Science Fiction: Welcome to my Worlds

confident and even ready to commit deadly actions on someone she considered a stranger and a threat. What had been happening here? “Cesily, it’s me, Darin. Don’t you remember me?”

She backtracked, crossing the chasm on the bridge connecting it’s narrowest points, and came toward him with her weapon still pointing in his general direction. As she got closer, he could see the puzzled look on her face. “I don’t know any Darin. Not since…” Then her face cleared. “Darin Salorin? I remember you always talked to me when my family visited. But you’ve been gone for, for, years!”

“Only two years,” Darin protested. “I’ve been learning things. Amazing things.” He moved toward her then, but a warning snarl from above reminded him that the hill cat was still watching. To demonstrate his education for Cesily, he pocketed the needler and sent soothing waves of warmth and assurance reaching out to the big cat.

“ROWWWH!” Spitting its displeasure, it leaped from the ledge above, a silver streak arching toward him in midair.

“No Purz! Don’t hurt him. He’s a friend.”

The big cat landed ten feet from him on the ledge, nearly in the middle of the oily spot. Surprise let its momentum carry it toward the edge and spin the cat around twice before it’s claws came out. They scraped off great