Page 6 of Hunter’s Harvest

I put my hand flat on my chest. “Nellie,” I said. Then I pointed at him and waited.

He looked at my hand for a long time.

“Var’n.”

“Var’n.”

He grinned at me, showing all his sharp teeth. And if I wasn’t so used to being around Xarc’n hunters, I’d have cringed and backed away.

My stomach chose this moment to rumble. He better not give me that rank-smelling fish again. I thought hunters didn’t really eat or like fish. But then again, they needed a lot of protein, and living off a land where many of the wild animals were struggling to survive themselves was probably very difficult.

I looked around the cabin again and saw the oranges spilling out from a tied-up tarp.

I got up carefully this time—I’d learned my lesson—and went over to the tarp. I was delighted to find not just oranges from the shuttle but also the Xarc’n food bars. I marveled at the switcheroo. Here I was, refusing food a Xarc’n warrior gave me in Tupperware, but excited for an alien food bar instead. It was all backward.

Food in hand, I rummaged through the desk drawers and found myself a notepad and a pen.

Not wanting to eat on the bed, I pulled out one of the chairs he’d stacked by the wall and sat down.

Var’n watched intently as I drew the shuttle first. It was a crude but recognizable outline of the transport vessel. Then I added two stick figures beside it, one tall with horns (him) and one shorter with wild hair (me). I pointed between us and the shuttle, then made walking motions with my fingers.

“I have to get back,” I said, tapping the shuttle. “My friends. Charles. Vince. Marisol.” I drew three more stick figures, then made an explosion motion with my hands. “Boom. Missile. Gone.”

His eyes tracked every movement of my hands, his expression unreadable. When I finished, he reached out slowly, his massive hand dwarfing mine as he took the pen. Our fingers brushed, sending an unexpected spark through me. He turned the notepad toward himself, scratched out the front end of my drawn shuttle, and redrew it somewhere on the opposite side of the page.

Right. The shuttle was in two pieces.

I took the pen again and circled the three stick figures.

“You were traveling with others.” He was speaking in Xarc’n again.

“Yes!” I nodded vigorously. “We have to find them.”

“You are weak. You must recover.”

I huffed in frustration, but the vitamin drink was working its magic. The dizziness had faded to a manageable level. I gnawed on the ridiculously tough Xarc’n food bar, knowing that I’d never actually be able to bite into it. That shit was so tough, we usually had to dice it into small pieces and cook it with a liquid to avoid getting lockjaw from chewing. But at least it wasn’t fishy.

“We go,” he said. “When you are strong.”

“But my friends are in danger now!”

I got up and started for the door. I made it all of four feet before the room swirled again and I found myself pitching forward. Var’n caught me. Again.

Sigh. So maybe the big oaf had a point.

“Okay,” I conceded, letting him set me back in the chair. “But soon. We go soon.”

He nodded, then surprised me by gingerly tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers lingered against my cheek for just a moment before he pulled away, leaving a trail of heat and awareness where he’d touched.

I had to get back to the shuttle and to my friends, and Var’n was going to help me. But he was right; I needed to recover first. He had a Xarc’n medical unit with him, so that should help. I gestured to the device and he brought it over. It didn’t have the English translations that some of the ones back on New Franklin did. But I had the opening sequence pretty much memorized. We taught everyone as a precaution, just like how we taught everyone how to shoot a blaster, even if they claimed they “could never.”

The thing about “never” was that it quickly lost all meaning the moment there was a deadly space bug about to tear you apart. Adrenaline takes over and “I could never” becomes “Aaargh!”

Var’n looked entertained as he watched me move through the screens. But he didn’t stop me, so I must have been doing the right thing. When the device hummed to life, I held it to my head. Because, clearly, that was where the problem was. I must have hit my head pretty hard on the way down. In fact, I was surprised I was even alive. And for a moment there, I really thought it was the end.

“I will help,” he said. Then he was climbing into the bed with me, and I found myself being maneuvered until I was inside the circle of his arms. He took the device from me and held it in place.

I was going to protest, but the purring started up in his chest, filling the space around us. Didn’t they say that cats purred in a frequency that promoted healing? This was a big freaking cat. But I relaxed anyway. Partly because I felt safe, and partly because I was so tired.