Page 22 of Moon Tamed

I couldn’t even bring myself to get mad at him. As my chair had survived, I sat down, draped a towel over my lap to protect my clothes, patted my lap, and waited for the bird to take over. He settled, pressing against my body as close as he could and making a low crooning noise. I petted him, wondering how a bird processed the trauma of being relocated to a new world far from the people he’d known.

Calden returned a few minutes later with the supplies, spotted my keyboard, and laughed. “All right. We’ll have to crate him when you’re not with him, obviously. I’ll get a pen for him. There are a few large enough for a peacock around. I think. Poor guy. He’s having a rough day.”

“I think he used to be a pet. He’s really affectionate. He even knows to wait for me to put a towel down before he gets on my lap, and he’ll sit quietly for well over an hour without wanting to budge. It’s sad.”

Such a good bird didn’t happen by accident, and his owner must have loved him a lot.

I could only hope Doom Bird’s owner had escaped whatever had sent the bird fleeing Earth.

“It wouldn’t surprise me at all. Dad now has a herd of horses. Don’t ask me what we’re going to do with a bunch of horses. We don’t even know yet. He has a place outside of the city with the acreage required for them, so he hired someone to get them settled and build a new stable.”

“Do you think it’s an evacuation?”

“I know so. The people in the region also left by portal, but they weren’t authorized to come here. We can risk losing animals to the vaccination process, but there are those afraid we’ll just kill each other triggering some plague. That’s half the reason it’s a ten year trip to Earth. It’s a year of vaccinations and treatments on each end. The medicine and workings we use to treat the animals kills half a percent of them, which is too high for humans.”

I made a mental note to research transplanetary inoculation. “What region was hit?”

“All of them. Tomorrow, our people are returning home. We’re already setting up an emergency quarantine so we can issue vaccinations and treatments.”

My eyes widened. “What happened?”

“An old, dangerous volcano woke up. We lost some of our faction in the initial blast, but the rest are gathering as many plants and animals as they can before they reopen the portal in the morning.”

I regarded my peacock, swallowing back the growing lump in my throat. “I guess I’m going to change his name to Lucky, then.”

However accurate, I didn’t want anyone to think he’d held responsibility for something far outside anyone’s control—and he’d gotten lucky to escape the dying planet alive.

“Good name. If you want some pets, let me know. Your office has plenty of space for some, and we have people who will take care of animals when their owners aren’t in the office. We can’t release everything to the wild, so our faction is going to become a menagerie of sorts, except it’s more of a faction perk.”

I couldn’t imagine how bad it would be for the environment if huge numbers of birds and animals were released into the wild. The rabbits and songbirds would make a mess of things for a while as it was. “I guess I should get something I can take home but will be okay if I have to leave here for a few days.”

“I’ll pick something for you. Do yourself a favor and avoid the news. It’s bad, and it’s not going to be getting any better.”

FOUR

What kind of kittens are these?

I should have avoided the news.

While I had never been to Earth, watching the aftermath of the eruption would haunt me for years to come. Within ten minutes of confirming the planet died, with the surviving human populace fleeing the eruption site and waiting for portals or ships to escape, I threw myself into my work.

I comforted Lucky as much as I could, especially when he checked the door to see if someone was coming. How could I explain to a bird that his owner had ventured off to some other world, assuming his owner had survived?

At the end of the work day, Calden came to my office with a small carrier. “You’re getting a pair of kittens,” he announced.

“Kittens?”

“Dad found them in a crate of orphaned animals. Apparently, those in charge of rescuing wildlife raided animal shelters, zoos, and similar places and shoved as many as they could fit into crates without hurting them. And honestly, they overfilled most of the crates, so our estimates are way off. At current count, they crammed over forty-thousand animals into crates meant to hold thirty thousand.”

Ouch. On one hand, I worried for the animals, but on the other, I admired the rescuers who put their lives on the line to get as many of the defenseless away from Earth as possible. My brief but traumatic look at the news gave me a better idea of the staggering scale of the evacuation efforts. “That’s incredible.”

“Dad thought you might be able to handle them, especially once Lucky goes to your parents tonight.”

Wait. What? “What kind of kittens are these?” Did he think I couldn’t handle a regular house cat or two?

“They’re cheetahs. Their mom had been poached. They’re three weeks old.”

I blinked, and then my eyes widened. “Cheetahs? Big, spotted, and critically endangered?”

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