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“But the rabbits have to go? No problem.” I gently scoop up Chalk, lean over the side of the cradle, and deposit her on the floor. There’s immediately a scuffle as Helas rushes over and mounts Chalk, asserting her dominance. Bunny politics.

“Go on, Ronnie,” I say. I don’t have to remove him. Ronnie is exceptionally sensitive to human commands. Ronnie jumps down before I’ve even finished his name.

“Thanks.” Sylvie bustles around, folding back the drape to my knees, draining the goo back into a reservoir under the bed, reclining the bed and laying out her equipment on the lip of the cradle. “I’ve never seen rabbits that big before.”

“They’re Norgir rabbits,” Gig explains, hovering on my far side.

Now that I’m lying flat, I can’t see where the rabbits are, but I’m guessing they’re clustered around his boots.

Or, as the scratch of claws on plaz tells me, considering another foray onto the top of the float-bed.

Bunker lands on my feet a moment later. He does his offended freeze-and-scramble as he lands, then jumps back down. Sylvie giggles.

“They’re very inquisitive,” Gig says apologetically.

“They’re nosy as all fuck,” I say.

Sylvie giggles again, which is a nice sound.

“Here, I’ll put up the sterile shield. Then they can be on the medibed.

” She snaps up a fizzing blue wall of light just above my knees.

Another one below my ribs. A wave of blue light runs from the air above her head down to my skin, sterilizing everything in its path.

She passes her hands through the curtain of light, runs them forward and back a few times, then picks up long tube and begins sucking shit out from inside my hip .

I feel it immediately, a sense of movement and pressure, but not pain. I have to figure that’s a good thing.

It’s also a good thing she’s put up the sterile shield, because both Chalk and Bunker are back up on my feet a moment later.

Bunker’s immediately off again, and I can tell that this is now a game: jump on Hale’s feet.

Not a game I’ll be encouraging. Chalk hunkers down and watches Sylvie so intently that I’m surprised those blue eyes aren’t burning holes in the poor medtech.

“Um,” Sylvie says, with a nervous flick of her eyes at the glaring rabbit.

“They like to supervise,” I tell her. “Don’t worry. Chalk doesn’t bite.” Helas does, but Helas doesn’t jump up, so Sylvie’s probably safe from Queen Bunny.

“It’s very pretty,” Sylvie says, switching instruments. Now she’s scraping something inside my hip. Sounds like bone. And it doesn’t feel good. I focus on our conversation to keep from thinking about what she’s doing inside me.

“She is, isn’t she?” Chalk’s a pointed white.

She’s inherited Helas’ long white fur, but she’s got lilac-grey markings on her face, paws and tail.

The grey on her face frames her blue eyes and makes them particularly striking.

I think Chalk’s the prettiest of Kez’s rabbits, although the new flame sable, Ember, gives Chalk a run for her money. “Kid, any of the kits out?” I ask Gig.

Sylvie ain’t seen cute until she’s seen a baby bunny.

“Yeah, just a sec.” Gig disappears for a minute, while Sylvie continues scraping and Bunker has another bounce on my feet. I’m going to have to nip this game in the fucking bud. Too bad Bunker doesn’t recognize his name the way Ronnie does.

Gig returns with a double handful of dark grey fluff. Mix. I should have known which of Chalk’s kits would be out of the nest box. We’re going to have to find some Deep Columbus to adopt Mix. That kit just cannot stay put.

“Oooooo!” Sylvie squeals. She drops the scraper. In me.

“Ow,” I say mildly .

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” She collects the scraper absently, rests it on the lip of the cradle and then rounds the float-bed to take the baby bunny from Gig.

This was not my best idea.

I endure several minutes of Sylvie coo-ing over the baby bunny.

Use the time to shift Chalk to the side and stack my left foot on top of my right so the next time Bunker jumps up, he plows nose-first into the barrier of my feet.

He backs up so rapidly he’s only saved from an undignified tumble to the floor by the lip of the medibed.

He jumps down double-time. I hear the scrabble of his claws on the pseudowood floor as he beats a hasty retreat.

Game, set and match, rabbit.

Chalk shifts, kicks her big fluffy feet out to the side, and settles into what I think of as Sphinx-position.

Not totally relaxed. Her alpha’s doing something incomprehensible and there’s a stranger holding one of her babies.

So she’s watchful. But she’s also happy that I’m back and she’s letting me know it by spending so much time with me, away from her kits.

It’s taken me a while to understand the rabbits’ behavior.

They’re not predators, and the only animals I’m really used to being around are predators.

But now that I’ve figured them out, I’ve come to enjoy being with the rabbits almost as much as I enjoy being with Kez.

Sylvie finally remembers why she’s here, surrenders the baby bunny back to Gig and returns to patching me up.

Gig puts Mix down next to Chalk, the better to stare at Sylvie without dropping the squirming bunny.

Chalk proceeds to lick her baby all over.

It may look like affection, but it’s not.

She’s erasing the stranger’s smell. After Sylvie is done, Chalk will bring me Mix to pet.

Again, it’s not about affection. It’s about acceptance in the herd.

Chalk wants her babies to smell like the alphas, so the rest of the herd will accept them.

Once you realize that ninety-nine percent of what the rabbits do is motivated by smell, they’re easier to understand.

Sylvie begins doing something in my hip that feels even worse than the scraping. She’s tugging, pulling, twisting .

“What the fuck are you doin’?” I finally ask.

Sylvie’s got the tip of her tongue clamped between her teeth as she works. She glances up at my question, licks her lips nervously. Gig looks like he’s about to swoon. I have to swallow a chuckle.

“I’m just re-attaching the muscle,” she says.

“No newskin?” I ask. Whenever I’ve had a deep wound before, the docs have just poured newskin into it.

“I’ll close up the skin layers with newskin, but you’ll have normal use a lot faster if I re-attach the muscle.”

“Okay.” Sounds more complex than the treatment I’ve had before, but she seems to know what she’s doing, so I let her get on with it.

She finishes with a newskin spray, covers me with the drape again and turns off the sterile shield. “You need to let that set for about five minutes. Then you should be able to walk.”

“Yeah?” That is better than previous treatment I’ve had. When I got my arm nearly shot off on Phogath, I was out of action for three days. And I didn’t even have any pulverized bones. Something to this having-money thing.

“Would you like something to eat now, Sylvie?” Gig asks. He’s practically vibrating against the edge of the medibed.

Sylvie grins, an open, uninhibited grin that strips a decade off her face. She looks about ten standard. “I’d love to. Whatever you have. Oh, if that’s okay with you, Mister Snow.”

I wave them both away. “Fine by me.”

Gig leads Sylvie out of the control center, towards the kitchen. I hear him saying something to her; her responsive giggle.

“Cute couple,” I tell the rabbits.

Chalk watches me for a moment before edging up the bed on her tip-toes, nudging Mix in front of her.

Mix doesn’t need much nudging. He’s already wobbling his way around this exciting new terrain, miniature black nose wiggling away at Mach-20.

I drum my fingertips against the drape to beckon them.

It’s the signal Kez uses. The rabbits don’t exactly come when called; they ain’t dogs.

But that signal lets them know that the alpha welcomes their approach.

Chalk presents her head for petting, briefly, then corrals Mix under my hand.

The babies are impossibly cute, with their outsized heads, fuzzy bodies and unsteady little legs.

Three of Chalk’s litter have red eyes, which, I have to admit, I don’t care for.

Mix has little black beads for eyes, which blink at me sleepily as I pet him.

Only one of Chalk’s litter inherited her blue eyes: Mingle, a lilac point like her mother, who Kez calls my girlfriend because she likes to find her way into my clothes.

I know it’s just a scent-thing. Babies that smell like the alpha have the best chance of survival.

But even I have to admit that putting on my clothes and finding a baby bunny snuggled up in my pocket is endearing.

Chalk finally worms her way into the curve of my left arm and flops, a maneuver in bunny-speak that means she’s extremely relaxed.

She ends up stretched out along my side from just under my pec to my shin.

Damn rabbit’s almost as long as I am. Mix wobbles across my chest to land close to his mother.

Whether it’s the anesthetic in the newskin, or the warmth of the rabbits, or looking into Mix’s extremely sleepy black-button eyes, I find myself getting drowsy.

Cupping the baby bunny in one hand, with Chalk licking the backs of my fingers, I close my eyes and let myself drift.