Half of Ember’s problem was that she always expected someone to rescue her. The other half was that someone usually did — which is how she remained confidently stoic standing face to face with a ruddy creature twice her size and slick with mucous. Its viscous sheen glimmered against shattered glass under the fluorescents. She mused aloud that it might be friendly while the rest of us cowered in a vacant enclosure.
Turns out a Martian quevit and a Niboshi sandloach aren’t ideal roommates just because their environmental requirements are nearly identical, even if it means twice the habitat work. And when you’re a corner-cutting extra-dimensional fertility expert who lied on her resume, you end up staring down a three-meter monster with a three-minute gestation cycle.
We thought she was done for, but that clitellate monstrosity nuzzled up like a domesticated Earth cat. Human luck is a pox on evolution.
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