Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 67092 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67092 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
But no matter how strange it was, Raak seemed to know exactly where he was headed. He strode confidently along and Kara followed, anxious not to lose him in the shiny, reflective crowd.
As they went, many of the leaves brushed against her arms and her bare legs, since she still just had on Raak’s spare silver uniform shirt. She wondered if the plant people—the Xephronians—were touching her on purpose. Maybe they were as curious about her as she had been about them when she was touching their guide’s leaf.
The touches were constant but soft and gentle, barely brushing her skin, so Kara tried not to mind.
It’s just like walking through a forest, she told herself uneasily. A forest with lots of trees all crowded together and really thick branches.
But the branches of normal trees didn’t touch you on purpose. And besides, the Xephronians didn’t seem to be shaped like regular trees anyway. They were more like the tropical plants that sometimes grew in Florida, the place on earth that was her mother’s birthplace, with their broad, fan-like leaves which were almost as big as Kara’s head.
She heard some of them murmuring in their rustling, tinkling voices. However, it was difficult to understand what they were saying even though she’d had a dose of the translation bacteria the Kindred gave to all females who were human or half human that allowed them to understand almost any foreign or alien language.
“What are they saying about us?” she whispered to Raak. “And why do they keep touching me?”
“They’re just curious, baby girl,” he assured her. “Don’t worry—I’ve been to Xephron Five several times now—nothing here is going to hurt you. The natives just like new things, that’s all.”
In fact, after a moment, Kara realized that was what the rustling mirrored plant people were saying.
“New,new,new,new,new,” they tinkled and chimed over and over in a kind of harmonious chorus as they continued to brush her lightly with their “leaves.”
“Why do you come here, other than the fact that you like to explore?” Kara asked the big Unbondable. “I mean, what do you get from the, uh, Xephronians in trade?”
“Their leaves,” he told her.
“What?” Kara was momentarily horrified. “But isn’t that like trading away a hand or a limb?”
Raak shook his head.
“Nah. They shed them the way you and I shed pieces of hair or clip our fingernails. They can always grow more, and the flexible, highly reflective leaves have a lot of uses in the tech industry—especially when focusing lasers or scopes.”
“Oh, I can see how that would be true,” Kara said thoughtfully. “But…what do you give them in return for their, er, hair and fingernail clippings?”
He shrugged, his broad shoulders rolling.
“Pretty much anything, actually. They have an insatiable thirst for new things—they’ll sit and contemplate a dish or a boot or whatever you have for hours.” He shrugged again. “It makes them happy and their old leaves are valuable to me so that makes me happy. It’s a win-win situation.”
“I see.” Kara was fascinated that he’d managed to not only make contact with such a disparate species, but also to make a lucrative trade deal with them as well. “How did you make the deal with them in the first place?” she asked, wanting to know more.
“I decided to land here—even though a lot of traders avoid Xephron Five like the plague—and check it out. At first they didn’t know what to make of me—a whole bunch of them surrounded me and started stroking me all over and chanting “New,new,new” like they’re doing now.”
Kara’s eyes widened.
“That must have really freaked you out!”
“A little,” he admitted. “But I realized pretty quickly they weren’t hostile. I asked about making a trade with them and they told me I would have to speak to their Kaji first. Once they took me to him, er, it, and Qi approved me, I was free to trade with them as much as I wanted.” He grinned at her. “And I’ve been coming back ever since. It’s a pretty lucrative deal and the Xephronians are nice people, when you get to know them.”
Once more, Kara was impressed with his nonchalance and open-mindedness. Of course, the Kindred were genetic traders by nature but they mostly made contact with other people they could possibly mate with or found animals with little or no sentience they could modify genetically to suit their purposes. She liked that Raak didn’t rule out an entire species just because they weren’t genetically compatible or biologically useful.
“So this Qi,” she said, keeping her voice low, though they were speaking in the Kindred Standard tongue, so she was pretty sure none of the Xephronians could understand them. “What is he, um, it, like? I mean, what does it look like? Is it the same as the rest of the people here?” She motioned at the sea of reflective plant people they were still wading through.