without

much less volunteer for years of privation on a primitive backwater world like Anktan. He retreated behind his desk as Heyoka and Mitsu entered his office, then fixed his pale gray eyes pointedly on her human face. “We cannot guarantee your safety.”
Heyoka took the chair on the left without being asked, Mitsu the right. She pulled aside the collar of her black uniform to reveal a white patchwork of shiny laser scars. “I’m a three-year Ranger veteran.” Eldrich blanched and turned his eyes away. “And Sergeant Blackeagle has served the Confederation for over ten years. We guarantee our own damn safety.”
Eldrich changed position, then shifted again, as if his skin didn’t fit. “Sergeant, you are obviously an educated man. Whatever your beginnings, I think you will find you have nothing in common with these natives at this point in your life. They have very little we recognize as culture, no written language, no code of laws, the barest framework of a religion, no sense of progress, or desire to make each succeeding generation’s life better.”
He leaned forward and spread his hands across his shining desk. “You must realize hrinn—” He glanced at Heyoka. “Or at least, native hrinn don’t have feelings like humans, no sense of regret or mercy, no concept of familial love, or of heterosexual bonding between mates. The only cognates we’ve found to human motivations are rage and revenge. If you cross them, they’ll kill you without a second thought.”
Heyoka’s nostrils twitched at the annoyingly sweet odor. Humans, with their lesser sense of smell, drenched themselves in artificial scents that tormented his sensitive nose. This compound was based upon some variety of flower—violet, actually—and r