Stardoc

by S. L. Viehl

  “You deport them?”

  “Yes. No exceptions.”

  “Whew!” I let out a whistle.

  Ana took a sip of her coffee before continuing. “It may not seem equitable compared to the legal system on Terra, but the ordinance has virtually eliminated disputes between inhabitants.”

  “Who is on the Council?”

  “Members are chosen at random from the population—and service is mandatory, just to note, in the event you’re called to serve. Length of service is set at one cycle, about four months in Terran terms.”

  “No one can claim prejudice.” I saw the wisdom of it.

  “None have as of yet. Appeals are allowed, under extreme or extenuating circumstances. However, I have yet to see an appeal granted.”

  I could understand the value of simplicity with such an eclectic population. At least there was no room for corruption or misinterpretation. You broke the law enough times, you had to go. “What about my obligations as a colonist?”

  “Community service provides dedicated, noncontractual stanhours and labor for the improvement and maintenance of the colony. All inhabitants are required to contribute one hundred hours per cycle.”

  That would roughly be a few hours a week, I calculated. “No exceptions,” I said automatically, and Ana smiled.

  “I think you’ll enjoy this feature of life on K-2. We have a wide range of ongoing projects, from instructor positions at our academy to experimental horticultural ventures. You are allowed to choose when and how you serve your quota hours.” Ana glanced at her carefully manicured hands and flexed her fingers. “I break at least two nails per service at the botanical gardens.”

  Somehow I couldn’t envision myself doing the same. Working in gardens, not breaking nails. Doctors were incapable of maintaining a manicure for more than a day. “Sounds interesting.”

  “It is. Just remember to watch out for a variety of the ambulatory plants called cryscacti. They tend to bump into you without warning, and the needles can leave some nasty wounds.”

  So can some of the colonists, I thought, remembering the spiny patient I’d treated the day before. “Duly noted.”

  “Which leaves the subject of personal compensation.” Good. I still had very little idea of how I was going to be paid. I involuntarily pictured an ever-increasing flock of small, feathered alien birds in my quarters, and Ana burst into laughter.

  “Oh, no, my dear Cherijo, we won’t compensate you with live animals,” she said after regaining control. “I promise you that.”

  “Now I know I’ll sleep well tonight.”

  Ana wiped her eyes and sighed. “I can’t recall when I’ve enjoyed a session more,” she said. “On the matter of compensation, however, I will be frank with you. The colony is still in first-stage settlement. Revenue in offworld export, the sole source of income for the Treasury, is limited, but developing.”

  “What about taxation?”

  “There is none. The originators of this colony were unyielding on that subject. Excise Acts of any kind are prohibited by the Charter.” Ana selected a disc and handed it to me. “Here is a copy of your salary schedule.” She named an annual sum that wasn’t going to make me the richest physician in the Quadrant, but would keep me from having to moonlight. “You will be paid in accordance with the terms of your contract, although I admit we do sometimes issue delay vouchers. The colony will exchange them at any time upon request.” Her eyes gleamed merrily. “In standard credits, not poultry.”

  I tucked the disc in with the rest of them. “Just let me know if the policy changes.”

  “Absolutely.” She got to her feet. “We’re nearly at lunch interval, are you hungry?”

  Due to the appetite-murdering confrontation with Dad, my breakfast had ended up in Jenner’s belly. I nodded. I was starved.

  “We’ll stop at the Trading Center on the way over to your housing unit,” she said. “You have to try Café Lisette.”

  “Sounds intriguing.”

  “A former administrator’s concept, teaching people to appreciate a proper croissant.”

  The Administration Building and adjacent structures were strategically arranged around a cultivated expanse of ground. Inventive landscaping produced a natural maze of gardens and flower beds, which encompassed a wide ring of trade establishments. The various enterprises offered everything from exotic meals to commodities from a dozen different worlds.

  “The Trading Center began as an experiment, like most of our projects,” Ana said. “Some of the colonists prefer self-employment, others wanted to import nonessentials from their homeworlds.” She nodded to a passing group of colonists, who were enjoying what appeared to be chunks of glowing black ice cream.

  We halted at an authentic-looking sidewalk café, where a number of Terran customers were dining al fresco.

  “Here we are,” Ana said. “Lisette Dubois’ foster family owned a restaurant in Paris.” I smiled at the group from my homeworld, until my attention was drawn to a particular pair of eyes.

  The Terran male sat alone. Unlike the others, he didn’t wear a professional garment, but instead was attired completely in black. His thick, light hair was long, framing features that were handsome but oddly inanimate. It was weird, the way he was looking at me so intently. What color were his eyes? Blue—no, grey. Or were they green?

  I became distracted by a sort of daydreamlike image in my mind. I could picture that man standing beneath a towering, purple-leafed tree. A nimbus of white light surrounded him that seemed almost magnetic. His glacier eyes flared as his hands tightened over someone’s wrists. Delicate, feminine wrists he held before his face . . .

  I blinked once, twice. The images were gone. What the hell was that?

  The man continued to stare at me. I wondered if I had a big dirt smudge on me somewhere and didn’t know it. My attention veered away from him as Ana called over the café’s service counter.

  “Lisette? Come out and meet someone.”

  An Amazon walked out and planted herself before us. She was at least six feet tall, with a long mane of platinum curls falling around her like a gleaming curtain. Bejeweled gold glittered at her ears, throat, wrists, and fingers. She was big, blond, and beautiful, which gave me every right to hate her at once.

  Like other merchants, she wore dark red, and it complimented her fair coloring. Her face was an artist’s dream, full of smoldering mystery. Ana’s impeccable style may have made me feel untidy, but compared to this woman I resembled a skinny boy.

  “This is Dr. Cherijo Grey Veil. Doctor, Lisette Dubois.”

  “Hello,” I greeted her politely.

  “A doctor?” Her dark eyes swept over me with skepticism.

  I nodded.

  “You work at the FreeClinic?” She made it sound like I recycled waste for a living.

  “Dr. Grey Veil was a surgeon back on the Terra,” Ana said.

  “Yes, it’s safe to give me a knife.” I gathered from Lisette’s darkening countenance she wished that I and my sense of humor had stayed on the homeworld.

  “I was telling Dr. Grey Veil about your incomparable croissant,” Ana hurried to compliment her, evidently aware of the simmering animosity the woman projected.

  “Has the Council instituted a Health Board?” a masculine voice inquired, and I saw the tall, lean owner of the unsettling eyes had joined us.

  “No, Duncan, Dr. Grey Veil is a newly transferred physician. Cherijo Grey Veil, this is Duncan Reever, our chief linguist.”

  Lisette was not amused at the implication that her culinary skills were suspect. Combined with whatever was going on behind Reever’s shuttered countenance and my own growing discomfort, Ana was receiving a bewildering cross fire of emotions. Her reaction reminded me of a homeworld transdrone during downtown rush hour.

  “Duncan, go away.” Lisette turned to Ana, ignoring me entirely. “Sit down, I will bring you a croissant and café au lait.” She didn’t spare me another word as she flounced back to her work space.


  “Don’t mind Lisette,” Reever said. His voice, like his eyes, was as flat as a sheet of ice. “She dislikes competition.”

  “Competition?” Ana said, still confused.

  I studied the arrangement of flora surrounding the café. I had no interest in personal dramas or obscure agendas. The flowers were pretty, though.

  “Lisette considers any woman under thirty and breathing competition, Ana,” he replied. “Doctor, when do you estimate you’ll return to Terra?”

  The man was beginning to seriously annoy me. “I don’t. Shall we sit down, Ana?”

  He followed and joined us at the table without invitation. Since Ana still appeared to be in a muddle, I decided to deal with him myself.

  “Chief Linguist Reever, a pleasure to meet you.” I smiled. Thin civility frosted each word. “Please excuse us.”

  “Call me Duncan.” He was unperturbed and definitely not in a hurry to go. “You’re not Asian, are you?”

  “My patriarchal genealogy is endemic to North America,” I said. “Apache, some Navajo, as well. My matriarchal lineage is listed as Caucasian.”

  He jumped right on that. “Listed as?”

  “My father contracted a professional surrogate.” It was an accepted practice on Terra; I had no reservations about revealing it. It was the direction of his questioning that made me uneasy. Just what was he getting at?

  “A pity your matriarchal line is undefined.”

  Now I was completely lost. “My maternal ancestry—and my lack of knowledge about it—has no effect on my life,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “On this world,” he said.

  “I don’t understand what you mean.” Which was better than telling him it was none of his damn business, and to stop bothering me.

  “Duncan, we do have a limited interval here . . .” Ana said. I was puzzled by her subtle deference to him. Was Reever’s position so superior to her own?

  The chief linguist kept staring at me. “On the fifth planet of a system two light-years away, you’d be ritually sacrificed for having those eyes.”

  “Really?” I faked a dry tone. “How . . . interesting.”

  “Yes.” His countenance reflected a flicker of what might have been humor. Whatever it was, it faded quickly as he stood. “Excuse my intrusion, Ana. Doctor Grey Veil.”

  Lisette intersected his path as he departed, and said something inaudible. He lifted a slim, badly scarred hand and pressed it to her cheek briefly. It was a tender gesture, completely at odds with the stone-faced man. After a moment Lisette returned to her counter, and Reever gazed back at me.

  What was his problem? I wondered. And why was he looking at me like that? The professional side of my brain was intrigued, as well. What had caused such severe wounds to his hands? Why hadn’t the injuries been treated properly? Such scarring was virtually unknown in Terrans, due to the advances in dermal regeneration.

  I barely noticed as a plate heaped with flaky pastry and a steaming server were thumped down before me. I was too busy watching the tall, silent form of the chief linguist as he turned abruptly and walked away.

  “What an amazingly obnoxious man,” I said once Lisette had departed. Discretion required that I not make the same observation about the owner of the café.

  “I’ve never seen him so . . . confrontational,” Ana murmured, then seemed to remember I was new here. “I’m sorry. Duncan is an eccentric, and usually makes a terrible first impression. Especially on other humans.”

  “That charmer?” I smirked. “You’re kidding.”

  Her eyes reproached me. “It isn’t his fault. He doesn’t spend much time around his own species. He wasn’t even born on Terra.”

  “Oh?” That was peculiar, given my estimation of his age. At the time of his birth, Terrans were not yet transferring to alien worlds. I took a sip from my server, and made a face. I’d forgotten that café au lait was coffee. “That’s pretty unusual.”

  “His parents were two of the first Terran intergalactic anthropologists,” Ana said. “Duncan was born on a non-League world in some distant system.”

  That justified his odd interest in my ethnic ancestry. Maybe.

  “According to his personnel data, he traveled extensively during his childhood, until his parents discovered his linguistic talent, and sent him back to be educated on the homeworld. He was still in school when they were killed during some intersystem hostilities.”

  I had to admit, it was a tragic tale. I thought of my own father’s manipulation, recent revelations, and spoke without thinking. “He must have been lonely.”

  “Perhaps.” Ana’s awkward tone made me realize the rather personal slant to my observation. “None of us know him very well. The colony was very fortunate to contract someone with his expertise.”

  “Why have a chief linguist at all?” It didn’t make much sense to me. “You already have all the native languages of the inhabitants loaded into your data base, don’t you?”

  “He’s a telepathic linguist. Some traders and a few new arrivals do use languages that aren’t in the system. Duncan is invaluable in those situations. After he establishes a mental link, he can easily absorb the language, then interpret until he programs the system translators.”

  “He programs your system?” I said, incredulous. That type of work required some serious training in itself.

  “Of course. He created the linguistic data core himself.”

  Conceited, too, I bet, I thought before I could stop myself, then grimaced at Ana.

  “He can be rather imperious,” she said.

  “Is he able to read thoughts, like you?” After meeting him, mine hadn’t been very friendly. Maybe that was why he’d acted like that.

  “Not according to his records, but I suspect he has more talent than he admits to. I can’t read minds most of the time, you know. Merely thought fragments, and intense emotions.” She picked up her croissant and bit into it. “This is delicious, try yours!”

  Eager to change the subject, Ana went on to describe some of Lisette’s other specialties. She even ordered me a server of tea when she realized I wasn’t drinking the café.

  The light repast was enjoyable, and the administrator refused to let me pay for the meal. At the counter Lisette stubbornly declined Ana’s credits, too.

  “It isn’t worth my time to debit,” she said, then her scowl softened. “You are good for my business.” She eyed me belligerently as I offered my thanks. All I got in return was a regal nod.

  “Lisette should meet my cat,” I said to Ana as we walked from the café. “They’d love each other.”

  “You have a cat?” the other woman asked. “From Terra?”

  I chuckled. “I’ll have to introduce you to His Royal Highness.”

  Ana escorted me to the glidecar she had requisitioned for me, and we rode over to my housing unit. On the way she pointed out several aspects of the colony’s outlay, conveniences, and projects.

  Once inside my building, she reviewed the use of the central managerial unit, available for general purposes like nonemergency repair requests and individual climate control. Good to know where to input complaints if something broke. She then introduced me to the unit resource manager, a cheerful, corpulent alien named Lor-Etselock.

  “Goodtomeetyou.” He raced through his words almost faster than my TI could follow. “LetmeknowifIcanhelpyou.”

  Ana then stopped by my quarters so I could check on Jenner, and admired my pet so much that he deigned to allow her to stroke him a few times.

  “He’s gorgeous,” she said. Jenner closed his eyes in silent ecstacy as Ana’s long nails trailed through his fur. Kitty cat Heaven. “You know, we’ve discussed using the image of a pet as the colony mascot—a symbol to represent K-2. He’s just what we’ve been looking for.”

  “No, please.” I groaned. “He’s egotistical enough already. If you start posting his image everywhere, I’ll never be able to live with him.”

  Ana laughed, whi
le Jenner treated me to a disdainful glare.

  “You’ll have to take him over to the enclosed habitat area we’ve set up for pet owners to use. Since he can’t be allowed to run wild, it would give him a chance for some exercise. Maybe he’ll make friends with some of the other colonists’ pets.”

  “I met someone’s pet last night,” I said later as we left the building. “It called itself Alunthri. I wonder if Jenner would be that polite, if he could talk.”

  Ana slipped into the passenger’s side of my glidecar. “You met one of the Chakacats. They are very congenial.” She stared out at the road, and her lips thinned.

  There was more she wanted to say, I guessed, and decided to probe a little farther. “How is it that such an obvious sentient is someone’s pet?”

  “They’re feral on Chakara, the owners’ homeworld. Once captured and trained, they are sold as domesticates. They’re exported to other worlds, too.”

  I was shocked. “That’s slavery!”

  “There is some controversy about their classification,” Ana said, her features taut. “Efforts by Council petition to have them recognized as sentient life-forms have been consistently denied.”

  “How many times have you petitioned the Council, Administrator?” I asked.

  Ana smiled with self-mockery. “Twenty-four at last count.” I stopped the glidecar at HQ Administration to let her off. “We’ve reviewed all items on the orientation agenda. Do you have any questions?”

  “Not at the moment. I’m sure I will.”

  “Then, I can count on seeing you soon.” Ana held out her hand, and I grasped it firmly. “Good luck, Cherijo. Please let me know if I can provide any further assistance.” She winked. “And anytime you need a good listener, give me a call.”

  “I appreciate it, Ana.”

  After I returned to the FreeClinic and secured my glidecar, I walked up to the main entrance. Orientation hadn’t been so bad. I had a feeling Ana and I were going to be good friends.

  Now all I had to do was learn to be a FreeClinic Trauma physician. From scratch.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Hsktskts Squared