Pairing with the Protector Read online

  “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