"If you die on me, I will kill you." Korso growled through clenched teeth, shoving slow-moving people out of the way.
The place was jammed tight with human traffic, a sweating, crowded cattle pen of a marketplace, piled high with scrap metal and dead ship parts that passed for a street and buildings, a city, a home. All packed full of humans, milling colors and voices, a traffic jam at rush hour, a hill of ants – and Korso just couldn't force his way through.
Not with the bleeding Akrennian in his arms.
He could feel the blood soaking into his shirt already – first thing after this was over, Preed was paying for his dry-cleaning.
"Is there a fucking doctor on this floating hunk of space shit?"
Several eyes turned to stare at him – then he could practically feel them narrow. He glared right back, gritting his teeth against the silence.
Humans. So used to scrambling to stay alive and clinging to the edges, they could give as good as they got.
Korso let out a snarl of frustration and clamped his hand down over Preed's forehead just a little more firmly, trying not to imagine that he was actually holding pieces of his skull together. Even if he was.
"Well?" he snapped – then noticed several people nervously eying one man in a coat that probably used to be white. He was looking pointedly not making eye contact with anyone, trying to slip away into the crowd.
"Hey!" Korso shouted in his best drill-sergeant bark, singling out the poor sap. "You! You got any medical training?" he glared at the man stammered but didn't say any actual words. "Speak up!"
"I – I only treat humans!"
Korso bared his teeth. "Wrong answer."
The man paled, realizing how it had sounded. "No – no, I didn't mean – it's just that Akrennians – their physiology is too different, I wouldn't know what I was-"
"Then who does?"
The man swallowed, had the conscience to look sheepish. "You might try the vet..."