Page 18 of Purring, Presents, and Parties

Undernourished, shaking, and scared out of her wits, she’d met Baz and the Advance Squad in the middle of a hallway and almost fainted. Yet he’d still named her Brave. Remembering that gave her more courage to face whatever Kasium and Rossimun might tell her.

“Thank you, Ari,” Baz said with the windchimes sound of an excited rattle. He looked at Daniella and Christos. “I will contact your owners, but both of you must return tomorrow for the evening meal.”

“Sure,” Daniella said. “But what—”

She didn’t get to finish her question. Jumping to his feet, Baz leaned over and ran one of his scent glands over Ari’s head. The smell of hazelnut filled her nose, and then he was rushing back out of the house.

Instead of looking confused or annoyed at Baz’s behavior, Daniella laughed with delight. “He’s planning something big for you.”

“How could you know that?” Ari asked.

“I can tell,” Daniella said.

“Don’t question her,” Christos advised. “She’s the one who can always figure out what’s going to happen in a vid or story before anyone else. It’s as annoying as it is adorable.”

“Aww, thanks, honey,” Daniella said, leaning back to let Christos give her a quick kiss.

Ari tried to let go because she and Daniella were still holding hands, but the woman didn’t let her.

“Everyone up,” Daniella ordered after Christos brushed his lips over hers. Standing, she tugged Ari to her feet. “Let’s head over to the infirmary. We want to get you started on whatever the healers think is best as soon as we can. You might even start feeling better before whatever Baz is planning gets started.”

Chapter 8

Bazium

Bazium was in the middle of verifying that all the orders he’d placed that day would arrive early the next day when Hesarium and Danisal walked into the compound office. He almost remained sitting but remembered his manners. Standing, he struck his chest, “Greetings, my friends.”

They both struck their chests, Hesarium out of habit but Danisal because the polite protocols were important to her. After returning to Talarian with Hesarium and the Omanal humans, she’d resigned her position on Falsof Station and begged to be accepted as permanent staff by Bazium. He’d accepted her without hesitation.

The former head of station security had proved to be indispensable and she often got them items for low or no cost. Some of the devices they now relied on to keep the perimeter of the property secure weren’t even on the open market yet.

“I have the vids you’ve requested,” Danisal explained. “All the storage crystals the humans brought with them were badly degraded, but I was able to request expedited data recovery from an old colleague. If you’ll give me permission, I’ll send the information to your display so we can all view it together.”

Bazium sounded a rattle of agreement and used his Ident to give Danisal access to the display on the wall behind him. She unclipped her Ident, tapped out a command. The display lit up with a bright, static image.

“Before I let this run, please remember this is what he’s been able to recover so far,” she reminded them. “There are only bits and pieces from much larger files. We might need to bring in a human for interpretation.”

Sounding a negative rattle, Bazium kept his focus on the display. “They can’t know about the celebration tomorrow. Humans aren’t good at keeping secrets from each other, and I want everything to remain hidden from Ari. My human needs to experience as much joy as I can provide and that includes surprising her.”

“Bazium?” Tarrian stepped into the room. “You haven’t answered my missive yet, and I need to verify your agreement for my trip with Aubrey.”

Impatient to see what Danisal brought, Bazium sounded an irritated rattle. “Can it wait until I’m finished with this meeting?”

“We’re about to view some vids and images from Old Earth,” Hesarium explained.

Tarrian sounded a rumble of agreement. “I’d like to view them also.”

Bazium looked to Danisal who sounded another rumble of agreement, and the image started to move.

It was of poor quality, but Bazium could still make out several young humans gathered around a table. On the tablewas a box with human words written on it and holes near where the peaked top of the box formed a handle. As the vid continued, there was an automatic translation of the written words overlayed by the program.

“Pet rock?” Hesarium murmured, reading the translation. “Do you think the program mistranslated? Humans had many different spoken and written languages, and we don’t have perfect records of all of them.”

“It might have,” Danisal agreed. “This is—”

She stopped talking as the cubs opened the box and pulled out a nest with a smooth rock sitting in the middle of it.

“It appears the translation is correct,” Tarrian said with an amused rumble. “Humans are so quick to give affection, they adopted inanimate minerals as pets!”

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