Chapter 10: Balance and Time

We had identified more than a dozen worlds so far that were habitable but not currently occupied by a society of intelligent beings. Some, like Mesa were habitable but impractical. Some, like Pearl, were habitable but dangerous. And then there was Kite, habitable but doomed.

Of these worlds two had untouched buffalo herds like Meadow. Shrike was an otherwise gorgeous world, but one with a predatory and lethal bird species that hunted in swarms. We left it alone. The second of the two was Cascade.

Cascade was one of the worlds we had designated for settling when and if the time came that we could let the people of Earth know of the existence of facets, and of our ability to travel to them. In the meantime, there were the buffalo.

We jumped to Cascade at midmorning, local to the region the buffalo were currently moving through. I put the three of us on a high bluff overlooking a sea of grass and within it a great, wide brown river of flesh.

Titan's coat went hard, and the colors cycled through dark blue to mint green and back several times.

"These are the creatures whose meat I tasted last night?" Titan said.

"They are called Buffalo." I said, "We have a herd like this on the facet where we have our home as well."

"I know the meat of these creatures is the present you wish to give my people." Titan said. "But if you were to let the Yaru elders come and hunt these creatures themselves, it would be a present that could never be equaled."

"We had these animals in numbers like this on the facet of my birth as well Titan, and we managed to hunt them almost to extinction, as did our allies the Taluat on their world. We would have to manage the herds here so this could not be repeated."

"You would not get any disagreement from the Yaru in that regard. We learned this lesson at our own hands long ago, though the Strilem were nothing like these magnificent creatures!"

"Perhaps the hunt could be used by the Yaru as a rite of passage, to mark the entry into adulthood?" Andy said from beside me.

I turned and gave him a stare.

"What?!" He said. "I read books!"

"Titan, I know you a little, after these past few days, and I know that if there were a path to this place that was always open to you, but the elders told you that you must have permission to come, you would honor their request. But I do not know the Yaru as a people. Do you have lawbreakers and thieves? Do you have those who would take what was not theirs?"

"Yes, we do." Titan said, his coat going all white and ruffled. There is great shame when a Hunt produces a rogue, but the greater shame would be in not bringing them to justice and making an example of them to the young."

"Then we need a gate with access that can be controlled by the Elders." I said. "Andy, any ideas?"

"Well, how about something like the Sonox necklace we've given to Titan? Something they could wear, like we do with our bracelets."

"I was thinking the necklaces would be combat gear for all the Yaru who saw action against the Sh'kxu. They'll need it if they are going to keep millions of Preci calm in the middle of a war." I said. "Still, that's a practical idea. We should check with Constantine. The necklace idea was a good quick solution for Titan, but with time to think about it he may probably come up with something better suited to the long haul."

"In the meantime, we have the buffalo question to deal with." Andy reminded me.

"Titan, what if we take back one of them now as a sample, and offer to bring the elders here to show them. We can discuss options with them then."

"That would be best. The elders are not overly prideful, but they do have their pride. They will appreciate being consulted from the beginning. And it would be a singular honor to be given the chance to make the first hunt."

"You should have the honor of the first kill, Titan. But not the first hunt?" Andy asked.

"A wise distinction, Andy. Yes, having the first kill would improve my standing, while leaving the elders the honor of the first hunt."

So I culled one of the stragglers from the back of the herd, jumping it to the rock and shrub covered slope behind the bluff we stood on. Titan made a quick kill, which made Andy's eyes go wide. Hell, it made my eyes go wide. It is one thing to know someone is capable of such carnage, but another to see them wreaking it.

Titan stood, his forepaws on the hind haunch of the dead buffalo, his eyes gleaming with the feeling of the kill, and his coat stiff and jet black when I jumped the three of us to the dry packed dirt approach to the rubble slope in front of the den. The second we appeared Titan roared word of his kill in the Long Voice.

Long Night Running and his second in command Mudfoot came immediately in response to Titan's call. Seeing the three of us, and the buffalo, and Titan hovering over it, he shook his head in almost a human way.

<Dave, have you given Titan his own hunting grounds? He seems quite pleased with himself at the moment.>

Some small little rituals of the pack happened then, probably of more importance than the casualness with which they seemed to happen would indicate.

Long Night Running approached Titan and the buffalo, and Titan backed away at last from his kill. Long Night running gave the buffalo an examination with his nose, and finally reached down and tore the heavy hide over the neck with his sharp teeth. He then howled in the Long Voice. Finally he approached Titan and the two Yaru stood nose to nose for long moment until finally Long Night Running turned, and faced back to the den. Titan 'whuffed' something and walked up to stand alongside and just slightly behind his leader.

<Let's talk.> Long Night Running said as the two of them passed us, joining Mudfoot and walking slowly towards the den.

We met with the Elders, in council. Titan, as a member of my party was attending his first Elder's council as something besides a defendant.

Long Night made a quick presentation, and turned things over to me.

"You have called us Spirit Masters, and we are, but we are people first, and as people who have made new promises and new friends, we sought a way to mark this with a gift to commemorate our rejoining. In my family, food always seems to wind up associated with memorable events, and so perhaps this is why we thought of food as the gift we might give."

"My nose is telling me it is a fine gift too, even from this far away!" Red Nose thought to us all, causing a chorus of the peculiar whuffing/howling noise that is Yaru laughter.

"Not wishing to make a poor choice in gifts, and since Long Night Running had so generously allowed Titan to join us as his representative... ' That statement produced an even louder, longer round of laughter. Even Titan thought it was funny.

"... we allowed Titan to sample the meat of the buffalo, and he did think it would be a fine gift, as the meat was a delicious and different taste. This was when my son Andy, who is young, but wise for his age, and quick thinking, suggested we might want to let you have the buffalo itself, rather than just the prepared flesh, as we had given Titan." I bowed slightly in Andy's direction.

"Your child is wise indeed, having the animal is much more satisfying to our people than just having the flesh." Another of the Elders said in response.

"We took Titan then to a place where a herd of the buffalo could be found. He took one look at them as they stretched across the plain and asked us to change our gift. He asked us not to give you one of these animals as our gift to you."

This news had the Elders looking at Titan with a little confusion. He had been the one who stood over the kill when it came, so there seemed to be a conflict in what they knew and what I had just told them.

"Instead, he asked that we give you the opportunity to hunt the buffalo yourselves. Our gift to the Yaru shall be the gift of the hunt."

This produced what could only be described as the Yaru version of a chaos bomb! When this died down I nodded at Titan.

"You should speak now."

I looked at Long Night Running and he nodded in agreement.

"When I first suggested that the chance to hunt the buffalo would be a better gift than just the meat of the creature, my friends saw the worth of that idea immediately. But the idea of the elders having a hunt was only the initial thought. In our discussions we began to consider the thought of giving the Yaru access to these herds so that the hunt could become a part of our Hunt. I have made the first kill, but it was not a hunt. It was simply the taking of one of the herd who had already been separated from it by Dave. The honor of the first hunt I asked be left to you."

The excitement this brought to the council almost matched that of the previous one. When it had died down it was Long Night Running who stepped forward this time. For the first time in the meeting he spoke in Yaru, rather than the thought speech.

"We have long gnashed our teeth and fretted over the seemingly boundless energy of 'Child Born in the Image of the Elder Legends Who Strode the World as Gods'." Long Night Running used Titan's full, formal name. I saw Titan's ears perk up as he did.

"We forgave him in the past for his recklessness and his impetuousness, because we saw that someday he would become a powerful adult and a wise leader, if only we could survive long enough to guide him there. He was a trial to us all as a child, but no longer. Today I declare him an adult, and announce to the Elders gathered here, and to the Hunt that this is so."

This pronouncement was answered by a very loud and very synchronized howl from the Elders, followed by one from Titan. In the silence that followed, Long Night Running's voice came clearly.

"But you are still taking him with you when you leave, aren't you Dave?"

'Howls of laughter' indeed.

Even with the need to switch ourselves to a war footing in response to the situation on Precipice, Legion Team One and Two were busy working on an older problem. Gordon Halsey, our mysterious coercer benefactor who had used Howard Dexter to expose the energy companies who opposed the Obsidian Technologies Fusion Reactor.

We had finally gotten a handle on Gordon, after years of patience, and tracked him back to his business in Colorado and his home in northern New Mexico. With Light-based tools we had learned of on Kri, a facet I had originally designated 'Autumn', we had been monitoring his home, and his conversations and surface thoughts for a couple of months now. With Team Three's diversion to the war effort, we had switched Team One, minus Arden, and Team Two to the Halsey operation.

Titan had been my shadow since our return from Aruh, so I took him with me to meet the two teams and get an update. Plus it was fun watching everyone react to the big guy.

We really had a big problem with Gordon Halsey. He was a nice guy who happened to be a coercer. He seemed to be using his abilities to help those he encountered, and when he helped himself, it was to back up honest efforts. His ranch in New Mexico was chock full of beautiful women in skimpy outfits, its true. But it proved to be a little less of a coercer's harem and more of a therapist's reward.

"Gordon Halsey is considered to be a miracle worker among the Vegas Showgirl crowd, as well as the 'girls' who work in Nevada's legal prostitution industry." Ariana told us. "He offers to cure their drug addiction, 100% guarantee, no questions asked. If the client is satisfied a year later, they owe Gordon a month at the ranch."

"With his coercive ability, that lifetime guarantee is as good as gold. They couldn't fall off the wagon if they wanted to." Mike said.

"He must be really working through a lot of showgirls then, to have six living at the ranch at a time." I said.

"Well, there's the next part to the puzzle." Alicia said. "Two of the girls currently living at the ranch have already completed their month's service. They liked the life there so much they asked to stay on after their month was up. Four of the girls are waiting their turn to 'work' at the ranch, but are staying there in the meantime because they have no place of their own to go to, and are worried about returning to abusive relationships."

"It's not a harem? He's really only involved with one girl at a time?" I asked.

"Yes, and as far as we can tell, there is absolutely no coercion involved in these girls' decisions to stay." Pete added.

"Either that, or this guy is the most subtle operator we've ever seen." Fred offered.

I thought about the entire situation for a while.

"What's your recommendation?" I asked them.

"He's home right now. We snatch him. Take him off to someplace secure and we give his mind the thorough going over we'll need to make sure we're not being deceived, and then let him know he's got us out there watching to make sure he keeps playing it straight, and then we let him get back to his life."

"Alright." I said after a moment's thought on that idea. "Possible problems with this approach?"

"His knowing about us changes his thinking or behavior in some way and he becomes more of a problem than he is currently." Alicia offered.

"His exposure to the awakened is enough to perhaps awaken him as well." Byl suggested. "But that's not necessarily a problem if it doesn't cause a change in his behavior."

"If we snatch him, where do we put him and what do we do with the residents of the ranch if it turns out we can't use the 'catch and release' scenario?" I asked.

"Catch and release? That's cute! Evidence of a youth misspent on the banks of New Melones Lake." Sarah said. "It shouldn't be too hard to convince the women there of Gordon's coercive abilities. All we have to do is demonstrate it to them. If we can do it, then obviously so could Gordon, and it would explain his miracle cure."

"As for where to put him, how about that dome on Dust we used for the Sh'kxu we grabbed from Precipice?" Fred suggested.

"We're still holding our Sh'kxu prisoner there, so that's a minor complication. But I've had the dome controls modified so we can create internal force fields however and wherever we want them."