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“Have you seenStargate?” Mr. Argosie asked.
“No.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. You’d understand better if you had. Regardless, this is a tesseract.”
Having yielded to the soldiers’ unbreakable grip on her arms, she stood quietly. “I know what a tesseract is. I read Madeleine L’Engle’s books when I was a kid.”
“Ah, good. It’s such a nuisance having to explain,” Mr. Argosie replied. He flicked his fingers at the tesseract and said, “Corporal Singleton, have the coordinates been entered?”
“Yes, sir,” the soldier holding her right arm replied.
“You can let me go now,” Evangeline grumbled. Looking around, she added in a mutinous voice, “It’s not like there’s anywhere for me to run.”
“I do appreciate a practical woman, Ms. Donal,” Mr. Argosie remarked with approval. “You may release her, gentlemen.”
Evangeline rubbed her arms as soon as the soldiers’ hands lifted. Goosebumps pebbled her flesh.
“Please fetch Ms. Donal’s cat,” the agent said.
The soldier who had gripped her left arm replied with a crisp, “Yes, sir.” He turned on his heel and walked behind a crescent-shaped console where another person in military uniform stood at the ready. Bending down, he picked up a small animal carrier and walked past Evangeline and onto the ramp of the tesseract as the rim of the large portal turned like a dial and its wide center shimmered.
“Well, go on, Ms. Donal,” Mr. Argosie urged. “The wormhole’s open.”
“Wormhole?” she repeated in a faint tone as she watched the soldier lift the carrier. Alarmed, she called out, “Don’t you dare throw my—”
The soldier tossed the carrier and its yowling occupant through the portal.
“—cat!”
Evangeline dashed forward, up the metal ramp and leaped through the shimmering center of the portal to rescue her cat. Fiery heat caressed her for a split second before giving way to freezing cold as her hands caught the plastic carrier. She hugged it tightly to her chest and tumbled through nothingness, her burning lungs threatening to collapse, and her eyes closing against the bursts of brilliant color that streaked past. Something she could not identify squeezed her, driving the last breath from her lungs a moment before the wormhole spat her out. Frost rimed her skin which had turned bluish with oxygen deprivation and severe cold. She landed in a crumpled heap, her arms still wrapped around the carrier.
“He’s getting creative, I’ll say that for him. At least this one made it through alive,” commented the grizzled looking gatekeeper who stood at Ahn’hudin’s end of the wormhole. “Lt. Henley, please see that the medics get her to Recovery and inform Ambassador Conquillen that a bride has arrived intact. Let the games begin.”
Military personnel with white armbands designating them as medics loaded the unconscious woman and the cat in its carrier onto a gurney and transported her to the infirmary where all new arrivals were examined and treated before being integrated into their new home. Wormhole travel affected some more severely than others, but no human traveled via wormhole without needing at least a day to recuperate fully.
Chapter2
Consciousness returned slowly.
Evangeline blinked as her blurry vision slowly cleared to reveal unfamiliar surroundings. She lay still, a lifetime of caution learned in foster care having taught her to get a sense of her environment before committing to any action.
“Welcome to Ahn’hudin, Ms. Donal,” came a crisply worded greeting. “You’re quite safe, so feel free to look about.”
She blinked again and struggled to sit. The gray-haired woman seated beside her bed did not offer to assist, but she did offer a smile that Evangeline guessed was meant to be encouraging.
“Where’s my cat?” Evangeline asked, her voice rasping.
Without being asked, the woman poured a glass of water and handed it to her, saying, “You took the transport a little harder than some, but you survived, so that’s all to the good. The Ahn’hudi crown will be pleased.”
Evangeline sipped at the water. It was fresh and did not taste of any strange chemicals. She supposed there was no need to drug her since she’d apparently been transported through a wormhole and had no way to return home.
“My cat?” she repeated.
“Ah, yes, your pet. It’s been taken to your guest room and given the necessary food, water, and litter box. Noisy little beast.”
Evangeline pressed her lips together in a thin line of disapproval and exerted her utmost self-control not to respond with something offensive that might get Poppet killed. The woman noticed her restraint and nodded.
“You think before you speak. That’s good. The Ahn’hudi can be rather sensitive to aspersions against their honor, so it behooves us to be careful in our speech.”
