The comm had been silent all through his interview with Don Torol. Once Molina was back in a flyer headed to the starport, Roeder responded, “You miscalculated, but you got off easy.”
“What do you mean?” Molina ‘sent back.
“His name wasn’t Don Torol,” the Human replied. “His title was Don Torol. As in, the local Godfather.”
“Godfather? The designated emergency guardian for a Human infant?”
“No, the local head of organized crime. He could have decided to nuke you from orbit—the only way to be sure you couldn’t infect him.”
“He would be infected anyway. The virus is loose, my counteragent is the only thing keeping it controlled.”
“Yeah. I think he figured that out.” Roeder sighed. “He’s right, though. You made an enemy today. I hope the security goons are good.”
Molina flashed concurrence, but of course Roeder couldn’t see it back in the dropship. “On a planet like this, they will probably be Blevin. Hired muscle, cheap, but they go to the highest bidder. I will endeavor to always be the highest bidder. “
“Yes. I think you should do exactly that.”
* * * * *
Chapter Ten
Finding a location for the clinic proved to be the easiest part of the whole process. Molina started by following the Don’s recommendation and contacting Jack at B’nb’n Security. While it was true the majority of B’nb’n’s muscle were Blevin, Jack himself turned out to be XenSha—roughly a meter tall and appearing very much like an Earth rabbit…except for the tentacles coming out of his heads. The XenSha were the perfect race to run security, protection, extortion, or enforcement for organized crime; the homicidal tentacle-bunnies were ruthless, but they didn’t like getting their own hands—or tentacles—dirty. Likewise, the Blevins who were to be the muscle were commonly found anywhere organized crime was prevalent. They were two-meter-tall humanoid lizards with six-fingered hands—the extra fingers were usually found in someone else’s pie, or business. The Blevin weren’t particularly smart—the XenSha were—and as Roeder put it, they were honest. Once bought, they stayed bought and would not sell him out to a higher bidder.
Once security was arranged, Molina told Jack what he needed for his clinic. Jack introduced Molina to a Zuparti agent. The weasel-like Zuparti were known to be paranoid, and they knew a lot of mercs, since they tended to be the single largest employer of mercs in the Union. With a paranoid agent, finding a clinic location that was sufficiently seedy, secure, and with multiple escape routes was simply a matter of paying the finder’s fee. Within two days of getting his permits, Molina was placing his license medallion into the recess beside the door of Squiddy’s Squad Support Clinic.
Then there was the matter of the Besquith Lalande had sent to make life…interesting for him. Fortunately, Molina had experience with the wolf-like mercs from his second visit to Orkutt.
Yes, he definitely had a history with the Besquith.
The first piece of equipment moved into the clinic rooms was the aerosol dispersal unit from his transport tank used to spread the nanite carrier for the molting and antidote. It was now equipped with a cassette canister allowing selection of different agents depending on need. In the case of the adversarial mercs, it was a combination flea-analogue and mange. Besquith approaching too close to the clinic started itching uncontrollably and were an easy target for his Blevin security. Since Molina had the only cure, the merc leader was able to successfully argue to the Guild for termination rather than failure of the contract. In return, Molina hired the same mercs to obtain some DNA samples when they reported the end of contract to their employer. Lalande’s molting problem was about to become permanent and limited only to him.
He was in business, and it was business on his own terms. Now it was time for customers.
It was also time for Roeder to head back to the Azure colony. “You have missed the birth of your great-granddaughter. It has been almost a year, given the time you had to spend hunting me down on Karma.”
“Oh, but very, very worth it,” said Roeder as he completed a set of deep knee bends. The Human had filled out, gaining almost twenty kilograms of muscle, and no longer looked wasted away. Many of the wrinkles had disappeared as his metabolism improved, and his hair had even started growing back. “Elly will barely recognize me, but now I can bounce baby Sarah on my knee and carry her on my shoulders.”
“And find yourself another Emily, perhaps?” Molina asked.
“Well, there is a new technician at Azure Biotech name Amelie…”
Molina flashed a pattern Roeder recognized as mixing humor with resignation. It was fairly common when discussing the Human’s love life. “I will never understand your obsession with females by that name.”
“Hey, I was cursed by a gypsy helicopter pilot; it’s not my fault!” Roeder protested. “Anyway, the registry on this dropship has been changed. Technically, it belongs to me, now, so the locals shouldn’t be able to use it to get to you this time. It can be part of your go-to-hell plan to get off-planet if there is trouble. I have passage booked on the Science Guild supply ship for Minkulos back toward Earth. As a major ‘philanthropist’ from Azure, I should be able to hitch a ride on the colony supply circuit and get back there after the crying and sleepless nights are over.”
“There is still the matter of patients and customers. There is much work to be done here,” the Wrogul said, flashing a complex pattern of regret and anticipation.
“Ah, about that,” said Roeder. “I took the liberty of contacting that German merc leader you were talking to in Peepo’s back when I rescued your ass. Oberst Riedel will be sending a squad your way to get fitted for pinplants. Be nice to the colonel; he’s a distant cousin. He’s also pretty flush with money from a very successful contract, and he’s not all that smart about looking for bargains. He’s from a branch of the family where no one will mind if you fleece him a bit.”
Molina flashed regret again. He’d done so quite frequently with Roeder, and he realized it represented so much of the relationship with his friend. “I owe you so much, my friend.”
“No!” Roeder’s outburst was surprising in its vehemence. “You do not owe me. I paid for services rendered, and you restored my quality of life. Do not let me hear of you losing your mojo again! You get back out there and soak, fleece, and get the upper hand on these Tossers and the mercs that come to your clinic.”
“I will still…miss you. You are my oldest and best friend.”
“And well you should, but thanks to you, I will be around for many more years.” He paused and quirked a smile. “Besides, you always miss a target that’s not there. I’ll miss you, too, Old Squid.”
The emotional moment lasted for a few more moments, before an incoming comm signal alerted Molina that two sergeants from Riedel’s Rächer had arrived in-system and would be coming to the clinic for neurophysiological scans in preparation for receiving their first pinplants. After acknowledging the signal, he turned back to Roeder, but the Human had left to catch his shuttle.
Molina…no, Squiddy, briefly signed regret one last time, then turned to arrange for transport of his newly purchased clinical equipment to the business address.
It was time to get to work.
He wondered if the Germans liked anime.
* * * * *
Chapter Eleven
That first merc pinplant job would take some time to pay off, since Squiddy needed to get some fresh scans of Human nervous systems. In the meantime, Squiddy had plenty of injured mercs to treat. Don Torol also sent a trickle of business his way, mostly patching up enforcers who had fallen to “aggressive competition.” He also maintained a general clinical practice, again with the aid of permits and licenses obtained through the Don.
It meant that he was beholden to a patron, and Squiddy did not like to owe anyone. Not even his best friend. Thus, as soon as he started to see a positive balance of Union credits, he started buying rare provisions to be sent to Azure and c
onverted to the colony’s own currency. As he paid back Roeder’s investment, he would continue to do “favors” for the Don, but it was important that he build up enough capital—both credits and…other types…that he could use to be independent of To’Os’s organized crime network.
In a sense, that meant Squiddy needed to be seen as just as big and powerful a crook as any of the Tossers. To achieve that appearance, if not the reality, he would need information. He knew exactly who to see for that.
The Zuparti agent, Jogosh, was really more information broker than real estate agent. Utilizing Jogosh’s computer systems through his own Wrogul-designed pinplants, Squiddy began obtaining more information about the various figures in the local crime families.
For example, Don Torol was the boss of the local government. There was actually a mayor for To’Os the city, and Ta’Yua, the local state. The planet of To’Os Prime had seven such administrative regions but given that To’Os the city was largest and most economically profitable, Don Torol held higher status than the other Dons, let alone the governor and mayor. Still, minor Tosser bosses continually vied for status in the middle levels of the government. The late, unlamented Lalande was one of them, although his replacement, Lalorra, had not yet made much of a move to distinguish himself within Don Torol’s organization. However, there was a senior administrator at the starport, Toweena, who had designs on replacing the Don at the earliest opportunity.
The Don’s risk was Squiddy’s opportunity, and he offered a tailored nanite load to inconvenience Toweena but was politely rebuffed. The conversation was polite, but the Don’s MinSha associates were less so. The message “Stay out of my business” came across loud and clear.
That left gleaning information about non-natives—the mercs, traders, and transports that called upon To’Os. For that, he would need a specialist, much as Ortiz had done back at the Cerulean Clinic. Fortunately, Jack had a niece, and the little murder bunny was really good with information systems. With that requirement out of the way, and useful information and patients starting to come in, Squiddy’s fortunes started to rise.
* * *
The day finally arrived when Squiddy performed his first official pinplant surgery on Human mercs. It wasn’t his first, by a long shot, and certainly the extensive rehabilitation of his friend Roeder had refined most of the protocols, but it was the first time he was contracted specifically to provide pinplants for a merc unit.
The Rächer sent two sergeants—feldwebel they called them in German, although the term also seemed to refer to the senior NCO of the unit. He’d met them, Ginzberg and Jackson, as part of his study of Human nervous systems. This time, however, they’d brought four more mercs, a corporal and three privates. Squiddy enjoyed conversing with Ginzberg and Jackson; they knew how to take a joke, and Jackson had at least a passing familiarity with anime, or at least manga. Oberstabsgefreiter Beitel was female and colored nicely when Squiddy made a hentai reference. Gefreiter Giorgios, though, had an attack of xenophobia and fainted dead away at the concept of cephalopod tentacles performing closed-skull brain surgery.
They were fun.
He was able to turn that first clinical job into many more—for the Rächer and many other merc units. He felt a slight resentment that he was never able to provide pinplants for the rich and famous Four Horsemen, not because of the lost income, but rather because he figured it meant his progenitor Nemo had that business locked up. Still, Roeder continued to forward data packets with updated nanite programming, and he figured he had enough return business upgrading his initial customer’s/patient’s pinplants to full Union functionality.
For the next many years, life was good, and business was lucrative.
* * * * *
Chapter Twelve
He’d been on To’Os for more than three years when he awoke to the strange feeling. Wrogul did not sleep in quite the same way as a Human. For one, they only absorbed half of their necessary oxygen through their skin. The other half was absorbed through gills, much like Earth cephalopods. While skin absorption was sufficient for dormancy and low activity—such as sleeping—it also required an extended period to build up the necessary oxygenation of their blue blood prior to more energetic activity. The solution was to hyperoxygenate the water and to maintain a current so it would flow over the gills even while sleeping. Even at that, Squiddy—as he now thought of himself—slept no more than three hours a night.
It was still three hours until dawn on To’Os. The red-orange sun did little to illuminate the dingy station, even at its brightest, so artificial lighting was the norm, day and night. As the starport and city survived off both licit and illicit activity, To’Os was quite literally a city that never slept, so Squiddy could open his clinic at any time, post the opening on the local merc board, and have customers within the time it took them to travel from the customs station.
Today, however, Squiddy was feeling…off. Mirrors were not common among the Wrogul habitats on Azure. After all, sophonts that could tap into any camera system via their pinplants did not need purely passive means of viewing. Besides, a good camera system allowed viewing from several angles on multiple spectra.
So Squiddy looked at himself.
What he saw filled him with delight and dismay at the same time. The odd feeling was because he was budding. For any Wrogul, that was cause for delight. However, the dismay was because he was nearly two years late according to the cycle that prevailed on Azure. When he had failed to bud at the predicted time, he’d studied his own physiology to find the biochemical—and neurochemical—trigger that influenced his reproduction. There were several biological indicators that suggested a hiatus in the process, and after some self-experimentation, he thought he’d managed to put it off until he’d finished his current goal to make a fortune and get away from To’Os and out from under the Tossers.
The new bud meant he’d misunderstood. That didn’t even cover the fact that To’Os was no place to raise a new bud. The juvenile needed to be on Azure, and Squiddy couldn’t go there himself—at least not yet. The bud would take a couple of weeks to mature, so he had that time to figure out how to get his “child” back to Azure safely. Perhaps he should contact Roeder or Nemo…
That particular problem would keep, though, because he had incoming patients, and they appeared to be in a hurry.
“Squiddy the surgeon?” the lead merc asked, standing in front of the camera covering the doorway into the alley. He had a Human slung across one shoulder, and two other, obviously wounded, mercs supporting a third across their shoulders.
“State your business.” Squiddy had adopted the bored vocal patterns of the Veech he had met on that first visit to City Hall.
“If you’re Squiddy, we’ve got patients. Can’t you see that?”
“Password,” said the same bored voice.
“Nemo sent us.”
Well, that wasn’t quite the password he’d been expecting. If Nemo had sent them, it meant either he was not available, or these mercs needed one of his neuro specialties. He opened the door but had one of the Blevin guards stationed just inside the clinic check them before they entered. He hadn’t always kept his protection quite so close, but ever since the late, unlamented Lalande attempted to kill him for the last time, he had decided the extra expense was worth it.
The mercs entered, and the Human who had spoken before addressed the B’nb’n employee. “We need to see Squiddy about a spinal reconstruction. Nemo told us he’s the only one who can do it right.”
“That is true,” said Squiddy over the clinic speakers. He still was not going to show himself until he knew more of why his progenitor had sent these men. “How do you know Nemo?”
“Our boss knows his boss.” A treatment bench extruded itself from the floor, and the Human took that as a sign to place his burden on it. From first contact, diagnostic information flowed into Squiddy’s pinplant. He caused a second bench to appear, and the two supporting mercs put their buddy on that one as well.
“…and your boss is?”
“Thaddeus Cartwright.”
Horsemen!
“I…see.” Squiddy drove his powered chair out from the back office of the clinic. “I assume you are all Cavaliers?”
The three conscious men caught their first glimpse of the Wrogul in his cup-shaped seat that retained just enough water to keep his skin wet, while allowing free motion of all arms and tentacles. The ranking merc made no expression, but the two obvious juniors gasped. “It’s an octopus!” said one.
“He’s a Wrogul,” said the senior, before Squiddy could do so. “There’s a whole colony of them, and they’re the best surgeons in the Union. Unfortunately, we’re not at Azure and you don’t call the Hussars, they call you.” He turned and faced Squiddy’s chair, one of the rare Humans—or other sophonts—who looked him in the eye when speaking. “To answer your question, the master sergeant, lieutenant, and I”—he gestured to the first, then the second man on the table—“are Cavaliers. The other two are newbies and don’t get to call themselves that until after they’ve survived a combat mission.”
Data on the second patient had started to flow into Squiddy’s clinical systems. Much to his surprise, both men had pinplants. “These two are pinned. Who did the work? Why come to me instead of their original surgeon?”
“As I said, you don’t call the Hussars. Cromwell’s off on a mission and unreachable. Our own doc said these two might be unrecoverable if we wait.”
Ah, so this was Nemo’s work. Yes. I should have recognized it, since my own designs derive from his.
“What happened to them? For that matter, your newbies are injured as well.” Squiddy moved a scanner over and began to check the recruits.
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