Kylee leaned her cheek against Flute’s jaw, feeling the warmth and hardness of the polymer bone beneath. “Human parents do that. Remember how frightened you were when we bonded? Quetzals don’t feel emotions like we do. Quetzal emotions are . . . different. More pragmatic.”

She rapped at the side of his serrated teeth, adding, “Probably because you kill and eat your parents so you can synthesize their knowledge.”

Efficient.

“Wasteful,” she shot back.

It was an old argument between them.

So is letting a human die of old age without saving the knowledge he has learned.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “I hear you. Next you’re going to tell me about the way terrestrial life is born ‘empty,’ as you call it. And yes, we have to learn everything over from the beginning with each birth. So, don’t tell me it’s inefficient. We build starships. Quetzals don’t.”

Don’t have to tell. You know. He made mocking chirps through his tail vents. Quetzals are better.

She jabbed him with an elbow, her body pressed against his as he wrapped a foreleg around her and held her close. Her side fit perfectly into the curve of his claws. “Where are we going, Flute? What comes next? Lately, especially after Tip left, I’ve started to wonder.”

What?

If it had been light, she’d have seen his hide turn yellow, green, and pink with interrogative.

“Like Tip, I guess, I’ve been wondering if this is a dead end. What comes next? What are we doing with our lives? There’s more to living than just the next meal.”

Flute uttered a deep guttural clicking, his sound for incredulousness. His way of asking: Like what?

“Making a contribution,” she told him. “Accomplishing something. Achievement. Purpose. Being able to look back and say, ‘I did that.’”

Flute huffed from his vents.

She gave him a playful shove. “Don’t scoff. You know just what I mean. Why did they call you Third Orange? It was because you agreed to bond with Yellow Girl and Brown Boy, as your lineage called Tip and me. You said yes. To make a difference. To learn something new. Achievement. Purpose.”

He was signing something she couldn’t see when she heard it: “Kylee?”

Weak. Strained. Barely audible over the increasing wind.

“Dear God,” Kylee peeled free of Flute’s hold.

Then she was out the door, the quetzal close behind her.

“Tip!” she cried, lightning lancing across the sky overhead.

“Here!” he answered an instant before the crack of thunder deafened. It came from the direction of the swing.

Flute, with his better trinocular vision, veered right, shooting across the field. Quetzals could hit one hundred and forty kilometers per hour in a sprint. Kylee, despite her longer-than-normal legs and augmented muscles, was left behind.

When she pulled up at the edge of the trees, Flute lifted Tip’s limp body with his forelegs, signing Injured in the infrared.