The captain tried to ignore her grumbling, but the only other distraction on the ConDeck was Kaycee sitting behind him on one of the jump seats. For the last six days she’d been beating the same one-trick-wonder to death. He knew he shouldn’t complain, since at least she was back to talking to him. For the most part.
“I’ll admit he’s not an ordinary passenger,” he said, turning to face the doctor and shrugging. “The only thing I can say is he’ll be getting off here, and if he goes psychotic, it won’t be our problem.”
“He’s not human,” she said. “He can’t be. Nothing about him works right.”
“You’ve said that before,” he said.
“Did you know he hasn’t eaten a bite of food from the galley in the whole time he’s been aboard?”
“Dr. Blake said he has some kind of dietary issue,” he said, shrugging.
“I know,” she said. “He does eat every five hours, without exception. At least I think that’s what he’s doing in the cargo container when he goes in there.”
“Every five hours?” the captain asked. He didn’t see the idea that someone had brought their own meals along as enough evidence to be an issue.
“Regularly,” she said. “You could set a chrono by it. He never sleeps through a meal time either.”
“So? Some people have strange eating habits,” he said.
“He’s not human,” she repeated.
“I get that you think so but, unless you scanned him, that’s just a wild-ass assumption,” Ethan said. “You didn’t scan him, did you?”
“No, I couldn’t get a chance,” she admitted. “At least one of the others was with him every time I got close enough.”
“You tried?” he asked.
“Damn sure I did,” she said.
“You do know that doing a bioscan without consent is—”
“Yah I do, but you’ve got no room to lecture me on ethics and law,” she snapped. “I know there’s something going on. Even you have to admit he’s not normal.”
“But ‘not normal’ is still not a reason for violating his rights,” he said.
“If he’s not human, it might be questionable if he has rights at all,” she said.
Nuko shot him a disapproving side eye but didn’t speak up. She was in the process of flipping the ship to line the cargo container up on the docking arm, so couldn’t spare any time arguing with Kaycee.
“Alright I’ll ignore the legal side of this because you said you didn’t get the scan, but you have to have a reason to say he’s not human. That’s a hell of a claim to make with no evidence other than his strange feeding habits.”
“Most of the sibling civilizations are humanoid to some degree. The one down there is one that could pass outwardly as human,” she said, waving her arm in the planet’s direction. “In fact, when I looked it up, it was one of the closest to a perfect match to us that we’ve discovered.”
“You think he’s from Dawn?”
“I don’t know, because I couldn’t scan him,” she said.
“They are a preindustrial civilization,” Nuko said, without turning to look at the doctor. “We’re supposed to have no contact at all with them.”
“Exactly my point,” Kaycee said. “If he is from Dawn, then he shouldn’t have been taken off world at all. The bigger crime would be that he has been, and not that I tried to violate his rights by snooping.”
“I’ll give you that, but it takes more than oddness to prove something like that,” he said “And honestly in another ten minutes it doesn’t matter.”
A slight vibration in the deck plates told Ethan that they’d made hard dock to the station. “As soon as Marcus Elarah walks through the lock, it’s over in my mind. We’ll be out of here and on our way home in an hour and you can quit worrying about it. You are starting to sound more than a little paranoid you know.”
She glared down at the floor and shook her head. “Paranoid doesn’t make me wrong though.” Standing up and shooting him an expression that said she wasn’t done with this, she disappeared through the door.
“Marti, let the passengers know that as soon as we’re equalized, they’re free to disembark,” he said, sitting down and sighing.
“She’s got to get a hobby or something,” Nuko said.
“She’s a high-credit medical professional running cargo in the middle of nowhere,” he said. “That’s a tough reality for her. Anybody with that kind of mental horsepower will create imaginary demons a lot of the time. Conspiracy theories are the luxury of a bored mind.”
“I wonder if there’s a medication for that,” she said.
“I don’t know, but the sooner we get disconnected from this load and out of here the sooner she can start digging up something else to chew on,” he said.
“Captain, on that subject, the Watchtower Station Logistics officer is holding on the comm,” Marti said. “He wants to know when we will offload the cargo.”
“Offload?” he growled. “I’m going to have to have words with Ammo. As far as a broker goes, she seems to have a habit of not telling me about details like this.”
“It is in the contract, Captain,” Marti said.
“I guess I’ll have to start reading them, and not relying on her, or you, to tell me what’s going on,” he said, sighing. “Put him on.”
“His name is Axel Romanov,” Marti said as the comm went live.
“Mr. Romanov, this is Captain Walker,” he said.
“Captain Walker, I understand you didn’t know that this would be a hand stack offload,” Romanov said.
“Apparently it was in the contract, but I didn’t see it,” he said. “I thought we were doing a drop and run.”
“Unfortunately, Watchtower is a small station and we don’t have the ability to leave a cargo module attached to an airlock,” he said.
Ethan sighed. “It’s not a big load but I’ve only got two handlers. I would have brought a couple more with us if I’d been paying better attention, but my AA does have several automech we can put into the effort. We’ll get started on unloading as soon as the passengers have processed off the ship.”
“We’ve got plenty of labor, but our docking arm is small, and we need to distribute things as they come off. I’d say, from looking over the manifest, it will take a few days to get you completely unloaded and cleared.”
Ethan scratched his head. “Alright. I’ll try to figure out how to keep my people out of the way while you take care of the muscle work. Fortunately, we’re not on a tight schedule on the other end of this, so we can hold over as long as it takes.”
“The Operations Manager has offered to give you and your crew access to the station and our recreation areas. I know this is a small station, but we have an extensive media center and there are two cafes and a fairly serious tavern on deck four. You might be surprised at the active social life we’ve got here.”
“I’m sure it is a wonderful place,” Ethan said, glancing over at Nuko and winking.
“We figured out a long time ago that when you’re locked inside a bubble like we are, it’s important to keep morale high. Good food and a lot of alcohol help.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” the captain said, laughing. “I’ll pass the word to my crew. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Captain,” he said, cutting off the comm from his end.
He dropped his head forward and stared at the deck.
“It won’t be that bad,” Nuko said. “It’ll be like a mini vacation. Treat it like a chance to learn something about the natives down there. Like a visit to a museum.”
He rolled his eyes to the side and looked at her. “Yah, and another three days for Kaycee to chase her conspiracy demons.”
Chapter Five
Watchtower Station was over forty years old. By no means was it as old as some original parts of Armstrong or Galileo, but it felt on the graying edge of obsolescence. Kaycee almost didn’t notice the patina of wear, until she stepped out into the sharp contrast of the
Medical Services Center. What had felt familiar and expected as the age of a well-worn deck, jarred against the top tier… everything?
An automated receptionist greeted her as she came through the double biolock doors. “Please state the nature of your medical concerns,” it said. A smiling face appeared on a holographic screen.
“I’m looking to check in with the Director of Medical Services,” she said.
“He is unavailable at the moment. If your need is urgent, may I assist you?”
“No, it’s not urgent,” she said. “I was seeking some information regarding someone that recently arrived.”
“Patient records are confidential, and that information is restricted to credentialed medical personnel only, and only as relevant.”
“I understand that,” she said setting her thumb on the biometric scanner and waiting while it extracted whatever data it needed. It was a sophisticated interface, but she knew that behind the pretty moving picture, it would still be no more than a generation three AA system.
Several milliseconds later the screen blinked green. Confirmed: Smythe-Caldwell, Keira A., MD. PhD. STIF.
“Nice. What kind of system are you?” she asked. “That’s a fast scan you’re swinging.”
“I am a Cyberquan-Twelve AA system. My biometric scanner is a gas genetic spectrograph with redundant tomographic quantification,” it said. “I have notified Dr. Forrester and he will be with you immediately.”
How does an armpit station like this rate a first order AA? she thought as she walked over to the side of the waiting area and stared into an aquarium projection. It was, like everything else in the medical center, an absolute work of art. Exotic and unidentifiable fish swam in circles, in a perfectly synched display.
She was about to turn away and take a seat when something odd caught her eye. A dead fish lay half eaten in the back corner of the tank. Why would they do that in a projection? she wondered. Nobody wants to see dead fish.
“Unless,” she whispered, reaching up and tapping a fingernail on the plasglass screen. One of the larger fish, a black monstrosity with a huge mouth full of rows of sharp teeth, launched itself toward her fingertip, smashing its face into the transparent wall with a resounding thud.
She jerked her hand away. “Those are real fish?”
“Yes, they are, Dr. Smythe-Caldwell,” a man said behind her. She spun to face him embarrassed at her reaction to the fish attack.
“I don’t recognize any of them,” she said. “I prefer to use just Caldwell, or even Kaycee,” she said, smiling and unleashing her assault level charm. She needed something from him and so she pulled out all the tools in her kit. “And you must be Dr. Forrester?”
“I am,” he said, smiling.
She could see him start to thaw as he looked her over.
“The arm is a dead giveaway,” she said. He was wearing a medical augmentation arm and she recognized the tool end for neurological surgery as it dangled above his shoulder in standby mode. She added a wink for effect.
“Sorry, I just completed some work and haven’t had a chance to unplug,” he said, almost looking embarrassed. “What can I do for you?”
“I don’t know if you can help me, but I’m looking for information on one of our passengers,” she said. “I’m hoping I can tap your database since I assume his records would have traveled with him.”
“That might be somewhat irregular,” he said.
“You’re a neurosurgeon?” she asked, ignoring his feeble protest and leaning in close to look at his arm. She lingered close enough to let him get a full dose of her pheromones. He seemed like a friendly enough sort for a small-station doctor, but she knew she had to work his libido against his mind. She just hoped playing his ego, would push him into bending the rules. “I always thought that was the highest level of surgical skill in medicine.”
Of course, it was strange that a doctor on a station this size would casually be doing neurosurgery. Nothing seemed to stack up straight.
He nodded and glanced around nervously. “Since you’ve got credentials, I think we can give you a peak.” He turned to head over to the console behind the receptionist and began log in. “What’s this person’s name?”
“Marcus Elarah,” she said.
He froze in the middle of tapping in his access code, spinning back in her direction. His augment arm almost poked her in the face. “Was Marcus a problem in some way?”
“Do you know him?” she asked, jumping back and trying to read his expression. She felt a sudden need to be out of his arm’s reach.
Since Marcus was an observer, and not someone who was regular staff or crew on the station, the fact that he knew him by name didn’t make sense.
He paused, blinking several times. His face ratcheted down to a blank expression in increments. “No,” he said.
“He presented with some abnormal behavioral patterns and I was wondering if he has some kind of underlying condition,” she said, pressing forward against what had become a wall of resistance.
“He behaved incorrectly?” he asked. His eyes looked like he was struggling to say more but he couldn’t form the words. His augment arm twitched behind his head.
Nervously?
“His behavior was odd, yes,” she said. She felt a wave of frustration as she watched an emotional curtain draw around him. It bore an uncanny resemblance to the one that shrouded Marcus.
“I do not have any information I can share on the patient,” he said. The arm twitched again.
Patient? Either he knows him, or he doesn’t. To call someone a patient before he was one, was a degree of professional familiarity that didn’t fit.
“Do you routinely do a baseline screening on new arrivals?” she asked, stepping back another half pace.
“No,” he said. This time his arm snapped up and down rapidly. Almost like it was nodding.
“Not under any circumstances?” she asked. “Aren’t you concerned about environmental contamination?”
The arm froze motionless as he thought about an answer. “We require them for personnel who will return to the surface after being away. Or for new arrivals on their first deployment.”
“Will Marcus be returning to the surface?” she asked.
“Unlikely,” he said, clearing his throat and shooting her with a glare that looked like he was in pain. “He, will… has… not… be, returning… been, to… down there.” The arm twitched back and forth, and his eyes glazed over. “I do not know if he will be deployed. He is an operational observer from Proxima.”
“I understand,” she said, raising an eyebrow as she tried to decipher what was going on. He’s acting less normal than Marcus.
“If you do an exam on him before I leave, I would like to be present,” she said.
“That will not be possible,” he said. The arm jerked up and down again. “You are not a staff member here.”
“I understand, but I have some expertise in abnormal psychology,” she said.
“I appreciate your offer Doctor Smythe-Caldwell,” he said. “However, his psychology is not abnormal. As I said, it will not be possible. The medical condition of any of the people under my care must remain… hidden… confidential.” His voice cracked strangely as he spoke, like he was fighting for control of his own words.
“Of course,” she said, backing away. “I’ll be on my way then.”
“Thank you. I have noted your concerns and will enter them into my log.” His head and arm both bobbed up and down in unison. “Please return to your ship now. And do be careful.”
She didn’t turn until she reached the door and she slipped out sidewise, never breaking eye contact with the strange and possibly psychotic Dr. Forrester.
Be careful? The feeling that she’d just been on the receiving end of a serious threat clung to her until she made it all the way to the main lift-shaft. It took a concerted effort to shake it off and not just run straight to her quarters on the Olympus Dawn. Leaning her head against the wall panel and pu
nching the call icon for the lift cage, she struggled to breathe normally.
There’s something else going on here.
She needed to figure out how to convince Ethan that this was more than her overactive imagination.
Chapter Six
Axel Romanov had been right. The station was small, but it had a surprising level of social potential. Ethan had discovered that at any given time less than a quarter of the Watchtower scientific staff was on observation field trips and the rest were either studying and writing reports or enjoying several too many drinks in the station’s bar.
Although the place probably had a real name, everyone called it the Slosh Pit or just The Pit, and it was where Ethan and Nuko found the gravity strongest, socially speaking. They’d spent several hours anchored to chairs watching the young, and over-educated, crowd drink themselves happily toward brain damage.
They were about to give up on the local entertainment, when two men, not in the same age bracket as the rest of the crowd, strolled up to introduce themselves. Ethan stood as they approached.
“Captain Walker? I’m sorry I wasn’t available to welcome you to Watchtower. I’m Yahto Ansari. Most days I’m in charge of the science mission here,” the taller of the two said. He had long straight dark hair and angular features that framed the intensity of his piercing blue eyes. He held his left hand up, fingers spread, and extended his arm forward like he was making a significant gesture.
Ansari smiled when the captain looked at him blankly. “This is the Ut’aran greeting. Like a handshake. It also shows social status depending on which hand is used. In this case, I’m granting you dominant social position.”
“Ut’aran?” Ethan asked.
He nodded. “Humans named this planet Dawn before we discovered the native name for it. Most of us here on the station use the local name.”
Wings of Earth- Season One Page 41