| Since the griffin folk have been warned to expect the shuttle, they
are not alarmed when it appears and lands in the valley that lies at the
heart of their land. The ambassador, Helena 3, emerges. She has travelled
light, for she has not yet had the chance to acquire much in the way of
possessions, and has only one bag with her. It contains a couple of changes
of clothing, a hairbrush and comb, some toiletry items, one of the new-fangled
radios to allow her to communicate with her queen, an equally new-fangled
electric torch, and not much else. (Fortunately the Alliance views portable
radios and torches as disposable items - unlike shuttles.)
Helena turns and waves to the shuttle as it takes off. For just a moment,
she feels a little lonely. She knows that she could be here for some time,
weeks or even months, and it is likely that when she eventually leaves
it will have to be by a much slower method. She is familiar enough from
her previous life with having no other humans around, though having to
be ambassador to a deeply alien race will be a new experience for her.
She is looking forward to the challenge that it will undoubtedly represent.
Trilling Blackfeather and his mates, Morning Song and Evening Star,
are waiting to greet Helena. As Light Trilling watches her approach, in
a deeply buried corner of his mind Dark Trilling is thinking: By the
gods, it's one of Zerm's 'statues'. Meanwhile Helena finds that she
is getting an uneasy feeling. Though she has no magical ability, she has
a gift for sensing people's auras, and can generally tell whether they
are good or evil. The black griffin, though, seems to emit a confusing
and - judging by her previous experience - impossible, mixture of good
and evil. Well, perhaps griffins' auras are different from those of
humans, she thinks. In any case, I can't afford to prejudge him.
I have to remember that he's the leader of his race, a race with whom we'd
like to forge an alliance.
-
 Once the formalities
of greeting are completed, Helena is shown to the cave that will be her
home for a while. (Griffins' anatomies are not suited to building houses,
of course.)
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