Once Upon a Pet Show (A Redpoint One Romance) Read Free Page B

for a few minutes. Vallory tapped the front panel
lightly with a fingertip. Not loud, but it was enough to get Penny
to flinch and hop back towards the middle of the cage.
    "Cute things," the weightlifter said. "Don't
worry, ma'am. Damien and I will get this fixed up. What first,
boss?"
    "First we find out the problem."
    "What is that wand-thing you have?"
    The second man moved between the cages towards
the small aisle running between the cages of their aisle and the
cages lining the next one over. "Follow me and I will show
you."
    Vallory watched them with big eyes, her heart
sinking. Show him?
    Penny started heading towards the back of the
enclosure again. In fact, all of them were, and doing it fast.
They'd obviously lost patience with the entire too-hot
cage-thing.
    And now this?
    She started shaking her head even before she
could find her voice. When she did, it held a harsh edge as she
demanded, "Show him? You are training or practicing your jobs on my
daubpups?"
    The second man straightened from where he'd
just bent over to grab something from a compartment on the side of
the cart, looking straight at her with those unusual eyes. He
leaned against the edge of the opaque sides of the cage that kept
the animals from seeing the ones next to them. "My name is Damien
Lysander, and I am senior life-support engineer on Redpoint One. I
am hardly a beginner."
    "Senior?" Vallory repeated, latching on to the
word.
    "Call him Damien," the weightlifter
said.
    "I am," Damien said again before deliberately
breaking off eye contact to disappear around the back of the
enclosure. He didn't yell in surprise, so all the daubpups must
still be inside. A temporary relief.
    "The pet show is important," the weightlifter
said. He leaned against the corner of the enclosure, giving her a
lazy smooth smile. "They wouldn't send just anyone. Shay Carlisle,
at your service. And where do you hail from?"
    Vallory struggled not to wrinkle her nose in
disgust. Why ask such a thing at a time like this? "No place
special. Just a nomad."
    It was true, to a certain point. Her need for
a job, and the jobs never seemed to last very long, meant she
constantly traveled. To a wilderness study, to associate university
projects, to consultation situations. From one place and world to
another. Not that she necessarily liked it that way, but full-time
jobs for a xenobiologist just getting going were hard to
find.
    "I need a torque caliper," Damien called from
behind the enclosure.
    Shay pushed off the enclosure to frown at the
cart. "Right. Caliper. What would it look like?"
    But, the yellow and black robot was already
handing something up to him with a jointed arm and hand coming out
a small hatch on its back. Shay grabbed it and leaned down the back
of the enclosure to hand it back. "Is this it?"
    "Thanks." A creak and a pop, and Damien said,
"What does the front temperature read?"
    Vallory read off the temperature on the
control panel next to the front access door. No change from before,
and now two of her daubpups were fighting near the water bowl. They
rarely fought. Showed just how much stress they were feeling. If
they weren't on Redpoint One in front of other people, she would
allow them to escape to where they needed to go.
    Just not right now. Not here.
    "Wait, it just went down a degree," Vallory
said. The reading ticked one more down. "It's going down,
slowly."
    Damien stepped out from behind the enclosure.
"But, not fast enough. It should have dropped fast. We need a new
sensor."
    Shay followed him to the cart to peer down at
the contents as Damien started sorting through it. "Shouldn't the
little guys do that sort of thing?"
    Vallory didn't know who the 'little guys'
were, but she wished they'd done their job better. "One more
degree. It's still not enough."
    Damien paused on his way back behind the
enclosure. Still calm and steady, as he was from the start. "We'll
get the temperature down."
    Simple words, but with a strength behind them.
And she