When another escape pod crash-lands to Earth, a call for searchers goes out to several sentient species to rescue its passenger.
The passenger is human - the search parties are not.
The previous escape pod brought to Earth one of the most powerful sentients ever known before - and she was human as well. Together with her adoptive wolf pack, they brougth peace to a wide area around them and brought those species into balance once again.
In this escape pod, a message was brought for the first escapee from that moon colony. Her sister is now in as much danger as that she escaped from.
The idea of somehow launching a rescue across those 248,000 miles of space becomes more vital with every passing day here on Earth. Even with no remaining rockets or ships to lift them out of Earth's heavy gravity.
Excerpt:
It was near sundown when we found the hooman. It was wearing some sort of shiny skin on it's back, tattered and flapping in the rising wind. Something like a bubble on its head and looked to have curled up to retain its own body-warmth - what was left of it.
This hooman had been walking for three days. We saw several spots where it had rested. And we tried to send to it, to let it know we were just behind it. All we got as a response was that it was there, ahead. So we kept up as fast a pace as possible to catch up.
We also sensed something else ahead of us - on the other side of that hooman. Something wickedly dangerous, something wolves usually avoided. But honoring this urgent request forced us forward. And we found the hooman just before that other threat did.
Just.
Now we two wolves needed both to somehow drag this still-alive hooman to shelter and also keep it from being harvested by that threat - the one that was still coming, and could probably have sensed us already.
Then we saw it in the near-twilight, a dark shadow with the setting sun's last rays behind it.
And so we two wolves crouched in front of that hooman to defend it. Hopefully, one of us would survive to send word back to those who waited there. Waited for word of their urgent request.
While we waited for that threat to find us. Teeth bared and claws ready.
- - - -
"Hello, wolves."
The threat had stopped short of where we crouched.
"I say again - 'Hello, wolves.' May I come to parlay?"
"Who are you, and why should we parlay?"
"I am cousin several times distant from the origin of your urgent request. I also have been searching to find this hooman. I am not hunting you or trying to harvest the hooman for food. The storm is nearly on us. Let us parlay to work together on this request."
I recognized this being now. A great white bear. And a well-mannered, reasoning one. A hungry one would have simply attacked. This was a bear with honor.
"Great one. You are welcome to parlay. Please come closer so we may be certain."
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