“I am merely making sure everything goes smoothly.” Warden Tenn had even more men under his supervision than I did. He knew as well as me the buffoonery our convicts could be capable of, despite their mostly good natures.
“Well, right now, it looks like your bowels are not running smoothly,” he announced. “I have never seen such tension in you, Warden. And you are not a relaxed man to begin with.”
As I had absolutely no interest in discussing my bowels with Warden Tenn, I completely ignored this, speaking to the three near the door.
“Dr. Ortiz has-”
“Lualhati!” she corrected cheerily.
“-has agreed to give you two expanded lessons on the document Tasha provided us. She actually helped Tasha writethe health sections, and she has generously made herself available to answer your questions.”
“Oh! This is good, for I have many questions!” Xennet said. Then, as seriously as if he asked about some great philosophy on nature of life and death and the vast, unyielding span of the universe, he said, “Which is more pleasant to a human female? Stimulation of the nipplies, or the clitorhinoceros?” He whipped out his data tab, activating the recording function and then holding it alarmingly close to Lualhati’s face.
Empire help me.
“That’s a wonderful question!”
I gaped at Lualhati. I’d been about to step in, feeling the need to already get things back on track. But she did not seem to mind Xennet at all. In fact, she was praising him. And she really seemed to mean it.
“Thank you for asking it, Xennet!” she said warmly. “Why don’t we all move over to the projection area Warden Hallum has set up, and we can discuss it!”
I was not expecting this reaction in her. I was expecting her, I supposed, to behave more like Tasha. Tasha, too, was a wonderfully kind human woman. But sometimes the behaviour of my men left her a bit surprised or flustered, and she seemed to maintain a bit more of a professional distance in her interactions with them. She only shook their hands, for example. She did not hug them.
But Lualhati seemed to accept Xennet and Dorn as if she had been a friend to them all her life. When she stationed herself beside the white sheet, there was that joy in her, so endless, so obvious. I did not think I could have picked a better teacher for my men.
She will be such a good mother.
The thought came to me as if from nowhere, entirely unbidden. But I could neither push it away nor deny it. Despitemy own lack of expertise on the subject, having been a ward of the empire and never meeting my own parents, I yet knew that I was correct about this.
“Warden Hallum?”
She gazed at me expectantly.
“Yes?” I shook myself, as if from a dream.
“I was asking if you could please get your tablet set up to project for us.”
By the blazes. I hadn’t even heard her. This was not like me.
“Of course.” Striding to the table with my data tab set up, I activated it and opened the document. Then, I stepped out of the way and let Lualhati scroll to the page she wanted. A naked human woman appeared on the sheet on the wall. Xennet and Dorn took their seats – Xennet eagerly, Dorn awkwardly. Tasha emerged from the kitchen then, putting down a tray with cups of water for everyone on the counter and joining her husband at the side of the room.
“Let’s start with a small quiz,” Lualhati said. “Xennet, creative suffixes aside, you obviously already know about nipples and the clitoris, so well done, you! You’re already miles ahead of some human men!”
Xennet positively vibrated with pleasure at her praise.
“What about these?” She used her own human data tab and activated its laser pointer function, letting the red dot trace over the shapes of the human woman’s chest.
“Breasticles!” Xennet shouted, for some reason shooting out of his chair like a rocket when he answered.
“Breasts,” Lualhati corrected gently. “Very good, Xennet! You can take your seat again if you like. Or stand. Whatever works for you. I’m sensing that you have a lot of wonderful energy, and if you need to move around to better focus, you go right ahead. Now what about you, Dorn? Can you tell me anything about human breasts?”
“They contain mammary tissue,” he said. He once again seemed quite unsure of where to put his hat, wrenching it off his head entirely now and glancing around. Eventually, apparently finding no good options, he put it back on.
“Very good,” Lualhati said with an encouraging smile. “Breasts can produce milk for a human baby. They can also be a very powerful erogenous zone.”
“Yes,” Warden Tenn piped up then. “Contrary to popular belief, they are not lungs!”
“Popular belief?” Tasha sputtered. “You are the only one who has ever thought that!”
