The brilliant disk of the sun had faded, diminishing from
an angry, blinding orb down to the size and brightness of a
burnished gold coin.  It seemed as if I could almost reach
out and pluck it from the sky with my fingers.  Evening had
come, bringing twilight upon the savanna.  The herds had
settled for the night, the owls had awakened to a new day -
or night, whatever, - and the lions were preparing for the
hunt.


  It is a habit of creatures of Naline's kind to roar at
sunset.  They all gather as a pride and call out to each
other in a spine-tingling chorus of deep, rumbling bellows

  Flash!  And there I... where the heck was I?

  I'd responded to a Naline call.  And I'd flashed to her
world... I think.  The computer said as much.  But this was
no place I'd even been to before.

  It was night, sometime way after midnight.  Dark.  No moon.
Almost cold.  The landscape was as barren as the grassy
plains of the savanna get.  There were a few piles of bushes
now and again, but no salient rocks, trees or any such
outstanding landmarks.  I was nowhere near Naline's Rock.
Was I even in her pride's territory?  And where was she?

  "Kitten?"  My answer was an earsplitting roar that would

  Naline and I had been laying in the mud for the better part
of five minutes, recovering from the shock of being run over
by herds of zebras, skydiving without parachutes from miles
high, and almost drowning in oceans of water.  The sun beat
down as it always does in this neighborhood, and pretty soon
we were verily caked in hard, brown clay.  I decided it would
be a good idea to move before we were permanently cooked into
the muddy bottoms.

  We laid there quietly for a couple more minutes, listening
to the sound of thundering hooves.  After a while, they
seemed to fade into the distance.  Good riddance!

  "Heeey, what's wrong with you?"  I had just now flashed in
and found my now-all-grown-up-but-still-my-little Kitten
gloomy and downhearted.  She was sitting on the edge of a
cliff on the side of a gorge, staring out into the sunny
distance.  I sat next to her and gently stroked her neck.
"What's going on?"

  She sighed as tears welled up in her eyes.  "Gramma 'Fina
died."


  "Oh..."  Poor Naline.  She'd been really close to her
grandmother.  She was always telling me stories of the things
she'd said or done.  Even though Naline had long left her
kitten days behind, she still adored her grandmother as much

  I don't like waking up.  I mean, I like it right before I
wake up when I'm all relaxed and asleep and such.  And I like
it after I wake up when I'm all rested and refreshed and I'm
planning what I'm going to do that day and eat breakfast and
stuff.  I just don't like waking up.

  The physical and mental process of tearing yourself away
from the wonderfully relaxing state of sleep, into the high-
gear state of wakefulness is just unpleasant.  To me, at
least.

  You're laying there, in the warm lap of slumber, dreaming
of nice, relaxing, pleasant things like gunfights and

  Flash!  And there I was, at some inhumane, God-forsaken,
much-too-early hour of the morning.  It was dark and I was
tired and my bed wasn't anywhere around.  On top of all this,
there was a massive chorus of deeply irritating crickets
singing away like a cathedral choir.

  "I hope this is important, Kitten.  Have you any idea what
time it is back home?"


  "Oh, Cruz, I've met this wonderful new guy!"  She
pronounced the word 'wonderful' as if it was her favoritest
word in the entire world.

  "That's it?  You made me come halfway across the cosmos to
tell me you've found a new beau?"  If my tone of voice

  We laid back and enjoyed the sleepiness creeping up and
taking us into its warm, inviting arms.  There's nothing like
eating like crazy, then taking a long nap in the great
outdoors to get you relaxed all over.  I thought of how lucky
I was to have a friend like Naline and being able to see her
every once in a while and share great times like this.  I
think if everybody had a great friend they could look forward
to seeing, then the whole universe would be a better place.

  Naline stretched herself, took a cursory glance around, and
snuggled into a tight furry ball.  She let out a soft sigh an

  That was too much for me.  "That's it," I said as I arose,
my eyes blazing with anger, "now he's done it."


  Phil and Naline had been fuzzy towards one another for
something like three years, ever since her kitten days.  Back
then he'd been kinda nice and kinda mean.  Since then, the
nice had given way to the unpleasant by a wide margin, and
he constantly had her in tears.  Unfortunately, Naline had a
bad case of the fuzzy-wuzzies for him, and she couldn't see
clear enough to dump him like the bad trash that he was.

  I'd gotten the call late at night and I'd flashed into the

  "Oooh," Naline rolled on her back and stretched her little
kitten paws in the air.  Her great big bellyful of food made
it look like she'd swallowed a cannonball, "I ate too much!"

  She had.  And so had I.  We had emptied the cooler full of
food and now we were laying in the shade, getting sleepy in
the warm afternoon.  We had sampled meats and cold cuts and
steaks and birds and fishes and such until we had eaten more
than any living creature ought to be allowed to.

  "It's good for you."

  "Everybody in the pride is going to wonder where I got all
this food."

  "Eh, just tell them you caught a rhinoceros."

  "Okay, so let me get this straight.  You lions hunt and
kill other animals, and you're telling me that they don't
mind?"

  "No.  Well, not as such."

  Naline and I were lazing under the barely sufficient shade
of a hilltop tree.  The hill wasn't very high, but it offered
a great view of the savanna grasslands.  It was late
afternoon, and the relative cool of the evening was beginning
to replace the oven heat of the day.  I had flashed in early
that afternoon and we had wandered the savanna grasslands for
a while before settling down for a nap.  We had been talking
for a while and had presently wandered into the subject of