The medical mech is the Tare model, which looks like a middle-aged woman of East Asian ancestry. Human medical assistants work by the Tare’s side, but there’s no question who will judge her. It’s just as brisk and efficient as Akide’s lectures always said—and even her eyes don’t reflect anything like the intelligence Noemi sees inside Abel.
Speaking of Abel…
Noemi glances around, hoping he hasn’t already been tugged out of line, exposed as a machine. Instead she catches a glimpse of him, naked from the waist up, disrobing at the far end of the medical tent. The first thing that strikes her is how unworried he seems. Is that because he’ll pass inspection without being detected, or because he can’t wait to be rescued and expose her in the process?
What hits her next is that Abel’s already attracting attention. A lot of it. Not because he looks like a machine, but because he might have the single most perfect body Noemi’s ever seen. Or imagined. He could be some ancient marble sculpture, with his pale skin, developed muscles, and exact symmetry. If she didn’t know he was just a machine, she might even think he was…
“Smoky,” murmurs the girl in front of her, the one with the braids. She smiles as she unashamedly watches Abel remove his pants, too. “Not that I don’t love my fella, but—”
“Next,” calls one of the medical assistants, and the girl hurries forward for inspection.
The Tare runs her hands along the backs and limbs of every single person in line, as impersonally as though they were statues. When it’s Noemi’s turn, the Tare pauses. “You possess more musculature than the average female of your age.”
Not on Genesis, she doesn’t. Noemi’s actually pretty lazy about her weight lifting. It’s the one part of military discipline she’s the worst at. But compared to the skinny, half-starved Vagabond girls around her, Noemi looks almost impossibly strong. “Our, uh, last job involved a lot of physical labor,” she answers, thinking fast. “It lasted for months. Guess you can see the difference.”
Apparently the explanation is satisfactory, because the Tare lets her move on.
Noemi puts her clothes back on in a hurry. They’re not allowed to wait for others—and besides, she doesn’t know if she’s ready to see Abel completely naked. Instead she walks through the far end of the tent into Wayland Station proper…
… which is pretty much the same as walking into hell.
Kismet’s welcome message made their whole world seem so beautiful, so polished, so elegant. The entertainment offered here? Not so much. She’s surrounded by billboards, holo-adverts, and shimmering lights. The majority of them, and the brightest, all proclaim that THE ORCHID FESTIVAL IS HERE! This seems to be some sort of musical event, although various celebrity and political guests are advertised as being in attendance as well. At least, that’s what Noemi guesses they are; the names and faces are all utterly unfamiliar to her. Some guy called Han Zhi seems to be the biggest draw. While the festival itself is on Kismet, apparently Wayland visitors can watch in various clubs, for a fee.
If that doesn’t appeal, the clubs here have other gambits for taking the travelers’ money. PLAY ALL NIGHT AT LUCKY NINETEEN! says a holo in the shape of a roulette wheel, spinning its colors around them. On a nearby screen, two mechs are shown preening, wearing little besides oiled skin and smiles; these are the pleasure models, Fox and Peter. The slogan promises you can HAVE A PLAYTHING OF YOUR VERY OWN.
Or you can watch people race motorcycles along a nearly vertical track, which looks incredibly dangerous. Sure enough, there’s a small line at the bottom of the holo warning spectators that fatalities can happen. The warning looks more like a promise. Who could be amused watching people risk death for nothing more than a motorcycle race?
Noemi does, at least, understand the appeal of the display directly in front of her—actual entertainment, probably to keep the crowds from complaining about the long waits and rough treatment. In a large antigrav sphere, a scantily clad girl is dancing. Different areas of the sphere light up, peach flickers that signal the dancer where the gravity will be turned on next. The diaphanous veils covering her body flutter as she plunges upward, kicks sideways, floating on the different gravity sources like a leaf on the breeze. There’s a pattern to it, Noemi sees; dancing in there might be fun, if it were only about the dancing, not about letting grubby space travelers drool at you. Because a lot of these guys around her are drooling, and shouting obscenities, and it’s all so disgusting that Noemi wants to scream.
“Interesting,” Abel says, coming up beside her, dressed again and unworried. “I would’ve thought they would charge for a show like this.”
“Abel. How did you get through the medical screening?”
“It was a fairly cursory external check,” Abel says. “The human medical personnel were being rather closely watched. Did you notice?”
“No.” She doesn’t see how it matters anyway. “We can look for a T-7 anx now, right?”
“Right.” But Abel doesn’t move. He simply looks around at the garish advertisements, the ugly shouts of the people near them. “Does it trouble you?”
“What? The dance?” Noemi glances over at the scarf-clad girl, who’s still pinwheeling through the sphere, ignoring her catcallers.
“The desperation,” Abel says crisply. “Seeing what’s become of the galaxy since Genesis’s secession. If it bothers you, I can attempt to find a way to minimize your contact with others.”
“We didn’t do this to Earth and the colony worlds.” Noemi shakes her head as the peach lights play on her face. “They did it to themselves. If we hadn’t pulled away when we did, they would’ve done it to us, too. So, no, I’m not troubled. This place proves we did the right thing.”
Abel inclines his head, as if acknowledging that she has a point. She’d like to enjoy that small victory. Instead, however, she looks again at the broken-down ships, the too-skinny Vagabonds, the exploitive culture, and asks herself, Are we responsible for this? We can’t be. We’re the good guys.
Aren’t we?
14
WAYLAND STATION’S SPACEPORT FOLLOWS ONE OF THE commonly used port blueprints stored in Abel’s mind: a broad space with ceilings held approximately forty meters above them by bare metal beams. The air is cool and dry to a degree most humans would find unpleasant, but is very familiar to Abel after thirty years in an equipment pod bay. Every millimeter bustles with activity, as people throng the walkways, struggle with boxes and barrels of cargo, examine various ships, and shout to one another over the noise, which of course only makes the noise worse. Although Abel should find the cacophony unbearable, instead he thrills to it—the beautiful sound of action, of life.
He files the realization away for future reference: Even ordinary things gain great power when we have been without them for too long.