Chapter Thirteen

One week later

Fury limped into the barn, every muscle aching after being thrown a dozen times. Demon plodded along, but a gleam of triumph glinted in the animal’s eyes. The horniger had an unbroken winning streak. He and Steel had worked with the animal for a month but were no closer to getting him to accept a rider than when they started. Demon had gotten used to people, would eat out of their hands, enjoyed having his coat brushed, would walk around the paddock led by a halter, and even appeared excited to see familiar faces, but the beast drew the line at being ridden.

Anyone who tried found themselves soaring through the air within seconds. The other ranch hands had given up; only he and Steel persisted. They didn’t like to lose. This had become a test of wills, and he refused to be bested by a beast.

Still, he respected the animal. “You’re a formidable opponent, Demon.” He opened the stall gate, and the victor marched in .

“That you, Mike?” a voice called.

“It’s me.”

Dusty emerged from a small office and hocked a wad into a spittoon. “How’d it go?”

“Same as usual.”

“I dunno how you boys handle it,” the lead ranch hand said. “Anybody else would be all broke up by now. You humans must come from hardy stock.”

Humans didn’t, but cyborgs did. They were bioengineered to keep on fighting even if critically injured. Altered biochemistry enabled their bodies to repair themselves. But that didn’t mean they didn’t feel pain. They did; they just had the ability to ignore it.

“I’m hurting today.” Fury chuckled.

“Why don’t you take a break and call yer missus? She left a message for you. It’s near quittin’ time anyhow.” Dusty handed him an MCD.

Mike went into the office to contact her. “What’s up?” he asked when she appeared on the screen. Her hair had been clipped into a knot on her head, but damp wisps had escaped. Shadows ringed her tired eyes.

“I need a big favor,” she said.

“Anything,” he replied .

“Can you pick Brody up from school and see that he gets dinner? I won’t be home until late tonight.”

“I’d be happy to,” he agreed, although the prospect of spending several unsupervised hours with the kid seemed daunting. He’d never been alone with the boy before. What if he did or said the wrong thing?

“Thank you. We had twenty patients come in from another settlement. They’re all experiencing extreme intestinal distress.”

“All the same race?”

“All different. Which means each case has to be treated individually.”

Because Verity sometimes discussed her work, he understood that a safe, efficacious treatment with one being could be fatal to another. Physiology and biochemistry varied from one species to the next.

“Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of him.” What am I going to do with the boy? He’d always had Verity as a buffer.

“I know you will.” She smiled.

He lived for her smiles—and for her company, her conversation, and the nights when they lay in bed and talked, even though her closeness tortured him, too. He carried around a permanent woody. Although eager to take their marriage to the next level, he let her set the pace. But he hoped it picked up soon.

* * * *

“Where’s Mom?”

“She had to work late, so it’s just us tonight,” Fury said.

“How late?”

“I don’t know. There’s an emergency at the infirmary. A big group of aliens came in from another settlement,” he explained. Three unfamiliar conveyances were parked outside the clinic.

“Are they gushing blood everywhere?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed.

Verity had said the issues were intestinal. “Vomiting maybe.”

“Is it all green and chunky?”

“Possibly.” He studied the freckled, animated face. “The way your mind works…” He shook his head.

How was he going to entertain the kid all night? “Are you hungry?” he asked hopefully.

It was a little early for dinner, but eating would give them something to do. He and Verity always met at the cabin after work to shower before dinner. She was conscientious about hygiene, since she worked in a medical environment. “You never know what you might bring home,” she’d explained.

“No,” Brody said.

Now what? He gazed across the quad to the paddock where hornigers grazed. Dusty had dispatched a crew and brought in the mama and her calf. After the babe was no longer nursing, they’d separate mama from baby and bring the little one into the barn to be tamed and trained. The calves offered the most promise of domestication. They had one other calf, recently weaned. Already they could see a stark difference between its trainability and Demon’s. They hadn’t given up on the other beast, but he was probably too old. You can’t teach an old horniger new tricks.

“Would you like to see a baby horniger?” he asked.

Brody’s eyes widened. “For real?”

“For real, but safety comes first. You must listen to me. If I tell you to do something, you have to do it. No arguments.”

“I will. I promise.”

“Okay, we’ll go see the horniger and then have dinner.”

“Yay!” He jumped around .

They crossed the quad to the paddock. “First rule. You don’t ever enter the paddock without an adult. Hornigers are dangerous. They can kill you. My friend Jason Steel was almost killed by one. They are not tame. They are not pets; they are wild animals. The only reason you can pet the baby is because it is a baby, and I’m with you. You understand?”

“Yes.” He bounced on his feet.

The herd inside the paddock was far enough down the field for them to pass. “Let’s go.” He climbed over the top of the fence, and Brody slipped between the rails. “Give me your hand.”

Keeping a firm grasp on his charge, he strode briskly to the barn, Brody skipping to keep up with his long-legged gait.

Demon snorted and pawed the ground as soon as they entered. The boy jumped and shrank closer to Fury. It did funny things to his insides to have the boy turn to him for protection. He was the bogeyman people ran from as soon as they figured out who he was, but by then, it was too late.

“That’s Demon,” he said. “We won’t get too close to him.” He nudged the boy toward the rear of the barn with a hand to his back .

In the last stall, the baby nosed around in the hay. Covered in downy fur, it had a bump on its nose where its horn would be and nubbins for antlers on its head. On six spindly legs, it wobbled toward them and uttered a plaintive bleat.

“Wow. It’s a real baby horniger.”

“Her name is Annie Oakley,” he said. Dusty had named her after a famous female sharpshooter. “You can touch her nose like this.” He stroked Annie’s long snout.

Brody trailed his fingers over the animal’s nose to the bump at the tip.

“That will grow into a horn,” he explained. “You can pet her neck, too.” He patted the animal’s side. Early training involved exposing the young ones to many different people.

Brody stroked Annie’s neck. “Her fur is very soft.”

“She’ll get shaggy when she’s older. Her fur will be wirier.”

“Are you going to ride her when she’s older?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Can I ride her, too?”

“When she’s trained, and you’re older,” he replied and then realized he should have consulted with Verity before making any commitments .

Brody grinned, the gap in his teeth making him appear mischievous. “I thought you’d say no.”

Probably he should have. He had no idea how to parent a kid; he was flying by the seat of his pants. He let Brody pet and talk to the animal for a little while longer, and then he had him wash his hands in the barn sink and announced they had to go. Brody skipping along beside him on the way to the mess hall.

Kuadra, the cashier, grinned when she spotted the boy. “We have a special kid’s menu tonight—horniger dogs and moon rocks.”

“What’s a horniger dog?”

“It’s as close to a hot dog as you’re going to get,” he said. He and Verity had talked to Phibious who’d talked to the head cook at the mess hall who’d concocted a horniger sausage.

“Cool,” he said.

“One for him—and can I have the kid’s meal, too?” He handed over his pay card. Under Solutions’ control, he’d consumed nutri-slop all of his life. He’d never eaten a frank. He had no idea how this would compare, but he was eager to try it.

Kuadra shrugged. “Sure. ”

“Better give me four of them.” One for Brody, three for him. If he normally ate two adult meals, he’d need more of the kid-sized meal.

They collected their trays. “Oh.” Brody frowned at his plate.

“You don’t like the horniger dog?” They had hoped to surprise him.

“The horn dog looks good, but I thought the moon rocks would be…moon rocks. They’re Tater Tots!”

“Maybe they taste like moon rocks,” Fury suggested.

“You think so?” His voice rose on a hopeful note. This was the same kid who rejected the food as too strange the first night.

He shrugged. “Maybe! We’ll see. Let’s get a seat.”

They joined a group of aliens at a table for ten with two spots open. “You’d prefer rocks to Tater Tots?”

“I can have Tater Tots any time.” He poked one with his fork.

“Not anymore,” he replied in a quiet voice.

The implication rippled across Brody’s face. “Mom and I can’t ever go back to Earth, can we?”

“No.” Once he was an adult, he’d be safe, but the Dorns might trump up some fake charges against Verity. “But that’s good for me because then you can stay with me.” He bit into his horniger dog. Meaty, a little spicy.

Brody did the same.

“Well?” Fury asked.

“Good.”

“It is good,” he agreed and tried a moon rock. Fried starch of some sort. Rather tasty.

“Is it like a Tater Tot?” Brody asked.

“I’ve never had Tater Tots.”

“You haven’t?”

“No.”

“French fries?”

“No.”

“Chicken nuggets?”

“No.”

“Hamburgers.”

“No.”

“Pizza.”

“No.”

“Frog legs!”

“Have you had frog legs?” Fury looked at him.

Brody giggled. “No. ”

“Neither have I.”

“But you haven’t had anything,” Brody summarized.

“I’ve had very little,” he agreed. It struck him that this six-year-old child had more life experience than he did. He had experience with only one thing.

Brody popped a moon rock into his mouth. “Not a Tater Tot. But not a rock, either,” he pronounced while eating. Verity would tell him to chew with his mouth closed, but Fury decided to let it slide. “What did you eat?”

“We called it nutri-slop. It tasted like chalk.”

“Why did you eat it, then?”

“It was the only food we were allowed to eat.”

“But you’re a grown-up; you can do what you like.”

“No, I couldn’t, which is why I came here—so I could.”

Dinner passed quickly with Brody expounding on a variety of topics and asking dozens of questions. Curious, honest, and unfiltered, the kid didn’t know how to dissemble. Fury regretted such innocence would have to harden up to enable the boy to survive in the world.

But not yet. He understood Verity’s determination to protect him in every way. He wondered what she’d told her son about why the two of them had left Earth. She wouldn’t lie, but she’d try to avoid scaring him with the harsh reality. He’d start asking probing questions before much longer. She should figure out now how to explain.

When they started on their dessert—a sweet-filled pastry—he signaled a robo and ordered a meal-to-go, just in case Verity hadn’t gotten time to eat.

“Walk or ride?” he asked when they left the mess hall.

“Ride!”

He hoisted the boy onto his shoulders.

It had become their thing—him carrying the kid home from the mess. After falling asleep with Verity and then waking up next to her, leaving dinner holding her hand with her son on his shoulders was his favorite part of the day.

In the cabin, he stowed the to-go order in the cooler and stoked the stove. “Bath,” he announced. “And don’t forget to brush your teeth.”

To his surprise, the kid trotted off without an argument. When he emerged, he wore his spaceship pajamas.

“Ready for bed?” Fury asked.

“When is Mom coming home? ”

“I don’t know. A lot of patients need help. She could be very late.” He hoped not. He missed her, too.

“You’ll have to tell me a story, then,” Brody said.

He chuckled. “I do, do I?”

The kid waited.

“All right. Let’s go.”

After he was tucked in, Fury asked, “What kind of story do you want?”

“A good one. About dragons.”

“Dragons, huh?” He stalled, dimming the lights in hopes Brody would get sleepy. He didn’t know any bedtime stories except for the ones he’d overheard Verity tell him.

He perched on the edge of the bed. Brody gazed up at him, his attention rapt.

“Once upon a time…a…dragonslayer, a fierce and furious dragonslayer was born. He was an expert at slaying dragons. He didn’t look like a dragonslayer, you see. He looked like an ordinary person. He could sneak up on them, and the dragons never suspected until it was too late.”

“Why did he want to kill the dragons?”

“Because the king ordered him to. The king feared the dangerous dragons would blow fire and burn down the palace, and then the king wouldn’t be king anymore.

“But the dragonslayer started to wonder. Were all the dragons bad? What if some were good dragons? Sometimes he doubted the king was being honest. As his doubts grew, he didn’t want to kill any dragons anymore. But he owed his fealty to the king; he had to do what the monarch said. Then, one day, when a chance presented itself, he escaped. But he got captured. The furious king ordered the dragonslayer be put to death.

“The king’s men put the dragonslayer on a spaceship to be jettisoned onto a fiery planet where he would be incinerated, but he escaped again. This time, he stole a small spaceship and flew to a planet far, far away where the king could never reach him.

“On this faraway planet, he met a beautiful red-haired princess with a young princeling, and he fell madly in love with both of them.”

“And they lived happily ever after,” Brody said.

“The dragonslayer hoped so.”

“Tell me another story!”

“Another time. Go to sleep.” He patted his shoulder, handed him the alien doll he slept with, doused the light, and tiptoed to the door .

“Mike?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re not mad at me anymore, are you?”

“Mad?” Fury turned. “I’m not mad. Why would you think that?”

“The night Mom and I came, when I wanted a story, you said the little boy who wouldn’t go to sleep made the adults angry.”

Jesus. “No.” He strode to the bed. “I’m not angry. I promise. I never should have said that. I’m sorry.”

“Okay.” He smiled.

Fury leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. “Everything is good.” I have to watch what I say. He tiptoed toward the door again.

“Mike?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you the dragonslayer?”