by S. L. Viehl
Hardly flattering, but I didn’t have time to be offended. I had to get off Terra. I accepted the contract.
The data provided about my assignment was minimal. I would be working in a Trauma FreeClinic physician slot on K-2. Apparently these FreeClinics were set up to treat incoming and settled colonists, shuttle crews, and anyone else who needed emergency medical attention. I’d be allocated standard housing quarters—whatever that meant. That was it.
The data about my compensation was equally sparse. I’d be paid directly from K-2’s Treasury. How much and with what wasn’t clearly specified. I’d heard new colonies were usually poor in resources, unless they were part of mining or other lucrative projects. K-2 was located in a densely populated region of space, and they were developing botanical exports. That, combined with a sophisticated barter system, apparently kept the colony operational. So far.
The topic had come up while I was scrubbing for surgery one day. One of the nurses began speculating about transfer incentives.
“Hah! That’s a good joke,” the anesthesiologist beside me said as he passed his hands under the biodecon unit. “I heard they can’t even meet their existing contract obligations. Bet they end up paying the med pros in Cfaric poultry.”
I was being forced to abandon nearly everything I owned for a job and a place to live on an alien world. Anyone else would have been throwing tantrums.
But getting paid with alien chickens?
There was no choice in the matter. I had to leave. I wouldn’t be leaving behind many emotional ties. Orphaned himself, my bachelor father decided to have a child, and engaged a professional surrogate. I was the result. Evidently the experience proved to satisfy Dad’s urge for kids, too. I had no brothers or sisters.
My father’s work kept him busy, so I was raised by a succession of domestic supervisors, drone monitors, and hired companions. He’d made sure I’d had no time for friends. Maggie was dead. That should have made leaving the planet all very simple. There was only one problem.
I couldn’t tell Dad I was leaving.
Shortly after Maggie died, I had made an appalling discovery, something I was never supposed to know about. After the shock wore off, I’d gone to the nearest waste disposal unit, and thrown up what seemed like everything I’d digested for a month. Only one person could possibly be responsible for what I’d learned.
Dr. Joseph Grey Veil. My dad.
If he was capable of what I’d discovered, what would he do when he learned I knew every last detail? I knew my father. I could imagine what he’d resort to. Drone surveillance. Forged psych-evals. Personality electrarehab. Anything to shut me up.
If that didn’t work, well, Medtechs were always looking for fresh cadavers, weren’t they? I’d end up a hunk of practice meat for some green cutters. Dad would be hailed for his unselfish act of charity under devastating circumstances.
My life wasn’t worth a jammed credit.
I waited until he attended the annual System Medical Association Convention on Jupiter’s fourth moon (he was the guest speaker), then began my search for transport.
Dad had influence at so many levels that making the usual arrangements was out of the question. Thus my visit to the tavern district, where I’d met Dhreen and contracted his services.
There was only one problem I had left to face. Kevarzangia Two was inhabited by over two hundred different species. Less than one percent were Terran. Even more alien races inhabited other nearby worlds and traveled regularly through the sector.
Despite seven years as a practicing surgeon, I’d never provided medical treatment for an offworlder. Ever.
CHAPTER TWO
K-2
Fourteen light-years sailed past the Bestshot in a blur of color and form. Since the pioneer days of interstellar travel, scientific advances had made the enormous distances between star systems as easily traversed as from one city to another.
“We don’t jaunt a straight track through physical space, Doc,” Dhreen said after I admitted my ignorance of the basic mechanics involved in light-speed travel. “No way to compensate for tangible time loss.”
“Tangible time?”
“Actual duration of physical space—where you, me, the Bestshot, and anything with mass, reside.” Dhreen made a minor course adjustment and indicated the ship’s central chronometer. It appeared frozen at launch point. “The stuff that makes this turn, in short.”
“So we don’t occupy tangible time?” I tried to reason it out, but it still wasn’t making any sense to me. I was better with practical things like bowel resections and kidney transplants.
“No. The ship’s molecular structure is modified by the shuttle’s flightshield, and the engine drive propels us through—or between might be a better word—real physical space. As a result, we don’t experience significant tangible time loss.”
“The molecular structure modification, does that include us?” I asked, sending a panicked glance down at my body.
Dhreen grinned. “That’s right. For the entire flight, you don’t occupy real space.”
“Hey, I like real space. I like occupying it, too,” I said.
“Nothing the ship accommodates can remain unaltered.”
I tentatively touched my arm. It didn’t feel intangible. It felt like an arm. “Why not?”
“Once the flightshield was initiated, the ship’s altered structure would slip around you.” His inculpable eyes gleamed. “You’d be left hanging in orbit.”
Great. I should have paid more attention during my courses in astrophysics, too.
Despite the ship’s altered composition, there was still visual contact with real space. I watched as we passed through one system after another, the planets swelling majestically as we drew near, then dwindling to mere specks. Stars that shimmered burgeoning crimson, placid gold, and fierce cerulean soon faded into anonymous luminary fields.
The universe was God’s trinket box, Maggie once told me. We used to slip out of the house at night and sit on the precisely manicured lawn, just watching the stars. He had a great collection, she added, but needed to work on straightening it up.
One day the shuttle skirted the edge of a supernova, and I gazed out at the tattered luminescence, wisps of jeweled brilliancy all that remained from an epic stellar explosion. It reminded me of twilight on Terra. My appreciation dimmed as I realized I could never see that sky again.
No more Maggie, sunsets, or nights looking at Terran star vistas. Never again.
My interest in the exotic panorama around the ship subsided. It was exceptionally pretty, but ultimately there was only one world I was concerned with. Kevarzangia Two.
By the time I’d been on board the Bestshot for a few days, self-induced claustrophobia was setting in. After a week, I knew a lot more about the Oenrallian. At first I kept my distance, but the crowded confines of the vessel made it inevitable that we spend more time together. I didn’t object. Without his friendly overtures, I would have driven myself crazy. Dhreen was curious about the life of a Terran surgeon, for which he swapped stories of his adventures as a pilot.
“So after two weeks in orbit, I decided to go down and see what the delay was—strictly a humanitarian visit, you understand,” Dhreen said on the last day of the trip.
“In other words, you violated Nbrekkian space without official sanction,” I said. He hiccuped without remorse and continued.
“Good thing I did, Doc. The whole colony was pulverized. Some witless citizen studying alien cultures decided to ferment a shipment of offworld grain. Seems he sampled it, thought it was tasty, and passed it around.” Dhreen shook his head sadly. “It must have been some festival while it lasted.”
“Then the Nbrekkians found out they had no means to digest the alcohol,” I guessed.
“You can’t believe how much gratitude some hemo-toxin neutralizer can buy you.”
“You are a blatant opportunist, Dhreen,” I said, then chuckled when he assumed his usual innocent demeanor.
&nb
sp; Dhreen took a large portion of the meal I’d prepared, and tasted it with a grin. “Did I mention this is orifice-salivating, Doc?”
“Mouthwatering,” I corrected. To repay Dhreen’s un-demanding hospitality, I’d coaxed some more sophisticated dishes from his limited food supplies over the past week. The preparation unit he possessed was, like everything else on the Bestshot, a conglomeration of salvaged parts. Yet with a little inventive programming, I was able to produce some appetizing fare.
It also helped to keep me occupied. The closer we came to K-2, the larger the mistake I might be making seemed to grow. By the last day, it was nearing the dimensions of Jupiter.
It didn’t always help, I thought ruefully, to keep busy. I had no appetite left, and declined to eat my full share of the meal. Dhreen happily polished off the last of the spicy vegetable and synpro stew.
“If you ever decide to give up medicine, you should open a restaurant,” he said, sighed, and glanced down at himself. “I’ve put on at least a couple of kilos with you on board.”
“You’re welcome,” I replied, trying not to sound too ironic as I added, “it’s nice to know I have something to fall back on. So tell me, where are you headed after K-2?”
“Plenty of traders around the border looking for cargo space,” Dhreen said, rubbing one of his almost-ears. I had learned that gesture was the Oenrallian equivalent of a smirk. “Lots of newlies pay hefty credits for return passage to their homeworlds, too.”
“Newlies?”
“Newly established traders . . . newly installed jaunt routers . . . newly transferred physicians . . .”
“Not a chance, friend,” I said. “You’ve gained your last credit from my account.”
“Listen, Doc . . .” Dhreen’s good-natured features sobered. “I haven’t grilled about your plans, like I said, none of my business. But you should know the territories . . . well, they aren’t like your homeworld.”
I was counting on it. “Don’t worry, Dhreen. I’ll be fine.”
“If you say so.” He checked his wristcom, which reflected the helm status. “Looks like we’ll be arriving in 2.5 Terran stanhours. Time enough to take a nap, if you’d like.”
Sleep. Right. Was he kidding?
I spent the last hour pacing my cabin, checking the viewport every five minutes. At last I forced myself to sit down and try to relax. Sleep, however, was out. Music, I thought, and opened one of my cases.
As I sorted through my collection, I recalled how much it had irritated my father that I didn’t share his taste in music. I liked a little of everything, and a lot of jazz. He preferred more conservative compositions by ancients like Wagner and Beethoven.
I frowned at one disc without a label. What’s this? I was about to load it in my player when Dhreen announced that we were in orbit. I dropped the headset and case, tripping over my own feet in my dash to the viewport.
Below the ship loomed a massive, grayish-green orb surrounded by an asymmetrical ring of some twenty moons.
Kevarzangia Two.
Thin swirls of pale green clouds softened the atmosphere of the enormous globe. Beyond K-2’s outer curve, I spotted the distant, twin suns, glowing with amber-orange light. Two blazing giants caught forever in each other’s magnetic allure.
“Suns,” I murmured softly. Now I understood why that word was used as an expletive out here.
According to the data, Kevarzangia Two was somewhat larger than Terra by a difference of three thousand kilometers. Somewhat larger? Who were they trying to fool? It was enormous. The length of a standard day was almost identical to Terra, due to the increased rotational speed of the planet. There were two distinct continents, immense land masses, and the colony was located in the northwest region of the largest.
I knew I couldn’t see it from here. I still tried to see if I could pick it out.
K-2, like Terra, was a water world. The highest order of native life-forms were once aquatic beings who had evolved into an amphibious, intelligent civilization. It had been noted that the natives had no objection to their world being colonized. It would be interesting to find out how the ’Zangian aborigines really felt about offworlders.
Maybe they would be more friendly than Terrans were. Which meant they wouldn’t spit on the ground when I walked by.
“Prepare for final approach, Doc,” Dhreen called back through the shuttle’s display.
Slight turbulence from entering into the upper atmosphere shuddered through the hull of the Bestshot, but I didn’t react to it. I wasn’t afraid. I was a thoracic surgeon, a trained professional. If working as a physician on K-2 proved to be a disaster, I’d survive. Like Dhreen said, I could always open a restaurant.
I was not going to beg the Oenrallian to jaunt me back, no matter how many knots formed in my stomach. I was much more afraid of what waited for me if I returned to Terra.
It took an intolerable amount of time for Dhreen to land, dock, and secure the shuttle. I didn’t remember launch taking this long, why all the delay? Once on the ground, requisite procedures dictated full biodecon of the ship, cargo, and both of us before we could step foot on the surface.
I was at the about-to-scream stage by the time Dhreen reported to Colonial Transport. “Scans are negative.”
Permission to disembark was given by a transdrone after clearance was confirmed. Thank God for efficient automation. I gathered up my cases, Jenner’s carrier, and hurried out to the main cabin.
Dhreen stood next to me as he pressed a panel release and the outer hull doors parted. “Doc, meet Kevarzangia Two.”
The recruit station had given me the usual planetary survey vids and statistical facts along with my assignment contract. Dry, dull facts. None of that prepared me for the breathtaking vista that sprawled out like a primitive Eden all around the ship.
“Oh, my.” If I looked and sounded like an awed kid, I didn’t care. Around me, K-2 flourished with a bewildering profusion of life. Towering groves soared hundreds of feet in the air, making Terran forests look like a bunch of leafy twigs. The planet was an enormous ocean of vegetation upon which the colony’s structures floated. My homeworld might have been like this hundreds of centuries before Terrans began manipulating the environment.
I looked up. Above my head lacy swirls of cloud drifted peacefully across the bright emerald sky. The unusual color effect, I understood, was attributed to a harmless biochemical substance in the atmosphere reacting with the strong radiant light coming from the suns. A verdant world, mirrored in the sky, a seamless envelope of life.
I knew the atmosphere was almost identical to that of my homeworld, with a rather heavier content of nitrogen. My first breath was crisp and oddly invigorating.
“Fair place, isn’t it?” Dhreen said, noticing my rapt interest. “You’ll do well here, Doc.”
I turned to him. “I plan on it.” My hand, I was glad to see, didn’t tremble as I held it out.
The Oenrallian pressed his wedge-shaped palm to mine. “If you ever need this hand again, signal me.”
“Thank you, Dhreen.” There were a thousand things more I wanted to say, but my throat was suspiciously tight. Acting like an awed kid was fine, crying my eyes out and getting Dhreen’s flight suit all damp wasn’t. I smiled instead, picked up my cases, and strode down the gently swaying ramp.
It took a moment to register that I had walked straight into chaos.
The Bestshot was docked in the center of a noticeably improvised Transport zone. Ships of myriad shapes, sizes, and origins hovered, landed, and took off all around me. I thought of bees, racing back and forth to the hive. There was an incredible amount of beings milling back and forth to the stationary shuttles, and an even greater amount of cargo being off-loaded by huge automated conveyors. Beyond the shuttle docks stretched a chain of structures, more oversized building blocks drifting on green waves.
I spotted Transport Administration and made my path toward that first indicator of civilization. It was housed in a sprawling bunker tha
t had been patched together from an assortment of emergency site shelters.
This was not anything like the beautifully designed edifices of my homeworld. Terrans demanded perfection, and got it. K-2’s construction crews were obviously forced to make do with limited materials. Still, even to my Terran-acclimated view, it had a certain unaffected charm.
Transport Admin’s designation was posted above the main entrance in several distinct pictographs and languages, and I was surprised to see my own native alphabet as well. Less than one percent of the population, and Terrans still merited a share of the signs? Someone must have complained. Terrans took pride in being the most obstinant race in our Quadrant. They sure didn’t leave their attitudes at home when they traveled.
Through unseen audiocoms, I heard automated voices speaking in different tongues, for those species which had no written language. The building itself was the second largest next to Cargo Dispatch/Receiving.
“GfiRidhety juilTopp!” someone barked out behind me, and I turned as a huge, grey-furred creature jostled by.
“Sorry,” I said, then had to avoid another colonist who slithered around me from the opposite side. “Excuse me.”
Now I focused on the steady stream of colonists and visitors who poured in and out of the structure’s threshold around me. There was a bewildering variety of life-forms. Humanoids of every color and appendage count. Beings in self-contained envirosuits, some with fantastic garments, others pelted or scaled. A small group appeared to be walking jellyfish. Another had prismatic bodies that created iridescent rainbow haloes in the twin suns’ light. I forgot about trying not to gawk and simply drank them in with my eyes. So many differences. So much life. It astounded me. Then the unexpected outrage struck hard, and fast.
My father’s prejudices had denied me all of this.
“What were you so afraid of, Dad?” Saying that out loud earned me a few curious looks. Yeah, watch the Terran female talk to herself, I thought, ducking my head in embarrassment. I’d have time to be mad at my father later. I joined the queue entering the facility.