She stroked it, and then looked up into Kila's accusing gaze.
“I know, I know. But I'm not going to be cruel to her, and she needs some cuddling.”
“If we hadn't come along, she'd have died, and that would have been the natural cycle of life.” Kila folded her arms.
“Yes. But we did come along. We inserted ourselves into this ecosystem, and I can't bring myself to simply abandon her. Not when that would now involve pulling her off me.” She stroked the shivering little back gently, her fingertips brushing the soft, fluffy fur. “And I'm not going to do that, sweetpea.”
“What is a sweetpea?” Dara asked. She'd come over to watch the standoff between her boss and Rose with an amused gleam in her eye, and now she crouched down in front of Rose to have another look at the baby glider.
The baby's tail twitched a bit as she got close, but she stayed still otherwise.
“It's a term of endearment on Earth. And the name of a pretty flower.”
“Is that what you're going to call her?” Jia asked, and Kila made a hum of disapproval.
“Why not?” Rose cupped the little body with her hand, because it felt a little cool this morning, and stood. “What's the plan for today?”
“We'll do a simple observation, just walking with lenses clipped to everyone's shirts, and gather information until this afternoon. We can come back and look at the footage before it gets dark so we can decide what to focus on tomorrow.” Kila bent to pick up her bowl and cup, and everyone sprang into action, following her lead.
They had had more of an audience than Rose realized.
She was so often the focus of attention, not always friendly, but she hoped by the end of this trip that she wouldn't seem so strange to everyone.
She cleared up her own things, went to brush her teeth in her tent, and then put water, snacks and lunch into a small pack.
Sweetpea clung to her shirt and then climbed up to sit on her shoulder and Rose grinned when she felt a tiny clawed paw grab her hair for balance. She joined the others and they set off at an easy pace.
A few people murmured to each other in quiet conversation, but the sigh of the wind and the crunch of leaves underfoot muted that out. Rose soaked it up hungrily, enjoying the feel of the sun on her face where it managed to filter through the trees, and enjoying the cool gloom of the shade where it didn't.
When she saw a beetle or insect on the ground or a tree, she lifted Sweetpea off her shoulder and put her close to them.
She pounced three times, and managed to get one beetle out of it.
She was learning.
Kila saw what she was doing, and for a change gave a nod of approval. “You're teaching her to hunt for herself. That's good.”
Rose knew the spike of annoyance she felt was really just because she didn't like how Kila made it sound as if she was giving her approval, when Rose wasn't doing it for Kila's approval at all.
Kila didn't mean to get up her nose, but she and the explorations officer had had a rocky relationship from the start. She needed to let it go.
She concentrated on getting back the calm she'd felt before.
The sound of water had been audible for about ten minutes, and they headed toward the source of it. The noise got louder and louder the closer they got and when Rose stepped into the clearing behind Dara she gasped at the cascade of water which tumbled and foamed over rocks and then swirled into a pool.
Dara moved to the edge of the water and lowered a probe into it, then took out a handheld and tapped away at it for a few minutes. “Nothing dangerous in there. Some fish and a few crustaceans, but that's all.”
The clearing was large enough that the sun flooded it with light, and the water danced like diamonds. Rose crouched beside Dara and dipped her hand in.
It was warm on the top, cool below the surface.
“Can I swim?” she asked. No one looked surprised at her question, but then, she was the person onboard the Barrist who used the on-board pool the most.
“I wouldn't mind someone diving in with a lens,” Kila said.
Rose nodded, stripping out of her boots, socks and pants, but keeping her t-shirt and underwear on. Dara clipped a lens to her and Rose put Sweetpea, who had fallen asleep again after her beetle lunch, onto the pile of clothes.
She dived in, going right to the bottom, and sat cross-legged on the smooth pebbles of the pool's floor. The Grih were too light-boned to do this, she had discovered. She had to move her arms in a churning motion to keep herself down and when she ran out of air, she rose slowly back to the surface.
Everyone was on the bank, looking at her.
“You have good lung capacity,” Jia said, sounding a little breathless.
Rose slicked her hair back from her face. “It's wonderful down there. I recommend it.”
It looked like there were no takers though, so she did another dive down, swimming a circuit around the pool and then joined the others for lunch in the sun.
Like it had yesterday, exhaustion suddenly squeezed her in its grip, and she lay on a thin, waterproof blanket on the ground in the sun to dry off, her eyes drooping, her body wanting nothing more than to sleep.
Hri Rivel shook her shoulder to rouse her when it was time to go.
“I don't want to,” she said, half-asleep. “I want to stay right here.” She struggled up, blinking. She didn't want to leave, but if she was difficult, if she wasn't a team player, Kila would maybe push back against having her join the explorations team in the future, and she didn't want that. She yawned. “Sorry, I'll get moving.”
“We will only go on for another hour, and return this way, so you can stay here if you want.” Kila adjusted the straps of her pack. “We can leave the perimeter alarms Lieutenant Appal's people set up around the clearing while we ate lunch, in case anything dangerous we haven't anticipated comes through, but I doubt anything will.” She paused. “If you would reactivate your lens, you might capture more than we would have otherwise if you lie still like you were.”
Now that was a plan she could get behind.
“You've got a deal.” Rose smiled at Kila with a great deal more warmth than she'd felt earlier. “See you in an hour.”
Jia looked between them. “You sure you'll be all right to stay here alone?”
Rose nodded. “It's just an hour. And you can leave the perimeter alarms.”
Jia wavered, then acquiesced. “See you then. Don't wander off. Stay here.”
“I promise.”
They left, and Rose lay back down, enjoying the privacy, enjoying the silence.
Sweetpea chirped and then crawled up to curl into a tiny ball of fluff on her chest, and Rose fell back asleep with a smile.
5
Rose woke with a shiver.
The day had lost its warmth, something that confused her as she dragged herself out of sleep.
She didn't feel refreshed. She still felt tired.
She opened her eyes to find Sweetpea staring at her from her perch on Rose's chest.
“Hello, baby.” Her voice came out rusty, and she sat up carefully, cupping Sweetpea with a hand to keep her from falling.
As she got her bearings, she saw the reason for the cool weather was the sun was much lower in the sky.