Once Upon a Pet Show (A Redpoint One Romance) (28 page)

"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 back 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 its 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."

Several in the gathered crew chuckled or
outright laughed, causing Shay's easy-going smile to disappear. Not
helped by Arthur shaking his head. Damien couldn't help joining in
with the chuckles, remembering his first experiences with the
station. Of finding the place he belonged, and it being nowhere
near the area he thought it would be.

"Sorry, Shay, not the bots. The station takes
care of the bots or they take care of themselves," Arthur said.
"I'm talking about the garbage systems."

Shay's face went white and slack.
"What?"

"Refuse department?" Zane
suggested.

"Perhaps recycling systems would be a better
description? That's what the trees were doing." Damien said, taking
pity on the poor man. So big and strong, with the appearance of
muscle-builder, and he was being given something he probably didn't
equate with his personal self-image.

"Wait, you want me to be the garbage man?"
Shay took a step backwards and started shaking his head. "No.
Weapons, or station systems. What about working with the transport
tubes?"

"Sorry, the station has spoken, and so have
the bots," Arthur said. "I think Damien's wording is best.
Congratulations, Shay. You are our first maintenance engineer ever
in the Recycling Systems department of Redpoint One."

"It won't be all garbage," Zane said,
gesturing towards Vallory with a finger, grinning at Shay's
outraged face. "You will also be working with Vallory's
daubpups."

"Speaking of my daubpups, I heard you solved
the mystery? Who tried to kill them with the heat?" Vallory said,
sitting in one of the chairs on the raised central platform. Shay
looked ready to explode, but with all the attention already
diverting to Vallory, he clamped shut his mouth. Poor man.
Hopefully he would come to accept his new place on the station
without too much trouble.

"The pet-nappings and the heat settings are
unrelated," Officer Redsong said. At Vallory's outraged expression,
she added, "The heat setting was done by a vendor of one of the
other missing pets, angry that we did not arrest you after the last
pet-napping. A basic act of revenge. He's been charged with the
intended harm of your pets and the vandalism inflicted when forcing
open the environmental controls. He will not be allowed to return
to the show."