Chapter 4 - Hallum #2
As I was no longer currently the focus of that deep, absorbed attention, I studied her in silence from a few paces away.
Her hair was long and wavy, nearly as dark as mine at the roots but brightening into a creamy yellow-ish white colour at the ends.
Her body was larger than Shiloh’s in some ways but smaller in others.
Even with the bizarre heels of her boots, she was not as tall as Rivven’s wife.
But Dr. Ortiz was more generously shaped, something obvious even in her coat.
She had much wider hips, larger human breasts, and a protruding softness in the area of her abdomen.
For one horrendously unexpected moment, I could not stop imagining placing my hands there – right on that tender swell of her stomach – while I stationed myself behind her.
Stationed myself behind her to do what?
Turning abruptly from the others, I strode back to the wagon loaded with Dr. Ortiz’s belongings.
I’d already hooked up my two shuldu. Now, I led them forward.
They strained into motion, the wagon’s wheels sucking awkwardly for a moment in the freezing mud.
It was good that we’d be splitting this load in half.
My shuldu were strong beasts, but even they would struggle to get the wagon back to my station like this, especially with the ground in its current state.
As it was, they made it to Rivven’s saloon, at least, and I began to unload the boxes, carrying them two at a time into the building where the other four were now located.
Warden Tenn and Tasha had no doubt seen me getting the wagon over here and had dismounted from his slicer after their last trip.
Currently, they were gazing up at a painting that Rivven had mounted on the wall, a piece completed by Shiloh.
It was a scene from nearby – a pond, frozen in winter, sunlight and shadows striping the snow.
Two figures were skating on the pond – a miniature Rivven and Shiloh.
“That is stunning,” Dr. Ortiz was saying.
She clasped her hands together in front of her chest. “You are so talented! Do you take commissions?” She unclasped her hands from each other and spread them wide, like she was framing something in her mind and needed her arms to do it.
“I would love to have a piece by you on my own wall!”
“Perhaps once that wall is built,” I grunted, bending to lower the two large boxes to the floor.
Dr. Ortiz dropped her arms, and turned to me. “Yeah, these guys were just telling me a bit more about the delays. I didn’t realize it had been so drastic!”
“You will lodge at the warden’s station,” I said. A little odd, how I’d called it “the warden’s station” instead of “my station” or “my home.” I chose not to analyse this. “It is not far from here.”
“Yeah, they were telling me,” she replied. “And that’s where you live?”
“Yes,” I confirmed. “I have a spare bedroom. Tasha has stayed there once before.”
“Before she was married,” Warden Tenn grumbled, which made his wife laugh.
“If I remember correctly,” Tasha said, “you set your tent up right beneath the window for the entire night!” Still chuckling, Tasha added, “It’s nice, Lualhati. You’ll be comfortable. It’s very, er, clean.”
“Of course it is clean,” I said. What an odd comment to make.
“Sounds fine for the time being,” Dr. Ortiz said easily. She did not seem at all concerned about the late hospital or the changes in plans. “We’ll be roomies!”
“Yes, the house is roomy enough, since there are two bedrooms,” I agreed.
Although, I was now having some private doubts on that score, considering the many, many boxes of personal belongings she’d brought with her.
I made a mental note to add an extra storage closet or two onto the hospital for her.
“Anyway, we’ll talk more later,” Dr. Ortiz said to Shiloh. “I’m sure your art takes a lot of work! Maybe we could time it so a piece is ready by the time the hospital is done, so I can hang it up there! But for now, I’m going to go help this guy.”
“This guy” apparently was me. She jerked her thumb over her shoulder towards my face.
“Not in those boots,” I said at once. I barely managed to watch her walk over here. Someone would have to blast me with a stunner before I’d let her carry anything even remotely heavy in that absurd footwear.
“Just let Tenn and Rivven help unload,” Tasha suggested. “Shiloh can finish giving us the tour in here! And you can discuss any thoughts on the painting commission.”
Rivven and Warden Tenn both immediately agreed to this, both of them now noticing, perhaps for the first time, the untenable nature of the doctor’s boot situation. We went back out the door together before Dr. Ortiz could argue.
“Dr. Ortiz seems a very kind, friendly sort of person,” Rivven said as we left his saloon and walked over the snowy, sodden ground to the place I’d left the wagon outside. “And she likes Shiloh’s art!” he added, beaming proudly. “This shows that she has excellent taste!”
“I agree,” said Warden Tenn. “I think she will get along well with everyone and succeed in her post. Perhaps we can convince her to extend her contract.”
As it stood, Dr. Ortiz had agreed to work here for one human year.
“This should be a focus for all of us,” I said as we reached the wagon. “We must make sure she is as happy and comfortable here as possible.”
We could not afford any mistakes that would make her want to pack her bags – or boxes – and go. We already were not off to a satisfactory start, what with the hospital not yet ready. Everything else would have to be as close to perfect as we could get it.
“By the empire, she certainly brought enough to last her longer than a human year,” Warden Tenn said, surveying my wagon, packed full of her boxes. “You likely will not have to make her any jamsidaisies!”
“Make her any what?” Rivven asked, his black eyebrows puckering over his blue eyes.
I was equally as mystified.
But Warden Tenn merely slapped the side of the wagon in a hearty sort of gesture.
“Jamjellybellies! You know!”
I did not know. And I had essentially memorized Tasha’s document on human women, having had to painstakingly teach every page – every single paragraph of it – to my men.
“I will never cease to be astounded,” Warden Tenn said with a great, grim sigh, as if disappointed in us to the point of weariness, “that no one seems to know what the blazes I am talking about when I mention jamboners.”
With yet another rather dramatic sigh, he took two boxes from the wagon and turned away, as if he no longer had the energy or patience to explain the deeply intellectual inner workings of his head to the likes of us.
Rivven likewise took two boxes into his arms. “Did you notice her hair?” he asked as I picked up two more boxes myself. “It is two entirely different colours, from bottom to top! Do you think it grows out of her head that way?”
Warden Tenn, who’d already started walking back to the saloon with his boxes, immediately stopped and swivelled. Apparently, he had drawn upon some deep well of patient fortitude to rejoin our conversation.
“Tasha told me about that sort of hair once,” he said, speaking in a tone of authority that came from expertise. “It is called the hombre style.”
“Hombre?” Rivven repeated, sounding unsure. “This is translating to ‘man’ for me.”
My own translator was giving me the same result.
“Well, that is what she called it.”
“The doctor has man style?” Rivven said.
I was perplexed. There was nothing mannish about her.
“That is what Tasha told me,” Warden Tenn said stubbornly, appearing as certain of his stupid claim as ever.
I, however, was now entirely certain that my counterpart was wrong.
Calling anything to do with Dr. Ortiz “man style” was far surpassing the realm of reality and bordering on complete silliness. Even for human naming conventions.
Rivven, however, was convinced by Warden Tenn. “Fascinating,” he whispered.
“If you want to be fascinated – and actually get a half-credible explanation – ask your wife,” I told him as Warden Tenn continued on his way to the saloon.
It seemed to me that, at least in this case, a wife was far superior to a warden.