Chapter Three
“Marriage proposal?” Rosamund cried in dismay. “Dot-R, I swear I’m going to take you apart and sell you for scrap metal!”
“I’ll fix it! I’ll explain the mistake!” Dot-R protested.
“Don’t you dare say another thing to him,” Rosamund said quickly. “You are banned from all Draell translations. I’m afraid you’ll declare war on his mother or something.” She looked at the green-skinned man. “Can you please explain to him that thisextremely defectiverobot just made a mistake, and I am not going to marry him?”
The man looked scandalized. “Why did you propose to him if you did not intend to marry him? That is criminal.”
The crowd around them began murmuring. They looked at each other, and then at Rosamund, clearly horrified.
“I did not propose!” Rosamund yelled. “The robot translated what I said incorrectly! You’ve got to explain it to him. Please.”
He shook his head. “It is not possible. There are no words which would say that in their language. Once a marriage is agreed upon with a Draell, it is not possible to take it back.”
Kodran was gesturing at Rosamund to go with him.
She shook her head impatiently at him.
He turned and consulted with his clanmates. They were gesturing with their hands, waving their arms around.
Then Kodran shrugged, scooped her up and quickly carried her down the street towards a silver skimmer that was hovering in a big empty lot. Her sudden breathlessness wasn’t all to do with her gasp of outrage at the way he’d bundled her into his arms without a by your leave. He held her firmly against his muscular chest despite her wriggling and her husky-voiced protests. The floater followed them, with all of the shopping bags.
And the crowd around them applauded.
“Congratulations! May you have many healthy eggs!” people yelled after her.
“So beautiful,” said a roly-poly orange woman to a stalk-like insect alien. “That’s exactly how my proposal went too. Except I was the one carrying my husband.” She wiped away purple tears.
Dot-R ran after Kodran and his crew. “Stop! Put her down!” she yelled. “I will laser you! I am warning you! My laser fingers have been known to raise unsightly blisters!”
“Blisters?” Rosamund said furiously as Kodran carried her through the doorway of the skimmer, like a bride on her wedding night.
“The lasers are mostly for illumination and measuring,” Dot-R admitted.
The floater hurled all the bags through the door after them, and they landed on the skimmer’s floor with a thud. Then the door sealed shut.
The interior of the skimmer consisted of rows of soft padded seats. Three of the seats were in front of a control panel with a viewscreen. It was sort of like a huge, flying minivan with extra cargo space. Kodran set Rosamund down in one of the seats, and immediately webbing shot out from the side and wrapped around her waist, restraining her.
“Let her go at once!” Dot-R snapped at Kodran, in English this time. In response, one of the men shoved Dot-R into a chair. The webbing restraint ensnared her just as it had Rosamund. Dot-R pointed her fingers at the webbing and turned her lasers on. The webbing smoked, but did not give way.
Kodran and his men settled into the seats, and the webbing restrained them too. It must have been some kind of seatbelt.
“Send me back right now!” Rosamund said indignantly to Kodran.
Dot-R started to translate, but Rosamund held her hand up to stop her. “Don’t. Just don’t,” she said with annoyance.
One of the men barked an order, and the ship quivered and lifted off. It rose higher and higher, and the viewscreen showed the planet shrinking as they headed out of the atmosphere. Rosamund rode in silence, fuming.
A short while later, the skimmer approached an enormous spaceship, and a hole yawned open in the side of the ship, swallowing them.
The skimmer landed with a thud and the viewscreen went black. The webbing was sucked back into the seat, releasing them, and Kodran and his men quickly headed out the door. Kodran looked back and waved at Rosamund to follow him.
Cursing loudly, she got out of her seat and stomped out of the ship, with Dot-R trailing at her heels. They were in a cargo bay, which held several other skimmers and stacks of metal crates reaching up to the ceiling.
The little skimmer had taken them to an enormous spaceship, undoubtedly one of those faster-than-light models that would take them to the Draell’s solar system.
“I am in so much trouble,” Dot-R groaned.