Buster landed on his back, on a warm, foamy surface. Amy Belnap was on top of him, pinning his shoulders and smiling triumphantly. He knew instantly that he was no longer in the old Tibble house, as the room and its furnishings were stranger than anything he had ever seen on Earth.
Amy backed away and allowed him to stand. The temperature was a bit too cold for his liking. Against one wall sat a garishly colored, intricately filigreed item resembling a couch with one long cushion. A laminated picture hung over it, showing him the image of a mountain range covered with what looked like purple snow. On either side of the couch stood a transparent, slanted shelf with exotic-looking potted plants. The spongy covering underneath his shoes was apparently a wall-to-wall green carpet. Everything in the spacious room appeared alien, yet shiny and neat.
His first question was an obvious choice. "Where am I?"
The cat girl in the blue velvet dress beamed at him. "This is my house on the planet Yordil," she explained.
Buster looked around quickly; the glowing portal that had transported him to this place was nowhere to be seen. He cared little, as intense curiosity was getting the better of him.
Before he took a step, however, a tall cat woman with flowing blond hair walked up to him and Amy. She wore a drab gray pantsuit with a wavy collar, and her face was painted with beige makeup and thin horizontal lines on her brow. The sight of Buster seemed to thrill her beyond words.
"Kapu Buster Baxter garg," Amy said to the cat woman.
"Kapu zelt vidap garg," was the gushing reply.
While Buster looked back and forth at the pair, trying to make sense of their gibberish, the woman pulled a device from the metallic belt around her hips. She pointed its long end at the rabbit boy, and a reddish beam emanated from it, enveloping his body.
"Uh, what are you doing?" he asked. "I'm getting goosebumps."
The cat woman switched off the scanning device and reattached it to her belt. She then waved her hand in front of a bureau, and one of the drawers opened automatically. Inside lay a bulky device with a molded plastic coating and several buttons and knobs on the front. This she lifted up and placed carefully around Buster's neck, latching the two ends together so that it fit him like a leash.
"This thing's cold," the boy complained. "It's heavy, too."
"I am sorry if you do not find it comfortable," said the woman in a friendly tone.
Buster gaped. "Now you're speaking English."
"No," said the cat woman, her words out of step with the movement of her lips. "I am speaking Yordilian. The device around your neck is a translator."
Intrigued, Buster rubbed his fingers over the front panel of the collar-like gadget. "What does this button do?" he inquired before carelessly pushing it.
"Pancake zebra supreme jogging," said the woman, reaching forward to correct the settings on the translator.
"This is so cool," Buster marveled. "I'm really on another planet. A planet with aliens."
"I can't wait to show you everything," said Amy, seizing his arm.
While she dragged him through the mansion-like domicile toward what looked to him like a varnished wooden door ornamented with small bumps, he asked, "What was that laser thing she used on me?"
"It's a gene gun," Amy told him. "Marmel was just recording your DNA signature."
"Marmel?"
"She's one of my mom's servants."
The wooden doors sailed open as they drew near, and Buster discovered that the outside of the house was much, much more interesting than the inside.
The sky was completely pink, except for some scattered purple clouds. A glowing yellow orb rested in its midst, a bit paler than Earth's sun.
"I'll have to get you a coat," said Amy. "My planet's colder than yours."
Buster didn't mind the cool weather as much as the translating device that chafed his neck and shoulders. "Don't you have something that goes in my ear?" he asked Amy.
"Sorry," the cat girl responded. "Our technology isn't that advanced yet."
She led him to the edge of a smooth lane, where an occasional hovering vehicle flew by at a modest speed. A row of fine-looking houses stretched into the distance, each with high quasi-adobe walls and a lawn of orange clover leaves. The sheer variety of colors almost bowled him over.
"This is the town where I live," Amy informed him. "It's called Pudalump. The people here are very nice."
Very nice, but not very creative when it came to fashion, Buster mused. Every one of the women and children he saw along the sides of the street wore a variation of the pantsuit and wavy collar he had seen on Marmel. Most wore no shoes, but a few sported leather-like slippers. In physical form they were indistinguishable from the cat people on his own planet. Yet the more he observed them, the more he recognized that something was amiss.
"I don't see any men," he commented. "Are they all at work?"
Amy was about to reply, when two Yordilian children, one Buster's size and the other a little larger, turned and stared at him with amazement. Both had straight black hair cut off at the ears and reaching down to their backs. Their mother looked at Buster also, her expression also one of delighted surprise.
Their mouths agape, the two children raced toward him and scanned him with their eager blue eyes. They paid special attention to his long ears.
"Are you…" the older child began, "are you a…boy?"
"Yeah," Buster answered glibly.
"He's my boy," Amy interjected sternly.
"He's so cute!" enthused the younger child.
"Hey, everybody!" the older child shouted in a high-pitched voice. "It's a boy! An Earth boy!"
Being the center of attention always made Buster nervous. Being thronged by squealing alien children and their mothers was almost too much for him to endure. As the crowd curiously tugged at his clothes and ears, he rubbed his hand over his pocket to make sure his inhaler was still there in case he needed it.
"Get your hands off him!" Amy snarled at the mob. "He belongs to me!"
"Look at those big ears," marveled a small child. "I'll bet he can hear a hovercar coming a mile away."
"Mommy, I want a boy," whined a kid who seemed about Buster's age.
As he fended off the groping little hands, the anxious rabbit boy started to realize the truth behind his odd situation. He turned to the girl who had brought him to Yordil.
"Amy," he asked earnestly, "are there no boys on your planet?"
"Only a handful," the cat girl answered. "All the males were killed in a disaster eight years ago."
Horror wrenched Buster's gut. His throat tightened. Gasping, he stuck his hand into his pocket to retrieve his inhaler.
"What's that thing?" asked one of the alien girls, trying to wrest the medical device from his hand. He tried to warn her away, but no words would come.
"Come with me," said Amy, leading Buster by the hand toward the entrance to her mansion. The mass of girls trailed him, but he managed to squeeze in a few puffs of asthma medication.
Once inside and safe, he started to breathe heavily. "Amy…I want…to go…home now," he wheezed.
"You can't," said the girl, smirking wickedly.
Buster nearly dropped his inhaler from the shock. "What…what do you mean, I can't?"
"You're bound to me," Amy told him. "When we're of age, we'll be married."
"I don't want to marry you!" Buster protested frantically. As if to emphasize his objection, he yanked the heavy translator from his neck and flung it aside.
"You don't have to marry me," said Amy, advancing affectionately. "But you can't marry anyone else. It's Yordilian law."
The rabbit boy glanced around, as if seeking an escape route. "You can run," Amy continued, "but there's nowhere to go. Now that your DNA signature is recorded in the global genetic database, I can find you no matter where you are. The Yordilian police carry gene guns. Every place of business has a gene scanner. If I declare you a fugitive, you won't be able to walk into a restaurant or food store without setting off alarms. And I know how much you like to eat, Buster."
The desperate nature of his predicament didn't take long to sink in. He looked through the diamond-shaped window at the multitude of Yordilian girls lining the street. They cheered and hooted loudly when they saw his face through the glass.
A plan took shape in his mind. A wild plan, but one that might enable him to reach the planetary authorities without being harassed. A potentially embarrassing plan…
"Okay, Amy," he said in a defeated tone, "you win. I'll stay."
The cat girl raised up on her heels and gave him a peck on the cheek.
"But I want to see more of your planet," Buster went on, "and I don't want to be chased by girls everywhere I go. So I'll need a disguise."
"I know what you're thinking," said Amy. "It won't work."
"Why not?"
"Girls from other planets aren't allowed on Yordil. You'd attract even more attention as an Earth girl than as an Earth boy."
Buster's ears crumpled. Yet another excuse to walk around in a dress and wig had slipped from his grasp.
----
"Our analysis shows that you are not Yordilian, but human," stated the bass-voiced, sphere-headed alien. "We apologize for the error."
Tegan smiled with gratification. Ten feet away, Sue Ellen and April stood outside the range of her mind-merging influence. A ceiling shaped like a huge arch loomed above them, and dozens of windows leading to nowhere lined the circular walls. Several sphere-heads were laboring over electronic consoles nearby.
To April and Sue Ellen the alien said, "Since you were born on Earth and consider it your home, you will be permitted to return."
"What about our parents?" Sue Ellen asked.
"The Yordilian spies will remain here," replied the being, which had no visible mouth and stood perfectly still.
"We're not leaving without them," said April with finality.
"You may stay if you wish," said the alien with a hint of concern, "but you would most likely never see Earth again."
The cat girls stared at each other with wide eyes.
Earth. Their parents. Earth. Their parents.
"I am a Thrag," the sphere-head related. "The concept of separate genders is foreign to me. I understand, however, that you, being females, will eventually desire male companionship. You have little chance of finding it on Yordil."
Tegan watched with sympathy as the bewildered girls struggled to make up their minds.
"I don't know what to do," said Sue Ellen quietly. "I love Mom and Dad, and I'm glad they're alive, but…but I don't want to live on a planet without boys."
"I understand," said April gently. "You still have feelings for Arthur. I lost those feelings a long time ago."
"But that doesn't mean I will."
"You could ask Arthur to go to Yordil with you," April suggested. "But I don't know what he would say."
"He'd probably jump at the chance to get away from D.W.," Sue Ellen joked.
"What is your decision?" the sphere-head demanded.
"We need more time!" the girls pleaded in unison.
"Time is irrelevant," said the alien. "To spare you the anguish of making an impossible choice, I will choose for you. You will return to Earth."
"No, please!" April cried out.
"You wish to stay?"
"Just another minute!" Sue Ellen begged.
"Very well," declared the alien. "You have exactly one Earth minute to decide."
Consternated and hopeless, April turned to her past self. "Great!" she snapped. "Now what do we do?"
"Mom and Dad would want us to stay on Earth," Sue Ellen observed.
"But we're Yordilians," April pointed out. "We don't belong on Earth."
"What kind of people kidnap boys and take them into space?" Sue Ellen wondered.
"If the roles were reversed, Earth would do the same thing," April claimed.
Their debate proved futile. "Your time is up," announced the sphere-head. "You will now be returned to Earth. There will be no further discussion."
"Wait!" Tegan interjected.
All eyes, both cat and Thrag, turned toward her.
----
to be continued