that a few of the babies were blonde, which must be an extremely recessive trait, unless the khui adjusts that as well.
So fascinating. Everything about this planet is just so fascinating.
Ahsoka stares up at me, drool running down the side of her little mouth, and then she gives me a gummy smile. I offer her a finger and she clamps down on it. Three fingers and a thumb instead of four fingers. Another dominant trait.
“So what’s the story?” Liz asks, moving back to my side. She absently reaches over and swipes the drool off of Ahsoka’s apple cheeks and then goes back to drinking her tea.
“Story?” I ask, cuddling Ahsoka close.
She gestures at the beach. “Is this the game shit or is it some new crisis that my mate’s going to jump into head first?”
Oh. I glance over at the crowd on the beach. Sure enough, Raahosh is heading over there with an authoritative step…and one daughter in his arms, another holding his hand. He heads over to R’jaal and the men begin to talk even as others pause to chitchat. I see smiles on all the faces except for Raahosh, but even he seems less stern than usual. “It’s the games.”
She looks over at me, eyes narrowed. “You sound disgusted.”
“I wish it wasn’t on the beach,” I admit. My reasons are selfish, of course. The changes in the weather—likely spurred on by the volcanic activity from the island—are sure to taper off, and once they do, fewer specimens will wash up on the beach. I have a limited window in which to do uninterrupted studying, and with that many people clustered around? That’s a definite interruption.
“I wish all of this wasn’t on the beach,” Liz says cheerfully. “But wish in one hand, shit in the other, blah blah blah.” She grimaces at her drink. “The tea here is terrible, too. There’s better leaves back at Croatoan. I need to tell Veronica to meet up with Kemli when she goes back and to raid her pantry. That woman knows her tea.”
“Mmm.” I reply, because I’m not a fan of the tea here at all. It tastes like boiled pine needles. I watch as the men move around on the beach, pointing at the sand, and one of Liz’s daughters bounds away, only to have Raahosh chase after her. “Can I ask you something, Liz?”
“Shoot.”
“Why is everyone acting like the tension around camp is Bridget’s fault? Or Callie?” I’d add Hannah’s name to the list, but she conveniently ran off to the fruit caves with Brooke and Taushen, a trip that I’m terribly jealous of. My focus is animal life, of course, but I still wouldn’t miss out on a chance to see something like that.
“Because men are big babies and can’t think when their dicks are hard.” She nods out at the beach. “This is to distract them.”
“But…why is it Bridget and Callie’s fault?”
“I didn’t say it was. In fact, I said it wasn’t so very hard that now my mate has retreated to the beach to avoid me.” Liz smirks and takes another sip of her tea. “These men are good guys but they don’t know how to deal with women. They think that because they have penises we should be grateful to slobber on them and it’s clearly our fault when someone doesn’t want to. I can argue until I’m blue in the face—no pun intended—and it won’t get through to someone like A’tam. I’ve talked to Callie and Bridget both, though, and they know they don’t have to do jack shit because some guy’s pressuring them. I’ve also made it clear to Raahosh that if the girls complain about how the guys are acting, we’re sending their asses on a hunt just to get them out of camp. I won’t let anyone be harassed on my watch.”
She looks so fierce I’m momentarily a little terrified of her. “So…the games?”
“Right. Games to get some testosterone out of their systems and tire them out. Think of them like fussy children. I know I do.” She gestures at the beach. “This is their pacifier.”
I sigh, looking at the waves crashing onto shore, imagining all the things washing up that I could be missing out on. I wiggle my finger for Ahsoka and say, “Did they have to do it on the beach, though?”
“I guess you’ll just have to pull the wings off of flies here in camp, huh?”