In Alien Hands: Crashed

Crashed - Part 12

I had to wake up early the next morning to pick Peri up from the space port and prepare our case to get Holli back. We'd have all of the morning and most of the afternoon to work on the case before we would go visit Holli.

It was hardly dawn when I arrived in the rental car I purchased the day before, I had to stifle several yawns before Peri found me. He jumped in, we exchanged greetings, and headed to a cafe to have breakfast.

Peri was the family's personal lawyer, he would often fly to other planets to assist us with legal troubles. He handled all the paperwork for our humans, Holli's included. Most dog-men from my home planet kept humans, or at least held them to the same importance as we did. Peri knew thought of humans as lifelong companions, same as I. As expected for such a somber occasion, he wasted no time in small talk.

We scheduled court dates to argue that she be relinquished to us and allowed off planet, but only managed to get one a few months from then. We both agreed that wasn't an acceptable court date. Peri knew the laws of the planet regarding this issue (he'd been cramming on the ride), so we resolved to interview the People caring for her. If she wasn't receiving care according to my planet's (and therefore the kind she had been receiving in my care) standards, the court date would be moved to the next day. I was certain she wasn't receiving the kind of care needed, so we decided to plan for the court date being tomorrow.

With that sorted, we just had to prove that she'd be taken care of better by me than by the aliens she was currently with, then apply to import her off planet. Peri was experienced with the latter, so the former was the only real concern. He had several human care experts from both planets, zoo keepers from this one and a rescue owner from my home planet. The rescue owner would be testifying via video chat in the court room.

We spent many hours discussing all this before heading to visit Holli and interview the employees at the facility. We both drove in complete silence. Once we had arrived, I explained that Peri would be interviewing them for the court case. Several of the employees seemed annoyed, but Puckle sided with me. She insisted that I took excellent care of her and deserved to take her home. Most of what she had to say to Peri about Holli was positive, putting extra emphasis on how her behavior changed when I was around.

Peri wanted to watch her behavior himself, so he came into the room with me. He hung back and interviewed the two assistants assigned to behavioral observation, who seemed very peeved about his questions.

Holli was very excited to see me now, I was just as happy to see her. I noticed she had mastered her "enrichment", saving the food to be eaten later. She had another toy, one that looked much more fun. She seemed pretty excited about it, showing me how to use it. It seemed overly simple at first, even She seemed to be confused when she pushed a simple button and a berry popped out.

She offered me the berry, I refused. I wanted her to eat as much as possible, I didn't like her having to work for her food. The berry was put on the tray, where she had piled quite a few. She pushed the button again, showing me that two buttons lit up, dispensing another treat when she pressed them in the same order.

We played quite a few rounds of this game, she had me push one of the buttons when it was my turn to do so. I tripped her up a couple of times, the second time was intentional because she was cute when angry. It would've been nice to stroke her a bit, but this sort of interaction was more stimulating for her, and just as comforting.

Once again, I had to leave sooner than either of us wanted. I decided not to make a big deal of it for her sake, just get up and go. She was clearly still upset, but not as much as she was yesterday. Peri left with me, he told me he was certain we could get the court date set for the next day.

He was right. Tomorrow, we'd be arguing that I could care for her better than they could in court. The cage of my dear human would be decided the next day. I got to bed early in hopes of being well rested for court.

Published 11/2/18 (delayed due to the Halloween special)