AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry for the long time between updates; I had several real-life issues to deal with, including becoming engaged!

xXx

The air was a rarified concoction with high humidity; for several minutes after Anise became aware, she lacked the strength to move. There was a burning heat against her, and as she lifted her head, which seemed mounted on springs, she found herself enshrined in the arms of her protector. His head was turned to a small display screen at his cheek; he bent his head and uttered an inquisitive trill as she moved. Blankly, she stared at him, wondering anew what she had gotten herself into. Unable to parse any emotions, she simply rested her head against him again. She had almost regained unconsciousness when the whole craft jerked. She looked up at the display screen, and from what she could make out, the pod was docking with a much larger ship; their craft was a tiny blip moving toward a larger red mass, and a docking bay, marked in black, was being opened for their arrival.

His hands moved from their resting places at her sides and began keying in sequences on the pads. Anise found herself blinking at the long black nails that tipped his fingers. As she continued to watch, she corrected herself; 'nails' was a human word accorded to pampered rich women. These were claws, and they reminded her again of the wholly different world into which she was entering. She felt her stomach tighten into knots at the strangeness of it all, and her neck weakened again. She rocked forward against him, jostling as the craft was bolted into place by the docking locks. He reached down and undid the flight harness, the clasps snapping loudly in the enclosed area. He chattered at her softly, and she half-smiled in her exhaustion; his tone and manner reminded her of when she had found small animals and taken them, nursing them back to health. The possibility entered her mind—could his caretaking be some sort of apology for Jake's death? Did his culture appropriate the females of a defeated warrior to the victor? Her stomach became even more unsettled at the thought.

The rush of air into the chamber interrupted her thoughts. The lid of the ovoid craft lifted, and her rescuer nudged her forward. She stumbled over the lip of the craft, and leaned against the exterior. Her hand passed over ridges in the otherwise smooth metal, and she realized with horror that these were the evidence of the bugs' final attack, their claws carving rows into the outer shell of the egg. Her companion stepped out of the ovoid and helped her up; she accepted the assistance unconsciously, feeling light-headed and gasping for air.

Another doorway hissed open in front of them, and Anise found herself face to face with the other two humanoids, and more standing behind them. All wore masks with varying degrees of ornamentation. Despair boiled up in her as she saw nothing familiar in their masks, and more gruesome bits of bone hanging off their persons. One stepped forward, and she was startled to recognize the mask as belonging to one of the original three. She had a niggling feeling that this was their leader. Perhaps she should make some gesture of respect? The most formal and placating gesture that came to mind was a bow, but she wasn't sure she could manage it in her wobbly state.

Instead, she got down on her knees, remembering some ancient documentary on tribal customs. She reached forward and took his left hand in both of hers. She brought it towards her, pressing the top of it to her forehead. It was the best expression of fealty she could offer, though the feeling of his rough skin and the heat behind it unsettled her, and she dropped his hand quicker than she would have liked. The alien was silent, and finally, he turned and walked away. The rest of them dispersed quickly, leaving her with her original guardian.

xXx

Escthta had been surprised by the female's gesture of obeisance; it fell just short of indenture. He stood next to her, where she was still, staring after Cthinde. Escthta could still feel Cthinde's confusion even as he moved beyond the scope of Escthta's mind. The female slowly got to her feet, and her quick breathing wheezed in her lungs.

The atmospheric composition of the Zanna was adjusted to favor Hunters, though the composition should work for humans. He frowned, puzzled, and leaned down to help the human up. He was still at a loss as to whether she should be treated as emissary or as animal, and he was no closer to figuring it out as she got to her feet and followed him through the corridors.

xXx

Anise clung to him like a shadow, her footsteps sounding rapid and small behind the long, heavy strides of her companion. She hadn't given him a name in her mind; it gave him a realness that she wasn't sure she wanted to acknowledge yet. Instead, she stared intently at his back and watched the swaying of his dreadlocks until they stopped before a large door. The frame was ornately engraved with sharp shapes and spidery scripts, lit from behind with a red-orange glow.

The door hissed open, and Anise peeked out from behind her escort.

The room was large with numerous viewscreens and a window onto space that took up an entire wall. Here too were the carvings and decorations, their severity repeated on banks of computer screens and edges of chairs. Anise was beginning to recognize some of the stiff glyphs that appeared and reappeared on screens. They might be letters or numbers, but try as she might, Anise couldn't divine their meaning. Her protector motioned to her to stay in one place, and he stepped forward to join the other two in conversation. Anise was left to her own devices, and at length, she studied her roommates.

The first she noticed was the one she had been moving with, the one who had saved her from the bugs, but killed her brother. She couldn't quite bring herself to call him Killer— although Jake had died by his hand, all of his efforts had been focused on her preservation. He wore considerably less armor; the exposed skin was a dull yellow color with black spots on it. His loincloth was what looked like leather, and he had metal plating on the outsides of his thighs, overlying a half-skirt of worn, grey material. His chest was covered with a triangular leather plate and five straps crossed it horizontally, the shortest at the bottom and the longest at the top, ending in rings that each had small skulls threaded on to them. She ended her perusal at his hands, which were spread in a plaintive gesture. Each claw-tipped finger was splayed wide, and she decided that she would call him Talon. Talon's mask was smooth, but near the bottom of the mask, the mouth panel erupted into vertical fins ornamented with beads of metal at their tips. Anise felt unsettled by the strangeness of the mouth on the mask; in her experience, most human masks might have looked strange, but they were at least representations of what lay behind them.

Talon was several inches taller than the next shortest one, whom she recognized as the one armed with the cannon. In his hands now, he held something that looked remarkably like a sextant. He must be the ship's navigator, she realized suddenly. His mask was heavily ornamented around the visor's lens, and he also wore a half-skirt around his hips, held in with a leathery belt. He clanked as he moved, and Anise realized that he had a set of metal pieces bound around one arm with a thickness of cloth, the same blood-stained red as his skirt. Their shapes seemed random to her, but she supposed they were keys. Navigator and ship's master made him an important person, and his armor, lightly decorated straps of metal over his shoulders, seemed to reflect it. She was most entranced by his mask and its decoration; she named the Navigator Visor, since his eyes were surely his most important tool aside from the sextant.

She turned her attention last to the leader, the one she had paid thanks to, who was the shortest of these three. He wore the most armor, and each piece had decorative flourishes, akin to the room carvings, that were missing from her companion. He sported a metal codpiece with layered plates, and a thick belt of animal hide decorated with small skulls across his chest. He wore metal and hide guards for his shins, and the leathery ties were stained dark with blood and sweat. He folded his arms as her protector spoke in their strange language of grunts, chatters and growls.

His mask was the simplest; it had no strange rivets or fins, but bore small metal fangs at each corner of the plane that covered the mouth. For these she named him Fang.

She had named her rescuers and with a small sense of accomplishment, she slid down to the floor, politely covering her mouth as she yawned. The rooms were warm, warmer than she liked it, and the day was catching up to her. She ached in places she didn't know she had, and her back and legs creaked their protests as she forced them into a sitting position.

xXx

"She's an animal, a specimen. Put her in the hold." Cthinde's voice held a sour note that Escthta winced inwardly at.

"I can't do that. She's got thoughts and feelings."

"She's not yautja and does not need to be around us. You can put her in a holding cell for Bad Bloods, if you'd like."

Escthta recoiled inwardly; those cells were barely habitable at all—sewage pooled in the lower areas on the floor and many times the floor still harbored the last meal of the Bad Blood before being turned over to the council. "I wouldn't do that to a rhynth I liked."

Cthinde folded his arms and glared hard at Escthta. "It seems we're at an impasse, then."

Escthta curled his fingers to make a fist at his side, and then relaxed it.

"We have to deliver her in good health, physical and mental. We can't treat her like an animal."

Cthinde huffed loudly, and then ground out, "What happened to humans being a gift from Paya, animals good only for Hunting? Have you changed your mind on that? Will you stop Hunting because they have thoughts and feelings?" The last words held a derisive quality and Escthta growled softly at the mocking tone.

"What are you trying to imply, Cthinde?" Escthta struggled to keep his voice toneless and leave his anger out of this argument, regardless of the sting his honor felt. "I was given a mission to return the human in the best condition possible. Don't let official business goad you into saying things you don't mean." Escthta tilted his head in an easygoing manner; since his face could not be seen, his tusks were still flared slightly in annoyance.

Bagthak spoke up quietly. "Perhaps you could keep it in your quarters?" Cthinde turned to Bagthak, who shrugged. "She need not trouble anyone else, and Escthta could closely monitor her environment."

Cthinde jumped on the opportunity for an honorable reconciliation with a gruff "I'll allow it."

Escthta was silent for a moment and then inclined his head slightly. "As you wish."

xXx

Talon was angry about something; the exchange between Talon and Fang had gotten heated, and Visor had intervened. Anise remained unsettled. She could sense the precariousness of her position here, and she shrunk back, trying to sink into the metal floor as they argued. Finally, Talon turned on his heel and Anise struggled to her feet as he breezed past her. She followed him through twisting corridors, watching his massive shoulders and arms move as they walked. The halls were deserted. None of the aliens she had seen before could be found, and she wondered briefly where they had all gone. Talon stopped in front of a door and keyed in a sequence of numbers. The door slid open with a hiss and then fell silent. Anise followed her benefactor, although what she found was not what she expected.

The triangular room was Spartan at best, furnished with only the most needed furniture. It reminded Anise of a monk's cell. The walls were blank, except for one wall, which was ornately engraved. Tableaus of the aliens in triumphant poses populated the lower half, and the upper half was dominated by a trio of shadowy figures whose features were not clearly defined. Spread before the wall was a small carpet, and Anise realized suddenly that it was a place for prayer and reflection.

Her heart chastened for its thoughts of gore and bones, she turned to the other side of the room, which bore a small door and an enclosed berth for sleeping, as well as a small desk near the berth. The desk held a kind of pyramid with upraised clamps, as well as several sheets of clear plastic material. Talon was removing his armor, plate by plate. The shoulder cannon and back armor slid off with the activation of a hidden catch. Anise felt her face redden slightly, although she didn't suppose that his culture had the same taboos about nakedness. More to the point, as the armor vanished, so did his stooped look, as well as his hunched back. With the armor gone, Talon stood tall, and Anise could see that his body was not the thick barrel she had imagined. It was sinewy and lean, with cream-colored skin that was sprinkled with spots of black.

He released his cuffs from around his wrist and forearms, setting them on the desk; the other armor he hung on the wall. The netting he wore was disposed of easily; without the armor to hold the sides in place, it fell apart as he removed the utility belt around his hips. He sat inside the berth, reaching down and shucking off the metal shin guards and leaving them to rest on the floor. Nearly naked, he tucked his feet into the berth and with a soft purr, was silent.

Anise opened her mouth to ask a question, although she knew he could not understand. Rather than profane his altar, and with no other choices, she crawled to the corner between the desk and the wall with the door on it, and curled up there. There were no creature comforts here, and she was sleeping in the lair of her brother's killer, but she was alive, and she was determined to make the best of her impulsive decision to join the aliens.

xXx

Escthta heard the human crawl to a corner. He sat back up and looked at her. How could something so puny cause so much trouble? He stood, and the human lifted her head. She had been accepting up until now, but Escthta held his suspicions that it was because they were both bipedal, both with opposable thumbs. She saw too many similarities to be afraid, and not enough differences to know better.

He reached up and detached the air hoses from his mask. The hollow rush of air fizzled out quickly; he had removed the rebreather, the device which changed air to the Hunters' ideal atmosphere, with his armor. On the ship, there was no need for masks, but most Hunters did not remove them until they were finished with planetside for the day. With no small amount of ceremony, he wrapped his hands around his mask and lifted it free, watching the human through the spaces between his fingers.

xXx

Anise could barely process what she was seeing. The large head and face of Talon was ugly beyond description. His eyes were sunken into black pits in his face, his facial structure highlighted by the plugs of hair that grew along the bone ridges. Instead of a nose and mouth, a cavity in the head was protected by folds of skin and protruding tusks that interlocked to protect the mouth. It was a small, toothy crevice barely visible behind the tusks. She blinked and stared at him, although no matter how often her eyes observed his features, they could not become familiar or normal. Her eyes burned, her vision clouded, and finally the tears forced her to blink, and she looked away from his face. The sobs came quickly, before she could even suppress them, and she covered her face in her hands, unwilling and unable to see him.

What had she been thinking? To think that she could live among them and interact with them—she was a fool, and that was the pure and simple truth. She rubbed her eyes with the sleeve of her bodysuit, though the water-resistant coating did little more than smear it around. She sniffed once, twice, and then looked back up at Talon. Her face burned, but she watched him, still motionless after placing his mask on the desk's pyramid. Her breathing became steady, slow, and she nodded her head back against the wall, keeping her eyes on him. "Why?" The word was simple, and it held in it all her questions for him, which were beyond number. Talon offered no answer, no comfort, and his unnatural face told nothing of his thoughts.

xXx

Escthta held eye contact with the human for long moments. Time stretched unmeasured between them, and at last, her intense gaze was broken by a yawn. She glanced at him, and then curled up on the floor. He watched her for a few more minutes and then leaned back into his berth, grabbing the small pad that pillowed his head and tossing it to her on the floor. She looked at it as if it were poisonous, and then turned her back to him, resting her head on her arm.

He couldn't help but frown at her as he laid down in his berth and keyed the lights to dim. Humans were difficult to figure out anyway, and this one seemed more confused than most. But then again, the whole situation was strange beyond the pale; yautja took no prisoners, hadn't taken prisoners in ages. Slavery of other races had been outlawed over a thousand years ago, in the interests of keeping the Hunt pure. The fact that she was present at all in one piece was remarkable in itself.

He turned his head to look at her in the meager light. Even without the aid of thermal implants, he could see the delicacy of her bones, and he entertained for a moment the thought of them naked of flesh, stark on his trophy wall. To his surprise, the thought wasn't rewarding and had its own tinge of unpleasantness. He wondered what sorts of experiments Thtarok had planned for her. He had his own suspicions that the man had a sadistic streak that went far beyond skinning and dressing one's kill. Escthta always allowed the humans to die before skinning them, but he knew that others did not. Cthinde wouldn't allow such barbaric behavior in his Clan, regardless of who was doing it, but it was not considered to be out of line with other yautja, and some Clans even encouraged it. Escthta looked at his chestplate, the leather triangle with its strips of hide. The human it had come from had been his first, who was in a place of honor on his wall. As such, he rarely skinned humans any more; he had no need of their hairless pelts, and it robbed the corpse of its dignity. Sleep crept upon him, and his rest was uneasy, his dreams featureless.

xXx

Anise's eyes had been open for an hour, but she had shifted only slightly. Sleep had been caught in snatches on the hard floor. At one point, she had used the makeshift pillow he'd thrown her, only to reject it as too hard. It was past this pillow she looked, to the shin guards that lay on the floor. The handle of what could only be a knife glittered in a leather sheath on the side. For an hour, she had lain there and fantasized about it, whether its point was intended for herself, or her captor. She played out numerous scenes, which always ended in death, and she milked them for her grim satisfaction.

Her side had fallen asleep sometime during the night, and she winced at the pins and needles that burned like fire down her legs. Slowly, doing her best to remain silent, she inched over to the shin guard, reaching her fingers out for the handle of the knife. It came easily, though the blade rang as she pulled it free. The tang was serrated, and this close, she could see that the sheath was not leather, only covered in it. It was heavy in her hands, and she had no doubt that it was sharp enough to cut through bones. She stood creakily, gripping and re-gripping the knife in her hand.

She stepped forward to take her revenge, her face already gathered in the gruesome folds of agony. Her target shifted as he slept, but Anise had already come this far, already made her choice, as evidenced by the blade in her hand. She leaned forward, ducking into the berth, and scanned the length of his body for a place to strike. She glanced at his face again to make sure he was still asleep, but the amber-green eyes were open, and they stared at her intently. She breathed in her scream of resentment, clenching her teeth until she could hear the enamel squeak.

His eyes didn't move from her and he blinked lazily, still coming out of slumber. His left hand reached for the knife, but didn't take it from her. He moved her bladed fist to his throat, positioning the point on his jugular. She stared at him for a moment more, her breathing telling of the shuddering efforts to remain calm. His eyes weren't frightened, they were intelligent and sharp. They offered no judgment, no anger, and as his hand drifted away from his throat, hers could not keep the point pressed home. She released the knife on his chest, defeated. She stood back, out of the berth, and Talon climbed out, walking past her without a second glance. Anise looked sideways as he walked, and in his skin, she could see the puckers and paleness of scars across his abdomen.

He paused in front of the other wall, setting up trays and cylinders around his scrap of carpet. At length, he stood and began tracing his fingers over the three shadowy figures. His clawed fingers found a carving that housed a catch and tripped it with one claw. The halves of the wall separated, pulling into the wall, and Anise watched with renewed horror the wall of skulls that was revealed. There were shapes there she didn't recognize, large skulls with enormous fangs and misshapen skulls thickened with bone. There were shapes that were familiar, the long heads of the black bugs mounted on the wall, strangely ivory underneath their acid-proof shells. To her chagrin, there were also human skulls, gleaming on their mounts.

Talon seated himself on the rug in front of the trays, now set up with cylinders. Anise inched closer, unable to quash her morbid curiosity. Talon used a small rod to tap two of the cylinders. With barely any effort, the cylinders filled the room with a rich, resonant tone. Talon's head rocked forward, and Anise thought she could perceive a low rumble from him, in the same tone as the largest cylinder. It was a kind of prayer or meditation, and the length of the tone stretched for several moments, during which neither Talon nor Anise moved.

When at last the tone was spent, Talon picked himself up and put his cylinders and trays away, and concealed the wall behind the engraving again. Anise watched him, inwardly impressed with his meticulousness. He stepped across the room to the door on the same wall as the berth, and opened it. He stopped as he was about to enter, and then turned and walked to Anise, stopping just in front of her.

Anise looked up at him, her nerves shot. "I can't be afraid of you anymore." She remembered an old film she had seen as a child where a wild man introduced himself by touching his chest and saying his name. She half-smiled at the memory; who would have thought that 'wild men' still existed? As she looked him over again, she corrected herself; who would have guessed that she would be the one to encounter intelligent life? There was nothing lost in trying. She looked at him when he moved suddenly, as if he'd remembered something.

Talon tilted his head to the side and then touched his chest, half-growling at her. He repeated the gesture again, and the growl was more pronounced. Anise blinked in realization. "You're trying to name yourself, aren't you?" He hesitated for a moment and then tilted his head. She reached up slowly, trying not to alarm him, and touched his chest. His skin burned underneath her fingers, and she said the name she had chosen for him. "Talon." She touched her own chest, feeling the warmth from his body that lingered in her fingers. "Anise."

xXx

Escthta listened to the human uneasily. The thought to touch his chest and say his name had come unbidden. The communication was crude at best, but it was a beginning. What surprised him more was that she understood his intent and did the same. The name was alien to him; he tried it and mangled it horribly, finally grunting in frustration. He breathed in slowly; he would learn to speak her name, but it was not an effort he expected every yautja to make.

It occurred to him he could just call her "human", for she was the only one of her kind that had ever seen the inside of their ship, and when he spoke it, it would be obvious to whom he referred. But the practice didn't sit well with him. He had heard the name she chose for him in her language, and although it was strange, it was not altogether unpleasant. He cast his eyes over her person, looking for something that would identify her. He stroked his tusk thoughtfully, turning and pacing the room. His eyes fell upon the knife, still lying on the rumpled mattress in the berth. He blinked, having finally come upon an acceptable name for her. He turned back to her, covering the distance between them, and reached out to tap her breastbone.

"I name you H'chak-di, she of mercy." He repeated the name for her, and was mildly amused by her attempts to say it. She actually did a passable job without having the physical equipment for the stops. She thumped his chest, saying again her name for him, and he returned with her name. They were communicating. It was small, but it was a start.

xXx

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm sure the Tarzan and Jane reference escaped no one, but there are few, if any, references to the establishment of communication between two intelligent species. It was either this or go the way of Koko the gorilla. It would have been interesting to try, but it's not really a task I'm up to at this point.

As always, thanks to those who email me with comments; I appreciate them more than you know.