Tin Star Read Free Page B

better able to follow the Universal Galactic.
    “I’ll have to contact the Earth representative at the League of Worlds,” the Loor said. “That means datawork.”
    “Do they even have one?” I heard someone else ask. “I thought they were isolationists?”
    “Things are always changing with these Minor Species,” the Loor said.
    “Too bad it’s not dead,” the bug-like creature said. I wondered if he saw me as a meal.
    “If the body had fallen a bit closer to the waste disposal, I would have pushed it in and been rid of it. I don’t like to deal with the Humans,” the Loor said.
    “They are a mostly unknown species.”
    “But they’re always roaming.”
    The doctor came and examined me. I kept still on the gurney.
    “Alive,” the doctor said. “Alive.”
    “Bring it to the med bay,” the one in charge said.
    I felt the stretcher lift up and move. After hours of darkness and pain, I could feel the tiniest spark of life in me.
    *   *   *
    I awoke, submerged partway in a tank of warm water, surrounded by thousands of tiny water creatures. The water was warm, and the creatures came and kissed my skin. After the cold of the Prairie Rose , the floor of the cargo bay, the tasteless food, and the endless boredom of the voyage, I finally felt something akin to contentment. For a moment, I could almost believe that someone had come to help me and thus, the universe had answered my call.
    The tank was perfectly adjusted for Human atmosphere and gravity. I floated. It was too blissful. I wondered how far along the Prairie Rose was on its journey. I wondered how long it would take me to catch up to them. I wondered if my family missed me as much as I missed them.
    I opened my eyes. Through the tank I could see three aliens. Two were in beds. One was holding an instrument. I recognized her—although I couldn’t really be sure of the gender—as the doctor who had declared me alive.
    She had four arms, a pointy chin, and a pointy head. The doctor was extremely thin, like a walking stick. She had one of her hands on the forehead of the patient in the bed, another entering something onto a keypad, while another was tapping her hip. I recognized her from my studies as a Per, another one of the Major Species. As a Human, I was considered a Minor Species, or maybe even less than Minor. The difference between Major and Minor had to do with how long you’d been a spacefaring race and how many colonies a civilization had out in the stars. You had to have more than a dozen to be considered Major.
    The doctor noticed that I was awake, and she took her free hand and through a flap in the tank wall injected me with a hypo. I slid back to sleep, peacefully dreaming of stars and the colony that I would help build.
    *   *   *
    I felt warm. Where was I again?
    Perhaps the hand that pressed on my forehead was my mother’s hand. Perhaps I had just been sick. Gotten a flu or eaten something disagreeable. Perhaps I was already there on Beta Granade, in a fevered sweat. Perhaps everything else that had happened that I was suddenly remembering had only been a nightmare.
    Perhaps.
    I opened my eyes again and saw the door slide open. An alien in a uniform came in. It was the Loor, the most Human-looking of all the alien species. They were taller and thinner with longer extremities than Humans. They had broad shoulders, short necks, and thick antennae on the tops of their heads. Between the antennae and above the small hairline was a small widow’s peak of pale skin. The color varied from Loor to Loor. I recognized him when he spoke as the alien who was giving orders when they found me and declared me alive.
    Seeing him reminded me that I was still on the Yertina Feray. I had only been dreaming that everything was fine. I had only been wishing. I closed my eyes to make my reality untrue for a moment longer.
    “How is she? Is she able to talk?” he asked.
    “The patient is making adequate progress but is not yet all