Chapter 2: Induction
x x x
The first thing that occurred after the pod was opened was fifty seconds of complete and utter silence. The second thing that occurred was Tashigi screaming, putting a hand over her eyes too late and fainting rather dramatically. The result of which was the entire crew deciding to pay the dock a visit.
Smoker was not enjoying this.
Kagami and Shore, the female and male (respectively) nurses in his crew, nervously stepped out of the half-circle of people that seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. Kagami knelt by Tashigi and in a redundant gesture did a quick check, which all amounted to a nod and for the fifth time that month, "She's fainted, captain, that she has. I'll take her down to the infirmary, that I will."
Smoker grunted. His crew was almost ridiculously diverse- Kagami's backwards way of speaking gave away her background in the Nobiro System. He wouldn't even have considered enlisting a female nurse if it wasn't for Tashigi's habit of falling into expensive equipment, and Nobiro had been putting out the damn best in the Galaxy ever since discovering a lake of pure Penicillin on its second planet.
With the help of the hard-edged Biology specialist Risa, Tashigi was taken out of the dock and down the corridor to the Infirmary. That left Smoker, Shore, and a bunch of gibbering crewmen.
Shore nervously stepped forward. "If I may, Captain Smoker." Smoker considered berating him for being so formal, but quickly decided against it. "Concerning the man in the craft-" He motioned with his hand, and Smoker's attention was back where it was supposed to be. "This…technology, if that's what you want to call it, is quite old. I studied Ancient Bio-Technology on the capital planet of Kyllia during a two-year stint there in my career, which is quite an advanced career considering how indispensable male nurses are-"
Smoker cut off Shore with a backwards wave. The nurse was always chattering about his manliness, and annoying things bothered Smoker tremendously. He instead knelt by the side of the coffin and refused to divert his eyes.
The technology was indeed old. He couldn't recognize anything beyond the fact that the machines were steel, just steel, not even stainless steel that ran no risk of rusting. Even out in space, these age-old precautions were taken. The machines hissed suspiciously. He couldn't for the life of him understand any of the readings.
…And the boy. He- it- looked about twenty years old, with a shock of messy black hair and skin that looked tanned enough like it had lived on a Summer planet without UV-Ray treatment its whole life. It was damn skinny, like it hadn't eaten in a month which made sense because it was probably dead. Its eyes were closed. It looked human, but it had goddamned freples.
Nobody had freples anymore. Cosma saw to that, and even the idiots who protested it had gotten it after they were born. It was so cheap it was standard-issue for newborns. It reaffirmed the fact that Smoker had no clue was going on, and things that confused Smoker annoyed him.
"He got freples, Captain," Mechanic Crow (hyperdrive maintenance with a real talent for stating the obvious) pointed out with a low whistle as though it needed to be said. The ever-present patch of red on the back of Smoker's neck turned crimson.
"Thanks, Crow," he said, not even bothering to be sarcastic. "He got freples. Probably born into a poor family in the Periphery. But he also dead, so we're going to eject him."
"E-eject him?" Shore looked up with a panicked expression on his face. "But- we only do that for criminals dead in the line of fire! Surely he doesn't deserve that, just because he has freples-"
"That's got nothing to do with it. He's- it's dead. Last thing we want is some parasite we picked up from goddamned Anachreon or somewhere feeding on it-"
"-No can do, captain," was the reply from Crow, kneeling at the coffin's side. With a sudden lurch the machines jumped to life and began hissing and murmuring like an old computing machine kicked back into usage. "He alive."
Silence fell upon the crew. It was filled with a strange, steady beeping noise like the sound of an Oxy-tank that was malfunctioning. One of the machines hooked up to the boy had a screen with a green line on it; each time the infernal beep sounded, the line pulsed awkwardly. For once in his life, Smoker was completely at a loss.
"…Shore," he said, filling in the total silence.
"I-I don't know. We could take him off the machines and relocate him to the infirmary- he looks hooked up by electrolytes, but they might be keeping him alive. My guess is that he was in some kind of trance, and opening his- his ship thing woke his systems up."
Smoker found the whole situation to be totally unbelievable. Four years ago, there had been a story circulating about pirates slipping hallucinogens into Marine freeze-dried rations- Smoker wasn't stupid enough to fall for such a shitty trick, of course, but if his entire crew ingested them than perhaps the stupidity would rub off enough to-
Why the crap was a half-naked boy floating in Space in the first place?
"All right," mumbled the irate captain. "We don't want pirates crawling all over us for getting in the middle of some feud I don't care about. Let's move- move it into the infirmary. Keep it on all its drugs or whatever the hell it's hooked up to. We're going to make a stop at the nearest planet. Where the hell is Horleggor?"
"Here, captain."
"What was our previous destination?"
"Er- capital planet of the Mores system, fourth from its sun. It's about five parsecs, give or take a couple of light years. It'll take us around fourty hours, captain."
"Fine. Take us into Hyperspace. Eto and Morrow, get a set of straps and wheel Freple-boy into the infirmary. Everyone else, get your asses on double duty and don't let up until we land on Capital Mores. Do I make myself clear?"
After a collection of affirmations the room systematically cleaned out, and Smoker considered paying a visit to the infirmary.
x x x
"She'll be fine, captain, that she will." Kagami offered a smile. "She was just shocked a little- I do believe that it is not every day the Galactic Spirit sends one a man wearing only underclothes."
"Hm." He fished around in the pocket of his jacket for his lighter and placed a new cigar in his mouth to replace the chewed-up stub.
"Captain. You know smoking ruins the equipment, that it does. Please refrain."
If it had been anyone else, he would have smashed their nose through the back of their head. He mumbled a curse and replaced the object in his pocket. It was just then that Risa opened the curtain separating the room and, at the sight of her captain, made a formal salute.
It wasn't every crew that had someone specializing in Biology; generally, the quirky scientists were content to stay on whatever planet they were assigned to and amuse themselves with the plant life. It was a dying profession. Just as physicists were becoming few and far between since Hyperspace was concluded to be the final final frontier, biologists were finding themselves in a Galaxy full of animals long studied. Sure, you could waste some time studying breeding habits of Nyak birds on Anachreon, but how much could you get paid for that?
Risa was the oldest in his crew, save for him- thirty-six with a no-nonsense approach to life. She was the kind of woman that made you wonder why men weren't extinct yet. Though she had her annoyances she was also quite useful, and Smoker appreciated useful people.
"Report," said Smoker, hiding his interest.
"Nothing much to report, captain. He's breathing. Shore and I ran a basic scan and he appears to be human- I'd like to request a cellular and DNA scan when we reach Capital Mores. Appearances can be deceiving."
"Permission granted. Adell should be in Communications if he's not on guard duty." Smoker turned to the interlink and opened contact. "Adell?"
"Orders, captain?" His voice sounded metallic over the interlink.
"Open contact to the capital planet of Mores. Tell them that we request landing space."
"Our buisiness?"
"Purely governmental. Throw in Trantor if they bully you about it."
"Sure, but depends where you want to land."
"Is there a University on the planet?"
"Mores System University, captain. Didn't Risa come out of there?"
He looked over. Risa pushed her glasses up and nodded, prompting Smoker to wonder why she never mentioned this earlier.
"If that's it, captain, I'll try to get space at the University. Anything else?"
Risa moved beside Smoker and interrupted him just as he was about to tell Adell to relay to Mores that they had better not try to shoot them down (it had happened once in Korell, and he wasn't ever going to be mistaken for pirates again). "I have some requests of the dean," Risa said, "Do you mind if I accompany you?"
"Er- no problem, Risa. Come on over."
"That's sexual harassement," Risa muttered, but left for the Communications lab anyways.
x x x
"If you'd like to see him, Captain," the largely forgotten Shore said as soon as Risa left, "He's stable. We were worried that he'd go into shock, but he seems to be fine."
"It," growled Smoker.
"He," retorted Kagami with a small smile, adjusting Tashigi's bedding. "Risa confirmed it, that she did." Shore turned a shade of pink.
Smoker lifted the pastel blue curtain- almost out of place in the sterile white infirmary- and slipped under it to reveal the sleeping…thing. The nausea in his stomach refused to go away, and he hadn't gotten space-sick since he was a fresh recruit.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and cursed himself for doing so. There was something so stupid about freples it made him want to vomit; it made him think about how things used to be, back home. And thinking about things he didn't want to think about bothered Smoker.
"He's beautiful, that he is," said Kagami, once again disrupting his personal space. She arranged herself on the corner opposite her captain. "When we bring him to Mores, will they not give him Cosma?"
Cosma again. "If they have an AC there, we'll scan its DNA and send the results by ultra-wave to the Recollection department on Trantor. They'll find its family and appropriate measures will be taken-"
"Not its, captain. He is a he."
Smoker almost fumbled for a cigar out of exasperation and stood up briskly. "Once we get the results, we'll send him on the first ship back to wherever the hell he's from. If they have a Cosma lab he'll probably be given it beforehand. Are you happy now?"
Kagami sighed. "We have a story on my home planet, that we do. About a man with lovely blue eyes in a family of ones with grey eyes. So they give him Cosma, and he gets grey eyes and all his life he is sad for losing his colours, that he is. So many times we have looked to right what is wrong." There was a pause. "You look like you know, captain, that you do."
"Hn."
"…You look tired, captain. Perhaps-"
"No."
"For your health, I command it. Maybe four hours will be enough for you? Here. Sutt and Horleggor can take over your duties for that amount of time, that they can."
"…Fine. I'll take a four-hour sleep period, and if we crash into the nearest piece of space-junk tell those idiots on Trantor it wasn't my idea."
"Good. Please use it to rest, captain. It will do good for those lines between your eyes, that it will."
He strode out of the infirmary, wondering just how long it had been since he last had some real rest- and just what the boy from space had in store for his crew. Only Space knew.