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  “Oh, this just gets better and better,” Mei-Li snapped. “So you were ordered to take me but you also felt sorry for me, right? Like I was some helpless little kitten that couldn’t take care of itself. Well let me tell you…” She poked him right in his broad chest. “I am fine. I don’t need your help or your protection. Now let’s get this over with so I can go back home when the month is up.”

  Ignoring his outstretched hand, she pushed past him and took the long step down herself to the pitch black floor. The fact that her bare and rather dirty foot didn’t immediately sink into the shiny black surface was little comfort.

  Suddenly a new person appeared before her—or rather, a creature. Mei-Li was so angry she nearly ran into it. She was going to brush past it but it was so odd looking she did a double take and stopped in her tracks.

  The creature looked like a cross between a hairy gray monkey and a dog. It moved with a chimpanzee’s scampering gait but it had the long face, sensitive nose, and soft, floppy ears of a bloodhound. She would have thought it was an animal—some kind of Dark Kindred pet maybe—except for the fact that she couldn’t imagine an emotionless society having pets. Also, its large, liquid brown eyes brimmed with intelligence when it spoke to her.

  “Yareg Yipper—selma Tolleg, dar a si, dar a si,” it said, nodding eagerly at her.

  “I’m sorry, what?” Mei-Li said. “I’m afraid I don’t understand you.”

  “Para turgl. Jarop tix, dar a si, dar a si.” It stuck out its tongue which was long and had a strangely pointed end.

  “Um, ooookay,” Mei-Li said edging away from it. She didn’t want to act like a scared little girl and hide behind Six’s bulk—especially not after her ‘I can take care of myself’ speech, but what the hell was this thing anyway?

  Before she could ask Six what it was, the intelligent monkey-dog bounded forward and stuck something that felt like a thousand tiny little pins into her left calf. Mei-Li screamed and tried to kick it off but it hung on. Then, to her horror, she realized the sharp thing it was sticking her with was its tongue.

  “Oh my God! Get it off! Get it off me!” she gasped, reaching down to pry the furry creature away. She couldn’t get hold of it though—it kept dodging her grip while somehow keeping its tongue firmly lodged in the side of her calf.

  Mei-Li felt like hear heart was going to pound right through her ribcage. Every single alien or vampire or alien vampire movie she had ever seen shot through her mind at once.

  It’s drinking my blood…it’s infecting me…it’s impregnating me with some weird alien creature that’s going to come bursting out of my sternum at any moment…

  “Six, help!” she pleaded, turning to him. She didn’t want to admit she needed his assistance but at this point, she had no choice. And even if he was upset with her for the way she’d talked to him, surely he hadn’t brought her all this way to let her be mangled and infected by some weird animal—had he?

  But the big Kindred didn’t even look annoyed—let alone worried for her safety.

  “Be calm,” he said. “This is Yipper, one of the Tollegs I told you about.”

  “Be calm? He’s biting me!”

  “No, he’s injecting you with translation bacteria. A process which probably wouldn’t take nearly so long if you would simply hold still.”

  “What?” she demanded, looking down at the furry monkey-dog clinging to her leg.

  At that moment, it finally detached itself and skipped a few feet back from her.

  “My apologies if I startled you, my lady. I am sorry, so I am, so I am,” it said in a high, piping voice.

  Mei-Li stared at it. “I…I can understand you.”

  “Of course you can.” It nodded vigorously. “Six asked that I meet you with a dose of the bacteria so that you could understand us, yes he did, yes he did.”

  Mei-Li turned on Six, furious all over again. “So you told him to meet us here and bite me? Are you crazy?”

  “He did not bite you—he injected you. And I told you I would ask that an injection of the bacteria be brought for you. I do not understand why following through on a promise I had made you would call my sanity into question,” Six said, frowning. Clearly he had no idea why she was so upset.

  Yipper seemed to, though.

  “Forgive us, my lady, if you would, if you would. I thought that Six had explained to you our form of medicine. We Tollegs are natural surgeons, so we are, so we are. And we do most of our surgery with our tongues.”

  “With your tongues?” Mei-Li couldn’t believe it. Then she remembered the way Six had licked her to heal her—hadn’t he said something about it being necessary because of the Tolleg medicine he was using? Actually, it was a little hard to remember since she’d been trying so hard not to squirm all over her chair at the time…Not that you should have gotten all hot and bothered in the first place, she reminded herself. Since it was all just business to Six. Probably he just didn’t want to bring damaged goods back to his home planet.

  “We do surgery with our tongues. So we do, so we do.” The Tolleg named Yipper nodded eagerly. “But I would not have injected you if I had known you weren’t expecting me to, no I wouldn’t, no I wouldn’t.” He looked up at Six. “You should have warned her, Six, so you should, so you should.”

  Six shook his head. “Forgive me,” he said stiffly. “I thought I had.”

  “No, you said you would get someone to give me a shot of translation bacteria. I was picturing someone in a white lab coat holding a syringe. Not a…a…” She gestured at Yipper. “A Tolleg with a surgical tongue.”

  Six shook his head. “Clearly I have much to learn still about your culture, ideas, and beliefs. I am truly sorry you were startled. I will try to avoid such confusion in the future.”

  “I hope so.” Mei-Li looked down at her leg—there wasn’t so much as a scratch or a red spot where Yipper had bitten—no, injected her and the translation bacterial did seem to be working so she supposed she ought to let it go. Honestly, it was no worse than finding out that this entire claiming thing was just business to the big Kindred.

  It was, as Six had said, a cultural difference. He would probably have been mystified if she had taken him to an ER on Earth where they had doctors who used their hands instead of their tongues to do procedures.

  I’m okay, she told herself. A little shaken up but okay. Everything is going to be fine. I’m going to get through this and someday back on Earth when I’m an old lady I’ll have a crazy story to tell my grandkids.

  “So you forgive us? So you do, so you do?” Yipper was looking up at her anxiously.

  “Yes, I suppose.” Mei-Li nodded and took a deep breath. “I forgive you anyway, uh, Yipper, was it?”

  “Yes, indeed, yes, indeed.” The little Tolleg looked pleased. “And you are…?”

  “Mei-Li.” Mei-Li held out her hand to shake without thinking about it. Yipper seized it affably enough but instead of shaking, he licked the back of her hand with his long tongue.

  “Well met indeed, well met indeed,” he said, releasing her.

  “Um, yeah. Well met.” Mei-Li tried to wipe her wet hand on her dirty skirt without being too obvious about it. “So, is this the only reason we came here? So I could get injected and be able to communicate down on your home world?”

  “Naturally not, naturally not.” Yipper shook his head, making his long ears flop. “You are here for the same reason anyone stops at the medical barges before they go down to Z4.”

  “And what reason is that?” Mei-Li demanded, looking at Six. She had a feeling she wasn’t going to like the answer.

  “To get an enhancement, of course,” he answered. “No one is allowed on the surface of Z4 without an enhancement. The Collective demands it.”

  Mei-Li shook her head. “Uh-uh, no way. Look, I’m sorry if you don’t like my chest—I’m not wild about it either. But I am not getting a boob job just to make you happy.”

  Six frowned. “I believe we have had this misunderstanding bef