Devi's Distraction (Icehome #7) - Ruby Dixon Page 0,1

babble at him for twenty minutes, make us both uncomfortable, and then mentally play it back in my head for the next two days.

Just then, I see one of the “spaghetti monster” invertebrates lying in a clump of seaweed and I immediately nudge it with my stick. It rolls over and I bite back a squeal of delight at the sight of the serrated teeth on the underside of its belly. When I first saw them, I thought they were related to Earth jellyfish thanks to their tentacles, but the more I study them, the more unusual they seem. This one has a beak and comb-like teeth, which remind me of squid, and his tentacles aren’t spread all over the sac of his body but clustered onto two sides. That definitely confirms my hypothesis that there are at least three types of the spaghetti monsters…or three different stages of development.

It’s so terribly exciting that I feel my heart hammering as I crouch low and slice it open with my shale knife. If I were in a lab, someone would be screaming in horror at my dissection techniques, but since there’s no one here but me, I don’t care. I study the innards, comparing it mentally to the last one I opened up. This one has an egg sac tucked inside, next to the digestive tract and so I flip the creature over, looking for an orifice for the eggs to come out of. I thought they only had one opening—the mouth—but unless it mutates to allow the eggs to emerge through its skin, they have to come out somewhere.

I’m so focused that I forget all about the hunter that was approaching me.

“Ho,” a deep voice says.

“Hi,” I respond automatically, and when he comes to stand right over me, casting a shadow, I gesture for him to move. “You’re in the light.”

“What do you do, human?” He sounds puzzled. “Are you hungry?”

“I’m examining this invertebrate to determine its physiology,” I say, squinting up at the guy and trying to place his features. The islanders are as interesting as the rest of the life on this planet, what with three distinct recessive traits prominently displayed in their people. This one is of Shadow Cat, judging by the beard on his jaw and the thickly furred forearms. “Who are you again?”

“I am S’bren of Shadow Cat clan,” he says. “You are D’vi, yes?”

“Yes.” I glance down at my specimen that he’s currently dripping over. “Er, can you move please?”

He kicks it into the water, and I bite back a yelp. “You should not eat things that wash up on the beach, female. They will make your stomach angry. If you are hungry, I will feed you.”

“I wasn’t eating it! I was examining it!”

S’bren frowns at me, clearly not understanding. “To…eat?”

“To study! To determine where the egg sac emerges from the body!”

He blinks at me, and then back at the dead creature that’s even now being carried into the icy waves, soon to be gone. “Because…you wish to eat eggs?”

“I don’t want to eat anything. I’m trying to determine its physiology so I can establish what evolutionary features it shares with its cousins. There are three different types of those creatures, did you know that? The tentacle placement is different, and some have a beak, and some…” I break off, sighing at how pointless it is to explain this. He’s just giving me a narrow-eyed look as if I’m the one not making sense around here.

“It is what we call a ‘Little Sting,’” he says to me. “They are all the same.”

“They sting you?” Oh my god, maybe they are like jellyfish. This is terribly exciting. “From the tentacles or from contact? Do they secrete something that irritates the skin?”

S’bren just frowns at me. “You say much nonsense, D’vi. I do not understand you.”

Story of my life. I try to smile. “I’m just saying that there are different kinds of those creatures, that’s all. They’re all ‘Little Sting’ like you call them, but there are different types of ‘Little Sting.’ Just like your island clans. You are related to Strong Arm but are very different in appearance—”

He scowls. “No.”

I go silent. I guess that’s not a good comparison to make? When he continues to glare down at me, I offer, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to insult.”

“You did not know,” S’bren says, and flashes his fangs at me. “Come, let us go to camp and I will feed you so you do not scavenge on