“Dissected?”

“That’s right, so be careful.” “Do not show any signs of advanced intelligence!” “If you want to continue to live in one piece!”

Lilly is thankful for the warning. And now she knows why Apollo is ignoring her most of the time, especially around other ‘humans’.

The lights in the hall eventually dim, apparently to simulate the night. Lilly looks at Al, “Let’s go to bed. Whatever ‘bed’ is here.” Al leads Lilly up a ‘climb’ to the ‘goat-loft’ high up. Lilly looks out on to the expanse of the hall, “Cool! A view!” She truly loves her new friend. They both then assume couched positions, on their knees, on the soft pad in the loft. Lilly scoots over to be in contact with the body of her new friend, “I hope you don’t mind but I need reassurance.” “I need to feel your body right now.” They lower their heads to sleep. It is Lilly’s first night away from Apollo in this world. Lilly reflects, “Another first!” Lilly still feels a bit sticky from her congress with Al, I do miss Apollo's goat-washer though.

“Al?” “Are you asleep?”

“Not any more.”

“I share this body with another.”

“Oh?”

“If she takes this body, be nice to her.”

“I am always nice.”

"You sound like my husband."

"Husband?"