“Meg . . .”
“Those Elders didn’t tell you that you couldn’t ask humans, did they?”
He sighed. “No, they didn’t, but we have to be careful about how many humans know about this. The humans who belong to the HFL are our enemies. They’re burrowed in towns all across Thaisia, and they’re the reason the Elders are looking at all the humans on the continent rather than eliminating the badness in one town and reclaiming the land.”
Of course, he’d already told three humans what was now at stake. He believed Captain Burke and Lieutenant Montgomery could be trusted, but he hadn’t known the third man who had been at the meeting when he told them about the sanctions. Greg O’Sullivan worked for the governor of the Northeast Region, so it was possible that there were already enemies of the terra indigene who were plotting to cause the final bit of trouble that would tip the scales.
If that happened, it wouldn’t be the first time humans disappeared from a part of the world, and Simon doubted it would be the last.
And because that possibility was a rockslide waiting to come down on all of them, it became more imperative to figure out how much human the terra indigene should keep.
“All right,” he said. “Talk to the female pack. But make sure they know this is dangerous information.”
“I will.” Meg stopped suddenly and whispered, “Bunny.”
Bunny? Simon’s mouth watered. Not that he had a good chance of catching one in his human form. He looked around. Smelled the bunny but couldn’t see one. Then he realized Meg was staring at a brown lump in the grass a long step away from them. Could have been a rock or a bit of tree root poking out of the ground—but those things didn’t have ears.
He sighed, disappointed. Just a one-bite bunny.
Meg backed away, pulling him with her.
“Isn’t he cute?” she whispered, heading back toward the Green Complex.
“You won’t think he’s so cute if he eats all your broccoli,” Simon said.
“He wouldn’t do that. Would he?”
“Broccoli is green, and he’s a bunny.”
Meg huffed as she picked up the pace. “Well, he’s still cute.”
And probably would be allowed to grow since he wasn’t much of a meal for anyone right now.
Simon didn’t mention that since he suspected Meg preferred to think of the bunny as cute rather than crunchy.
CHAPTER 2
Sunsday, Juin 5
Meg stared at those gathered in the sorting room at the Human Liaison’s Office—Ruth Stuart, Merri Lee, and Theral MacDonald—and they stared back at her.
“You’ve already heard about this.” The muffins Meg had picked up at A Little Bite sat on the table, untouched.
“Not about this,” Ruth said. “But Karl headed to Captain Burke’s house for a special, secret meeting—at least that’s the opinion I got from what he couldn’t say. And he thinks Captain Burke and Lieutenant Montgomery were told more about the sanctions than was made public. If they were told about this . . .”
“Michael was called in for that meeting too,” Merri Lee said. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Meg, we can’t be responsible for something this . . . big. How can we make a decision about how much human the terra indigene will keep?”
“I don’t think we’re the ones making the decision,” Meg replied. “We’re providing information, maybe prioritizing, so that if . . .” She pressed her hands against the table, trying to ignore the painful pins-and-needles feeling that had started in her arms and was now prickling her entire torso under the skin.
The three girls snapped to attention.
“Meg?” Merri Lee’s voice turned sharp with understanding.
Meg tried to ignore the pain, tried not to think about how the euphoria that came from speaking prophecy after she made a cut would make her feel so good. She’d made a cut last week; she didn’t want to make another so soon. She didn’t know if it was true that a cassandra sangue had only a thousand cuts before the one that would kill her or drive her insane, but if she wanted to live another decade or more, she needed to extend the time between cuts.
“Tell me about this morning,” Merri Lee said. “What did you do this morning? Meg!”
Ruth and Theral hustled to the office’s back room and closed the door—but not all the way.
“The sparrows were awake, so Simon was awake, so he woke me up because he wanted to take a walk. Poophead.”
Merri Lee snorted a laugh. “Meg! That’s not a nice thing to say.”
“Didn’t say it when he could hear me.” And would have to be careful not to say it around the puppies, especially Simon’s nephew Sam. Since she’d learned the bad word from the human boy Robert Denby, she was pretty sure young males of any species would find the term an appealing insult—and no doubt end up getting nipped by one of the adult Wolves, who would not find it as appealing.
Sam no longer lived with Simon on the weekdays. While she missed the pup when he stayed at the Wolfgard Complex instead of being right next door, maybe it was a good thing that Sam spent more time playing with other Wolves than he did playing with human children.
“We saw a little bunny,” Meg continued. “He was cute. Simon said he would eat the broccoli.”
“Possible.” Merri Lee paused. “How do you feel?”
Meg rubbed one arm and then the other. “Better. The prickling is almost gone.”
Ruth and Theral returned to the sorting room.
“You don’t have to do this,” Meg said. “Simon asked for my help.”
“Of course we’ll help,” Merri Lee said. “It sounds like this is a double question: how much of what we call human nature do the Others want to assume for themselves, which is something none of us can answer, and how much of what humans use do the Others want to keep, or need to keep for the people who live in Thaisia?”
“If we’re talking about products, we should start with the personal and work outward,” Ruth said. “Make lists of the things we own and the consumable things we use. And the things we’d really like to keep, like indoor plumbing and ways to heat the house in the winter.”
“We could tear out the business section of one of the phone books,” Theral said. “The businesses wouldn’t exist if someone didn’t need the product or service.”
“Simple Life folk don’t use a lot of things other humans use.” Meg started scratching her right arm, then forced herself to stop.
“It might be to our advantage to find out what they do use,” Merri Lee said.
“We can compare lists tomorrow, and whatever is on all our lists will go on a master ‘Really Want to Keep This’ list,” Ruth said.
“How specific do we need to be?” Theral asked.
Meg closed her eyes and pictured a piece of paper with the word “Tools.” Then she imagined a piece of paper with a list of tools: hammer, screwdriver, saw, pliers.
She opened her eyes, fairly certain she had the correct answer. “General categories. I’m not sure how much time Simon has to provide input before a decision is made, so let’s start with general categories. Tools instead of specific tools. Books instead of specific authors.”
“We’re all working across the street today,” Ruth said. “Mrs. Tremaine moved out last Firesday, so Eve Denby wants to give the two-family house a good cleaning upstairs and down. She said we can paint the upstairs apartment first since Karl is currently bunking with Michael and I’m sleeping on the floor of Merri Lee’s efficiency apartment here.”
Meg almost asked why Karl and Ruth weren’t staying with their families, but she remembered in time that both families were mad at them for being Wolf lovers—a slur given to humans who wanted to work in cooperation with the terra indigene.
“We won’t say anything to Eve,” Ruth said. “Not until we’re told that we can.”
“Will you be all right?” Merri Lee leaned to one side to see through the Private doorway that provided access to the counter in the front room. Then she whispered, “The front door just opened, but I didn’t see—”