Page 38 of Wanted By the Alien Warden

I hissed out a flat breath between my fangs and once again aimed my tail at the sign, this time underlining theNo brandishingbit with savage, slashing force.

“Fine.” Xennet’s tail shoved its knife into a sheath on his belt with such carelessness I was surprised he didn’t slice his own trousers right off of his body. “But I’m keeping this one out,” he added defiantly, raising his right fist which still clutched its blade. “I’ll just stop brandishing it.”

“I knew you knew what the sign said…”

“Did I miss it?” Dorn was pushing open the door now, heaving his big, rust-red body into the saloon. His crimson eyes fell upon Xennet’s raised fist. “Isn’t there a rule about knives in here?”

“At least he’s got his trousers on this time,” I replied under my breath, coming out from behind the counter. “No, you didn’t miss it. The warden has not yet arrived.”

Dorn grunted and removed his hat.

“What in the great blue blazes happened to your hair?” Xennet exclaimed. He peered closely at Dorn’s reddish-brown hair, which appeared to have been hacked off at a length just slightly above his shoulders.

“There was an unfortunate incident with an agitated bracku’s antler getting caught in it,” Dorn said. “It was either I cut it off quickly or get gored. And between my hide and my hair, I’d choose my hide every time.”

I breathed through a sudden skirmish in the vicinity of my heart. So much time had passed, and yet the mere mention of an incident with a bracku still had the power to send me cycles into the past. My right hand, long since amputated, throbbed as if blood still flowed beyond the wrist.

“I am not so sure I’d choose my hide over my hair,” Xennet said with a frown, examining the ends of his long, glossy, silver-purple locks.

“You’d rather get an antler through the ribs than a haircut?” Dorn asked in disbelief.

“No,” Xennet replied. “I am only saying, maybe there could have been a better way. If you had a knife in your hand to cut off your hair, maybe you could have subdued the bracku instead.”

“Kill one of my prize bulls to save my hair? Ridiculous,” Dorn scoffed. “I’d choose good Zabrian credits over my hair just as easily as I’d choose my hide.”

“You would not have had to kill it,” Xennet continued with a heavy sigh, as if he were speaking to a simpleton. “But perhaps you could have distracted it a bit. Did you try giving it a little snack? Some of my bulls seem rather fond of hats these days. I have lost three this cycle alone.”

“No, Xennet,” Dorn said flatly, “while doing everything in my power to avoid a raging bull’s antlers, I did not have the presence of mind to attempt to feed it my hat.”

“Well,” Xennet said with a swish of his tail. “There is always next time.”

“It doesn’t matter if my hair is short,” Dorn said, dragging a chair out from the table and seating himself in it. “I have no one to impress out here.”

“Do not be so sure.”

The three of us snapped to attention as the warden entered the saloon. Even Dorn, who’d only just sat down, jumped out of his chair at Warden Hallum’s approach.

Warden Hallum had the kind of presence that could easily fill a room twice as big as this one. And it wasn’t due to his physical size. He was a large male, certainly, but no bigger than bulky, broad-shouldered Dorn. It was in the way he carried himself. Every move he made was one of precisely measured power, his steps controlled and quiet and yet heavy with intention. His spine was so straight I sometimes wondered if it had been reinforced with some sort of metal, maybe after an injury during his time in the Zabrian Guard.

Warden Hallum’s grey eyes scanned the space, not missing the slightest detail.

“Xennet.”

Xennet straightened up.

“Put that knife away.”

While I could not say that Xennet followed the warden’s orders with anything close to enthusiasm, at least he finally listened this time.

Warden Hallum watched Xennet for a moment longer, as if to make sure the younger, green-hided male was not about to sneakily pull his knife back out when he wasn’t looking. Once he appeared satisfied that Xennet was not going to do anything characteristically idiotic, Warden Hallum drew out his data tab.

“These,” he said without preamble, spinning the screen of his device around to face us, “are human females.”

The three of us stared. Five unmoving faces smiled back. An image of some sort. Not a video or live call.

Without meaning to, I found myself leaning towards the warden’s screen with great interest. Dorn, Xennet, and I did not have data tabs with functioning screens. Without visual capabilities on our devices, we hadn’t seen any faces but each other’s for many cycles.

The faces of the human females were familiar in shape, though smaller and much softer than a Zabrian male’s. Their hide ranged in colour from the lightest beige to the darkest brown, and their hair came in varying textures: some straight and fine, some tied into dozens of braids, some spiralling from their scalps in dense, dark clumps.

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