Existing (under editing)

Chapter 20*

Their shadowed faces where happy and laughing. I could tell because that is the feeling I got as I smiled back, my body retreated to that of a child. We were spinning around in a meadow of flowers. Running and falling, laughing at Father as he tripped and had pestles caught in his hair. I sat making a daisy chain as young Pepper was curled up on fathers lap as we talked.

"Pepper." Mother peered down trying to get the dogs attention.

Don't call me that I hate that name.

"Pepper."

"Mother, he doesn't like that name." I said, a lisp from my missing two front teeth.

She turned her head to me. "And why do you think that darling?"

"Because that's what he said." I picked another flower, trying to tie it into my forming daisy chain with my small stumpy child hands.

"Oh yes really?" she said in a joking tone. "Then tell me where did I get him to hide Daddy's notebook so he wouldn't spend all day writing in it yesterday while you and him where fishing?"

You had me go all the way to Benjie's house.

"In Benjie's house."

"Who's Benjie sweaty," Father chimed in, same joking tone as Mother.

"The skunk." I listened for the rest of peppers sentence. "Because it stinky and Daddy wouldn't go there."

Father looked at mother, serious.

Everything around me faded and now I was laying down on hard wood. A thick blanket wrapped around me as I peered through the hole in the floor to the down stairs of my cabin.

"She's one of them Joseph. But she's different. It's neurological. Not like the physical quirks of Zambana. It's probably isolated to the frontal lobe, or maybe even auditory. We won't know unless we conduct proper tests with professional neurological equipment." Mother whispered.

"I know, Nina." He said as he paced. Child me barely understood any of the words but listened anyway, carried by the love of hearing their voices.

"We could do some tests, maybe it's because she's grown up here, and her auditory development has taken in the animals sounds like language like you said. If we had been anywhere else the possibility of other language learning could be a factor when introduced to it, she my just have a natural understanding of the animals but it could be she can understand any native tongue."

"It would still have to be a mutation. Our brains aren't programed to take upon an understanding of other species, speech maybe if it's just her neuroplasticity, to learn but not over that board of a spectrum. Like that section of her brain is able to keep learning rather than settling down as she got older like any other child."

"Maybe it's a good thing. She will actually be able to make friends out here."

"No Nina." Father sighed and I her the seat scrape the wood floor as her sat down. "I think it's a sign it's time for us to go back and sort everything out. It must be a sign, after what we had done to all the others."

"No, I will not return to that god forbidden place." She squeaked through her teeth. "And I sure as hell don't what Alma anywhere near."

"But we could train Pepper to stay with her. As they did for the elderly remember. My mum used to work them because they could never get a robot to train them better than she did." Father sounded at a loss. "Look. We need to fix what we did and at the moment this will be the best opportunity and there has been no development in the relocation. They probably don't want to give up their wealth for the greater good. We won't be gone for long, we will just go to a nearby colony and contact the central communicator, give them everything we need and inform them of the system that is ready to be launched. And with Pepper trained and how she can understand him for the short term we will be back before she knows it."