“He’s the last link I have to my siblings,” he said, resorting to English. “Humans might lose some family members, but I feel like I’ve lost all my family. I remember being excited when Jackson was born because John was excited. John was my baby brother, and I have all these memories of us when we were young, and so I love what he loved.”
She tightened her arm, and that comfort made the emotions rise like a tidal wave. Most of the time, Zach didn’t think about his human family, but he mourned every person he had loved—every person who had passed on to the next world before him. “How can I help?” she asked.
“Don’t die before me,” Zach begged.
She wrapped both arms around him. “I will outlive you. The Imshee cannot give a human enough years to outlive a Grandmother.”
“I outlived my first one.” Zach still felt the echo of that grief.
“I wish she had been wise enough to give you to one who was younger.” She showed a hint of tooth. Zach laughed, and those drove away some of his more maudlin thoughts.
“She would have skinned your tail if you showed her a tooth.”
“She should show her teeth to herself.” She glurbled. “She likely did once she realized the Imshee had given you more years than she could tend. She never would have intended to leave you behind.”
“I would have walked into the wilderness with her.” Zach still hated that she had walked away from the ship so she could die alone. He had fought to go with her, but in a ship full of Rownt, he had been doomed to lose that fight.
“Do you suffer for a lack of emotional connections?”
Zach sighed. Sometimes he felt like he had too many emotional connections, and the pain of each breaking was becoming a burden he didn’t know how to carry. “I don’t know that I would phrase it that way. I feel like I’ve lost something with Jackson dying, but I don’t know how to fill the hole in my soul.”
She paled.
“Hey.” Zach shifted around so he could look her in the eye. “This has nothing to do with you. If I need more connections, it’s because I have always had more people in my life.” Zach knew she was comparing him to Liam. All the Rownt did the same. But even worse, she would be comparing herself to Ondry and wondering why he was enough for Liam, but she wasn’t enough for Zach. Rownt were competitive—the Grandmothers more than most.
“Would you wish to form connections? We could procure another predator while we are here.”
Zach sighed. He still missed Duke, but the two dogs that had followed had lived such short lives. Zach tried to stand, but his Grandmother held on. “I’m fine. I would like to go wash up.” Zach made it very clear that he did not want company when he was in the toilet or cleaning himself, and the Grandmothers respected that boundary. However, apparently that didn’t extend to letting him go so he could reach the hygiene rooms.
Zach struggled for a minute before sagging back down onto her. No doubt she recognized his emotional turmoil. “Unless you can talk the Imshee into extending the predator’s life for free, I would rather we not.”
“You regret your long life,” she said. Maybe the other Grandmothers wouldn’t say that because they had helped negotiate the Imshee deal, but his Grandmother had been a tuk-ranked engineer back when theCaltihad made that trade. She could say the Grandmothers had made a bad deal without implicating herself.
“I don’t regret it.” He reached up and traced a circle around her fora. “I will never regret more time with you and my work is fascinating. The linguistic similarities and differences in the various alien languages is a subject worthy of several lifetimes of study.” Zach loved studying the Cy and how they had interacted with humans, even back before humans could travel in space.
She studied him for long minutes, her eyes wide with confusion. “What part do you regret?” she asked.
Zach sucked in a breath. She might’ve been an expert in the great engines that drove theCalti, but she had a rare insight into how he worked as well. “I regret that I don’t have family still alive to talk to. I can’t go to any of my siblings and share memories of Jackson, and no one alive today even remembers any of my brothers or sisters or my parents.”
“Would you like to raise an eggling?”
Shock robbed Zach of any words. She blinked at him, her expression as calm as if she hadn’t dropped a verbal bomb. Zach opened his mouth, closed it, and had to kick-start his brain before he could respond. “Egglings can’t live in the temple.” Experiments and dangerous equipment and confidential information made it the worst place for any child.
“We can move to private quarters.” She made that sound so casual.
“But your status!” Zach was horrified.
“I would remain a Grandmother.” She stroked his neck. “I am not so old and experienced that my presence is required in the temple at all times. The ship will fly without me.”
Her words were logical, but the lack of arrogance made it hard for Zach to recognize his beloved Grandmother. “You don’t have eggs ready,” he said, but his voice lacked strength, like his argument.
“I have never been able to lay eggs,” she said. “However, I am patient with the errors of others, which made those who did lay eggs trust me with theirs.” Her fingers stilled against Zach’s neck. “I raised only two egglings, and one left the nest before I was ready to see him walk empty paths. I would like to raise an eggling. I would like to raise an eggling with you.”
Zack couldn’t catch his breath.
The skin around her eyes tightened. “If we find some egglings and admire them outrageously, we may tempt a female into leaving a hatchling in our path.” She tightened her hold on him for a second before she stood, offering her hand to help him up.
“All we have to do is admire egglings?” As adoption processes went, that seemed incomplete.
