Then the roar reached him and that at least was familiar. The ship jumped as if kicked, rising skyward at an extreme angle. So stunned and enthralled was he by the sight that he forgot to activate his own alarm. Sometimes it is not planning but inspired confusion that is the best aid to escape.

The light of half a moon shining down on it, the Seeker’s shuttle rapidly accelerated into the cold, cloudy night air of Hivehom.

XII

XII

There was nothing aboard like the acceleration saddles he’d lain in on the shuttles that had lifted him from Willow-wane and dropped him down to Hivehom. Human saddles were short and angled in on themselves. He could not possibly straddle one.

The monsters were hastily strapping themselves into their own units except for one who staggered forward. Forgotten, Ryo chose a place on the deck where two walls joined and spread himself as flat as he could. With foothands he grasped the support pylons of two monsters’ saddles.

He worried overmuch. No radical maneuvers were performed and the steady acceleration was not difficult to bear. Soon the shuttle was coasting in free space.

That did present some problems. The monsters’ shuttlecraft was not large enough to retain artificial gravity, so Ryo went floating past several of the securely strapped-in crew. Loo unbuckled his upper torso and reached up to grab one of Ryo’s flailing hind legs, then pulled him down to where he could obtain a grip on the back of the monster’s saddle with all four hands. From there he was able to manage reasonably well.

The voices of the pilots reached them via the communicators. Again Ryo recognized that of the captain.

"I don’t see a thing,” she said. She paused, then, “There’s nothing up here. Not a damn thing, not even a shuttle.”

“What about the Seeker?” an unseen questioner asked.

“Coming up on her.” A longer pause, broken by a third voice.

“She looks untouched. I don’t think they’ve tried taking her apart.”

“Why should they?” Elvira responded. “For all they knew it could be booby-trapped.”

“I don’t know,” the second voice began. “They don’t strike me as a suspicious people. Though I don’t see how they could be anything else after years of sparring with the AAnn.” A brief silence. “God, she’s beautiful. I never thought I’d call her that.”

“I never thought you’d call anything that if it wasn’t female,” Elvira responded. This was followed by human laughter.

I must begin thinking of them as “humans” and not as monsters, he told himself firmly. Diplomacy must be done.

“Hey, I wonder if any of them are on board?”