Stardoc (4 page)

“Newlies?”

“Newly established traders... newly installed jaunt routers... newly transferred physicians...”

“Not a chance, friend,” I said. “You’ve gained your last credit from my account.”

“Listen, Doc...” Dhreen’s good-natured features sobered. “I haven’t grilled about your plans, like I said, none of my business. But you should know the territories... well, they aren’t like your homeworld.”

I was counting on it. “Don’t worry, Dhreen. I’ll be fine.”

“If you say so.” He checked his wristcom, which reflected the helm status. “Looks like we’ll be arriving in 2.5 Terran stanhours. Time enough to take a nap, if you’d like.”

Sleep. Right. Was he kidding?

I spent the last hour pacing my cabin, checking the viewport every five minutes. At last I forced myself to sit down and try to relax. Sleep, however, was out. Music, I thought, and opened one of my cases.

As I sorted through my collection, I recalled how much it had irritated my father that I didn’t share his taste in music. I liked a little of everything, and a lot of jazz. He preferred more conservative compositions by ancients like Wagner and Beethoven.

I frowned at one disc without a label. What’s this? I was about to load it in my player when Dhreen announced that we were in orbit. I dropped the headset and case, tripping over my own feet in my dash to the viewport.

Below the ship loomed a massive, grayish-green orb surrounded by an asymmetrical ring of some twenty moons.

Kevarzangia Two.

Thin swirls of pale green clouds softened the atmosphere of the enormous globe. Beyond K-2’s outer curve, I spotted the distant, twin suns, glowing with amber-orange light. Two blazing giants caught forever in each other’s magnetic allure.

“Suns,” I murmured softly. Now I understood why that word was used as an expletive out here.

According to the data, Kevarzangia Two was somewhat larger than Terra by a difference of three thousand kilometers. Somewhat larger? Who were they trying to fool? It was enormous. The length of a standard day was almost identical to Terra, due to the increased rotational speed of the planet. There were two distinct continents, immense land masses, and the colony was located in the northwest region of the largest.

I knew I couldn’t see it from here. I still tried to see if I could pick it out.

K-2, like Terra, was a water world. The highest order of native life-forms were once aquatic beings who had evolved into an amphibious, intelligent civilization. It had been noted that the natives had no objection to their world being colonized. It would be interesting to find out how the ‘Zangian aborigines really felt about offworlders.

Maybe they would be more friendly than Terrans were. Which meant they wouldn’t spit on the ground when I walked by.

“Prepare for final approach, Doc,” Dhreen called back through the shuttle’s display.

Slight turbulence from entering into the upper atmosphere shuddered through the hull of the Bestshot, but I didn’t react to it. I wasn’t afraid. I was a thoracic surgeon, a trained professional. If working as a physician on K-2 proved to be a disaster, I’d survive. Like Dhreen said, I could always open a restaurant.

I was not going to beg the Oenrallian to jaunt me back, no matter how many knots formed in my stomach. I was much more afraid of what waited for me if I returned to Terra.

It took an intolerable amount of time for Dhreen to land, dock, and secure the shuttle. I didn’t remember launch taking this long, why all the delay? Once on the ground, requisite procedures dictated full biodecon of the ship, cargo, and both of us before we could step foot on the surface.

I was at the about-to-scream stage by the time Dhreen reported to Colonial Transport. “Scans are negative.”

Permission to disembark was given by a transdrone after clearance was confirmed. Thank God for efficient automation. I gathered up my cases, Jenner’s carrier, and hurried out to the main cabin.

Dhreen stood next to me as he pressed a panel release and the outer hull doors parted. “Doc, meet Kevarzangia Two.”

The recruit station had given me the usual planetary survey vids and statistical facts along with my assignment contract. Dry, dull facts. None of that prepared me for the breathtaking vista that sprawled out like a primitive Eden all around the ship.

“Oh, my.” If I looked and sounded like an awed kid, I didn’t care. Around me, K-2 flourished with a bewildering profusion of life. Towering groves soared hundreds of feet in the air, making Terran forests look like a bunch of leafy twigs. The planet was an enormous ocean of vegetation upon which the colony’s structures floated. My homeworld might have been like this hundreds of centuries before Terrans began manipulating the environment.

I looked up. Above my head lacy swirls of cloud drifted peacefully across the bright emerald sky. The unusual color effect, I understood, was attributed to a harmless biochemical substance in the atmosphere reacting with the strong radiant light coming from the suns. A verdant world, mirrored in the sky, a seamless envelope of life.

I knew the atmosphere was almost identical to that of my homeworld, with a rather heavier content of nitrogen. My first breath was crisp and oddly invigorating.

“Fair place, isn’t it?” Dhreen said, noticing my rapt interest. “You’ll do well here, Doc.”

I turned to him. “I plan on it.” My hand, I was glad to see, didn’t tremble as I held it out.

The Oenrallian pressed his wedge-shaped palm to mine. “If you ever need this hand again, signal me.”

“Thank you, Dhreen.” There were a thousand things more I wanted to say, but my throat was suspiciously tight. Acting like an awed kid was fine, crying my eyes out and getting Dhreen’s flight suit all damp wasn’t. I smiled instead, picked up my cases, and strode down the gently swaying ramp.

It took a moment to register that I had walked straight into chaos.

The Bestshot was docked in the center of a noticeably improvised Transport zone. Ships of myriad shapes, sizes, and origins hovered, landed, and took off all around me. I thought of bees, racing back and forth to the hive. There was an incredible amount of beings milling back and forth to the stationary shuttles, and an even greater amount of cargo being off-loaded by huge automated conveyors. Beyond the shuttle docks stretched a chain of structures, more oversized building blocks drifting on green waves.

I spotted Transport Administration and made my path toward that first indicator of civilization. It was housed in a sprawling bunker that had been patched together from an assortment of emergency site shelters.

This was not anything like the beautifully designed edifices of my homeworld. Terrans demanded perfection, and got it. K-2’s construction crews were obviously forced to make do with limited materials.

Still, even to my Terran-acclimated view, it had a certain unaffected charm.

Transport Admin’s designation was posted above the main entrance in several distinct pictographs and languages, and I was surprised to see my own native alphabet as well. Less than one percent of the population, and Terrans still merited a share of the signs? Someone must have complained. Terrans took pride in being the most obstinant race in our Quadrant. They sure didn’t leave their attitudes at home when they traveled.

Through unseen audiocoms, I heard automated voices speaking in different tongues, for those species which had no written language. The building itself was the second largest next to Cargo DispatchIReceiving.

“GfiRidhety juilTopp!” someone barked out behind me, and I turned as a huge, grey-furred creature jostled by.

“Sorry,” I said, then had to avoid another colonist who slithered around me from the opposite side.

“Excuse me.”

Now I focused on the steady stream of colonists and visitors who poured in and out of the structure’s threshold around me. There was a bewildering variety of life-forms. Humanoids of every color and appendage count. Beings in self-contained envirosuits, some with fantastic garments, others pelted or scaled. A small group appeared to be walking jellyfish. Another had prismatic bodies that created iridescent rainbow haloes in the twin suns’ light. I forgot about trying not to gawk and simply drank them in with my eyes. So many differences. So much life. It astounded me. Then the unexpected outrage struck hard, and fast.

My father’s prejudices had denied me all of this.

“What were you so afraid of, Dad?” Saying that out loud earned me a few curious looks. Yeah, watch the Terran female talk to herself, I thought, ducking my head in embarrassment. I’d have time to be mad at my father later. I joined the queue entering the facility.

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 {lawlessness 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.