We caught up with the others at the edge of the Orange Scourge. Everyone had been waiting for SuperBun, so I put him down with a snuggle. “You be careful.”
He promised that he would, then he hopped over to the edge and sniffed. This still smelled edible. He started eating. He could successfully chew and swallow in the Moon Suit.
I put Peter down, also with a snuggle. “You be careful, too.”
Peter also said he would, then hopped over to join SuperBun. All the many rabbits tried the Orange Scourge. All declared it delicious. No one had an issue eating in their Moon Suit. Several shared that they had no problem pooping, either. They tucked in with gusto. Soon the Orange Scourge was littered with golden rabbits and what looked like normal rabbit pellets, like some bizarre Easter pageant.
The least weasels squeaked at me. They liked what Mother had provided—they got Poof Chow, apparently—but wanted a change.
Put the Royal Hatbox down with a sigh. “You guys had better all come back when you’re called. I don’t want the Ard Ri freaking out about losing you.” Opened the Hatbox and let them scurry out.
They squeaked thanks at me, then raced over to where Peter and SuperBun were and began eating. They didn’t look like they were convulsing or anything, so allowed them to continue. Left the Hatbox there, too, just in case.
“How often do they eat?” Serion asked.
“I think at least twice a day at dawn and dusk. Under normal circumstances.” Which these were not. “Could I see how far the Orange Scourge extends?”
“Of course.” Serion and I were lifted by the ground. Said ground went out of its way to avoid what was truly a vast field of squash. From this perspective, it kind of looked like the Orange Scourge was giving the moon a bad comb-over. Though there was a lot to comb over, so to speak.
“This reminds me of the scene in Horton Hears A Who when the evil black-bottomed eagle drops Horton’s special clover into a giant field of clover.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Serion said politely.
“So few ever do.” Was really glad I hadn’t made a comb-over comment. Saw what kind of looked like water if it was made out of mercury, so assumed this was their ocean. “Does the Orange Scourge grow in the ocean?”
From what I was seeing, it was avoiding it. Turned around to look in other directions. There were patches of orange dotted about—as if the moon had lost most of its hair though some was valiantly hanging on—but we were definitely near the largest patch.
“No, thankfully, it does not, nor in any lakes of rubidium. And it does not seem to affect them, either, for which we are grateful.”
We returned to the others. Noted that the rabbits weren’t eating the squash stems. Did my best to bring up information from my animal sciences classes from so long ago now. As I remembered, they were less thrilled with stems and anything dry, which might have been why they weren’t enjoying Mother’s offerings.
The least weasels, on the other hand, were eating the stems. So there was that, for whatever it was worth.
“They seem very hungry,” Serion said hopefully. “Does that mean they will clear out the Orange Scourge quickly?”
“No bet.” Having seen just how much there was to eat, my real answer was that I doubted it, but that seemed counterproductive to say aloud. Realized we weren’t leaving until the rabbits finished, though. Meaning we needed to do a calculation. Meaning Chuckie was up.
Conveniently, he was with Jeff and Jamie. Wruck, Butler, Maurer, and the Kristie-Bot were all in conversation with Feoren and Cavus.
Went to Chuckie and explained the dilemma. He nodded. “I already did the calculations. We’re here at least a week.”
“I looked at the full expanse, and that was just for the stuff in this area, and I think you’re underestimating.”
“Should we leave the rabbits and go to Kreaving, then come back?” Jeff asked. “We have no idea how long that system has.”
“Only if we know where we’re going,” Stryker said, coming up behind us. “This place is fantastic! But once the game was over, we were working with Mother to see if we could narrow down the distress call’s location.”
“When did the game end?”
“Once the Ard Ri told us he saw you guys all outside in Moon Suits.” Stryker sounded reproachful. “You just love hogging all the cool stuff.”
“That’s me, Eddy, all the way. So, what’s the good word on finding Kreaving?”
“Terrible. We think we have the general sector of the galaxy identified. But it’s a huge area with a lot of stars within it. Mother thinks we could spend weeks searching without a better way to narrow things down.”
“We can’t just give up,” Jeff said.
“We aren’t,” Stryker said. “It’s just going to take time.”
“Wasn’t my plan, either, Jeff. Serion has their star charts. I say we spend the time here, letting the bunnies do their good eating work, while others figure out where we really need to go. That has to be a better use of time than us just flying around randomly, hoping and shouting Kreaving’s name through our hailing channels.”
“It makes sense,” Jeff admitted. “And the rabbits are going to need more than a day.”
“Sounds good,” Stryker said. “I’ve always wanted to be an astrogator.”
“A what? I see no gators here.” Wondered how Alliflash and Gigantagator were doing for a moment. Hopefully well.
“An astrogator is someone who does astrogation, navigation in space,” Chuckie explained.
“Oh. That word sounds totally made up.”
“All words are made up, Kitty,” Stryker pointed out a tad smugly.
“Blah, blah, blah. Just get all of Hacker International to astrogate or whatever. Chuckie, you’re probably going to need to help them.”
He grinned. “Not you?”
“Oh, I could, but I have another issue. We need to figure out where the spores or seeds or whatever came from, because while the rabbits can clear this out—we hope—if we leave and Cradus is hit again, it’s just going to be the same old déjà vu.”
“I agree,” Jeff said. “I just have no idea how.”
“Happily, I do.”
Jeff groaned. “I’m going to hate this, aren’t I?”
“Probably. I think it’s time for the crew of the Distant Voyager to break up.”
CHAPTER 64
AMAZINGLY ENOUGH, there weren’t a lot of arguments about my idea to have the sports car section of the ship—the one made for exploration and fast exits—take a little trip around this small solar system. Drax felt it was sound, Fathade insisted they could easily get the sports car section of the Distant Voyager up high enough for takeoff, and we had more than enough volunteers. And no one was tired, that secret two-day nap having given everyone plenty of rest and energy.
One who wanted to go was Fathade. “If you go to take this risk for us, one of us should go with you,” she insisted.
“You just told me how your guys died trying this before,” I pointed out.
“And,” Jeff said nicely, “That means not just no, but hell no.”