Stardoc Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PART ONE: - Initiation

  CHAPTER ONE - Terra

  CHAPTER TWO - K-2

  CHAPTER THREE - First Shift

  CHAPTER FOUR - Taboos, Duty, Chickens

  CHAPTER FIVE - Hsktskts Squared

  PART TWO: - Application

  CHAPTER SIX - Bartermen

  CHAPTER SEVEN - Falls and Links

  CHAPTER EIGHT - Dangerous Games

  CHAPTER NINE - Confrontations

  CHAPTER TEN - Hazard Clause

  PART THREE: - Complication

  CHAPTER ELEVEN - Offplanet

  CHAPTER TWELVE - Clash of Wills

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Seductions of Failing

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN - K2V1

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN - Epidemic

  PART FOUR: - Resolution

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN - That Which Recovers

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - Unexpected Allies

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - Last Rights

  CHAPTER NINETEEN - Begin Again

  CHAPTER TWENTY - Calls from Home

  CRITICAL CONDITIONS

  Charge Nurse T’Nliqinara made a garbled report that rattled through my tympanic insert in staccato fragments: “Dr. Grey Veil . . . crisis . . . possible internal trauma . . . visible signs of seizure . . .” There was a guttural burst of sound, then my nurse made a gurgling noise. Subsequent hysterical screams in the background blocked out most of what she said before I caught the last words. “—hostages . . . terrorist . . . weapon.”

  Someone was in the waiting room, using weapons?

  The last thing I wanted to do was go out there. It was also the only thing I could do. Very slowly, making sure to keep my hands visible, I walked down the short corridor and into view.

  My charge nurse’s four eyes rolled wildly toward me, and I saw why she had choked out her report—the business end of a pulse rifle was pressed tightly against her larynx. Terror had mottled her smooth vermilion hide with dark splotches.

  On the other end of the weapon was a monster. A big, ugly, green monster. . . .

  ROC

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane,

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  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood,

  Victoria, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,

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  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road,

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

  First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.

  First Printing, January 2000

  Copyright © S. L. Viehl, 2000

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  eISBN : 978-1-101-11928-0

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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  For my daughter, Katherine Rose Viehl.

  May you find your place in the universe

  more than you ever dreamed,

  and for Catherine Coulter,

  who made a dream come true.

  PART ONE:

  Initiation

  CHAPTER ONE

  Terra

  Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick.

  Hippocrates (460?-377? B.C.)

  I bet Hippocrates never stepped one foot into a dump like this, I thought as I peered through the tavern’s narrow entrance. Oath or no oath.

  At that moment I was deep in the labyrinth of back streets in the worst section of New Angeles. I was also thoroughly disgusted, scared, and ready to give up. Earlier stops at four crowded taverns had produced no results. Oh, I’d gotten plenty of propositions, some even a sexdrone would find challenging. Credit-jammers still watched me from the shadows, remote scanners ready, hoping I’d access a public bank console. Glide snatchers had tried twice in the last hour to swoop down and grab the case I was carrying. In broad daylight, the vultures.

  Now I paused outside the fifth and last sleaze pit on Tavern Row. Above the entrance the words “SLOW LAZY SAX” were projected in foot-high, bright blue dimensional lettering. Charming name. The only good thing about the place was it was nearly deserted. I wouldn’t have to push through another gauntlet of drunks to have a look around.

  I counted two hulking figures at the end of the counter, arguing in low growls while steadily draining their drinks. The proprietor ignored them, his attention fixed on a vidisplay screen overhead. A rusted comdrone unit clutching a saxophone was huddled in one corner, deactivated and badly in need of maintenance. Farther back in the tavern was a third patron, seated alone, wearing what could have been a pilot’s flight suit.

  That got my attention. I took another step and crossed the threshold. The sour bouquet of unwashed bodies, spilled drinks, and burnt tobacco greeted my nose. A fat roach scuttled past my right foot to join some of his pals creeping around the tables. My skin wanted to shrink from the smoke, filth, and hopelessness.

  Time had almost run out, I was desperate. What choice did I have? I walked in.

  I started with the stocky man working behind the bar. He was idly rinsing out plas servers beneath a sputtering biodecon unit. His eyes were riveted to the screen as it televised the near-electrocution of two penalized runbacks.

  He swore fluently when both shockball players had to be carried off the field by medevac. “Devoids. Miavana Fins wasted that ’un sure.” He examined me with mild surprise. “Ay-lo—get ya a swig, Fem?”

  I was glad I’d researched the inner city dialect before coming down here. In his crude patois, the guy was trying to be polite and ask what I wanted to drink.

  “No, grats. Eyein’ to get an offjaunt in a blip. Ya spill a taker?”

  “That ’un,” the bartender jutted his chin toward the loner. “Ship’s the Bestshot. Jaunts the trades.”

  I squinted once more at the pilot. At this distance I easily made out the details of his countenance. He looked like he was ready to go through puberty, not an interstellar flight.

  One of the hulks at the bar snorted, catching my attention. A thin rivulet of bitterale foam ran down his stubbly chin as he bared his chipped teeth at me.

  “Ay-ay-ay, Fem,” he said, and went on to make the usual lewd proposition. At this rate I’d be an expert in pornographic slang before the day was over.

  “Grats, redder lip a junker,” I replied. Thank you, but I’d rather kiss a drone.

  I debated whether to approach the man or move on to tavern number six. Bestshot wasn’t an inspiring name for an interstellar passenger shuttle. Not to mention the painfully juvenile appearance of my potential escort, and the lack of taste he had in patronizing this waste station.

  “Gotta gripe, Fem?” The bartender wanted to know what was wrong.

  “That ’un eyes raw,” I said. He looks too young.

  “Cap’s Oenrallian,” the man told me. “Those ’un
s eye plenty raw ’til mid-doin’.” The pilot was an alien, whose species didn’t appear to mature until middle age. “Jaunt much, Fem?”

  I didn’t jaunt, period, one reason why I hadn’t realized the pilot was an offworlder. Embarrassed, I smiled my thanks and started toward the pilot.

  Lanky, pallid-skinned, and sporting a thick thatch of orange hair, the Oenrallian still appeared more like a kid who had swiped his dad’s glidecar than an experienced starshuttle pilot. The guileless amber eyes he lifted toward me only iced the cake.

  “Ya pard, eyein’—”

  “I speak standard English,” he interrupted in a oddly pitched voice.

  “Oh. Good.” It was a relief to abandon the local jargon. “May I have a moment of your time?” I decided not to offer my hand, it might be considered offensive. “My name is Cherijo Grey Veil.”

  “Dhreen, of Oenrall,” he said as he lifted his plas server to his thin lips. With his free hand he gestured to the empty chair opposite his own. I saw five digits, but they were splayed at the ends and had no nails. Spoon-fingers, I thought absently. I bet he didn’t have to bother much with standard Terran utensils.

  I sat down, took a breath. What were those things on top of his head? “How did you know I spoke standard?”

  “You’re too sanitary to be local.” His eyes made a brief survey. “What’s a pretty Fem like you doing in this part of the city?”

  “I need transport to the Pmoc Quadrant.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve been transferred to Kevarzangia Two.” Opening my case, I extracted the data discs for his examination. It was becoming impossible to take my eyes from the two round red nubs that poked up beneath his hair. Horns, maybe?

  “Why not get space on one of the Terran transports?”

  I was ready for that. “There’s no space available, and I need to leave today if I’m going to make my arrival slot.” I made a “silly me” face. “There was so much to do before I left. You know how it is. I simply forgot to make a reservation.” Sure, and if he checked it out, he’d learn I could lie through my teeth, too. I was counting on his greed to prevent that. “How much to make the trip?”

  “Ten thousand, if I decide to take you.” His tone was definitely not Terran, despite his familiar use of the language. He sounded like a sterilizer duct beginning to clog. There was an odor coming from him as well, something like pineapple mixed with chocolate. The smell wasn’t bad, just weird.

  “That’s fine,” I answered, and quickly put the necessary credit chip next to the transfer data. I thought the sight of all that currency would settle the deal. Dhreen only slouched back in his chair.

  “Why transfer to the border, Fem?” His curiosity was casual, dangerous. “Not a spot you Terrans usually pick.”

  “I’ve been assigned to the colony as a medical physician.” I pulled out two more discs that would verify my identity and contract. The table was getting crowded.

  “A doctor?” Dhreen frowned at me from under thick brows. “A neonate like you?”

  It was the usual reaction.

  I looked older than the Oenrallian, but not by much. I was short for a Terran female, too, just under five feet tall. It had earned me delightful nicknames at Medtech, like “Igor” and “Half-CC.” My weight seesawed between slender and skinny, depending on my surgery schedule. I liked to eat, I just didn’t always have the time.

  I wasn’t homely. I had a smaller version of Dad’s prominent nose and the same tilted dark blue eyes. The first was slightly beaky, the last vaguely exotic. My long black hair reflected a silver sheen (inherited from a distant Native American ancestor, my father claimed, with the same “grey veil”), and was braided so it stayed out of my face. I wore a shabby, neutral-shaded jumper with no accessories. My physician’s tunic was much more dignified, but wearing it here would have put a sign around my neck that said rob me, immediately.

  “I’m a fully qualified practitioner.”

  He lifted a shoulder. “If you say so, Fem.”

  I pushed my ID disc across the table. “Check the data, if you don’t believe me.”

  “Data can be rigged by any kid with half a neural center,” he said.

  “So can a starshuttle,” I retaliated without thinking, then inhaled sharply. Had I insulted him? Dhreen made an odd, hiccuping sound and slapped his spoon-shaped fingers against the table.

  He was either laughing, or having a seizure. While I was trying to decide which, the Oenrallian swiveled his head to one side. Whatever he saw made his mirth come to an abrupt halt.

  “Look out.” He scooped up his flask and server, and I glanced back at the counter. A plas bottle missed my nose by inches as it flew past and hit the wall beyond us. I grabbed my discs and shoved them back in my case.

  The two burly Terran patrons who had been arguing before were now trying to beat the brains out of each other’s skulls.

  “Larian Scum-sucker!” one shouted, knocking over his stool as he staggered back on unsteady legs.

  “Eat my waste!” the other responded, just as cleverly.

  Plas containers, I soon discovered, were effective projectiles. I ducked behind my chair to avoid a particularly dangerous volley that shattered when it slammed into our table. Dhreen lifted his drink to me in silent salute.

  No doubt he considered this idiocy as impromptu entertainment.

  The drunken pair began pummeling each other in earnest, knocking over tables, trashing the counter, generally making a mess. Snarled obscenities punctuated the thuds of fists and limbs as they battled. The bartender displayed no inclination toward stopping them.

  “Can’t someone do something?” I demanded, and cringed as pieces of a broken stool flew overhead. Another one crashed into the comdrone, which abruptly activated and began trying to play “A Love Supreme” through the dented saxophone.

  “They’re just emitting some condensation,” Dhreen said.

  Blowing off steam was one thing, but this was getting out of hand. I scrambled to my feet the moment I heard the unmistakable sound of a bone snap over the blaring music. Dhreen reached out and caught my arm.

  “You better stay out of it,” he said, but I tugged free.

  “You!” I pointed to the bartender as I approached. “Get over here and help me, or I’ll signal Area Security myself!”

  He reluctantly moved from his display to separate the two, which proved simple, given their level of intoxication. I pushed, he pushed, they fell over. The first was groaning miserably as I crouched down next to him.

  Up close, he was the most unhygienic specimen of humanity I’d ever encountered. His garments were beyond filthy, and from the thick envelope of body odor, I gathered he hadn’t personally deconned in months. No wonder it stank in here. The moment I put a hand on him, he howled and bared his teeth at me again. This time he wasn’t leering.

  “Mitts off, ya—”

  “I’m a physician. A patcher. Turn loose ya arm.”

  He actually tried to hit me, the ingrate. “Off me! Ya puny back hacker—”

  “Clammit,” I said, and shoved his flailing fist away from my face. When he kept struggling, I pinned him in a prone position with my knees. A swift, ample dose of sedatives rendered him unconscious in seconds.

  My scanner confirmed the break was a transverse fracture of the ulna. I immobilized his arm with a bonesetter from my case and scanned him for internal injuries. Filthy but lucky. Despite the ferocious tussle, he was fine. The comdrone’s damaged audio was steadily getting louder, and I scowled.

  “Fuse that junker, will ya?” I shouted at the bartender as I went to look at the other man. The discordant version of the Coltrane masterpiece was cut off a moment later.

  The second oaf had a number of minor contusions, but otherwise was just as dirty and healthy as his opponent. After a brief examination, I closed my case.

  “Done?” I demanded. “Or ya crave a nap-stick, ditto?”

  The undamaged brawler muttered something uncomplimentary to
the female gender, got to his feet, and returned to his stool. In a moment he was drinking again, as though nothing had happened.

  “No one has a shorter conscience than a drunk,” Maggie used to tell me. “Except your old man.”

  After I’d sent the bartender to contact area medevac, I rolled the sedated male to his uninjured side, and tagged him with an MDID for transport. I used a chip I’d filched from a colleague in my building. The last thing I needed was this sort of incident on my records. When that was done, I returned to Dhreen’s table.

  The pilot watched me sit down as he took a considerable gulp of spicewine. I opened my case and held out the price of my passage again.

  “I like you, Fem.” He palmed the disc, eyed the credit balance, then pocketed it. “Okay, I’m your jaunt.”

  “We have to leave today,” I reminded him as I smoothed a loose bit of hair behind my ear, then replaced the stack of transfer discs in front of him. “All my authorizations are here, and in order. They are not rigged.”

  “Sure, Fem, no heat.” He grimaced at the discs.

  “Call me Doc,” I said. “May I ask you a personal question?” He nodded. Good, I simply had to know. “What are those two things beneath your hair?”

  “They’re not horns.” Dhreen grinned, rubbing his spatulate fingers over the protuberances I found so fascinating. “They’re close to what you call ears.”

  I checked with a discreet glance. He didn’t have ears.

  “Sorry.” I decided to risk one more question. “How much have you had to drink?”

  “This stuff?” Dhreen hiccuped again as he raised his plas. “Syntoxicants don’t alter my internals, Doc.”

  “If they don’t, what’s the point of coming to a tavern?”

  “Only place to get work,” he said after he’d swallowed. “New Angeles doesn’t permit non-Terrans to solicit on Main Transport premises.”