Lost Change

Chapter 94

I growled in frustration and flew around the room for what had to be the millionth time.

A crawler had definitely been in this room. Something was off about it, and it was an old scent, but... it had been here. And I couldn't figure out where it had gone. The smell was in this room, and didn't seem to go anywhere. It just faded away into the wall. I had been searching for at least an hour at this point and had absolutely nothing to show for it.

Even Minna was starting to seem doubtful. She had called Alec after we had been searching for a few minutes and filled him in on the ktari being aboard, and she had sounded convinced I would find something when she had spoken to him... but I had watched her confidence fade over the next hour as I flew aimlessly around the room.

I had searched everywhere. There wasn't even that much to search. A simple bed, a vent, a single power outlet next to a desk, and the spot where the ktari's table had been. The faint scent of the crawler seemed to come from everywhere and from nowhere, all at the same time. It was just too old and faint to properly track. No matter where I looked I just couldn't pin it down.

It was incredibly frustrating. I knew something was going on. I knew a crawler had been here. But... beneath the chemical stench permeating every breath, and beneath the smell of ktari that was heavy in this room, I just couldn't find it. It was just too hard.

And it was only getting harder. My head was beginning to pound from a headache, though I was determined to push through it.

"I found a ktari." Ivy's voice came through the mindlink. She sounded annoyed too. "Dead. It got into a conduit and chewed through something electrical. It had a collar and a chewed up leash on it. The Ilrivians are making a show of being upset that somebody's pet died, and are holding us up while they try to find whoever it belonged to."

The mindlink filled with general sentiments of congratulations for Ivy and annoyance at the growing sense that we were all being jerked around by the Ilrivians. The other dragonets didn't seem that happy either, and a few of them sounded like they were fighting off headaches of their own.

"They're really drawing this out." Frustration bled into Ivy's tone. "I think they're trying to delay us for some reason, but I can't think of why that would be. Everything they say seems meant to pressure us to go faster, but the things they are doing seem like they want to drag this out. It's weird."

I pulled into a hover and narrowed my eyes as I looked around the room one more time. Ivy was right. The aliens had been dragging things out. It had taken forever for them to open this room for us, but... they hadn't gained anything by doing that. There weren't any other exits from this room - I had flown around it so many times that I was sure of that - so they hadn't been able to move anything out of it while they stalled us. And even if they had moved something out, I would have smelled it. Even with the other scents clouding everything.

And they had seemed perfectly happy to wait outside while I searched. They hadn't even suggested that we should hurry so the gray-furred Ilrivian could get back to his lunch break, or tried to claim I was only reacting to the ktari. They had just waited in the corridor and watched us.

Watched us waste an hour searching for something I couldn't find.

"Yeah... now that you mention it, it does seem like they've been dragging their feet on everything." I hovered in place for a few more wingbeats and tried to think it over. "Why would they want to do that? Is there anything they gain by making us take longer? We'd still smell anything if they were moving stuff around, right?"

"We should. Even with this other stuff filling the air. A crawler or sicora would stand out." I knew Ivy was right - the few times I had smelled a sicora, it had caused such a powerful reaction that I was sure I would smell it no matter what was covering it up. Same with a crawler. It was just too deeply ingrained in us.