Page 59 of Devin
Devin looked at him blankly.
“Meadow has spoken of this Terran invention called a water park, though why Terrans feel the need to slide down tubes of highly chlorinated water and drop into giant vats is beyond my reckoning. But she believes one should be built near the second city.”
“I will ask my mate what she thinks of this,” Devin replied. But first, they must rescue her. Failure was unthinkable.
“Yes, I’m sure your mate will have many opinions on the subject. Terrans all tend to have opinions,” Kave clapped him on the back, and then pointed him toward some diagnostics to keep him busy. Any other time, Devin would have welcomed the work, but his mind still reeled with thoughts of his mate.
Everything would be fine. Everything would work out. He must learn to balance both, and since he could now not wraphis arms around his mate, it was time for work. He silenced the doubt and fear building in his stomach and focused on the task at hand. Building. It was what he did.
An hour or so later Zenik announced over the intercom, “There has been a change of plans.”
Chapter 30
Val
“Get in the box.”
“Pardon,” Val said as she looked at the box in question.
Bright lowered the force field to the cell. “There’s not a lot of time. Get in the box.”
The dimensions of the box were about a cubic meter, and while it would be a tight squeeze for one, it seemed that Bright intended both of them to climb into the same box.
“Don’t worry, I’m flexible,” Grena said, giving Val a little push.
“There are forty-five seconds before the cameras come back on rotation and then we’re all locked in the cell,” Bright said. “Get in the box.”
Val scrambled over the top and curled up in the bottom, with Grena following quickly behind. Bright closed the box top with a hiss and activated the hover lift. Grena had managed to put most of her weight in the space next to Val, but they were a tangle of limbs and hair that was quickly becoming more claustrophobic by the second. Val couldn’t see anything, but she could hear thewhir of the hover lift as they slid out of the prison and out into the main part of the ship.
If Val could hear the noises of crew members arguing with one another, then she couldn’t risk asking Grena a question. Had they done the right thing trusting Bright? Or were they just going from one bad problem to another?
The box jerked to a halt.
“Lysh. You’re in the way,” Val heard Bright say.
“Where you going with that?” A voice that must have been Lysh asked.
“None of your business,” Bright answered. The box jolted.
“What’s in the box?” He asked.
“None of your business,” she said again.
“What about the Captain? Is he going to want to know?”
“Now, Lysh, you know the captain’s busy right now with other matters.”
“You don’t want him to know what’s in the box?”
Bright sighed. “You want a cut to keep your trap shut.” It wasn’t a question.
“Well, if you’re doing some side deals, it’s only right that the captain knows about it. He has to pay so many expenses, like feeding you, giving you a nice place to sleep at night. Just the cost of alcohol alone-”
“Five percent.”
“Ten.”
“Seven,” Bright countered.
