"William Shunn creates a network of wildlife preserves and stunning aliens on the planets of 'Dance of the Yellow-Breasted Luddites.'"--A.M. Dellamonica, Science Fiction Weekly
"Forsaking simple elegy, authors such as Brian Stableford, Ian McDowell, William Shunn, and Ted Chiang analyze the topic of extinction with a fresh depth and a fresh flexibility, a fresh complexity of understanding.... 'Dance of the Yellow-Breasted Luddites' by William Shunn may read like an homage to Poul Anderson at his jaunty cavalier peak, but soon flares into astonishing independent life. Shunn deploys the old standards of feuding interstellar empires, beleaguered research scientists on an uncooperative alien planet, and impossible amiable ingenuity in his spunky protagonist; but his meditations on ecological conservation, intercultural dynamics, and the limits of human understanding are powerful and true, making 'Dance' one of the best novellas of the year. Humor is reconcilable with the direst of themes."--Nick Gevers, Nova Express
Hannah Specter crouched in the blind with a flutter in her stomach, waiting for Deacon's signal. It was always like this for her, introducing a new species into the preserve. Watching strange breath and blood and behavior mesh with the chaotic dance of life in this harsh land filled her with a joy she'd never known before coming to Sutter's Mill--a joy almost great enough to drown the ache that was the rest of her life.
But anxiety tempered the joy. As usual, the finding on what species to send next had been reached with no semblance of common sense. Hannah was not the most experienced Rescue Star operative, but even she knew that randomly jumbling species from disparate ecosystems was a recipe for disaster. Case studies on that subject dated clear back to Earth, and there the natives had only had access to species from their own planet.
But more immediately worrisome was the sketchy data on the hrkleshira themselves. Deacon, the new xenobiologist, had recorded observations during transit, but little other source material existed. Equally deficient was the literature on the hrkleshira's original habitat. Dry geological briefs summarized data gleaned only from space, while the accompanying survey maps offered nothing but blurry images of shale-covered hills and scraggly forests. Though the lack of data was frustrating, it wasn't unexpected; the hrkleshira came from a world deep in Exclaimer space.
Choking down a dry cough, Hannah raised her peepers and peered out at the distant spot where Deacon would release the hrkleshira. Their blind was constructed of limbs broken from indigenous shrubs, and the creosote stink of their sap clogged her lungs with a taste like crumbled asphalt.
Beneath her faux-cotton shirt, a runnel of sweat tickled her spine. Scalp prickling, she retracted her hair to one millimeter, its shortest length. The hairnet, seamlessly integrated with her scalp, was one of the many frivolities that had landed her on Sutter's Mill, working off her debts in the service of Rescue Star. Her accelerated training in xenoecology was not entirely adequate to the tasks at hand, but at least it was cheap, and it might even be useful when her term was up and she could return home to Netherheim. To Fatima.
Stubbly hair made the dust-clotted heat only somewhat more bearable. She imagined the hrkleshira broiling in their enclosures. "I hope they can take this climate," she said. "It's not exactly as temperate here as Cretacea."
"Cretacea is scarcely temperate," said the spindly Exclaimer beside her, its voice startlingly loud.
Hannah sighed. "It's called hyperbole, Jack," she said. She hadn't bothered to learn the alien's actual name. To her it was so many unpronounceable syllables.
The alien snorted, but Hannah didn't know what meaning to read into the sound. "The hrkleshira will do better in this climate than either you or I, with suitable supervision."
Hannah winced at the volume. The ykslamera--or Exclaimers, as humans called them--came from a world with a thin, tenuous atmosphere, and had evolved capacious lungs and powerful voices. Those assigned to posts in human space were bioengineered to cope with the greater atmospheric pressure, but their voices usually remained untouched.
"Can't you keep it down?" Hannah said, lowering the peepers. "They can probably hear you clear out there."
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