Looking For A New Home

By Geoff Schultz

A military veteran and security expert leads a team who are protecting scientists investigating a planet for possible human colonization. He’s captured by one of the supposedly unintelligent inhabitants, yet it somehow speaks his language. Then he has the opportunity to learn more about his captor in an unexpectedly exciting manner. A story of acceptance and love on an “uninhabited” planet.

A peek inside:

“Maybe it is unlikely, but the reality of the situation is that we don’t know because we haven’t been here long enough to study either the local solar system or the planet. In contrast, The People have been here a lot longer than we have and since they captured our vessel in orbit, they obviously have technology which is probably as good as or better than ours. They’re the experts on this planet and we should be willing to listen to them rather than make half informed guesses. Wouldn’t we want to be considered the experts of our own home worlds and be consulted if other beings came to visit?”

“I’m beginning to wonder if you’ve been influenced by your ‘friendship’ with one of them.”

Mal shakes his head as he answers, “No. I had those thoughts long before I met Sunshine. Over the course of my training and career, I’ve been to quite a few planets and never before have I seen a world like this one. It reminds me of recordings I’ve seen of our ancestral world before humans overpopulated it and fought over it and turned it into a wasteland. And every one of the other planets where humans have settled and can live on the open surface is in the process of becoming just like our ancestral planet. Some are moving in that direction faster than others, but compared to what the planets were like when humans first ‘discovered’ them, they’re all on the road to becoming wastelands.”

“But we need more room to live.”

“No, we need to be more responsible with what we have rather than steal from others. How many actual or possible anthro-equivalent beings have we, as humans, destroyed in our greed to take possession of what they had? I’m glad I’m not a religious person or I would be afraid to face the judgment of my deity.”

Doctor Adams and a few of the others blanch at that thought since they claim to be deeply devout believers who are taught to share their faith with any beings who are anthro-equivalent. He partially recovers and asks, “Whose side are you on?”

Mal slightly grins then says, “To quote one of my childhood comic book heroes, ‘The side of truth and justice’. If I don’t want somebody to break into my home and vandalize it then I have to treat other people with the same respect and not break into their home and vandalize it. Aren’t we taught as children to live by the rule of respect? ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you.’.”

“That’s called the ‘golden rule’.”

“Not where I came from. The ‘golden rule’ is ‘he who has the most gold, rules’ and that’s been the situation throughout history and is alive and well today. In fact, it’s the very reason we’re here. Somebody with money decided they wanted to exploit the resources of a virgin world in order to make even more money and here we are.”

“We’re here to find a suitable home for our fellow humans.”

“That’s the propaganda of the government and the businesses which funded and own this expedition. What happens when we find a suitable planet for humans? The owners will transport people out here, for a big price of course, then they’ll ship back the natural resources of the planet to make even more money. It’s all about the acquisition of more possessions as represented by how big their bank accounts are.”

“If you’ve been so cynical about the purpose of our expedition, why did you come?”

“To be blunt, I needed a job just like the rest of you and this type of work is what I do best. My second reason is that I have also been looking for a new home for this one human. . .”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Geoff Schultz
• Release date: Jan 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005502270

Geoff Schultz

It has been said that the best things in life are free and so are this writer's stories. Hope you enjoy them.

Book preview

Looking

For A

New Home

a story of acceptance and love

on an uninhabited planet

Geoff Schultz

ebook format edition - distributed by www.smashwords.com

Copyright 2020 by Geoff Schultz

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, and events in this book are products of this writer’s imagination or, in the case of referenced historical persons, are used fictitiously. Any other similarity to actual persons, names, or events is purely coincidental.

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License Statement

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this writer.

WARNING:

This story contains some descriptive scenes of intimate pleasure shared between consenting adults as well as some brief descriptive scenes of violence unrelated to intimacy which are inappropriate to children and will be offensive to some adults.

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Note to the reader:

The principal elements of this story were previously released under a different title by Glynn Glenn who requested that this writer rewrite and release it under his own name.

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A grammatical note:

Since Sunshine and those who are genetically related cannot be easily categorized by English language third person singular pronouns, the swung dash (~) is used in front of the standard pronoun to indicate that they are functioning in a manner similar to the stated pronoun.

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An explanatory note:

Since the terms ‘sentience’ and ‘sapience’ have changed definitions and usage over time, this writer does not use either term to describe an intelligent self-aware being. Most humans are anthropocentric in that they consider humankind to be the most significant entity in the universe whether that’s as a result of evolution or a creative deity or some other cause. Therefore, humans have and will probably continue to use humanity as their criteria by which to determine if another species consists of intelligent self-aware beings who are of equal value with humans.

Throughout history, some humans have been unwilling to acknowledge other humans as having equal value to themselves whether the differences between them had to do with ancestry, economics, gender, geography, language, religion, social status, or any of a multitude of other factors. Because of that, this writer will make the assumption that when humans use themselves as the criteria to judge another species, they will use the more positive attributes of humanity such as compassion, empathy, and respect.

Based on those factors and since this story is written from a human perspective, this writer will use the term ‘anthro-equivalent’ to refer to a non-human species which is considered to consist of intelligent self-aware beings who are acknowledged by humans as having equal value with humanity.

Looking For

A New Home

Chapter 1

Just as he’s about to pull the trigger on the weapon he’s holding, immense pain erupts in his right hand and he’s barely aware of the sounds in his ear which his brain belated recognizes as words, Hissss, you would seek to harm one of The People?

He struggles through the pain to turn his head towards the voice, and his eyes have to cross in order to focus enough before he can recognize that the face which is so close to his is furred and fanged. Since he refuses to believe that an animal could have him at a disadvantage, in spite of the pain which he’s slowly mentally pushing away, his left hand moves to his side and pulls out his razor sharp hunting knife, but before he can plunge it into the body next to him, that hand erupts in pain. Since both of his hands are incapacitated by pain which comes close to overwhelming his senses, it takes him awhile to become aware that his own knife is at his throat. It takes longer moments for him to recognize that his knife is in the grip of . . . a tail?

Again, the voice asks, You would seek to harm one of The People?

While he’s doubtful that his mental efforts have reduced the intensity of the pain he’s feeling, he manages to respond, I was hunting an animal.

Hiz hiz. You are the animal. Do you not believe and were taught that your recent ancestors were monkeys and your distant ancestors were lizards or fish? We of The People like to eat lizards, fish, and monkeys. Suddenly, a rough tongue scraps across his cheek then the voice proclaims, Mmm, meat which carries its own salt. You will be a tasty treat.

The reduction of pain in his left hand when it’s released barely registers before his right hand feels like it’s being torn apart. When some awareness returns, he realizes that his weapon is gone.

Move. We go to the . . . meeting place.

When he feels a sharp poke in his back, he stumbles forward and puts one foot in front of the other. While his eyes try to watch where he’s going, he notices that his hands have blood on them, but he can’t tell how much and he’s afraid to lift them in order to look at them more closely. With sharp pokes to his shoulders to guide him, he walks along what must be some sort of a trail, but it’s seldom distinguishable from the surrounding vegetation.

He doesn’t know how long he walks since his pain limits his awareness to stumbling over roots rather than tripping over them. When he hears, Halt, he stops, but when he feels another sharp poke in his back he starts to step forward then stops as he feels something around his neck which prevents his forward momentum and almost chokes him.

He tries to cautiously back up to relieve the pressure around his neck, but he can only move an inch or so before the sharp instrument digs into his back and he feels a fresh trickle of hot blood roll down the inside his shirt. He soon finds that in order to keep the pressure off of his neck and the sharp thing out of his back, it puts him into a rather uncomfortable position which threatens to be made worse each time he takes a breath. And since his arms are now stretched back behind him without him being aware of when it happened, he’s unable to do anything.

Almost more unpleasant than the physical pain and discomfort he’s experiencing is the humiliation of being captured and trussed up so thoroughly. As a former champion of survival scenarios and prisoner of war games, he’s half tempted to shove his back onto the sharp instrument in order to sever his spine rather than be rescued by his team mates while he’s stuck in this position. While he considers that thought more thoroughly, he becomes aware that his captor has stepped out in front of him and is examining him as though it’s wondering whether to broil him or to boil him.

Now that he has his first good look at the creature, he tries to just see it as an animal, but he has to admit that no mere animal could have caught him and immobilized him so thoroughly. Reluctantly, he admits that there appears to be intelligence behind those eyes which are surrounded by fur on a face which reminds him of the pictures of felines from his ancestor’s planet of origin. The creature is standing upright on its two hind legs and is almost as tall as he is. Although the body is more slender than his, it’s clearly muscular which makes him initially think that it’s a male until a second glance across the unclothed body reveals no obvious male reproductive organs, but shows what appears to be six very small breasts in two columns down the front of its body.

The creature looks him over again then says, Take a good look, animal, while you can. Even if your eyes are saved as a treat for last, they won’t be able to provide you with any information once they’re separated from that sorry excuse for intelligence which you carry around in your head.

His curiosity gets the better of him and he blurts out, What are you?

You couldn’t pronounce either my individual name or what we call ourselves, so we’ll stick to the simple term that I am one of The People. . . . Animal!

I’m not an animal. I’m a human. My individual name is Mal Li-Khi. I’m from the planet Renewal, and I’m the leader of the security team for an elite group of scientists who are examining worlds for possible colonization.

Hiz hiz. Hu-monz.

The creature makes it sound like a curse word.

We know all about you, hu-monz. You don’t colonize worlds. You destroy the inhabitants, then you plunder, pillage, and rip out whatever natural resources you can fairly easily acquire while you overpopulate the world as though you were . . . rabbits. Then your elite and wealthy leave your less fortunate fellow hu-monz behind to rot in the pollution and nuclear waste they produced while they go on to another virgin world in order to steal it from the natives and rape it. Yes, animal, we know all about you, hu-monz.

Mal starts to lunge and lash out in anger, but he can barely move without choking and stabbing himself. After he forces himself to