Finding Darkness

Chapter 23 Bonding

"Where did you get your suit?" Tamar asked as she rolled onto the single lumpy mattress in their room.

"I didn't get it at all. It was a gift from someone I didn't know at the time." He settled his shoulder against the far wall. "I had no choice in the matter. I woke up one morning, and there it was. That was about seven months ago. So I've been making the best of it ever since."

"Who gave it to you?" She asked.

"A computer."

"A computer, right?" Tamar rolled her eyes.

"You asked."

"A computer gave you that suit." She pointed at him. Why did he always answer her in as few words as possible?

"There's a lot about me and where I come from that you don't know." He walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. "I live on a ship that, until a very short time ago, was parked in stationary orbit behind Mars. We arrived back in the Sol system six days before I was sent to gather intelligence on the Rougarians. That's when I found you."

"So why would this ship of yours leave you down here? Don't they care that you're here all by yourself?"

"Oh, it's not my ship, and whether they care if I'm down here on my own, they prefer it that way and so do I. Other people just get in my way most of the time." Tamar looked away from him.

"Yeah, with that thing on, no one can keep up with you."

"Oh, this was way before I had this thing stuck to me. You see, I was raised in the woods. From the time I could walk, I was out with my dad hunting. The first squirrel I shot was with a rifle longer than I was tall."

"By the time I was nine, I could stalk through the forest and not disturb a thing. Before I was allowed to hunt deer, I had to go out into the woods with nothing but the clothes on my back and bring back a tuft of hair I had pulled from a deer's body. Only then would I be allowed to kill one."

Malachi stopped talking, his mind taking him back to the scene. He had positioned himself beside one of the main travel routes the deer took from their bedding area to the open clover fields in which they fed. Hours later, his legs numb from inactivity, he saw it. A young male, a button buck, so called because its antlers hadn't grown higher than the hair between its ears. It was moving along the path, browsing on whatever it could find.

Malachi remembered the beating of his heart. His hiding place had been chosen with great care. He'd made sure it was downwind of the trail so his scent wouldn't be carried on the breeze to them. He was amazed the buck couldn't hear his heart hammering on the inside of his chest. A single step separated them when the deer lifted its head and sniffed the air. The time of decision had arrived, so with a wild lunge Malachi had buried his fist in bucks flank and yanked with everything he had.

The next few moments passed in a blur, and when he came to, he was on the ground, his shoulder throbbing.

With a scream and a thud, Malachi came back to the present to see Tamar on the floor. She was holding her shoulder, her right fist clutched tightly. Her eyes were darting everywhere throughout the room, a gleaming shine in them.

"Where is it? I almost had it!" She howled, spittle flying from her lips.

"Had what?" Malachi asked. "There's nothing here."

"That deer, it was so close I could smell it."

"What are you talking about?" Malachi asked, shaking his head in frustration.

"There was a deer. It was right in front of me. It was so close I could smell it. Where is it?" She jumped to her feet, head swiveling from side to side.