“Blade monster almost did. You hadn’t made that last shot, he’d have hit me square instead of quartering. Even if the blades hadn’t got me, a man with a broken leg won’t last ten minutes among the roots.”

“Wish we had another bottle of bourbon.”

“Makes two of us.” Dek waited for Talina to rack her rifle at the door, then placed his Holland & Holland beside it. “I’m ready for a hot shower. How’s the food situation?”

“Whatever you left for breakfast the other morning is long cold, spoiled, and fit for the compost pile. Have to cook up something new.”

Dek glanced across the dim room. “The light’s blinking on the radio.”

“I’ll check it. You go start that shower. Then I’ll join you.”

“Got it,” he told her.

Talina watched him limp his way across the room and exhaled a weary breath. They’d made it. Had a couple of close calls—not to mention having to sleep on a basalt outcrop at the foot of the cliff—but they were back to the dome.

As night had settled around them—and who knew what sort of flying people-eating creatures might come under the cover of darkness—she had asked, “So, Dek. Here we are, sitting out on top of a pile of unforgiving bedrock with empty bellies and no guarantee that we can make the climb up that cleft again. Let alone that either one of us will survive the night. Are you really going to look me in the eye and tell me you’d rather be here than back at the dome with a full stomach, enjoying slow sex in a soft bed?”

His forehead had lined. “Is that a trick question?” He had pointed up at the narrow band of night sky visible beyond the sheer gorge walls. “That should be obvious. You can’t see the stars from our bed inside the dome.”

She’d had to laugh. But then, that was Dek. What made him charming. Just as—on that return trip—she’d had to forgive him for his insane blade-monster hunt. Didn’t matter that the thing would have killed him. She’d been there, was able to fire six rounds into the creature’s body as it charged. The monster had turned and staggered sideways across the roots to collapse into a thrashing heap of flippers, gushing blood, and slashing blades. As it died, the hide had flashed all the colors in the spectrum, the stalk-mounted eyes going dim.

It had taken all of Talina’s skill to get around the frenzied root mat and drag the half-stunned Dek up and over an intervening clump of knotting and bunching roots.

Then had come their stumbling retreat across an excited forest floor to make for the safety of the basalt bedrock.

But Dek was fully himself. And more.