But considering the damage the storm had done to the more flimsily built row of stores across the street, I’d consider it a win. At least it hadn’t been thrown too far.Andstill looked like a shuttle.
The same could not be said for the ice cream parlor. The ceiling had come down onto the first floor, and the ice cream parlor was filled with plaster, beams, and rubble. The upstairs apartment where we’d found the kittens had been completely torn off the rest of the building. I hated to think about what would’ve happened if we hadn’t gotten Her Highness and her nuggets out of there.
We’d also had some problems getting out of the basement, and if Ror’k hadn’t been here, I’d still be stuck down there. Maybe forever. While the basement itself had clearly been constructed to withstand the storm, probably to be used as a bomb shelter, as was common in buildings from that era, it wasn’t designed to prevent debris from sealing the door shut.
In the end, it had taken raw power as Ror’k used his inhuman strength to shove the pile of debris back enough to open the door. It was already late in the day. But even in the setting sun, I could see how pale he looked. His vibrant purple skin had dulled, and he looked so tired.
Luckily for us, getting up to the ship had ended up being the easy part. The factory building hadn’t been in the direct path of the twister, and just being across the street had beenenough to save it from much of the damage. Everything inside was destroyed at first glance, but that was Tilly’s doing, not the storm, and we made our way upstairs easily.
But now we had to figure out how to actually get into the shuttle.
“I don’t think it’s safe to climb over to the door,” I said as the shuttle swayed slightly in the dying wind. “It looks like any weight on the end would send it crashing down.”
“You are right. I do not believe it would hold my weight.”
“It might hold mine, but I have the climbing ability of a clumsy panda.”
“I can lower you down from the roof if we find some cordage.”
I thought about it. “Okay, but what happens once I get down? Your shuttle’s not going to let me in, unless this is one of those supersmart sentient PIP models.”
Ror’k’s shoulders dropped. “It is not.” His stomach, which still hadn’t been filled yet, let out another loud complaint.
“Let’s go find the food Tilly left behind. And maybe a safe place to rest for the night. I’m exhausted even though I technically rested through part of the storm.” I reached down to pick up our basket full of cats, but Ror’k took it from me.
It had been a team effort trying to corral all the kittens back into the basket again. Her Highness seemed resigned to it now, but we should probably let them out before one of them inevitably soiled the basket.
Following the detailed instructions Alice had sent to Ror’k’s communicator, we found Tilly’s old apartment and the promised food and water exactly where they were supposed to be. The windows to the place were now broken, so we took our goodieswith us and eventually found a unit on the second floor that was still intact.
“Did you know the second floor used to be covered in booby traps?” I asked as we made our way through the hallways. “It was a Tilly specialty.”
Ror’k grunted. “Rayk’n wasn’t a hunter from my mothership, but I have spoken to him. His mate is very clever. Many humans are. You make good allies and friends.”
This unit wasn’t just intact. It was surprisingly clean, especially considering Tilly had once stormed through here and turned everything upside down on purpose. It was easy to flip the chairs and tables back over. Instead of placing their bed in the lofted area, whoever had lived here before had treated the entire place like one big bachelor pad, placing the huge king-size bed in the main room.
The first thing we did was kitten-proof the place. Then I found a container and dumped the sad, dried-out remnants of the houseplants lining the window into it, hoping they’d take the hint and use it as a litter box. Finally, I busted out the dog food we’d found earlier and served up a can along with a bowl of water. The kittens were too young to eat solid food, but Her Highness went to town.
After a quick change of sheets from the chest at the foot of the bed, we were ready to rumble.
We pulled the coffee table over so we could sit and eat dinner on the bed. It wasn’t like we’d need to worry about washing the sheet after. I lined up our selection. It wasn’t bad, all things considered.
“Beef stew, chicken noodle, and mystery meat,” I said, looking over our buffet.
“Meat is good. I need something high in protein.”
“How good are you at dealing with excess sodium? There are a few cans of corned beef here. But we usually cook that with other foods since it’s so salty.”
“Hunter bodies are excellent at filtering out minerals we do not need.”
“Then it’s all yours.” I tossed him two cans. “There’s one more here, and a can of off-brand Spam.”
I decided on the beef stew, tracked down the can opener buried under a pile of utensils, and we dug into our very glamorous dinner in the glow of his communicator. With his shuttle only a few units up and over, we didn’t need to worry about battery life. Wasn’t proximal charging a wonderful thing?
Ror’k put away a shocking amount of food. I watched him scrape the last bit from the last can, still amazed. He’d started with the canned meat, finished all of them, then moved on to chicken noodle, leaving the final can of beef stew for me. And when I told him one can was enough for me, he’d eaten that too. My kidneys hurt just thinking about all the salt he’d just ingested, but he’d also chugged quite a bit of water.
“You weren’t kidding about needing fuel.”
“I burned through most of my reserves healing.”
