Typical.
Marc really missed his home. It had been a really comfortable little place, even with the memory of his mother lingering in the rooms—or perhaps because of it.
He broke out of his thoughts when the elevator doors opened with a faint hiss. A quick farewell and he joined Meriam in following Lekiso out onto the food court floor.
* *
The view outside still dominated the area, the transparent arc of the outside of Enone Hub giving everyone the eye-attracting sights. To Meriam, it seemed like the builders, probably the Domums, were trying to brag.
She had seen it before with building designers and those who could afford them: when you make my house, make sure everyone can see how much I spent on it.
It was still an awe-inspiring view.
The Puzzle Box was so big she could barely comprehend the distances involved, like imagining the distances between European cities all in her head at the same time. Of course, it didn’t help that most of the view was of space, lots of space, with the moving objects and background of stars or chunks of rock.
That red mist does add some color to all the openness though. Her implanted memories told her that it was a nebula, one so big that most of the galaxy could see it. Even the telescopes of earth could see the nebula.
Her display could give her the measurements, but it was hard to imagine that rocks that looked small enough to fit in the palm of her hand were bigger than whole countries from Europe. Distance was deceiving, especially since so much of the Puzzle Box hung around in chunks she knew were Moon size or bigger but outside the viewing window floated lazily like balloons.
Before entering the food court, she had expected to be assailed by scents, smells of cooking and food being spiced, like in the markets on Earth. She enjoyed the fresh aromas that would greet her in foreign places, each with its unique style and flavor of cooking.
But here, there was nothing like that.
As Meriam followed Lekiso out of the lift, the sterile non-smell of the space station continued, unlike with the refugees on the upper floors, and it took her a few moments as they walked along the big window to work out why.
Each of the food places set into its own space along the interior wall had both an inside and an outside area marked for seating. Around these were thin pillars supporting metal beams with evenly spaced light.
The space between the pillars and beams had a mild sheen to it like there was a very thin sheet of glass in the way. Various beings would walk through these gaps without a moment’s thought, and a slight shimmer would dissolve behind them as they entered or exited through one of the fields.
Her display identified the effect as a field screen, a modification of force or energy field technology that was used to dampen sound or gases from moving through. The same technique was used to keep the atmosphere in a hangar while there was an open vacuum outside.
With different intensities, the screens could easily stop all noise in an area as well.
So that was why there was only a dull background noise in the food court: the screens kept the noise level down while also isolating the smells and cooking smoke from the various restaurants.
In hindsight, she also realized that it was probably better because of the diversity of species that were around. She could see that the dominant patrons of individual shops tended to be one or two different kinds of species or variations on a single species.
If only they could put those screens upstairs.
Obviously, food won’t be the same for every species, she thought.
“So, where should we start?” Lekiso asked her.
The ebony-skinned woman was looking around the area. “I’m not sure what the best way to do this is.”
“Don’t worry. I have an idea. Follow me.”
Meriam started to walk along the outside arc of the hub window, pulling up various options in her display as she went.
“What are you doing?” Lekiso paralleled her, walking on the side nearer the window, and observed as Meriam swept her eyes back and forth among the various shops and patrons.
Marc trundled along behind the two women.
“I’m using the software in my system to compare the species I am looking at with the files it has in the database. I’ve set up variables to identify specific kinds of species that would have the traits I am looking for, and then they are marked out for me.”
“Wow, you can do that?” Lekiso was honestly surprised.
Her eyes flickered about a bit as she tried to check her own display for those options.
“Well, the data came with the new equipment and the scanning systems. But yes, I used to arrange social events for a living, and participate in others, so I’ve got a good handle on this kind of thing.”
It wasn’t a complete lie.
Meriam’s head kept moving while she spoke in a low voice, almost a whisper.
“Ordinarily, I’d expect to find information from the well informed, those ‘in the know,’ as we would say. But since they tend to be affluent, or at least well off and reclusive, I don’t think we will find them quickly or easily. Plus, they tend to charge a lot for their services, and since we don’t know the right questions to ask, we’d be wasting a lot of time.”
“So, what are you looking for?”
“Unless I am very wrong, every culture will have its hangers-on, its servants, or those people that work in the background. In social gatherings, the waiters and servers were practically ignored. In the houses of the rich and famous, those that kept the household running would often know quite a lot.”
“I can understand that,” Lekiso said with some irony.
“Quite. So, I’m scanning for any species with the biological makeup to have good hearing and other traits of observation but with a cultural heritage of support, servility, or other traits that would make them perfect as servants or those kinds of workers.”
“That is…clever.” Lekiso gave Meriam an impressed look, which Meriam replied to with a small smile.
Marc was nodding, but he didn’t say anything, staying out of the conversation.
Meriam smiled, the first plain kind smile she had shown them.
“People are a big part of my work. I’ve already identified several possibilities, but let’s scan the entire level before we approach anyone.”
“Sure.” Lekiso followed Meriam around the outside circle as the taller woman continued her scan.
I must have been chosen the same as the rest, with a specific skill set in mind, Meriam thought, giving a brief look at the African woman and the small man.
We each seem to contribute something to this, just like putting together a job or a heist.
Of course, Lekiso and Ormond seem to go with the standard military patterns, Connor appears to be good at building teams, and himself, while Marc has some kind of life, but really, his skill is in technology.
But how in the hell did this abductor know about me? It’s not as though I advertise in the same circles as the other four.
* *
“How come you think you know so much about what would be happening with the refugees?” Connor asked Ormond.
The two of them exited the lift and followed the corridor that led off from the large room where the lifts arrived in a central shaft.
“I wasn’t always a bum on the streets. Like I said, mate, I been a good soldier boy, and I seen what the ravages of battle do to people.” Ormond didn’t look at Connor when he spoke, just kept his face forward and his expression neutral.
It seemed to Connor that Ormond was struggling with something.
“Was it bad?” he asked quietly.
“It looked pretty similar to that.” Ormond pointed down the side passage when they arrived at the medical reception.
Connor could immediately see what he meant.
The sides of the corridor were lined with various aliens, all humanoid and in some kind of stretchers. Every one of them was injured in some minor way while, further down the
passage, at a crossing, a group of Domums was rushing past with another alien screaming in pain on its own stretcher.
The other passage to the right showed more of the same but, thankfully, curved out of sight along the outside of the hub wall.
Ahead of them, the reception area spread out around a central desk, with five Domum all busy at consoles. Around the office were seats made of plastic capable of molding itself into different shapes for the kinds of beings that would need broader or narrower cushioning.
To Connor, it looked like a waiting room, with coughing from several figures and different groups huddled together, some sad, others just waiting to be seen.
It brought a flash of memory to Connor of when he had first arrived at the hospital on Earth.
At the time, he had been in a delirium—the paramedic had injected him with morphine in the ambulance. All that had done was make him high and deaden the pain. It hadn’t been enough to remove it completely.
He remembered feeling the blank blur that had been his back, the sharp pangs that had shot out into his stomach and chest, but other than that, the rest of him had been dead.
Not pain numbing the nerves, but dead, as if all of his other limbs had been completely gone.
Pain would have told him that he still had arms and legs, but this had been so much worse. He hadn’t been able to move, to look and see how badly he had been hurt. The doctors and nurses hadn’t needed to hold him down; he’d barely been able to gurgle or moan at them.
His blood-drenched body had hurtled past that hospital’s reception and down a side passage to emergency surgery.
“Hey, mate, you with me?” Ormond had stopped a few steps ahead of Connor.
“Yeah, sorry. From what you say, you make it sound like these are refugees from a battle?”
“Hey, I dunno, mate. It could be, though. But I’d certainly like to rule it out, you know what I mean?”
“No, not really.”
“Well, look, if these are all refugees from some kind of conflict or several different conflicts, then whatever has chased them here might still be after them, right?”
“I follow, sure.”
“So then, we are looking to be smack bang in the middle of some kind of space war, with the Tempest maybe, which would really make things tragically worse than just being abducted for some other reason, wouldn’t it?”
“Now I get you. Jeez, you’re right. That could be very bad.” Connor hadn’t thought of that, not that he had really thought about the possibilities at all.
How thick can you get? Where did all of these refugees come from, some kind of space storm or light-year-across hurricane? He had to get his head into the game and sort out the others so that they could all work together too.
First things first, though.
Connor looked at the reception area more closely, trying to find someone to talk to before he caught their attention. The Domums behind the desk were smaller than the others they had seen so far.
They still had the prominent cheekbones and foreheads with blue skin, but they were somehow slighter of build.
“Hey, mate, is it just me, or are there only men around here?” Ormond was looking at the bustle of Domums going past or standing by stretchers and taking readings on the occupants.
“Hunh?” Connor also turned to look around.
All the Domums he could see were men, and now that he could see some standing up, he noticed these had thinner hands too. The three fingers and thumb seemed to have an extra set of knuckles and, most weirdly, an additional thumb as well.
“Erg. I really shouldn’t have asked. Now, these memory implants are giving me more updates on them. Bloody lovely. “
Connor was getting them too; as Ormond spoke, the knowledge was giving him a headache.
Domum culture was run by the female gender: they discussed the genetic heritage and future profile of the race between Manors and advised the Manors on their priorities and objectives. For all intents and purposes, it was a matriarchal society. The men were secondary to the women.
No Domum planet was even considered a colony unless every Manor had a ruling female.
Any place solely populated by the men was merely considered an outpost, like the Puzzle Box, just a place of work that contributed to the Domums in the grander schemes of the Manors.
It was a lot to take in. Connor understood the concepts, but the economics, sciences, and in-depth explanations of societal adaptation and anthropology just settled into the back of his mind.
“Man, if we get that for every species we’ve seen, we could probably write the encyclopedia of this galaxy,” muttered Ormond.
“Yeah, well, that’s probably what we have, you know,” replied Connor.
Ormond gave a grunt in reply.
Connor nodded and said, “Let’s ask and see if they will volunteer us anything?”
“Sure, mate.”
The two men started to make their way over to the reception desk.
Connor wondered if the doctors here could have corrected the spinal injury he had suffered. There was no way human science had been able to fix the damage from the girder. They had all been quite clear on that.
All the doctors who had come in to talk to him had said the same thing: No way. And of course, it hadn’t helped that she had skipped with all the money. The doctors had already been moving him to a free care clinic.
According to the information he could pull out of the Puzzle Box network, there was neural reconstruction available for quite a long list of species. Depending on the extent of the damage, there would be a fee, of course, and then time spent in rehabilitation to get the nerves to function again.
That’s interesting. I’d forgotten about that. Connor was remembering how he had deteriorated in hospital, his body changing day after day into an atrophied shell, his own personal flesh prison.
So, if he had been in some kind of surgery or procedure to fix his nerves, how come he now looked like some kind of Olympic contender?
Why didn’t he remember any kind of exercise to get back into shape?
Had he been unconscious the whole time someone had poked and prodded his body together?
* *
“Wirurgeons, over there.”
Lekiso gave Meriam a puzzled look. “I hope you were talking about a species and not sneezing.”
Meriam smiled at the humor. “Yes, a species. Look there.”
She pointed, and Lekiso followed her finger to where a group of beings was huddled together on one side of a long table in a restaurant she wasn’t going to begin to consider for human food.
They were humanoid with dark gray skin, like angry storm clouds, mottled in darker patches, and it looked thick, like heavy leather. The aliens had no ears; instead, their skulls bulged out at the sides and had slits in the skin. They had no prominent nose either; again, there was just some kind of bulge with slits for nostrils.
They had overly large eyes—from a human’s point of view—with a wide gray iris and remarkably reactive pupils that seemed to change shape as well as size.
“They look like they haven’t eaten in a while,” Lekiso commented.
She could see the Wirurgeons were sitting apart from any other beings at the eating place. They also had no leftovers or scraps of food containers on the table in front of them.
“They were sitting there when we went past the first time, no food then either. And the cultural files highlight them as a servile species with great observational skills, usually motivated to ensuring the comfort of whomever they work for. But they seem to be our best prospect, so let’s try them first.”
Meriam started over towards the cluster of gray creatures.
“I also checked our account and the interface; we can buy them a meal for their cooperation.”
She had been busy.
Lekiso checked that Marc was following. He still had a glazed look, which indicated he was busy learning his software as quickly as possible. This was good; they would nee
d it.
Perhaps it would help calm him down.
Even busy, he vibrated from stress.
The entire situation bothered Lekiso, not just their abduction but also being among refugees again. Ormond might not know it, but he had pushed her buttons. This was far too close to a war refugee situation for her liking, and the memories were painful, memories she had hoped to leave behind.
Lekiso shook off the wandering thoughts when they got to the Wirurgeons.
Meriam was in the lead and spoke to them first.
“Excuse me gentle beings,” she said. “Might we have a moment of your time?”
“Assuredly, gentle being. Your manners stand you in good stead,” the adult female replied.
The four of them stood up, allowing Lekiso to see that the two younger ones were also female, while the other adult was male. They then surprised her with the male getting down on his knees to prostrate himself and the females giving them a bow from the waist.
“Follow their lead. Lekiso, bow. Marc, sorry, but on your knees.”
“Uh, huh?”
“Now, Marc,” Lekiso also told him over the channel.
She was suddenly happy the other two men had split off.
With some grumbling that she couldn’t make out, Marc got down on his knees and tried to imitate the Wirurgeon male. Lekiso bowed with Meriam from the waist, and then they waited a moment before they both rose up again.
The Wirurgeons only rose up once the humans were standing straight up again.
“May we sit with you?” Meriam asked.
“Assuredly.” The adult female gestured at the seats opposite her family.
The male had gotten up but now stood with head bowed.
“Your knowledge of our traditions is polite. We thank you.”
Meriam sat down opposite her. Lekiso took the seat to her right.
“We respect those who pay such diligence to service and custom.”
Marc got up and copied the male.
The two Wirurgeon children glanced at each other in surprise while the adult female tilted her head to the side, a sign of respect in turn.
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