The Hunt by Megan Shepherd Read Free Book Online

“Where else would I have gotten this?”
    Images filled Leon’s head of his sister Ellie’s apartment back in Auckland. A cramped place that always swarmed with every kid in the neighborhood, it seemed, but suddenly he missed all that chaos. “Maybe the next time you go back, you could give me a lift. You know, a little favor among friends.” Leon scratched his ear, playing it off casually.
    Bonebreak snorted. “Nice try. The last ship bound for Earth left four rotations ago and won’t be back for, oh, forty human years.” He admired the bottle. “You are stuck with us.”
    An uneasy feeling set up shop in Leon’s head and wouldn’t move out. The Kindred swore Earth was gone; the Mosca swore it was still there. He didn’t trust either species, but if he had to pick sides, he supposed he’d take the one with the booze.
    He reached for the bottle.
    Bonebreak held it just out of his reach. “Not yet. You see, my hospitality is finite.”
    Leon knew an endless supply of potato chips, vodka, and a crate to sleep in was too good to be true. He’d been waiting for the catch ever since he’d fallen on Bonebreak’s head two days ago and discovered the Mosca’s smuggling den by accident. While running from Kindred guards, he’d pried open one of their mind-control doors with his bare hands and found a room full of human artifacts: picture books, cloth diapers, even a crib. Baby shit. He’d hidden in the crib for two days, until he’d thought he’d go crazy if he had to stare at pink penguin bedding any longer, and then suddenly woke up to find himself in the utter dark, breathing chalky air, caged inside the crib, which had been crated up andwas moving. He nearly broke his hand punching his way out, only to find himself in a system of claustrophobic tunnels that eventually spit him out onto a hunchbacked alien in a red jumpsuit with a mask sewn into his face. Bonebreak’s underlings had seized him.
    At his scared face, Bonebreak had just cackled. Do not worry, boy. Any enemy of the Kindred is a friend of mine.
    Now, Leon blinked at Bonebreak’s opaque mask, wondering what the trader was going to demand in exchange for not turning him in to the Kindred.
    â€œI know how this works,” Leon said. “So just skip the part where you claim you’re looking out for my best interest. We’ve got guys like you back home. My uncle, for one. So tell me what I have to do, and I’ll do it.” Leon puffed up, but Bonebreak only leaned in, letting out a low hiss.
    â€œDo you know why I am called Bonebreak, boy?”
    Leon deflated a little. “Uh . . . I can guess.”
    â€œCan you? Good. I suggest you use your imagination so I do not have to demonstrate. Leave the arrogance to the Kindred, and you and I will get along much better. There is only one reason I haven’t turned you in.” He kicked out a thin booted leg and prodded Leon’s knee. “Humans have a certain flexibility of tendons that we Mosca lack. A flexibility that permits you to . . . what is the word? Ah. Crawl. That is why you are still alive. Because your bodies allow you to crawl, and ours do not, and that is a useful skill in a station full of very low tunnels.”
    Leon narrowed his eyes at the hunchback Mosca. “No way I’m going back in those tunnels. It was rank as hell, and it’s too easy to get lost with all those twisty corners. I’d probably suffocate trapped between levels and rot.”
    â€œThat is unlikely.” Bonebreak stroked the chin part of his mask. “The debris-cleaning traps would kill you long before you’d suffocate.”
    â€œTraps?”
    â€œI’m surprised they didn’t kill you already. They’re stationed at random intervals, set to be triggered by anything other than an official package. They release a burst of flammable gas that incinerates anything that