Building four was a long three story building, about a thirty minute leisurely walk from where they had been. The blue stone walls and orange tile roof gave it a calm feeling. Though the lack of shrubbery did make it seem a little bit barren and lonely.

Possibly exhausted from the long day, Ihaka had fallen asleep sometime during the walk over. Blaize offered to show her directly to her room where she could put him down, saving the grand tour for later. She seemed to be getting a little nervous, and when they got to the room, Kyra found out why.

The rooms were large communal spaces, that were then sectioned off into smaller cubicles. The dividers between the cubicles were made with wood imported from Earth.

Blaize pointed out cubicle number 8 on the first floor (above the ground floor) to her, but Kyra’s eyes were drawn a piece of art that she could see was hanging high up on the wall above the opposite cubical.

“Is that your painting?” Kyra asked.

Blaize’s hands went to her hips, “Yes.”

Deciding not to comment further, Kyra used the smaller key to unlock the folding screen into her cubicle. Never mind not commenting further, “There is even a cot already in here!” Then, before Blaize could get a chance to defend herself, she leaned over to give her a quick hug.

Blaize was left speechless with her hands hanging in mid air. Kyra had managed to dodge before she could return the hug.

The cot was built in over the lower quarter of her bed, which took up most of the right side of the cubicle. At the end of the bed further from the door was a set of shelves. Piled onto the bed in front of that, was a standard issue set of blankets and pillows. Baby stuff included.

To the left was a desk nook at the far end with some more shelving behind it. Kyra and Blaize laid out the baby blankets into the cot, and after Kyra had put Ihaka down into it, Blaize offered to show her around.

Not knowing how to say no at this point, Kyra agreed.

They started in the cubicle. First, Blaize showed her how the bottom of the lower shelf at the head of her bed could be lifted off to reveal storage there as well. Something Kyra felt was convenient, as it allowed for a fairly decent sized space that could be used for less frequently needed things. Another good point was the fact that the “lid” was elevated somewhat from the top of the mattress. The surface of the container becoming a small headboard.

To the side of the shelves was a smallish window that was convex with a tiny alcove underneath it that was cushioned. Obviously intended for someone to be able to curl up in.

“And look,” Blaize said, as she took down what looked like a long oval plank of wood hanging on the side of the shelves, “If you flip this over, then you can find its legs. And now you’ve got a cute little table that you can put a cup of tea on, or have dinner at or whatever. Aaand, and, and and!” She then reached down to grope underneath the alcove, “Chairs!”

A whole stack of them. Kyra was amazed when Blaize pulled out three decently comfy looking fold-out chairs from under the alcove.

“Wow, this place is beginning to turn into one of those elaborate puzzle boxes. More things just keep appearing.”

Blaize laughed as she pushed the chairs back away, “You ain’t seen nothing yet. Take a look at this.” Blaize hooked her fingers into two indentations in the base of the alcove, pulling out a draw. Inside it was all the cutlery and tableware that a single woman with a kid could possibly need. Including a few knives, a chopping board, and an old fashioned teapot.

Blaize seemed to sense Kyra’s ambivalence to the latest surprise, “Don’t worry, it’s got a kiddy lock.” She said, before closing the draw and fiddling with something underneath the lip of the alcove. When she next tugged on the draw it would not open. “See? Come take a look.”

Kyra got down onto her knees and felt around where Blaize’s hand had been.

“Now push that lever up and away.”

It took quite a bit of strength to do so, and Kyra was quite confidant that Ihaka wouldn’t be opening that drawer by himself until he was at least five. Blaize grinned at Kyra, and Kyra returned it with a tentative smile. She really wasn’t sure how to deal with Blaize’s overt friendliness. She hadn’t missed the small kiddie plates and sporks. Things that wouldn’t likely have been found already in her draw, if someone hadn’t asked for them to be put there in preparation for her arrival. Not to mention the existence of the kiddy lock itself.

Deciding to decide what to do about how to repay her for everything later, Kyra clicked the lever back into place and stood up.

“What else is there?"

“Well, you’ve got four drawers underneath your bed.” Blaize said as she turned to open them, “The bottom two are pretty standard deep draws, while the top two are shallower, and have different compartments.”

“Cool, I’ll go through them properly later.”

“Sweet as. Well, that’s it for this side. Do you wanna check out the desk, or the cabinet first?”

“Ahh. Cabinet. Is that Fire Lapis?” Kyra asked the question that had been on her mind since she had first glanced around. The Fire Lapis was called that because of the fact that it looked like a red version of Lapis Lazuli. It had nothing in common with the stone found on earth geologically however, and that fact became clear when Kyra hovered her hand over the round slab embedded into the top of the cabinet.

“Wow, I can really feel the heat from about a foot away! Hey, is that Black Lapis?” This time Kyra brushed her fingers over the surface of the counter/top of the cabinet. When she did so, if she hadn’t felt something hard beneath her fingers, then she would have barely known that anything was there. The temperature was so close to that of her own skin.

Black Lapis, you guessed it, was black in colour. Unlike Fire Lapis which had the enormous capacity to take in and amplify the ambient heat around it, Black Lapis was known for its ability to somehow remain almost entirely unaffected by the surrounding temperature.

Famously, when the portals were only just being discovered, some scientists had taken a sample of Black Lapis back to earth. They had then stuck it into the most advanced furnace known to humankind. Able to get to the temperature of several trillion degrees Celsius, they had been sure that they would be able to melt it down in there.

However, after a few failed attempts, they had left it in the furnace at its highest possible output for over 7 hours. When they were done, the scientists had reported that they were able to pick it up with their bare hands immediately upon taking it out, and that after measuring the surface temperature of the Black Lapis, it was found to have risen by 0.001 Degrees Celsius.

No one had tried to put the Fire Lapis in there after that, as they didn’t want to know what would happen to the billion dollar furnace if it kept up its ability to steadily amplify temperature to up to 10 times what it had originally taken in. The highest that they had reportedly tried was 10,000 degrees.

“Wait, does this mean that we get Ice Lapis too?”

Blaize laughed and said, “Yeah, down below.”

This prompted Kyra to look down and take a proper look at the dresser. The closest that she could describe it was a tallboy. Made by stacking two large “chests” on top of each other. Only the “upper chest” was made of one large drawer on the left side, with smaller compartments on the right. Guessing correctly that she would find the Ice Lapis in the larger drawer, she pulled it out.

Sitting inside was a decently long chilly bin of about 80 centimetres. The lid hinged up away from where she was standing in front of the dresser, so she could see inside.

There were two compartments. The divider, which seemed to be movable, was in the centre at the moment. An Ice Lapis’s was embedded into each end, and there was another one embedded into the side of the divider.

Kyra guessed that which ever side of the chilly bin the third Ice Lapis was facing would become the freezer, as the two stones amplified each others effects.

“Sweet! I can’t believe that we get these right off the bat.” Kyra exclaimed as she closed the lid and pushed the drawer closed.

“Yup, and check this out!” Blaize slipped her fingers under the lip of the counter, and pulled out another thin slab of Black Lapis, “You can either lock it in using this lever on the side here to use it as an extra counter, or, you can take it out all the way, and put it on top of the counter to ‘turn the stove off’ so to speak.”

“Nice!”

“Speaking of which, you have an oven.” Blaize pointed to the recessed upper cupboards that were sitting at eye height above the counter.

Now Kyra saw a box, situated on the lower left shelf, made out almost entirely of Black Lapis. Excepting a small window that was made out of a clear material, allowing her to see inside if it wasn’t so dark. Opening it up, she found that the Fire Lapis in there wasn’t giving off nearly as much heat as the ones on the counter, and she found that to be reasonable. The Black Lapis was an incredibly insulating material, and it wasn’t likely to allow the Fire Lapis to gain much heat from its surroundings.

“Can we get the Fire Lapis’s heated up? Or do we just leave them out in the sun?” She asked doubtfully.

“There is a small gas oven in the communal kitchen, which is a copper bit coin for 30 minutes. Unless someone already has it going, in which case they’ll generally let you stick yours in with, for free. The base encourages us to use the Lapis, since it’s way more cost effective. The only downside is the more difficult temperature control. That’s why you’ve got three different sizes of Lapis in there. Not for three different pots I’m afraid. Just three different temperatures at any given moment.”

“How come we have cooking things in here if there is a communal kitchen?”

“You kidding? There are thirty cubicles in this building alone, a quarter of which are shared by couples.”

“Argh. I get your meaning.”

“Yeah, the shared kitchen is mostly used for big stuff. Or people who are cooking for a group.”

Kyra grabbed one of the small pot’s that were hanging at the back beneath the upper cupboards, and sat it on the largest fire stone. Taking in the feeling of having it there.

“There’s also a barbie out back, which can be fun.” Blaize added absentmindedly as she reached towards the back of the cabinet, sliding the entire back wall out from behind the pots and pans. Revealing hooks that were holding four mugs, a ladle, spatula, tongs, and a small sieve.

Kyra gaped at what she was seeing, “I didn’t even notice there was enough space for that there!”

Blaize laughed, and held up the slab in her hand “It’s double handy, ‘cos it means that you can wash this if you need to as well!”

“Wait, is that also Black Lapis?”

“Yup. I guess they don’t want us having burnable materials right next to heat sources.”

“But it’s Fire Lapis. It’s not going to drastically heat anything that’s not directly touching it.”

Blaize simply shrugged at that.

“Ok what else have we got?”

Next, Kyra reached for the slim drawer on the upper right next to the chilly bin. Inside, she found a full assortment of spices. Picking up a few, she frowned at their labels.

“Why do I find it hard to believe that the cubicle just happened to come with a full drawer of spices?” She asked.

Blaize squirmed under her gaze for a few moments, before braking “Ok, I might have brought them for you. But it’s just a few little things, and I figured I was grabbing my own stuff anyway…”

Kyra tried to suppress the uncomfortable squirmy feeling in her stomach, “Blaize,” she began.

“Ok, and a few baby plates and things. Which weren’t strictly what I could just grab along with my own stuff, but I figured you’d need them right away. And this way you didn’t have to wait while they were being ordered.”

“Wait, did you pay for the basinet as well!?”

“No! No. I didn’t need to. Every person here is entitled to the basic living necessities, including a bed, and including for babies.”

Kyra stared at her for a few more seconds until she continued.

“A point which I may have argued for on your behalf before you got here, yes.”

Fighting down bile, Kyra took a breath.

“Thank you for the bassinet. And I appreciate the thought on everything else, but I did bring some baby things with me for Ihaka, and I could have waited for anything else that I needed.”

“Yeah, but now you don’t have to.”

“I’ll pay you back for everything.”

“No! They’re gifts, it’s fine. You don’t have to-”

“I appreciate the gesture Blaize. I really do, but it’s too much.”

“I just wanted you to feel at home when you got here.”

“I know, but I’ll pay you back ok?”

The was a very pregnant pause before Blaize relented, “Fine.”

“Thank you. Shall we continue looking around?” She asked in an attempt to broker peace.

They continued looking, and although Kyra was fascinated as she pulled out the bread bins to discover another compartment behind them, and pleased when she saw the exercise equipment rack that was built into the side of the desk near the wall, some part of the joy of discovery had gone out of her exploration.

She wondered if Blaize was being totally honest with her about how much she had spent to set things up for her.

Earth money could be used here. As long as the portal to earth existed, people could order things from back home. Kyra remembered Blaize mentioning at one point that she had a little nest egg tucked away that she intended to use to set herself up here.

Question was, just how much of that had she used on Kyra?

At least the equipment rack and all the drawers in the desk had been empty.

Once they finished up in the cubicle and checked to see that Ihaka was still completely conked out, they went around to see the rest of the building.

After the Russian-dollesque feel of going through the cubicle, it was pretty tame.

Communal bathrooms on each of the top two floors near the stairs. Mens on the second floor, womens on the first.

A large open floor community space took up the majority of the ground floor, with the kitchen/dining room taking up the last quarter of the space.

The community space was filled with groups of couches, various games such as table tennis, pools, foosball, a couple of chess and card game tables, as well as a dart board in one corner.

The kitchen had four large ovens like the one that was in her cubicle, six sinks, and three large fridges. Blaize told her that those were free to use for everyone so long as you put your name, cubicle number, and the expiration date on it.

And finally, tucked away in the farthest corner from the stairs were the small gas stoves that Blaize had mentioned. They were made to be a series of small square boxes built into the wall. Each metal door had a small coin slot above a gas dial next to it. Inside were a row of metal slots that you could slide the Fire Lapis into to heat.

“How did they get the coin slots to work without electricity?” Kyra asked, but Blaize just shrugged and said that she didn’t know.

Thanking Blaize for the tour, Kyra then demurred that she was feeling quite tired herself -not a lie- and that she would like to get some sleep as well as check on Ihaka.

Things were still quite tense between them, and Blaize seemed to sense that Kyra was still feeling somewhat defensive and angry about her “gift”. On Blaize’s part, she herself was annoyed with Kyra’s stubbornness. As far as she was concerned, she had done a nice thing, which Kyra had rejected for no real reason.

Kyra made her way upstairs with the feeling of ants crawling up her spine. She didn’t know if Blaize was watching her, or if it was just her being overly sensitive. She did wonder however, if she had finally managed to burn a bridge or two with Blaize. Not that that was her intention, but she really hoped that Blaize would at least get it through her head how uncomfortable she was with getting so much unsolicited help. If there was something in the known space of existence —she was about to think world, but then that seemed too narrow considering her current whereabouts— that she really couldn’t handle, then that was owing someone. Especially when she had only known that person for a little over half a year.

Blaize was nice, and she seemed to mean well. They even got along when she wasn’t trying to constantly do things for Kyra. Kyra just wished that Blaize would back up a bit every now and then, and give her some space to breathe.