Still unable to put any weight on the left leg, she hopped toward the lobby entrance, with the backpack slung over her shoulders to leave both hands free.
A dark orange-complexioned, humanoid female called stiffly from the front check-in desk, “May I help you?”
Dana leaned against the counter. “Ambassador Taurian and I were prepaid. We’ll have to cancel.”
“Oh,” the woman muttered with distaste. “You want a refund? We only give credit.”
Dana blinked as the woman pointed to an identification scanner, requesting her palm print rather than an iris scan. She placed her badly bruised hand onto the flat surface and waited, watching the countenance of the woman behind the counter change.
“Captain Cartwright?”
Dana nodded.
“Your reservation has already begun. I cannot refund the first night. May I suggest that you stay and relax with us until sunset tomorrow, since it is already prepaid? I can refund the rest of the prepayment onto a credit card.”
“The Ambassador…”
“The suite has three sleeping rooms,” the woman chattered on, “enjoy all the amenities; the pools are open, as is the spa.”
Dana blinked, accepting the room pass.
“Lift number one,” the woman pointed across the lobby. “Luggage?”
“Still at the spaceport,” Dana guessed, wondering if any of her personal belongings survived.
“No matter…lounging robes, slippers, and the like are all provided during your stay. All meals are covered as well, including room service.”
Dana hobbled to the lift, and slipped inside the moment the doors parted.
“Room pass please?” the controller demanded in a gruff, masculine voice.
She slid the transportation card in by mistake. It quickly spit it back out, and repeated the demand until the correct card registered.
The lift rose smoothly, with only the barest hint of motion. The card ejected, and the doors parted for her on floor 17 of the main tower.
The luxury “Ambassador’s suite” beat out anything she’d ever experienced before. Dana felt a pang of guilt and grief that the Taurian was… “He’s dead,” she admitted sadly, realizing, “there’s no way he could have survived that explosion.”
Tears poured down her cheeks as she mumbled, “Golightly,” the Tritian blessing honoring the dead, mourning his loss. No one else would. Taurian had no family, no spouse, and very few fans, even among the Tritian ambassadorial delegation.
Enough to want to kill him? Perhaps…
Dana bowed her head, sadly repeating the blessing. Taurian had always treated her fairly, in his own quirky, fatherly way.
She sighed, taking her first look around, dropping the backpack onto the carpet in the luxuriously furnished, common room, attacking the duplicator, demanding a full glass of filtered water. Other beverages were available on the menu, but they didn’t mix well with painkillers.
She ordered a second glass, and took it along on her hopping tour of the suite, spilling not one drop. All three sleeping chambers were identical masters with adjoining private showers. She chose the middle one, stripped off the jumpsuit, unbraided her disheveled hair, and used the sonic shower. The resort provided a finishing rinse for her hair, a comb, and even hand and body lotions.
A lush, lounging robe hung on the back of the door, just waiting to be tied about her; but she delayed, taking a long, careful look in the full-length mirror at the array of bruises all over her petite frame. The one under her left eye smarted to the touch, but it would heal and fade just like the others, hopefully in a few days.
The left leg, however, was another matter altogether. She tested putting weight on it, instantly regretting it, wincing from the revived, searing pain that only a dose from the injector could calm.
Six more doses.
“Aquatic therapy,” she decided, recalling the desk clerk’s mention of the pool and spa.
The luxury robe was three sizes too big, but she tied the belt and made do, hoping they provided swimsuits — or had a no suit policy. She slid the room pass and credit card into the pocket of the robe, and hobbled back to the lift, going to explore.
The spa provided towels and floats. However, after careful inspection, she found no swimsuits and there were no signs. Dana felt a bit fearful of jumping in sans clothing. Yet, she saw not another soul.
The place reminded her of the basement facilities at Earth’s Medical Center East, where she had been on staff as an ER surgeon. Three pools…
She tested the middle one with her left toe, lost her balance and fell in, face first, robe and all.
When she surfaced and spit out a mouthful of foul tasting, chemically treated water, a humanoid male, in a crisp white, resort uniform, was crouching poolside.
He asked in Uni, “Need help?”
“Stairs?” Dana gulped, treading water.
He pointed to the far end of the pool.
“Changing rooms?”
He shrugged, obviously not understanding.
“Women’s? Men’s?”
“Uni…” he said, indicating a far doorway.
“Unisex?” Cartwright nodded, wading along, using the edge of the pool for support. The tension in her body began to fade away as she pulled herself up the stairs using the safety rail, though the soaked bathrobe weighed her down.
“Unisex…” she grumbled, feeling like she was back at academy. “Oh, well…”
Dana abandoned the robe into a mound, and hopped along the wall until reaching a sandstone bench inside the changing room, finding unisex swimsuit bottoms but no tops, and a massive stack of lush towels.
Wrapping one about her middle, she sank down on the bench, exhausted from her foray into the pool, quaking with both anger and fear.
None of her years of Star Service or medical training prepared her for this situation — being on the needing side, instead of in a position of authority.
“Focus!” She mulled some options. “Can’t stay here. Need to get off T-III. No…first, I need a surgeon…not one of these barbarians. Need help, but where? Spaceport administration?” She decided, “Yes, they should be able to help.”
The humanoid pool attendant was standing in the doorway, staring.
“Something wrong?” She snapped.
He held out her room pass and credit card. “These were in the robe pocket.”
“Thank you…” She gave him a big smile.
He took a few steps inside the changing area to deliver them. Only when he stood before her, did she realize, as she looked up and met his gaze, “Your eyes?”
He blinked and stared back.
His eyes were mismatched, blue left and brown right, identical to hers.
“I’m January,” she whispered, mouth gaping open. “Dana January…”
It meant nothing to him.
“What’s your name?” She demanded.
“Ricco.”
It meant nothing to her.
Perhaps it was just a coincidence; nothing about him resembled her brother, Novem, or her sister, April, except for the eyes.
“Fascinating,” she decided, “two in thirty-million have mismatched eyes.”
He stared blankly. “I’ve never met anyone else who…”
“I have.” Dana took the room pass and credit card as a very loud and obnoxious couple invaded the room, preparing for a dip in the pool.
Ricco offered to fetch another robe and left for a time. She didn’t move from the bench.
Her left leg throbbed, from the knee down to the big toe, and the beginnings of a dull headache centered just above her eyebrows, either a residual from the pain meds or from the chemicals in the pool water.
The dip was a bad idea.
Ricco whispered, “Are you all right, Miss January?” when he returned with the robe.
Dana stared straight ahead, sensing empathetically genuine concern. She promised, “I’ll be fine,” and watched via the mirror, as he retreated. The Dana reflected
there clearly didn’t believe a word of it.
“Get some sleep… You’ll be able to think more clearly afterwards,” she ordered. Wearing a scanty complimentary swimsuit bottom and the fresh robe, she hopped back to the lift to return to the suite.
Someone’s been inside.
Dana’s instincts shouted caution, but she saw and heard no one. Yet, the backpack was moved to a closet and the two jumpsuits were carefully hung there as well, all refreshed and ready. On the wet bar was a food basket, with a variety of fruits and individually wrapped snack cakes.
A card, propped up next to the basket, read: “Welcome to T-town.” There was no signature.
She rushed to the sleep chamber, thankfully finding that the medical injector was still there, along with fresh towels and a fresh robe.
“Sleep…” She tossed the slightly damp robe aside, after emptying the pockets onto the bedside stand, and then stretched out her wounded leg, exhaling through the pain.
The bed was so comfortable, she quickly dozed off.
CHAPTER FOUR
Sunlight blasted through the cracks at the edge of the window coverings and a ray fell across the bed, burning her arm.
Dana pulled away quickly, abruptly coming awake in the strange room and in the strange bed, with a dull ache between her eyebrows.
Definitely a residual from the pain medications…
She stifled a yawn, blinked, tested flexing her left leg, regretted it, then focused on an amber glow coming from the common room. The idea of going to investigate crossed her mind, but she felt no urgency until a buzzing sound came from the same general direction.
Once up and into a robe, she hopped toward the doorway just in time to hear a mechanical voice repeat, “…See you at 1200 hours.” The amber lamp now blinked double-time.
Two messages, Dana guessed. She tasted a piece of red fruit from the gift basket, smiled, and then ordered the machine, “Retrieve all.”
The device dutifully complied, repeating the first message. “Spaceport Commissioner Stevenson will see you at 0800 hours local. Store or delete?”
She frowned, seeing the time was already 1028. “Delete and continue.”
The second message — the same mechanical voice — said, “Spaceport Commissioner Stevenson will see you at 1200 hours local. Store or delete?”
Dana scowled. “Delete.”
The amber light winked out and the device fell silent.
After a second piece of the juicy red fruit, she hopped over to the duplicator, requesting a tall glass of filtered water. It barely quenched her thirst, so she ordered a second and only then began to think clearly.
“Get dressed. Check out of this place. Get to the spaceport.” It seemed a logical plan.
She inserted a few more subroutines like, use the facilities, braid hair, pack some of the goodies from the food basket into the backpack, along with the spare jumpsuit.
Wearing the other comfortable jumpsuit along with bath slippers on her feet, pocketing the room pass and transportation card, Dana headed down to the front desk, backpack slung over one shoulder.
A different orange-complexioned, young woman staffed the desk; this one was far more helpful. “You have 17,000 credits as a refund. Would you like it all on one card; or do you prefer some in local currency?”
“Some local would be good,” Dana responded, vaguely recalling the Ambassador mentioning that it might be needed.
Dana accepted one thousand in assorted denominations of bills, and a resort logo credit card, presumably with the remainder of the refund.
“Sorry you can’t stay for the entire week,” the clerk said.
Cartwright forced a smile. “I had a dip in the pool.”
“Wonderful.”
Dana turned away, secreting the currency and card into a compartment under the backpack flap, sealing it. As she returned the pack to her shoulder, her eyes lighted upon a shop just off the main lobby. She hopped that way, browsing a display of solar cloaks — from the ghastly dotted pink to a macabre jet black — all with price tags of ten thousand and up.
Rats! Have to do without.
Instead, she found a cheap pair of gray, thigh-high boots and asked to try them on. With a little assistance from the clerk, she found they fit and even helped relieve some of the pain in her left leg and were well-worth the two thousand credits.
“I’ll wear them,” Dana decided, offering the credit card to pay, returning it to the secret compartment after use.
The clerk accepted the declaration and went back to clerking as Dana hobbled across the lobby to the exit.
A robo-cab hovered just under the awning, in the shade. She fell in, got settled on the front seat, then used the original credit card the staffer at the medical center had given her.
Destination: Spaceport administration.
The protective solar screen came down and the cab zoomed away from the lavish resort, into the blinding rays of the blazing sun. The temperature inside the cab rose, easily twenty degrees before Dana had the presence of mind to manipulate the climate controls.
“Have to be careful,” she chided herself. “Feeling dull-minded…spacey.”
A landmark list scrolled by once again on the front map screen. She memorized it, without really caring why, just to pass the time until the cab deposited her underground at the spaceport transportation hub. It spit out the credit card as the solar shield opened for her to exit the cab.
After hobbling about, wasting time searching for a map of the facility, she stopped a uniformed female and asked for directions.
By the time she reached Stevenson’s offices at 1205, his mechanical droid assistant scolded, “You must now wait to see the Commissioner at 1400 hours.”
She sank down on an uncommonly comfortable sofa in the waiting area and dozed.
Dec poked Janz awake in time to feel the ship begin deceleration. “Get up!”
Macao obeyed, shakily standing, biting back sciatic nerve pain running down his right leg, as Dec motioned him to a privy, past some of the other guards and followed inside a stall.
Silently, Dec pointed to the latrine.
Macao was glad for the relief, but unprepared for the pounding on his back and let out several loud yelps.
Dec crowded him and whispered in his ear, “The others will think you are my slave now. Submit and I will protect you, friend of January.”
Macao got the picture all too clearly, gritted his teeth and nodded, leaning hard against the metal frame to give Dec room to relieve himself. He hung his head as they passed the other guards, while going back to the holding area, sat where Dec commanded, and cowered while silently mulling, What have I gotten myself into?
His wife and life-mate whispered telepathically, Be patient, Beloved.
Macao responded, nervously, Stay with me, Shalee?
Always…My love.
Cartwright instantly disliked the fat man, from both an empathetic sensation and an emotional reaction.
Stevenson spread out in an oversized command chair — probably scavenged from one of the big, retired battleships — behind a grossly massive, black desk, wearing a shimmering, light-blue uniform two sizes too small for his volume. He had silver eyes, that looked like shiny coins with beady little black dots in the center, and scolded her with them, the way DOC Cartwright, her adoptive father, always had.
Empathetically, she detected a subversive message and knew, I wasn’t supposed to survive. Stevenson knew much more than a spaceport commissioner should about Seraph and Ambassador Taurian’s death.
Dana remained calm, face stoic, as she stared down T-III’s Spaceport Commissioner. Neither blinked.
“You skipped out before affixing a seal to the investigator’s report.” He indicated a padlet on her side of the desk with his misshapen, massive right hand that was missing the two middle digits.
Dana glanced at the report. “This is inaccurate. I will not certify it.”
“You lied to the investigator?”
; “He lied to you. I told him Seraph did not crash upon landing,” Dana said, emphasizing crash.
“That’s your story?”
Dana’s spine stiffened. “Seraph did not crash, sir. Something in a storage compartment exploded.”
“Very well, I will amend the statement accordingly. A review board shall convene a hearing in two or three days. You must attend.”
Her heart sank. That meant no escape from T-III on the next flight out.
Fane!
She waited for more, since he obviously hadn’t dismissed her.
“Now then, about the concealed weapon,” he snapped, producing from somewhere in a desk drawer the Sterillian blade. He played with it, inspecting the blade tip and especially noted with a frown that a gemstone in the pommel was missing, making it far less valuable as a resale item.
“I claim diplomatic immunity as the Ambassador’s aide,” Cartwright responded firmly, worried that he wouldn’t return her property.
That caused the fat man’s face to warp into an unflattering frown. “Very well, so noted. Since that position no longer exists, the immunity is terminated, effective immediately.” He slid the blade back in the sheath and hid it back in the drawer. “Dismissed!”
He didn’t have to tell her twice.
Dana hobbled about the spaceport, wandering aimlessly for a time, desperately trying to calm her anger and soothe her disappointment. By that time, she’d returned to her starting point, having made the full circle. Glancing upward, she spotted a gadget shop on the level above. Since everything she owned was, presumably, destroyed with Seraph or in the Commissioner’s paws — and she had several days to kill — a new padlet seemed in order. She took the moving stairs up to the second level and hopped across the walkway to the shop.
The reptilian clerk, well over twice her height, lounged back behind an overloaded display case. A dark-green, scaled Rigelian, with dark eyes, he offered a friendly gesture with his four-clawed right appendage. “We have everything,” he said in both Earth standard and Uni.
Dana bet he did. “I need a new padlet.”
Dana Cartwright Mission 3: Kal-King Page 2