“You’ll need to become human again, if you want to talk,” she said, but Chitin just gave her a happy, full-jawed yawn, and lay down on the floor.

  “Fine. Have it your way,” she sulked. “I need to sleep anyway.”

  Chitin closed his eyes, and buried his nose under the tip of his tail. Of one thing he was sure, the tiger would definitely not fit down the tunnel, and this chamber was probably not on any of the schematics. It would be one of those anomalies that only an expert could detect, and he doubted that even an expert would be able to get into it without making a lot of noise.

  He woke to the smell of a self-heating meal set inches from his nose. The child was sitting on her bed, looking at him expectantly.

  “It’s beef,” she said, when she saw him open his eyes.

  Chitin looked at her and yawned, and then he stretched and yawned again. Self-heat or not, the food smelled good, so he ate, and then sat in the corner and stared at the child. There were too many questions he wanted answered for him to stay a wolf, and he didn’t want to become human, again, until he had more room to move.

  He nudged the mesh grill with his nose, and glanced back at the girl expectantly. When she didn’t move, he nudged the grill, again, and then looked back at her with a grumbling whine.

  “Do you think it’s safe to leave?”

  He gave a soft wuff, and she got up.

  “You going to tell me what you’re doing?”

  Chitin nudged the notebook and the auto-cam, and looked at her.

  “You want to use the net?”

  Chitin gave another quiet wuff.

  “Do we still need to hide?”

  Wuff, wuff.

  “Okay, then. I think I know a place. It’s not as safe as here, but there’s room to run away in, ’kay?”

  Chitin wagged his tail, and the child took down the grill, and led the way into the maintenance shaft. This time, they came out somewhere in the business district, a level up from Nev’s, near a loading dock.

  “Lots of exits,” the child explained, as Chitin slid into his human body once more.

  “Thank you,” Chitin said, and settled himself on an upturned box. “What’s your name?”

  “I remember Tallie,” the child said, shyness softening her tone.

  “Do you like it?”

  “I… It’s okay, I guess.”

  “Good. I need to make a call. You trust me?”

  “I let you out, didn’t I?”

  Chitin regarded her for a long moment. He didn’t want to think of the meaning behind that. It was just…not something he wanted to contemplate.

  “I’m calling Odyssey,” he said.

  “To check on the kitty?”

  “Yup.”

  “’Kay.”

  Chitin placed the call, making sure Tallie was out of the camera shot, and making sure his backdrop was the slab-sided wall of the dock. He even tried not to look past the screen, to give no indication Tallie was within range.

  “You took your time.” The woman on the other end was blonde, and had the heart-shaped face of an angel.

  She’d fool most people, but Chitin had caught a glimpse of her eyes before she turned her attention fully to the screen. He didn’t want her hunting him, ever. Here was to hoping she never would.

  “What do you want with the child?”

  “She’s one of a dozen taken by Rafferty.”

  Chitin closed the notebook and stood up.

  “We have to go,” he said, and then registered the voice coming from the earbud he’d forgotten to disconnect.

  “…but we took him down four weeks ago.”

  Chitin stopped mid-stride, turned around, and settled back onto the crate. The woman was visibly annoyed, when he opened the laptop once more.

  “It’s what Matt was trying to tell you, yesterday. That child is safe. We’re only trying to return her to where she came from.”

  He ignored the movement that was Tallie creeping closer to the back of the notebook, resisted the urge to look at her.

  “And what if she doesn’t want to go?”

  “She has to go back to her parents.”

  Chitin kept his gaze steady, ignoring Tallie’s movement at his feet.

  “What if she doesn’t want to go?”

  The woman stared at him.

  “Wolfman, I don’t think that’s your decision to make.”

  Chitin waited no longer. He snapped the laptop cover closed, and stood up, turning to leave it, and the earbuds, on the crate.

  “Run,” he said, to Tallie, and she asked no questions, merely sprinting away from the loading dock, before turning sharply into a narrow gap he would have missed. It was a squeeze even for his lanky frame, and Chitin gave in to the need to move quickly, and shifted back into a wolf.

  Tallie glanced back when she didn’t hear him following, smiling when she saw the wolf.

  “Come on, boy,” she said, and fled.

  When they were several blocks distant, Tallie slipped through a partly ajar gate, and around a large potted fern.

  “Right,” she said, as Chitin came to a halt beside her. “Do you need to make another call?”

  Wuff.

  “Don’t change back until I introduce you,” she instructed, and Chitin cocked his head in question.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Trust me,” the girl whispered.

  Chitin whined softly, and she laid a hand on his head.

  “Come on. We can borrow Stella’s comm.”

  Chitin shook her hand off his head, but let her lead him through the gate, which opened onto the courtyard space. As he moved, he took the time to look around, noting the profusion of ferns, orchids, and flowers. Fruit trees were espaliered against every wall, and a waterfall cascaded down behind them in a recycled flow. Tallie noticed his interest.

  “You and Stel have a lot in common,” she whispered, and Chitin glared at her.

  Those files were supposed to be private!

  Robbed of his voice, he growled.

  Tallie was unrepentant. “I was bored. You were sleeping. Come on.”

  Stella turned out to be a dark-haired woman in her late thirties. She looked from Tallie to Chitin and said, “Is this your dad, then?”

  Taking his cue, Chitin shifted back to his workman’s disguise, and held out his hand.

  “Not exactly,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “This is Wolfman, and he needs to use your phone,” Tallie said. “He likes your garden, by the way.”

  Chitin felt his face heat with embarrassment, and Stella laughed, her brown eyes dancing with amusement.

  “Well, if you’re looking after her, that’s good enough for me,” Stella said. “I was starting to wonder if she had a home to go to.”

  From the look on Tallie’s face, that was news.

  “I need to call Odyssey,” he said. “Do you have a secure line?”

  Stella stopped smiling.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Some of those flowers out there,” he said, “Are very hard to come by without a permit, and…” He hesitated; there was no polite way to say what he was thinking. Stella finished his sentence for him.

  “…I don’t look like I could afford that many?”

  She smiled when he nodded, but it was fleeting and her next look was stern.

  “This is for Tallie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then of course I have a secure line. This way.”

  Chitin ignored the way Tallie was looking from one to the other of them, and let Stella take him through the living room and into a shielded communications centre built between the back wall of the shower, and the pumping station for the water feature.

  “I’ll stay,” she said, “if you don’t mind.”

  “You know what Odyssey is?”

  Stella nodded.

  “Okay, then. The risk is yours.”

  The blonde woman was waiting when he called back. She glanced down at her console, and then past it to another part of the room.

  “We’ll trace this eventually,” was all she said. “Where’s the girl?”

  “You found my computer?”

  The woman hesitated, and then nodded.

  “I will not surrender the child, if she does not want to go.”

  At his words, Tallie came around to stand beside him.

  “I have no parents,” she said.

  “We know. We were going to return you to the home.”

  “Were not,” Tallie blurted, and Chitin looked at Stella in surprise.

  The woman on the screen looked just as startled.

  Stella tapped her temple, and pointed to Tallie. Chitin raised his eyebrows, and glanced down at the child and the screen. The exchange had not gone unnoticed.

  “You should tell whoever is with you, that we’ll eventually find them, so they might as well come into shot.”

  Chitin looked at Stella, and shook his head.

  “I don’t think so. This call is a favor.” He changed the subject. “What do you want with my girl?”

  “Yours?”

  “I am her protection,” Chitin said. “We have an arrangement.”

  “We were going to raise her ourselves.”

  Chitin glanced down at Tallie, who nodded. The woman sighed.

  “And now you see why.”

  “Well, she’s mine. You can’t have her, unless she wants to go.”

  “May I speak with her?”

  Chitin glanced down at Tallie, who nodded, again, so he stepped back, and let her take the seat. As a recruiting spiel, it was good, augmented with all the right sights, sounds and promises an abandoned child could want. When she was finished, Tallie looked at Stella, and then at Chitin. He shrugged, keeping his expression as blank as he could.

  “It’s a good offer,” he said. “I can’t match it.”

  Tallie looked at Stella, but Stella shook her head.

  “No,” Tallie said, when she looked back at the screen, and then she stood up, and hugged his arm.

  To say the Odyssey agent was surprised was an understatement, and she looked unimpressed when she turned her attention to Chitin.

  “You’re sworn to protect her, are you?”

  Chitin nodded.

  “And to raise her?”

  Again, Chitin nodded, although he was sure he could hear Tallie calling him a liar.

  “And you would do all within your power to retrieve her.” That last was a statement of fact.

  Chitin nodded once more. He had sworn to protect the child, and that made Tallie part of his pack.

  “Your background checks were…interesting, and given what you are, I’m authorized to make you her legal guardian. Nev will have the paperwork. The offer is open for the next standard lunar hour.”

  The communications set beeped, and Stella reached down, and pulled the plug.

  “They breached the first layer on their trace,” she said.

  Chitin looked at her.

  “There are ten layers. Nine is never enough.” When he kept staring at her, she explained. “As you guessed, plants are not my first profession.”

  Chitin stared at her for three more steady heartbeats, and then crouched down, disengaging Tallie’s arm, and turning her to face him.

  “I’ve just said I’ll adopt you,” he said. “Is that okay?”

  Tallie nodded, and he looked at Stella.

  “Want to help me raise a cub?” he asked, and Tallie burst into tears.

  Without thinking, Chitin reached out, and pulled her into his arms.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, brushing Tallie’s hair out of her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “I…I’m not a cub!” the girl exclaimed. “I’m a little girl. I’m a little human girl.”

  Chitin placed a hand on each of her shoulders, and looked into her face. Once again, he noted her hair, and the odd shading of her eyes.

  “You’re not, you know,” he said, and didn’t let go when she tried to twist away. “Look into my head. Just look. And you’ll know.”

  Tallie just held out her arms, and Chitin pulled her close, holding her as she cried. When she stopped, she pulled back enough to look him in the eye.

  “I really want to be a little, human girl,” she said, and Chitin felt his heart start to break, but she leant forward, and placed her head against his, and then rubbed her face against his cheek in a very cat-like gesture.

  For a moment her form wavered, and then it solidified, and then wavered again. Chitin caught a glimpse of a black-tufted tail, felt bones almost shift, and then she remained firmly in the form he knew. Drawing a deep breath, she stepped out of his arms, and looked him in the eye.

  “I know what I am,” she said, “And you can look after me. I will be part of your pack.” She looked at Stella. “And you can look after me, too. A pack needs more than two.”

  “I…” Stella looked at Chitin, and then at Tallie, and her voice firmed. “Yes.”

  Chitin glanced around, and Stella looked down at the timepiece on her wrist.

  “If we hurry, we can make it. I’ll need to sign as well.”

  “I’m coming, too,” Tallie said, and walked out the door, before either of them could say no.

  Odyssey was waiting when they walked through the back door of Nev’s shop, and into his office. The blonde woman was sitting behind Nev’s desk, and Matt, was stationed by the door leading out into the shopfront.

  “My name is Emilia Delight,” the woman said. “I am authorized to approve the adoption of one Talienta Shift by one Chitin Laremo del Shestar.”

  She glanced over at Stella, and raised an eyebrow.

  “I thought that security layer looked familiar,” she added. “And exactly, how are you involved?”

  “I believe I am the other half of the adoption partnership.”

  The smile that touched Delight’s lips was so fleeting, Chitin thought he’d imagined it, but she pushed aside any personal amusement, and took them through the paperwork with a businesslike manner, adding Stella’s name where it was needed, and initialing as they went. When they were done, Delight turned to Tallie.

  “You keep them in line, little cub. And no more psi tricks until you’ve had some training.”

  “Training?” Both Chitin and Stella laid one arm across Tallie’s shoulders, and Chitin swore he wouldn’t ask Stella where she’d obtained her Tekkan 92, if she did him the same courtesy about the Shesten 38 he’d pulled from the small of his back.

  Delight laughed, and turned to the tiger.

  “Happy now?”

  Matt gave a coughing grunt of assent.

  “Better give him the title then. I like what’s in that notebook.”

  Delight indicated another sheaf of papers on the desk.

  “We understand raising a child is difficult, and we’ve seen your ideas for the dome.”

  Chitin felt himself go crimson.

  “You hacked my computer!” he sputtered, outrage warring with fear of condemnation.

  Stella laid a hand on his arm to calm him, while Tallie looked from one to the other in sudden fierce joy.

  “Yes!” she said, and Delight looked at her with a frown.

  “Young lady,” she said, her glare getting deeper, when Tallie grinned, unrepentantly, back. “If you do not keep your grubby little paws out of my head, I will put a psychic lock on you that only deactivates in a classroom.

  “Mr. Del Shestar, these are the title deeds to the dome, and a small portion of the warren, and here,” she said, adding more paperwork to the pile, “are permits for a number of species you’ve named in your report.”

  She turned her attention to Stella.

  “You’ll find the paperwork you need for your garden in your office,” she said, and it was Stella’s turn to look impressed.

  “That was quick.”

  “We are Odyssey,” Emilia told her. “Once we had you on the feed, it wasn’t hard to do the rest. You should know that.”

  And, shortly afterwards, they were gone.

  That evening, Chitin, Stella and Tallie stood under the abandoned expanse of the dome, looking out at the recovering Earth. Not one of them said a word, but their hearts were full of hope, their spirits fueled by the dreams dancing in their heads, and the strangest feeling that they had finally made it home.