See Author's Notes at the end.

xXx

Anise sat at Talon's side after Fang left. His breathing was slow and even, and she watched the strangeness of his face in sleep. His mandibles relaxed some, and she could see the fleshy folds inside his mouth. Each tusk moved independently of the others; some twitched with some imagined dream. She looked closer and saw his eyes moving beneath his eyelids. It was a small relief for her; the huge alien was her lifeline.

She watched him quietly, and then realized he was wearing armored guards. The leg without the bandage had a guard on it. His arms, too, were guarded with long metal cuffs on the forearms. His wounds couldn't be an accident, although she had hardly believed they would be. Someone had fought with him. She wondered if it had been a serious fight, or if they entertained injuries like this all the time. He shifted, and she leaned over him, trying to see how the cuff worked, and if she could take it off his leg. Armor, she reasoned, was not for sleeping in.

The catch was on the other side of his leg, and with some effort, she managed to remove the molded metal from around his calf. His skin was smooth and warm, but she dared not touch him further. She did the same for his arms, looking for the catch on the outside of the limb. It was there, the same sliding piece that had held the greave in place, and she clicked it back, unhinging the cuffs and setting them aside.

She sat back from him and then eased herself down to the floor. His extraneous armor was strewn about her and needed to be picked up, but she watched him sleep until the lack of food and her own nerves got to her. She rested her head against the bed just for a moment, but could not find the strength to lift it again.

xXx

The darkness was there again, pressing in on him from all sides. Escthta was exhausted from his fight with Gulchak, but he intended to follow through on his efforts to speak to Yugmnelsh again. His limbs felt heavy and slow, like they would in water, but he moved them and felt no pain. He was aware he had form then. He had imagined himself into being in this dream, but there was no other existence; he hung alone and motionless in a void.

You have to concentrate, he reminded himself. If there were thoughtpaths and Yugmnelsh controlled them, could he not just find one and walk down it? He turned his head in the thick blackness and looked for a path, but could not see one. He tried to push himself or swim in the murk, but as he had no points of reference, he could not see how he was going, or where. It was a situation that left Escthta in the same place he had started.

He stopped his thrashing about and tried to find another way. He was here in the void, so there must be a way to find the Bathyrian, but he simply had to think of it. Thinking, thoughts, thoughtpaths; he had never heard of the last before the meeting with Yugmnelsh. If a thought was a path, he could just think his way there, couldn't he? His eyes closed and he tried to think of the Bathyrian's appearance, hoping he could will it into existence as he had himself.

Something brushed his finger, the faintest hint of contact. Without opening his eyes or breaking his concentration, he lifted his fingers and found a single bit of rope, slender and slick in his hands. He tested it slowly, sliding it between his fingers, and then twisted his hand to grab it. As his fingers closed around it, it pulled taut, almost out of his grip. He tightened his hand and was slowly aware that he was moving, or that something was happening, though he could not guess what.

He opened his eyes, slowly. The blackness was slowly giving way to that ancient form that had seen use since the beginning of life. There was not a light, but the blackness lessened and the Bathyrian's coils and domed head emerged from the gloom. Yugmnelsh rumbled faintly, that deep and bone-trembling sound which was nearly familiar now.

"You return. I am impressed."

Escthta inclined his head slightly and the Bathyrian thrummed. "You come here seeking answers, but I do not know if I am the one to give them to you." There was a pause. "I am not sure they should be given at all."

"What must I do to earn them, then?"

The responding voice was gruff, but surprised. "Earn them? Hardly." There was a bitterness there that seemed sudden, as though it came from an old complaint. "You will have to find them for yourself."

Escthta felt his shoulders fall, but did not turn away. There was assurance he needed, and the Bathyrian was the only one he could seek it from. "Was it merciful? Did I do the right thing?"

The Bathyrian coughed a sarcastic laugh. "Your kind has never been concerned with the right thing. Paya granted you her favored status, but you have not earned it." The Bathyrian's voice seemed to chill slightly. "And now you are going to be paying for it."

Escthta froze, and his eyes could not leave the twin spheres of obsidian that were perched at an ungainly angle on the Bathyrian's head. They were endless, and no matter how he prepared for them, their blank stare always cut through Escthta's most steadfast intentions.

"Your society is crumbling, is it not? There is more concern for glory bought with blood, and less for the preservation of Paya's works." Escthta was speechless. The yautja and their mighty technology on the verge of crumbling? Although he could not deny that a new breed of bloodthirsty Hunter had been on the rise, surely it did not push their society to the point of no return? The Bathyrian's voice hushed. "There is a balance to these things. And it is tipping."

Escthta moved to the side as one of Yugmnelsh's prime tentacles moved alongside him. The tentacle moved in the shape of a form, and a ghostlike image of H'chak-di formed like mist on water. "You know this being?"

Escthta was made uneasy by the spectre; the likeness was uncanny. He turned to Yugmnelsh. "I do. She is a human."

Yugmnelsh rumbled, "And how is it that a Yautja, one of Paya's first, comes to know one of her lowest works?"

"She… I was asked to collect a human by the Council."

The Bathyrian went quiet and then seemed to exhale, as there was a long, slow hissing that Escthta could not explain. The hissing went on at length, but finally, Yugmnelsh spoke.

"Your Council seeks to use this human for research, do they?"

Escthta felt, rather than saw, the play of a wry smile in the Bathyrian's countenance.

"I don't suppose they told you what they'll do to her when they have her in their laboratories?"

Escthta looked at H'chak-di's wraith and then back at the Bathyrian.

"No. I don't know what they'll do to her."

Yugmnelsh bared his toothy mouth and Escthta narrowed his eyes at the gruesome grin.

"I know her fate," Yugmnelsh said silkily. "Would you like to see?"

Escthta wavered with indecision. His curiosity picked at him like a scab, until finally it got the better of him. "I have seen the insides of scores of humans. Nothing you can show me will affect me."

Yugmnelsh's grin faded into a grim line. "You are confident, Escthta."

Escthta blinked at the use of his name, a seething sound in Yugmnelsh's mouth. The prime tentacle circled close to him, the thin blue claw on the underside curved and wicked. Yugmnelsh's touch was tender, but once the claw pierced his temple, there was nothing held back.

It was only a split second, but Yugmnelsh preferred a 'trial by fire' and dealt him the full force of the thoughtpath. Thoughtpaths were very much like rivers. Rivers may dry up and lose their water, but the longer a river flows, the more easily water will find its way back between its banks. Thoughtpaths differed from rivers in that one must consciously have a thought; it is not the whim of nature to force beings into thoughts they wish to escape.

Yugmnelsh, in his cursory examination of the thoughtpath, saw it worn deep, encrusted with emotions and desires until it was fairly a trench. The thoughtpath was an all-consuming obsession, and even the slimmest taste that was afforded Escthta was too much for him to take. He felt the force, the singular purpose, of all thoughts that had been there before, and the living ones that were dwelled on even now, and he sank to his knees.

Yugmnelsh retracted the claw as quickly as he had slid it in. The budding Psionic was strong; in all his eons of marshaling those who would Speak, he could remember few that did not cry out when the full force of a thoughtpath was brought to bear on their minds for the first time. Though he did not need to, the yautja gulped in air out of habit. Deep breaths calmed him as he shoved the red images away from him. His voice was weak and ragged; "What was that?" Yugmnelsh paused before answering. "Thtarok."

The tentacle withdrew and hovered pensively near the human's shoulder. Escthta looked at the human and watched the tentacle as it moved through and around her. Yugmnelsh pulled his prime tentacle fully away, and it disappeared into the gently pulsing coils.

"Regardless of what you saw, you must keep this human close to you."

"What about the Council?"

Yugmnelsh flipped a tentacle tip with nonchalance. "You will not have any problems with them."

Escthta got to his feet, resuming his towering height over the human's small brown head. "Why?" He was struck with a realization. Could H'chak-di also be capable of Speech?
Yugmnelsh's eyes narrowed, a shrewd expression wrinkling what Escthta could see of his face. "You believe her to be Psionic?"
Escthta, his heart beginning to beat hard, nodded slowly. It was obvious, now that Yugmnelsh had asked such a leading question. "Why else should I keep her close?"

Yugmnelsh did not confirm the yautja's suspicions. Try as he might, the ancient one's mind was too strong for Escthta's untrained brain to pierce and he gave up, half-ashamed for even trying. An uncomfortable silence followed, but Yugmnelsh swelled, as if he breathed in, and then extended a prime tentacle to caress the ethereal human form.

His strangely fanged maw opened, fleshy bits rolling in and out of the mouth like waves as the Bathyrian spoke. "If you keep her close, her power will fully show itself in due time."

xXx

Anise awoke to a hand on her head. The touch was light, stroking her hair. It reminded her of girlhood and a father with large hands that worked all day and played guitar at night. But there were no guitars here, and the hand on her head had long black claws. She lifted her head suddenly, finding Talon propped up on one elbow in his berth. His yellow eyes were staring at her, but his gaze was not as hard as she had found Fang's. His eyes were half-lidded and they rolled shut easily, but always opened on her.

He trilled softly at her, and the sound was not unpleasant. Still, she stood slowly, feeling her muscles protest. Talon was no kitten, no tame animal that gave its love unquestioningly. The trill was a noise she counted as some measure of manipulation. She would not be lulled into a false sense of security. He shifted and then his eyes broke away to look at his arm; the claw-marks had opened and were seeping the strange blood, glowing in the darkened berth. Anise looked at it, at him, and then stepped forward.

The edge of her dress easily soaked up the little blood that was there. "These should be bandaged," she grumbled; the scratches were in truth rather deep troughs that had been carved into him. She looked at him, at the clicking together of his tusks and then sighed. "I suppose you people aren't into really healing things, are you?" Her sarcastic remark earned her no smile, no acknowledgement, just more of the same steady gaze he'd regarded her with.

She sighed, leaning back, pulling the hem of her dress through her fingers, smoothing and re-folding the fabric. There was an intimacy in eye contact, and to share it with him on an extended basis invited her thoughts to go in wholly the wrong direction. Something about the bald-faced way he looked at her made her feel guilty and exposed, like her thoughts were laid bare. Maybe there was no such thing as guilt in his culture.

Her stomach lodged a complaint with her brain, a dull ache that felt like empty, and she rubbed her abdomen absently. Her voice was hoarse and scratchy when she spoke. "I haven't eaten in days. I don't suppose there is anything fit for a human here?"

He gave an extended rumble, a series of deep clicks below any human register she had ever heard, and reclined again, resting his hands on his stomach. The motion had no meaning at all to her, and she watched his breathing in silence, wondering why she bothered asking at all, when the food came.

The creature that brought in the food was, she realized, one of the Hunters, although she did not see it at first. It would have been as tall as she was had it stood upright, but its torso was lowered parallel to the ground, a tray carried suspended between skinny arms. Its hair was ragged and not in the dreadlocks she had come to expect. The tusks had broken off long ago, and the fleshy mouth had little to no protection. It wore a small, ragged loincloth, encrusted with filth and barely there, but Anise could see a male chest. The small tray he carried had small bowls and covered plates on it, and he set it on the desk near Talon. He did not seem to notice Anise at all, but then he turned to leave after Talon motioned it away.

Beady yellow eyes locked on her, and she tried to smile helpfully. His scream was ear-splitting; the shriek of madness and hate chilled Anise's blood, and Talon's replying roar was equally terrifying. The slave darted out of the room, but not before spitting hissing words filled with vitriol, and his indignant howls were heard echoing down the halls until the doors slid closed.

Her nerves frayed, she looked at Talon, who was up on one elbow again. He grunted softly and then jerked his head toward the tray on his desk. She stood obediently, used to caretaking without being asked and deciding that it wouldn't matter if it was an injured alien or her brother. She uncovered the plates, finding cooked meat, a bowl of broth and a small cup of some clear fluid. It was a Spartan meal; for her part, she managed to wolf down the meat without questioning what it was. The broth was barely salted and nearly tasteless, but rich with some warmth she couldn't put her finger on. She felt refreshed and energized after she finished it, and the soothing effects of a full belly began to work their magic on her.

xXx

Hir'cyn relaxed in his private bath, his hand loosely balancing a cup of liquor on the edge of the soaking tub. The quiet times on the homeworld between Councils was something he cherished, for the streets were barely crowded and the task of an Elder was not much task at all. In a few months' time he would be assigned to another ship to begin watching for another Leader. The number of Leaderships for the next Council had not yet been decided, and they largely depended on how many unBlooded were going to be going on training Hunts, as well as other factors.

Other factors, he thought to himself, like the females. They had only just left, departing the homeworld for the broodworld that was uncharted in all Yautja ships, save one, the mother ship that bore them here. The location of the broodworld had been a sort of Grail for the average Blooded. The coordinates had been discovered some years ago by a Clan, and they had gone to take possession of the females they supposed were theirs. At the next council, their damaged skulls, suitable for no trophy wall, had been thrown into the arena and used as spear targets by the females. All attempts to subvert the females' rule had been unsuccessful.

Hir'cyn dangled a claw into the water, breathing deeply of the perfumed steam. It was just as well, he supposed. The males ruled themselves, but all Council votes were subject to approval by the females, specifically one female. Paya's avatar, the Holy Mother, Matriarch, that most fertile of vessels that Paya honored with her own name. It was said she had borne over three hundred sucklings, some of them among the greatest Hunters their race had ever known. Her age was unknown, but she was over a millennium old by Hir'cyn's reckoning, making her one of the oldest members of their race alive.

Most of the yautja were not aware of the females pulling the Council's strings, and it was well that it remained so. Although any Councilman would answer honestly if asked, none wished to know how much sway the Matriarch really had. The large majority of males were content with the Hunting and posturing that their separated states provided them, and most would not be able to understand the complicated position that they were in.

Most would not, but some did ask, and they could find their answer in the Library of Pthor'da, a medium-sized building in an out-of-the-way part of the City. All the texts had been gathered when the remaining settlements on the planet had been consolidated into the City. Ancient maps with territorial lines and country names might still be found within its walls, but few young Blooded cared to look. There were a few, however, though whether they would assume the tasks of the already aged library caretakers remained to be seen.

As far as the current Council was concerned, much of the past was dust to be swept away and there was no honor, imagined or otherwise, in preserving the past. So, many of the outlying regional libraries had fallen into disrepair and the decision was made to gather all of them into one. Hir'cyn imagined the hulking ruins of abandoned cities being reclaimed by the jungle in this weather belt, and wondered where his race would be when their words were worn away by rain, and the mighty stones their ancient ancestors had erected to Paya had fallen and cracked.

It was his own respect for the past that caused him to be so involved in the choosing of future Leaders. There was a place for learned yautja on the Council; the scientist, the historian, the strategist, they all had their places in the decision-making process. But schools had long since stopped teaching anything but the most basic numbers and speech. A yautja with two thousand operable words could easily get by in life without worrying about what letters meant. The true Glory was in the Hunt, and they sought it earlier and earlier in life. Some of the young that were training in Hunts were only 75 years of age, practically children.

And yet, there were things that were beyond his reach. He didn't like the look of some of the Councilmen; Thtarok disturbed him, even more than the fat idiot, Bruyaun. Kvar'ye also raised warning flags, but for different reasons. There was a calculating chill about Thtarok, whereas he suspected Kvar'ye was just the opposite, a hothead that would get them all slaughtered. Hir'cyn had the ear of the Council closer than most. Tjat'le was a close personal friend of his, but his head had shaken when Hir'cyn expressed his concerns. They were the best to be found for their places right now, and there were no others that could fill their positions.

Hir'cyn sighed and stood in the bath, stretching his muscles that had grown stiff. He toweled himself off, his brow furrowed with thought. That had been, of course, the moment when he himself had found out about the females' involvement.

But you're the Head of the Council! Can't you just boot them out?

His exasperation had been high and it had shown in his voice, but Tjat'le told him about the females and their Matriarch, their laws that governed how many laws the males could make, how much freedom they had. Hir'cyn had known the females had their own laws, but that they had dominion over him he had hardly guessed.

So when he had heard of the Zanna's first mission, to collect a human specimen, he was surprised, but not wholly. Anything the Council did was the will of the Matriarch. The reasons the Matriarch had for wanting a female human were unknown, but Hir'cyn could hardly imagine she was wanted for honorable combat. The humans did not display an extensive degree of sexual dimorphism. The females were hardly different from the males. If it was combat the Matriarch wanted, a male would do as well as a female. No, Hir'cyn thought, there were other things at work here, many more layers of deception and intrigue than his slaves or spies could search through. Cthinde and Escthta's lives were in danger, as they were on all Hunts, but there was something more to their Hunt that hadn't been divulged by Tjat'le, even when plied with liquor, and it gnawed at Hir'cyn's mind.

xXx

Escthta watched H'chak-di eat, pausing in his own repast to observe her. He had finished the protein broth first, knowing it would banish the chill of Yugmnelsh's words from his limbs. His hand was still curled around the bowl, and he sipped absently at the fruit juice that accompanied the curative meal. H'chak-di was cutting her teeth on one end of the meat, sucking the flesh away from the bone. Her face was covered with the fats and juices of the rhynth joint and she seemed to enjoy the flavor. He chuckled, surprised at himself finding joy in watching humans.

The Bathyrian had offered no guidance on H'chak-di's power or how it would manifest itself. He had said that her power would show if he kept her close. He tilted his head slightly in spite of himself, wondering how close the Bathyrian meant him to keep her. What would he have to do to unlock her power? He did not have the venom-laden fangs to awaken her power, and Oggohlb could not be visited. Yugmnelsh was not even corporeal. The inner battle knit his brow together, and H'chak-di noticed in moments. She uttered something, her voice rising on the end of her speech, in the intonation that he was coming to recognize as inquisition. He chattered back at her, nonsense words, really, and she prattled on in her strange little language for another half a minute.

Silence returned as she found another corner of the meat to chew, and he picked at his, sliding the thin strips of rhynth into his mouth between finger and thumb. He could feel his leg aching very clearly now; the drugs given in the infirmary had worn off, and he could feel the part that was not-him, the muscle replacement gel that had already seen use in his other leg. He would have matching blank spots in the nerve endings in his calves.

The human looked up at him and then asked something, another question. He tried to use his mind to divine her intent, but his thoughts were not focused, and they fell away from her alien brain with no information. She made a musical noise, although it was like no music any yautja had ever played. Yautja music was rarely played, and when it was, it consisted mostly of drums and a small scattering of woodwinds and stringed instruments. The yautja had no talent for music, but understood the beating of drums plenty enough. Escthta loved the drums, loved the feeling of his organs vibrating when he stood near to them.

She was looking at him expectantly, and he coughed softly, wondering what she could possibly want. She made strange motions in the air, and after the third set of gestures, he recognized one as a sth'ki, a flute made by hollowing out the leg bone of a Queen. Unfortunately, most of the intricate instruments had been replaced by lesser versions, but he had heard an original once, in the hands of an Elder on Syu'ne's ship. It had moved him deeply, as all flutes in the Yautja culture were meant to do. They brought on meditation and sent the souls of the dead into Cetanu's host. When sth'ki were played, it was a time for reflection on life and death.

When he did not respond to the flute cue, she continued to make movements, and he realized she was pantomiming instruments. She wanted music, or wanted to know about music. He shook his head slowly, grateful that the motion carried across their cultures. The negative moment made her blink and then her expression fell. Her voice was tiny when she replied again, and he just shook his head no, deciding it was better than trying to explain what gestures could not tell. The lack of communication frustrated him; they had touched minds once, hadn't they? Why could he not reach her now?

He watched her in the aftermath of her questions, how her voracious appetite had seemingly been satisfied, and she picked up the bowls and bones, putting them on the tray and sliding them out the door. It was a smart thing, he realized; a slave wouldn't have to come in the room and repeat the previous debacle. He sighed, reclining again, feeling the stiffness in his joints from being immobile even for a small while. Slaves were normally not much for conversation; the deformed and the runts were shunted into slavery. But they picked up their culture secondhand from the Hunters, and their hatred of humans was purer than that of the Hunters. Hunters could at least respect a human as an equal adversary, or in H'chak-di's case, a valuable commodity.

The slave's garbled words had barely been intelligible, but there was enough savagery in a deformed yautja to kill a human female. Escthta's roar of reprimand had been enough to shock the slave into leaving, but Escthta knew that the slave would have wasted no time in communicating with other slaves in their pidgin speech: there was a human female aboard, being treated better than any yautja slave. His secret mission for Thtarok had become more than just talk among the crew. It was common knowledge now, and anyone that wanted to know where the female was could find her. What they would do with her if they found her was not hard to guess.

xXx

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you to my friends, Cendri and Drakonlily, for their patience with my snippets.

An online dictionary defines numen as a "presiding divinity or spirit of a place". Further down on the entry's page, it elaborates: "a spirit believed to inhabit an object or preside over a place (especially in ancient Roman religion)." You may draw your own conclusions about the identity of the "numen" in this chapter.

On the sons of Paya: Dear Reader, I am glad you were sharp enough to spot that omission. But I am sure you have realized by now that I do not omit anything without a reason; I have not mentioned it because it might spoil much of what I have planned for Escthta. Your curiosity will be satisfied in a later chapter, I promise.