I heaved a sigh. Berating and yelling wouldn’t fix anything. It would make me feel a lot better, but we didn’t have time to waste.

“We came back here as soon as we could,” Maud said.

“I still think that a prolonged assault may have yielded some results,” Arland said.

“No, Maud is right.” I pulled my robe off and grabbed the car keys from the hook by the door. “You can’t fight muckrats. You can’t reason with them either. You can only trade. Maud, I need you to defend the inn. The Draziri likely won’t attack. It’s broad daylight.”

“Where are you going?” Sean asked.

“To Walmart!”

“I’m coming with you. Kiran’s fixated on you. You can’t count on him being rational.”

I opened my mouth… It would take longer to argue and we didn’t have time. For all I knew the muckrats were prying the argon tank open as we spoke. Besides, he was right. The Draziri had made it personal during our last conversation.

“Okay.” I turned to Maud. “Hold the inn. Please.”

“I got it,” she said.

I stuck my feet into my shoes I had left by the front door and ran for the garage. Sean followed me.

I jumped into the driver's seat, he took the passenger one, and I forced myself to casually drive out of the garage and pull into the street at a reasonable speed instead of peeling out of there like a Nascar driver. Nobody assaulted us. Nobody followed.

“What are muckrats?” Sean asked.

“Magpies of the galaxy. They have a fort at Baha-char.”

Ten minutes later we marched through Walmart’s doors. I headed straight for the toy aisle.

“What are we looking for?” Sean asked.

“Look for the most annoying thing you can find. Anything that’s loud, has flashing lights, and complicated moving parts.”

I surveyed the toys. The pickings were slim. I thought there would’ve been more, but with the holidays approaching, the toy isle had been picked over.

Wait. I pulled a box off the shelf. Musical Fun Hammer Pounding Toy Game. A variation on Whack-A-Mole, with plastic eggs with funny faces in bright Easter colors popping up and a hammer to whack them with. Please tell me there is a demo… There it was, at the end of the aisle, where the toy was hooked up to a cord. Four buttons on the bottom. I pushed one. Horribly loud music blared from the toy. So far so good. I grabbed the green plastic hammer and pushed the demo button. The blue egg popped up. I smacked it and it lit up from the inside with a seizure-inducing strobe light and gave a police-siren wail. I whacked another egg. A primate’s screech cut my eardrums. Perfect. I grabbed the box and emerged from the aisle, almost running into Sean.

I showed the box to him. “What do you have?”

He lifted a bizarre-looking contraption that resembled a cross between a hair dryer and a megaphone with an array of lights along its plastic frame.

“What the heck is that?”

“It’s a fart gun.”

“A what?”

Sean pressed the trigger. The lights dramatically lit up and the gun made a loud farting noise. “A fart gun. From that kid movie. You said annoying.”

He pressed the trigger again. The gun farted. A woman with a child in her cart looked at us. Sean’s mouth slowly stretched into a smile.

“Okay, fine.” I sped toward the checkout.

A fart.

“Will you stop doing that?”

Another fart.

“Sean! What are you, five?”

He laughed under his breath.

The express checkout lane was empty. Miracle of miracles. I slid my box onto the belt. Sean followed.

The cashier, an older plump woman, smiled at us. “Aww. You’re such a cute couple buying toys. Are you expecting?”

What?

“Yes, we are,” Sean said and put his arm around me.

I would kill him.

“No rings?” The cashier swiped the fart gun across the scanner. “Better get on that wedding fast.”

Of all the… I swiped my card and punched my code into the terminal. That’s why I never came to Walmart.

The card went through. Sean grabbed the two toys and we headed out.

“Good luck, you two!” the cashier called after us.

As soon as we were out the doors, I turned to Sean. “Will you take this seriously? The future of an entire species is at stake.”

“Yes, we’re going to save them with a fart gun.”

“Don’t!”

Fart.

Ugh.

Fifteen minutes later I ran into the inn. Gertrude Hunt seemed no worse for wear. Maud was in the war room. I stuck my head in. “Anything?”

“They tried to send a probe in and I nuked it,” she said. “Go, Dina! Go, we’re fine.”

The inn dropped my Baha-char robe, dark brown with a tattered hem, by my feet. I pulled it on, took a sack out of the closet, and held it open. Sean stuffed the toys into it and I handed it back to him. If anyone could keep it from being stolen, Sean could. The door at the end of the long hallway opened, spilling the bright sunshine of Baha-char into the inn. We stepped through the door.

Heat washed over me. We stood on pale yellow tiles lining the alley. Buildings rose on both sides of us, built with sandstone and decorated with colorful tile, fifteen floors high, each a mess of balconies, terraces, and bridges. Trees, vines, and flowers thrived in planters, adding a welcome relief from the uniformity of sandstone. Banners streamed in the breeze, burgundy, turquoise, and gold. Above, in the purple sky, a gargantuan lavender planet, cracked down the middle, oversaw it all, pieces of it floating by the main mass like misshapen moons.