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I approach him slowly, walking around the large rock to find that it is not a mere rock. It is a decoy of sorts, and there is a hole dug out beneath it, quite deep into the soil.
The hollow is absolutely stuffed with boys. A few of them are holding even younger cubs, some of them only a few days old. They are all looking at me with wide, frightened eyes.
I have noted that the Leonids look at me as an animal. In this moment, I look at them in much the same way. I see animal suffering and human suffering mixed together in a way that wrenches at my core.
“Hi,” I say, crouching near the mouth of the hole. “I’m Ava. I’m here to help. Don’t worry. Everything is going to be okay.”
Half the young cubs burst into tears hearing that little bit of reassurance. They’ve been strong all the while they hid, no doubt hearing terrible things going on above them.
“Azlan!” I call out for my mate. He needs to come. They need to see him and know that they are safe. They’re probably scared to death of me. I must look very strange to them.
While I wait for Azlan to come, I try to settle the cubs. One by one they crawl up out of the hole, all of them cuddling close to me. I may not be a Leonid, but I do provide the adult presence they need.
The babies are crying, held in the arms of befuddled older males who have not worked out what to do with them.
I have always been responsible. It feels natural to intervene now. I take a squalling cub from the male holding it out to me. It is a heavy weight in my hands, all fuzzy and wide eyed and bawling with angry rage.
“Azlan!”
I call for him as I lead the young ones out from the rock where they hid. Finally, he seems to hear me, and comes over to see the state of the little ones.
Azlan is accompanied by a small contingent of males, some of whom greet the young cubs as their family. It is a moment of great relief for some, and misery for others as they realize their mothers and fathers are no longer here.
“They hid the cubs when he came, to spare them. But now they will starve,” one of the Leonid males says. “There is no milk.”
I feel something like rage flash through me, anger, but with a greater purpose.
“They absolutely will not starve,” I insist.
I have already spotted a nearby goatherd, or creatures that look like animals anyway. They are penned in a large area and look a sort of wary kind of domesticated. Not tame, but not entirely wild.
“Are those goats?”
“Yes,” Azlan says.
“Tell me some of them are in milk.”
He looks at me blankly.
“They’ve had kids that they’re feeding. Babies. Goat cubs,” I elaborate.
“Yes.”
“Alright. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to round these girls up, pen them somewhere smaller and then run them one by one through a smaller enclosure that allows me to reach their udders.”
The look I get back upon suggesting this course of action is as if I just suggested something entirely mad. I forget that there’s a whole world of difference between omnivores and carnivores. As advanced as the Leonids are, they don’t really consider animals for anything much more than their meat and maybe their hides.
It’s mad, because cats love milk. Maybe Leonids don’t love milk. Maybe they don’t know they love milk yet. No, I’m sure it would have occurred to them to try the milk at some point in their history.
“You don’t drink milk? You don’t feed your young milk products?”
“If a female is unable to feed her young, there is always a spare teat with another mother. Six or eight teats to a female, there’s always milk to go around.”
“Except when there isn’t. Where I come from, we take milk from dairy animals, and feed it to our young. The milk is usually close enough to nourish them. It’s not perfect, but it is better than starving.”
“We will try it,” Azlan says.
“Of course we’re going to try it,” I say. “It’s all we can do.”
