This he would mention. “Postcards are better unless you’re writing a long letter or it’s something private. There are Crows and Ravens helping to sort mail now in places like Bennett, and they like looking at the pictures and reading the messages.” Seeing the look on Debany’s face, he shrugged. “There’s more than one kind of shiny.”

A bump and a mutter had them looking toward the front of the stock room.

“Lieutenant,” Debany said.

“Michael.” Montgomery looked around at all the boxes. “Back orders?”

“Orders and back orders,” Simon replied. “And two more vans full of boxes coming in.”

“Guess I’ll get ready for work,” Debany said.

“This afternoon we’re finally signing the papers and handing over the money for the two apartment buildings. By tomorrow, Merri Lee can choose her den, and Eve Denby will help her clean it and paint it.” Since Montgomery was listening, Simon resisted the urge to ask about mating customs and if Debany would be moving into the den too. The sex part of mating and the living in the same den were different things for humans. He and Meg spent as much time living in the same place—and sleeping in the same bed—as Debany and Merri Lee, but Meg was still more like a maiden female who wasn’t ready for the sex part of mating.

But she was very good at play.

Shaking off those thoughts—and admitting he wanted to postpone giving Montgomery the message he’d been asked to deliver—he realized Debany had slipped out and now it was Montgomery who was handing him books.

The man looked older and weighed down by some hard truths.

“Miss Twyla nipped the pups this morning,” he offered.

Montgomery smiled at that. “My mama doesn’t take back talk from anyone. Lizzy should have known better.”

“She will the next time.”

“We always think there will be enough time, but that’s not always true, is it?”

Simon waited, but when Montgomery just held the books, he reached over and took them. “Sometimes a pack doesn’t catch meat in time to save all its members if they’ve been hungry for too long, but you’ll bring back food in time.” Wasn’t that the most important consideration right now? The farms that belonged to the terra indigene and were worked by Intuits in exchange for part of the bounty hadn’t suffered much from the storms and the Elders’ sweep through human places, and the Courtyard’s gardens had survived and were growing quickly during these warm, sunny days. While the Others could easily adapt to eating whatever the current season would provide, he and the rest of the Business Association were aware that humans weren’t used to thinking in those terms.