CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
COLE
As it turned out, Borl was entirely correct in his insistence that I needed to get the rest of this project moving. By three o’clock, they had the entire barn cleaned out and had begun ripping up the rotten sections of flooring.
On my end, I’d started the afternoon with a frantic call to Aiden, who had swiftly transferred me to Colonel Torv Riglis.
He was a Denzogal man from Alliance Headquarters on Dranva, who had been put in charge of overseeing the project and had been given authority to approve spending, conduct any necessary background checks, and provide guidance for the overall direction of the project.
I braced myself as the Colonel appeared on my holographic screen. I’d never had much to do with the military, but dealing with bigwigs from Alliance HQ had me imagining loud men with egos the size of a planet. Particularly when I was dealing with a Denzogal.
The man who appeared on my screen was everything I’d been expecting, as far as first impressions went.
He had shoulders that were twice as wide as mine, he was covered in incredibly dark brown fur, almost black, and had steely eyes that seemed to look straight through me.
But the instant he opened his mouth, all my fears vanished.
“Good afternoon, Cole,” he said, using my first name, rather than ‘Mr Jenkins’.
“Commander Hill’s told me a lot about you.
And before we get any further, you can call me Torv.
Colonel Riglis is all well and good for the troops, but I’m not going to stand on ceremony with civilians.
” He had a husky, grandfatherly voice, though he didn’t seem terribly old, and I suddenly felt like I could tell him anything and he’d nod and smile and reassure me that everything was going to be fine.
“Thank you, I appreciate that,” I said, feeling my shoulders relax. “I’m really not used to being involved in anything quite this large.”
“I imagine it’s all rather overwhelming,” he said kindly. “Commander Hill has given me a fairly good rundown on where things are up to, but how about you tell me what’s been happening at your end this morning, and we’ll take it from there?”
I filled him in on the conversations with Yona and the Ranzors, and he rattled off a list of things we were going to need – building supplies, tradespeople, staff, security systems. “Don’t worry too much about the details,” he said, when he realised I was starting to hyperventilate.
“I have some very competent people organising all of this. The biggest thing we need from you at this point is on-site coordination. Receive the deliveries, show the staff where to go, and keep me up-to-date with how the progress is going. Do you think you can do that?”
“Yeah, I think I can handle that,” I agreed, feeling thoroughly relieved that Torv seemed to have some fairly realistic expectations of me.
“Now,” he went on. “Obviously, there are going to be more details as things develop, but is there anything else you need from me in the short term?”
“Actually, yes,” I said. There was one big issue on my mind that was going to need a very urgent solution.
“Tomorrow’s Saturday, and on weekends, the animal sanctuary is usually run by our casual staff.
So either I’m going to have to explain what’s going on here, or tell them not to come to work.
They’re going to be seeing all the people and deliveries coming and going, and they’re bound to notice the construction work, even if it’s at the back of the property.
None of them have had any kind of background checks beyond a basic criminal check, and if we want to keep this under wraps… ”
“Already underway,” Torv said. “We have a team of security staff working on it at our end. We’ll have a plan laid out for you by the end of the afternoon.”
We spent the next two hours hammering out some tentative plans for the next few days, including a delivery of building materials for this afternoon, an electrician from the Hon military base – the same base that Aiden worked from – and a Sedgeged architect who was going to design not just the renovations of the barn, but the entire miniature village for us.
“Now, there is also another matter that I wanted to bring to your attention, on a more personal note,” Torv said, once we’d dealt with the most urgent details for the colony.
“And if I’m overstepping my bounds here, please say so, and I’ll mind my own business.
But Commander Hill brought it to my attention that you recently lost your uncle, and you stand to inherit his hotel as a result.
And that you’ve already taken over the care of his dimari. ”
“That’s correct,” I said. With everything else that had happened in the last week, I’d forgotten all about the hotel. I glanced at the date on my comm. It was Friday. My uncle had passed away on Monday. It seemed like a year ago.
“I’ve appointed an Alliance lawyer to start looking over your uncle’s estate and highlighting any issues that might be of concern.
One of our accountants is going to be compiling a report on the financial position of the business.
Commander Hill suggested that you’d likely be inclined to sell it, rather than take over the business yourself? ”
I’d given the hotel next to no thought in the last few days, but my opinion on that part of it was the same. “Yes, I’m happy to sell it. Would your legal team be able to put a proposal together for a potential buyer?”
“Once we’ve done a thorough review of the business, then yes, we certainly can.”
“Thank you. That would be a huge help.”
“The next thing I’ll need to do is have a conversation with Rohinavon about exactly what she has in mind for this colony, and assure ourselves that a female Vangravian is physically capable of producing so many children in such a short space of time.
Some species are well adapted to producing multiple offspring, while others are not.
But given how insular Vangravian society is, we’re unfortunately lacking in good quality information there.
Could you please let Rohinavon know I’ll be contacting her? ”
I agreed, and then Torv gave me a few other reassurances about the level of help we were going to have in getting this off the ground, before finally ending the call.
I sat back in my chair in the kitchen, feeling entirely wrung out.
At the beginning of this week, I’d thought that taking on Xel’s care was a lot.
And now we were planning how to overthrow an entire society.
A part of me wanted to go back to Monday, when my biggest problem had been figuring out whether Xel wanted to sit in the living room or his bedroom of an evening.
But I also had a sneaking suspicion that in a week’s time, I’d be longing to come back to this evening, when life had been so much simpler than whatever I was likely to be dealing with by that point.
But all things considered, Colonel Torv Riglis was a terrific choice for this position.
Aside from his clear organisational skills, he was also just a very decent person.
He hadn’t said one word about my scars, hadn’t talked down to me, hadn’t dismissed any of my concerns.
His worries about Rohinavon’s health showed that he wasn’t going to abandon compassion for the sake of achieving a goal.
Despite the mountain of things that could go wrong and my very valid fears about the security of the colony, it was off to a good start.
I heard footsteps outside, and turned to look out into the hallway as Xel came in.
He didn’t bother taking off his boots, and I wondered whether he still had some work to do.
He’d gamely volunteered to take care of the afternoon cleaning and feeding when he’d seen how busy I was, and I was more grateful than ever for his help.
I glanced at the clock. It was after five o’clock now, but if anything had been broken or any of the animals were sick, there might still be work to do.
When I got a look at Xel’s face, it seemed my intuition was correct. He looked sombre and just a little bit scared. Was Rose’s calf sick? Or had one of the animals escaped? Or was one of them injured? But what he said next was far worse than any of the scenarios I was imagining.
“Bo says there’s something wrong with Bribie. He’s over in reception. He’s not breathing well.”
I felt my whole body turn cold. Oh fuck, I’d been anticipating this for nearly a year. And as much as I wanted to believe that it might just be a passing illness or a bad day, I knew in my gut that it was something much worse.
I leapt up and shoved my feet into boots, sprinting the couple of hundred metres to the reception building, with Xel on my heels.
I bolted through the back door and down the hall, then I skidded around the corner, finding Bo sitting on the floor with Bribie’s head in her lap.
The front door was already locked and her bag was on the counter – it looked like she’d been packing up to go home.
She looked up at me with watery eyes. “He seemed fine. He’s been sitting on his bed all afternoon, like he usually does.
He got up and had a drink of water at about three o’clock.
Then I asked him to stand up so I could take him back to the cottage, and he just…
lay down. And started breathing really weird. ”
I knelt down beside Bribie, putting my hand lightly on his chest. Sure enough, his breathing was laboured, a rasping sound coming from his throat.
“I called the vet,” Bo went on, tears streaming freely from her face now. “He said he’ll come if we really want him to, but it’s probably his heart giving out. I told him not to come,” she admitted, on a choked sob. “He’s old, Cole. He’s so old, and he’s… Maybe we should just let him go?”
There were already tears gathering in my eyes, and my throat felt tight. I didn’t want him to go, but I nodded. “Yeah,” I said, as the tears spilled over. “Yeah, let’s just let him rest now.”
I sat down properly on the floor, legs crossed, and took Bribie’s paw in my hand.
Bo was stroking his ears, and he wagged his tail a couple of times.
But the rest of his energy was focused on trying to breathe, and I had the stray thought that I hoped he wasn’t in too much pain.
Dying couldn’t be a comfortable experience, but he was somewhere warm, with people who loved him, in the only home he’d known since his owner had died.
As my tears dripped all over my pants, I looked up to see Xel still standing by the door, seeming a little lost. “Come and sit with him,” I said. “He liked you. He liked sleeping on your bed.”
Xel came and sat down beside Bo, near Bribie’s head.
He stroked him under his chin, and along the side of his face.
And we all sat like that as the minutes slowly ticked by.
Bribie didn’t move much, aside from his efforts to breathe, but at one point, his tongue came out to lick Xel’s hand and his tail gamely tried to wag again.
And then shortly after that, his mouth fell open and he made a gasping sound.
It wouldn’t be long now. “You’re a good boy,” I told him, giving his paw a squeeze.
“You’ve been such a good boy. But you’re going to go home and see your master now.
You miss him, don’t you? It’s okay, boy. You can rest now.”
Bribie gave another two gasps, and I waited for a third… but it never came. His eyes went dull and his paw went limp in my hand.
Bo burst into noisy sobs and she leaned across Bribie’s body to cling onto me in a clumsy hug. I just held her, crying into her shirt while she sobbed into mine.
By the time I managed to pull myself together, the light was beginning to fade outside.
“We should put him in the fridge overnight,” I said, a purely pragmatic move.
We had a cold storage facility for any of the animals who died on the property, before they were sent away to be disposed of.
“We’ll find a nice spot in the garden to bury him tomorrow.
It’ll be too dark to dig a hole tonight. ”
Bo made an effort to pull herself together. “Yeah, good idea,” she said, into a handful of tissues. “Do you need me to help you…?”
“No, I can carry him,” I said, forcing myself to stand up. I gathered Bribie into my arms – he was a big animal, but quite skinny, given how old he was.
“Which way?” Xel asked, jumping to his feet, ever eager to be helpful. “I can open the doors for you.”
“Thank you. This way, out the back and to the left,” I directed him, following him down the hall into the rear of the building. We got Bribie safely stowed on one of the wide shelves. I couldn’t help giving his head one final pat before I shut the door.
Back in the reception room, Bo was trying to make herself look presentable – a challenge when new tears kept sneaking out to ruin her efforts.
“I’ll come back in the morning,” she said, dabbing at her eyes again. “Don’t bury him until I get here.”
“Of course,” I agreed. I reached out to hug her again, and she clutched me tightly for a long moment. “Drive safely.”
“See you tomorrow,” she said, then turned to hug Xel as well. “You look after Cole tonight, okay?” she said sternly to my dimari. “He’s going to be a bit of a mess.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Xel promised her seriously. “I’ll do my best.”