“I guess I’d better start looking.” I hold up the disc-on-a-thong. “Any ideas on what this is supposed to lead me to?”
“Girl, no clue at all.”
I eye Farli, who’s sitting nearby quietly. “Do I need to search your paint pots?”
She giggles. “He borrowed them but already gave them all back.” She shakes her head. “No necklaces.”
“Oh, is this a necklace?” I study it again. Bless my mate’s heart, but it’s kind of hideous. “I thought it was like, a teacup saucer or something.”
Georgie gives me a strange look. “With a hole in the center?”
“What else could it be?”
“That’s the question of the day.” I study it again as Josie comes and thumps down next to us, a dejected look on her face. “It reminds me of donuts, actually.”
“Reminds me of a pizza cutter,” Josie chimes in, her chin resting on her hands. “Why do you have a pizza cutter?”
A pizza cutter? I touch the edge and it’s blunted, but it could easily be made sharp. Interesting. “My mate left me a treasure hunt,” I tell her. And because she looks so darn sad, I ask, “Want to help me look for the next clue?”
“Sure.”
The sa-khui are a people that don’t like to waste anything. Horns, hooves, furs, dried bladders, you name it - all of a kill can be put to use. And because even the bones are used, there’s a lot of storage. In fact, there’s an entire cave dedicated to storing items, and that’s where Josie and I find ourselves - sifting through basket after basket of cleaned, stored bones, just waiting to be carved into something useful. It’s kind of macabre, but after two years of living with the sa-khui? I’ve gotten over a lot of my squeamishness.
I’m picking through a handful of what look like dvisti ribs when Josie sighs. “What is it?” I ask.
“I miss Haeden,” she says, flinging aside a vertebrae into another basket. “It seems like he just got back and now he’s gone again.”
She’s not wrong - Haeden was gone for weeks on a trek to recover the new human women, and I feel a pang of guilt. Cashol’s been at my side the entire time. I…guess it’s been selfish of me to demand that he stay here when everyone else has to sacrifice. “You could go with him,” I suggest. “Liz goes hunting with Raahosh.”
“I suggested it.” Josie’s glum tone tells me how that conversation went. “He wants me to stay safe with the baby on the way.”
“Mmm. Well, it’s not the worst idea. Not that I think you’ll hurt yourself.” I run my hand over a long, smooth rib, debating taking it back to the cave with me. I need a new ladle and with a bit of carving, this could work well. “But give it a few months and you’ll run out of energy and you’ll be glad you’re here with the rest of us. Besides, he can probably get more done without distractions.”
“He is easily distracted,” she says dreamily.
This is getting close to TMI territory so I renew my digging into a fresh basket. I’m wearing my ugly little disc around my neck now, so I don’t lose it, and I’m growing fonder of it by the moment. I touch it often, just so I can remind myself that Cashol’s thinking of me. It helps.
“So how come Cashol finally decided to go out on a longer hunt? I thought you guys had some sort of agreement with Vektal or something.”
Did she not know that Haeden said something? Or maybe it was just a rumor. Either way, it doesn’t matter. “It was time. He needed to go out. The hunting’s gonna be hot and heavy until the winter gets here. Sorry, not winter. Brutal season. Whatever.”
“That’s what everyone keeps saying.” She pulls her basket closer and tucks it between her legs, then digs deep. “But you hate that he’s gone out, don’t you? I can tell.”
“It’s…hard.”
“Why?”
Josie’s innocent question doesn’t surprise me. She loves to talk. In fact, that’s one reason why I like her company so much - she’ll talk endlessly if given a subject, and it’s good to hear someone else fill the empty space. If it gets too quiet, I’ll start to miss Cashol even more. “For the same reason that Haeden makes you stay near the cave instead of going hunting with him, I suppose.” My basket’s turning out to be a big dud, so I brush my hands off and put it aside. “I worry.”
“That he’s going to get hurt? Haeden says Cashol’s good at hunting. A good tracker. Doesn’t have the sixth sense like Rokan does, but he can read a trail really well. But I kind of think Haeden’s one of the best hunters, so I might be biased. It’s easy to be biased when you’re mated to such a great guy.”
My lips twitch as Josie gives another dreamy sigh. Hard to believe she was cussing Haeden’s name a few short months ago. Resonance changes everything, though. Before, Cashol was just kind of…there. In the scenery. A nice guy in a sea of nice guys that wanted a mate. He’d never put the moves on me, never hit on me, but if I needed a hand with something, he was always one of the first to volunteer. That’s just how he is. He’s friendly and generous and so clever.
Great, now I’m missing him. I ignore the lonely pang that shoots through me and hoist another basket as near my protruding belly as I can. The baby’s unusually active today, constantly thumping and moving around. I give my belly a little pat and then reach into the basket. “I just worry, you know? I worry that…well, it’s like how we got here. Everything was fine and normal, and then I woke up and my world changed. Kidnapped by aliens and everything that was familiar torn away from me.” I swallow hard. “I…guess I’m worried about that happening again. About getting too comfortable, too happy, and then everything goes to hell once more.”
Because now? I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I’ve got the most wonderful mate, and a baby on the way, and most days I’m so happy I don’t even mind that there’s no chocolate or toilet paper or shampoo on the ice planet. I can do without those as long as I have Cashol and my baby.
If I lose them…
I shake my head to clear the dark thoughts. “Any luck on matching discs?”
“Nada, amigo.”
“Keep looking. There’s a few more baskets over in the corner.”
“I’m on it,” she says, and gets to her feet. “As for the worry? It’s funny, but I don’t worry anymore.”
I pick through my basket idly. “No?”
“Nope. I figure that I’ve been kidnapped by aliens and dropped halfway across the galaxy to find the one person that’s perfect for me, so there’s got to be a master plan at work.” She begins to hum a little tune and then pauses. “We’ve got to trust that the worst is over, you know? All the storm clouds are behind us and there’s nothing but blue skies ahead.”
I smile to hear her say that. Maybe she’s right. Maybe there are nothing but good things from this point on. Except…I don’t point out that the skies here are rarely blue and are most often covered with a gray, wintry fog.
Let her have enough optimism for the both of us.
4
CASHOL
The dvisti herd peacefully grazing in the valley is completely unaware of my presence. I’m downwind of them and Haeden’s nearby, up on a ledge. He has the onerous task this day of rubbing his skin with dung to disguise his smell, and they have yet to notice him. It will be my turn for the next herd.
We had originally planned to go our separate ways to hunt but Haeden does not want to be away from his new mate. I do not wish to be away from Meh-gan’s side as well, and so we devise a plan to attack a herd and bring back much dvisti meat without spending handfuls of days away.
So we have spent several days digging pits. Many, many pits. Long pits. Deep pits with spear-heads attached to stakes. It snows endlessly, and we spend half the day re-digging out our trenches. The weather is bad and only growing worse, and if this does not work, we will be spending even more days afield.
It is a risk, but we are willing to try it.
The call of a scythe-beak cuts through the air and I look over at Haeden. He makes the strange, cutting sound again, a hand to his mouth. I nod and respond with the same. It is time.
The dvisti graze on, unaware of our presence.
Then, Haeden gives a blood-curdling yell, jumping down from his perch. He waves his spear, screaming as he rushes toward the startled herd. They panic and surge in the opposite direction, toward me.
I jump as well, bellowing, and chase after them as they switch directions once more. Now the herd has nowhere to go but towards our pit traps. They charge toward the pits, invisible against the snowy drifts, and one bellows as it goes down into the hole. Another sinks after it, and there is a snap of bone. Three more dvisti bray and skirt wide, but several more of the herd end up in the traps, and Haeden and I jog toward them, pleased.
“How many did we get?” I ask as we meet up, spears in hand. The day’s work is just beginning - we will need to kill any trapped dvisti that did not snap their necks. We will need to pull the carcass from the pit, cut the throat to bleed it, and then dress it. Our sleds wait against a nearby cliff, and from there, we will ferry our kills to a cache.