Chapter 10

Betty Sue led Carol Anne and Bobby John away from the pet store, watching over her shoulders for pursuit, expecting to hear shouts to stop at any moment. Grokmar gave them the occasional directions to keep them away from security and moved them toward the marketplace.

They were almost at the market when Betty Sue pulled them into an alley for a breather.

“Grokmar, what the heck happened back there?”

“I thought you knew,” Grokmar replied. “The shopkeeper was going to sell you as pets.”

Betty Sue waved her hands. “Yeah, I got that. But why did it just…dissolve like that?”

“Did you not see the salt young Bobby John tossed on it? Salt is pernicious to Jellanites.”

“Per…what?” Carol Anne asked.

“What did ah say about high-falooting talk, Sigdoor?” Betty Sue warned.

“You are a most vexing human, Betty Sue,” Grokmar said. “You seem to have an inability to remember my name except when you want something from me and your vocabulary is laughable.”

Betty Sue ignored the ship and spoke again. “Are you going to answer Carol Anne’s question or are you just going to keep whining and whatnot?”

There was the sound of grinding metal in their ears before the Grokmar answered. “Pernicious means dangerous or poisonous, if you must know.”

Betty Sue smiled. “There. Now was that so hard?” She dusted her hands off. “OK, we’re almost at the market. Ah don’t want to draw any more attention to ourselves, so just behave, OK?”

“Yes Betty Sue,” Carol Anne and Bobby John said in unison.

She stared at them for a moment before turning back toward the street. “Y’all Stay close to me. It would be very bad if we got separated now.”

They merged back with the mass of weird beings on the street and were soon in the marketplace. Betty Sue wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but this certainly wasn’t it.

Open-fronted booths lined all sides of a massive square. Stacks of goods and produce were piled everywhere. Beings of every description and size milled around the square and alien sounds and smells filled the air, some tantalizing, and some appalling.

They followed one of the enticing smells. It was nothing they recognized, but they found their mouths watering anyway. Their noses led them to a cart near the centre of the square. A rotisserie turned with, what looked like, a large dog spitted on the bar. Aside from two extra pairs of eyes and long, floppy ears that must have gotten tangled in its feet whenever it ran, the creature might have passed for normal on Earth. The ears made a slapping sound as they flapped against a pan set underneath it.

It made Betty Sue a little homesick and queasy when she thought of her own hounds. It did smell awfully good though. She stepped up to the cart’s proprietor, a pink-skinned, pig-snouted being.

“Excuse me…um Sir? We’re all powerful hungry and your stand smells heavenly. How much for three portions of…whatever the food you’re selling?”

Pig-snout eyed them suspiciously. “What are you flapping your word hole about? I’m not selling any food. I’m selling aphrodisiacs. The rendered fat of the Caldorian Watto is highly sought after.” He waved his arms at them. “Begone!”

Betty Sue gave him a dirty look but led her friends away from the cart.

“Ah’m hungry, Betty Sue!” Bobby John said.

“Hush, child. We’re all hungry. As soon as we find some vittals, we’ll high tail it back to the ship and ah’ll cook them up.” She looked around the square. “Ah don’t trust these critters any further than ah can throw them. Who knows what’s food and what ain’t.” She spied an shop that had what looked an awful lot like squirrels playing in a case in the window.”

“Speaking of vittals, follow me. Ah think ah’ve done found us some squirrels or some such. A mess of them in a stew would go down real nice right about now.”

She strode across the square to the store. As she neared it she could see eggs in one window and a sort of collard green in another. This had to be it.

She stopped and grabbed a shopping cart from the front of the shop from where it was parked. She only briefly considered the fancy shopping cart before she wheeled it in - it was filled with padding and pillows. The store was quiet like a library. She started with the eggs.

There was quite a selection of eggs in the window. Some were the size, shape and texture of hen’s eggs while others were larger and leathery. Betty Sue decided to play it safe and pick the ones that looked most familiar. She took one of the leathery ones just to try it.

From there she went over to the display that held the squirrels. On closer inspection she realized they weren’t actually squirrels at all but some creature that closely resembled them. A mass of twenty or so rolled and fought on a padded velvetin cushion. It threw her off a little that they all seemed to be wearing diapers, but they were plump little things so Betty Sue loaded the entire lot into her cart. They kept up their play despite being moved.

She was just loading a tray of the leafy greens into the cart when a wheeled automaton rolled into the room from the back.

“Hey! What are you doing?” The robot asked.

Betty Sue looked at the thing. “Just charge these groceries to the Grokmar, please.”

“Groceries? That does not compute,” The robot sputtered. “Please return those children to their creches immediately or I will call the authorities.”

“What? No!” Betty Sue said. “We’re just here to buy food for our ship.”

“Food?” An alarm sounded. “Alert, alert. Intruders have invaded the nursery and are trying to take several of the younglings.” The alarm continued to sound, growing louder by the minute.

Betty Sue clapped her hands to her head in confusion. “What are you doing? What’s going on?”

A curtain of dancing light filled the doorway. What was going on here? All she wanted to do was buy groceries.

“Fine!” She pushed the shopping cart toward the robot. “Keep your darn groceries you ornery contraption. Ah’m leaving.” She stepped into the doorway and was knocked back onto the floor by the dancing light. She lay gasping for breath.

She heard a startled cry as Carol Anne tried to exit the room with the same results. Both women lay on the floor unable to move.

Her legs and arms had just begun tingling with feeling when an official voice sounded. “What is going on here? Why did you sound an alarm?”

“These creatures were trying to take some of the younglings in my care. They were taking them for food!” The mechanical voice managed to sound scandalized.

“You have recorded proof of this?” the officious voice said.

Betty Sue was able to move her head just enough to see a spindly bodied grey creature with a balloon head speaking to the robot. It noticed her movement.

“Lieutenant, take control of the creature before it tries to escape and tell me what it is.”

“Aye, Sir!”

Betty Sue felt a tingling in her skull and immediately lost all control and sensation in her limbs. Another of the grey skinned creatures came closer to her. It held the now familiar rod over her and ran a scan.

“Commander, this appears to be the same species we took on the park level. A female this time.”

“What? Is this some sort of invasion? First a male that eats Globiphon and now a female that is trying to collect our young for the same purposes? Get on the communicator and have HQ find out what in Zork is going on here.”

The lieutenant turned to leave the room.

“Lieutenant, take these…creatures with you and secure them properly.” There was a definite note of disgust in the Commander’s voice. “And shut off that blasted alarm!”

“Aye, Sir.”

The room was instantly quiet as the Lieutenant issued the command on his wristpad.

Betty Sue felt something wrap itself around her and she was spun in the air until she faced the floor. Whatever was going on, it was bad. Really bad. She briefly glimpsed the terrified face of Carol Anne.

It was then that she realized Bobby John was nowhere to be seen.