I shoot her my haughtiest look, my tail swishing. "A flower, actually. Have you seen one?"
Her brow furrows and she makes a gesture of a growing thing with her hands so Set'nef can catch up. "This is going to be a garden, but nothing's going to come up for a while, if ever. It's an experiment."
"What sort of experiment?" I approach despite my efforts to appear disinterested. When I move to Yasmin's side, I see that the ground underneath has been cleared of the dry, stringy yellow grasses that thrive under the snows. The earth has been bared and scratched at.
Yasmin pulls the lid off Set'nef's basket. "When the soil is bad underground, the Ancestors ferment fish and compost it to act as fertilizer. Harlow says that Tiffany did something similar at the old caves in the other tribe. I'm going to spread some hereover seeds, cover them with the hay, and see if we can't get anything to grow. All kinds of things grow on the cliffs, so it stands to reason that more than just grass can grow in the dirt. It just needs the snow moved off of it so the more fragile plants can breathe."
I scoff at the idea of a garden on a wintry planet. April said her home had greenery and warmth. This world has neither. "It sounds incredibly foolish. It snows here almost every day."
"It's worth trying, and we'll never know unless we give it a shot." She gives me an annoyed look. "Are you here to be a pest or are you here to actually help out?"
How quickly they forget. "As I said, I'm looking for flowers."
"Then you're just here to be a pest." She makes a shooing motion with her hands. "Go away, then. We have work to do."
"Who else would know about flowers?" I persist. "Or who can journey with me to the fruit cave? I don't know the path yet."
Set'nef ignores me. His hands — all four of them — are deftly weaving several grasses together. He glances at Yasmin and waits for her to answer.
She thinks for a moment and then shrugs. "Maybe go talk to Devi? She's the biologist. She'll know where you can find a flower."
Devi. She's the tall female that spends all day looking at shells on the shoreline with her one-legged mate at her side. I know which one she is. "I would say thank you, but I'm not sure you helped."
The human female makes a face at me. "You're welcome anyhow."
Set'nef finishes the braid of grasses and ties it off, making it into a loop. Despite the fact that he just started on it a moment ago, it's beautifully woven and complex. He sets it atopYasmin's thick, dark hair like a crown, and she beams up at him as if he just did something amazing.
Disgusting. Both of them.
I turn and head back to the beach, and as I walk, I wonder if April would like a grass crown.
Devi is exactly where I expected. I find her on the beach, her mate a short distance away. He sits at the edge of a tide pool with his son, plucking out snails and putting them into a basket. He doesn't get up from his spot on the rocks, but he watches me as I approach his mate just the same. The human female is crouched low, her long, dark braid dragging a line on the sand. She is oblivious to my presence, focused on the thin bone tool in her hand. With it, she carefully turns over what looks like a clump of seaweed and studies it thoughtfully.
I clear my throat.
She doesn't look up.
I clear my throat again. "I need a flower."
Devi turns her head, squinting up at me. "What?"
"I need a flower, and you are a biologist."
"I'm really not sure what those two have to do with each other." Devi returns to looking at the seaweed, dragging the tip of her stick across it. "Does this look like mucus to you or am I seeing things?"
"I don't see what this has to do with flowers," I retort back.
She pushes the stick under the wet seaweed and lifts it. It hangs in the air, and she straightens and holds it out in front of me. "It's wet, but is itwaterwet or mucus wet? I want a second opinion, and if my theory is correct, everyone on the beach needs to be aware."
I shoot her another annoyed look and touch the seaweed.It's slimy to the touch, and when I pull back, a droplet of clear ooze splats onto the sand. A stench arises and I cover my nose. "Ugh, what's that smell?"
"Mucus," Devi says grimly, staring down at the fallen blob of goo. "I was afraid of that."
"What's the problem with it?"
"Oh, it's not a problem. It's part of a natural cycle. Unfortunately for us, this particular natural cycle disruptsournatural cycle." She lifts her head and puts a hand to her mouth. "N'dek? It's mucus, all right."
He looks just as worried as her, turning to their son and indicating he should come away from the water's edge. N'dek has one leg that is prosthetic, so he stands up by putting his weight on his hands first and swinging his prosthetic slowly into place. Once he's on his feet, he moves over to us. "Just as you feared. How much time do you think we have?"
