Kren watched her face as she worked. She sucked her
lower lip into her mouth, concentrating on the image she created. Her brow
crinkled again, her face grim with purpose. She scowled at the way her drawing
was turning out, waving her hand over it a couple of times to erase her first
attempts.
She was definitely intelligent, Kren decided. He
wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover she possessed a soul, sentient and
animated by the All-Spirit.
Nex’s upset voice broke into his happy contemplation.
“Oh no. Is that what I think it is?”
Kren looked at the drawing Jeannie was putting the
finishing touches on. It was crude, the lines thick. Childish almost,
especially compared to Kren’s earlier sketch. But he could identify the
figures.
She’d drawn a round-headed stick figure with wavy
lines that Kren supposed represented Jeannie’s head full of hair. The eyes were
tiny dots, the mouth a downturned curve that expressed sadness despite its
unsophisticated rendering. It was on a horizontal plane, lying on a rectangle.
Jeannie pointed to it and confirmed Kren’s supposition: “Jeannie.”
Other figures stood vertical around the rectangle.
They were rendered equally as crude, with larger heads, big holes for eyes, and
drawn shorter than the stick-Jeannie. Kren’s hearts sank as his fellow officers
began to mutter to one another.
Jeannie’s drawing was rudimentary, but the
small-bodied, big-headed creatures were immediately identifiable all the same.
Kren looked at drones, creations of the Monsuda.
It could only mean that Jeannie was also of Monsudan
origin, a biological creation of their obscene labs. She would have to be
killed.
Amazon * Barnes and Noble * Google Play * iTunes * Kobo
No comments:
Post a Comment