By Matt Ahlschwede

Boo’gil Xann, the caretaker, sighed as they inspected the pod-yard. The eight young cielioids were still sleeping fitfully. They tended to get a bit restless at this stage, just before they uprooted. When the young uproot and start moving about freely is when a caretaker’s work goes from relatively peaceful to extremely hectic. This would be the caretaker’s last peaceful day for the next two Gronnic Cycles (about five earth-years) until the young were mature enough to be sent off to school and the process would begin anew.

Xann stood in their place in the center of the yard under the awning in the cool predawn, just enjoying a little tranquility, looking over the sleeping children they were so proud of. In the north-west corner was a boxer named Kovac. Boxers were usually the first to uproot due to their stronger muscles, and shortly before the caretaker sounded the morning call to awaken the children, the familiar sound of breaking roots could be heard from that direction.

As Xann sounded the morning, with a loud, yet soothing “Good morning, children”, Kovac finished breaking their roots and ran right under the awning and into Xann’s tree-trunk-thick leg, as a pair of arms were extended to pick up the young boxer and perch them on a ridge of green flesh caretakers were engineered to have growing out of their bodies just for this purpose. “Good morning, Kovac, you have certainly grown out of the soil of your ancestors.”, said the caretaker.

“Boo’gil! Boo’gil! I can run! I want to fly right up to the sky!”, enthused the young boxer. “Kly Fnofcob doesn’t make ridiculous demands, Kovac.”, murmured the caretaker, hefting the bucket of meat-fruit for the children’s breakfast. “Help me feed the others and I’ll show you the inside of the awning.” promised Xann, beaming with joy.