Stardoc

proofed and formatted by cstan 8670 & MollyKate

PART ONE: Initiation

Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick.

Hippocrates (460?-377? B.C.)

At that moment I was deep in the labyrinth of back streets in the worst section of New Angeles. I was also thoroughly disgusted, scared, and ready to give up. Earlier stops at four crowded taverns had produced no results. Oh, I’d gotten plenty of propositions, some even a sexdrone would find challenging.

Credit-jammers still watched me from the shadows, remote scanners ready, hoping I’d access a public bank console. Glide snatchers had tried twice in the last hour to swoop down and grab the case I was carrying. In broad daylight, the vultures.

Now I paused outside the fifth and last sleaze pit on Tavern Row. Above the entrance the words “SLOW LAZY SAX” were projected in foot-high, bright blue dimensional lettering. Charming name.

The only good thing about the place was it was nearly deserted. I wouldn’t have to push through another gauntlet of drunks to have a look around.

I counted two hulking figures at the end of the counter, arguing in low growls while steadily draining their drinks. The proprietor ignored them, his attention fixed on a vidisplay screen overhead. A rusted comdrone unit clutching a saxophone was huddled in one corner, deactivated and badly in need of maintenance. Farther back in the tavern was a third patron, seated alone, wearing what could have been a pilot’s flight suit.

That got my attention. I took another step and crossed the threshold. The sour bouquet of unwashed bodies, spilled drinks, and burnt tobacco greeted my nose. A fat roach scuttled past my right foot to join some of his pals creeping around the tables. My skin wanted to shrink from the smoke, filth, and hopelessness.

Time had almost run out, I was desperate. What choice did I have? I walked in.

I started with the stocky man working behind the bar. He was idly rinsing out plas servers beneath a sputtering biodecon unit. His eyes were riveted to the screen as it televised the near-electrocution of two penalized runbacks.

He swore fluently when both shockball players had to be carried off the field by medevac. “Devoids.

Miavana Fins wasted that ‘un sure.” He examined me with mild surprise. “Ay-lo - get ya a swig, Fem?”

I was glad I’d researched the inner city dialect before coming down here. In his crude patois, the guy was trying to be polite and ask what I wanted to drink.

“No, grats. Eyein’ to get an offjaunt in a blip. Ya spill a taker?”

“That ‘un,” the bartender jutted his chin toward the loner. “Ship’s the Bestshot. Jaunts the trades.”

I squinted once more at the pilot. At this distance I easily made out the details of his countenance. He looked like he was ready to go through puberty, not an interstellar flight.

One of the hulks at the bar snorted, catching my attention. A thin rivulet of bitterale foam ran down his stubbly chin as he bared his chipped teeth at me.

“Ay-ay-ay, Fem,” he said, and went on to make the usual lewd proposition. At this rate I’d be an expert in pornographic slang before the day was over.

“Grats, redder lip a junker,” I replied. Thank you, but I’d rather kiss a drone.

I debated whether to approach the man or move on to tavern number six. Bestshot wasn’t an inspiring name for an interstellar passenger shuttle. Not to mention the painfully juvenile appearance of my potential escort, and the lack of taste he had in patronizing this waste station.

“Gotta gripe, Fem?” The bartender wanted to know what was wrong.

“That ‘un eyes raw,” I said. He looks too young.

“Cap’s Oenrallian” the man told me. “Those ‘uns eye plenty raw’til mid-doin’.” The pilot was an alien, whose species didn’t appear to mature until middle age. “Jaunt much, Fem?”

I didn’t jaunt, period, one reason why I hadn’t realized the pilot was an offworlder. Embarrassed, I smiled my thanks and started toward the pilot.

Lanky, pallid-skinned, and sporting a thick thatch of orange hair, the Oenrallian still appeared more like a kid who had swiped his dad’s glidecar than an experienced starshuttle pilot. The guileless amber eyes he lifted toward me only iced the cake.

“Ya pard, eyein’-“

“I speak standard English,” he interrupted in a oddly pitched voice.

“Oh. Good.” It was a relief to abandon the local jargon. “May I have a moment of your time?” I decided not to offer my hand, it might be considered offensive. “My name is Cherijo Grey Veil.”

“Dhreen, of Oenrall,” he said as he lifted his plas server to his thin lips. With his free hand he gestured to the empty chair opposite his own. I saw five digits, but they were splayed at the ends and had no nails.

Spoon-fingers, I thought absently. I bet he didn’t have to bother much with standard Terran utensils.

I sat down, took a breath. What were those things on top of his head? “How did you know I spoke standard?”

“You’re too sanitary to be local.” His eyes made a brief survey. “What’s a pretty Fem like you doing in this part of the city?”

“I need transport to the Pmoc Quadrant.”

“Why?”

“I’ve been transferred to Kevarzangia Two.” Opening my case, I extracted the data discs for his examination. It was becoming impossible to take my eyes from the two round red nubs that poked up beneath his hair. Horns, maybe?

“Why not get space on one of the Terran transports?”

I was ready for that. “There’s no space available, and I need to leave today if I’m going to make my arrival slot.” I made a “silly me” face. “There was so much to do before I left. You know how it is. I simply forgot to make a reservation.” Sure, and if he checked it out, he’d learn I could lie through my teeth, too. I was counting on his greed to prevent that. “How much to make the trip?”

“Ten thousand, if I decide to take you.” His tone was definitely not Terran, despite his familiar use of the language. He sounded like a sterilizer duct beginning to clog. There was an odor coming from him as well, something like pineapple mixed with chocolate. The smell wasn’t bad, just weird.

“That’s fine,” I answered, and quickly put the necessary credit chip next to the transfer data. I thought the sight of all that currency would settle the deal. Dhreen only slouched back in his chair.

“Why transfer to the border, Fem?” His curiosity was casual, dangerous. “Not a spot you Terrans usually pick.”

“I’ve been assigned to the colony as a medical physician.” I pulled out two more discs that would verify my identity and contract. The table was getting crowded.

“A doctor?” Dhreen frowned at me from under thick brows. “A neonate like you?”

It was the usual reaction.

I looked older than the Oenrallian, but not by much. I was short for a Terran female, too, just under five feet tall. It had earned me delightful nicknames at Medtech, like “Igor” and “Half-CC.” My weight seesawed between slender and skinny, depending on my surgery schedule. I liked to eat, I just didn’t always have the time.

I wasn’t homely. I had a smaller version of Dad’s prominent nose and the same tilted dark blue eyes.

The first was slightly beaky, the last vaguely exotic. My long black hair reflected a silver sheen (inherited from a distant Native American ancestor, my father claimed, with the same “grey veil”), and was braided so it stayed out of my face. I wore a shabby, neutral-shaded jumper with no accessories. My physician’s tunic was much more dignified, but wearing it here would have put a sign around my neck that said rob me, immediately.

“I’m a fully qualified practitioner.”

He lifted a shoulder. “If you say so, Fem.”

I pushed my ID disc across the table. “Check the data, if you don’t believe me.”

“Data can be rigged by any kid with half a neural center,” he said.

“So can a starshuttle,” I retaliated without thinking, then inhaled sharply. Had I insulted him? Dhreen made an odd, hiccuping sound and slapped his spoon-shaped fingers against the table.

He was either laughing, or having a seizure. While I was trying to decide which, the Oenrallian swiveled his head to one side. Whatever he saw made his mirth come to an abrupt halt.

“Look out.” He scooped up his flask and server, and I glanced back at the counter. A plas bottle missed my nose by inches as it flew past and hit the wall beyond us. I grabbed my discs and shoved them back in my case.

The two burly Terran patrons who had been arguing before were now trying to beat the brains out of each other’s skulls.

“Larian Scum-sucker!” one shouted, knocking over his stool as he staggered back on unsteady legs.

“Eat my waste!” the other responded, just as cleverly.

Plas containers, I soon discovered, were effective projectiles. I ducked behind my chair to avoid a particularly dangerous volley that shattered when it slammed into our table. Dhreen lifted his drink to me in silent salute.

No doubt he considered this idiocy as impromptu entertainment.

The drunken pair began pummeling each other in earnest, knocking over tables, trashing the counter, generally making a mess. Snarled obscenities punctuated the thuds of fists and limbs as they battled. The bartender displayed no inclination toward stopping them.

“Can’t someone do something?” I demanded, and cringed as pieces of a broken stool flew overhead.

Another one crashed into the comdrone, which abruptly activated and began trying to play “A Love Supreme” through the dented saxophone.

“They’re just emitting some condensation,” Dhreen said.

Blowing off steam was one thing, but this was getting out of hand. I scrambled to my feet the moment I heard the unmistakable sound of a bone snap over the blaring music. Dhreen reached out and caught my arm.

“You better stay out of it,” he said, but I tugged free.

“You!” I pointed to the bartender as I approached. “Get over here and help me, or I’ll signal Area Security myself!”

He reluctantly moved from his display to separate the two, which proved simple, given their level of intoxication. I pushed, he pushed, they fell over. The first was groaning miserably as I crouched down next to him.

Up close, he was the most unhygienic specimen of humanity I’d ever encountered. His garments were beyond filthy, and from the thick envelope of body odor, I gathered he hadn’t personally deconned in months. No wonder it stank in here. The moment I put a hand on him, he howled and bared his teeth at me again. This time he wasn’t leering.

“Mitts off, ya-“”

“I’m a physician. A patcher. Turn loose ya arm.”

He actually tried to hit me, the ingrate. “Off me! Ya puny back hacker-“

“Clammit,” I said, and shoved his flailing fist away from my face. When he kept struggling, I pinned him in a prone position with my knees. A swift, ample dose of sedatives rendered him unconscious in seconds.

My scanner confirmed the break was a transverse fracture of the ulna. I immobilized his arm with a bonesetter from my case and scanned him for internal injuries. Filthy but lucky. Despite the ferocious tussle, he was fine. The comdrone’s damaged audio was steadily getting louder, and I scowled.

“Fuse that junker, will ya?” I shouted at the bartender as I went to look at the other man. The discordant version of the Coltrane masterpiece was cut off a moment later.

The second oaf had a number of minor contusions, but otherwise was just as dirty and healthy as his opponent. After a brief examination, I closed my case.

“Done?” I demanded. “Or ya crave a nap-stick, ditto?”

The undamaged brawler muttered something uncomplimentary to the female gender, got to his feet, and returned to his stool. In a moment he was drinking again, as though nothing had happened.

“No one has a shorter conscience than a drunk,” Maggie used to tell me. “Except your old man.”

After I’d sent the bartender to contact area medevac, I rolled the sedated male to his uninjured side, and tagged him with an MDID for transport. I used a chip I’d filched from a colleague in my building. The last thing I needed was this sort of incident on my records. When that was done, I returned to Dhreen’s table.