Page 8 of Wayfinder (The Outlander Book Club… in Space! #5)

Pearl didn’t seem excited about the prospect, but climbed out of the skiff on her own before I could reach her side. We headed west, skirting along the edge of the heelia trees and following the blob of bright orange moving in the distance.

“Gosh, it’s beautiful here.” Pearl sighed, turning in a circle. “What planet is this?”

“This is a moon called Letsako.” She was right. It was beautiful. From where we stood, one could see fields of deep teal give way to purple-leafed forests and the pale pink mountains beyond. The sky was the perfect shade of pale lavender cream, dotted here and there with fluffy yellow clouds.

“This is a moon?” Pearl spun in a circle again as if my words warranted a second glance. “I thought moons were dust and devoid of life. You know, like the one near Earth.”

“Some, but not all,” I chuckled.

“I read somewhere that moons orbited planets, and planets orbited stars or something like that.” Her face scrunched adorably, as though she pulled the information from deep in the recesses of her brain.

Before I could think about it, I reached out and let my fingers encircle Pearl’s small wrist. She stopped in her tracks at my touch but didn’t pull her hand away. Nor did she resist when I pulled her closer.

“Look up,” I murmured, pointing at the sky. Barely visible through the clouds, the faint purple outline of a planet. “That’s planet Juswun.”

“Is it as beautiful as this moon?”

“In its own way.” Pearl’s eyes might be on Juswun, but mine were on her.

The gentle curve of her cheek, the way the light caused her hair to shimmer with sparks of red, and how her small white teeth worried at her full lower lip as she gazed into the heavens.

When her curious, bright blue eyes turned on me, it knocked me breathless.

My hand on her wrist pulled her closer, although unsure of why. I didn’t have an idea in my head, save that I just needed her closer. Perhaps it was some sort of premonition, as a second later, the sound of something very large moving through the nearby brush hit my ears.

My grip on Pearl’s wrist wrapped tighter, and I pulled her toward the trunk of a nearby tree, settling us both into a crouching position.

“What’s the matter?” she hissed, her words trailing off as the heavy footfalls became loud enough for her human ears.

I motioned for silence, and she nodded, wide-eyed, her other hand clutching nervously at my forearm. If this was one of the other teams attempting to do her harm, they’d have to be a lot stealthier than this.

The crashing came nearer. Whatever the creature, it was large.

I pulled my scimitar from the sheath at my hip.

At the movement, Pearl moved closer, pressing against my side.

I relished the gentle contours of her form melding against my body, so warm and soft.

Her quickened breaths caused her full chest to rise and fall rhythmically against my arm, each motion a tantalizing reminder of our closeness.

When a lone behia staggered into the clearing, Pearl gave a faint, relieved gasp but didn’t move away.

The creature proved as large as its movement hinted, its thick green hide glistening in the sunlight.

The wide mouth moved laboriously, chewing a mouthful of leaves as the tentacles flopped harmlessly, tips brushing the dirt.

“Is something wrong with it?” Pearl whispered, craning her head to see the creature better. “It looks drunk.”

I didn’t know if the behia looked intoxicated, but it moved slower than normal, and the flanks seemed to struggle with drawing breath.

“Say put,” I instructed, rising from my crouch.

“Be careful,” Pearl whisper-yelled as I walked nearer the creature.

Large dark eyes watched my every movement, but the behia made no move to escape.

I circled the creature, looking for signs of disease or illness.

Even the animals’ scent seemed healthy. I expected the hunt to be much more difficult than this.

Perhaps the goddess favored Pearl... and me.

With a quick movement, I brought my scimitar across the animal’s neck.

If the creature felt pain, I couldn’t tell it.

There was only a long, slow release of breath as the behia accepted its fate.

The animal gave its life in a gush of blood, legs buckling as it sank to the ground gracefully. Pearl appeared at my side, watching as the trickle of blood waned, her face a mask of seriousness.

“You are not squeamish?” I asked. Her gaze never faltered from the beast.

“I’m a chef. I’ve probably had my hands in more blood and guts than you have.

” Her voice was flat, her words a simple statement of fact.

She surprised—and impressed—me further when she pulled a small, curved knife from the satchel she wore at her side and dropped to her knees beside the behia.

I joined her, and we spent the next several minutes peeling the thick green hide from the beast.

“On a cow, the ribeye is the most flavorful part of the meat.” Pearl inserted the tip of her knife in the pale pink flesh at the base of the behia’s neck, slicing in a long fluid motion toward the rump. “The ribeye has more internal fat, which means more flavor.”

“I do not know this ribeye,” I told her honestly. I caught her hand before it could finish the trajectory and pulled downward toward the thick hank of meat between the rump and stomach. “On a behia, this area has the best, most tender meat.”

“Hmmm.” Pearl considered for a moment, then adjusted her approach. My mouth dropped as I watched her carve away a slab as long as my arm and three times as thick. My awe only grew as I watched her shave off a small piece of pale pink flesh and place it on her tongue.

“Delicious.” Pearl chewed a few times, then grinned. “More buttery and sweet than regular beef, more like Wagyu.”

“Wag who?”

The sound that burst from her mouth was like the tinkling of small bells. I felt it flit across my skin like a caress.

“Wagyu is a very expensive type of behia on Earth,” Pearl told me, returning to butchering. “I would like to have several cuts so I can adapt my recipe more easily."

“The meat looks good,” I agreed, taking over the shoulder and rib area, which needed a stronger hand. Everything on the creature looked healthy and well-fed, which didn’t fit with how it acted. “I wonder why this creature was acting sluggishly.”

“Maybe it was having an off day,” Pearl suggested, followed by another chorus of her musical laughter.

I chuckled at her words as I stripped away the skin over the shoulder and ribcage.

It was messy work despite the behia bleeding out quickly.

I’d finished with the shoulder, taking several chunks of meat under Pearl’s direction and began to cut away the flesh over the ribcage when a pinprick of light caught my eye.

There, in the midst of the marbled meat, was a small cylindrical hole.

Not something random or naturally caused like a gore or tear, but compact and perfectly round, like the tip of a blade or thick needle.

I followed the trajectory of the puncture through the layer of fat, through the marbled pink meat, and deeper, straight into the lung.

“No wonder the animal acted strangely,” I murmured, moving from the lung outward to cement my theory. “Something punctured its lung.”

“What happened?” Pearl paused in her butchering, wiping the sheen of sweat from her face with a forearm. “Do you think something attacked it?”

“The behia have no natural predators on this moon.” I glanced around, the sudden sensation of being watched making my blood tingle.

I knew the Baron used drones to monitor the contest and my ears caught the faint hum of a machine high overhead.

I still glanced about, ensuring our safety before continuing.

“Jala had the herd transplanted here, used solely for supplying the space station with meat.”

“Maybe one of the other groups tried to kill it, and it got away?” Pearl suggested, her eyes darting around the landscape like she expected to catch sight of the others.

“No, the other groups hunt past that ridge.” I jerked my chin toward an outcropping visible in the distance.

“How do you know that?” She gaped at me.

I tapped an ear with my least bloody finger, causing Pearl to roll her eyes with a huff.

“Besides,” I continued. “The hole is too perfectly formed to be made by anything natural, like a stick or another behia’s tentacle. And it seems to be recent.”

“What are you saying?” A crease grew between her brows, pale eyes intent.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It’s just odd.”

We finished butchering the behia in silence, carrying the meat back to the skiff and storing it in the small cold locker at the back. The onboard water purifying system had a hose attachment that allowed us to clean up and slake our thirst.

“Now, what to cook? I could make steak tartare or grilled steak, but something tells me that wouldn’t be unique enough for the judges.

” Pearl propped against the side of the skiff as I finished rinsing the blood from my clothes.

Thankfully, the Vaktaire leather she and I wore was waterproof, and the gore washed away easily.

“It would not.” I agreed. “Most eat behia meat grilled over an open flame.”

“If only I had some vegetables,” she mused, tapping her chin with a finger.

“Vegetables?”

Pearl glanced at me, shocked that I asked. “You know, vegetables. Stuff that comes from plants.”

“I know what vegetables are,” I chuckled. To prove my point, I walked to a tuft of purple grass and yanked it from the ground. At the roots hung a long purple tuber as long as my hand.

“What is that?” Her eyes grew round with excited anticipation.

“A mrkva, they grow wild here,” I told her, bringing the tuber back to the skiff and using the hose to rinse away the dirt.