Elior wasn’t sure what he would feel as he as he stepped out of his starship, and onto the planet’s surface.  Fear, trepidation, worry--he had expected any of those. What he felt though, was a sense of coming home.

  The faint scent of wood and old foliage hung lightly in the crisp air around him. He turned, stretching his stiff muscles after the long voyage. Elior looked at the world around him for the first time. The trees were just beginning to lose their beautiful yellow and grey leaves, and a light coat of them littered the ground. It was enough to make Elior’s breath catch. They crackled as he took his first, hesitant steps on the planet’s surface.

  He stopped to admire the scenery for only a short while though. Slavers could be near. Quickly, he gathered up loose leaves and branches, covering his ship. The slavers’ may have tracked him here, and he did not want them finding him. Satisfied with the camouflage, he headed off deeper into the forest.

  It looked nothing like Aeflin home planet with its red rocks and barren deserts.  No, that was wrong. That place was not their home. This, this was their home. When the slavers took the Aeflin for their sport all those generations ago, many had given up hope of seeing their own world again. But Elior had done it. He had found their true home.

  He could see the faces of the Council now. Master Ru, Master Velio, even the high and mighty Lord Sa would drop to their bellies and beg for his forgiveness when Elior returned with proof that he had found this mythic place. Their scoffing and jeering would be at an end. Why, they would even make a holiday out of this event. The young ones would learn about this day for years to come.

  Elior strolled through the forest, dappled sunlight shining through the trees as he thought about his homecoming. He was so caught up in thoughts of the celebrations the Council would hold for him that he almost missed them. There were seven of them standing there, just on the other side of a clearing. Aeflin from the home world.

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  He started towards them, but came up short, shocked at what he saw. The Aeflin walked around eating off the ground like some sort of animal. Even at this distance, Elior could tell they were malnourished. They were tiny, pathetic things, and the young ones were the smallest that Elior had ever seen. They lacked any scrap of civilization, any of the culture of Elior’s world. Whatever had happened to them here, the Council could stop it, just like they did back home. The Aeflin had turned the slavers’ outpost into their own world. They could-- they would-- do the same here. If he could talk to these Aeflin, if he could save them, he would be a hero. No, more than a hero. He would be a living legend.

  “Hello!” he called out, striding out into the clearing. “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.”

  The light played tricks with their brown coats, making them hard to see. They stood still, watching Elior as he walked closer. He passed into the clearing, still calling out to them when a sharp crack sounded off to his right. Elior fell to the ground as a piercing, burning pain spread out from his back.  At the sound, the Aeflin in the forest bolted, scattering into the dark underbrush.

  “Wait!” he cried out. He gasped as pain spread from his back, cutting of the rest of his words.

  Elior tried to follow the fleeing Aeflin, but something was wrong with his legs. They wouldn’t move. He started to crawl back towards his ship when a second crack broke the forest silence, sending more pain shooting through him. Elior raised his head, and with the last of his strength, watched as a slaver drew close.

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  Wordlessly, Robert lowered his rifle, hands shaking slightly. The buck finally died, head falling to the ground with a soft thud.  It was the biggest deer he had brought down, easily over two hundred pounds, and had a rack worthy of three animals. Aside from those oddities it looked much like any other deer. It was just a normal deer. Robert had been up since four. What he had seen-- what he thought he had seen-- was just a trick played by his tired mind. He gathered his kill and trudged off for the long walk back to town.

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  If people thought it odd that Robert-- usually the first to embellish the story of a hunt--spoke very little of this one, they didn’t worry too much. If they found it strange that he gave up hunting, selling his prized equipment, they thought it nothing more than a mid-life crisis. If a drunken Robert started mumbling about talking deer whenever someone mentioned the Martian Colony that had disappeared leaving only the livestock and game animals, well that was just how Robert was.