The passengers weren't kept waiting long. The crew of the "Samotsvet" hadn't even had time to doze off, Les hadn't finished grooming the right side of the Kushibanin, who continued to fool around and pretend to be an animal, when the door opened and a smell appeared. The real smell of real food. Behind it came a cyber-cart with a large pot, and behind the cart came two people – the woman who met them in the hold, and a tall, very thin man with short gray hair and a piercing gaze of greenish-gray eyes.
"Lunch has arrived," the woman announced, starting to ladle the stew into plates. It was watery, but hot. And there was a lot of it. The man placed the plates on the table.
"Mr. Solka," he said quietly to Hailan, "when you've had lunch, I'd like to talk to you. It concerns our potential cooperation..."
"Hello," Mr. Solka replied in confusion, "do we know each other?"
"Not yet, but we will now," the man replied calmly. "Nikolaus Viylar, I am the navigator of this ship. Captain Monroe said you understand xenocultures, that interested me."
"I'll note that I understand conditionally. By diploma. But I don't do it professionally."
"Professionals, as a rule, sit in warm offices," Nick looked searchingly, but didn't touch the Force, remembering the captain's warning. "And they study what is collected in the field by amateurs. Your soup is getting cold, and the conversation can wait."
The navigator moved aside, sat down next to Les, and ran his fingers through the thick fur of the Bus, who was between them. The first mate gave the navigator an expressive look. And remained silent.
However, after some reflection, Hailan didn't eat the soup. He had eaten heartily twice in the last few hours, and didn't want any more for now. Pushing it aside, he leaned his head back on the headrest and thought. Such a mass attack from the crew was a bit alarming.
Waiting for the crew to finish their soup, Nick took a chair and sat opposite him.
"Circumstances have led us to have coordinates of a place where much valuable can be found," his quiet voice didn't reach the table, drowned out by the clinking of spoons. "If we were common black archaeologists, we would simply take as much as possible from there to sell, and that would be the end of it. But I have never been a robber myself, and such an approach is abhorrent to me. We need someone who can understand what we are dealing with, say which samples are unique and should be preserved, and what can be sold without detriment to the study of this culture. We need money. But we are selective in how we obtain it. We cannot afford to hire a top specialist, so we are offering you. For all of us, this is a way to earn money honestly. For you – also a way to make a name for yourself and gain professional skills. What I saw... is worth treating with due attention."
This was more interesting. And more convincing. Which the Alderaanian voiced.
"Thank you for your frankness. Frankly, this is much more interesting than what your captain said. Who tried to invite me to the team. But why would I need it? You might guess that I don't really need money... In short, frankness for frankness. I am the younger son of a noble house. I cannot work on my own, it would cast a shadow on the whole family, but what you are offering is not exactly work. It's closer to what I've been doing in recent years. In short, I am preliminarily interested. On my part, besides scientific services, I can offer the services of a hunter and an extreme tourist. Possibly, even partial financing. The only question is the terms of cooperation."
"Captain Monroe is a man of his word," the navigator replied, still quietly. "The terms of cooperation are for him, and he will fulfill whatever you agree upon without fail. As for the terms of the work itself... You can call it extreme exploratory activity – you won't be mistaken. There's no one to hunt there, although... Who knows. Nature is generous with surprises. But extreme tourism skills will be useful like never before. Have you had to travel on cooled planets, Mr. Solka?"
"How cooled," Hailan clarified. "Icy?"
"Completely cooled," Nick replied immediately. "With the atmosphere fallen to the surface. There is a layer of snow on the planet that was once air. And beneath it – untouched culture."
"I have experience climbing atmospheric peaks. I think it's comparable."
"Approximately yes," the navigator agreed. "I can't tell you more, unfortunately – I've only seen glimpses myself. And it will require special equipment... Which I know where to get. But first, we'll have to take it from the jungle."
"I warn you that I can't give anything more than a preliminary agreement now. I need to contact my family first."
"I was just explaining what this is all about," the navigator smiled. A surprisingly soft smile for a thin face with sharp features. "The decision is yours, and if you refuse, no one will force you at gunpoint. No – we'll say goodbye at the spaceport. Yes – we'll talk about business. I won't disturb your rest."
Bouncing up, the navigator headed for the exit.
"Well, one can get plenty of rest here."
Solka had nothing to do for now. At all. For an indefinite period of flight. All that remained was to kill time.
A bright head peeked into the mess hall. Sher scanned the faces with a questioning look, searching for an unfamiliar one. Among the five names that had been examined, the one the captain had warned her about was not listed.
"Excuse me, gentlemen, but who here is... Les Raino?" It seemed she hadn't mixed anything up, and the name Rick had heard was pronounced correctly.
"What, lost again?" the navigator chuckled, looking around. After a brief search, the sought-after Les was found, extracted from his hiding place, and presented to the doctor.
Glowering with purple eyes through his light brown bangs, Les greeted them and shuffled off for the examination, assuring Sher that he was healthy, not sick, didn't spread fleas or viruses, and generally wanted to sleep. Bus followed, diligently fluffing his tail and doing his best to pretend he was a pet.
"Well, Mr. Raino," there were notes of reproach in the doctor's voice. Just a little, and a gentle one at that. "You're avoiding the usual medical examination. Healthy, you say? That's great, a couple of minutes and you can go back to sleep," the doc added serenely to reassure the guy.
Smiling at Les, she placed the datapad on her lap, feeling the soft touch of the first mate's fur against her elbow.
Those eyes... So unusual... Her classmate at the Academy also had purple eyes. True, not from birth. And not so restless...
Still smiling, she lowered her gaze to the datapad screen and, confused, made the device play back the result again. What the heck? Was the bioanalyzer broken?
"One moment," Sher cast a quick glance at Les, accompanying it with a polite smile, and turned the bioanalyzer towards herself. No, it wasn't broken... But he was human.
Assigning a new task to the bioanalyzer and waiting through a tedious pause of about thirty seconds, she coughed.
The Kushibanin jumped onto her shoulder, stuck his nose into the screen, pretended to lose his balance, tumbled down, and began to groom himself indignantly.
Les sighed.
"Everything is fine with the equipment," he said quietly. "With me too. Can I just go?"
Sher also sighed, and looking into Les's purple eyes, said in a low voice,
"Everything is fine with the equipment, Mr. Raino. With you – I'm not sure yet. I'll have to do additional research."
"Human. Everything is like a human. All organs, like a human. All functions of these organs are in perfect order. Blood composition is different. And something else..."
She leaned towards the case, taking out a micro-needle for blood analysis and meeting the Kushibanin's gaze.
The first mate looked utterly bewildered. His drooping ears gave him the look of a classic glamorous blonde asked to calculate a jump to another galaxy.
Les shrugged, leaning his back against the bulkhead. His unusually colored eyes glinted through his long bangs.
"I probably have the same bewildered expression on my face right now," Sher thought, making a micro-puncture in Les Raino's finger and pressing a wipe to it.
"You have unusual eyes, Mr. Raino," Sher smiled. "Where do they give those out? I wouldn't mind," she sighed jokingly, shaking a drop into the analyzer.
There was no point in detaining Les any longer. And there was nothing to complain about – his body was in very good condition. He didn't even need hemisorption, strangely enough.
"You can go, Les," Sher said softly, looking at the owner of the purple eyes and the unknown blood composition. "Unless you have anything else to tell me... And please don't hide from me."
"I have something to say," the guy opened his tightly shut eyes. "Your medicines don't affect me. Poisons, generally, either. Most of them. But it's still very unpleasant. And I'm also very afraid of injections."
Taking advantage of the permission, Les quickly slipped out the door.
"He's not lying about the injections," Bus said quietly. "About everything else... I don't know."
Spreading his ears, the Kushibanin ran to catch up with his charge.
"He's definitely not lying about the injections," Sher thought. "And judging by the condition of his organs, bones, and all other tissues, he's still very young. Very. But who is he?"
The bioanalyzer went offline, displaying the blood formula. "Identification impossible," it wrote again on the screen. Especially for the slow ones.
Sher sadly whistled a funeral march. She had to inform the captain that his task regarding Les Raino was not fully completed. "The latest version of the bioanalyzer program, and to hell with it," she sighed to herself.
Her hand, reaching for the comlink, stopped halfway. There was still one more passenger...
But Sher always remembered what a delay in transmitting information could lead to. Even information that didn't seem important at first.
"Rick, I looked at this incurably ill person..." Sher said in a restrained and far from cheerful tone.
"And how were the results?" the counter asked.
"You see," the response sounded a bit confused, and Sher's pacing could be heard. "He seems fine. Not even poisoned, like the others. The drug decomposed into safe metabolites immediately. Organs and functions – no changes. He's very young. He's human. But the blood composition... Rick, his blood composition is not like a human's."
"So he's both human and not human," the captain summarized. "Sher, is there a way to determine his racial capabilities?"
"The bioanalyzer didn't find a match," the doc said quietly, looking at the compartment door. "I have the latest version. I'll try to search by the detailed blood formula... Sorry, I have another passenger for examination," she added hastily, making it clear that she couldn't continue the topic.
"No rush," Rick replied laconically and disconnected.
Flying into the mess hall, Raino looked around for the last unexamined passenger.
"Your turn..." and settled on a small sofa. Where Bus immediately joined him.
Hailan raised his head and sighed. Everything on this ship was done in turn. Like at some customs. With a resigned look, he went for his appointment.
Reasonably assuming he was expected, the Alderaanian opened the medical bay door without knocking. However, before entering, he stuck his head inside and looked around.
"Come in, please," Sher turned to the patient, flicking her linen braid, and smiled. "And sit down," she nodded towards a single metal chair.
"How are you feeling, any complaints?" the doc put down the comlink and looked at the man who entered.
Both in appearance and behavior, he was subtly different from the "Samotsvet" crew.
"What complaints could there be," Solka was surprised. "Except that I slept for three days under the influence of sleeping gas. But I seem to have recovered."
"Excellent, we'll check... Mr.... " she couldn't say it quickly. She stumbled on his name, and her questioning gaze turned to the patient. "Excuse me, you haven't introduced yourself, have you?"
The device was already spitting out biochemical and other blood system indicators, formulas, morphological pictures, and human organ function indicators.
Sher, who had been waiting tensely for the scan results, took a breath. Two bolts rarely hit the same target. This unwritten rule was still in effect.
"Solka. Hailan Solka," the Alderaanian said, sitting down in front of the doctor.
"Very pleased to meet you, Mr. Solka," she noted his name on the datapad and raised her attentive eyes to Hailan again.
"You also need to undergo the hemisorption procedure to avoid long-term problems from the drug's effects," Sher concluded. "You have no other health problems, moreover, you are in excellent physical condition."
"What, excuse me, procedure?" for a moment, Hailan sensed something unpleasant in the doctor's words.
The wariness in Mr. Hailan's voice did not go unnoticed – Sher was very sensitive to others' moods.
"Ah, yes, sorry," the doc chuckled, shaking her head, "I had a not-so-easy visitor before you. Don't worry, Mr. Hailan, I'll explain everything now. It's a procedure to cleanse the blood of all toxic products. Your blood is passed through a sorbent – that's a filter that adsorbs poisons, in particular, the drug that got into your blood, and returns it to you purified. If you don't mind, of course, Mr. Hailan," Sher clarified with a smile.
Solka shrugged indeterminately. Such charity seemed a bit strange.
"If it's necessary, it's necessary. It seems the procedure is expensive. I'll warn you right away, I don't have any money on me. At all."
"I don't remember saying anything about credits," Sher didn't bat an eyelid, putting the device back in the case. If Rick considered these people worth taking with him, then they needed to be helped.
Here's the text with the requested changes:
"However, you can help me, Mr. Haylan," she slung the case over her shoulder again. "But this is not equivalent to payment for treatment, so you can refuse," she smiled, looking into Solka's dark blue eyes.
For some reason, everyone on this ship needed something from him. This time, Haylan looked at the doctor with undisguised anxiety.
"I'm listening…" he said cautiously.
Sher suppressed an involuntary sigh. After all, the crew of the "Gem" were much more accommodating and compliant guys compared to the last two. The first one wasn't entirely human… And he was terribly afraid of injections. And Mr. Haylan Solka… It seemed he approached everything with such wariness and distrust that it reminded her of Nar Shaddaa and her patients, whom she operated on almost under the threat of blasters aimed at her.
"Mr. Solka, the captain advised me to turn to you to help partition off a corner in the mess hall. But only if you don't mind," the doctor said calmly, with a soft smile. "And what did you think?" and tossing her braid, the girl stopped at the threshold. "Shall we go?"
"Well, you never know," the Alderaanian replied vaguely. "It's a complicated matter. And why partition it off? How long will we be flying? It seems like a few hours. Not a few days."
"All right, Mr. Solka, rest," the doctor smiled. "You're probably right, I shouldn't have bothered you. After all, there's no asepsis at all in field conditions…" she chuckled to herself and, letting the passenger out, blocked the door. "I think we'll manage on our own."
"Thanks," he grumbled to himself, already in the corridor. Lost in thought about the transience of all things, Haylan headed back to the mess hall.