Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 134725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Zane sighed. “I don’t think this is----”
“What do the babies eat? We need to get it warm and feed it.”
The sky dimmed a little and then a flash of light caught his eye from below. Directly at her knees to the right was Arla’s the start of the row of moonflower plants, the one Ollie had taken some of for Tanya’s arrival. Arla’s moonflowers suddenly bloomed, light coming out of about a dozen blooms one after the other consecutively. Red jewels fell from a half a dozen of them. Black jewels fell from the rest.
Love. Danger.
Tanya gasped. The baby fuschilla darted down, grabbed a pebble-sized spherical black stone and put it in its belly pouch, then ran back up Tanya’s arm and burrowed into her hair.
“Whoa. Wow, Zane.” She was staring at the stones on the ground in awe.
Wow indeed.
CHAPTER 17
TANYA
A tiny pink bunny crossed with a chinchilla maybe. Huge eyes like bush babies or… sugar gliders and the ears were shorter than a typical bunny and it had primate-like hands and feet. And a long tail that curled like a letter c at the end. It was soft and hot pink with a lighter pink belly. With a pouch! And it’d stuck that little marble-sized black jewel into the pouch and was burrowing into my hair.
The poor squirrel-sized mother was dead, no visible injuries, but clearly something had happened to it. When it screamed at me it reminded me of a possum, but without all the crazy-scary teeth. The soft little baby was against my neck, under my hair, trembling a little.
And I was surrounded by red and black jewels that fell out of Zane’s dead wife’s plant. More black. More danger. But red? What was the meaning of that stone again?
“How’s the ankle?” he asked, and I stared up at him in wonder at all that’d just happened.
Love?
I shook off my daze and rotated the foot while still on my knees. “It’s, um… okay, actually. A tiny bit stiff but fine. I think I can walk.”
I got to my feet, put my hand into my hair and the pink baby started suckling my finger. I giggled. “Oh Zane, it’s hungry. What do these guys eat? We have to feed it.”
He lifted me up.
“I can walk. See?” I flexed my ankle, which still had that pillow wrapped around it, but it felt 95% fine.
“Let’s not take the chance.” He scooped me closer to him and carried me upstairs and took me inside, down the hall, and to the big lounge room. He set me on a plush cream-colored couch and lifted a tablet from the glass table in front of us.
He tapped away at it. “I’ve gotten my nourishment machine to craft a substitute for the mother’s milk. It’ll be delivered in about a minute or two.”
I gave my head a shake. “That’s so cool.”
He raised one eyebrow at me.
“What?” I asked. “That you can figure that out so quickly and help a little baby animal? This place is amazing.” I shook my head in wonder.
“I’ve ordered a robot to dispose of the dead one in the yard.”
“This poor baby.” I put my fingers into my hair and felt the soft pink hands and feet grab on. I went to lift it, but it was a little tangled in my hair.
“Uh Zane? It’s…” I needed help.
Zane rescued me by carefully extracting my hair, which was wrapped around it. It huffed a little, annoyed with being extracted from what it’d decided was its nest.
I brought my finger up to my face and looked into its sweet little face.
“Oh my God, you’re freaking adorable,” I told it. It blinked at me and then jumped, like a sugar glider and was back on my neck. I giggled and collected my hair up into a ponytail to avoid a re-tangle, and then recalled I’d stuck a ponytail holder in my pocket that morning before we’d gone to Zane’s office. I made quick work of knotting my hair up into a high bun to keep it away from the pink baby while Zane watched.
“They don’t make good pets, Tanya,” Zane told me. “They’re destructive.”
“Hm?”
“I don’t think you should get attached to it. We can feed it and then---”
I opened my mouth, and he stopped talking. But nothing came out. He waited for me to find words.
“It’s a little baby. It needs to be cared for or it’ll die. Do you have animal sanctuaries that will help it? I can just look after it today and tomorrow while we source a place to take it.”
His mouth twitched. “Guess I’ll see what I can do. I could have one of the robots feed it on a schedule.”
“No. I’ll do it,” I volunteered. “Babies need cuddles. Robots don’t cuddle.
I heard a little ‘coooooo’ sound from under my hair. I giggled.