I rolled over. My hand slapped something soft and itchy. I frowned in my dream. That wasn’t right. It should have been a nice cool sheet of Egyptian cotton.
And when I felt something crawling over my cheek, that was the last straw.
“Hazel, stop it!” I said, bolting up.
The sea lapped against the shore and washed back again, lulling me back into deep sleep.
Oh yeah. The alien planet.
I yawned and got comfortable.
And then I heard that noise again.
Snip. Snip snip. Snip snip.
I opened my eyes and saw something from a nightmare.
Gnashing teeth and bulbous eyes on stalks glaring at me.
Hazel could look rough in the mornings, but never that rough.
I screamed and skittered backward. It was blind luck I didn’t run directly into the fire’s dying embers and the empty rib cage of the strange lemur-like creature Nighteko had brought home for tea. Instead, I ran into Nighteko’s sleeping form.
“What is it?” he groaned.
“It’s… It’s…” It was a small crab, its internal organs visible through its invisible outer shell. “A tiny crab. Millions of them.”
Nighteko arched an eyebrow at me. “They’re healer crabs.”
“Healer crabs?”
I felt something on my arm—another one of those tiny “healers.” I bolted to my feet and dusted them off, shivering as I patted myself down and ran my hands over my body to dislodge them.
“I don’t like things crawling over me,” I said. “It feels like— Argh!”
A huge mound of them formed a bulge across Nighteko’s arms and legs. They were eating him alive!
“Get up!” I said, kicking the first clod off him. “They’re all over you!”
Nighteko raised a hand. “It’s okay. I want them on me. These little guys eat harmful bacteria from wounds. Some of them… Where are they…” He searched among the giant mound of writhing monsters. “Like this little guy. He stitches the wound back together once they finish with the bacteria.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “Why would they do that?”
“Because we fed them. It’s their way of thanking us.”
He placed the little crab back down on the sand gently. I angled to get a better look at his body. He’d sustained wounds during the Challenge to his arms and legs. Just as he said, they were clean and sewn shut. The stitches were so small you couldn’t make them out.
Still, I shivered at the idea of having them crawling all over me.
“I thought you were a Titan?” I said lamely. “I thought you didn’t need help with healing?”
“I don’t. But there’s no need to deny these little guys a good meal, is there?”
After their work was done, the crabs left him and scuttled across the sand and disappeared to the human eye.
Nighteko got his feet. “How about some breakfast?”
His sickness was getting better. He wasn’t limping and moved freely. Even his skin looked healthier. He bent down to pick up what remained of the lemur creature he’d found last night.
Whenever I traveled abroad, I always stuck to “normal” food. No local cuisine for me. My friends sometimes got sick and I was left to walk around by myself. But last night, I was so hungry, I could have eaten anything. This morning, I didn’t feel sick at all.
It tasted like chicken, only juicier and more tasty. We ate most of the poor little creature between us by the time we were done. We left just enough roasting over the fire for breakfast.
Nighteko snapped off a thigh and handed it to me.
Don’t think about what it looks like, I told myself. Just eat it. It’s just a big chicken drumstick, that’s all.
Once I was done, I wiped the grease from my lips. “What do we do now?”
“We’re going to get my ship back,” Nighteko said. “Then I can take you home. That was our deal.”
I looked at him incredulously. “How are we going to get your ship back? They’re out there somewhere in the galaxy and we’re down here eating lemur meat.”
He cocked his head to the side. Lemur? “I’m close to earning the money I need to stop smuggling. Then I can quit. Plus, my crew shouldn’t get away with what they did to me. They didn’t beat me. That’s the code. One of them has to beat me. I’m still officially the ship’s captain and nothing they do or say can change that. It’s mine.”
“Even if you get your ship back, they’ll Challenge you again.”
“By then, I’ll be at full strength. Then I can beat them all.”
“You can do that?”
He nodded. “I can.”
I felt certain a male of his size and strength could do pretty much anything he wanted. Only an idiot would want to stand in his way.
“We’re heading through the jungle,” he said, “to Klaxxon. When we get there, I’ll hitch a ride on a ship working as a crew member, until I get to Rogiz 4.”
“Rogiz 4?” I said. “What’s that?”
“That’s where they’ll head after they get back control of the ship and deal with the Changelings.”
I noticed a conspicuous hole in his plan. It was me-shaped. “What about me? I don’t know how to work on a ship. I can barely cook.”
He placed his giant hams on my shoulders. “You won’t be coming with me. It’s better if I go alone. Then I don’t have to worry about keeping you safe. And I would worry. A lot.”
Alarm bells rang in my head. “You’re leaving me here? What if you don’t come back?”
He looked me in the eye sternly. “You must trust me. I will come back for you. Then I’ll take you home. That was our deal.”
I didn’t like the idea of being left on an alien planet. Anything could happen to me. Or to him. Maybe he wouldn’t find his crew for years.
