They trudged back to Donut's village, exhausted, dirty, and still shaking with adrenaline. Morgan's wrist ached fiercely, but holding it close to her chest seemed to help.

She used her other arm to cradle the puppy.

It was the size of a small dog and was tightly wrapped in the remains of her jacket, straight-jacket style, because it had snarled and tried to bite when she had picked it up. Like its mother, it had two rows of needle teeth, and they were sharp.

It had calmed—or simply exhausted itself—after Morgan managed to swaddle it tightly. Now it snuffled and let out angry little growls when Morgan made a bumpy step, but seemed to have given up.

Timberly and Leah kept glancing over at it.

"It's... cute?" Timberly offered. "I didn't think you were a dog person."

"It's not a dog," Morgan corrected. "It's a child."

"A bitey child," Timberly said. She had the teeth marks on her hand to prove it.

"You should wash that off," Leah said.

"Nah, it didn't break skin."

"She didn't break skin," Morgan corrected.

Timberly rolled her eyes.

Morgan didn't reply, but she didn't back down, either. The puppy or cub or whatever was also a little girl. A fierce one with stubby, perfectly formed hands and watchful golden eyes. Her fur was smokey blue, just like her mother's.

Her mother, whom Morgan had killed.

Timberly insisted they check the grown wolf's body again on their way out. The wolf had not managed to miraculously heal her broken neck. Her body remained still and grew colder in the night air. She was dead.

"This is a bad idea," Al said, not for the first time.

"I think so, too," Morgan agreed. "But I don't have any better ideas. Do you?"

Al growled something under his breath and flexed his claws.

"Really?" She stopped, leveling a look at him. "You'd kill a baby?"

"It's a wolf. Its mother tried to kill us."

"I know," she said, "But this is still the right thing to do."

Al snarled and pushed past her to walk ahead, his tail swinging in wide, annoyed arcs.

She watched him, heart aching. But what choice did she have? She wasn't going to... put the puppy down.

Leah broke in. "It's going to need milk. At least if it's a mammal," she added. "And we don't exactly have dairy cows around here."

Morgan shook herself and focused on the other girl. "She already has teeth. Hopefully, she can manage solids." Because if she couldn't, she might as well have killed the girl as well as her mother.

No. She refused to pile additional guilt on herself. She had tried to talk to the mother wolf around. Everything had just fallen apart. Now she had to do her best to clean up the mess.

Al waited for them at the border of the village, not saying a word and not looking directly at Morgan or the puppy. Dawn was just breaking the horizon, making it a lot easier to see. Everything seemed quiet inside the village, too. No early risers up and doing chores. Shocker.

It took Morgan a few seconds to realize Timberly, Leah, and Al were staring at her.

"What?"

"Well, what's next?" Timberly asked, bluntly.

How come I have to decide? It was as if Timberly's words added a good twenty pounds of weight to her shoulders.

She was tired, her wrist ached, and this puppy was growing heavy. Most of all, she wanted to sleep.

Belatedly, she realized she didn't know where Lucas's set up his camp. They hadn't had that much time to catch up. Leah might know, but Lucas was probably still pissed for leaving him behind to put her life in danger. Again. Who knew if she would be welcome.

Morgan was starting to wonder if all boyfriends were troublesome, or if there was something special about Lucas.

Well, one thing at a time. Her friends were still waiting for an answer… except for Al, who stared off sullenly in the distance.

"Let's see if it's our turn to use the TV." She tried to keep her voice from being too caustic. Judging by Timberly's quick-flash grin, she hadn't succeeded.

Quietly, they picked their way through the village. Now that there was sunlight, she could see how Donut's camp was organized. Simply put: Not at all. With the comfortable near-summer temperatures and without cargo containers to bunk down in, people mostly slept in makeshift hollows made of vegetation. And... kind of wherever they felt like it.

Morgan had to step over a few sleeping bodies to get to the circle of boulders. Luckily, no one was inside the auditorium itself. The entire space was empty, except for the cooling embers left from the fire.

"Is there a rule against bunking down in here?" Timberly asked, looking around with eyebrows raised.

Leah shook her head. "No, but people like to sleep in late when they can, and it's annoying to be woken up by a movie."

"Good. Then I don't have to use the stupid list." Morgan crossed to the Knowledge Transfer device, stopping short before she touched the orb. Probably not a good idea to do that while holding the puppy.

What should she do first? She wanted to download the memories of the Stone Seeker village, show Donuts and the others what this puppy's big-bad parents were capable of doing. Then, using the device, she could explain to them the wealth of knowledge inside every single person.

But she was so tired, and it was more important that everyone start seeing Al as a person, and not a dinosaur.

... Which reminded her that she would have to give the puppy a name soon, too. She'd think of something later.

"Okay." She forced her voice to be chipper. "Al, you want to speak with Timberly and Leah?"

"I do," he said shortly.

She sent him a grateful smile. He wasn't happy with her, but he'd always been a team player.

With a nod, she turned to Leah and Timberly, who looked more alert than she felt. "Trading languages—Well, the headache is unbelievable, but it goes away in a few hours, and then you'll be able to understand Yellow Crest. Maybe even Stone Seeker, too, since Al knows that."

Leah actually bounced on her toes. "I'm in. What do I need to do?"

"It's easy." Still holding the puppy—it seemed to have fallen asleep, lucky little thing—she gestured with her free arm. "You both touch the orb at the same time."

"That's it?" Timberly asked.

Morgan nodded. "There's no instruction book. I guess the Makers who created this world wanted to make the process as simple as possible."

Timberly eyed the globe. "It just seems too easy. Why haven't two people done that before?"

"They did," Leah said. "A couple of Donut's friends found it and got a bad zap when they tried to move it. But we all spoke the same language, so I guess they didn't notice anything."

"And when they learned the Device could show memories, they used it as a movie theater instead of wondering what else it could be good for," Morgan finished.

Al walked over and placed his clawed hands on the cloudy gray surface with the confidence of someone who had gone through the process several times.

After taking a deep breath, Leah did the same. There was a sharp buzzing sound, the snap like electricity through the air, and it was done.

Leah flinched back. Her face screwed up in a grimace, and then she bowed over, clutching her head. "Oh... Ow. OW!"

Shifting the puppy-bundle painfully to her other arm, Morgan helped Leah sit down against one of the ring-side boulders.

"You may want to rest here for a bit," she said in sympathy and then looked to Al. "How are you feeling?"

"It hurts much less than before." Al sat down to curl up against a far corner. He still looked sad and upset.

"Wow, I understood him," Leah said weakly and then winced, covering her eyes with the side of her arm. "Oww..."

"Try to sleep it off if you can," Morgan advised. Standing, she turned to Timberly. "I'm not sure I can give you the Yellow Crest language, or if you have to learn from the original source, but you wanna try?"

Timberly raised her chin, no trace of fear in her dark brown eyes. "I'm not going to be the one left out."

Morgan carefully set the swaddled bundle down. She was not going risk the shock hitting the puppy, too, or worse falling on her if she lost her balance. The puppy wiggled a little, but seemed okay with sleeping on the warm sandy soil.

Timberly already had her hands on the globe.

"Here goes nothing," Morgan muttered, and did the same.

Again came the buzzing sound as well as a zap she felt deep within her brain. Morgan took her hands away the second it was done, already feeling the beginning of the reaction headache pounding behind her eyes. It hurt, but Al was right. The pain was less of a tooth-grinding agony and more of a migraine.

"You all right?" Morgan managed.

In answer, Timberly fell back on her butt and started cursing.

For the first time all night, Morgan laughed.

* * *

Once she got Timberly and Leah situated—they didn't seem to be interested in anything other than laying down with their heads in their hands, which she could sympathize with, she turned her attention to Al.

He was lay curled in a sad ball of feathers, his back to them all.

She stared at him for a moment, wondering if it was best to let him sulk. Then the puppy kicked against her ribs in its sleep. The reminder was enough to send a flare of annoyance through her. They had gone through too much together to let this disagreement stand.

She marched over and sat down right next to him.

"What is your problem?"

He didn't respond for a few moments. Then, with an annoyed rattle of feathers, he uncurled, lifting his long neck to stare at her. "You're harboring a murderer."

Her heart clenched. She couldn't fully blame him for his feelings, but…. “You know this puppy didn’t have anything to do with your people. Its mother had probably been too pregnant to fight.”

His lips peeled back from his teeth. “It doesn’t matter. You witnessed what happened in the Stone Seeker city as well as I. You’ve seen what happens when you show any kindness to the Blood Wolves.”

“We don’t know that for sure!” But her argument felt weak because when she looked at it from that angle… she was sort of making the same mistake as the Stone Seekers. “Al, it’s only a child.”

“They killed my people! All of them. Males on the nest, and chicks as young as this one!” He slashed his hand across the air in a very human, negatory gesture. “It will grow up to be a wolf! Why can’t you see that?”

“Because she will grow up around us, with our values. If I can get it to grow up at all!” She felt her anger flare to match his own. Grief, too, unexpected, but just as fierce. “I killed its mother.”

“You were defending yourself.”

No, she had been defending Al. "I would do it all over again if I had to, but I still owe this child a chance at life.” She looked down at the little creature in her arms. Her eyes were tightly shut, but she got the impression she was only pretending to sleep. “I think we’re more than what we’re born as. But, if you feel that way… here.” She extended her arms to hand the puppy over. “You’re right. They didn’t massacre my people.”

For a moment Al looked so fierce, so alien, she thought he might actually do it. It would only take one snap of his strong jaws, or a slash of his claws.

Then something shifted behind his slit-iris eyes. His feathers flattened and he looked away.

With a breath, Morgan drew the little wolf back to her. She leaned back against one of the boulders, her head aching, feeling drained, and not sure what to do next.

“You’re wrong,” Al said after a very long time.

She looked at him. “What?”

He sighed and sat up, though he still wasn’t looking at her. With one of his long claws, he drew little figure eights in the soft dirt.

“Within my people, the Matron is the moral guidance of the nest. She has to do things which are right, even when they are hard; such as driving away someone who consistently breaks the rules even if she is likable. The Matron is the one to make her people move to a different territory to keep from overhunting even when it seems there is easy prey everywhere. She has to have the inner strength to do what is difficult.” Finally, he looked at her. “You would be a better Matron than Donuts.”

Morgan’s eyes prickled, and she found her throat too clogged to speak. She didn’t realize until this moment that she'd expected Al to hate her or start making demands she couldn’t meet… like Lucas.

“I don’t like what you have to say,” Al continued, “but I’m not a chick killer. And my father always said with the right incubation even the ugliest egg can hatch well.” He sighed and looked so, so sad. “I miss my people.”

“I know.” She laid a hand on his arm. He ducked his head and she pulled him into a loose hug. She didn’t know what raptors did to comfort each other, but this was all she had.

When they parted, she wiped away the moisture that had gathered at the corners of her eyes.

“What I’m asking you isn’t fair,” she said roughly. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t be angry at the Wolves, and… a new baby or chick or whatever is a big responsibility. I don’t know if I will be able to keep this one alive.”

They both looked down at the puppy. Apparently, she'd given up pretending to sleep. Her golden eyes were half-open. She looked up at Al and raised her little lips in a snarl.

He snarled back and then said, "It is pretty cute."

Morgan remembered from seeing Al’s memories that the little raptor chicks in the nest were about the size of a terrier and downy with fluff. Between the puppy’s fluffy fur, big eyes, and cute triangle ears, it was probably twigging his instincts as much as it was with hers.

“Would you help me name her?” she asked tentatively.

Al just looked at her so she plowed on, "Most people will think she's a dog or something until she learns to speak English, if she ever can." That was a tossup. Morgan could understand Al's language just fine, but there was no way she could make half the sounds he could. Her mouth wasn't built for it. The wolf puppy might have the same problem. Worse, it was way too young to have learned its own language. It might learn to understand what was being said to her, but how would she speak back?

Well, she would have to worry about that later. First, she had to figure out how to raise the thing. "Having a name will help show the community that she is a person."

Al was silent for a moment, then he ducked his head. "Choosing a name is an honor for the parents."

Morgan didn't bother to point out that the puppy didn't have parents anymore. She simply waited.

"Yes," Al said at last. "But not while my head is trying to crush itself inward."

All her tension drained out of her at once. "Deal," she said, her smile wobbly. She was more tired than she realized, it was making her emotional.

Al settled down to sleep and Morgan picked a spot not too far away to bed down.

I guess he really is my friend.

Her best friend on Earth, Ashley, would haven't have put up with half of what Al had.

On the heels of that, she wondered if Lucas would forgive her for running off without him not once, but twice.