1
They named the comet Mercury Star. Not for how brightly it burned, but for the star-shaped hole it punched into the land, and the rich, strange mix of minerals it left behind.—1603
—from the journal of L.U.C.
The way I saw it, a girl needed three things to start a day right: a hot cup of tea, a sturdy pair of boots, and for the feral beast to die the first time she stabbed it in the brain.
“You missed, Matilda,” Neds called out from where he was leaning in the cover of trees several yards off.
“No,” I said, “I didn’t. This one doesn’t have a brain to hit. Kind of like a certain farmhand I know.” I pulled the knife out of the crocboar’s skull and sank it into the thrashing creature’s eye before dodging out of the way again.
It lunged at me, three-foot tusks and long snout lined with crocodile teeth slashing a little too close for comfort. Crocboars weren’t smart, but they had the teeth, claws, and tough skin to make up for any intelligence they lacked.
“Now you made it mad,” Neds said.
“Not helpful.” I jumped out of the way and pulled my other knife.
“I’ve got the tranq gun right here,” he said. “And a clear shot.”
“No. Wait. I want the meat clean.”
Keeping property out here in the scrub meant occasionally trapping and taking down feral beasts before they damaged crops or the domesticated animals. Crocboars weren’t good eating, since they were too filled up on the nano that laced the soil of this land. But they made terrific dragon chow.
The beast thrashed some more, ran out of steam, folded down on its knees, and fell over dead.
Just like that.
“Can’t get over how quick those things fall,” Right Ned said.
“Who are you calling brainless, by the way?” Left Ned grumbled.
I shook the slime off my gloves—crocboars excreted oil—and glanced at Neds.
Most people stared, eyes wide and mouths open, when they first meet Neds. There was good reason for it. Neds had two heads but only the one body, which was never the most normal sort of thing.
Both of him had sandy blond hair cut short and soft blue eyes that gave him an innocent shine, when most times he was anything but. He was clean-cut good-looking, a few inches taller than me, tanned and hard muscled from farm work; something you could tell even though he wore a dark green T-shirt and baggy denim overalls.
He’d left the touring circus and was looking for a job when he saw the ad I’d taken out at the local feed store. I wanted a farmhand to help with the land and the stitched beasts my father, Dr. Case, had left in my keeping.
Especially since my brother, Quinten, hadn’t been home in more than three years, something that worried me terribly.
Most people had been scared off by one thing or another in that ad: the hard work, the beasts, or me—a single women holding down her own chunk of land far enough from a city we weren’t even covered by House Green, nor were we on the power grid. Neds never complained about any of that. He’d been a fixture on the farm for two years.
“Bring the net over,” I said. “We have some dragging to do.”
It didn’t take us long to throw the net over the beast and tug it tight so the rough hide caught in the rope fiber. That was the easy part. Dragging was the hard part.
I walked over for my rifle, picked it up, and took one last look at the trees and dry summer underbrush around us. Nothing else moved; nothing reared for attack. So that was good.
“Who gets this one?” Right Ned asked, tossing me a rope. “Pony or the leapers?”
“Lizard. I think it’s about ready to molt. It should be nice and hungry.”
“Just tell me we don’t have to boil down scales today and I’m happy,” Right Ned said.
I took a length of rope and slung it over my shoulder, and Neds did the same.
“No boiling.” We put shoulders to it and dragged the half ton of dead and stink behind us. “But we could have a little fun and scrape a few scales free while it’s eating.”
