Leah led herself, Morgan and Timberly to a little glade by the edge of the forest. Halfway there, Al peeled off to use his version of the little boy's room. Morgan trusted him to find his way to her.

The little glade had been littered with other tools and random items—bent paint cans usually washed out and used as cooking pots, the blade of a chainsaw, shovels, and rakes. A couple of hedge-trimmers sat leaned up against the trunk of a walnut tree, completely useless without power. It looked like someone had the idea of using the blade but never got past smashing the casing with a rock.

What a waste, she thought, not for the first time.

There were exactly two spears. And calling them "spears" was being kind. They were actually two straight-ish branches which had been sharpened on one end. Judging by the swollen look of the wood, someone had tried to use them for spearfishing. Ineffectively.

... And that was about it for the "weapons". They were painfully, woefully screwed if the Blood Wolves mounted an attack now. At least the Yellow Crest raptor had teeth and claws and enough organization to be able to put up a fight. Humans had no natural weapons and had a split population.

Morgan picked up a shovel which had been lying where it had been thrown on the ground. It was good quality with a metal blade and handle.

She looked to Leah and Timberly who were glancing at each other, each holding a fish spear.

"This is it?" Timberly asked Leah. "I thought you guys took a lot of stuff with you when you... you know, left."

Leah shrugged. "I didn't, but some people did. There's probably more laying around here." She made some half-hearted hunting motions around the bushes, but the dark made it hard to see. "Colton locked up all the machetes, remember?" Leah added.

Morgan's head snapped up "He did?"

Timberly and Leah both nodded.

"That was sort of the last straw. He was acting like he had the right to give out community resources, and it didn't sit well with a lot of people."

"So Donuts took the opportunity to leave," Morgan finished.

Leah shrugged. "Pretty much." She half smiled. "Neveah didn't like me much, and most people were following him."

Morgan felt torn. Colton wasn't the king of the village, and she could understand why a lot of people would resent him hoarding supplies. On the other hand, if this was how Donut's people treated their only tools, she wasn't sure that was a bad thing.

We need structure. We need a leader.

What she said aloud was, "Why was Donuts throwing his weight around earlier?"

Timberly snorted. "Because he doesn't like anyone challenging him."

"I wasn't challenging him!"

"You weren't? Walking in with an alien dinosaur in tow on his movie night? What do you think Colton would have done?"

That gave Morgan a pause. She wasn't sure, but at least Colton had paid attention to what she had had to say. She shook her head. "I thought Donuts was more laid back than Colton."

"He is," Leah said loyally.

"Yeah, but you can still be laid back and still be a dick," Timberly said. "And he's used to playing King of the Mountain. Men's egos," she added with a smirk.

Morgan turned to her. "You wouldn't think it was funny if you saw what the Wolves are capable of doing. They killed Al's people down to the chicks and eggs. Then the Stone Seekers didn't believe what he told them—they practically invited the Wolves to their doorstep to get their side of the story. Then—surprise surprise!— same thing happened to them." Some mornings, she woke up hearing it hearing the panicked screaming honks in her mind. "I'm not going to let it happen here."

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Leah and Timberly exchanged a look full of meaning.

"I'm sorry, Morgan," Leah said.

Typically, Timberly didn't apologize. Instead she held up her spear. "Okay, so we're going alien hunting with this? Seriously?"

The sounds of snapping twigs had them all turning. Morgan raised her shovel and then relaxed again when Al poked his nose through the brush. His black and white feathers made him look ghostly in the moonlight.

Timberly let out a breath and pressed her free hand to her chest. Leah let out a shaky laugh.

"There is a path right there," Timberly said sharply to Al. "You don't need to be crashing through the woods like the Creature from The Black Lagoon."

Al cocked his head and looked... a little worried. "You didn't hear me coming?"

"We heard you just fine," Morgan said with a reassuring smile. They were all a little on edge.

"What is the plan exactly?" Leah asked. "And how sure are we that this is one of the Wolf aliens?

Timberly jumped in. "It might be a tiger or, you know, like a regular wolf. Or a lion. Or a dinosaur. A real one." She looked pointedly at Al.

"Or it could be another alien species just crossing through," Morgan said. "The point is, we're going to find out."

"All right, all right," Timberly said, not exactly peaceably, but at least she dropped it. Morgan saw how tightly she clutched her spear, though. She didn't blame her.

"I hope it's not a Blood Wolf at all, but if it is..." She shot a guilty look at Al, who straightened and flexed his claws meaningfully. Leah and Timberly didn't need to speak his language to know what he meant.

Timberly shook her head. "If this is a creature that is smart as a human, it would have to be ten kinds of stupid to still be there."

"Then we will track it," Al said.

Morgan nodded. "If it runs, we might have to wait for daylight and see if it left a trail or some kind of clue. The only thing we can do is try."

"Is there a weak point we should know about?" Leah asked suddenly. Everyone looked at her in confusion. "What? There's always a kill button or a missing scale in the dragon's armor."

"You have watched way too many movies," Timberly said.

Morgan, though, turned, to Al. "You've fought Wolves before. What are their weak points?" Please have a weak point...

He thought for a moment. "They have two hearts. One is here." He pointed to his own chest, approximately where a human's heart would be but on the right-hand side. "The second, larger heart, is less protected and right underneath the body where the torso meets the legs. There is a big vein that carries the blood between the two." He drew a line up his own torso. "Slash that and the creature dies."

Morgan stared. She didn't remember seeing that in Al's memories, but the battle with the Blood Wolves had been hard to watch. She didn't question his experience. He knew a lot more about hunting than she did, and could see in a range of more colors than she could. For all she knew, he could see blood pumping or something.

"That looks like he said yes..." Timberly said cautiously.

Morgan quickly translated for him. Timberly's eyebrows shot up in surprise. Leah's reaction was completely different.

"Two hearts? That is so cool!"

Morgan hefted her shovel, thinking. "Hopefully it's not a Wolf, but it is, maybe we can... intimidate it back to the village."

"Morgan," Al said, and her name was mashed between sharp teeth. "If it is a scout, we must destroy it. Otherwise it will report back."

She turned to face him directly. "Listen, humans are jaded. You saw the space-battles they were watching for fun tonight. We're used to telling stories about fantastical things, and it gets real easy to pretend the there's no real danger. We need visible proof or else Donuts will blow me off again."

He growled, but it had a pensive note. "Then challenge him for the authority."

This again? "I can't just—" She stopped and struggled to put complex human social interactions into terms Al would understand. "What would you do if it was your Matron?" It wasn't that big of a stretch. Raptor females were larger, more aggressive than males. Donuts was a good half-foot taller and weighed a good fifty pounds more. He was also a certified jerk.

That seemed to give Al pause. Then he looked her straight in the eye. "If I could go back in time and save my people by challenging the Maton, by forcing her and the others to run instead of fight? Yes, I would. Even if I died in the attempt."

"If you died, you wouldn't have met me and we wouldn't be here. That would be a shame," she said. "I hear what you're saying, but Donuts is too well-liked by his village. If I remove him as a leader, that doesn't mean the others will follow me. It's not that simple."

He flexed his claws again. "It can be that simple."

But she had traveled with Al for a while now and she had gotten used to reading him. From the too-flat tone of his voice and the way his feathers lay flat along his nose, he wasn't that serious.

"We'll call that Plan B," she said. "Or C."

She had a second to wonder how that translated to Al's raptor brain. Had the Knowledge Transfer Device given him the ability to read and write in English? He did understand slang for the most part.

Either way, he bobbed his head in a nod. "I will follow your lead, but capturing the creature alive will not be easy. It may not be possible."

"We have to try," she said.

Then she turned back to Timberly and Leah who had been watching her have a one-sided conversation to a person who growled and snarled back in his own language.

"Donuts was right about one thing," Timberly said. "You two talking is some real Chewbacca shit."

"Is he coming with us?" Leah asked.

"We couldn't do it without him," Morgan confirmed. She was going to have Al trade languages with Timberly and Leah as soon as possible. She could not be the only weirdo around here. "Let's go."