On the appointed day, over three hundred people gathered by the stone circle. They carried their belongings in bags and stacked in bundles on their backs and on the backs of gonds, goats, and even sheep. Chickens clucked and complained of their captivity in cages made of sticks hanging from the backs of the pack animals alongside woven baskets filled with grain, seeds, and other necessities to start a new place where all of them could live. Other people waited beyond with their small flocks of sheep and goats to join them when they left.
“It’s a better turnout than I expected,” Granny Greenflower said to the shorter and furrier android standing next to her.
“I think the episode with Movey and the puppy swayed a few,” MO-126 said.
“It may have,” she agreed.
A shout originated at the far end of the crowd, which the android dog heard, but few others near him did. They would be moving soon. The villagers near the front of the column relayed the call to those behind them, and people began exchanging final farewells.
“Thanks for your help,” Granny Greenflower said to him.
He swished his tail once in acknowledgement. “All I did was report what I saw.”
“But not everything you heard.”
“The PM just needed additional data relevant to its decision about budding this village, so that’s what I provided. Everything else would have been irrelevant to it.”
“But not to you.”
“No. Not to me.”
She reached down to pat him on his furry head.
“So you’ll be staying here, then,” MO-126 said. It was not a question. He knew she would be.
“That’s what Field Ops has instructed. Besides, I may be able to help here. Ranex’s group will have another nursery android assigned to them. He and Tam should be meeting you right after you leave here.”
“Yeah. The one assigned to Ranex’s bunch is a basic paternal type. He’s going as a storyteller. ”
“This is a story they will want to remember,” she said, “and you too, I think.”