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Anne’s tail. Anne shook them off and chased Ell in a circle around them, until Bea tripped Ell, letting Anne jump on her cousin, holding her head down and administering a furious tickling.
    Emily and Tee threw big rubber balls at the two rolling in the grass along the path. The pummeling by balls degenerated into a wild melee of dodge ball by all the drascos, including Jay and Peebee. A giant aquamarine ball zinged past Stone close enough to ruffle his hair, but he kept his steady pace toward his new barracks.
    Charlotte caught an errant red ball and flipped it back to her Aunt Peebee. She giggled, “ I want to go live near the piglets at Cyrus Bay .”
    Emily giggled with her sister. “ Me too. Like, they have the best food, for sure .”
    Stone shook his head at the girl’s choice of words. He’d tried to get them to stop saying “like”, “you know”, and “for sure”, with no success. Either they spent too much time with low ranking enlisted and young military dependents stationed on Allie’s World or they sounded like young teenage girls from watching too many late night videos. Maybe teenagers always sounded that way to anyone older. The girls may not be teenagers in years, but there was still an emotional maturity phase they were passing through.
    Peebee said, “ Hush, girls. You can’t live there without asking the piglets permission. That’s right isn’t it, Mama?”
    Stone accidently dropped a heavy Hyrocanian skull he kept as a souvenir. Picking it up he wondered if he would have to get rid of it now. Keeping body parts of an intelligent species was a direct violation of military regulations. He’d gotten around the regulation because he was the governor, but things would be different now. He hated to get rid of the skull as this particular Hyrocanian had personally tried to kill him.
    He looked at Charlotte, “Your Aunt Peebee is right. You can’t go and expect the piglets to take care of you without asking.”
    Anne said, “ But we could help them move, like, stuff, you know? Carry, um, stuff and like … things .”
    Emily and Charlotte nodded.
    Bea wonked in great disagreement, shaking her head as if trying to clear something unsavory hanging off the end of her chin. She threw a big ball at Emily, who caught it and threw it back. Bea said, “ The piglets don’t fight. I want to go stay with the marines .”
    While Emily was distracted throwing the ball at Bea, Ell hit her in the back of the head with a ball.
    Bea added, “I like it when they take us to the gun range. I like it when we make things blow up with big guns, you know.”
    Stone hadn’t realized the marines had taught his drascos to shoot. He would have to talk with Hammermill about their progress. Drascos were smart enough, but he wondered if the younger ones were mature enough to handle high-powered weapons.
    Tee sat in the grass, pulled up a mouthful to eat, and scratched the soft tender spot behind her back leg. “ Don’t care. I have to go poop. ” Leaving her goods on the ground, she raced off into the bushes, followed by Ell and Anne.
    Jay said, “ We will stay together. We stay near Mama .”
    Peebee agreed. “ Mama will take care of us. Jay and I will take care of you girls. But we do it all together. ”
    Stone nodded. “My room is hardly big enough for me, but we’ll find some place for you girls to stay.” He shuffled forward with his stuff, actually amazed he could carry everything he owned in one trip.
    Peebee said, “ There is a small grove of trees across the parking lot from your new place. We will — ”
    Emily and Bea shouted together. “ Camping! We get to camp out .”
    Jay raised herself up, wonking happily, stretching to her full height. “ Good idea. It’s too stuffy inside. I like outside better. ”
    Emily raced ahead, “ Last one there is a stinky head! ”
    Stone laughed as all eight drascos raced across the parking lot, Bea, Ell, and Anne racing to catch up. So much for any sort of