piercing noise still coming out of her mouth. Her eyes opened and her gaze latched on to the cheese. Instantly the noise stopped as she started eating the treat with tiny bites.
Eric's shoulders slumped with relief. "I don't know what you gave her, but please tell me you have enough to keep her happy until she's returned to her parents."
Storey laughed. "Yeah, that I can't do. I'm hoping she'll take other food too, though." She held out her arms to Tammy and with a gamin grin, Tammy dropped like a stone from Eric's back and ran to Storey, wrapping her arms around her middle.
Groaning, Eric straightened. "She is not a lightweight."
"What…what is she?" Paxton cleared his throat several times, his gaze locked on Tammy's face. He shook his head. "No, she can't be."
Eric walked over to his old mentor. "Paxton, it's okay. She's only a child." He quickly explained, ending with, "She was the only Louer left in her complex. We couldn't leave her there."
Paxton's head had swiveled from Eric's face to Tammy's and back again several times. There was no softening in his features at the explanation, but Storey could see his mind spin with the options. "We couldn't leave her behind, Paxton. She had no food, no clothing, no one."
With another quick shift to look at Storey, Paxton asked, "Why didn't they go back and get her?"
Eric looked over at Storey. "According to Storey's stylus, there's something wrong with the portal. They can't return to their old world. Effectively cutting off both groups from each other. The complex where we found her is empty. I doubt she knows about any other complexes given her age. I'm sure she'd have died if we'd left her."
At Eric's last words, some of the rigidity in Paxton's spine and his shoulders relaxed slightly. Thank heavens for that. Paxton wasn't the boss here, but he held a lot of power.
"Thank you for understanding." Storey did appreciate it. As she'd already found out, having Paxton on her side was huge.
Paxton said, "You're going to take her home?" It wasn't a question as much as statement of fact.
"Well—"
But Storey cut Eric off in midsentence. "Yes. I'm going to take her back to her family."
Paxton nodded once as if he'd expected no less. "What do you need?"
Storey explained, "My stylus went into some kind of power saver mode while we were separated over in the Louer dimension, but it's taking a long time to recharge. I want to make sure it's fully functioning before traveling again. Also, because it was having trouble communicating, the stylus switched the codex to using Toranee code, or something." Storey turned to Eric. "Right?"
"The stylus can't reverse the change until it's back to full power."
"We'll need to reset the function panel." Paxton latched onto the one thing he could do something about. "Give it to me." Eric took off both machines and handed them over. Paxton bent his head, muttering to himself. "Yes. Interesting. Haven't seen this in decades. Hmmm." He walked over to one of the desks and pulled out a series of wires and odd black rubber attachments.
"Ah Eric, I think we need to tell Paxton about the rodent, too. Before he finds out the hard way."
Eric rolled his eyes. "Smart." He walked over to where Paxton worked. "Paxton, we forgot to mention that Tammy has her pet with her. That's the reason she missed the move to the other dimension, so we figured we'd better bring it too."
"Pet? What pet?" His gaze turned from Eric to Storey before latching onto Tammy's face. The rodent sat on Tammy's shoulder, his cheerful harness and leash looking bizarre against his dark fur. "Oh dear. Yes. Yes, please keep it on that leash at all times. Oh dear." He shook his head once and turned back to the table and the codexes in front of him.
Eric walked back to Storey. "See? Easy."
"We'll see about that. So far, nothing has been easy," he retorted, his wry grin belying the sharpness of his words. "How do we find out what the stylus needs to return to full health?"
Storey
Tom Clancy
Blake Charlton
Claire King
Howard Frank Mosher
Platte F. Clark
Tim Lebbon
Andrew Brown
Joanna Trollope
Lynna Merrill
Kim Harrison