From his knapsack, Xabier retrieved a crust of sourdough bread and a jar of jelly made from some red berries that resembled pomegranate seeds and tasted like earth apples.

He thought about his mother making jelly. Long dead, he presumed. When he signed up for this job, he was told time took on a different meaning here. Although he barely aged a year, decades passed on Earth, and his mother now likely rested in a plot under the olive trees.

He covered the bread in jelly and brought the crust up to his lips for a bite.

“Ze arraio?”

He saw the flock rush away from the center of the meadow and make a stand against the far rocks. Xabier saw the black and two white sheep fall on the ground, bleating like they were dying. He rose, grabbing his staff and using it like an oar to bounce across the field to the fallen sheep. He dropped to the ground in a dead run to the center of the herd. He touched the neck of the nearest animal and brought up a hand covered in blood.

Another animal fell, and the herd ran away from the danger. Xabier thought he saw a ripple of light and a blue flash right before the ewe fell. Her lamb spun away as another blue flash zipped from a ripple of light.

Something was out there hunting the sheep!

“Atzera,” he shouted, but the threat seemed to move closer to the herd. He saw another ripple and, for an instant, he thought he saw a face. Another animal fell, and he decided that instant to move the herd.

He whistled long and hard. The sheep scrambled away from the rock fall and ran toward the barn.

“Laster exekutatu. Run, my lovelies.”

He flew the length of his staff and bounced up to the herd. He paddled forward until he reached the barn door, opening it quickly to let the sheep spill in. Safe inside, the animals stood in their breathing masks against the far wall of the barn. 

A collective bleating sound could be heard as ewes searched for their lambs. Xabier looked through a portal to the meadow below. He saw a distinct ripple pattern moving the dead sheep off the field until five animals bordered the far side of the meadow.

He then saw the dead sheep vanish from the meadow as if they were erased. He had been warned about the hunters but never thought he would encounter them.

Tin, ting, tin, tang rang the bells of Cantata Nº 208. The boy rubbed sleep from his eyes and covered them to block the dancing sunlight streaming through a slit in the roof. He slipped on boots, a filter, and gloves.  The red sun inched across the sky and it would be half an Earth-month before nightfall. Without the chimes, he might have missed feeding time.

Small frame, calloused hands, and a full head of sandy-brown hair, he looked very much like a boy, although he celebrated his 20th birthday three Earth months ago. He lost track of the time on this planet where the sun hung in the sky for roughly 37 Earth days. 

Xabier escaped indentured Kleroaren army servitude by signing on as a shepherd on Caelora. Neither the nobles nor the clergy appealed to his solitary habits and rural ambitions, so he ran as fast as he could to the spaceport outside Barcelona. 

Nineteen months of hibernation, passage in the Soliton Fold, and then he arrived. Xabier was left alone with a coat, a knapsack, a blanket, a staff, and some sheep to herd on the outskirts of the galaxy.

The Caeloran atmosphere scattered sunlight into shades of violet no Earth sky could reproduce. The air felt dense as he floated to the barn sitting in the center of the Slydal Plain. The sheep numbered 99 and 1 huddled in a stable fashioned from a rusting freighter. The herd had trampled bracken across the metal floor, which the sheepherder had cut earlier when the sun sat only inches from its current position. He wished for nightfall if only to see the stars of the Pyrenees Constellation.

While Caeloran came close to breathable air, the shepherd and sheep still needed a filter to achieve a good mix. He retrieved a bag of filters from the tack and proceeded to fit them around black noses. 

“Egun ona Maite.” Xabier pulled the filter straps tight against the animal’s neck, then placed a weight belt on her haunches.  

“Egun ona Ander.” He wished each animal a good day until the wooly faces stood in a corner anticipating the rush to the pasture.

Xabier slipped on a weight belt, picked up a staff, and opened the gate. Bright, white light rushed into the barn, and the sheep bounced back into the shadows. “Nire maitaleak. Run, my lovelies.” 

The sheep leaped from the barn, spilling out on the bright green pastureland, their front feet floating off the ground, anchored to the soil with only their hindquarter weight belts. Soon they settled down, their heads bobbing off the ground with each taste of the grass, as if they were bottom-heavy drinking birds bouncing into a glass.

He took flying leaps over to a rock slab, watching the sheep graze nestled between towering cliffs and rock outfalls in the high-mountain valley. Nymphs and prairie gnats bounced in his hair, he smelled lavender rose, and he heard the sound of locust hum interrupted now and then by the bleating of sheep. 

The shepherd believed this valley felt most like his home on Earth.