make a run for it, and hope for the best. She knew what was waiting out there if she was on her own.
Until she got a chance to learn more about living on this colorful alien planet, she had to play it safe.
She was no idiot.
Though Geblit and his wife thought she was hideous, she'd take being hideous over being cooked for dinner or raped ANY DAY.
Hopping out of the hovercar and forgetting all pretense that all was well, Geblit began pacing on his scrawny legs, two of his hands scratching his balloon at the back of his head, the other two wringing in front of him.
At the mushroom house across from them, she saw an alien of his kind looking at Geblit's breakdown through their window.
"Um..." she whispered. "You're getting an audience here."
Geblit didn't hear her or he was too caught up in his own thoughts to care.
"What will I do? Cargga will not be happy. I cannot exist if my Cargga is not happy."
Lauren swallowed hard.
Nope. Cargga would not be happy.
She needed to help this Geblit find a way to "dispose" of her. A way that would be beneficial to them both.
"And to think that I ordered more of your species to be delivered at a later time!" Geblit let out a groan that garnered more spectators at windows.
Whoa. More humans?
She hadn't met any other humans since she'd been taken. She'd always suspected she hadn't been alone—she would have had to be the unluckiest woman on Earth to be the sole abductee.
But she'd have to negotiate with him about the others later.
Right now, her ass was on the line and she wouldn't be able to help anyone if she, herself, was in a bad spot.
"Don't you have any friends...nice friends. Friends who are nice like you. Preferably nice and unmarried but wouldn't mind taking care of your hideous pet?" She tried to add all the stipulations, stressing on the “nice” part.
A nice friend would most likely treat her, well, nicely. An unmarried friend wouldn't have a Cargga 2.0. And a friend that thought she was hideous would most likely not want any sexual favors.
All. Bases. Covered.
"A friend?" Geblit stopped for a second, all of his four eyes blinking at her in synchrony. "A friend," he said with more surety as if something was dawning on him. "I have a friend."
"A nice friend?" Lauren made sure to stress on the word again.
Geblit blinked at her and looked to the side for a second—a reaction that made her own eyes narrow.
Was he…was he unsure if his friend was nice? Surely that would be an easy question to answer.
But Geblit didn't answer her question. Instead, he hopped into the hovercar with renewed vigor.
"I will take you to him." Geblit's eyes grew wide with relief. "He has a sanctuary. I cannot believe I did not think of that."
A sanctuary?
Didn't sound bad.
So why did she have a niggling feeling at the back of her neck?
"What's this friend of yours called?"
"Riv," Geblit said, starting the hovercar's engine and backing away from his house.
Riv, Lauren thought.
Riv's Sanctuary.
Didn't sound bad. Didn't sound bad at all.
If his name was something like Crusher the Terrible then she might have started to worry.
She'd put that niggling feeling that was rising at the back of her neck to her almost being homeless on an unknown planet.
She’d almost had no place to go and might have been abandoned. Geblit was nice but she wouldn’t put it past him. His only care was for his Cargga.
That was all that niggling feeling was…
Mounting panic…
She hoped.
4
The hovercar cruised through the mushroom estate, passing more mushroom houses and their orange lawns and well-kept gardens.
It felt like she was driving through a made-up neighborhood on a movie set; it was too perfect and…amazing.
Locked in a terrarium for a year, she couldn’t help but lean out of her box as she took the sights in.
At the zoo, her terrarium had consisted of the single slab and the little stall where she could shower and go to the toilet.
There’d been no color.
Just plain white walls and that unbreakable transparent barrier between her and the outside.
She’d had no idea the world outside was so beautiful.
“What is this planet called?”
Geblit glanced at her, four eyes moving her way in synchrony before he looked ahead once more.
“Hudo three.”
Hudo III.
She’d never heard of it before but she wasn’t surprised.
Earth was so far behind in space exploration, and she’d had a year to think about this, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t