Pyrite glint - snippet 12

A few fast recovery days later, we were close to the next best space station that was advertised as having a long distance call station. Zack and Teraz took me to the control room of the space ship before we docked. On a panel, there was the schematic overview of the station, orbiting a planet only good for low quality iron ore. General information said the station was mainly run by humans and humanoids but welcomed all species.

"Outback24DF. Mercury, what a heap of crap." I muttered as I examined it. It looked like two enormous space ships had crashed and then, instead of drifting apart again, been glued and strapped together.

"It's apparently famous for music concerts. Sera To and the Space Raiders have played there and are announced for this or next tenday," Jickaza threw in enthusiastically. I glanced over to where he had a copy of Lonely Space open on a screen. This far out in space, things like tour schedules were a bit sketchy. Travelling immense distances always brought a bit of uncertainty into the equation and arriving on time was not important. Folks figured that, eventually, you would turn up, and that was it.

"You don't say," I murmured as I examined the map. "Well, the faster I get that call dropped to Ore United, the faster I am out of your hair and back home."

Scrolling and magnifying the screen with my fingers, I soon found the call station. It would be easy to get to, as it lay on the main trade level next to a bar. No one asked me to leave the control room so I just sat down in an empty seat out of the way once I had my way memorised. Watching the crew dock the ship was a very interesting experience. They were very polite but curt with each other when giving positions and commands. More than a few times my vocabulary deserted me but I could more or less guess from the context: it was a routine docking maneuver, nothing special. When they gave the perimeter data of their ship and intended stay time to receive docking coordinates in return, I realized that I had to have been travelling with at least four dozen Razzan and had maybe seen a quarter of them.

The captain had declared a general station leave and at least a dozen Razzan entered the station ahead of me. My side still slowed me down a bit but Meral had assured me that I didn't show any signs of weakness to an outsider. That they considered being slowed down by an injury as a weakness was really telltale of their culture. Apparently they were still a lot more militaristic than they generally let on. Ahead of me, an erratically flickering advertisement that led the way to the main trade corridor.

A few turns down that way, a maintenance drone was doing its best to clean up around a drunk Irtan that had slumped on the floor. The six-limbed saurian slapped at the small robot as it bumped into him, sending the drone into a beeping fit before it scurried off. I caught a glance of its type description 'Dronoid 3.4.c - 55b.0xx.2' as it disappeared around the corner. Dronoid was notorious for programming character quirks into their robots, even the non-recreational ones. Some people preferred their machines to be less ... machine-like, I suppose, but I had never gotten the hang of it. I had only gone a few steps down the corridor when suddenly a hatch opened to my right at floor level and five cleaning drones swarmed out. They deftly moved around me and started down the way I had come. Curious I turned and sure enough, 55b.0xx.2 was in the lead. Shaking my head at the existence of stubborn cleaning drones, I strolled on and through the door to the main trade corridor. Immediately, the clamour of a busy market place enveloped me. Humanoids of all sorts milled about, browsing the wares on offer and chattering amongst each other. Two Irtans were bent over the barred and alarmed show cases of a speciality narcotic beverages stall.
A voluptuous human woman made a big production of selecting fabric for her two equally voluminous giggling daughters. Never mind the material they admired was nearly transparent, and, as the eager seller assured loudly enough for me and other bystanders to overhear, would change colour according to minute differences in body temperature. The trio burst into another giggling fit and I was left trying to erase the mental picture conjured up by his prompt.
Shuddering slightly, I spotted Zack in dark, elegantly cut civilian clothes that made him look like your next best space rogue, haggling for mechanics. He suddenly laughed at something the vendor said and the woman blushed crimson. I stopped and watched their conversation for a bit as they were flirting over cogs and grease. Someone bumped into me from behind, muttering an apology in common speak. A reflex check for my ID and credits came up empty and I whipped about, scanning the crowd for a deftly disappearing back. Opening my mouth to shout after him I quickly clamped it shut again as I remembered my current lack of things to steal. I'd wasted enough time floundering, it was time to get out of this mess.
A quick glance around revealed the call station behind a few more stalls and I made my way over, barely glancing at any of the offered goods. The call station consisted of many small booths, equipped with the bare minimum: a touch-active screen and multiple-species headsets.
The touchscreen was a bit grimy but it worked. I flicked a bit of green slime off the right ear piece and put it down again for later use. A prompt appeared on the screen to choose a species and language interface and I went for 'Humanoid, common speak'. The slot for credit sticks began blinking hungrily and I shoved my stick in. I'd had it checked onboard the Razzan ship, there should be enough for a few calls.


Pyrite glint - snippet 12 by Kat is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.