Barnak stood taller when he caught sight of Olmed, and started coming toward him.
Great.
He didn't think he knew these miners before, but it seemed this was bigger than just one drop at one shop.
More than the two he’d seen before, if Barnak was there as well.
Olmed started forward.
Ready to get this over with.
8
How far did he go?
Tori took off in the general direction that Olmed went, but she positive that he didn’t turn down one way or another, because the tunnels all had a curve to them.
Aliens were all around her.
Honestly, it reminded her of a busy airport, except instead of windows that showed the planes coming in and the light, it showed the stars, or in many cases, the port tunnels to access the ships that were latched on.
At some point, she might have enjoyed looking around in an observation area, if they even had that here, and checking out everything, but for now, she just wanted to find Olmed.
Increasing her pace, Tori scanned around. After all, he was taller than many of the other colorful collections of aliens all around her, so surely she’d be able to spot a tall red alien with horns.
Especially since he was looking for friends, so all of them together would be a sight to see. As she hurried along, she felt her backpack buzz.
“What in the world?” she muttered and swung the pack around.
Sure enough, her phone was buzzing.
“I get reception?” she muttered and pulled it out of the bag. “Yeah?”
“Hey. It works!” Polly said.
“I guess so,” Tori said. “What’s up?”
“I was just checking to see if it would. Erzo thought it might be able to connect with the systems here, and at least allow us to reach each other.”
“That’s handy,” Tori said. “Would we be able to reach Jana?”
“Not sure. We’ll have to try it out.”
“Okay.” Tori finally saw Olmed ahead with the other Kantenans. “I gotta go.”
“Cool. We’re at the apartments. I think we’re going to dinner soon. Is that right, Erzo?”
“Dinner,” she heard in the background. “Fine. I’m finishing up shopping and then Olmed and I are, uh, looking up some old friends.”
“Have fun. Talk later. Text if you need me,” Polly said.
“You too.”
They disconnected the call and Tori saw she was almost to Olmed. She got up to him just in time to hear one of the other red aliens speaking.
“We have plenty of room. And you know those charges, we can get them revoked. It is not a problem.”
“Charges? What charges?” she muttered to herself.
