Sam was one of those he’d had a very vague recollection of back on the ship, and that connection made them closer than any of Sanford’s other neighbors in Cottonwood, even though Sam was an irritating handful of sand himself. Yls’a’thq really, but the human names got in, didn’t they? Like sand under chitin, digging and eroding and bleeding you out. “Why is the door broken? Did the vans come?” “What happened?” he asked, his tiny hands slipping between the plates armoring Sanford’s neck, seeking comfort by touching skin, wanting to be touched in return. Sanford clicked reassuringly, told him it was nothing and tried to mean it, but the words were bitter in his throat and his son’s anxiety did not lessen. T’aki looked around, at once tense and alert. He swore, waking his son, who had dozed off against his shoulder. Living this close to the wall, the risk of home invasion was far less than it might be in the unpatrolled middlegrounds of the prison, but it still happened and he had more to lose than most.
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