My momentum pushed me three steps into the room before I caught my balance and stopped. I had the rock raised to hit at Glenda, who I expected to be standing there, ready to fight me.
She wasn’t there.
The cabin was warm and comfortable, just like the last time I had seen it.
Tananda and Aahz were sitting at the table, eating what smelled like beef stew with slices of homemade bread.
“Nice entrance,” Tanda said, smiling at me. “What took you so long?”
Aahz just shook his head.
“Shut the door, would you?”
I stood there with the rock in the air over my head, not really believing what I was seeing. I had so convinced myself that Aahz and Tanda were in trouble that I couldn’t believe that they were simply having lunch and waiting for me. Why had they let me stay the entire day and night in Kowtow?
Why had they chanced that I would even find the D-Hopper where they had left it?
“Door!” Aahz said. “You born in a barn or something?”
Behind me the storm was raging, blowing dust into the cabin. I lowered the rock, tossed it out into the dust, and then closed the door.
Tanda stood and came up to me, smiling. “Aahz, I told you he’d make it just fine,” she said, giving me a hug that convinced me that she was just fine, and I wasn’t dreaming all this.
Aahz snorted. “After all the mooning over our friend Glenda, I didn’t think his brain would ever work again.”
I asked the one question I wanted to know most of all.
“Why didn’t you come back?”
“We couldn’t,” Tanda said, patting me on the back and leading me to the table, where she slid some bread toward me as I sat down.