“I’m hungry too! Let’s get in line.”
We did, but my eyes continued to scan the crowd forher.
She was the reason I’d accepted Jask’l’s invitation to stay in the grounded mothership with him instead of returning to the island food production facility after the market. Though if I had to be honest, they didn’t have a job for me there anyway. Technically, there was no job for me here either.
Usually, overseers stayed as overseers until they took their final mission and fought the scourge for one last time, dying in battle and glory. There’d never been a spare overseer until me.
And because of that, I found myself occasionally wondering if it was time for me to plan that final battle.
Was that why Jask’l had invited me to stay close to him? So he could keep watch over me? I knew he didn’t believe it was time for me to go yet. I was old, but not that old. If the scourge hadn’t infected our mothership, I might still have had many more decades.
The younger hunter had even asked me to take over his role as the overseer of the grounded mothership, or the mothership building as the humans preferred to call it, but I’d rejected the offer. Jask’l and the humans working with him were clearly doing a much better job than I ever could.
Besides, this wasn’t my ship. My ship, my baby, the only home I ever knew, was gone.
I’d come to New Franklin to witness the human survivors’ First Annual Trader’s Market. The hunters had hijacked the event for an excuse to see comrades from hunter groups that they’d fought with before. I hadn’t expected to recognize so many faces. I hadn’t realized I’d trained so many young hunters in my time. It had been a strangely emotional experience.
And when all was said and done, the hunters left New Franklin for their respective groups. That had felt even more like the time for my final mission was nigh. All these hunters were doing well. They were the future, and they no longer needed me.
That was until a gorgeous, bespeckled female, who smelled like flowers and alcohol, came crashing into me. She’d surprised me so much with her mouth-to-mouth mating that I was left unable to speak. I also didn’t have enough working brain cells left to follow her home or even ask her name.
I just stood there in the cold at the corner of the hunters’ building like an idiot.
I felt an elbow to my ribs. Kaj’k looked back at me with concern on his face.
“You do seem distracted.”
“Just hungry.”
“Well, come on, you gotta move,” Alice said. “We’re holding up the line.”
We continued through the line and picked up our portions of breakfast burritos: packages of animal ovum cooked with vegetables and pieces of nutrition bar, all contained in a thin, doughy wrapping. It tasted better than it sounded, with plenty of interesting spices to tantalize my palate. Considering my less-than-ideal sense of smell, that said a lot. Maybe that was why I enjoyed human cooking so much, because I needed the extra flavor to taste anything at all.
Unlike in the hunters’ compound, all the tables and chairs here were human height. They were awkwardly small, as were the tiny metal utensils. Luckily, many humans were picking up the wrap with their hands and eating it. I did the same until laughter had me looking toward one corner of the room.
There she was! I’d found her!
The female with the heavy-framed glasses on her face and white-tinged hair sat at a table with several other humans.
“That’s Dottie,” Alice said. “She came by to visit a few days ago. You’d just missed her when you came by.”
Was it that obvious I was staring at her?
I knew I hadn’t asked the question out loud, but Kaj’k chuckled and replied anyway. “You are staring at her with your mouth open, your burrito held several inches away. It is quite humorous.”
I snapped my mouth shut. I did not want to be the source of their humor.
“I can introduce you two! You guys would be perfect for each other.”
“Oh no, Ror’k, run! She’s going to start matchmaking,” Kaj’k said, running a hand down his face.
“No, seriously,” Alice said. “You two would be great together. She’s a little older and works at the library, and you’re a little older and were an overseer. It’ll be so cute.”
My brain latched onto the word “library.” I knew what that was. It was a physical repository of information, and in this settlement’s case, a place where they stored all their books and manuals.
“That is not necessary,” I said sternly. Even as I did, Dottie stood along with the humans in her group. Together they stepped out of the mess hall, laughing and talking.
Chapter 3: Dottie
