K. D. Wentworth - Black on Black
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Frankly, he preferred humans. Rescued from a slave market by a human trader and raised as his son, one question has haunted Heyoka Blackeagle through the years: who - and what - is he? He feels human, indeed he feels like a somewhat alienated member of his fathers tribe. So what if he is seven feet tall, furry, and equipped with retractable claws? Human is as human does...Right?
K. D. Wentworth: author's other books
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K D Wentworth
Heyoka Blackeagle 01 - Black On Black
Chapter One
Heyoka Blackeagle stepped out of the shuttles conditioned air into a hot buffeting wind. Airborne sand ticked against the metal transport and Anktans arid, red-orange landscape swept before him out into a series of low, green-carpeted mountains in the distance. In the foreground, a shallow, meandering river bordered the rudimentary landing pad which was all the Danzig Research Station needed. The river evidently changed course in times of flood and a nearby dry channel was choked with rust-colored sand. More sand extended back from the rivers current banks, then trailed off into desert hardpan.
The dry air was thinner than humans liked, redolent of sun-baked rock and dust and sand. A faint road of sorts led from the landing pad to the station in the distance, both recent developments. Although Heyoka had viewed innumerable pictures and holos of this region without ever being able to recognize anything, he had hoped a smell, or perhaps some long-forgotten sound, such as the shrill of the wind, or the murmur of the river against its banks, would invoke a buried sense-memory and bring his lost past back to him.
But he had no sense that he had walked here before, as the wind ruffled his fur, only the same emptiness he had known all his life. His earliest memories were still the stink of flek slave pens and the throb of the neuronic whip burns across his emaciated ribs. Of the mother who had borne him, or the species to which he belonged, he remembered nothing.
His partner, Mitsu, emerged from the shuttle, blinking against the light, and touched his arm, the pink of her human fingers contrasting sharply with the silken black of his outer coat. So-what do you think? She studied the sand-dusted tarmac. Anything look familiar?
His nostrils flared as he drank in the hot dry breeze, rich with the scent of a thousand mysterious things he had never smelled before. No. He shaped the human word without difficulty on his narrow hrinnti tongue, although the skill had cost him many hours of practice in his youth.
Releasing his arm, the wiry black-haired woman trudged heavily down the sloping walkway in the 1.12 Standard gravity, bowed under the weight of her duffel bag. It doesnt make sense-why would a pilot risk his license just to steal a single juvenile from a Grade Seven Culture?
Grade Seven-too primitive and aggressive for assimilation into Confederation culture. He brushed a strand of mane out of his face, then flexed his claws, studying the savage three-inch points that gave him a fierce edge in hand-to-hand combat. He had struggled his whole life against the wild, unnamed otherness within him, a being too violent to live among humans, who had only found expression on the battlefields of the Confederations enemies. He had crossed the stars to understand these claws.
A group of mounted figures approached across the cracked hardpan. Mitsu dragged a sleeve across her damp forehead. What do you suppose they want?
What I want. He watched as the riders drew close enough to be seen as six distinct figures, each clad in a different color. To know who and what I am. He hooked his top thumbs in the loops of his empty weapons belt and stepped off the walkway. His right leg still moved stiffly, a lingering legacy of the wound he had taken in his last action back on Enjas Two. He breathed deeply of the unfamiliar air. Certainly this barren landscape held no sense of home. He had a sudden pang for the rich air of Earth and the Lakota hills of his youth.
Behind them, the walkway shimmered, then disappeared as its generating field terminated. The small automated shuttle that had ferried them down from the supply ship in orbit hummed into life and lifted on antigravs back into the hazy amber sky.
Mitsu grimaced. Too late to change your mind now, she murmured, shading her eyes.
Heyoka shifted uneasily in the hot sun as the memory of Enjas Two swept back: the sandy green beach, the hot white dwarf star dominating a silver-blue sky, the brittle silence that seemed to go on forever after it was all over
He thrust the memory away. Even if he recovered fully from his injury, Bill Rajman, his captain and superior, would not allow him to return to duty until he could explain what had happened that day. Perhaps here on Anktan, he could find some answers.
I still say you shouldnt have come, he said to Mitsu. He felt excitement overlaid with uneasiness as the six hrinn slowed their burly mounts to a ground-covering walk. Five of them had fur ranging from yellow to gray to dark red, but the one who held his gaze was black with a spectacular white throat.
Hey, its my leave. Mitsu slid a sonic blade out of the sheath in her boot and casually thumbed it on. I can spend it anywhere I damn well please.
The natives were closing fast, riding their humpbacked steeds with apparent ease. Heyoka drew in the deep musk of hrinnti fur, subtly like and yet unlike his own, and blood began to pound in his ears. He felt flushed, as though all his capillaries had suddenly dilated, tasted cinnamon on the back of his tongue, the richness of melted butter in his throat. Pheromones, he told himself, resisting the urge to pant away the excess heat he was generating. He had never been exposed to scent molecules from his own species before.
The waves of heat beating down from the red sun made the colorfully robed bodies shimmer. Their beasts feet crunched over the last few feet of sand-littered ground and the breath caught in his throat; they were all so tall. Something indigenous to this world, perhaps the greater gravity, or a nutrient in the soil or vegetation, had given them more height than he had and, no doubt, more strength as well. They carried their maned heads high, magnificent and proud, clearly savage.
Stopping a short distance away, the six sat their beasts for a long stretched-out moment as the breeze whipped their lengthy plumes of mane. The black-coated hrinns mane was bound with green cord to match its loose overtunic and breeches, and swept nearly to its feet. Heyoka had never let his grow half so long.
The gray-coated hrinn drew its thin, large-boned body up proudly and threw a single sentence in guttural Hrinnti at him.
It was female, he realized suddenly, although he could not say how he knew. If anything, her voice had more resonance than his own. And, although he had studied under hours of deepsleep during the journey to this planet, he had difficulty with her accent. Then the fur on the back of his shoulders stood on end as he grasped her meaning: Stand up. The inner nictitating membranes of his eyes spasmed shut for a second. This strange female had told him to stand up-in the superior-to-inferior mode of the native tongue.
His lips drew back over double rows of gleaming white teeth as he suppressed a deep rumbling growl. He felt the nameless other he had fought all his life stir, and shuddered. I am standing! he spat back at her in Hrinnti.
If you are hrinnti-the old females nostrils widened as she urged her beast closer-why were you riding in that Dead shell of the Outsiders?
The tone of her voice was insulting. Heyokas claws sprang free, then he sheathed them again. I have lived among the Outsiders all of my life, he said, adopting her term for humans. They raised me after I was stolen from my own people.
Her black eyes narrowed. Then you can never have a place here. Everyone knows Outsiders have no purpose in life. Not one of them has ever been reported to fit into a pattern/in/progress of any kind.
The term had not occurred in any of the language lessons. I have come to find my- He paused, unable to find the comparable word for family among the vocabulary provided by the tapes. -my people. The old female edged her shaggy beast closer. I intend to learn how and why I was taken from this world.
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