User Guide

She raised head and tail proudly. “I am a priestess of Sivar, sworn to his glory. I will not run away or
hide; there is no honor or courage in that.” She touched the ritual knife sheathed at her belt. “If they
come for me, I will be ready.”
He could say nothing. His instinct urged him to stay and fight at her side; his duty told him to go.
She gave him a long, searching look, as if trying to memorize his face. “Go now, and quickly. Deliver
our message and your ship to the humans, Ralgha.” She pointed to the other exit of the ampitheatre, a
small doorway that led into the twisting warren of streets of the Old City. A moment more, as conflict-
ing urges warred within him, then duty won. He turned to go.
The door opened on silent hinges, and Ralgha slipped through. Beyond the vine-covered alcove, the
street was deserted. Ralgha strode away from the ampitheatre as a squad of soldiers, dressed in uniforms
with the black sigil of Imperial Security, marched past him toward the main entrance to the Temple of
Sivar.
Ralgha walked quickly through the darkened streets, never once looking back.
Species didn’t seem to matter; wherever there were pilots, there seemed to be a bar. This bar was cer-
tainly different from any Hunter had seen before, though. For one thing, it didn’t have much of a floor,
or chairs. Firekkans were perched every few feet on branches woven into the tower, extending up into
the shadows a hundred feet above him. Only the bartenders were on the ground level, flying up to carry
drinks to the customers. They had made some concessions for the human guests, though…there were
several dozen hammock-like seats slung at various intervals up the tower, where humans were drinking
and chatting with the Firekkans.
He craned his neck a little, wondering how he was going to recognize K’Kai; he’d never seen any
more of her than a blurry face-shot on the vid, and had only heard her voice on the comlink. And at the
moment, every Firekkan looked like every other Firekkan to him. With a sigh, he walked to the closest
ladder — doubtless also installed for the convenience of the humans — and began climbing.
He’d “met” the captain on patrol; she was flying a freighter. That had been something of a surprise.
He’d been assigned as her fighter escort, and over the course of the trip, he’d found out quite a bit about
her and her “flock.” They’d never met face-to-face…or face-to-beak, in this situation…but they’d talked
for hours over the comlink.
Firekkan social groups were fairly large as a rule, consisting of a matriarch and all her immediate rel-
atives. But K’Kai was something of a maverick — which so far as Hunter was concerned, gave her a lot
in common with him. She’d no sooner been introduced to the concept of spaceflight than she had bro-
ken away from her own family flock — much to their horror, he had no doubt — and presented herself
at the spaceport, demanding to be trained.
She’d proven to be quite a pilot; she’d made that old freighter move in ways he’d never suspected it
could — and in ways that would have had a human pilot looking for the air-sick bag. Hunter suspected
that being a flyer by birth probably helped her there, since she’d been born with a natural aptitude for it.
Before very long, she’d been joined by other misfit, oddball Firekkans, all of them looking for a way off-
planet and out into space. Pretty soon she had her “flock” — and she was a matriarch of a freighter crew.
She trained them herself, and Hunter knew for a fact that the birds were just as good as she was, if a lit-
tle on the strange side.
But that still wasn’t going to help him pick her out of this crowd —
A piercing whistle made him grab his ears, and then grab again for the safety of the ladder — and a
whirlwind of feathers and clattering beaks descended on him as he dropped his haversack.
Not that it mattered — one of the birds grabbed it before it hit the ground; the rest started pawing
him — roughing him up —
No, he realized, after a moment of panic. No, it’s okay. I remember now — He tried to relax under
their questing claw-tips, running through his hair, poking into crevices in his clothing —
This was the Firekkan greeting of affection — like getting hugged by a bunch of friends, or so he’d
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