“All right now, room 313…room 313, now where is it?”
At last, after a long, swaying journey down a richly carpeted hallway, they came to a stop in front of a new door—this one as tall as a ten or twelve-story building, Rafe estimated.
Mama Tusker used her trunk to do something Rafe couldn’t see to the door and it popped open, revealing a new room, much smaller than the endless hall they had just traversed.
“Ah, home-sweet-home—at least until after the show, anyway my darlings,” the mother alien announced brightly. “Now let me just set the four of you down on the desk and I can get changed for the opening ceremonies.”
She plunked both cages down and then stumped away, humming tunelessly to herself in a voice that sounded like rocks tumbling in a riverbed. But Rafe was too distracted by what he saw through the small tear in his cage cover to pay attention to the assault on his ears.
There, sitting directly across from his cage, was one of the information centers with its vast movie screen-sized monitors and the six-sided cube of a keyboard, whose characters he now understood perfectly.
A source of information was at hand and with it, the power to find their way home.
Twenty-Six
Whitney sighed and took another bite of the boringly bland orange stick which Mama Tusker had put in the travel cages for her and Beauty to nibble on. It was the size of a good-sized tree branch and tasted a little like a carrot—only less sweet and with a somewhat woody texture. Honestly, did the Tusker woman ever giver her pets anything tasty to eat? Whitney would have killed for anything with some spice to it—she’d been placed on what was basically a bland, raw vegan diet without her consent and it was miserable.
Suddenly she heard Mama Tusker stumping around again and then the cloths were taken off the cages. Though part of the cages were some kind of opaque plastic material, the front was bars and she was able to see out at last.
“All right, my dears,” Mama said, addressing all of them. She was wearing a new gold dress which encompassed enough fabric to make the sail of a ship—a big one, Whitney thought. But then again, when you were a giant, you had giant clothes—it stood to reason. “I’m off to the opening ceremonies now,” Mama told them. “You four be good and rest and I’ll be back in a little while to get you for the show.”
She blew them a kiss through her trunk which almost knocked Whitney over and then tromped out the door, leaving them alone.
“Whitney—are you well?” Rafe was standing at the front of his cage, looking at her anxiously.
She nodded. “Just fine. How about you?”
He nodded back. “Very well. This could be our chance. See if you can open your lock and I’ll do the same.”
“All right.” Whitney moved to the door of the travel cage and reached around the bars, feeling for the locking mechanism. It seemed for a moment as though it would move but it seemed to be jammed somehow—or maybe it was just still locked. For whatever reason, however she worked it, the damn thing wouldn’t open.
Wish I had a bobby pin like they use to pick locks in movies, Whitney thought. Then again, to fit this particular lock, the bobby pin would have had to be three feet long and might have been hard to handle.
“Can’t you get out?” Rafe was suddenly in front of her door, frowning. “Let me try. I’ll get you free and then we can use the information center to see if we can find any star charts of this galaxy.” He nodded at the huge computer looking thing with its weird, six-sided mouse cube beside them on the desk.
“Okay—good idea.” Whitney nodded and watched him anxiously. The big Kindred worked on her lock intently, his jaw clenched and his brow furrowed in concentration. Unfortunately, it didn’t so much as budge.
“Goddess damn it!” Rafe swore angrily.
“You’re wasting time,” Whitney said urgently. “Who knows when Mama Tusker will be back? Go see what you can get from the computer thingy—this could be our only chance.”
“You’re right.” Rafe gave her a brief nod. “I’ll come back as soon as I learn what I need to know.”
“Okay.” Whitney watched as he ran across the vast broad desktop—like a huge barren plain she thought—towards the towering structure of the computer monitor. The six-sided cube mouse was as tall as Rafe and twice as broad—how would he use it?
As it turned out, he managed fairly well by punching in the symbols he needed and then turning the cube carefully to punch in more. Even so, it took him almost an hour, Whitney estimated, to get anything resembling information to appear on the vast monitor.
She frowned as she tried to make sense out of the alien words that scrolled across the black screen. It was like the beginning of a Star Wars movie if the scrolling words at the start were in a whole other language, she thought. She had learned a lot from Yancy the day before, but the article Rafe had found appeared to contain a lot of technical jargon she didn’t understand. Still, she kept trying to read it until they heard the sound of a key in the door.
“She’s back—she’s back,” Whitney hissed at Rafe. “Quick—get back to your cage—go!”
The big Kindred paused only a second—long enough to push the button on the cube-keyboard which blanked the entire screen. Then he raced back to the cage where Dood was waiting with a skeptical look on his face. Clearly he still thought they were idiots for wanting to escape from the show.
Not that we’re going to at this rate, Whitney thought dismally. Why couldn’t we both have a loose lock? We could have been hiding under the bed or squeezed under the door by now!
Again, her Grannie Washington’s saying about beggars and wishes and horses popped into her mind.
We’ll get another chance, Whitney told herself, trying to believe it. We have to!
Rafe got into his cage and closed the door just in time. A second later, Mama Tusker was entering the room, humming to herself as she came.
“Well now, that was a lovely opening ceremony and now it’s time for the show! Who’s hungry?” she added, bending down to look at Beauty and Whitney especially. “You can’t go to the show on an empty stomach, my dears!”
Pulling out a container which looked small in her seven-fingered hands but which was actually the size of a good-sized coffin, she took something out of it and pushed it through the bars of the cage.
“Eat that,” she told Beauty and Whitney. “And you’ll be all ready for the show!”
Beauty ran forward at once, her pert nose sniffing the air like a cat smelling a scent it likes. Whitney was a bit more skeptical, thinking it was probably just more giant veggie sticks. But when she caught a whiff of what Mama Tusker had given them, she grew considerably more interested.
The scent rising to her nose was sweet and spicy at the same time—like cinnamon and Siracha mixed together. It should have been an awful combination but somehow it wasn’t and the smell drew Whitney to its source.
Lying on the floor of the cage were several round things about the size of basketballs. They were bright green and spotted all over with vivid scarlet dots, giving them a festive air.
“What are these—edible Christmas ornaments?” Whitney muttered to herself.
Beauty had already picked one up and was holding it with both hands while she demolished it in tiny, neat bites. Though Whitney had never seen the tweedle girl do more than nibble at the other food Mama Tusker gave them, she was tearing into this new offering like she couldn’t get enough. In fact, one half of the basketball sized fruit in her hands was already gone.
“Goodness—where do you put it?” Whitney asked her, eyeing the other girl’s slim figure. “That must really be good—mind if I try one?”
The tweedle girl didn’t answer. In fact, she didn’t even look up—she was clearly too engrossed in her eating to be distracted. Shrugging, Whitney picked up one of the green and red spotted fruits herself. She had expected it might be heavy—it looked a little like a watermelon, except for the weird red spots. But it was surprisingly light in her hands and when
she bit into it she found that it was crunchy rather than moist.
The taste that invaded her mouth was a little like honey roasted nuts with some cayenne pepper sprinkled over them to cut the sweetness. The sweet and spicy flavor filling her mouth took her by surprise. It was really delicious—a wonderful break from the usual bland giant veggies.
“Wow, this is good!” Whitney mumbled through a mouthful. “We should go to the show more often if we get special food like this!”
Beauty didn’t answer, only kept eating steadily. And indeed, Whitney found that was all she wanted to do as well. Even after her stomach told her she was full, she kept on. Somehow the spicy, sweet, nutty crunch of the basketball thing in her hands compelled her to keep eating it until almost all of it was gone. She felt almost like she was in a trance—one that she didn’t really want broken, until Mama Tusker said,
“Now that’s enough my dears. Don’t make yourselves sick.”
At the interruption, Whitney found she was able to stop eating and put down the weird nut-fruit at last.
“Ugh!” she exclaimed, leaning back against the wall of the cage at last. “Why did I do that? I’m so full.”
Beauty, of course, gave no answer but she was also lying quietly in one corner with a hand pressed to her over-full belly.
Whitney wondered how in the world either one of them would be ready for any kind of a show after eating such a large and filling meal. She only hoped it wouldn’t be like a dog show where the owners had to put their pets on leashes and make them run all around for the judges to watch. She was sure that if anyone tried to make her run right now she was going to puke all over them so Mama Tusker had better beware!
“Good,” Mama said from outside her cage. “Now you two just rest quietly for a while and let that take effect. I’m going to freshen up a bit and we’ll go to the show.”
Whitney frowned to herself. What does she mean by “take effect?” Does she mean the food? And what kind of effect is she talking about?
Before she could mull Mama Tusker’s words over any further, she heard a familiar voice.
“Whitney!” a hissed whisper came from the other cage. “Whitney, can you hear me?”
The sides of her cage were mostly solid but there was a kind of little barred window running along the top of it. Whitney stood with a groan and pushed her face to the bars. She didn’t feel like going all the way to the front of the cage—she was too damn full!
Rafe was looking at her from the side of the other cage, an anxious look on his face. Mama Tusker was nowhere in sight but there was water splashing in the other room, so presumably she was in the bathroom—or whatever the Tuskers called it.
“What is it?” she asked Rafe, keeping an eye on the corner to make sure Mama Tusker didn’t appear and catch them talking between cages.
“I just wanted to tell you—Dood says that sometimes Mama Tusker gives the female tweedles a special food right before the show,” Rafe told her. “Whatever you do, don’t eat that food.”
“What?” Whitney began to feel very uneasy.
“Don’t eat it!” Rafe said again. “I would have warned you earlier but she was right here. Damn it, here she comes again!”
He ducked down to the bottom of his own cage just as Mama Tusker came around the corner and Whitney did the same. But even as the giant Tusker hummed through her trunk and gathered the cages into her massive hands, Whitney was worried. She placed a hand to her full belly as they left the hotel room behind.
What was in the “special food” Mama Tusker had given her and Beauty and what, if anything, would it do to her?
Whitney had an uneasy feeling she was going to find out.
Twenty-Seven
The show room was vast—as cavernous as an airline hangar, or maybe the Docking Bay aboard the Mother Ship, Rafe thought. It was filled with Tuskers—most of them female, all sitting on massive, solid-looking stools or standing around the edges of the auditorium.
Mama Tusker marched proudly right down the middle of the crowd and the others made way for her—clearly she was a person of some importance in this community. She set their cages down in the middle of a long, raised table-like platform covered in a vast, white cloth and went around to stand behind them, as though waiting for the show to begin.
The other Tuskers muttered in their sonorous, rumbling voices and leaned forward on their stools, trying to peer into the cages which lined the long platform. From what Rafe had seen, he estimated there were over two dozen cages, some with single tweedles and some with two or three or more in them.
There was also a larger, empty cage in the center of the platform which reminded him ominously of the matching pen the alien mother had at her own domicile. Were he and Whitney going to be forced to “perform” again?
If so, Rafe promised himself that their performance would be entirely faked. He had already broken his vows—both his professional one and his personal one—and he didn’t intend to break them again. He and the female he was only meant to protect—not to care for—were getting too close and the situation was too dangerous.
He’d been in a situation like this before—with danger all around and a woman he cared for and would have given his life to save. And it had ended badly—so badly it had scarred his heart beyond repair.
I won’t allow myself to feel that pain again, Rafe told himself grimly. Never again after Tenda. I won’t allow myself to form a bond with Whitney which will only be broken by death.
Because after studying the star charts and reading the analysis of the leading Tusker scientists, which he had found after browsing on their information system for some time, he knew a terrible truth which he didn’t want to tell her.
They were never going to get home.
The reason for this was simply the incredible vastness of the universe. As far as he could tell, they were over a hundred trillion light years away from her home galaxy—which might be in almost any direction. He knew this because the Kindred, as Genetic Traders, had mapped much of the known universe in a vast distance from all points around First World, their home planet.
Rafe had studied the known areas of space as part of preparation for his job as Whitney’s Protector—for just such a contingency as this. The idea was that if they were ever lost, he would be able to find a landmark and guide them home.
But nothing he had seen in his search of the star charts looked even remotely familiar. And that meant the rogue wormhole had taken them so far from home, they were outside known space—at least known to the Kindred who had mapped it.
Which further meant, there was no way to get home. No wormhole that he could find led to any part of the universe he recognized. No star or planet was in any way familiar.
In other words, they were utterly and irrevocably lost. Even if they managed to make it back to their shuttle in the forest, they were probably going to die without ever seeing the Mother Ship again.
Understanding this fact, Rafe felt something close to despair creeping into his heart, though he would never show it. If they’d had a chance—any chance at all—of making it back home, he might have allowed himself to fall in love with Whitney. After all, she was everything he wanted in a woman—bubbly and funny and beautiful with luscious full curves and a brilliant intellect. What male could help falling in love with her?
I can, Rafe told himself sternly. I have to. Because it’s too damn dangerous here.
He would give his life to protect her but in an environment like this, that might not be enough. He would lose her, just as he had lost Tenda. And Rafe couldn’t bear that kind of pain and loss again.
The only way to keep from it was to put some much-needed distance between himself and Whitney, he thought. The only way to avoid another crushing loss was to keep his heart behind bars as thick as those that held them in their cages.
I’ll tell her when we get back into the same cage, Rafe told himself. Though of course, he wouldn’t tell her about Tenda. That part of his past was forever
locked away—he didn’t even like to think of it if he could help it. No, he would simply explain that he had broken his vow as a Protector as much as he was able or willing and that they needed to put some distance between them. It might hurt her, but in the long run it would keep both of them safer. It would…
“And now let’s begin the Seventy-fifth Tweedle Beautiful show,” a deep Tusker voice rang out.
Rafe froze and looked out of the front of the cage at all the interested Tusker faces watching him. There would be time to mull this problem over later—for now, it was apparently show time.
Twenty-Eight
“Can you ladies believe how long our little show has been going on?” the Tusker announcer burbled enthusiastically. She was wearing a brilliant purple dress that seemed to be sewn with some kind of sparkling sequins and waving her trunk excitedly as she spoke to the crowd.
Here we go, Whitney thought dismally and wondered exactly what was going to be expected of her and what she was supposed to do. Hopefully they wouldn’t want her to get up and run all around. She couldn’t imagine what Mama Tusker had been thinking, feeding her and Beauty such a big meal right before the show.
But when she stood up at the back of the cage, she found she no longer felt so full. In fact, her stomach didn’t ache at all any more. Instead, she felt tingly all over from the roots of her hair all the way down to her fingertips and the tips of her toes.
“What’s going on with me?” Whitney muttered to herself. “Why do I suddenly feel so good? And is my skin glowing?”
It was, though in a very minimal kind of way. Still, she could see it in the dimness of the travel cage—a warm golden glow which seemed to come from her bare skin and light up the corner she was standing in. Looking over at the other corner, she saw that Beauty was glowing too, even more than she was herself—possibly because she had eaten more of the special food.
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