Read The Free Trader of Warren Deep (Free Trader Series Book 1) for Free Online Page B

overwhelming this time. Skirill must have been in a great deal of pain. Braden formed an image in his mind of sewing the gash together. He focused on that image, then asked politely, “Good sir! May I sew up your wound? It will greatly speed the healing process and maybe even save you a few feathers.” He waited, not knowing what kind of reply he would get.
    After a couple moments, the Eagle started squawking. Braden thought it sounded like he was trying to talk. “Ssssack Soooo. Esss.” The “s” was pronounced as a mini screech, the “ck” as a click of the eagle’s tongue. The vowels were expelled air, with the tongue shaping how it sounded, instead of non-existent lips.
    “One more time, please.” Braden asked.
    “Sssack sooo. Esss,” the eagle replied.
    ‘He said, Thank you, yes,’ G-War interjected in his thought voice. Braden was surprised that the eagle was trying to speak directly. Maybe the images from Braden’s mind were too much for Skirill, as his were mostly unintelligible to the human.
    Braden took out his thread and the smaller of his two coveted needles. He threaded it carefully and taking a deep breath, plunged the needle between two feather shafts and into the skin. He pulled the skin up so he didn’t dig into the muscle, then pulled the thread through. He did the same to the other side, pulling the skin tightly across the gash. He looked up to gauge the eagle’s level of pain.
    Skirill gave no indication that he felt the pain.
    “Just a few more and we’ll have it closed up. Then we’ll put numbweed on one more time, say after sunrise? Then you should feel a lot better. By the way, how did you learn to speak our language?” Braden was thinking out loud rather than trying to carry on a conversation with an eagle. He continued working on the wound.
    “Ohhh Kay,” Skirill said. “Anngaage eee aaaeeeend. I saw. I learrr.”
    “You learned our language from my mind?” He was getting easier to understand the more he talked. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Are humans the stupidest creatures on Vii?” Warren Deep was the land north of the Great Desert on the planet the inhabitants called Vii.
    ‘It sees truth,’ G-War purred softly into his mind. He still couldn’t believe it possible. The eagle had learned to speak from a few heartbeats contact with his mind. What had he learned?
    He saw pretty pictures of the land as the eagle flew.
    Once finished sewing the wound shut, he tied off the final knot, and bit through the string to cut it. The eagle giggled at this.
    “Come on Skirill. It’s all I have. I didn’t want to use my knife so close to your body, which is magnificent, by the way.” Back to trader platitudes. He saw an eagle with his eyes, but in his mind he saw a creature that was probably superior to him. Braden had no special powers. He counted on Old Tech, his Rico Bow to give him his edge. He practiced a great deal with it to be as deadly as possible.
    He pulled the string with his right hand and he nocked the arrows on the right side. This was counter to how he had been taught as a youth, but he discovered that he could shoot far faster and just as accurately doing it his way. He could loose three arrows in the space of a single heartbeat.
    Maybe that was his special power, the ability to work out problems and then act. As he was doing now on his journey to find Old Tech.
    “Come on, G, you have to like something about me, don’t you?”
    ‘Thumbs,’ is all the ‘cat said.
    “Yup. That’s all I am to you, opposable thumbs. And you know what G? Don’t you ever forget it!” To emphasize this, Braden waggled his thumbs around and then touched each of his fingers in turn with each of his thumbs. “Somebody’s got thumbs and somebody else got no thumbs…” Braden sang out loud, dancing as much as he could from his perch on the rocks.
    “I go too,” Skirill said slowly, but clearly.
    Braden stopped taunting G-War and turned back toward the eagle.