Read Online Catseye by Andre Norton - Free Book Online

the morning, after the general round of cage tending and feeding was over, Kyger summoned Troy to the fussel hawk. The big bird was definitely emerging from its sullenness of the landing. It held its crested head high, turned it alertly from side to side. Still young enough to have some of its adolescent tail plumage, it was yet a strikingly beautiful bird with its brilliant, iridescent-black rakish crest above its bright golden head, back-patched by warrior scarlet. The golden glow of breast and the scarlet of back were blended on the strongly pinioned wings to a warm orange beneath which the darker tail and black legs again made contrast. But it was not for beauty alone that the fussel was esteemed.
    On countless worlds—human, humanoid, and even nonhuman—intelligences had trained birds of falcon and hawklike strains to be hunter-companions. And now when the highly civilized were returning to more primitive skills and amusements for pleasure, hunting—not with high-power kill weapons, but with hawk or other trained birds and animals—was well established. The fussel—with its intelligence, its ability to be easily trained through the right handling, and its power to capture rather than kill a quarry upon demand—was a highly valued item of sale for any trainer.
    Now, seeing the stance of the bird, Troy drew his fingers slowly, enticingly, across the front of the cage. Unlike its attitude of only two days earlier, it made no lightning stab to punish such impudence. Instead, deep in its throat, the bird gave a sound of interested inquiry and moved along the perch toward the door opening of the cage as if awaiting release.
    â€œShall I man him?” Troy asked.
    Kyger snapped his fingers at the opposite side of the cage. That act, which had brought the fussel into raging battle before, now only led it to turn its head. Then it looked back again expectantly at the cage door.
    â€œHere.” Kyger tossed a hawker’s glove to Troy. As the latter drew it on, the fussel uttered its soft cry, this time with a half-coaxing note.
    Horan loosened the door, extended protected hand and wrist into the cage. The fussel ducked its head, not to stab, but to draw its curved beak along the tough fabric of the glove. Then sedately it moved from perch to wrist, and Troy carefully lifted the bird out into the open of the corridor into which they had moved the cage for this experiment.
    â€œOlllahuuu!”
    Both men turned quickly at the Hunter’s call of appreciation. Rerne stood there, smiling a little.
    â€œYour friend here looks eager for a casting,” he remarked.
    The fussel mantled, raising wings wide in display, shaking them a little as if glad to be free of the cage. The claw-hold on Troy’s wrist was firm, and the bird gave no sign of wanting to quit that post.
    â€œTruly a beauty,” Rerne complimented Kyger. “If he performs as well as he looks, you have already made a sale, Merchant.”
    â€œHe is yours to try, Gentle Homo.”
    â€œWhen better than now? It seems that there is an earlier demand for my services in the Wild than I had thought. I am come one day ahead of time to claim this man of yours and the bird.”
    Kyger made no protest. In fact the speed with which he equipped Troy with the loan of a camp kit and the affability with which he saw them both away from the shop made Horan uneasy. He had had no chance to visit the kinkajou alone. And when he had been engaged in cage cleaning earlier that day, Kyger or one of the yardmen had been in and out of the room and the animal had remained in its tight ball. He wished that he could have taken it with him, but there was no possible way of explaining such a request. And he had to leave with a small doubt—of what he could not honestly have said—still worrying him.
    Rerne’s flitter was strictly utilitarian, though with compact storage space and the built-in necessities for a flyer that might also