*****
Kati dug a wipe from her pants’ pocket to sop up the tears that were running down her cheeks. Lienel r’pa Gradin had kept her in his office for some time, talking about how he had scouted among the Granda’s record of her memories, trying to find some clue to her home world. The astronomy book had been a lucky find, but he had been shocked when he had realized its implications.
“The gall of that Slaver,” he had exclaimed. “I suppose that he has been congratulating himself for his cleverness in flouting the very laws of space and time for profit! But he was bound to hit a snag, sooner or later, and, it seems that you, Kati of Terra are that snag. If he hadn’t snatched you....” His words had trailed off.
The ocean side park was evidently popular with the residents of the City. Children ran around, laughing and playing. Some of them were the pale, hairless, big-headed, but slight locals, while others were dark, sturdy Shelonians, and bronze-coloured, hairy Borhquans. There were many whose looks varied from what Kati recognized as normal human, to appearances totally unfamiliar to her. The adults around them seemed to encourage the children to spend time with each other, creating their own games, and policing the rules they made, without grown-up help. Kati had seen this kind of thing at the crèche where she had done work shifts, and it had intrigued her, striking her as a good idea, a way to encourage the children to take responsibility for their own entertainment. Now, watching it here in the park, she found herself desperately wishing that Jake could have been with her, joining in the games. He would have loved it.
“Can I help you in any way?”
Kati looked up from drying her eyes, to see a Lamanian woman sit down on the bench beside her, concern in her huge, blue eyes. It was too much. That a stranger should have stopped to express worry about her just when she had begun to fall apart seemed too absurdly apt. Another flood of tears poured down Kati’s cheeks and she found herself sniffling inelegantly while the woman beside her dug from the bag she had with her, a towel-sized wipe and offered it to her.
“Thank you,” Kati mumbled, and put it to use, sopping up tears, and a runny nose as well.
The woman beside her waited silently while Kati fought to get her emotions under control.
“There’s no help for me, I’m afraid,” she finally muttered. “I can’t deny the hurt any longer.”
She swallowed.
“I lost my son sometime ago, but I was too busy to grieve the loss,” she explained in a shaky voice. “Now I have time on my hands, and I guess that the sight of all these children at play just broke through all the blocks I’d built up.”
She stared at her hands, nervously twisting the damp wipe between them.
“The loss of a child—that is bad,” the woman beside her said kindly. “Nor is it a burden to be carried alone. If you want to talk about it, I’ll be glad to listen.”
Kati stared at her. Who was this woman?
“She’s a pro,” the Granda subvocalized inside her head. For a second the image of a portly, brown-robed monk flashed through her mind.
“I activated the tracer the Social Services set, when I saw that this park that you chose to explore was full of children,” The Monk continued. “I sensed your distress before you did, and thought that you could use the services of one of the mental health professionals who take calls around the city. That ridiculous Social Services Organization may as well do something useful, once in a while.”
Well, that explained that. The old Granda had been looking after her, as it now and then did. Perhaps the reprobate was softening up just a tiny bit—Mikal had told her that this would eventually happen. The contact with her personality, less violent than those with which it had been associating through its earlier incarnations, should rub off on the node, making its personality more tolerable.
Kati turned to study the woman who was waiting for her to make up her mind. She was delicate-looking like all Lamanians were, except for the large head which gave her a slightly child-like appearance, at least to Kati. She was dressed all in blue, from the usual hood which left only her pale face bare, down to a uniform which, except for the colour, looked much like the one Caryn r’pa Voris, Kati’s assigned Social Worker, wore on duty. The eyes which were on Kati even as Kati was watching her, were compassionate.
“Yes, it might help to talk,” Kati said at last, managing to pull her features into an expression that slightly resembled a smile.
“Good.” The Lamanian smiled back. “I was hoping that you would agree to do so. It can help to discuss your feelings in a situation like this.
“Marga r’pa Vadin is my name, by the way. If you want to check me out, your node can do so through the tracer.”
“She’s legit,” The Monk subvocalized before Kati had a chance to ask him anything. “I’m way ahead of both of you.”
Kati nodded to Marga.
“There’s an office we can use just outside this park, if you prefer privacy,” Marga said, “or we can walk the oceanside Promenade.”
“The office, please.”
Kati wanted to get away from the children, not that they were doing anything to disturb her. Their presence, however, right now, pained her. She found herself wondering if Marga could prescribe a sedative for her.
Her node nixed that notion immediately.
“The Lamanians don’t medicate emotional or mental ailments,” The Monk told her primly. “They consider that sort of medicine to be on par with sweeping dirt under a rug. This woman is an expert in talk therapy, which should be all that you need. In a difficult case a Shelonian Healer may be brought in to do psychic healing, but I very much doubt that you’ll need that.”
The office turned out to be on the second floor of the five story building which housed the gondola terminus from which Kati had approached the park. The first floor was filled with Lamanian versions of restaurants, bars and shops, the shops filled with items that park-users might want to have, or borrow. Kati had given these sorts of shops a wide berth, except when she was accompanied by her Social Worker and picking up necessities; she had been unable to get used to taking whatever she wanted without paying for it, merely running her left thumb across a scanner as she entered. The “office” that Marga led her into, looked like a small living room, furnished with comfortable couches and chairs, and with small tables scattered here and there. In fact, it looked a lot like the Common Room in the Transient Quarters where she was staying, complete with a well-stocked food and drink cooler at the far end.
It was empty when they arrived, and Marga secured the door behind them. Here was another instance of the Lamanians’ eschewal of high-tech solutions when low-tech would do; the office door had been open when they arrived, clearly to indicate that the room was not in use, and Marga closed it with a simple, mechanical lock that would not have looked out of place on Kati’s world. Briefly Kati wondered what would happen in an emergency, but quickly dismissed any worry. The Lamanians were an old race; certainly they had built in safeguards into their housing to allow emergency entry when necessary.
Marga indicated that Kati should seat herself while she went to the cooler.
“Have you eaten anything this afternoon?” she asked Kati while taking two beautiful drinking glasses from a shelf and filling them from containers in the cooler. One she filled with a clear liquid, the other one with a gold-coloured elixir.
“No,” Kati replied, thinking back upon her day. “Come to think of it, I guess I haven’t had a meal since eating breakfast at the Transient Housing.”
She was too embarrassed to add that she had avoided going to a cafe because dealing with Lamania’s cashless economy made her feel like a fraud and a thief.
Marga did not comment. Instead, she simply grabbed a sizeable plate from another shelf, and filled it with a variety of finger foods from the cooler. Then she brought it, and the golden juice, to the table nearest to Kati, took the colourless glass for herself, and bade Kati to eat and drink.
“That,” she said point
ing to the gold liquid in Kati’s glass, “is an herbal infusion which is very relaxing. With what your node can do for you when it comes to easing tension, it should make our probing of your emotional scabs a lot easier.”
“I’m on the job,” the Granda subvocalized. “And, no, that stuff is not a pharmaceutical. It is exactly what the woman’s says it is. Eat, girl. And begin the therapy.”
*****
After a couple of hours of talking about her past—and about Jake—Kati was surprised by how much better she felt. Either Marga was a well-trained counsellor, or she was naturally gifted for the job, or both; she certainly seemed to know when to let her patient talk, when to gently probe at sores, and when to empathize with her distress. At the end Marga said that she would accompany Kati back to the Transient Quarters.
“It’s better if you don’t travel alone,” she told Kati, sounding both kind and authoritative at once. “Now that I have counselled you, I am responsible for your safety until you get home. Besides, I want to talk to the Social Services at the Transient Housing. I don’t quite understand why you haven’t been moved into an apartment yet. There are plenty available at the Comfort Level to which you are entitled.”
“Caryn told me that there was not much of anything to be had at the Subsistence Level,” Kati said, puzzled.
Marga stared at her.
“Subsistence Level? What is that young woman trying to pull off?” She looked annoyed. “I checked your status, and The Peace Officer Corps has authorized you to the Professional Level of Rewards. You helped one of their Agents escape confinement aboard a slaver space vessel, and afterwards, to get off the planet Makros III, where both of you were stranded. Once this six-month separation from Agent Mikal r’ma Trodden is over, Maryse r’ma Darien wants you to start working for The Corps.”
They had reached the stairs that would take them to the gondola terminus at the top of the building. There was an elevator which took people up there, too, but only the infirm, or adults accompanying small children, used it. Kati had been fascinated to see how diligent the able-bodied of The Second City were about doing their own climbing.
“We Lamanians like to stay healthy,” had been the only response she had received when she had questioned Caryn about it.
One of her passing acquaintances in the Transient Quarters had been less polite:
“The residents of this city take pride in being physically fit, and in not wasting resources,” the travelling Shelonian had answered Kati’s comment. “And they’re unbearably smug about it.”
His moon face had broken into a crooked grin after the words.
“We Shelonians and Lamanians also like to give each other a hard time when the opportunity arises,” he had added with a wink.
As far as she could tell, no-one ever was anything but polite to the old folk, and often passers-by would help a crèche worker who struggled to corral his or her charges into an elevator, but the helpers themselves would turn around and climb the stairs. Kati wished that she could have asked Mikal about peculiarities like this one; she wondered if, perhaps, a civilization that had survived intact through the changes of more than a thousand years, learned to use the motive power of the members’ bodies whenever possible, instead of wasting other resources to haul them about, and then have them suffer from lack of exercise.
Marga and Kati let their conversation drift into abeyance while they climbed the stairs and settled into a four-person gondola that was a part of a fleet, heading in the direction of the Transient Quarters and the Star Port, at the other side of the City.
“Is that true about the Rewards Level?” Kati subvocalized to her node during the lull in the conversation.
“Yes,” The Monk replied. “Didn’t I tell you not to worry about the expense of anything you wanted? Your tastes are so modest that you could be picking up goods and drinking spirits for a couple of years at least, before you’d get a reminder to put in an extra day’s work, even if you sat on your ass all day, every day.”
“I have no intention of ‘sitting on my ass’,” Kati protested.
“True, so true. So will you quit worrying about what your simple wants cost the Lamanian society? Maryse r’ma Darien thinks you’re a credit to it, obviously, to the tune of having awarded you the entitlement to the Professional Level of Rewards. Of course she’s bribing you to go work for her when your half-year of banishment to the Social Services desert is over....”
Kati cut the tirade short by pushing the Granda into the back of her mind, a crude but effective method for shutting it up. Not that The Monk didn’t have a point; every Star Federation Agent on the Torrones ship that had brought her and Mikal from Makros III to The Second City, had told her that her feats had, without doubt, won her a spot on Maryse’s team. Some of them, like Jeffo, whom she had suspected of harbouring ulterior motives, had even insisted that she would make a better Peace Officer than Mikal was, thanks to her unusual talents. Mikal, ever the gentleman, had declined to gainsay that, but Kati herself had considered that kind of talk just so much nonsense. Mikal had years of training in the business; she was a rank amateur. Yes, she had ESP talents that he did not have, and an active imagination which allowed her to dream up novel ways to tackle difficult situations. Plus, there was the Granda node, the translation node with a crazy personality, which, at times, could be a very useful ally. At other times it was actually a danger to her and those around her; there had been a couple of times on the Drowned Planet when it had almost succeeded in luring her into violence, before she had fully realized what was happening. A dangerous ally the Granda could be, especially if she was to work with the Star Federation Peace Office Corps whose members were required to take an oath of non-violence when signing on.
The gondola worker who ushered Kati and Marga into the unit already occupied by a married couple was a young Lamanian woman wearing the orange uniform of the City Transit Service. She secured the door behind them, and hurried off to help other passengers.
“Looks like it’s a busy time for transit,” said the husband of the couple, looking before them, and behind. “There are at least ten gondolas in this fleet; that girl is going to have to use a boost to get us all underway.”
One of the first times that Kati had used the Gondola Service, she had been in a unit with three Transit workers who had tried to satisfy her curiosity about how the gondolas worked. However, her grasp of physics had not been adequate to the task, and finally she had just shook her head and laughed nervously.
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” one of the orange-clad workers had said. “They’re built according to Shelonian engineering techniques, so they’ll work just fine whether the travellers understand the principles or not. Most of the new Wilders have trouble grasping them, even with node-enhanced brains. Should you decide to study engineering, someone will fill your cranium with all that stuff.”
“We Lamanians like to think of ourselves as the scientists whose principles the Shelonians use to create the marvels that they build,” the woman beside him had added, with a laugh. “But, of course, the three of us here, we’re just transit workers, never spent time in a laboratory in our lives.”
“Yeah, but,” the third, another young man, had drawled, “we’re as important to society as the research types. The Transit Service needs people to run it, and we of the orange uniforms are it.”
Apparently running the Gondola Service involved more than just ushering passengers in, and closing the doors behind them. What using “a boost” amounted to, Kati did not know, but obviously the young woman on the job did—and had to.
The trip across the city involved two transfer points at which Marga and Kati switched from one gondola group to another. The Granda node kept track of necessities like that for Kati, and since everyone in The Second City was equipped with a node, there was almost no confusion at the transfer points . However, had there been such, the efficient, orange-suited workers would have ushered patrons where they needed to go, just as they had done
to Kati during her first gondola trips. The first day that Kati had braved the gondolas, the Transit Worker whom she had approached for help had told her that she enjoyed it when newcomers came through her station.
“Normally this job is pretty routine,” she had explained. “It’s kind of nice to direct a person who doesn’t know how to get to where he or she is going. It happens only now and then; the next time you come through here, your node will send you the right way, without any help from me.”
*****
The Transient Housing was in a lovely building; this in a city filled with beautiful buildings. Kati had not minded staying there; her quarters consisted of a room and a bath, one of a half-dozen clustered around a Common Room and a small kitchen which she had not yet attempted to use, other than to make herbal tea. The large coolers in the Common Room were well stocked with prepared foods, so there was little need to use the kitchen, unless a person had special dietary needs or desires. Stocking the coolers was one of the jobs done by the people living in the building, during their two-day work shifts. Residents could choose to spend their required two work days out of six doing necessary tasks around the building; Kati had done this during one six-day period, discovering at the time that groups of four workers would pick up prepared foods at several nearby restaurants, and transport them to their destination via the maglev cars that used underground passages to scurry around the city. The work had been easy, but she had recognized that it would become tedious as soon as the novelty wore off. Thus, she had chosen to volunteer for other work details, including stints at the nearby crèche where her willingness to entertain the youngsters with songs and stories had immediately endeared her to all.
“How do you feel about working at the crèche?” Marga asked as they walked from the gondola terminus towards the Transient Quarters. “You’re not having negative emotional reactions there, are you?”
On Assignment to the Planet of the Exalted Page 2