Memory Transcription Subject: Benwen, Nevok Intern

  Date [standardized human time]: January 26, 2137

  Tippen gathered up an oddly large satchel full of various old junk before we left his office. A dented old cookpot, a heavily-used pocket water purifier, a model of plasma torch I didn’t even think they made anymore… Were we stopping at a scrapyard on the way to dinner? Some of it even looked like dried moss and roots, frankly. Were they expired snacks or something? He’d had all those empty beverage cans strewn about his office, so maybe…

  “The company canteen is back inside,” I said, as I followed the older Nevok out of the building, “and the restaurants are in town, in the other direction.”

  “We're eating someplace else,” Tippen said gruffly.

  The sun was setting, but I could still see a good distance ahead of us. There was fully nothing in the direction we were going. Just mossy rocks, slightly damp from an overcast, humid day.

  “And, um, where might that be?” I asked. A sense of creeping dread started making the fur on the back of my neck bristle. The sidearm Tippen had gifted me felt heavy. Surely, it wasn’t going to come to that. Right?

  “Just a little further,” said Tippen. “By the creek. Thought we’d do a little campfire cooking. Seemed like a nice evening for it.”

  I sighed with relief. “Oh! Alright, that actually sounds kind of nice, yeah.”

  Tippen picked a spot out by a small brook where the stones went a bit flatter, worn smooth on the riverbanks by rainier days, and began laying out the contents of his pack. He piled up a stack of dried plants inside a little circle of stones, and held the plasma torch against it until he saw smoke and light. “Dried peat,” he explained, as the flames started to catch. “Not much wood on this planet, but plenty of moss.” The creek water went through the purifier, and into the cookpot. It had a cute little collapsible stand that let it sit above the fire. Spices and salt and dried beans followed into the pot as he chopped some good hearty root vegetables, making a simple and rustic stew in short order. In a bowl off to the side, he dampened flour for dough and left it to rest while the root vegetables softened.

  The older Nevok stared at the fire in sullen silence. He didn’t strike me as much of a people person, so I tried, hesitantly, to start the conversation myself. “This is nice,” I said. “I haven’t really gotten to go outside much.”

  “Aye,” said Tippen. “Predator Disease. Stuck in a box your whole life. It’s no way for a man to live.”

  I tried to recall what he’d said about himself earlier. No, what Doctor Wylla had said about that other Arxur, Kloviss, technically. She’d said the Arxur’s mind looked like an old Nevok veteran who’d seen too much to ever really be normal again. And then Tippen had had a brief moment of sympathy while scratching at an old battle scar. Did he hate PD, or did he have it? “I think I’m confused about what your position is on Predator Disease,” I said.

  Tippen sighed. “Look, kit, I have to evaluate who and what is a threat to this colony. I don’t have the luxury of a medical degree to make sense of the details. Sane or insane isn’t my job. Just dangerous or not dangerous. And you’re not dangerous.”

  “I have a gun?” I said, confused.

  Tippen laughed. “And you don’t even want to use it on an Arxur. Not exactly the poster child of the criminally insane.” His chuckle faded, and he shook his head as he stared into the flames. “Nah, there’s… gray areas. Always have been. Sure, you gotta watch yourself around folks like that until you’re certain, but… Bah. Nobody gets to be my age, or even Debbin’s, without being a little bit mad. Not unless they’ve been blessed with an incredibly boring life.”

  My eyes narrowed. “...wait, does Debbin have PD?” I wondered.

  Tippen sighed. “You’re not listening. Gray areas. And if you’ve got money and connections, you can paint those over. Reframe them to look lighter rather than darker.”

  My jaw dropped, as I thought about all the years of my life stuck in a facility, getting treatment that never seemed to work. “What are you talking about? The doctors…”

  “Take bribes like anyone else,” said Tippen, shrugging. “And most times, you don’t even need to go that far. Shop around for second opinions until you get the answer you like. Or maybe the doctor’s an old friend who’s willing to overlook little discrepancies. Someone who knows your secret indiscretions, but who knows you’re still good people, underneath it all.”

  My gaze dipped down into the flames. I felt sick to my stomach. “So… so if my parents had been more important…”

  Tippen nodded. “Life would have gone different for you.”

  I kept staring into the fire, burning bright against the darkness. Were my parents off somewhere else now that I was out of their lives? Did they have more children after me? Siblings I’d never met, and who probably never knew I existed?

  …were they happy without me?

  “I think I hate my family,” I said quietly.

  --------------------------------

  Memory Transcription Subject: Deputy Security Director Garruga, Seaglass Mineral Concern

  Date [standardized human time]: January 26, 2137

  “Alright, well, it's been a fun workday,” said Wylla, ever-so-slightly too high-class for overt sarcasm, “but I think my shift’s over. I was going to head over to the canteen for dinner. Tika, did you want to join me?”

  I had a lot on my mind to chew through, but I didn't relish the thought of being alone in this room all night. “Wish I could join you,” I sighed. “I've got an office I should get back to soon, too, but…”

  Tika clambered over to my bed to offer a consoling pat. “I'm sorry,” she said. “It’s hardly fair that Kitzz got to leave while you're stuck here.”

  I grimaced. “Lucky fuck with his two functioning limbs.”

  “It doesn't sit right with me to leave you here alone,” said Tika. The little ruddy-furred Zurulian glanced over at Wylla. “Is there no one here on night shift?”

  Wylla shrugged. “One of the other orderlies might stop by now that the Arxur are gone?”

  Tika’s mouth curved up ever-so-slightly into a mischievous smile. “And this orderly, they’re an interesting conversationalist, to keep Garruga company?”

  Wylla sighed, already puzzling out where Tika was going with this. "More so than Kloviss, but… fine, fine, we can eat dinner here together, at the very least.”

  I dipped my head in a small show of thanks. Tika in particular was turning my world on its head, but I didn’t relish being alone right now either.

  “Excellent! Pull a few meals out of the fridge for us, then,” said Tika, as she clambered back onto the counter and began rummaging around in various medical supply cabinets. “And where do you keep the Secret Wine?”

  Wylla’s jaw dropped. “Ancestors spare me, have you finally lost your wits, Tika?!”

  Fully inside a cabinet at this point, Tika’s head popped back out and stared at the Nevok doctor. “Wylla, I’ve worked in countless hospitals over the course of my career. Medicine is a famously stressful line of work. Breakroom, back of a supply cabinet, or the floor manager’s desk drawer, it doesn’t matter. There is always Secret Wine.”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Wylla sighed, defeated. “It’s brandy, and it’s behind the spare brain scan electrodes.”

  Tika laughed as she climbed over to that cabinet. “Aha! So that’s why you were so insistent on fetching them for me yourself.” She pulled out a bottle triumphantly. “Ooh, sweetened snowberry pomace. What a curiously rustic choice.”

  “Reminds me of home,” said Wylla, spilling her secrets. “I’m originally from a more pastoral part of Ittel than Debbin is.”

  It took me a moment to recall, but Ittel was the Nevok homeworld. Impossibly cold. Barely liveable. Endless snow and tundra as far as the eye could see. A truly bleak world to eke out a miserable existence on… well, to my eyes. My people, the Yulpas, hailed from the lush steamy jungles of Grenalka. Most other species in the Federation probably didn’t find Ittel nearly as bad as I did. Travel guides preferred the term ‘cozy’, like the planet was a sweater or a warm hearth. Baseless propaganda by the Ittel tourism board, clearly.

  “After the spring harvest,” Wylla continued, as we entertained her delusions of temperate climes, “farmers crush the snowberries into juice for wine, sell that for profit, and then do a second fermentation on the discarded skins for the orchard workers to enjoy. It’s a bit more bittersweet, but I find it rather refined and complex on the palate.”

  Tika chuckled as she pulled the stopper out. “You know, I couldn’t quite put my claw on it, but I thought there was something a touch off about your posh accent.”

  Wylla brought three simple plastic cups out, the cheap, disposable kind you’d serve a sick patient water with, and Tika poured. “I worked to hide the rural accent through my medical school days. By the time of my residency, most people already couldn’t tell I wasn’t from the capital.”

  Wylla took a long sip from one cup with a gleeful expression on her face, and proffered another to me. I stared at it. “Should I, uh…” I began, eyeing up the oddly amber-colored liquid. How did you get amber from bright blue snowberries? “Should I be drinking in my condition?”

  Wylla’s ears flicked in a very ‘Yes, yes, go ahead’ gesture. “You haven’t been on painkillers since last night, and you’re bigger than both of us combined. You should be fine with some moderation. Should I just set it on the side table, or…?”

  I nodded, and lapped at it slowly with my tongue. She wasn’t wrong. Once you got past the burning sensation--it had quite the kick to it!--the brandy was bitter and tannic, but oddly sweet and complex. I’d had snowberry juice this morning, so the flavor was fresh in my mind, but this? With all the juice’s water and tartness burned away, the pomace brandy tasted like all the nuanced flavors and aromas of the snowberries had been deeply refined and concentrated. “I like it,” I said simply. “So you moved from the sticks to the capital city. Is that where you met Debbin?”

  Wylla smirked around the rim of her cup, enjoying the aroma as much as the taste. “Oh? Peeked at my personnel file, have you? Yes, Debbin and I ran in the same social circles for a bit. We met in a… a club.”

  My detective senses tingled. She was hiding something. “Oh? What kind of club?” Book club, maybe an upscale dining club?

  Wylla smiled, but didn’t answer. She blushed slightly, and probably not from the brandy quite yet.

  Tika was already grinning ear to ear. “Oh my stars, don’t tell me you met the Chairman in a sex club?!”

  Wylla nodded ever so slightly, Tika cackled, and I choked on my brandy. Sure, the frequency with which Debbin ordered home visits by some of the barmaids of The Vice Queen’s Court was an open secret, at least to his own security detail, but the Chief Medical Officer, too?! “No, you can’t be serious!” I sputtered. “Demure lady like you, in a den of ill-repute?”

  Tika continued giggling as Wylla shrugged helplessly. “A true lady strives to keep private matters private, but they still occur,” said the Nevok, smirking coyly. “More bluntly: just because I shit with the door closed doesn’t mean I’m knitting in there. Same goes for any other urges a living being may get. Have you never been, Garruga?”

  “To a sex club?!” I said, astonished. “No! Of course n…” I paused, catching myself in a technical lie. “I mean, once, but not as a patron.”

  “Hired entertainment, then?” Tika said, cackling.

  “Caterer?” Wylla guessed.

  I blushed with embarrassment. “No! I used to be an Exterminator. Back on Talsk, the Farsul homeworld? We got a call from the place about a potential instance of severe, violent Predator Disease.” I leaned forward, trying my best to sound dramatic and serious. Tika and Wylla leaned forward as well, listening intently, but they both had that slight curl to their lips like they thought I was telling a joke. I wasn’t. This was a deathly serious matter. “Apparently, one of the patrons was seen biting someone!”

  Wylla and Tika laughed uproariously.

  I blushed harder, embarrassed that I was missing something. “What?” I stammered. “What’s so fucking funny?!”

  Wylla composed herself and sipped at her brandy. “Oh, sweetie, that’s… that’s probably the only place in the world where biting someone is socially appropriate. With permission, of course. I’m guessing it was a new patron who didn’t realize what happens in a place like that?”

  I wracked my brain to remember who’d called it in. They’d certainly seemed like the normalest person present. Everyone else, they’d been giggling like these two, like there was a joke I hadn’t gotten. “Maybe,” I grumbled. “Why, have you bitten anyone?”

  Wylla shrugged. “Oh, now and then. If they asked politely.”

  “Who would ever ask for that?!” I sputtered.

  “Debbin, for starters,” said Wylla. “That’s how we met. He always liked to give up control a bit, let someone else pin him down and take what they wanted from him. Me, I enjoyed being in control. I found it rather liberating, exploring those parts of myself. Real confidence booster.”

  Tika grinned. “Oh my. So you and the chairman…?”

  Wylla smirked over the rim of her cup. “Oh, now and then, here and there. We’d talk, afterwards, but there was never really that spark to turn things into something more long-term. But when he got the itch to move out here and strike his own fortune, I was the first and only person he asked to be his Chief Medical Officer. For a girl as fresh out of residency as I was, it was the best career move I could have hoped for.”

  Tika sat upright, practically hugging her cup. Hopefully, the tiny doctor wasn’t trying to match us drink for drink! “As good a life story as any,” said Tika cheerfully. “What about you, Garruga? Plum job like an Exterminator, and on one of the Federation founder homeworlds like Talsk? Deputy Security Director for a colony almost sounds like a step down.”

  I lapped up more of the bittersweet brandy as I built up the courage to tell a bittersweet story. “I want to start by saying it’s difficult to aim a flamethrower even when you’re not balancing it on a foreleg while operating it with your tongue, but…”

  Wylla put her paws over her mouth. “Oh no. A civilian got caught in the crossfire?”

  I shook my head. “Worse. A library.”

  Wylla tilted her head in confusion. “Wait, what?” she said. “Burning a library is bad, certainly, but it definitely isn’t worse than killing civilians.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s what I said, too,” I muttered. “My fucking Farsul CO disagreed. He told me I should have let the predator go! I told him he was out of his mind. What if the creature had killed someone?” I growled under my breath, just remembering. “He said civilian deaths would have been preferable to losing a single fucking book.”

  Wylla looked shocked. Tika just clucked her tongue. “Yeah, sounds like a Farsul,” the Zurulian said. “Whole species of librarians and antiquarians. What happened next?”

  I sank down into the bed a bit more. “Well, there were certain words exchanged, and possibly certain bullets. Similar volume. I ultimately arrested him for Predator Disease--Chief or not, what kind of exterminator leaves predators alive, or prioritizes property damage over civilian lives?!--but the Farsul judge and jurors didn’t agree with my assessment. I got shitcanned over it. Bummed around for a while doing odd security jobs, until a certain eccentric Nevok mining tycoon decided my record sounded interesting.”

  Wylla nodded, but she was smirking again. “Mm. Your record. As a badass cop who doesn’t let the rules get in her way. And a muscular lady who’s over twice Debbin’s size, no less.”

  I blushed furiously. “What are you implying?!” I stammered, as Tika cackled with glee.

  Wylla smiled demurely. “I’m just saying, I know Debbin’s type these days. There’s a reason he doesn’t call me as often anymore, and it’s definitely not because he’s worried I’d find his advances unwelcome. Did he ever joke about you cuffing him?”

  “He’s never… I mean, I didn’t…” I trailed off, trying to nail down anything Debbin had ever said to me, specifically, that might have been an… ‘invitation’. My mental search did not come up empty. Was I just oblivious?!

  Wylla smirked. “Behold, the mighty Yulpa! Peerlessly keen-eyed in matters of justice, direly nearsighted in matters of love.”

  Tika nearly fell over laughing, but my face simply couldn’t blush with embarrassment any harder. “Shut up and bring out the bland hospital food already,” I muttered.