The Hunt

by Megan Shepherd

  Her eyes settled on a raised platform. It was a stage of sorts, maybe for auctioneering, about four feet off the ground. If she could distract Cassian, she could climb up there and hold a demonstration of her psychic abilities. Books and utensils from the market stalls would levitate at her command. Kindred would gasp. Fingers would point at her. And then they would have to reluctantly admit that she and all humans were just as capable as they were, and that they would never be able to cage her again—

  Cassian stopped.

  “You forget that I can read what you are thinking,” he said. “A public demonstration of your telepathic abilities is not the way to achieve your goals.”

  He motioned toward Kindred guards posted on the upper level of the marketplace that she hadn’t noticed before. “If you were to claim that humans have evolved, no one would believe you. They would ask for proof that you could not reliably demonstrate. You have the potential, yes, but not the mastery. And when you were not able to prove it, those guards would declare you mentally unstable and lock you away. Do you not remember what happened to Anya?”

  Anya. The Icelandic girl Cora had seen trapped in the Temple, drugged and delirious.

  “On a stage not unlike that one,” Cassian continued, “Anya once performed a fairy-tale play her private owner had written. She decided to alter the script. Instead of picking artificial flowers from a vase, she levitated them with her mind. I could not stop the Council when they came for her.” He lowered his voice even further. “Stubbornness can be an endearing trait, but it can also be your downfall. There is a way to get what we both want. Do not let your anger at me blind you to reason.”

  His words only stoked her anger more. She could feel it growing inside her, and yet a memory pushed forward. Her older brother, Charlie, shaking his head after she’d fallen out of the oak tree at the edge of their property for the tenth time in a row. He’d dusted her off and said, You know what stubborn means? Cora, eight at the time, had shaken her head, and he’d explained, The definition of stubborn is to know what the right thing to do is, but not to do it anyway just to prove a point. And right now, you should really just give up.

  She clenched her jaw and looked away from the platform. “Okay. But this doesn’t mean I’m agreeing to anything.”

  He didn’t answer. Silently, he led her through the marketplace, then down into roughly hewn hallways that cut through the asteroid core itself. These dank places made up the Kindred’s private world: menageries, brothels, gambling halls—places where the Kindred could safely uncloak and seek the emotional thrills they craved. A row of doorways was dug into the rock, and in front of each doorway was a podium staffed by a young Kindred male or female.

  “Hosts,” Cassian explained. “To greet their guests. Each door leads to a different menagerie. You’re going to the Hunt.”

  Cora held up the old-fashioned golden dress. “So what is that, some kind of Prohibition nightclub?”

  “Not exactly.”

  He said nothing more as they passed the first few doors. One host wore a leopard-print caveman’s toga. One hostess looked like a Viking maiden. Another was dressed in a baseball uniform.

  “The menageries have only recently opened for this rotation, so it is a relatively quiet time. There will not be many guests yet. They operate on a roughly terrestrial schedule of day and night, for the comfort of the humans who live here.”

  Cora let out a smirk. Comfort. “How many human days make up a rotation?”

  “The exact conversion rate requires complex algorithms, as it changes based on a variety of astrophysical factors. Humans are incapable of this level of mathematics, but suffice it to say one rotation is equal to anywhere between one and two weeks.” He stopped at the sixth door. The hostess here wore what looked to be a safari uniform: khaki blouse with the shoulders cut out, thick leather belt, hunter-green skirt, with a pith helmet perched on her perfectly combed hair. Like all the hostesses, she wore glasses with eyes painted on the front, though Cora knew that behind them her eyes were uncloaked and almost as clear as a human’s.

  The hostess smiled stiffly at Cassian. “Welcome back, Warden.”

  Welcome back? Cora had never imagined him playing dress-up in some club.

  He inclined his head. “Issander.”

  The hostess opened the door for them. Heat coated Cora’s skin like a thick lotion. The air was muggy, as warm as the light that cast long shadows throughout the room. The calls of tropical birds reached her ears first, then other sounds: the roar of a far-off truck, low chatter and clinking of glasses, soft instrumental music.

  “Be cautious.” Cassian nodded back toward the door. “The Council has watchers posted through the station whose job is to report back any unusual activity. Improper relations between Kindred and humans, humans disobeying the rules, that sort of thing. Their identities are kept hidden. I do not know if Issander is a watcher, but she is not sympathetic to our cause.”

  “Won’t that be a problem?”

  “I have a plan for that.”

  “Sure you do. You have a plan for everything.” Overhead, wooden beams rose thirty feet to form a thatched roof that supported hanging lanterns. The lodge was open and airy, filled with teak furniture draped in exotic fabrics, with amazingly realistic statues of giraffes and zebras. Along one wall, two human boys shook cocktails behind a bar. Across from the bar, billowing floor-length curtains flanked French doors leading to a wide veranda where a savanna glowed beneath a setting sun. Cora stopped, stunned. For a second it all felt too real. When she had been a little girl, she’d loved sunsets like this. She and Charlie used to race each other across the yard, laughing, trying to reach the big oak tree at the edge of their property before the sun disappeared.

  Cassian nudged her out of her memories.

  She blinked back into the present, remembering that everything here was artificial, even the sun. “A safari lodge?”

  “Yes. The Hunt. It is modeled after early colonial expeditions. Guests come here to experience the thrill of the safari. It provides an exhilarating rush of emotions, I am told.” He gestured toward the bar and lounge areas. “The lodge is where guests wait to depart for an expedition, or to relax after they return. Your job will be to entertain them while they wait.” He pointed to a stage by the bar, where a microphone stood. “Singing. Playing card games. Dancing with them. Whatever they request.”

  The bird sounds came again and she scanned the rafters. “It’s all simulated, right?”

  One of the bartenders, a severe-looking boy with buzzed blond hair, gave her a long, unreadable look, but Cassian didn’t seem to notice as he led her toward the veranda.

  “Not entirely. The technology we use here is not the same as in your previous enclosure. There, creating realistic facsimiles that could be immediately altered required a large amount of carbon. We reserve our carbon supplies for scientific pursuits, such as researching and observing lesser species. We would never expend such resources on entertainment. That is why everything here is real. Within reason.” He swept aside a curtain, showing her the wide expanse of the savanna. It seemed to stretch for miles, through grassy plains and around a watering hole. “The distance is an illusion, of course. This entire menagerie is, in actuality, not much larger than a single habitat in your previous enclosure.”

  She noticed that the French door’s curtain was frayed at the hem. On closer look, all the parts of the lodge that had appeared luxurious at first glance now looked threadbare. Half the chairs had been hastily repaired. The floor had cracks in it. She glanced back at the buzz-haired bartender. He was pouring a drink for the sole guest in the lodge, a Kindred who hunched stiffly over his barstool. The bartender had an air of refinement about him, but that might have just been his crisp jacket with gold trim, because when she looked closer his haircut was roughly uneven, and the back of his neck was dark with grime. He looked to be about eighteen or nineteen. He had coded marks just like hers on his palms.

  She turned the dress o
ver in her hand. The gold color matched the trim on the boy’s jacket. An image flashed in her head of standing onstage, singing songs like a trained parrot.

  At the end of the bar, one of the giraffe statues coughed, and Cora jumped.

  “Wait, that giraffe is alive?”

  “Yes. The animals are real. We are not only intrigued by humanity; all terrestrial life holds a certain fascination for us. As you are doubtlessly aware, there are no indigenous animals in space.”

  The giraffe was small, probably a juvenile, and it looked sickly. It doubled over and coughed again, dripping thick drool on the Kindred guest’s boot. The Kindred let out a low, guttural sound, and the second bartender, a boy with beautiful dark lashes around watery eyes, hurried over to clean up the mess. Slowly, as though he sensed her watching, the Kindred guest looked at Cora.

  He had a beautiful face, like all of them, but it was twisted somehow, as if the bones beneath had been broken many times and re-formed in a way that reminded her of a tree knot. From his scowl she could tell he was uncloaked, but his eyes were so recessed that they still appeared entirely black.

  A gong sounded from the veranda, and she turned. The sound of a vehicle roared.

  “An expedition is returning,” Cassian explained. “Watch.”

  Car doors slammed amid the sound of excited chatter from outside. A thin boy and a girl appeared on the veranda. They were dressed in rugged, dusty safari clothing, and Cora caught a glimpse of the same coded markings on their palms. The boy signaled to the blond bartender, who stepped onto the stage.

  “Ladies and gentleman,” the bartender said, though there was only the one guest, “I am most pleased to announce a record-breaking hunt!”

  Though his delivery was slightly stilted, his words weren’t as flat as Mali’s way of speaking, so he must not have been taken from Earth as young as she had been. At his announcement, another Kindred guest came through the veranda doors, dressed in safari clothes that looked bizarre against his metal-like skin. He dragged a bobcat by one leg. A rifle was slung over his shoulder.

  “The first kill of the day!” the blond boy said. “This bobcat weighs in at nineteen kilos, and let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, these animals are fast, with a top speed of . . .”

  Cora felt her head spinning as the boy went on. The bobcat’s blood streaked the floor between her and the stage but was mopped up quickly by the dark-haired bartender. She rubbed her temples, feeling like she was going to be sick. “That’s real blood,” she whispered to Cassian. “Real rifles. You thought I’d be safe here?”

  Cassian led her toward a row of alcoves separated from the main space by wooden screens. “I had no choice,” he whispered. “You would not have lasted long in the Harem menagerie; girls never do. They would have drugged you in the Temple, and I need your mind sharp. There are fewer regulations here, yes, but that is why I chose it. We shall be able to work together privately.” He gestured toward the nearest alcove, which contained a table laden with dice and decks of cards. “Kindred come here to gamble in private. It isn’t unusual for them to want a human companion to serve them drinks or to play card games with. As soon as I handle Issander, no one will spare a second glance to what we do here, alone.”

  She glanced at the alcove with its low lighting and soft cushions. “Alone?”

  Despite the fact that he was cloaked, his breath seemed suddenly shallow. She wondered if he too was thinking of the last time they had been alone, standing in the surf, when he’d pressed his lips to hers.

  “For the training,” he said curtly. “You will need to master your perceptive abilities if you are to succeed.”

  Worry crept up her back. “Succeed at what?”

  He leaned close. “The Gauntlet.”

  3

  Lucky

  “I’M SERIOUSLY SUPPOSED TO wear this?” Lucky held up the faded khaki shirt, matching shorts, and dented pith helmet the girl had just handed him.

  The girl giggled. She had to be at least fourteen years old, but from the way she chewed on the end of her mousy-brown braid, she seemed much younger. Behind her, two rows of cells spanned the walls like prison barracks. About half of them were occupied by wild animals: a kangaroo, a hyena, a lioness asleep in the corner.

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose. For days he’d been locked alone in a tiny observation room he could barely pace in, trying to figure out what was going on and what had happened to the others. He finally had someone he could talk to, and she could only giggle.

  “Listen . . . What was your name again?” he asked.

  “Everyone calls me Pika.” Her nails, he noted, didn’t look like they had seen soap and water in years. “It’s the name of a rodent. But, like, a cute rodent.” She grinned, revealing a few missing teeth. “I like animals. That’s why they put me back here. At home my parents raised, um, I forget what they’re called. Oh! Ferrets. They said I could start raising my own when I turned twelve.” Her face fell momentarily, as though remembering that twelve had come and gone long ago. She swallowed nervously. “Anyway, I like animals.”

  Lucky rubbed his nose harder. “How long ago were you taken?”

  “Three years,” she said, then frowned. “Wait.” She counted on grubby fingers that were marked with lines and circles, just like his. “Four. Maybe five. Vampires of the Hamptons had just started. Is that show still on? Did Tara ever hook up with Jackson?”

  His head was seriously starting to ache now. “I never watched it.”

  Pika’s face fell.

  “Listen,” he tried again. “Have you heard anything about a girl named Cora? She has long blond hair and—”

  “They said you’re good with animals too,” Pika interrupted. She grabbed his hand and led him along the wall of cages toward a warren of back rooms that smelled like unwashed feet. There was a medical room, a feed storage room, and a shower room with drains in the floor—which, judging by Pika’s smell, didn’t get nearly enough use. He’d never imagined he’d think this, but he almost missed the cage. At least it hadn’t reeked.

  Pika went to the end of the corridor and cautiously pushed open a bright red door. “Take a peek,” she whispered. “But don’t let them see you.”

  The sound of music came from the door. Jazz? Well, after the collection of wild animals, nothing surprised him. He glanced through the crack to find a safari lodge straight out of the British Empire, with a bar and lounge furniture and—was that a giraffe? Before he could take it all in, Pika shut the door.

  “That’s the lodge,” she said. “That’s where Dane and Makayla and the others work, the important ones. You and me, we stay backstage with the animals. Don’t ever go through this door. Got it?”

  “I guess—”

  “Come on.” She tugged him back down the hallway into the main room of cells. The lioness had woken and was flicking her tail. “What animals have you worked with before?”

  “I lived on a ranch,” he said, blinking. His granddad’s farm felt so distant. He could barely picture the barn where his motorcycle had taken up the first stall on the right. “Chickens, horses, dogs. A stray cat.”

  “We don’t have those here,” Pika said, climbing up a short flight of metal stairs to the upper row of cages, where she went to the lioness’s cell and threw in a pellet of something that smelled like rotting bread. “I’ve heard there’s a farm menagerie somewhere, or maybe it was a rodeo. Anyway, here it’s about hunting.” She swung down from the upper story, landing with a thud on her feet.

  “You mean the Kindred hunt these animals?”

  Pika giggled. “Well, that’s the whole point, isn’t it? We’re in the Hunt. Each menagerie specializes in something that helps the Kindred release their emotions. Fighting, or drinking, or racing cars . . . Here, they hunt.”

  Lucky gripped the bars of the closest cage to steady himself. “I thought they were supposed to protect lesser species. That’s their whole moral code.”

  “They don’t actually kill the animals,”
Pika explained, as though he were slow. “Their rifles look like ones from Earth, but they aren’t. They use these instead of bullets.”

  She dug around in her dirty safari clothes and came back up with what looked like a used fireworks casing. “It knocks the animals out. Makes them go numb. Bleeds a little where they’re hit, but that’s it. They drag them back to the lodge, make a big show of the hunt up onstage, everyone’s supposed to clap, and then they dump them back here for you and me to patch up so they’re ready to be hunted again.” She blinked at him like it was all supposed to make sense. “See? It’s humane. They don’t kill them. If they hurt them, we just make them better.”

  Lucky’s fingers curled tighter around the bars, squeezing until his knuckles were white. He thought again of his granddad’s farm, and this time the memories were clearer. He remembered his granddad hobbling out to throw kitchen scraps to the chickens and collect any eggs. When hens got too old to lay, his granddad would slaughter them and they’d freeze the meat for winter. All that death had bothered Lucky. But somehow, that seemed more humane than this.

  A thump sounded from the long corridor. The faint sound of jazz trickled from the hallway.

  Pika grinned. “Take a look!”

  She hurried back down the corridor, where the red door was propped open. Two humans, a boy and a girl in safari clothes, dragged in a heavy burlap sack. They eyed Lucky with interest.

  “They actually found somebody to help you back here?” the boy teased Pika. He had an Australian accent, and hollow cheeks that spoke of malnutrition.