Page 95 of Return of the Nine

Trusk walked up and grinned. “I have taken care of it. One of the city halls is still habitable. It has living quarters in it.”

Niika paused and looked around her, taking in the vista that expanded as far as the eye could see. The city was arranged in a wheel and spoke pattern. The centre was filled with a fountain that splashed water thirty feet into the sky.

The arch of stone above them left two hundred feet between roof and ground.

“How is all of this supported?”

Cavos offered her his arm, and she took it, ignoring the shudder that passed through his body.

He walked with her toward the city, pointing out the buttresses that had been formed in the rock above in a web so tight, nothing could fall.

She heard a noise that was very familiar coming from half a kilometre away. She turned her head and asked, “Morro, Tidae, are either of you up for a bit of hunting?”

“I haven’t hunted in so long that I am afraid I have forgotten how.” Morro’s voice was amused.

“I teach an excellent five-minute course in catching Zaphlings. They are usually the tastiest of the easy prey.” She smiled at the thought of getting the Wilders to chase down the small creatures. Tiny hooves, pudgy bodies and faster than thought, one Zaphling would feed them for two days.

There was no way she could catch one with her braces acting up, but there was no sense in having two strong predators with her if she wasn’t going to use them to provide a meal.

“Why are you creaking?” Cavos’s whisper brought her out of her thoughts.

“Ah, that. Well, let’s just say a lady needs her secrets, and as I am one helluva lady, I need more than most.” She chuckled softly.

His skin shifted for a moment, and she swore that she could see it turn to stone for an instant. “As you like.”

She wished she could tell him, tell anyone, but being mobile via Tokkel tech was not something that most women on Gaia would admit to.

The Tokkel had been most curious to seek out and examine the newest inhabitants of the same world that twisted them but elevated the Nine. The Gaians—most recently of Earth—had been shocked to be under alien attack and even more perturbed when citizens went missing. Everything Tokkel was to be despised and that meant her braces were in danger.

A few days without mobility had been more than enough for her lifetime.

A fire via firestones was crackling merrily. The rocks that Trusk and Cavos had gathered were brightly glowing once they cracked them with a fire poker and exposed their interiors to oxygen.

Niika sat near the fire and extended her legs, moving slowly and stretching them back to full mobility. The men watched her curiously, but they did not ask what she was doing. Once her legs were completely under her control once again, she got to her feet and reached into her pack. “Gentlemen, it is time to learn the fine art of Zaphling hunting.”

She wore her knives, held a small folded pack in her hand and led the way out to the field where the deliberate smacking of skull against skull told her that this herd was in the middle of mating season.

Perfect.

Cavos and Trusk were following, their curiosity bristling out of them.

She stopped and turned. “Gentlemen. We are about to go into battle against Zaphlings. They are fast, sturdy and exceptionally tasty. They are peculiar in that they can turn very aggressive when confronted. When I am saying aggressive, they can cause deep bites and nasty bruising.”

Trusk asked, “Why don’t you grow your protein?”

“You mean in a lab?”

“Yes.”

“With an eye to survival, we tried a lot of local offerings and saved our tech for medical and practical applications. We are still settling in as colonists. The Tokkel didn’t help matters, we lost a lot of good people.”

She cleared her throat at their silence. “Now, to hunt the Zaphling, you need a chaser who is hopefully scarier than the Zaphlings are and someone with a net and a knife.”

Niika turned and walked toward the edge of the city, looking out over the field that was holding court to a herd of over a hundred of the little creatures with several parts of the field divided for the males to have their competitions for their supremacy.

The men drew even with her, and they all stared out at the collection of possibilities. “So, gentlemen. Who will do what to which beast?”

Morro looked at her with a calculating gaze. “Which is the most dangerous, the males or the females?”

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