Maz giggled when she gave him the code. He looked up and whispered: “Sounds familiar; doesn’t it?”
She squatted to meet his eye level.
“I spit when I heard it,” she said, with her own playful giggle.
She looked around him and at the nestmates.
“I’ll be at Learning Facility 1 where I work during the workshops,” she said.
“We’re doing a transmission class,” Skyla told her. “We’ll come and see you after though.”
Nessa rose and shoved her hands into her pockets.
“I can escort you to your ship,” she offered. “I can show you the place in Basin 2 that you can park it.”
“Sounds good,” Scion spoke for the nestmates.
Nessa felt a tug on her sleeve. Maz gazed at her.
“Can you come live with us? Please?” he begged. “You can be our caretaker.”
Nessa placed her hands on his shoulders, and replied: “You’re 500. I’m 25. You’re older than me.”
“But remember? Elder race ages slower, and we live into our thousands. I’m 500. The nestmates are 600. We’re kids. Your kind ages faster. You live until you’re 80 and 90. You’re 25. You’re younger than us, but you’re an adult.”
“You seem like you’re ready to be independent,” Nessa admitted, “and you have plenty of supplies. You don’t really need me. When I talk to you, it’s like I’m talking to an adult.”
Skyla left the computer board and came to join them.
“We talk higher intelligence talk because we are, especially more than the humans we lived with. We know how to start an economy because we learned how. We have supplies, yes. But there’s a lot we don’t know. We’re smart, but we can’t meet all our own needs. We need someone to guide us, someone to tuck us in at night, someone to care for us.”
Nessa ruffled Maz’s hair and offered a hug to Skyla. The other nestmates abandoned the log-drives and gathered around Nessa.
“Please?” Scion begged.
“Alright; alright!” Nessa surrendered. “I’ll pack up my room.”