Beginneth the story:

  Flash!  And there I was.

  The sun beat down with an almost palpable force.  It was
sometime near late morning, and the heat of the day was just
beginning to rev up.  This meant that it was beginning to go
from extremely hot to absolutely intolerably hot.  A small
breeze blew from the southwest, and hardly anything living
was astir.

  'There,' by the way, was a tropical savanna.  Where else
did you expect me to find lions?  The smell reminded me of
my uncle's farm.  Hot and humid, it smelled of hay and grass
and dust.  And antelope dung and wildebeest dung and zebra
dung and giraffe dung and rhino d... well, you get the idea.

   Now then, where was Naline?  I checked the small computer
on my left forearm, took my bearings, adjusted my backpack
cooler full of vittles, and set off into the ocean of grass.

  That's the thing about savannas, you understand: grass.
Deserts have sand, forests have trees, tundras have snow, and
savannas have grass.  Lots and lots and lots of grass.
Everywhere, far as you can see.  All kinds, all sizes, all
colors.  Oh, there's trees and bushes and rocks and other
such things that break up the monotony of endless grass, but
mostly there's grass.  It's one gigantic lawn.  I wouldn't
like to be the one that mows it.

  Naline's world was a pretty place, as far as worlds were
concerned.  Big bright sky.  Clear blue, dotted with fluffy
white clouds.  Wide open spaces, green with all the grand
array of flora that makes the countryside pleasant to look
at.  There were huge herds of herbivores everywhere.  Big
ones, little ones, striped ones, brown ones, of every size
and kind, eating away in the hot savanna sun.  Angels flew
about, playing harps while streams of ethereal light cascaded
down from the heavens.  Wait, that last one wasn't true.  But
it was really nice.


  And hot.

  Who's Naline, you ask?  She's a dear friend of mine.  No,
it's not what you think, gutter-head.  She's a precious
little girl I met something over half a year ago.  Now that
I think about it, I suppose she's not all that little
anymore.  Naline is a lioness, you see.

  I met her when I was on vacation here last time.  I was on
a hunting trip and I chanced upon a dirty, scraggly, lost
little furball with the most adorable eyes you've ever seen.
Of course, being the sterling person that I am, I promptly
volunteered to help her find her way back home.  We became
great friends on the way and I was terribly sad when we
finally found her home and we had to part company.

  I don't like 'good-byes,' you see.  Not the 'good-bye' that
one says when one is leaving forever and never expects to be
back again.  I hate those.  Fortunately for me, this 'good-
bye' had turned out to be a 'see you later.'

  I reached the top of a grassy hill and took my bearings
again.  You know how you always hear of folks lost in the
desert wandering around in huge circles, never realizing
they're not going anywhere?  That's really easy to do in the
savanna.  One horizon-full of grass looks pretty much the
same as the next one.  Good thing for me I've got my high-
tech navigational gadgets.  I have no idea how come every
single creature in this endless ocean of grass isn't
wandering about, lost and directionless.  Hah, now that would
be a sight, wouldn't it?

  I clicked a button or two in my wrist unit and checked my
direction once again.  Little arrow said go that way.  Well,
who was I to argue with little arrows?  Off I went, plunging
once again into the giant lawn that was Naline's savanna.


  Long as I'm wandering about almost lost, let's do the
introductions.  Name's Cruz.  Nice to meet you too.  I'm kind
of a mercenary-type person who hires himself out to nice
people who are in deep poo-poo.  You know, kidnapped kids,
missing pets, stolen heads of state; fixing all that stuff is
how I make my living.  Your family fortune's been stolen by a
ruthless corporate pirate?  I make it better.  Your power-
hungry uncle kills your father, tries to dethrone you, and
sends you into exile?  No problem.  I charge exorbitant rates
and usually break lots of stuff.  Makes the job fun.

  I was on vacation again.  All work and no play makes Cruz a
bored soldier of fortune.  And somewhere in the vast ocean of
grass, the one I was stomping about in with my size 9 1/2
boots, was my little friend.  I just hoped I didn't get lost;
I hate missing appointments.

  Oh yeah, the reason my 'goodbye' had turned out to be a
'see ya later' had to do more with luck than foresight on my
part.  Hey, I never claimed to be any kind of genius; I just
happen to be one of those persons on whom fortune is always
smiling.  Just before we had parted company, I had sense
enough to give Naline my business card.

  Well, they're business cards only in the loosest sense of
the word.  Actually, they're in the form of a little chain
bracelet.  But they're very, very useful.  More so than your
everyday, regular kind of business card.  They can be used to
call me anytime, anywhere, anywhen.  I think they're rather
nifty, myself; only the classiest mercenaries use them.

  "Here," I had said as I'd fastened the little chain around
Naline's wrist, "if you ever need me, just touch here, and
I'll be here right away."  The bracelet housed a designator
which allowed me to pinpoint her exact location and flash on
over whenever she beckoned.

  Flashing?  It's a method of travel.  I don't know exactly
how it works; I just uses them, I doesn't designs them.  Hey,
if I knew how they worked, I'd be an engineer, not a
mercenary.  All I know is that you push a button, there's a
bright burst of light, and you're there.  'There' can be
anywhere at all in the universe, and you get there
instantaneously.  Saves a fortune in rocket fuel.


  I'd been occasionally flashing in now and then, when
emergencies arose and Naline was in it deep. But I'd been
thinking for some time that it would be nice to flash in and
just visit and have a nice long talk and catch up on current
events and chat about old times.  But I hadn't had the
time, what with all the mystery and intrigue and cloak-and-
dagger stuff that fills my calendar.  But I'd gotten paid the
previous week so I figured I deserved a few months off.  So,
there I was, orienteering myself through the vast grasslands
of her world.

  A golden ball of energy and activity became visible over
the gently rolling hills.  No, not the sun; it was Naline,
my little Kitten.  My, how she'd grown.  She was still a
cub, but she wasn't quite so small anymore.  Her little head
bobbed up and down as she tore across the savanna grass,
followed on the other end by her endlessly flickering tail.

  "Cruz!"  She flew through the air with boundless joy,
knocking me both out of balance and out of breath.  She
stood over my ribcage, paws on my neck, looking down on my
temporarily incapacitated person.  "Didja miss me?"  She
affectionately rubbed her head all over my face, the way
lions do when they're happy to see you.  Come to think of
it, I had kinda missed the taste of lion hair in my mouth.

  "Yeah, I missed you lots."  I spat out some fur, and tried
to get the rest of it off my tongue with my gloved hand.  I
gotta get a less energetic lioness to befriend.  Oh, who was
I kidding?  I loved her tons.

Bookmark/Search this post with:

delicious | digg | reddit | newsvine | furl | google | yahoo | technorati