The Galactic Circle Veterinary Service

by Stephen Benjamin

  I took note that he recognized Reb Levi, but I brushed that aside and gave him part of the story, otherwise it would look as phony as a three-dollar bill, as the ancients used to say. “The Council decided I was better off someplace where I couldn’t spread my seditious ideas. This was a way to get me out of their hair without making a martyr out of me. But it is a great chance for me to get experience.”

  Fur smiled. “I’m glad you didn’t get targeted by the Inquisition.”

  “Um, yeah. Lucky, I guess.”

  Fur pursed his lips and tugged at his beard. “I almost envy you.”

  I snorted. “Yeah. Envy the fact that I am exiled—” I snapped my mouth shut. It had overridden my brain once again.

  Fur leaned back in his seat. When I looked away and fiddled with my beer mug, he spoke. “Okay, you’ve got my attention.”

  “An experiment. That’s what I meant. It’s an experiment sending a new graduate on such a mission.” My phony grin felt more like a grimace.

  Fur stared at me.

  I blinked first. Something about the big man’s general demeanor and aura inspired my confidence, and I made a snap decision. I hoped I would not regret it as I did with my decisions all too often. In a low voice I said, “I’m being exiled. My parents and I have been threatened with the Inquisition if I don’t do as they say.”

  Fur sat forward. “But why are they outfitting you for this space voyage?”

  My hands trembled as I rolled my mug between them. “I’ve thought a lot about that. I’m guessing that it’s a ploy to get a rebbe to other worlds as a spy. Reb Levi Schvartz is going with me as my assistant.”

  Fur’s lips twisted in a grimace. “You might be right. Political representatives from Dovid’s World have been persona non grata on other planets since the Test-Lits’ attempt to subjugate Sammara.” He referred to the only other inhabited planet in our solar system.

  Too late, my caution kicked in and I started to panic. I grabbed his arm. “Please, don’t say anything. I’m not supposed to tell anybody. I don’t know what they’ll do to me or my folks if Levi finds out.”

  Fur’s paw covered my hand. “Don’t worry. I won’t get you in trouble.” He let me have my hand back and shook his head. “Schvartz, huh? Not the most companionable of traveling partners.”

  I looked over my shoulder. Paranoia closed in on me. “You obviously recognized him. How well do you know Schvartz?”

  “By reputation only.”

  “What have you heard?”

  “That he’s the top man in the Inquisition. He’s a nasty piece of work. I knew a guy who was pulled in and interrogated. They thought he was a member of the resistance.”

  “Was he?”

  “No, but he was crippled by the time they released him.”

  That did not ring true. Fur was not telling me something. I wondered if the guy in his story was connected to the resistance. Either way, the story gave me the creeps. Reb Levi was pure evil. I shuddered.

  We spoke a bit more about the trip before I needed to leave for an appointment. As I rose, Fur asked if we might meet again. I sensed a strange excitement behind his words. I agreed.

  The next couple of weeks, the Associate Dean for recruiting kept me busy. I had to learn all about the finances of the Academy, how students were selected, and how I was to act as the Academy’s agent on the worlds that we would visit. I found that it was far more complicated than I had realized. The Associate Dean gave me speeches for different audiences. My spiel to students would be different from those I gave to school officials or local veterinary societies. I was not nearly as thrilled about that aspect of my job as I was about the real medical challenges I would face. After all, veterinary medicine is what I had studied for the past four years, not how to sign up new students. The Associate Dean finally cut me loose saying I was as prepared as I could be. That remained to be seen.

  ***

  When I met Fur again, he seemed nervous. He finished his beer and lowered his voice, not an easy thing for him. “Cy, I-I have a request of you.”

  “Yeah?”

  He looked around the room, then back at me. “Ten years ago I enrolled in the vet college, but I dropped out after two years. I decided that there were more important things than becoming a veterinarian. Family matters, you know? I settled for being an assistant.”

  I nodded, though I detected evasion in his thoughts.

  “I’ve been working at a private clinic as a veterinary technician. I’m a damned good one, too. I want to go with you.”

  “It’s not up to me—”

  “I’ll never get this opportunity again.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I can watch your back.”

  Astonished and not sure what to say, I sat silently for a few moments, but some of his excitement rubbed off on me. “Let me ask about it.”

  We finished our drinks over small talk and exchanged commlink data. I promised to get back to him.

  I gave his offer lots of thought. I wondered what motivated the big guy. There was a deeper story than he was telling. If he knew that Levi was a sadistic son-of-a-bitch, why would he subject himself to a space voyage with the rebbe? On the other hand, it was easy to make the case for a real veterinary assistant besides Reb Levi. I would train and utilize the rebbe for routine tasks, but I doubted he would meet all the needs of my practice. I still needed someone like Fur to hold animals, to assist in surgery, to run the lab, and more, like watch my back.

  I checked into Fur’s background and confirmed his story about vet school and his job as a veterinary technician. His references were outstanding. He was the perfect choice; he had the background and there were few animals the big guy couldn’t handle—or so I thought.

  Levi remembered him from our tavern debate and was thrilled to have someone else along who saw eye-to-eye with him, at least with respect to religious matters. Fur passed the Rebbinical Council’s screening, so I gained a real assistant and a badly needed ally. Maybe someone to keep Levi’s venom from poisoning the whole trip.

  ***

  Our spaceship had a brand-new Artificial Intelligence, although the ship itself was a reconstruction job. I guessed that was okay. They wouldn’t put an expensive new AI and fancy drives in a questionable hull, I hoped.

  As the first with access to the AI, I programmed and customized the interface. I added something that I did not tell anyone about: an override that would make the AI accept only my commands in case it came to a battle between me and Reb Levi, something I feared. I also named the AI Ruthie and gave her a seductive female voice to annoy the stiff-necked Levi.

  “That is not acceptable,” he fumed at me. “This is a computer. Computers do not have names.”

  Before I could respond, Ruthie chimed in. “But Cy gave me a name and I like it,” she said in an excellent approximation of a whine.

  Shit. That did not help. I switched off the AI’s voice circuit. “A name will make it easier to give the ship commands,” I argued. “Saying ‘computer’ all the time is awkward.”

  Levi scowled at me, but I did not back down, and the name stuck. I hoped I would not pay for that victory somewhere down the line, but I could not resist pulling his chain to achieve even a minuscule quantum of control.

  The three of us, Levi, Fur, and I, took a crash course in operation of all the ship’s systems. Although the AI handled everything, there was the outside chance that we humans would have to intervene. What if the AI failed? That fear lost me one night’s sleep to a dream where the ship flew into the sun while Ruthie seduced me. “We will go out in a blaze of orgasmic glory,” she said in her sexy contralto.

  My first erotic nightmare, and I hoped the last.

  Fur was more mechanical-minded than me. He said he had grown up fixing all the machinery on his farm, and been good enough that neighbors frequently enlisted him for help. He had also operated and repaired the medical equipment at his clinic. Levi came in a distant third in that regard. We sat around a small
table in a room at the spaceport.

  Levi pointed to a parts schematic of the air-processing unit. “What is this, here?”

  His voice grated on my nerves. The trip hadn’t even started yet and already his sour disposition and unpleasant aura bugged me. “That’s the grabmitz valve.”

  I sensed Fur suppress a laugh at the name I’d pulled out of thin air.

  “What does it do?” Levi asked.

  “It’s critical for the freebwhanil to scrub carbon dioxide out of the recycled air. If the freebwhanil fails, we suffocate to death.”

  “Suffocate?” Levi’s voice rose as his eye twitched. He looked at Fur. “Can that happen?” He looked back at me, black eyes probing. “Is this one of your jokes, Berger?”

  Fur remained mute as if to let the tension ratchet up a bit then jumped to my rescue. “It’s no joke, Reb Levi. If the air scrubbers fail, carbon dioxide levels would rise and the air would become toxic.”

  He omitted reference to the grabmitz valve and freebwhanil because they did not exist. “The main thing we need to know is the oxygen-carbon dioxide ratio. That shows on the screen over here.” He pointed to the drawing. “If that’s good, we don’t have to worry about the workings of the equipment. I’ll handle repairs in case of a problem.”

  Levi nodded. “That is good. I will be busy with spiritual matters. They are just as important as the mechanical ones.”

  Right. I would grab the extra oxygen tank while he prayed for deliverance.

  ***

  Reb Levi had to make some major changes to accommodate his new role. It began with a clothing change, no more Darth Vader black-on-black like the old vids. He wore a white shirt, dark gray suit, and an over-the-top splash of color—a dark blue tie. His new look included a shave, but he looked uncomfortable shorn, and his scar stood out even more. However, his head was never without his fedora or a yarmulke, both black of course.

  Levi’s lessons as a veterinary assistant took place in the laboratory of the GCVS.

  I motioned for Levi to move closer.

  He flinched when I raised a scalpel to his face. “What are you doing?”

  “Relax. I’m just going to take a skin scraping, for God’s sake.”

  He scowled and adjusted his yarmulke. “Your continued use of our Lord’s name in vain does you no good, Berger.”

  “Sorry. Just hold still.”

  I scraped the greasy, blackhead-dotted skin beside his nose. Nauseating, but worth the effort, I hoped. I had him place the scrapings on a slide and instructed him in further preparation of the sample. He examined it under the dual-headed microscope. I wondered that he could even focus through the eyepieces, his left eye twitched so violently.

  “What is that?” He recoiled from the microscope.

  “Those are mange mites. The Demodex mite is a common inhabitant of the skin of people and animals. Ugly little things, aren’t they?”

  “They were in my skin?” His mouth turned down at the corners.

  “They creep around in there and feed off your dead cells.”

  His ruddy face paled.

  “Now let’s take a look at the cultures you prepared from your skin a couple of days ago.”

  I brought out the Petri dishes from the incubator. Numerous bacterial colonies in sickly whites, yellows, browns, and blues dotted the gelatin surfaces of the plates.

  As he stared at them, his face paled even more. “Yech,” he mumbled.

  His almost palpable queasiness delighted me even though I felt it as he did. I showed him how to make smears and stain them. At the microscope again, I said, “Those little round guys in chains are streptococci,” as he peered into the lenses. “They can cause sore throats and meningitis.”

  His cheeks puffed out, fighting back his nausea.

  “The round ones in bunches are staphylococci. They cause abscesses with thick nasty yellow pus.”

  I could hear faint gurgling in his stomach.

  “Those rod-shaped ones are E. coli. You know, fecal bacteria?”

  That did it. He stood, slammed his hand to his mouth, and rushed out of the lab.

  Fur, who had observed us, said, “Our rebbe is not the only one with a sadistic streak, you know that? Be careful you don’t take it too far.”

  “I don’t know how else to fight back.” I swallowed hard to remove the acid taste in my own mouth; my actions to gross out Levi was not without its side effects on me.

  I sensed a rush of indecision from Fur, as if he were on the cusp of a major decision to reveal something, but it receded as quickly as it came.

  Whatever that meant, he was right. Inconsequential triumphs like these did nothing but feed my need for revenge against Levi, and that could spell trouble for everyone.

  ***

  My final visit to my parents was short, but difficult. Mom could not stop her tears no matter how I tried to assure her things would be fine. I wondered how much Dad had told her about my predicament.

  My stomach squirmed and my head ached as I envisioned my failure to protect my folks. The thought of them subjected to torture made me fight to keep my own tears under control.

  Mom forced a smile. “Just take care of yourself, darling. We’re going to miss you at graduation.”

  Dad put his arm around her. “Cy is not going to be gone forever. He’ll be back before we know it.”

  She looked up at him, then at me, bleary-eyed, as if uncertainty and fear clouded her mind.

  Dad hugged Mom with one arm. “The college will present your diploma to us in your stead, but it’s unfair not to have you there. They could have delayed your trip for another month.” A touch of anger colored his thoughts. His eyes told me to say nothing more.

  As I left, Mom cried in my dad’s arms.

  Would I ever see them again? My breath caught at the real possibility that I might never return home. I desperately wanted to turn back, to stay with them, protect them, but I was powerless. The lump in my throat did not leave for a long while. I prayed there would be no further reasons for Mom’s tears.

  CHAPTER 4

  The ship’s antigravity drive quashed my childhood vision of blasting off the planet on a tail of flame. Although antigravity thrust could ramp up to four-g during liftoff, the drive also supplied artificial gravity and kept the occupants in a one-g environment. We took off as comfortably as any atmospheric craft. For the long space voyage, artificial gravity was a major physiological blessing. For someone like me who got sick on a merry-go-round, no zero-g was a godsend.

  Once we reached orbit around Dovid’s World, the vista made up for any disappointment. Emerald forests, sapphire seas, and umber deserts winked from beneath pearlescent clouds, all hung on a sable canvas. I imagined that the refugees had the same reaction when they first looked upon Dovid’s World more than a thousand years ago and named their new home for a heroic spaceman who had saved one of the colony ships at the cost of his own life.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Fur said.

  Even Levi was moved, his tone reverent. “God’s handiwork is always magnificent.”

  I turned to the two men who would share my extended journey. I looked forward to whatever adventures awaited me, but was fearful of what might happen—to me and my parents—if I did not fulfill the desires of Levi and the Rebbinical Council.

  Despite that, hope remained in the back of my mind. My philosophical beliefs had not changed because the Test-Lits held my folks hostage. I dreamed that someday I would return to help free my world from oppression, although I was clueless as to how I might accomplish that. I glared at Levi’s back as he gazed out the viewport. I wondered what his ultimate plan was for this voyage. He never openly stated his intent to spy on the worlds we would visit, but he had dropped enough hints to be obvious. I sure as hell did not want to be involved in anything like that. What kind of information did he expect to gather?

  The command chairs on the bridge molded themselves to our bodies as we settled into them. Levi gave orders to Ruthie.
/>   “Computer. Take us to orbit around Sammara.” He refused to use her name.

  Sammara was the other inhabited world in NewSol’s solar system. The Dovid’s Worlders were not very inventive when they named our sun. The antimatter drive kicked in for the interplanetary jaunt. Once out of a planet’s gravity well, the antigravity drive’s efficiency wanes quickly. So I got to ride a tail of antimatter flame, but the acceleration and ride were anticlimactic.

  When Sammara hung below us, just as impressive from space as Dovid’s World, it had the added thrill of an unfamiliar world. Levi and I were alone on the bridge.

  He said, “Computer, contact the authorities so we can land.”

  “Wait.” I turned to him. “Reb Levi, I have to be the one to make the official contact.”

  His ruddy face became darker as he faced me. “What?”

  I ignored his red-faced glower. “I have to be Captain of the Galactic Circle Veterinary Service. I’m the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and this is a veterinary clinic ship. How could my assistant be Captain? That makes no sense.”

  “I am in charge of this expedition.” Levi’s tone was low and dangerous. His left eye twitched as he rubbed his scar with his left hand.

  “Well, yeah,” I conceded. “But don’t you want to keep your ability to collect information intact? You can do that better if you aren’t in charge. You’ll be undercover, so to speak.”

  “You do not know what I am going to do,” he snapped. “Remember your place and what is at stake.”

  I did not respond and I felt the gears grind in his polished dome as he scratched beneath his yarmulke. “But I suppose it does make some sense that I am free to explore the worlds we stop on. The Council will want reports about them. But you follow my directions. Is that understood?” He pointed a stocky finger at me like a firearm. He then looked at the comm board as if it was the core of the AI. “Is that clear, Computer? I give the orders.”

  “Certainly, Reb Levi,” Ruthie responded in a prim and businesslike voice rather than the sultry intonation she used with me. It made me wonder just how intelligent this AI was to pick up on the differences in our personalities.