The brilliant disk of the sun had faded, diminishing from
an angry, blinding orb down to the size and brightness of a
burnished gold coin.  It seemed as if I could almost reach
out and pluck it from the sky with my fingers.  Evening had
come, bringing twilight upon the savanna.  The herds had
settled for the night, the owls had awakened to a new day -
or night, whatever, - and the lions were preparing for the
hunt.


  It is a habit of creatures of Naline's kind to roar at
sunset.  They all gather as a pride and call out to each
other in a spine-tingling chorus of deep, rumbling bellows
that echo across the vast expanses of grass.  I dunno, it
kinda seems strange that great, majestic felines would
announce the oncoming dusk in the same manner that the lowly
rooster announces the new day's dawn.  Maybe that's what I
oughta get my uncle for his farm: a rooster for the morning
and a lion for the sunset.  Nah.  He wouldn't appreciate it.

  Maybe it's a way of announcing to the other inhabitants of
the vast grasslands that the kings of the realm are about
and they better watch out.  Maybe they're giving the other
animals some kind of warning, letting them know that a hunt
is about to begin.  Or maybe they're just letting them know
who's boss.  In any case, it was Naline's cue to go home.
Her mother liked her to be home while the grownups were out
hunting.  It was safer.

  Naline's sensitive ears perked up at the familiar sound of
the evening chorus of roars.  "Aww, I've got to go home."

  I remembered back to when I was a little kid and my mother
would call me in for dinner.  I was always out playing
somewhere interesting with my friends and the last thing I
wanted was to go indoors and wash up and sit and eat.  She
would call and call and I would stall and delay and try to
stay outside until the absolute very last second possible.
In the end, her voice would reach a certain pitch, and I
would know that if I delayed any longer, I would be certain
to be in for some trouble of the parental kind.

  "You sure?"  I looked in the direction of the sound,
shielding my eyes from the rapidly fading sun.

  "Well, I can stay just a little bit longer."  Naline, like
me, knew that pitch in her mother's voice and she wasn't
about to go until she had heard it and it became absolutely
necessary.


  "Come on," I started in the direction of the Rock, "let's
get a head start while we think of a plausible explanation
you can give your mom of where you've been."

  Naline's parents knew that someone named "Cruz" had helped
their little Kitten find her way back from the jungle all
that time ago.  But they didn't know that he, that is, me,
came back every once in a while to check on Naline and see
how she was doing.  I was Naline's little secret; her
invisible friend, as it were.

  Not that I minded too terribly much, you understand.  I
wanted to make as little an impact as I could in Naline's
world.  There was a law against upsetting the natural balance
of virgin worlds.  And if ever there was someone who was good
at upsetting natural balances, it was me.  You know that
hunting trip I was in when I first met Naline?  I had a
permit for that one.  But these return visits of mine were -
how can I put it? - under the table, off the books, not in
the records.  Now you know my secret.  Just don't tell
anybody.

  "Well," Naline suggested, "I could tell her I lost track of
time chasing a rabbit."

  "No, you told her that last time.  If you tell a lie too
many times, it wears thin until it breaks and you get
caught."  What was I doing, you ask, teaching Naline to lie?
Believe it or not, it's a good skill to have.  When used
within bounds, that is; nobody likes a habitual liar.  Maybe
this time it would do to tell the truth.

  "Try telling her that you have an anthropoid friend that
appeared out of thin air with a pile of food and that you
got run over by a herd of zebras and fell out of the sky and
almost drowned and that an elephant insulted you."


  "I can't tell her that," she countered, "she'd never
believe me!"

  Interesting.  We had us a situation here where a truth
would appear to be a lie, and a lie would appear to be the
truth.  Strange universe we live in, isn't it?

  "Maybe we could tell her an almost-truth."

  "An almost-truth?"

  "Yeah."  Almost-truths, along with love, are what make the
universe go round.  "Okay, tell her that you wandered off..."

  "That's true."


  "and that you found a small carcass..."

  "That's not true."

  "It is, in a manner of speaking.  The stuff I gave you to
eat was technically made from dead animals, so it was, for
all practical purposes, a small carcass."

  "Okay," she smiled, "I like that.  A small carcass.  Yeah."

  "Yeah, and then you, um... got so distracted with it that
you were caught by surprise by the stampeding zebras..."

  "That's not true."


  "Just pretend."

  "Okay."

  "And you ran and ran until you managed to reach safety,
and it's taken you this long to get back home."  Yeah, that
was a pretty plausible almost-truth.  "What do you think?"

  Naline tossed it around her little head for a second and
smiled.  "Yeah, I think I like it."

  "Good.  Some of my better work."  I don't know, though.  I
was in pretty morally ambiguous ground.  Oh, well, good thing
I'm not a philosopher, or it would bother me.

  The disk of the sun finally dipped its last sliver of light
into the distant horizon.  The fiery sunset colors of the sky
faded along with the disappearing sun, giving way to the
lights which ruled the night.  Stars gradually appeared, the
brightest first, followed by the billions of dimmer sparkling
gems of the sky.  Night had come.


  "Listen."  Naline cocked her head as she walked, and swept
the night sky with her sharp leonine eyes.

  "What?"  I didn't hear a thing.

  "Bats.  Hear them?"  She seemed as if she were listening
to the music of songbirds.

  "Nope."  My range of hearing didn't go up as high as hers
did, so I couldn't hear the supposed singing of the bats.

  Her excellent night vision and superior auditory perception
highlighted the many differences that existed between man and
lion; between her and me.  We were completely different
creatures from completely different worlds.  I was a human, a
mercenary from a high tech world with high tech needs and
worries.  I'd been nearly everywhere and done just about
everything.  She was a lioness, a wild predator from a wild
place.  She hunted and was hunted, she lived precariously on
the edge of existence, yet thoroughly enjoyed it with the
enthusiasm common to little folks her age.

  Common sense would tell you that we should be enemies, that
I should hunt her and she should hunt me.  We should live in
a balance of predator versus predator, forever in fear and
hatred of one another.


  Yet we were friends.

  In an odd quirk of fate, the kind that makes sense only to
them that run the universe, we had somehow met and forged a
tight friendship.  Me and her?  Her and me?  Shouldn't
happen.  But somehow it did.  And I think it made me a better
person because of it.  I hoped it made her a better lion too.
Last thing I would want would be to be a detrimental
influence on her.

  Me?  A bad influence?  Nah.

  The top of Naline's Rock appeared as we crested another
hill.  We were close to her home and it was time for me to
leave.  But this time my heart wouldn't be breaking, because
I knew that I'd be coming back.

  "Well, I guess I better go home."  Naline turned as her
mother's voice finally reached that final do-or-die pitch.

  "Yeah, I think you better.  Don't want you to get in
trouble with your mom."


  She said goodbye in the manner lions do, and rubbed her
little head all over mine.  Fur in the lips?  Didn't mind.
Not from her.

  Naline turned and, in a fashion typical of all energetic
children, ran off towards her Rock, skipping as she went.
Where did she get all that energy?  Joy of life?  Who knew?

  I watched her little tail disappear into the grassy
distance.  Soon I lost her in the bobbing and waving of the
savanna grass.

It was not too much later that the distinctive voice of her
mother ceased from the chorus of lions.  Probably meeting
and greeting  her little girl.  I could almost picture them,
Naline greeting her mother in her usual energetic way.  Mom
would patiently endure her vigorous 'hello' before going on
to the usual bed-tucking rituals.  Naline was home, safe and
sound.

  And I was happy.  I turned and walked into the savanna
night, pressed a few buttons and...

  Flash!  There I wasn't.

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