Page 87 of Cozy Prisons
“We have a temporary domicile,” Daxus said, circling the group to get to Nataly. He picked up Nataly and then addressed Hale. “We’re at the far east side of the encampment. I believe there are several empty tents on the west side if you need one.”
“That means you won the argument with Utharium!” Grace said with a little cheer. “Good job! Enjoy tonight because neither of you will be getting much privacy from now on.”
He was afraid she was right.
Chapter 27
Palathum
“I thought I’d find you here.”
Palathum turned around to find Utharium behind her. She’d been so absorbed waiting for Nataly and Daxus’s temporary domicile to open that she didn’t notice Utharium’s approach.
“What do you mean by that?” she asked, opening her arms as he stepped into her personal space. It felt so good to hold him tight. The scent of his bonding oil hit her nose slits as he rubbed his cheeks against the top of her head. The tension in her body eased, and she let out a sigh.
Utharium sounded a brief rumble of amusement before answering. “You’ve been acting like Nataly is your business partner and you can’t make any decisions without her.”
Palathum didn’t like the sound of that. “I have not.”
“You always insist that she and Daxus sit with us at the evening meal. You have her scheduled to attend every meeting. She fell asleep when we were discussing the report we’ll need tosubmit to the Committee for Pet Welfare and Reestablishment Committee.”
“She’s the unofficial leader of the humans,” Palathum argued. “It’s important she’s involved in the decisions so the humans don’t feel left out.”
“We could easily sum everything up for her and ask for input individually. She doesn’t need to sit through marks of us going over every minutiae. Even Daxus looked dazed at the reports meeting.”
Palathum didn’t know how to respond. Although she didn’t want to admit it, she was terrified of making another decision that might inadvertently put everyone in danger.
“You made the best choice with limited time,” Utharium said. “You had two places to colonize. Although Arise was less studied, the other choice was much closer to Talarian. Building there meant many visits from Apogee officials, finding any excuse to interact with our humans.”
It wasn’t surprising he knew what she was thinking, since it consumed so much of her mind most days.
When she didn’t respond, Utharium kept talking.
“Even a three solar study might not have found the fault.”
He was right, but she still didn’t feel better. “Two other faults opened that same night. One of them was at the alternate building site. I feel like no matter which way I turn, there are dangers I can’t protect my people from. What if the other planet is unstable also? What if there’s a plague of bugs that crawl out of the ground every 100 years, and that happens the first year we are there?”
“What if everything goes well?” Utharium asked. “Or at least that we don’t have any major mishaps.”
Palathum didn’t have a response to that because she never considered it. “Impossible.”
“Possible and probable. Consider that what happened here is so rare that it hasn’t happened in our lifetime to any other colony. Add that to the fact that our empire is currently colonizing at least two new planets a rotation. That’s more than any other species I know of. That means the numbers are in our favor.”
Palathum was willing to concede those facts, but she couldn’t shake her fears. She hugged Utharium tighter, trying to draw his confidence into herself.
“I want to believe you.”
“I have one more detail to add,” Utharium said. “No matter where we go, Nataly will be there, so we’ll all be safe. The ancestors won’t let anything happen to their Conduite.”
That helped enormously. “True. As long as I provide for Nataly and her people, they won't want to leave.”
“None of them blame you for the instability of this planet,” Utharium reminded her. “They call it bad luck and say you can never tell when it’s going to hit. They trust Nataly to keep them out of danger, like you do. We will be a successful colony with many happy humans and Talins, including us.”
“Yes,” she agreed, rubbing her own overfull scent glands onto his chest. Utharium rumbled out a happy sound.
They stood in comfortable silence, holding each other. A memory surfaced, making Palathum sound a rumble of amusement.
“Did I tell you about the supply problem when we first got here?” Palathum asked.
