~
Gay: (Concord) one of the nine sexual preferences generally recognized by Concord culture; denotes a person who prefers to be intimate with others of exactly the same gender.
Mhyre Tatian
Tatian woke to a wail of sirens and lay for a second in the red- pulsing darkness of his bedroom before he realized that the sound was coming from the communications system. He swore under his breath, and fumbled for the remote that lay beside the bed, touching the keypad to bring up the lights and accept the incoming message. He grimaced as the light hit his eyes, blinked hard, and jammed fingers into his tangled hair. The air from the environmental system was dank and smelled strongly of the sea. He heard the media center come on in the main room, and then the relay screen on the wall beside his bed lit, asking if he wanted to establish a reciprocal transmission.
“Not likely,” Tatian muttered, and then, because it was an older system, jabbed blindly at the remote.
The screen blinked confirmation—I/T VIDEO AND AUDIO, O/T AUDIO ONLY—and opened like a window on bright lights and white-painted walls and a face that he didn’t immediately recognize. He recognized the background first—hospitals were the same all over human space—and only then realized it was Warreven beneath the bruises.
“Tatian?” Ȝer voice sounded small, lighter than usual, distorted by 3er swollen mouth.
“I’m here,” Tatian answered. “Jesus, what happened to you?” Or do I need to ask? I warned you there would be trouble— He killed the thought, startled by his own response, frightened by the ugly swellings. One eye was covered with a dark bandage, the cheek- bone beneath it puffed and misshapen, 3er lower lip split and swollen into an ugly pout. Ȝe was standing close to the sending unit—it would be a cheap pay-as-you-go unit, and they were close-focus at the best of times, a poor substitute for real privacy—but Tatian thought he could see the iridescent shape of a neck brace below the bruised chin. “Are you all right?”
Improbably, one corner of Warreven’s mouth twitched up in what might have been a smile. “Very sore. But I need your help.”
“You got it,” Tatian answered, and flung back the covers. “What do you need?” Only then did it occur to him to wonder what he was doing, and he shoved the thought aside, impatient with himself. Warreven was a friend as well as a business partner, and 3e was hurt. That was enough for anyone.
“It’s Haliday,” Warreven said. “We were together, he—3e’s a lot worse than I am. I want to get 3im into the off-world hospital, where they know how to deal with herms. I need your help, Tatian.”
“You got it,” Tatian said again. He was reaching for his clothes as he spoke, pulling on trousers and a shirt. He fastened his trousers and picked up the remote again, wishing he had been able to get his implants repaired. He touched the control pad, and a side screen lit, date and time prominently displayed—0358/9/14, nearly dawn. Beneath it, a cursor flashed its silent query. “Where are you?”
“Terminus Hospital,” Warreven answered.
Tatian shifted his fingers on the remote, wishing he were at his office, with the shadowscreen and the fall system at his disposal. Then, impatiently, he triggered a secondary line and watched the side screen flush red as he waited for the connection. The red faded to pink as the office systems came on line, vanished completely as the link was fully established and he touched keys to send the proper passwords. As the screen cleared, he entered more commands, calling up his annotated map of the city. It flashed into view a heartbeat later: the system was slow, its response coming through too many ports for real efficiency, but it would do. Terminus Hospital was close to the massive railroad complex just north of the city proper, maybe twenty minutes’ drive from the Nest; he wondered how far Warreven had had to come to get there. “I can be there in half an hour. Do you need me to bring anything?” Our doctor, he added silently, and probably money.
Warreven started to shake 3er head, winced, and said, “I don’t think so. I’ve called Malemayn, too, he’s bringing me some clothes. And cash.”
I’ll bring metal, Tatian thought. Just in case. He swept a handful of coins off the shelf beside his bed, already calculating its worth and the value of the larger cache of coins in the apartment safe. He would bring those as well, he decided. It would be easy enough to repay the company. “I’ll be there in half an hour. We have a doctor on retainer at the port, I’ll alert her. What exactly are you concerned about?” You mentioned clothes, he thought suddenly. Does that mean rape? The thought was literally sickening. He swallowed bile and touched the remote to record Warreven’s answer.
“Hal—he’s beat up pretty bad, the bastard ranas kicked him in the groin a few times, and in the stomach, zhim—3im, I mean, 3e’s herm.” Warreven stopped, took a deep breath. “Like me. I don’t know how badly 3e’s hurt, but I don’t know if the doctors here will treat 3im right.”
Tatian nodded again, not particularly reassured, but knowing better than to betray that. “I’ll alert our doctor,” he said again, “and I’ll be there in thirty minutes. Are you sure you don’t need anything else?”
“Sure,” Warreven echoed, and managed another wincing smile. “Reasonably, anyway. Tatian—” Ȝe stopped again. “Thank you.”
“I’m on my way,” Tatian said, and cut the connection. He touched the remote again, brought up the list of emergency codes, and scrolled down until he found the listing for the clinic that had NAPD’s contract. He hesitated—neither Warreven nor Haliday could by any stretch of the imagination be considered NAPD employees—but clicked the selection switch anyway. If necessary, he would pay any costs himself, and figure out where to get the money later.
The screen lit, displayed the subtly patterned screen of an expensive answering system. “Please enter your clinic code and state the nature of your problem.” The sweetly synthesized voice was echoed by icons and a string of print across the screen. “If you do not have a clinic code, please enter star nine-nine-nine for emergency access.”
That, Tatian knew, would throw the call over to Bonemarche’s emergency response teams. He called up his own code instead, and dispatched it; the screen went momentarily blank, and then the synthetic voice said, “Please state—”
It cut out in midword, and the holding pattern vanished to reveal a rumpled-looking woman. “Jaans Oddyny here.”
“Mhyre Tatian—”
“I know.” The woman scowled at him, looking from secondary screen to the communications systems. “You look all right. What’s the problem?”
“It’s not me,” Tatian said. “A friend of mine, an indigene, is hurt—3e was attacked on the street and badly beaten. I’m concerned about 3er treatment. Ȝe’s in the Terminus Hospital right now. Can you take an interest?”
Oddyny’s eyes narrowed. “Is this trade?”
Tatian bit back an angry answer. “It is not. Those damned ghost ranas of theirs—”
Oddyny lifted a hand in apology. “I had to ask. And it’s important, can affect treatment.”
Tatian nodded slowly, admitting that she was right—but the assumption that anything between an off-worlder and an indigene had to fit into the category of trade was still infuriating, especially when it was trade that had caused the attack on Warreven. “I understand,” he said. “It’s still not trade. Warreven’s a colleague.”
“So your account pays?”
“For now—” Tatian began, but Oddyny swept on unheeding.
“Sort that out later. All right. There’s a small matter of professional etiquette involved, but if your friend asks—or if the people over at Terminus have the brains to ask for an outside opinion— use my name. I’ll have the call patched to me directly. Good enough?”