Chapter 5
Felica
Eyes blinked at me from within a shaggy purple pile.
Something wriggled, and a pinkish nose lifted to sniff at the air.
Oh… All that mounting fear over the terrifying name left me in a big hurry.
A revenant wasn’t anything to fear, clearly.
It looked like a tiny kitten or something.
When it rose on its paws, it was a bit bigger than a kitten, perhaps the size of a small dog.
Except it had six legs, and they had hooves.
A calf—a baby calf of some kind of alien cow creature with six legs. It was freaking adorable!
“Hi,” I whispered, furtively glancing at where Levant had disappeared back into his nook, full of stacked crates.
He looked a little too fierce and warrior-like for my liking, as if he planned to hunt the little guy for dinner once he found it.
Sticking out my hand, palm open, toward the little guy, I wriggled my fingers.
“You’re a sweetheart, aren’t you? There’s nothing to worry about, am I right? ”
The tiny calf padded closer on its shiny hooves, perching with a slender pair of lavender-colored, downy forelegs on mine.
Its nose was soft as velvet and delightfully warm as it nuzzled my fingers.
It wasn’t heavy, and I was very tempted to gather the whole fuzzy ball into my lap.
He looked a bit like one of those Scottish Highlanders, except he had six legs and an extra-long tail.
No horns, but he did have long, soft ears like a bunny.
Honestly, if anyone had tried, they couldn’t have come up with something cuter than this.
“Is Levant looking for you?” I whispered.
The calf licked my fingers with a soft, slightly wet tongue, made a soft mewling noise, and clambered into my lap like he belonged.
I had my arms around him, hugging all that soft, fuzzy fur before I had thought it through.
When he nuzzled the underside of my chin and gave me another lick, I melted, though. Holy Hannah, this thing was cute.
“What are you, little one? And where did you come from?” I asked in a hushed tone.
Levant was still rooting around in the back of the tent, and I didn’t want to draw his attention to the cute fellow in my arms just yet.
There was no way I could stomach having him for dinner somewhere down the line.
He’d been hauling around a very sharp-looking knife the last time I caught a glimpse of him, so I definitely figured he had skewering my poor little friend on his mind. Well, not on my watch.
The calf had finished its slightly wet greeting and now sat back in my lap.
Its hind legs curled beneath it while it kept itself propped up against my thigh with the front pair.
I couldn’t see what the fellow had done with the bizarre middle pair, but they were tucked in there somewhere too.
A velvet snout was aimed at my face, a pair of big, soulful lavender eyes locked on mine, and then it said, “I am a companion bot, Vakarsa Calf model 3 dash Z dash 54.”
I blinked, my mouth dropping open, and the calf kept talking: “I am pleased to meet you, human. My recently updated files indicate you are a sentient, two-legged species not native to Serant. Is this correct?” Holy Hannah, a talking cow?
No, correction, it called itself a Vakarsa, and not just that, but it had a make and model.
This was a bot, a very, very realistic robot simulation, but a robot nonetheless.
Well, at least that meant I wasn’t supposed to be dinner.
“Uh,” I stuttered. “Yeah, I’m human. My name is Felicia.
What’s yours?” I asked. The bot was sitting very prettily in my lap, and it had to weigh quite a bit, but it wasn’t crushing my legs.
The creature cocked its head to the side, and I swore it looked at me as if it were seriously contemplating the answer to that question.
Was it sentient? A true AI lifeform? Levant was such a strange mixture of technology and, ah, barbaric leather.
I only had to look at him to consider him more a primitive hunter than a scientist. His sled had been made of bone and leather and rope, nothing high-tech.
The leather and furs had been hand-stitched crudely, and dressed now in leather straps and ivory jewelry, he lacked any appearance of coming from an advanced civilization.
Then there was all the technology scattered through this huge tent base, and the healing device he’d casually wielded.
The way he spoke also did not indicate a lack of understanding; he knew—a lot.
“My name?” the small calf-like robot asked from my lap, drawing my eyes back to its huge lavender eyes and pinkish snout.
“My previous companion called me Ssrktw. It means calf. You may call me that too if you wish, or you can call me something else.” The calf swung its small head to look where Levant darted past, going from that nook with all the crates into another.
Under my hand, its fur seemed to rise a little along its spine, the way a cat’s fur might if it was scared.
“Sssrk?” I tried, and shook my head. “Sorry, buddy, I can’t pronounce that, and just calling you calf seems…
a bit too descriptive. What about Auby, short for aubergine?
That’s the color of the fur on your flanks.
” It was a very pretty shade of eggplant purple, and it tempted me to reach out and touch it to see if it was as soft as it looked.
“Auby?” it said. “Yes, that sounds good. Felicia, I believe I have disobeyed the Naga male by rebooting. Do you think he is going to deactivate me again?” It was the truly frightened tremble in his voice that made me quickly shake my head.
I mean, even if he had disobeyed Levant, what could possibly be the harm?
It was so cute, and soft, and extremely impressive.
I mean, Earth was light-years away from creating something as advanced as Auby.
“Felicia,” Levant said in a low, warning tone, cutting through the tent so sharply that Auby and I both froze guiltily.
Then he said more, but I could not understand a word of it; they were all hisses and growls, rough syllables that sounded much like the word for “calf” that Auby had given me.
I looked at the little bot, then at Levant, who came sliding very quietly from between his stacked supplies with a knife in his hand.
It was the barely masked horror on his face that told me Levant truly thought I was in terrible danger.
“Auby?” I asked, my voice going slightly higher in pitch because that fear was a little contagious.
I mean, I’d assumed the little bot was harmless because it looked so damn cute, but what if I was wrong?
Did Levant have good reason to hunt it with that knife and stare at me with worry as he stalked closer?
“I would never harm my companion, Felicia,” Auby said, full of certainty.
Its robotic voice was eerily real, and it sounded very sweet—like that of a four-year-old boy, perhaps.
It also spoke in my native language, so I could easily understand it.
“And as my previous companion died a thousand and sixty-three of your cycles ago, I will now be your companion, if you accept.”
Levant growled something, eyes huge, as he continued to approach, but his blade was lowered at his side.
“Ah, your Naga mate says you should accept, right away.” So I did, muttering the words in a rush even though I couldn’t actually be sure Levant had said that or not.
It kind of sounded like a good idea, and I mean, who could say no to those big, lavender eyes anyway?
“Thank you, Felicia,” Auby singsonged, and then his eyes flashed a pale blue.
It beamed out and strobed over my face—there and gone again in the blink of an eye—but I was certain he’d just locked my face into his database or something.
Auby made a very happy, sighing noise, and then he twirled in my lap, dancing around on his six little legs across the furs in what could only be described as a happy dance. Who could be scared of that?
***
Levant
I had made a grave mistake. It was unforgivable, really, this mistake.
How could I have been so careless and hooked my tablet up to that Revenant without taking the appropriate precautions?
I should have located and removed its power source first so this couldn’t happen.
Should have. That kind of thinking was pointless; what was done was done.
At least this particular Revenant had not been built for war, but for something else. It was a child’s toy, a companion.
Still, I had yet to shake the horror I’d felt at seeing my workbench suddenly empty.
Or the utter terror that had nearly paralyzed me when I’d realized the Revenant had not only powered up but approached my mate, perching on top of her with its snout in her face, appearing ready to strike at any moment.
I’d been sure it was about to rip out her throat.
It was a nightmarish image I knew would not leave me any time soon.
The hunt for the dangerous, now-activated Revenant had also forced me away from her side.
Now, she could not understand what I said.
Though my translator implants provided translations of her words, and, shockingly, those of the Revenant, it was not the same as when we were touching.
That was much more intimate; this just felt… clinical, cold.
I wasn’t sure if I was ready to risk my tail that close to the Revenant, though, especially when it had only stated that it would never harm its companion before locking Felicia in as such.
That still left plenty of options for what it could do to me.
I knew much better than the average Naga what even a small, seemingly harmless creature like this Revenant could do.
I’d seen the laser capabilities and the shielding unit.