Chapter 5 #2
I was already looking forward to learning more about Zabrian biology and anatomy.
There were many similarities to humans, of course.
But I had a feeling the differences would be intriguing.
Like his tail, for instance, long and rope-like, slung in a tight loop on a hook at the back of his belt.
I’d seen him use it a few times with fascinating results.
It was somewhere between limb and lasso, prehensile and strong, but flexible as cord.
The flexibility of that tail, and the near-liquid pulse and tide of his musculature, seemed somewhat at odds with the rest of him. At odds with that hard spine and even harder stare. Warden Hallum did not appear to me as a man who would easily bend.
When I realized I’d spent about fifteen minutes staring at what was essentially my coworker’s bare, muscly back, I forced myself to turn my attention elsewhere. Like the trees! What very nice trees they were! Definitely nice enough to distract me from Mr. Ripply Muscle Man over there.
We followed a trail through a dense forest, the trees all silver and black in the star-bitten light. Snow continued to fall, dusting branches and piny needles. The shuldu didn’t seem bothered by the weather.
Neither did Warden Hallum. When my eyes went (inevitably, it seemed) back to him, I saw the snow land on his skin and immediately melt.
His shoulders were dappled with moisture now, like dew.
Some of it ran in shimmering rivulets down the shifting valleys of his back, trails over trapeziuses.
Were those even called traps for Zabrians?
The muscles might be a little different. I’d have to find out later.
Warden Hallum’s station appeared out of the gloom like some little forest house in a fairytale.
It was a neat, compact building in the style of a log cabin, with one front door and a porch.
Above the door, a small lantern glowed, a surprisingly warm and welcoming little halo made fuzzy by the snow, which was falling more thickly now.
The house stood in the centre of a clearing in a dense part of the forest, ringed by hushing trees.
Behind the house, close to the trees, was a tower – probably a comms tower to boost signals off-world – and there was another little building off to the side, presumably for the shuldu to shelter for the night.
“Cute!” I breathed, liking the look of the place.
It was a little smaller and a touch more rustic than I was used to, but the house was undeniably well-built.
Sturdy. Already, I could imagine starting a nice big fire inside and warming up my toesies.
My fingers were warm enough now that I had Warden Hallum’s shirt in my lap like some kind of hand muff.
Speaking of which, it was time to give that back.
“Here you are,” I said when he drew the wagon to a stop not far from the steps leading up onto the house’s porch.
I flapped the shirt at him, and when he turned to look at me in response, I felt strangely like I’d been shaking a hankie out of a window trying to get his attention.
His attention was a heavy load to bear. I couldn’t even see his eyes like this – with the porch light behind him, and his hat still casting his face into shadow.
But I felt his gaze. A physical presence, a pressure.
I was willing to bet that he had no trouble keeping his men in line, convicts or not, with nothing but the heavy power of that stare.
Well, I wasn’t one of his men. I fortified myself and smiled broadly, holding the shirt out to him.
“Thank you again,” I said. “This helped a lot!”
He remained silent for another long moment, then abruptly said, “Keep it.” Once again, his words were accompanied by the unshakeable snap of authority. A command.
“Keep it?” I looked down at the shirt, feeling my brows pucker a little. I mean, I certainly liked it well enough. It had short sleeves, and was made of some kind of grey material that felt natural – something akin to Old-Earth cotton or wool.
Oh dear. Was this some kind of Zabrian custom I hadn’t heard of? During our chats before my arrival here, Tasha had told me all sorts of things about the world I was stepping into. She’d told me about the good natures of the cowboy convicts I’d be meeting. She’d told me about the wardens.
She didn’t say anything about trading clothes.
“Am I supposed to take my shirt off and give that to you, too?”
Warden Hallum had been in the process of standing up. He halted halfway, legs bent. Then, he swivelled to face the back of the wagon – and me – placing his big hands on the bench he’d been sitting on. Bending almost menacingly over the bench, he leaned into the area of the wagon I occupied.
“Pardon,” he said slowly, “me?”
“My shirt.” My right hand flew to the coat buttons at my chest. If his gaze followed them there, I couldn’t see it. “Am I supposed to take mine off, too? To give to you?”
He said nothing. Which wasn’t particularly helpful.
“I don’t mind,” I said hurriedly. “If it’s some kind of custom. We can trade shirts if you like. But I probably won’t take mine off out here.”
“You are asking me,” he said, enunciating every word with a cutting precision so that there was no way for my translator to miss his meaning, “if I would like you to undress here, and then to present some of your clothing to me? As a gift?”
“Er, yes?” I shrugged. “You gave me yours. I’m just trying to understand the expectations here. It only seems fair.”
I’d given up on trying to look into the blank, black hole of his face beneath his hat.
So I wasn’t actually sure if I saw it or not.
But for the briefest of moments, I thought there was a flicker of brightness there.
As if he’d tilted his head, and the bright moon- and starlight had suddenly caught on the reflective surface of his eyes.
But he hadn’t tilted his head at all.
“Have I offended you?” I asked. Tasha had said something about Zabrian eyes flashing white with strong emotion.
“You have not,” he said, words clipped as he turned and basically launched himself out of the wagon.
“Well, you sound offended,” I muttered, more to myself than to him. But somehow, he heard me anyway. I yelped, nearly chucking his shirt with surprise when he replied from the ground directly beside the wagon now, his big head about level with mine.
“I am not,” he said. “No matter how I may sound to your human ears.”
“Hmm.” I observed him – or tried to, anyway. “Would you take your hat off?”
I watched the subtle, rhythmic rise and fall of his bare chest. Even his breath seemed supremely controlled.
“Why?” he asked. “I will do it,” he clarified. “But I would like to know the reason.”
“So that I can see your face.”
Maybe my response surprised him. He seemed to hesitate for a second. “You cannot see my face?”
“Not at all,” I admitted with a little laugh. “It’s way too dark! The brim of your hat is blocking the moonlight.”
He paused again, as if filing that little bit of information away. Human doctor is shit at seeing in the dark. Noted.
“It’s not just me,” I added, suddenly feeling a bit awkwardly defensive. “No human would be able to see your face right now. Not unless they’d had some kind of optical upgrade done.”
“This was not in the book.”
“The book?”
“The one that Tasha wrote. The one about human biology and culture.”
“Oh! Yes, I’m familiar with that document,” I said. “I helped her write parts of it.” A smile tugged at my lips. “Sorry, I didn’t think to add, ‘human eyes are absolute garbage in the dark.’”
“Garbage?” He sounded offended again. Good goofy golly.
I was probably going to be annoying this guy left and right at this rate.
“Not garbage,” he said sternly, almost as if in reprimand.
Then, just a little softer, like the edge of hard metal wrapped carefully in flimsy fabric, he said, “Just different.”
“I was kidding. Well, mostly,” I replied. “We really can’t see that well in the dark.”
He turned away from me then, seeming to cast his invisible gaze over the darkened woods around us.
The scene was one of contrasts – bright, reflective snow in the clearing and bordering trees turned black by night.
Shadow pooled like some solid substance of its own, viscous enough to sink your fingers into.
I wondered if he was trying to see what I saw. Which wasn’t much beyond this clearing and the first layer of trees that surrounded it.
Was he waiting for me to say something? I couldn’t be sure.
What I was sure of, though, was the numbness currently affecting my butt cheeks.
This bench was frigid, the ruthless cold seeping through the back of my coat and my pants.
I had a good amount of padding back there, some extra insulation to work with, if you will.
But even that was not enough. My poor, beautiful butt felt like it was going to fall right off at this rate.
It really was an incredible ass. I would hate to lose it like this.
While Warden Hallum did his weird silent forest staring thing, I bunched up the shirt he gave me and shoved it under my butt.
The movement seemed to draw his attention back to the wagon.
His head swivelled to me, sans hat. Too busy creating my protective-bum-layer, I hadn’t even noticed him take it off.
It now dangled from the claws of his left hand
“There,” I said, beaming and tightening my jaw to keep my teeth from clattering together. “Much better!”
“Are you speaking of my face without the hat’s shadow?” he asked. “Or the fact that you’ve fashioned my shirt into some sort of cushion for your backside?”
“Both?” I wiggled on the bench. “And, technically, you did tell me to keep this shirt. So it’s mine now. I can make it into a ‘cushion for my backside’ if I need to, can’t I?”
Without the concealing shadows cast by the brim of his hat, I saw the slight tightening of the muscles around his mouth.
A grimace? It certainly wasn’t a smile. Zabrians definitely smiled like humans.
I’d seen Rivven do it a dozen times today, usually when he was gazing besottedly at his beautiful wife.
Whatever the expression Warden Hallum wore now, it was so miniscule that there was almost no point in trying to identify it.
His face was clearly visible to me now, but I remained in the dark.
“Indeed,” he said. “Whatever you may need during your time here is yours. All is at your disposal.”
“Even you?” I said, slightly teasing.
But his response was entirely serious. Sobering.
“Even me, Dr. Ortiz.”
He held out his right hand to me. I swallowed down a sudden bout of shyness, leaned forward, and took it. His hand was hard and calloused and perfectly still.
But it was so damn warm. Just like the rest of him.
Unable to help myself, I gave his fingers a shivery little squeeze, then said, “Call me Lualhati.”