by S. L. Viehl
The interior of the Administration Building was even more crowded. Over the heads of dozens of marvelous beings, I searched for the station I needed. It was simple to find; no one was crowding around that terminal. On either side, however, I saw an extended line of newly transferred workers waiting to check in for Habitat Subsistence and Colonial Security.
I knew there was a shortage of med pros, but I couldn’t possibly be the only incoming transfer. The others must have arrived sometime before me.
I put down my cases and addressed the blank display marked “FreeClinic Services.” Incredibly, I had to wait a few moments before it blinked into sluggish operation.
“Welcome to Kevarzangia Two, FreeClinic Services terminal,” the antiquated panel blared. “Please identify aid required.”
It thought I was hurt? “Cherijo Grey Veil, Physician, transfer arrival.” The screen blipped for an instant, and then I saw a real face staring out at me.
It was dusky vermilion in hue, glistening, and had three olfactory orifices below a quartet of enormous, brilliantly faceted eyes. Exactly like a gigantic, four-eyed preying mantis.
The face moved, and rapid-fire speech rattled over the audio. “T-tche-tcher juro-etterche—” Belatedly I activated my wristcom, and the chattering became translated language. “—To K-2, Dr. Grey Veil. I’m T’Nliqinara, the charge nurse on duty. Dr. Mayer will be there to meet you directly.”
“Thank you.” I gazed around, but I was still standing alone. “Where are the others?”
The nurse assumed a surprised air, if I was reading its facial musculature correctly. “What others, Doctor?”
I was the only med pro expected. “Never mind. I’ll be here.”
After the signal terminated, I spent a few minutes downloading my transfer discs into the terminal. Once the formalities were over, I took a position by the exterior viewers and watched the shuttles land and take off.
I tried not to look for Dhreen.
“Cherijo Grey Veil?”
I started at the sound of a human voice—I hadn’t seen one Terran so far—and turned around.
One glance took in the taller, stern-faced man. Craggy features below a thin wreath of white hair. Sharp dark eyes that glinted like the beam of a lascalpel. An immaculate physicians’ tunic, meticulously tailored over a spare, disciplined frame. Lean, beautiful hands.
A powerful man, I thought at once. One I do not want to aggravate. “Yes, I’m Dr. Grey Veil.”
“Dr. William Mayer,” he said. His voice was low-pitched and even, but gave no indication of welcome. The automated terminal had been cordial compared to this guy.
“How do you do?” I said, and offered my hand. Dr. Mayer’s grasp was brief and indifferent.
“I’ll escort you to your living quarters, Dr. Grey Veil,” he said. “After you check in, we’ll continue on to the facility.”
Be still my heart. “Thank you.” I wasn’t imagining the tension; he was practically hitting me over the head with it. Since he didn’t look the type to volunteer as a porter, I picked up my belongings.
“This way.” He abruptly gestured for me to follow him as he turned and strode off. Feeling like a chastised medical student, I followed.
My quarters were located about half a kilometer from Transport. Dr. Mayer’s glidecar provided a scenic, if silent ride to Main Housing. Mayer himself said nothing, nor did he respond to my one attempt at conversation. After that rebuff, I ignored him and concentrated on my surroundings.
According to the data I’d studied before my transfer, many of the indigenous vegetation were biologically similar to that of preindustrial Terra. Yet there was little I could recognize as remotely comparable to the carefully sculptured landscapes of my homeworld.
Green, blue, and gold foliage crowded each other, greedy for the twin suns’ abundant light. Flora hemmed a lacy tangle around the large open tracts of cleared land. Everywhere were bursts of color, from dazzling red crystalline flowers to towering growths of something like fern, which cascaded showers of thin, elongated yellow fronds for dozens of meters to the soil.
A green sea, spangled with a rainbow of life.
I was startled to see what seemed to be a trundling mass of thick spiny shrub slowly moving parallel to the glidecar path.
“What is that?”
Dr. Mayer didn’t answer. I belatedly recalled that several native plants were nomadic in nature, moving from one spot to the next in order to take advantage of nutrients in the soil. He could have told me that. It wouldn’t have killed him.
The colony appeared to have had little impact on the natural biosphere. What structures had been erected were already becoming assimilated by the environment; wild green runners embraced the artificial dwellings, incorporating them.
I compared this to the geometric flawlessness I was used to, and found the contrast almost comical. Terra was coldly shaped by human hands. K-2 embraced its colonists with a warm, fragrant hug. Dr. Mayer was living on the wrong planet.
The glidecar drew to a stop outside a structure centrally located within the housing area.
“Your transfer data, Dr. Grey Veil?”
My eyebrows elevated, but I brought out the discs and handed them over. He stared at them, and then again at me, this time with unconcealed aversion.
The man definitely did not like me. But why? “Is something wrong, Dr. Mayer?”
He ignored the question. “I will expect you in one half hour.”
There was no justification for his attitude, so I had to hope it was a personality defect. When you worked in the medical field, you ran into a lot of egos. Walking brick walls of egos. Impenetrable, aggressive, often unconsciously offensive. To be honest, there were times I was no diplomat myself.
I collected my cases, Jenner’s carrier, and left without another word.
Inside Main Housing, I checked in with the drone custodian and was directed to my quarters. A short walk down a side corridor brought me to the West Wing, and my new home. I keyed open the door and found three large rooms had been allocated to me, with plenty of space for both a physician and a feline. Furnishings were stanissue, dull and boring, but I doubted I would be spending a great deal of time at home.
That was the only assumption about K-2 I had figured right.
I dumped my cases, then fed and watered Jenner as quickly as His Royal Highness would allow me to before putting him back in his carrier. I had to jog to make it back in time to Mayer’s glidecar, but I refused to be late. He stood waiting anyway, with the same taciturn set to his face.
“I’m sorry if I kept—” I broke off in amazement as he brusquely turned his back on me and got back in the vehicle. For a moment I stood there with my mouth hanging open, then collected myself and climbed in after him. The door snapped shut too fast under my tight fingers, and that earned me a frown.
Too bad, I thought mutinously. You started it.
The trip to the FreeClinic took us back in the direction of Transport. The facility was close to the shuttle docks, dangerously so, it seemed to me. As I studied the facility, Dr. Mayer stopped the glidecar abruptly and turned to me. His intelligent eyes were blazing.
All this, because I slammed the door? Maybe it was time to exit the vehicle.
“Just a minute, Doctor. I want to talk to you.”
Did he know? Had my father already tracked me down?
“Before you enter my FreeClinic, understand this,” he said, underlining each word with deliberate threat, “I will not tolerate any excuse for incompetence. I don’t care what you did to get this slot. If you cannot perform the duties required of your position, you will be discharged.”
“I see.” He didn’t know! Despite my relief, instant resentment sprang up. Incompetence? I’d be discharged? Who did he think he was? My FreeClinic, he said. Like he owned it. “May I ask what your position is with this facility, Doctor?”
William Mayer regarded me with open contempt. “Chief of staff.” With that, he exited the glidecar and marc
hed off into the facility.
Well, I’d really impressed my new boss.
When I walked into the FreeClinic a few minutes later, I spied the same insect-like charge nurse who had greeted me via display at Transport. The cut of the uniform indicated a senior professional, and that T’Nliqinara was a female. As I approached, she looked up and ceased entering data on the console beneath her single-clawed appendage.
“Dr. Grey Veil.” The angular set of her features sharpened. “Welcome to the FreeClinic.”
“Thank you.” I resisted the urge to cross my fingers behind my back. “It’s a pleasure to be here.”
She consulted a data pad to one side. “I just received a signal for you. You’re expected at HQ Administration in one hour for orientation.”
I grimaced. All doctors hated adminwork, and I was no exception. The last thing I wanted to do on my first day was to sift through and acknowledge a heap of bureaucratic data, then listen to some clerk go on for hours about the rules and regulations. Surely my time could be put to better use. Like showing Dr. Mayer exactly how wrong he was.
“Any chance I can check in with Trauma first?” I knew what Trauma units were like. I’d look in, meet an overworked staff, and be up to my elbows in charts within minutes.
“Of course.” The elegant skeletal figure rose ominously from her position behind the reception desk. T’Nliqinara towered over me by at least a meter. I was reminded again of a very large preying mantis as she crooked one of her multi-jointed arms in a sweeping gesture. I wondered if she meant, come this way, or, I’d like to eat you as an afternoon snack.
“I’ll give you the usual tour along the way.”
Doctors were not squeamish by nature, especially surgeons. When you’d been up to your elbows in someone’s abdomen, cutting and patching together the squishy contents, it tended to give you a certain tolerance level. I could handle T’Nliqinara. I just didn’t want to be around when she did get hungry.
A few steps down the corridor, and I forgot about the tall nurse altogether.
During my surgical practice on Terra, I could send my patients to a dozen different facilities that provided every possible service a doctor might need. All within a few minutes’ travel from my office.
As I walked alongside the lumbering charge nurse, I saw the clinic barely resembled those efficient institutions. Resembled? The tavern where I’d met Dhreen would have been an improvement. The structure housing inpatient wards, clinical services, and the trauma center was originally a series of cargo storage bays. Incredibly old and shabby storage bays at that.
“FreeClinics are always close to wherever the Transport is,” T’Nliqinara said as we made our way through the facility. “Convenient both for incoming transfer medevals and the prime zone of accidental injuries in newly established colonies. And if anything crashes, we have first salvage rights.”
“Effective,” I murmured. Not to mention rather macabre.
“It is,” the nurse said. “Staffing creates difficulties, but we’ve handled patient load so far. Trauma gets the major portion of the available medical equipment.”
“Available medical equipment?” I echoed.
“We barter for whatever we can to supplement, which isn’t much out here. On each shift, three physicians rotate the two medsysbanks we have. Have to roll them on carts in and out of exam rooms.”
Diagnostic equipment on carts? What would be next? Fabric bandages? “Wonderful.”
T’Nliqinara snorted with what I guessed was contempt. “Half the instruments and non-disposables should have been replaced before I was hatched. The other half invariably break or disappear. Bartermen will acquire anything if it’s not secured.”
“Bartermen?”
The alien nurse directed another snort at me. “Oh, you’ll get to meet them very soon, Doctor.”
There was no more time for discussion as we entered the Trauma Unit. Like any other emergency center in the universe, it was in a state of near-bedlam. A handful of serious cases were separated from the general waiting area, while three nurses and an orderly scurried around them performing triage evals. The remainder of the patients waited, in states that ran the gamut from silent acceptance to vocal indignation. In one corner a couple of kids with discernible flippers played while two larger parental versions bickered with each other in squeaking tones.
I smiled. For the first time since I’d stepped on K-2 soil, I felt at home.
“Dr. mu Cheft is on leave until tomorrow, and Dr. Dloh is probably on a rest interval,” T’Nliqinara said as she led me past Assessment and into Examination and Treatment. “I’ll take you to Dr. Rogan, he’s primary for this shift.”
Terran? I found myself speculating on the name as I rounded the corner and followed the nurse back into the exam rooms. So far I hadn’t met anyone (with the disagreeable exception of Dr. Mayer) from the homeworld. I chided myself. Why transfer fourteen light-years from Terra if I wanted to see another human being?
Inside an unoccupied treatment room, an average-sized, rather overweight humanoid male sat with his back toward the door, fiddling with the controls of an aging medsysbank propped on a portable cart. The tunic he wore was white and blue, identical to the one worn by Dr. Mayer. It was not, however, as spotlessly neat. Splattered blood, bile, and other unidentifiable fluids soiled the fabric. The wrinkle pattern suggested he’d worn the same tunic for days without bothering to sterilize, the slob.
When he turned, I flinched slightly. His head was shaped like mine, but there ended the resemblance. Lid-less, protruding eyes slid to the nurse, then over me with a slick eagerness. Around these two bulging orbs, his face was deeply scored with long, parallel grooves. Each elongated pit was edged with thousands of tiny, undulating grey polyps.
Ugh, I thought. My repugnance tolerance level just dropped a dozen notches.
Rogan’s skin was a jaundice-yellow in tone, but a healthy amount of human-looking dark hair grew on the back and top of his skull. He even affected a patchy growth above his four lips. This sparse mustache neatly parted as his mouth flowered open over pegged, yellowish teeth.
“T’Nliq!” he said in such an ordinary Terran voice that I recoiled again. “This damn thing is worthless. Can’t see what the suns is wrong with the sensor ports.”
“Dr. Phorap Rogan, Dr. Cherijo Grey Veil.” The nurse made another of her sweeping moves.
He nodded toward me. “Hey, Doctor. Who did you spit on to get this slot?”
T’Nliqinara looked more than slightly peeved at Rogan. “Have you notified Facility Maintenance about the medsysbank, Dr. Rogan?”
“Those slackers?” Rogan’s teeth snapped together audibly. “They’d take at least a rotation to get here.”
“Then, you must make do,” the nurse said with another of her snorts. “Excuse me, I have work to complete.” She turned and ducked beneath the entrance molding as she left the room. Dr. Rogan turned back to the diagnostic console.
“Know anything about this kind of tech?” he inquired, his halfhearted efforts ineffective after several minutes had passed.
“Probably as much as you do.” I had already taken the top chart from the tall stack waiting for his attention and switched it to display. Clearly Dr. Rogan wasn’t in a hurry to treat any patients. “Quite a crowd out there in Assessment,” I said, deliberately casual.
“They’ll wait. They always do,” Rogan said. He didn’t sound especially concerned. He stood, and suddenly gave the cart a swift kick. A static whine snapped, and the equipment hummed as it came back on line. He danced around it, chortling with glee. “I got it! I got it!”
I ignored his less than graceful frolicking. The initial eval displayed on the next scheduled case had my full attention.
“Good for you.” I shrugged off my outer jacket. “See if it will profile diagnostics on an adult Orgemich female with moderate abdominal distress.” I gazed around the interior of the room and located the central display. Time to get to work.
“Hey,
there’s no hurry!” he said. “Don’t you want to take a look around first, see the rest of the ‘clinic’?”
“Sure. After we clear these cases.”
“I said they’ll wait.” Dr. Rogan’s voice took on a distinct whine: I don’t want to and you can’t make me.
Stifling a sigh, I removed a platinum slide from my tunic pocket and secured my braid with a practiced twist.
“I know,” I said. “I won’t.”
CHAPTER THREE
First Shift
Dr. Rogan capitulated to my desire to start working, but not without attitude.
“You’re not scheduled for duty today,” he said as the patient I had called for trudged in. “New arrivals have to report for Orientation—”
Gripe, gripe, gripe. Was that all Rogan could do, besides dancing badly and kicking sensitive medical equipment? No wonder Assessment was packed. “Let’s bend the rules, and they might give us a raise,” I said.
The Orgemich female with moderate abdominal distress turned out to be an ursine creature with a wide, powerful set of jaws lined with row upon row of equally impressive, serrated teeth. This patient also sported a massive digestive paunch, which she held with her stubby paws in evident discomfort. Tiny, close-set pink eyes glared at me and Rogan.
“Hurts it does!” the Orgemich said. “Dying I am!”
“On the exam pad you get,” Rogan growled back at her. The patient reluctantly complied, groaning as she eased her bulk onto the table. “Still now hold!” Using an antiquated scanner, my colleague made a quick sweep of the swollen abdominal expanse.
I prudently stood aside to observe while Dr. Rogan examined the patient. It didn’t take him long to complete his scan. By the time I blinked twice, he was done. He skipped the usual patient interview, and merely waited for the medsysbank to extrapolate a diagnosis from his scanner’s initial input. I reviewed the chart once more while I waited.
“Here we are,” Phorap Rogan said as he read the console’s displayed recommendation. “Just as I thought.” He withdrew a syrinpress from a supply chest, and calibrated it for application.
