Page 42 of Relyn
Nora took the credit stick out of her pocket and showed it to them. This was all over a few hundred dollars? Hell, she and Wendy had already spent over half of the credits. HopefullyGrom had the packages they'd given him to carry and made it back to the ship with their purchases.
“Seriously? You want this?”
“Yessss,” they all said in a creepy unison. Nora wasn’t about to quibble over a few hundred credits.
“Here,” she said and offered it to the nearest shaggy creature.
“The code,” they chanted.
“It doesn’t have a code. You just give it to the guy and he takes the credits-”
“No. The code. What is the code?” They continued to shout. They repeated it, getting louder and louder.
“No. Code. There is no code,” Nora said, practically drowned out by their chanting.
Nora took a breath and drew herself up to her tallest height. She was still a foot shorter than they were, but it didn’t matter. She was about to use her most commanding teacher voice.
“That is quite enough!”
It silenced them quite effectively and they looked at each other, as if they were arguing silently among themselves.
“Now. I will say this one more time. Then you are going to let us go. There. Is. No. Code. This stick belongs to my friend. She loaned it to me, and I intend to pay her back for whatever we use. She didn’t give me any code. It’s just a thousand credits to use while I am traveling home. Now if you don’t mind. I have a very jealous and violent mate who will probably tear you to ribbons when he finds you. I suggest you let us pass,” Nora said as she grabbed Wendy’s hand and made a move to leave.
The furries did not budge. They all just stood there, silently, blocking the pathway to the door.
“Fine. We can wait for him to show up and slice you to ribbons,” Nora said.
“Yup,” Wendy added. “He should be here any minute.”
“A Georgun is no match for us,” one of them said, then the rest of them echoed the word, “Georgun, Georgun, Georgun.”
“Do you find that at all as creepy as I do?” Wendy asked.
“Hella creepy. But that’s where you dudes are mistaken. The Georgun, he’s not my mate. He’s just a kid that was tagging along with us. My mate’s big, bad, and trained in killing anything that moves. Why just the other day he took down this warthog gorilla shaped thing that was three times his size.”
“That was impressive, I will admit,” Wendy added. “I didn’t think he’d win at all. I thought that guy would choke the life out of him in like three seconds flat, but he kicked ass. Yup. He’s going to destroy you.”
The creatures went back to blank looks again. “So about that scarf,” Wendy began. “I’m pretty good with a crochet hook and we can replicate some yarn. I did that back on Etlon. Give me the dimensions and I’m sure I can whip you up something. I was cranking out those baby blankets for those cute green Mahdfel babies.”
“Did your brother-in-law appreciate his warrior son being given a blanket?”
“Oh, you wrap it in enough tradition and they’ll accept it as a badge of honor or some ancient relic to be passed down to their grandson,” Wendy replied. They’d stopped even looking at the furballs. Now it was down to stall, and hope that the talk of Mahdfel would let them leave peacefully.
“Yeah, I was thinking something long and colorful that I could wrap around several times and still be long enough to go with the jacket.”
“I get it. About this wide?” She held her hands about six inches apart. “I can get a nice variegated ombre. I think I even know which one.”
“What is the code? The code, the code, the code,” the aliens echoed, but their cries were softer now, less insistent.
Nora ignored them and went on to chat randomly with Wendy until all hell broke loose.
Chapter 18
Relyn
It was not a task for the impatient, and Relyn kept telling himself that they were in no hurry. But Bright and Relyn had visited three hole in the wall establishments, ordered drinks and had dropped hints and code phrases at each of them, but so far there were no bites. Everyone on this station seemed closed lipped to strangers and even a pretty female like Bright couldn’t entice anyone into giving them any information. Relyn knew that just their presence might alert a response, a chain of messages might pass to Alana that Gale was looking for her. Until that happened, they would be in a holding pattern.
As they exited the third shady bar, Relyn’s com flashed on the emergency channel he’d set up. It was Grom and he was gurgling on about something. What exactly, he wasn’t sure.
