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“Pa! Pa, there’s a chicken in the chicken!”
“A what now, Sammy?” Drew glanced up from his data pad and the recent updates from Landing toward his young grandson racing up the pathway to his residence, taking a sip of the drink the colonists called klah that was now the most popular caf substitute. Drew didn’t love it, but it was good enough for his morning ritual of news and caffeine. “There’s a chicken where?”
“In the chicken,” Sammy replied, the four-year-old boy climbing up the steps to sit beside his grandfather, blue eyes regarding the older man quite seriously. Drew’s daughter could have kept the boy with her at Karachi Camp—none of the mining group minded in the slightest—but Delia wanted the boy to spend his summers with his grandfather and Drew hadn’t yet learned to tell her no. Though he’d half a mind if a certain vet from Landing ended up coming back to Delta…Drew shook his head, trying not to get ahead of himself. Lizzie said she’d think about it. If he’d thought about it a fair bit more, that wasn’t her fault.
Drew had to stifle the laugh that wanted to erupt at his grandson’s worried expression, Sammy’s hands latching onto his shirt sleeve and tugging impatiently. He was glad both his children had decided to join him on the Pern expedition, and not stay behind with their mother; his ex-wife had always made it clear she preferred an extravagant lifestyle over the demands of being a parent, so Drew got the benefit without having to feel guilty about alienating their offspring and plenty of opportunities to bond with his eldest grandson. Sammy had a delightful fondness for all kinds of animals, making friends with the flock of chickens at Delta and frequently informing Drew on their daily antics. He didn’t see the appeal—chickens were good for one thing, eating—but Sammy loved them, and usually spent his morning watching them scratch in their run after one of the adults had put out their feed.
“There’s a chicken in the chicken,” Sammy repeated, more urgently now, climbing over Drew’s knee and waving his hands towards the other buildings. Drew had deliberately built his residence a bit farther from the others, figuring as the main stakeholder he deserved a bit of privacy. “I saw it, no one else did. You gotta rescue it, Pa.”
“All right mate, show me where the chicken is.” Half laughing, half wondering if a chicken had gotten out, Drew let Sammy pull him to his feet, setting data pad and klah aside to locate this mystery chicken. If someone had left the coop open Drew might have words with the young laboring crew later; they’d only just gotten on top of the wherry problem, and he didn’t need them deciding to drop back in for a free meal. It would be awhile before they had enough trained fire lizards to chase off the resident wherry population, and Drew did not want a repeat of the last few months dealing with them.
“It’s in the chicken, Pa,” Sammy insisted, tugging on Drew’s shirt and directing him towards the building that housed Delta’s communal kitchen. “It’s a chicken, in the chicken. I saw it.”
“Kitchen, Sammy, it’s in the kitchen,” Drew replied, knowing what the boy meant now. Wouldn’t Delia get a kick out of this story later! “So there’s a chicken in the kitchen, huh? Someone must not have paid attention when they were feeding them.”
Sammy nodded, eyes big in his head as he followed Drew to the main doors which had been left open. Drew frowned; they didn’t have to worry about thieving on Pern, but the bigger reptiles could be a problem and he didn’t want one curling up in a cupboard somewhere, or underfoot to be stepped on. He’d dealt with enough angry brown snakes in his life to not want to tangle with the Pernese variety.
Drew didn’t hear anything when he pushed the kitchen doors open wider, however, nor did he spot the familiar black and brown bodies of Delta’s growing chicken flock. A mess of droppings on the floor suggested something had been inside, and a few remaining bits of bread from the farm crew’s breakfast lay scattered around as well, but Drew couldn’t see a chicken—the man sighed, resigning himself to a morning spent chasing down escaped poultry. Sammy peered in the door behind him, little hand pointing towards something at the far end of the room.
“See Pa, the chicken!”
“There’s nothing here…” Drew abruptly stopped, freezing in place as he realized Sammy was in fact pointing at something, one which sat with a predatory stillness that could be easily missed in Drew’s first cursory sweep of the room. The boy had been correct: there was an avian taking up residence on the far end of the work table, its mottled brown proto-feathers blending into the shadows and making it almost invisible until it twitched irritably. It wasn’t, unfortunately, a chicken.
Drew stared disbelieving at a goddamned wherry—and the cursed thing stared right back.
It wasn’t one of the bigger males and Drew counted his blessings that it appeared to be a juvenile, probably from the hatchings that had caused him so much trouble only a few months back. How the hell it had ended up in the kitchen, he’d never know. But the bloody thing was still big enough to cause havoc, or injure a curious young child.
“Sammy, just wait on the path, will you? Pa has to get the…chicken…out of the kitchen.” Drew hoped the boy listened to him; eyes fixed on the wherry he took a step back, scanning for anything he might use as a weapon. The big broom had—quite fortunately—been left by the door, and Drew just needed to reach it before the avian decided they were a threat. The wherry continued to eye him off, claws flexing into the wood of the long table, talons scratching deep grooves into the surface, and Drew knew what those talons could do; he’d had a close enough brush with them recently, one he wasn’t eager to repeat. He’d just wrapped his fingers around the handle, preparing to strike, when Sammy’s young voice piped up behind him.
“See, I told you Pa, there’s a chicken in the chicken!”
The boy’s excited tone must have startled the wherry, because the next minute it launched itself into the air and directly for Drew; the man shouted in alarm and swung the broom wildly, missing the wherry entirely and crashing into the stack of pans left drying beside the sink. The avian predator’s shrieks rang out just as loudly as the clatter of metal and Drew’s own panicked, defensive cries; he swung the broom again and connected with something—possibly one of the wooden cabinets, possibly the wherry—and a burst of proto-feathers momentarily blinded his vision, followed by an even louder shriek and a sudden crash of glass. When the feathers settled Drew saw the large kitchen window, now shattered and streaked with wherry blood, and Sammy standing in the doorway with a wide grin on his young face.
“You got the chicken out!” Sammy cheered, pleased with his grandfather’s achievement and completely unaware of the danger they’d just been in. “Good job, Pa.”
“Sammy, mate, let’s not tell your mother about this,” Drew muttered, looking around the kitchen at the mess of dishes, the broken glass and damaged tabletop, and the pungent scattering of wherry droppings. He dropped the broom and sank down into the nearest seat, shaking his head in disbelief.
A chicken in the bloody chicken; Drew chuckled quietly, imagining how he’d explain this one to Lizzie. She’d never believe him.