“I’ll take care of it,” Vasiht’h said. “If we can check in, anyway. If it’s too early, I’ll get our baggage transferred to a locker and go get my feet wet.”
Jahir smiled at him. “I’ll send a message as soon as I’m free.”
“Great,” Vasiht’h said, beaming up at him. “I’m glad we made it.”
“I am as well,” Jahir replied, and was surprised and gratified to discover he meant it.
They parted ways, Vasiht’h back into the dock to use the ground-facing Pads, and Jahir further into the station in accordance with the instructions he’d been issued when he’d registered for the test. The walk proved illuminating. He had passed through many staging platforms since leaving the fringes of the Alliance for its Core. Living on Veta had accustomed him to the starbase’s architecture, which served its specific imperatives, mostly commercial and military, but even the most basic of the Alliance’s stations had an aesthetic focus possible only to a civilization with a powerful industrial base. The Pelted could afford to put windows on every wall and plants in every corner, because they already had the facilities that could create such things. Why not, then?
This though was the first station he’d visited built specifically to service a tourism industry, and it cast every other platform into the shade. He exited the docks via a floating bridge over a spreading terrace of shops and exquisite miniature parks, small enough for a handful of people. Each of these terraces was floating over a transparent floor, so that the visitors seemed to be visiting islands suspended in space over the planet. Many people were tarrying on the broad bridges, translucent ones like his, staring down at the world and exclaiming at its features.
It was not just beautiful, but whimsical as well. Fountains on one level sent water soaring in thin colored arcs into bowls further down. As he stopped to look, he discovered they weren’t on timers, but reacting to the people near them. Specifically the children: different colored splashes would follow them from platform to platform, and then “run away” when noticed or chased. Clouds of bubbles drifted past as well; as he watched, a school of them drifted past his shoulders, and amid them he found fish, streamlined into some artist’s conception of creatures that would be at home in the shoals of space. He reached toward one and it darted under his fingers to be petted, its solidigraphic skin warm and slick.
This was the Alliance at play. Not just the technology: it showed in the people visiting, too, the slowed tenor of their conversation, the frequent laughter, the shrieks of delighted children. It seemed a pity to leave the area for the convention center where he’d be sitting the exams. He would have to bring Vasiht’h here later… it was just the sort of thing his partner found delightful.
After the terraces, the convention center should have seemed more mundane. But it had sculpted its halls around rock gardens of staggering beauty, and all the rooms had more of the enormous windows: some looking inward at those gardens, others outward at space. Jahir followed the paths to a door that opened on what was thankfully a very normal sort of lecture hall. There was a Hinichi wolfine standing at a desk, her hair pinned into a golden swirl behind her cream-colored ears. At the sight of him, she glanced at her tablet, then back up. “You would be Jahir Galare, I presume? Welcome, alet.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“Do you mind filling out some paperwork?” she said. “Have a seat, please. Can I get you something to drink?”
“Water would not go amiss, thank you.” He seated himself at one of the desks and accepted the proffered tablet. It surprised him, how easily she’d handled him—he tended to create problems with paperwork, given the censors’ habit of sweeping it up. As it was, it didn’t surprise him that anything he’d filled out prior to arrival had vanished. The hacks his former client was developing for him did not yet reliably work on every type of data he wanted to remain permanent. He could wish the censor would allow him to make some choices rather than deciding for him what evidence of his existence he was permitted to leave behind.
“Thank you,” she said, when he handed the tablet back to her. “We have an orientation session after lunch today, and then you’re free until tomorrow morning. The exam starts promptly at mark-eight. We don’t allow anyone in after we shut the doors, so I tell everyone to show up early.” An impish smile. “That guarantees most of them show up on time.”
He laughed softly. “I imagine so. Lunch then would be at…”
“Mark twelve, so Orientation begins at mark one. You might enjoy the terraces? There’s a planet-facing set and a space-facing.” Another smile. “They orbit the center of the station.”
“Do they,” he said, trying to imagine how that worked, or who had engineered it.
“Oh yes. It takes about two months. When you’re walking around on them, you’re actually being moved.”
“Wonders never cease,” he murmured.
“Not here, they don’t,” she agreed.
Vasiht’h stared up at the sky, mouth agape.
“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” the Harat-Shariin pantherine said as he checked the Glaseah’s reservation. “I never get tired of it.”
“It’s unearthly,” Vasiht’h said. “Like the clouds are sculpted.”
The pantherine chuckled. “They are! We have brilliant weather control systems here. You’ll never have a bad day on Tsera Nova.”
Vasiht’h shook his head. “I wish that could be said of every place.”
“I’d agree with you, but then I’d be out of a job here, and I’d hate to be out of a job here.” The Harat-Shar grinned. “All right, you’re set. Your room’s twelve-seventy, and the path will light your way there. I encourage you to check out the amenities. We have an amazing spa. They’ll do things to your muscles that will make you want to ooze into a pillow and never move.”
“That… sounds good, actually.” Vasiht’h hitched the bag more comfortably over his shoulder. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure. And welcome to your home away from home, the jewel of the Alliance Crown!”
Vasiht’h eyed him, amused. “You deliver that line well.”
“Would you say I did it with gusto?”
“Oh, definitely.”
Another grin, so bright Vasiht’h almost imagined the sparkle tinging off the pantherine’s eyetooth. “Then make sure you mention it on your service review.”
Laughing, Vasiht’h left him behind and padded out from under the cabana where the hotel check-in service was handling those visitors who preferred to talk with someone in the flesh, rather than let a computer handle their arrangements. That the hotel offered that service struck Vasiht’h as only the first of its many signs of luxury: most hotels operated like the one in Seersana, with live employees handling concierge services but computers handling check-in and room assignments.
The Diamond Sands resort was in fact on the beach, a cluster of small buildings built onto decks, and the decks surrounded in verdant foliage. Each of those buildings had maybe twenty rooms, with a central courtyard for sunbathing or—checking the brochure on his tablet—bonfires at night, or cook-outs hosted, naturally, by the hotel and its five-star restaurant staff. Vasiht’h didn’t have to look at the prices to know it was ridiculously expensive, and he didn’t much care with the breeze off the ocean blowing through the fur on his flanks. People said the sound of waves on the shore was soothing? He found it exciting. Like his Eldritch, enigmatic and unknowable, and therefore an invitation to grapple with the Goddess’s many mysteries.
The path had lit, true to the Harat-Shar’s promise, the stones under his paws glowing a cerulean blue. When he moved forward, the glow moved just far enough to keep in front of his next step. Following the guide, he trotted to one of the small buildings and walked up the deck’s stairs to the topmost platform, some seven feet off the ground. The room unlocked for him onto an airy suite that was mostly balcony. Peeking through the side door he found one bedroom, also rimmed with a balcony, if a shorter one. The view was utterly spectacular.
“I could be rich,” Vasiht’h said aloud, “if being rich meant this sort of thing all the time.”
And immediately thought better of it, because he couldn’t imagine being rich, and the idea made him uncomfortable.
He also couldn’t stop staring out the window wall. Shaking himself, Vasiht’h walked toward it and discovered it wasn’t a wall at all, but a force field that went permeable when he stepped through it. Startled, he looked over his shoulder, then gave up calculating expenses and just enjoyed it. The balcony’s golden planks were warm under his feet, and the sea was close enough that he could see the foam on the breakers of waves that were an unlikely aquamarine, clear as a gem. The heat would have been uncomfortable had it not been for the constant breeze. Had they engineered that as well with their weather control systems, or were they just lucky?
He jogged back inside and checked the time, then made a call. When Sehvi answered, he had the pick-up pointed at the view, and leaned into it to grin at her.
“Oh my Goddess,” Sehvi breathed, and then flung a pillow at him. “I’d hate you so much if I didn’t love you so much! I am so jealous!!”
“No, no, don’t be jealous, see, I’m sharing!”
Sehvi laughed. “I wish.” She shook her head. “You actually made it!”
“I know,” Vasiht’h said. “I wasn’t sure I would either.”
“And you even let him buy!”
“That obvious, is it.”
His sister snorted. “Um, yes? Look at it! You’re all right?”
“I’m guessing it’s going to be one of those ‘I’m all right until we leave and then it’ll hit me when the sea air isn’t addling my wits’ situations,” Vasiht’h admitted.
“Oh good,” she said. “At least you won’t have a distempered freak while he’s trying to pass a big exam.”
“A… a what?” Vasiht’h said, laughing.
“A distempered freak.” She put her nose in the air. “I’m reading Nouveau Regency romance now. I figured it would help me understand your partner better.”
“What you mean to say is that you’ll read anything with a romantic plotline and Jahir is just your latest excuse.”
“Well, yes?”
Vasiht’h began to answer when an overhead image of the hotel appeared in front of them both, as if the suite had aimed it deliberately to be in view for both him and whomever he was talking to. Could it do that on purpose? A happy woman’s voice: “Welcome… to the beautiful Diamond Sands Resort, Tsera Nova.”
“Ooh, nice,” Sehvi said.
“The Harat-Shar at the front desk had a better delivery.” The overhead view swooped toward them as if they were flying closer, landing them in a central plaza Vasiht’h hadn’t seen yet, bedecked in garlands of tropical flowers. A band was playing something islandy, Vasiht’h guessed, from the steel drums and the mellow beat, and visitors were milling in the center, eating, drinking from glasses with umbrellas, looking sun-burnished and happy with flowered crowns and leis. “Your seaside destination for joy.”
“Seriously? Joy? I can’t tell if they’re overachieving or if I’m just bitter because I’m not there to experience it.”
Vasiht’h rolled his eyes. “It’s marketing, ariishir.”
“They look joyous, though! Look at that bunch of kits dancing with their granddami.” Sehvi sighed. “Why aren’t I there.”
“At least you know where to take your vacation next?”
“Oh, wait, it’s still going. Let me get popcorn!” Sehvi vanished, leaving Vasiht’h to watch the hotel’s projected 3deo spiral out from the plaza to visit the spa, where every kind of Pelted was having some brain-meltingly good procedure done to them, from the Phoenix whose feathers were being painted to the Ciracaana getting what must be a two hour massage, because Ciracaana had a lot of limbs to massage. It did give him to think, though, because if their massage therapists could handle one kind of centauroid, they could handle him, too….
Sehvi returned. With actual popcorn. He stared at it and said, “I thought you’d have cookies.”
“I found out that making caramel popcorn is easy,” she said. “Have you tried it? And then you can melt chocolate on it…”
“See exotic sites!” the hotel exclaimed.
“Look at that!” Sehvi said, pointing with a hand full of glossy popcorn. There were nuts in there too. Vasiht’h wanted to hear more about this recipe, but he followed her gaze and:
“Oh, I have to do that.”
“You have to do that,” she agreed.
On the 3deo, a bridge was appearing over the water, leading to a nearby “island paradise,” because no island here was just an island, and honestly Vasiht’h couldn’t blame them for the superlatives. “Every night, the Bridge of Dreams extends to Serenity Palms. Made of rainbows…” The bridge, translucent against the dark water, suddenly lit in a gradient of brilliant colors, “…and songs…” Shot now of people crossing it, and every footstep causing a chime to sound. Which should have created a cacophony, but the 3deo showed more and more people crowding it and the bridge chose the notes somehow so that they sounded amazing together.
“Doesn’t it strike you as crazy sometimes, the things we waste our time on?” Vasiht’h asked.
Munching popcorn, Sehvi said, “No bridge made out of dreams, rainbows, and songs is a waste of time.”
Serenity Palms was a crescent-shaped island, curved around a lagoon so perfect it looked fake. The entire thing was shallow enough for the average adult to stand at its deepest point—under several glistening waterfalls—and the majority of it was shallow enough for children to chase the schools of iridescent fish. A handful of canopied booths sold refreshments that were looking more and more refreshing all the time. “And for those who prefer a little more greenery,” the 3deo continued, “and breathtaking views…” The 3deo followed a winding path through more of the riotous flowers, pink and peach and yellow, up to the promontory from which the waterfalls issued. There was a balcony there, with a lookout over more of the island chain, and that was a lot more Vasiht’h’s speed than the vistas offered by the courage-testing mountain retreat.
“You have got to do that.”
“Pet the friendly indigenous wildlife!” the 3deo added, showing a delighted human tourist stroking the length of what looked like a happy furry snake. It had wings of translucent skin so delicate they looked like soap bubbles, if soap bubbles came in colors as bright as hibiscus flowers.
Sehvi started laughing. “The look on your face.”
As the 3deo continued about the small skiffs that could be rented from Serenity Palms—cue image of beaming tourists on a sailboat, their fur scintillating with water from the ocean’s splashes—Vasiht’h said, “All right, I admit. This is going to be glorious.”
An hour and a half before orientation gave Jahir plenty of time to wander the terraces, choosing the planet-facing ones he’d already glimpsed. He had lunch on one of them, at a thin, tall restaurant that would have been ridiculously inefficient on his homeworld… the food would have been cold long before it arrived to the topmost floor. Here, dishes were popped from the kitchen up dumbwaiters and straight into the hands of the waitstaff who breezed from table to table in sarongs and colorful vests. Jahir looked out the window at the children chasing the colored water, and the planet below with its dazzling oceans, the swirls of clouds hanging over them like ornaments. He ordered the fish and it flaked onto the fork, steaming from the thin crust. Ground nuts, maybe? He hadn’t asked. It had looked pretty.
Back at the convention center, he found himself confronting a group large enough to merit the lecture hall: at least sixty people, he judged, and more trailing in after him. He found a seat in the back corner and watched his fellow test-takers enter. Their ages ranged from youths he judged barely out of college to graying elders, and their races ran the usual gamut: high on the Core’s races with a spattering of the more unusual Pelted, like the Aera and Phoenix. No Malarai with their feathered wings, he noted, disapp
ointed.
That disappointment lasted until an Akubi ducked its crested head beneath the lintel and squeezed its feathered sides through the door, ruffling its wings when it cleared the posts. Jahir was not the only one to stare at the sight, for the Akubi were not usual and he’d never heard of one in a medical profession. They were true-aliens, the Akubi: reminiscent of the raptor-like dinosaurs, and usually hovering over nine feet tall, with dark feathers, hide, and scales and whiskered maws with serrated bone edges. Fortunately, their eyes were less inscrutable than those of the birds they resembled, for the skin around them folded and bunched to give them expressions. Usually amused.
Lifting its head, the Akubi said, “I see you’ve noticed me!” A rustle, several chuckles. “Which is the intent, because I am your proctor.” A gaped mouth, with eyes almost entirely closed, was a grin in this species. “As you can see, I have a nice long neck to look over everyone’s shoulders, and an aerial predator’s keen eyesight to see all the way into the back, even to those who might want to hide.” It pointed the claw at the apex of one of its wings at Jahir. “I see you.”
“I see you also, alet,” Jahir answered, smiling.
“Excellent. Now that we’ve settled that… I’m Song of Wine Skies at Sunset, healer-assist lead at Succor Most General Hospital on Karaka’Ana. Let’s talk about how this exam is going to go.”
The Akubi commenced a repeat of the information sent them in the post-scheduling packets: the exam would require three days and consisted of twelve sections; each daily session would last six hours and cover two sections before breaking for a lunch hour, and then the remaining two sections; pass/fail information would be available immediately after the final exam. Jahir listened with only partial attention, as his thoughts were busy with his lack of discomfort at having been picked from a crowd and addressed. Such attention would have distressed him when he’d first started school. It had nothing to do with the reaction of the people around him either, for he was now garnering the same curious looks he’d received on Seersana.
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