The door slid open, and the stench of decay hit them full force. “Oh, my god!” She covered her nose with her arm.
“Do you wish to go in?” he asked.
“No! No, thank you.”
He slipped an arm around her waist, ushering her away from the entrance so the door would close. A couple strolling by chuckled. “There are cadaver plants inside,” exclaimed the woman. “They look as ugly as they smell. It’s worth seeing, but the odor is awful.”
Kismet shuddered. “I’ll pass on that one.”
“Fantastic exhibit, Your Highness,” said the man.
“Wonderful,” the woman echoed. “And congratulations on your marriage.”
“Thank you,” he replied. “I’m glad you’re enjoying the museum.”
The couple left them, heading for the exit.
“This is like a zoo, but with plants!” Kismet commented. “It’s a Boo!”
“I don’t understand.”
“Zoo stands for zoological park. It’s filled with animals. This is a botanical garden so it’s a Boo. Or, Poo for plant park, which also describes the smell of the last exhibit.” She laughed.
“Next stop—planet Earth!” he said.
They entered the habitat, and she took a deep breath and exhaled. Her entire body seemed to relax, and her eyes misted up.
“Looks like home?”
“Yeah. Earth has many biomes—grasslands, different kinds of forests, deserts, aquatic areas, but the foliage you see here is very common.”
They strolled through, taking their time, Kismet pointing out familiar flora. “That’s an oak tree. Those are pines. That’s amaple. These are rose bushes. Lilies. Daisies. Irises. I may want to come back here a time or two.” She sighed.
“You’re homesick,” he said.
“A little,” she admitted. “I didn’t realize how much until I saw this.”
“It’s only for a year,” he said to comfort her, masking his dejection at her eventual departure.
“Yeah,” she said, but didn’t sound cheered.
They lingered in the Earth zone until a family entered, and then they moved on to the next exhibit.
Huge stick-straight trees with a canopy of fronds dropped giant orange seed pods on a bed of sand in the dry, hot biome. “I hope the people obey the rules.” He eyed the pods. They were the sort of souvenir people might be tempted to take home. “We can’t allow these to germinate and take root.”
“I’m like the plants. An alien life-form you don’t wish to have take root,” Kismet said.
“No, you’re not!” Her analogy bothered him.
“The king doesn’t want me here.”
“But I do. The people do.”
“I’m a stopgap.”
He couldn’t refute her statement because it was true, but a part of him wished it wasn’t.
Chapter Nine
