I woke up the next morning in the barracks room with the rest of my Finger. Lorraine and I had spent a good three hours the previous day exploring all the various athletic options that are possible between two consenting adults, and a few that I hadn't known were possible. I had made my way back to the barracks room and gone to sleep after having to endure the friendly joshing from Desrae and the others.

I got up and took care of my morning routine, only too happy to have access to a hot shower for a change. It was still early when I was finished and dressed. I had given some thought to how I was going to handle introducing S'Alor to the powers-that-be, so I reached out to make contact with Finger Roberts.

“[Finger, It's Cy.]”

“[What is it Cy?]” It seems I had woken Finger Roberts for a change.

“[I need to see you as soon as possible. There is something that you need to know.]”

“[OK. I will meet you on the parade ground in 20 minutes. I just need to get myself sorted out.]”

“[No Problem, Finger.]”

I made sure that the rest of my Finger were properly awake, and oncesure they were all firing on all cylinders, told them the story of S'Alor. I also took advantage of the opportunity to tell then what I'd been told about ‘social activities’.

Desrae told me that she had suspected that there was something going on as she had detected what she thought was a dream character on the periphery of our Sword Dances while we were training. That surprised me. I had often felt S'Alor hanging around mentally when we were busy, but I hadn't known that anyone else had sensed him. Lian confirmed that he had also sensed something, but Geraint and Elaine claimed to have been oblivious.

I left them to get ready and walked out to find Finger Roberts.

“Over here Cy,” he called me and handed me a tin mug of coffee. Ambrosia. Something else that I had missed. While we sipped coffee I told him the story. It's one huge advantage to mental communication, you can talk while eating or drinking.

“[Remember when you detected that I was speaking to someone who wasn't on your mind-map?]” I reminded him.

“[Yes. Are you going to tell me who he is now?]” Finger Roberts didn't sound at all surprised.

“[How did you know?]”

“[I have sensed him since then on the fringes of the Sword Dance, and once or twice while we were on runs I felt that we weren't alone. Nothing definite, but you forget that I have been doing this a while Cy.]”

“[Why didn't you ask me about this?]” I asked in puzzlement.

“[{Amusement} I consulted Hand Evans about it and just watched you. I could sense that this was something that you thought was important, but we decided to wait until you felt you were prepared to tell us on your own.]”

“[Hand Evans knows?]”

“[Yes. He's waiting for us. I suspected that you finally decided to tell me about this and gave him a heads-up.]”

“[Can he meet us near the edge of the parade-ground?]”

“[Sure. I'll let him know.]”

Once I got over my initial surprise, I realised I had been thinking like a typical recruit. The instructors often see things that the recruits think that they don't, and just as often choose not to do anything about them for one reason or another. I had been on that side of the fence, and I should have known better. We walked on and we were joined by Hand Evans at a spot under some trees.

“[Morning],” Hand Evans greeted us curtly. I took a careful look at his communication then realised it was simply tiredness, and not anything to do with me. It seemed that I was not the only one to have celebrated a little late last night.

“[Finger Roberts. Hand Evans],” I began, “[I need to tell you about someone that I have met.]” I went on to tell them the bits of the story that I had left out before; about S'Alor and our communications. Hand Evans seemed to be most interested in S'Alor's ability to move close to us without appearing on our mind map. I didn't realise it, but somehow I didn't tell them, and they didn't realise, that S'Alor was Smilodean.

“[S'Alor is right near by. Can I call him in?]” I eventually asked.

“[Sure],” I got back from Hand Evans.

S'Alor had been waiting. I had barely got the permission from Hand Evans when he bounded out of the shadows and came to an abrupt stop alongside me.

Hand Evans and Finger Roberts looked as if they were going to die of sudden strokes. They had the most incredible looks of shock and horror on their faces that I had ever seen. I couldn't help smiling, and my mind was full of S'Alor's "[{Amusement}]".

“[S'Alor, this is Hand Evans {image/taste} and Finger Roberts {image/taste}],” I introduced him.

Both men replied politely enough, although I could see that they were seriously shocked about the fact that S'Alor was a Smilodean. They had all considered the big cats to be a particular danger to humans in the forest, and I could see that they were pretty nervous about being this close to S'Alor.

Just then I spotted Marek walking up, with Shiyla in tow.

"[Good morning S'Alor]", Marek greeted calmly.

Hand Evans swung around to stare at Marek, “[You know him? You knew the Smilodeans were sentient?]” he asked, the fury obvious in his voice.

“No need to panic Hand Leader Evans” Marek said calmly. “S'Alor specifically asked on behalf of the Smilodeans that you not be told of their nature. They have spent some time observing the operations on War World with a view to joining in. S'Alor contacted me last night to tell me that they have made the decision to test the relationship. He seems to like Cy Peters here and has chosen to be his Battle Companion. It is in the nature of a test of the relationship. If it works out, then there might be further members of his race that will decide to join.”

“[{Agreement} I have watched Cy. He tasted to me like a predator, but told me that he was a cub. He was open to me and seemed more prepared than most to act like a cub in order to learn new things. This thing he calls a Sword Dance is something that I helped him to achieve. It was already within him, but I just pushed him to focus on it.]”

I was very interested by this. Not only did it seem as if S'Alor could understand our spoken language, and not just our mental communications as I had at first thought, but he was a lot more erudite than he had appeared at first. I was to discover that he was learning just as much from me as I was from him.

“You are about to start your second phase training. Might I suggest that for now you consider S'Alor to be a companion to a warrior in one of the Fingers, and we can see how the relationship develops?” asked Marek.

“That sounds good to me,” replied Hand Evans, “do you agree Finger?”

“Yes Hand,” Finger Roberts answered. “It is going to make things interesting though!”

To say that the rest of the the warriors who had been on War World for some time were surprised, would be stretching the concept of under-statement to the breaking point. The other recruits took it basically in their stride as for them it was just one more aspect of their new situation. Once Fist Ryon had stopped pissing and moaning, and the rest of the leaders had calmed down somewhat, the entire training Fist was assembled on the parade-ground.

Fist Ryon addressed us again as he had at the start of our first phase.

“Warriors,” he said, “we have had some excitement the last day or so, but we need to put that behind us now and continue with the next phase of your training. To this point you have focused on individual skills and Finger formations. In the next phase we will continue to work on improving those skills, but we will now move into fighting in larger formations, the Hand and the Fist, as well as how some of the other pieces of the organisation work. The Hands that you were assigned to yesterday will be the Hands you are in for this phase of the training. We will move out as Hands to the Hand training bases where this phase will begin. I will be seeing you from time to time both as I observe your Hand training and when we finally get together as a Fist to train. I encourage you to pay attention to what you are taught and to work hard. Some of you have experienced what it is like to be defeated in battle in our Combat Training battles here yesterday, and I am sure you can attest to the fact that it is not pleasant. Keep this in mind for this next phase. During this phase we will also be confirming our evaluations of you and we will make some decisions about who will be earmarked for leadership positions. That is all. Hand Leaders, take over.”

Hand Evans called his Finger Leaders to him and they spoke quietly together for a few minutes, then they all returned to their Fingers. He gave the order to move out and we started walking in Finger-formations behind him.

Once we were off the parade-ground and on the pathway through the forest, he pushed up the pace and we started running. S'Alor found this way too restrictive and started ranging out to the sides. crossing our path from time to time.

While we were running, I discovered that my connection to S'Alor extended the range of my Mind-Map. Ever since the decision had been taken that he could join me as a companion, we had started developing a connection between us that seemed to be constantly 'on'. I couldn't see through his eyes, but I found that the my Mind-Map included the normal area that I could normally cover, as well as another area that was centered on him. I mentioned this to S'Alor, and he seemed to be surprised that I thought that there was anything strange about that.

“[That is how the pack works Cy. We are each individuals, but we bond into groups very similar to the way your Fingers do, but each is boosted by the connection to the others so that we can range widely and even when we are not thinking about it, our mind maps are the sum of all the contributions from the individuals. Don't you do that with your pack mates?]” S'Alor asked.

“[I have never tried it. We will have to experiment a little later. There is not much room to test our boundaries here],” I replied.