Hunter, Prey
By Sapphire
Disclaimer in part 1
Epilogue"That's it then, buddy," John said to the alien inside of him. "You can go home now."
THANK YOU I WILL NOT FORGET YOU
"Neither will I. If you ever should come to my corner of the galaxy again, you're welcome to visit me any time. Just give a call."
The cluster ship had by now reclaimed the leader's pod and hovered as one unit above the water of the swimming pool, waiting for their passenger to join them.
Now that Hunter had been given the option to go home, he found that he was a little reluctant to leave John. He couldn't be sure if John really knew what he had agreed to, when he had offered Hunter to stay as long as he wanted to. Nonetheless, John had made the offer and Hunter would always be grateful for it. He had never given much thought to what he would do once he had located his prey and – hopefully – eliminated him. The chance for that event had been slim to say the least and he had been realistic enough to know it.
The appearance of the expedition cluster had been a surprise, though he was glad and relieved that they had shown up when they did. Not so much because he had survived thanks to them, but because they had the tools he had not to do what he had come to Earth for. Because of them, John's father had survived without damage and that was at least as important.
What had been no surprise was their reaction to his blending with John. He had known he had broken the law the moment he had entered John's body the first time, even though his intentions had been good.
A blending was not to be performed without the expressive, prior permission of the host.
This was the Law.
And he had broken it.
He had all but forgotten that there was one, just one, exception to the rule.
If a host who didn't know the law gave permission for the blending at least three times after the first contact had been made, it was considered an approved blending after all.
PUT YOUR HAND ON THE SHIP
John stepped forward and placed his hand on one of the cluster ship's pods. Slowly, Hunter retracted his feelers from the distant parts of John's body, gathering his body mass in John's right arm. Last he left John's eyes, but not without leaving a final message.
GOOD BYE, he said.
Then he sifted through the skin in John's arm and the material of the pod's hull to the inside the cluster ship.
Immediately he gained access to the ship's sensors. He heard John say softly:
"Good bye, Hunter. Have a save journey home."
As the cluster ship rose into the air, Hunter looked back at the human who, despite all their differences, had been willing to help a stranded alien in a seemingly hopeless mission.
Soon the face of the man was replaced by a bird's eye view of the island, then the planet, as it sat like a blue/green jewel in the black vastness of space. As they accelerated and the stars began to fill the view, he thought back to the man who had been his host for the last ten days.
He didn't know if he would ever see John Tracy again, but he already knew that he would miss him.
The end
Author's Notes: I want to apologize for destroying part of the Deutsche Bank Building in Frankfurt in this story. Especially after the Deutsche Bank gave 10,000,000 Euro (13,500,000 dollar) for the victims of terrible flood in Asia during a fundraiser in German TV on Tuesday.
Even though I thought about leaving Hunter with John – it would have been interesting and quite useful to have him stay – I decided against it in the end, mostly because I don't want to mess around with an established universe. The way I see it, I take the boys out of the box, play with them, clean them up afterwards, and put them back in the box as they've been. Well, at least that's what I do most of the time.
I've planed 'Hunter, Prey' as a one-shot, though lately a thought has begun nibbling at the back of my mind on how to bring Hunter back to Earth. Nothing concrete so far, but maybe there will be another story there one day. No promises though.
I have a couple of ideas for the 'Fork in the Road' universe, so there will be more of that at some later point. One story is halfway written, but I've got hijacked by another plot bunny (since when do plot bunnies come in blue and wear stupid little hats?) before I managed to get over a block there, and currently I'm writing on another Scott centric, as yet untitled story.
I'm going on vacation one week from now and I won't bring my computer along – so no postings from me for the next five weeks at least. I don't know if I'll manage to write anything while I'm in New Zealand. I've never quite like writing longhand and particularly hate transferring what I've scribbled later into the computer.
Again, I want to thank my beta readers, Mac and Quiller. Without them, I would have embarrassed myself much more than I did.
Thanks to MathGirl for encouragement while writing that bugger.
Also, thank you to my reviewers – you guys made me check my inbox every morning with eager anticipation.
Thanks for reading.
Sapphire