Relda could feel the fixed stares boring into her as she and Scy progressed toward the kitchen.
"Hey!" A slurred voice belonging to a green, scaly, winged creature blurted out. "She can't go back there."
"I'm the owner here, Kekko," Scy said, and she sneered at him for good measure.
Relda forced a stiff smile and managed a glance at Scy, who had stuffed herself under the bar. Before them, Relda noticed a native Amner rug, woven from Shulgar fleece.
"Grab the rug," she whispered, and Relda yanked it away.
Removing it bared a glimmering square of floor. She saw all the colors of the prism. Scy slammed her hand into a sensor. The glimmer extinguished. Scy moved her mouth, but she made no sound, and Relda couldn't decipher words.
Scy made spastic gestures toward the opening in the door, and she mimed putting her foot into it. Relda stooped down. Inside the opening was dark, but she could make out shapes. She slid into the room below the floor until the room had immersed her.
She felt a slight but sharp pain in her shoulder blade. She cleared the way for Scy's enormous frame.
Scy wasted no time. She opened a panel of glowing sensors, and the ceiling above them became a multicolored glimmer.
"So, Eyan," Relda said. "Can he help me? Is he here?"
"First, the payment."
Relda patted under her cloak. She felt the cool metal roughness. Her blaster was there. She ran her hand down the other side and felt the seam of her garment. Adrenaline surged through her body. Cold perspiration lubricated her palms.
"I-I," she said. "Can you just tell me where he is?"
Scy wrinkled her brow.
"He doesn't work here anymore," she responded.
"Since when?" Relda demanded.
"Since he started his...business." Came the reply.
"Then where is he?" Relda interrogated.
Scy drew a shaky breath.
"Quadrant 3," she said.
Relda felt her body tense up. She wanted to grab Scy by the collar and shake her, but she took an intentional step backward.
"Quadrant 3?" She echoed. "No one goes to Quadrant 3. Is he alive?"
Scy sighed through clenched teeth, and replied, "Cloning in the other three quadrants is highly illegal, and usually a small fortune. Usually takes three years' wages if you're middle class."
Relda leaned against the wall and let Scy's words repeat in her head.
"Quadrant 3 anything goes," Scy continued. "It's legal, and he can still charge a hefty price."
Relda chewed on her knuckle.
"So, I go there. I get him the payment. I get my clones."
"More or less," Scy said. "Odds of you getting those clones are slim to none though."
Scy clasped her hands on Relda's shoulders.
"You're the last of your kind," Scy said. "You can live out your days here where it's safe. Your race will die off with you, but at least you're likely to die in peace."
Scy's eyes wandered, and she gazed intently at nothing in particular.
"There, you may get the clones. You may not. You may meet a violent end, kid."
She focused on Relda.
"No one wants that," she concluded.
Relda let the decision circulate in her mind. She nodded her brain back to the present.
"I'll take my chances," she told Scy. "I'll go."
Scy released a slow whistle, and she typed something into the sensor panel. The entrance cleared, and Relda hoisted her weight onto the floor above.