His tail stands straight up and the zurgle prances a little.Fish? Kissu likes fish. Kissu doesn’t remember taste. But know like.
“What is going on?”
“Yeah…?” Kilo says. “Are you having a conversation right now?”
I ignore them both.
“Did one of these Sisans belong to you?” I vaguely point at the buildings. “Do you know where they went?”
Other Sisans still here.
My skin crawls and I look around, but there is no movement. No thought.
“Where?”
Kissu paws at the ground.Down.
“Why did it stop purring?” Kilo asks through clenched teeth.
I don’t answer the question. “Do they come back?”
The zurgle looks up at the sky.Too bright. Only night.
“Thanks,” I say to it before turning to Kilo and Riann. “They’re not here.”
Wrong.Kissu makes a sneezing sound, shaking his head.
“Let’s head back so you can deal with your paperwork,” I tell Riann and then look at Kilo, “and you can feed your zurgle.”
Why lie?
They both look at me and the zurgle with appropriate confusion. They don’t know what’s just happened, and I can’t tell them yet, but Kilo turns Riann around and pushes him back to the car. “Yeah, sure. And on the way back you can tell us what yourgirlfriendis going to say about you wasting your time out here when you could be convincing her to bond to you.”
“What are you talking about?” Riann asks, looking between us with a new confusion, but I don’t rise to Kilo’s bait, and Kilo just pretends to lock his mouth and throw away the key before heading back toward the car.
The zurgle follows. And I lag, letting them get ahead of us.
Why does Sisan lie?
“I can’t say things I don’t want other Sisans to hear,” I tell Kissu, as quietly as I can.
Just because I can’t hear anyone else’s thoughts doesn’t mean they’re not listening to us from underground.
The zurgle tips its head to the side and then nods.Understand. Pum.
It purrs so loudly, even Riann turns to look behind him.
“You’re still following us,” I tell it, not sure if it will understand the implied question.
It wags its head in a semblance of agreement.
I don’t know whatthatmeans, but we get back to the car and as Kilo closes up his drone, I get in the driver’s seat, and the zurgle hops into the other front seat beside me, tail twitching as it studies the vehicle.
Pum pum how far?
I laugh, because, what am I supposed to tell it? “What measurement do you want?”
It looks up at me and I flinch back at the string of equations it thinks at me. The other information makes me pinch at the bridge of my nose.“Saints.”
