Page 23 of Treasured By the Hunter

He grunted in a way that I now understood as a yes. “Yes, spitters. Acid and fire. Xarc’n warriors have exceptional healing abilities. We’re able to come back from just about anything as long as we’re still alive, but the results aren’t always aesthetically pleasing. The engineers who made us only cared that we could continue fighting.”

I couldn’t imagine surviving that, but I guess the Xarc’n warriors were made of tougher stuff. He was built to fight the scourge, and he had the scars to prove it.

The door to the hobby shop was locked, and no one had smashed their way in yet since the store didn’t contain any food or essentials. But the lock was no match for Harb’k.

“If Siobhan and her hunter Zec’k never found me, I would’ve died that day. And perhaps, I’d wanted to then.”

“And now?” I asked.

“Now, I am glad I lived. I have made many friends and found a home here on Earth. I will continue to fight for my new home until it is free of the scourge.”

“You consider this your home?”

“Yes. I plan to stay even after the scourge is gone. But that is far in the future. We still have a long fight ahead.”

We stepped into the hobby shop. It was much brighter here since it was above ground and had windows. I immediately looked for a way to cover them, not wanting the flyers outside to see us. There was a display of foam boards just in front of me. We covered the windows with them, leaving cracks for the light to get in so we could still see without the use of his lantern.

Harb’k was immediately drawn to the display of model planes and other vehicles. He looked like a kid on Christmas morning as he approached it.

“Look at these; they are so detailed. And colored. The kits I had didn’t include paint, but some of the beginner ones Ryan and the other youngsters in New Franklin had did.” He took out his phone and his communicator and started snapping images of the labels and signs on the shelf. I wondered what he was doing until his communicator started saying words in his language.

“What are you looking for? I can read them for you.”

“I wish to color the ones I already have.”

I directed him one shelf over to where all the paints were lined up.

“There are so many choices. I don’t know which ones to take.”

“Why don’t you take them all? Your shuttle is big enough. And it’s not like you have to choose between fun and food.”

That had been one reason why we’d had to leave so many of the things we found behind. As nomads, we had to focus on things that fetched a good price when we traded with others. There were so many times I just wanted to swoop in and take it all.

“You’re right. And the youngsters will enjoy them.”

I located a few bags under the cash, and we loaded them up. By the time we were done, it was already midafternoon, and we really needed to get moving if we wanted to stay ahead of Corey. And let’s not forget, we were supposed to be searching this area for strange bugs and strange bug behaviors.

We made our way back out to his shuttle with our hobby haul in hand. And soon, we were in the air, hovering over the small town. We were just plotting the next course when Harb’k’s shuttle spoke in the growly Xarc’n language, and the translator at his belt repeated it in English.

“Hunter, I am low on water. Artificial reservoir detected nearby to the east.”

The way the ship referred to itself as “I” had me wondering if this shuttle was smart like the one Corey’s group had captured. But I was afraid to ask, lest Harb’k think I was going to steal it or something, but he must have seen the question on my face.

“My shuttle is not a PIP model. But all our shuttles have rudimentary AI to help us fight the scourge.”

PIP models must be what they call the really smart ones.

“Shuttle, this is Zoey.”

“Greetings, Zoey. I am model”—the ship said something I didn’t understand—“the third most used artificial intelligence in the Xarc’n fleet.”

“Nice to meet you, shuttle.” I didn’t try to replicate the sound it had made. I looked at the screen which now showed a map with an area highlighted. “I thought that reservoir was contaminated. We’d been avoiding it.” It wasn’t just the bugs we had to worry about, but the fungus that worked hand in hand with them. Eating or drinking anything contaminated with it was a death sentence.

First, you get these sores all over your body that smell horrendous, and then you either turn into a slow, brain-dead zombie or a fast, angry one, attacking everyone around you and spreading the disease. Then, when you were ripe for the picking and oozing the fungus from every pore, the stench called in the bugs to finish the job.

“It is,” Harb’k said. “You are smart to avoid it. But my shuttle has the ability to disinfect and decontaminate any water in its tanks. It is a necessity. Sometimes the infestation is so bad on a planet that no other water is available.”

“Well, it’s right there, so why don’t we do that first before heading to the last safe house?”

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