"What?" Vallory looked up at Damien, her eyes glazed. They cleared, widening as more of the sounds surrounded them.
She whirled towards the tree where Penny and the baby still perched, just in time to see other daubpups appearing from out of the floor or through the trunks of the dead and stinking trees.
All of them squealing, yipping, chittering, moving fast on short little legs with their hair flying. All heading straight for the one remaining working tree in the place.
Damien rushed forward, putting himself between three of them and the tree. "Wait!"
The daubpups ran right through his legs. He didn't feel a thing, but he could see it. Penny and the baby watched from their vantage point, egging them all on.
"Damien, what are you doing?" Vallory demanded, putting her fists on her hips.
"Do you see any other trees in here working? This may be the last one!" Not that he could do anything about it. With their ability to walk through solid objects, it was a lost cause even trying.
The daubpups swarmed around the tree, climbing it with ease. Vallory grabbed his arm, tucking her hand under to hook his. "They aren't hurting it. They're only climbing."
"We don't know what would hurt it. I don't know what it is other than it's vitally important to the station." Her confused expression echoed so many other people's in the past that he quickly added, "It's the station connection. The instincts. Don't ask me to explain them, they are just there."
"I understand. You protect the station like I protect the daubpups. Trust me. I understand."
"Now look. They are running in and out of it, too. Who knows what that will do to it." The daubpups were almost frantic in their movements. Happy, but frantic, moving through it at the base, up higher, running up and down the trunk through the bigger branches. He shook his head, knowing there was no point in trying to pull one of them off, but still wanting to do something. "The stink has been coming from this room, and maybe other rooms like it. It's the same smell."
"Something for you to fix. But, really, I don't think my little ones are doing damage. Look, more garbage, and the tree absorbed it even faster than before."
The goo barely reached the middle branches, in fact. Maybe the station didn't dump as much on it as before? There must be some explanation for it.
The goo didn't slow the daubpups down a bit. Their frantic movements calmed to a playful game of tag. Penny joined in, leaving the baby to drape itself in the forked corner of a limb to drowse.
Damien rubbed the back of his neck with his other hand, forcing himself to relax. "Okay, maybe they aren't destroying it."
He blinked. Wait, wasn't the baby still sleeping on the tree limb?
Vallory jerked away, pointing at the base of the tree. "Did you see that?"
When the small shape reemerged from the trunk of the tree, it was hard not to.
A new baby, only this one of blues and whites, trying to follow another daubpup up the tree, and not quite doing it. It cried out. One of the daubpups paused, and then moved back down the tree to nuzzle the baby. With encouraging noises and a helpful push from its nose, the older daubpup started helping the new baby up the tree.
"Did another one just have a baby?" Damien demanded.
"I saw it. I don't know how it's possible, but I saw it." She turned wide eyes to him. "One moment Clementine was wrestling with Neon, and the next she glowed blue. Then the baby just appeared next to her."
"Just appeared?" he repeated.
"Yes, just appeared. That baby wasn't just born. It split off from Clementine as she passed through a root. What if this is how Penny had hers? With the help of the tree?"
***
Vallory's head spun with the implications. Not normal births. It must be some type of parthenogenesis. One parent splitting a part of themselves off to create the next generation. Or, maybe a process science didn't know about. Whatever it was, it involved the trees. The babies appeared only after the parent passed through a tree.
She knew she was babbling it all to Damien, and she didn't know if she was making any sense at all. When another baby appeared, with Damien saying he just saw it do the same thing, her thoughts crystalized.
"Amazing. I came to this place to save them, to find a new habitat on a new planet. And, instead, it's this place that is giving them new hope. They are breeding." She gave a little jump, flinging her arms around his neck. "Damien, the daubpups are breeding!"
And she kissed him.
She meant it to be only a spontaneous kiss. A kiss of joy and happiness. But, Damien didn't let her go. After his initial surprise, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, not allowing her to pull away.
She didn't mind. As the kiss deepened, she didn't want it to stop. This was where she belonged. In his arms, in his life, with him in hers.
She smiled up at him as they finally broke, pouring all her love into her gaze. "It's happening. It's all coming together."
"Slowly," Damien said, a warm smile lighting up his face. "After we get this all figured out and us out of here, we'll talk and figure out what we need to do. I have vacation time coming up. I can use it to come out with you to help set up a habitat for them."
If it were possible, her smile increased. "Damien, don't you realize what happened here? Look!"
Regretfully, she pushed away from him and pointed to the tree. In front of their very eyes, another baby appeared. The tree shivered and moved, another branch coming out near the top. Other branches grew new twigs with strange dangling bunches growing off of them. The tree's version of leaves?
Two of the daubpups rolled in their wrestling through a nearby tree. The tree shook. As their game of chase continued, a spot of neon blue started to glow among the dingy brown and gray. Then a spot of frosted ivory grew over the surface.
She grabbed him around the middle and squeezed as tight as she could. "This is their home. This is their habitat. And where they go, I am. I'm home!"
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ARTHUR KNELT NEXT to his bot, placing his hand on the top of his shell. The bot faced a blank part of the wall along with several of the other bots that Zane had called.
"What's here? How do we get through?" The bot chirped at him, the same sound it made before when it arrived at the place after Zane told the assembled army of bots to find a way to get to Damien. Which they did. Hopefully. The group swarmed to this part of a corridor, and then stopped, waiting on the humans.
Arthur's bot chirped again, but he didn't know how to interpret it. Encouraging, as if pointing to this spot, but with no other meaning behind it.
Tish angled past Arthur's back to place her hands on the hard wall. She felt along it as far as she could reach. "If there's a door here, I can't see it or feel it."
Arthur called out, "Zane, anything with the other groups?"
Shay crossed his arms over his chest, looking over the large group with them. "I didn't know there were so many types of bots."
"This is only a small sampling. There are much larger and smaller ones," Arthur said. When Zane appeared from around the corner of the main corridor, he asked, "Anything?"
"No, not a thing. They are just like this one. Groups of robots gathered in the corridor stubs that end at a blank wall," Zane said. He looked over the wall Tish was still searching with her hands. "They are trying to tell us something, but darned if I know what it is."
"You asked them to find a way to Damien," Shay said with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Looking at a bit of wall is not telling us where or how to do it," Tish said. She glanced at her three, hovering at the back end of the group. "But, they are earnest about it. There must be something we aren't seeing."
"Or feeling?" Zane suggested.
Something obvious? Arthur rose. "I'll be right back."
It didn't take long to walk past the other groups of bots, all converged in a similar way. The other crew didn't have anything new to add. None of them could figure it out, either.
Arthur started b
ack towards the group with his and Tish's bots, with the intention of looking over the bots on the other side.
"Wait!" Shay called out, staring into the group of bots at one corridor stub.
Arthur quickly returned. "See something?"
Not that he could. Same group of bots, same blank wall at the end of a stubby corridor. Same silent staring.
"The bots." Shay pointed at the front of the group. "The big one with the boxy back. Pretty big box. What does he carry?"
"This isn't the time for us to go over the types of bots," Zane said with a frown and a shake of his head.
"But, that's the point. That big boxy guy." Shay waded through the gathering bots, which interestingly enough, moved out of his way. He touched the back of the bot, and a hatch that covered its side and half the top of its back popped open. Shay lifted it further, allowing them to all see the empty space inside. "This type of bot is in front of every single group here. All the other bots are behind it."
Arthur glanced at Zane. "I think he's right. Can that mean something?"
"I think it does," Shay said before Zane could respond. "And I think I know why it's waiting. Looks like there's room enough."
Shay stepped inside and lowered himself into the cavity.
"Shay, what are you doing?" Arthur demanded, moving through the group of bots to get to him. By the time he could get to the front, Shay had already folded himself into the empty internal space of the bot.
Shay grinned up at him from his position, his knees bent up to his chest. "Using my instincts, of course. Same as any crew member. Trust me. I'll be back."
Shay reached up to grab the edge of the hatch. Just before it clicked close, he shouted, "Take me to Damien!"
With the hatch closed, the bot came to life, rising from the floor. The blank wall in front of it shimmered, before parting to create an opening exactly the size of the bot.
Arthur caught a glimpse through the opening before the moving bot blocked his way. Just solid wall, no room beyond. How thick was the wall in the first place? The wall moved back into place, swallowing the bot. Not a mark on its surface revealed the bot's passing.
***
The daubpups quieted, their initial excitement to be in the room spent. The new mothers with babies in tow came to Vallory as if to show off the new arrivals to their human friend.
Damien kept back as she made much of them. The babies let her handle them without a qualm. At least five of them, bringing the group's population up to sixteen, if he was counting right. The new arrivals explored their surroundings, with the result of several of the dead and stinking trees around them starting to show more neon blue and ivory.
Starting to recover. As they did, the offending stink in the air diminished.
His station-honed senses told him so. Vallory was right. The daubpups belonged here. This was their home. The station needed them, and apparently they needed the station.
"What happened to any that might have been here before? How did they come to be here in the first place? Did they originate here, or on another world? What do we know of these aliens who built the place? Did they do any genetic engineering?" Vallory's questions continued to mount as she went from one daubpup to the next to pet and stroke their fur.
Questions he silently asked, as well, along with one other: how to get out.
One of the daubpups chirped, the same sound that one of the bots might utter in their unique bot-language. Were they mimics, too?
Wait, it wasn't coming from the central tree.
Damien turned, searching for a wayward daubpup. Not that he would go get it. All the trees surrounding them needed more daubpups to play in and around them, to help them heal.
Only, there weren't any. Instead of colorful fur, the gleaming gray-white of a bot appeared from among the dark trees. Damien straightened. "A bot is in here."
First one he'd seen so far, and a big one, too. The bot stopped next to him and a hatch along one side and its top opened. Shay grinned up at him from where he was folded up inside. "Lord, I'm glad that's over. This thing isn't built for someone my size." Shay held out an arm. "Help me out."
Damien grabbed and pulled as Shay extracted himself from the cavity. "Gladly, so long as you know how to get out again."
"You bet I do. Same way as I got in." Shay straightened, flexing his back at the waist. He took a full turn, inspecting the place. "Wow, a dead forest. Eww, and it's the stink again."
"The stink isn't as bad in this area," Vallory said, setting one of her daubpups to the ground after giving it a good cuddle. "The stink may not last for long, though. Not with my daubpups around."
Shay watched silently as the daubpups continued their play and explorations. Watched as the trees reacted. Frowning slightly, but paying attention to every detail.
"Shouldn't we get out of here?" Vallory whispered to Damien when she joined him.
"Shh. Let him watch." Damien took her hand and watched not the daubpups, but Shay. Because he was getting another sensation here, something from the station.
"They are helping the trees recover," Shay finally said. "I'm not sure they will be able to help all the trees. Some are too far gone. Dead, rotting. I think we can safely say they are where the smell was coming from. But, the systems should be able to generate new growth to replace them."
"With the new babies, they'll soon roam further," Damien said.
"We'll need them in other places, too. This is only one of the processing centers." Shay shrugged. "Unless they find their way there. The creatures seem to know what they are doing."
"They are called daubpups, and as I'm staying on the station to watch over them I can help transport them to other needed areas." Vallory grinned. "Or maybe I should say, lure them there. They do like to go where they want to go."
"Oh, they'll follow you," Damien said to Vallory. Just like they still did. Like Penny did, leading her to their lives by dragging them out of a blocked-off corridor.
Shay shrugged again, as if he didn't care, but Damien noticed how he was taking in the room. Seeing the details. The reaction of the station as he did. "Time to get you two out of here. We have new information on the pet-nappings, too. Your name is cleared, Ms. Schist. Would you like to head out first?"
Vallory objected, but with two men insisting, she couldn't do much more than comply. With the hatch on the back of the bot, Shay looked straight into its eyestalks and told it, "Go back to Zane and then come back to me. Off with you."
The bot chirped agreeably, turned, and disappeared into the brown and gray forest. Damien noticed how the daubpups stopped what they were doing to watch the bot leave. He had a feeling it wouldn't be long before a few of them went after her.
"It will come back soon," Shay said with absolute certainty.
"I know it will. It will come for you." Before Shay could say anything, Damien pointed out another sluice of black goo and chunks pouring down the tree with the daubpups.
"I always wondered how the station could provide us with so many pipes, joints, and other stuff, never out of stock. All perfectly sized and shaped for what we needed," Shay said, watching as the goo and blobs disappeared. "This explains is. Recycling."
"Do you know how the station is doing it?" Damien asked.
"Doesn't matter. It knows. It takes our broken parts, and the refuse from the rest of the station including from the humans, and breaks it down. Then builds what it needs."
"Explaining the dead parts of the station. The station lost its ability to regenerate itself." It now made so much sense to Damien. The station had been missing one vital ingredient: the daubpups.
"It shouldn't have. Something must have happened to the population here."
At Shay's questioning look, Damien shrugged. "Don't ask me. We've never seen them up here before. Seems like we should have, if there were any moving in and out of walls like these do."
"We may never know. Point is, they are here now and they are helping the station." Shay watched one of the babies try it
s climbing skills. "Cute little things, but I prefer my bot. These aren't pets for a grown man."
"They aren't pets. They belong to the station, and I have a feeling you will be working with them a lot." Something Damien would need to relay to Arthur once he reached the other side of the impenetrable walls.
The bot returned, and then it was his turn to fold himself into the internal rear freight container. He didn't like the small space, but he could breath, and it meant escape. Still, he needed a little help to get out when the hatch opened.
Damien took the fanfare for his safe arrival in the normal maintenance corridors in stride. Even the bots welcomed his arrival with excited chirps, beeps, and whistles, including those that didn't belonged to anyone. As for his bot, he had a feeling it wasn't going to let him out of its sight for some time to come.
They were alive, both out of two sealed off areas, and the station now had a chance to repair itself. Even better, they knew the source of the smell going through the station, a situation that should grow better if they could keep the daubpups busy among the trees.
Shay soon arrived, completing the evacuation. On Arthur's orders, they returned to the maintenance platform. Director Stemski and Officer Redsong met them there, congratulating them on the rescue.
Director Stemski added after shaking Shay's hand, "Even better is the news about the station. Any clue when the issue with the smells in the ventilation system will end?"
"It's going to take time to completely eradicate the problem. But, I don't think it will get worse. Not with the daubpups here," Shay answered without hesitation, merely confirming Damien's suspicions. Damien lifted his eyebrows at Arthur, who then suppressed a smile.
"And not with you here," Arthur said, staring down Shay so directly that the man actually shifted from one foot to the other. "One of the challenges of any new hire is to find out what section of the station they fit. What part of the station they understand and where the station itself wants them. Today we found the place for you."
"The bots?" Shay looked down at his own, who lifted its eyestalks to stare back in response. "Yeah, I can see that. Work with all the bots of all different sizes. Repairs. Retrofits. Maybe a few new paint jobs."
Once Upon a Pet Show (A Redpoint One Romance) Page 18