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“Uh, no?”
“Okay, then, I think it’ll be fine. It smells horrible on that ship. Most unsexy thing ever.”
He considered. He dropped the dead bird and the bolts and bow and he nodded at me. “Lead the way, shei.”
I brought him onto the ship and he inspected both the bodies with me. He stood over the donen guy and looked him over. Then he reached down and tugged on the guy’s pants.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“Looking to see if he…” He straightened. “It’s not mating madness. His cock is not descended.”
“Okay,” I said. “I should have thought of that. Well, it’s good to know you’re not going to be murderous.”
“Why would I kill you? How would that help me reproduce?”
“No, I…” I threw up my hands. “I’m just flustered.” I backed out of the bridge. “Anyway, what are we going to do? It occurs to me that all we’ve done is plan to get to the ship, and we didn’t make any plans for how to get back home.”
“I guess I was figuring you could hole up here and I could fight my way back for help,” he said.
“You can’t leave me alone on a ship with corpses!”
“We’ll get the corpses out and, uh, we’ll clean, and it’ll be fine.”
“I wonder if the ship works,” I said. “It doesn’t look crashed. Can you fly a ship?”
“No,” he said. “Can you?”
“No,” I said.
“Well, then,” he said.
I rubbed my forehead. “I don’t want to be in here. Let me come and sleep by the fire with you. And I’m hungry. Can I have some of that bird?”
“You don’t want to fire up the ship’s replicator?” He grinned at me.
“Ugh, plastic-y flavored protein rations versus delicious food cooked over an open flame? No contest.”
“So, you think I’m a good cook?” He was still grinning.
“You…” I threw up my hands again, and started for the exit of the ship.
“Shei, it’s really dumb for you to be out in the open,” he called after me.
“I don’t care. I can’t sleep on this ship. It’s a coffin.”
ELEVEN
cypra
I woke next to the fire to the thought that I had forgotten something very important. There had been three people on that ship, three members of the resistance, and I hadn’t found the third member of the crew.
I sat up, and Holston was not sleeping on the other side of the fire.
Instead, a little ways off, I could see him crouched down, his head up, his antlers illuminated red-orange as they reflected in the flames. He turned to look at me, his head a jerking movement, animalistic.
I hunched up, fearful, instinctive.
“Don’t run, shei,” he said in a guttural voice.
