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The next time he caught sight of the bird, it wasn’t alone. There were two of them now, both a gleaming bronze color with a cream underbelly. They were large animals, with very little size disparity between them. Could it be a parent with a younger bird? Mates? He had no idea. Not yet. He kept following their flight path, aware it would take him straight to an open meadow not far ahead.
The break in the trees was already visible when he heard something else that didn’t belong out here—a human voice speaking what sounded like Galactic Common. The tone was low, conversational, and definitely female. He paused to listen, waiting for whoever she was talking with to reply. Once they spoke, he’d have some idea how many were there. Only no one else said a word. Just the one female was talking. The tone and cadence reminded him of some of the digital courses he’d reviewed over the winter. It almost sounded like someone giving a lecture, but who the fraxx was she talking to? For that matter, who the hell was she? Only a handful of human women were on the entire planet, and all of them knew better than to wander into the territory he’d claimed for himself.
He didn’t like unexpected company, and everyone in the colony knew that.
Axe closed in, moving through the trees with the stealth and patience of a ghost cat on the hunt. He flipped through several visual filters, trying to locate the speaker and anyone else in the area. Eventually, he found her. She was leaning against a tree trunk that obscured most of her body.
He got close enough to make out what she was saying. That’s when he realized that what he’d taken for a lecture was more of a running commentary about the animals she observed. She referred to them by numbers, not names.
He growled under his breath, snapped out the extendable staff all rangers carried, and stomped toward her, no longer caring if he made noise. He wanted answers, starting with who the hell she was, why she was here, and who had granted her permission to release a nonnative species of animal in his woods?
It took a surprisingly long time for her to react to his imminent arrival. In fact, it took so long he thought she might be ignoring him. Then he remembered how limited human senses were and his annoyance shifted back to concern. Was she out here alone? Didn’t she know about the dangerous predators who prowled these woods? Predators like kopaki, ghost cats, and pissed-off cyborgs? She wasn’t capable of protecting herself from any of them. Hell, she couldn’t even hear him coming. She shouldn’t be out here alone. Not unless she had a death wish.
By the time she reacted to his arrival, it was far too late for her to do anything about it.
All she did was move farther into the meadow to put some distance between them and raise her hands in the universal but pointless gesture that translated roughly to “please don’t hurt me.” Like that ever worked.
She was attractive, in part because she wasn’t as small and delicate as most human females. Instead, she was taller than average with a pleasingly rounded figure. Despite her stature, the top of her head didn’t quite reach his shoulder.
He cleared the trees and took several steps into the clearing before he stopped to glare at her. “Who are you and why are you here?” he demanded.
To his surprise, the woman glared right back at him, her eyes flashing. “I could ask you the same question. And what’s with the stick?”
“It’s not a stick. It’s a kes’tarv, a traditional Vardarian weapon.” Then he realized her query had derailed his intended line of questioning. “I’m supposed to be here. I’m Axe and you’re on my land.” He twirled the staff and pointed one end in her direction. “So I’ll ask again. Who are you?”
“I’m Dr. Rin Rey, and I’m here at the invitation of the leadership council of Haven.”
He took a moment to remove his backpack and set it down beside him, positioning it so the large axe lashed to the outside was clearly visible. Not a subtle threat, but he wasn’t a subtle male.
As he stalled, he considered what she’d said about being invited here.
If that was true, the council was about to get their collective asses kicked, and it still didn’t explain why a human was wandering around unaccompanied. “I doubt that,” he said.
At that moment, one of the birds he’d followed here shrieked and plummeted out of the sky, coming straight for him.
“Hera, no!” Rin’s voice rose in alarm.
Axe dropped to the ground as the bird flew into the space where his head had been a moment before. He sprang back to his feet a second later to see the woman standing with one arm outstretched and the bird perched on her gauntleted forearm.
“We were talking, Hera. He wasn’t a threat,” Rin scolded the creature.
Axe was almost insulted. No, he was insulted. He was most definitely a threat, thank you very much.
After a pause, Rin shook her head. “You can’t go around attacking beings because you think they might be dangerous. Besides, if you really thought that, you should have warned me he was here. I think you were showing off.”
Another pause. Then Rin frowned at the bird. “I am not helpless! I’m quite capable of protecting myself. And I still think you were showboating.”
Either this woman was insane, or she could converse with the animal perched on her arm. If she was mentally unwell, he’d arrange for her to be taken back to Haven. If she wasn’t? He wanted to know more about how she managed to communicate with animals. Then they’d circle back to why she was here.
“Are you actually speaking with the bird?” he asked.
She looked up at him as if she’d forgotten he was there. “Huh? Oh. Yes. This is Hera. And I’m sorry she did that to you.”
His anger faded at that statement, which surprised him. It usually took longer for him to rein in his temper. It was a fault in his design and the reason why he’d spent most of his life on his own. He suspected his creators had intentionally made him that way, but he’d never know for sure. The techs at Reamus Research Station had deemed him too dangerous and locked him away from the others for most of his imprisonment.
He pushed away thoughts of his past and focused on the present. “And you can actually communicate with her? She speaks to you?”
“Sort of.” Rin shrugged. “It’s more a mix of images and feelings than actual words most of the time, but we’re getting better at it. She seems to understand me when I speak to her. I’ve theorized that she doesn’t understand what I’m saying, but she can sense the intention behind the words. Spoken language is an imprecise and messy way of communicating. I’m working to make my own thoughts more precise when I speak with her.”
