Without thinking about how it might look, she led the way. She only made it a few strides before she was surrounded by purring Talins offering her hugs and trying to touch her hair.
Rensom was quick to come to the rescue. “Everyone needs to back away. Han is shy and can become badly distressed by crowds.”
It was almost comical how fast everyone backed away. She heard them talk about how easy it was for humans to get sick from emotional distress and how fragile humans were.
To help the ruse, Han hunched her shoulders and wrapped her arms around herself.
Rensom picked her up and walked past everyone. Being this close to his scent gave her a headache.
“Put me down as soon as you can,” she whispered, pinching her nose and breathing shallowly.
Thankfully, Rensom’s long strides got them to the cresh quickly. The crowd didn’t follow them onto the cresh grounds, but Rensom didn’t put her down.
She understood why. His long strides ate up ground faster than she could. Soon they passed though the green space around the cresh and entered an official-looking building. The moment they were inside, he set her down and stepped back.
“Are you okay?” he asked under his breath as several Talins rushed up to talk to them.
Han ignored her headache and rolling stomach. “I’m fine.”
“Rensom, you brought a human but not your wife?” one of the Talins asked.
Han tucked herself behind Rensom to keep any of them from trying to touch her.
“Greetings, Jinorum,” Rensom said. “Both of us couldn’t leave at the same time. Our research on Misorm is delicate and can’t be left alone. We’ve been blessed by the ancestors, and we’vefound a potential treatment for durcim poisoning in one of the plants there. We’ve been given enough grants to continue for six rotations.”
“That is excellent news,” Jinorum said.
Rensom sounded a rumble of agreement. “This good fortune means we need to move the children closer, or we won’t be able to do our once-a-solar visit as required by law.”
“I’m not sure this is acceptable," Jinorum said. “Without your wife here, I can’t complete the required protocol."
That was her cue!
“Rennie, I want to hold and snuggle the children!” Han wailed in her best childlike voice. She grasped one of Rensom’s hands in hers and tugged. “Rennie, you promised. I want to hold them so badly. They’re smaller than me, right? I want to play games with them. We could play, um…” She couldn’t think of a single childhood game so she threw out words that sounded good in her head. “Jumps and stitches and callback and all kinds of fun games!”
“I’m sorry, human,” Jinorum said, putting his face low so it was even with hers. “You can visit with his children for as long as you like, but they can’t leave with you.”
The Talin to Jinorum’s right stepped up. “I can take her out to play with the children. Rishmun and Lirsum are doing their daily walk with the others in their age group.”
Han jumped up and down and made an excited laughing sound. “I get to meet more children. Yay!”
All the Talins stared at her and purred, even Rensom.
“She’s so excited over something so simple,” Jinorum said. “It’s refreshing.”
“It must be so rewarding to own a human,” the one that offered to walk her to the children said. “Her happiness is musical.”
“Han is the best human,” Rensom said. “She is generous and kind to a fault.”
She could tell he was talking to her while pretending to converse with the Talins.
She tried not to overact to all the attention and praise. “I’m not the best human; my sire and dam were amazing too.”
Rensom better tell Zeph about her successfully working in the Talin terms.
The other Talins talked to Rensom about collecting the rest of her family, but he told the lie they’d come up with earlier that she was a lone survivor from a horrible ship catastrophe.
Finally, Jinorum sent her off with one of the Talins and took Rensom back to his office. Determined to play her part, she skipped next to her escort, chattering excitedly.
