“Friday Fiction” series: “Dr. Carlos and the Wicked Will,” Part One…
[Note from Steve: It’s been a while since I’ve posted a short story featuring the starship Brendan’s Chief Medical Officer Carlos Obregon. You might have read about some of his adventures in “Dr. Carlos, Chief Medical Officer,” a PDF you can download for free—see the list of available downloads on the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page. This one is a bit different because the good doctor has to be more than an amateur sleuth. It also might be a bit humbling for Human readers because it shows that once-evil ETs might be able to perform morally a lot better than Humans can. Enjoy. And, oh yes, Happy New Year everyone!]
Dr. Carlos and the Wicked Will
Copyright 2022, Steven M. Moore
Carlos Obregon studied the other people in line and immediately felt out of place. He was a starship’s medical officer, after all, not a typical tourist. On a scheduled leave on the planet Euphoria that his captain had made him take, he’d become bored among an entire world of tourists and those who catered to and exploited them. The planet was a tropical paradise, though, and its shimmering seas; towering mountains, many of them volcanoes; and interesting flora and fauna seemed to beckon him. A quick trip around the planet to take it all in was a good way to spend the idle time forced upon him.
Among those in the same line were the ET tourists: Two Rangers—unusual to see the strange fellows from his home planet on a tour, but they’d always been a curious folk; a short, oily-and-mottled skinned Usk, looking more bored than Carlos; and three Tali, orange and furry fellows who towered above everyone. There were also eleven Humans of all shapes and sizes and attitudes, including a wrinkled old lady who made Carlos wonder why she’d not taken anti-senescence drugs. He supposed her choice was due to some religious bias. Human religions often went up against modern science, and their members often died because of those choices. All intelligent beings in near-Earth space seemed to have some strange beliefs.
One by one, they all moved forward. The check-in seemed complete and efficient, the syntho voice of the hovercraft’s AI seeming to ring in all their ears only because it was a nearly instantaneous translation from Standard to the ETs’ different languages transmitted to their now ubiquitous implants in their sound-receiving organs. While his rendering was in Standard without need of translation, he thought that even some of the Humans would receive a translation into their planets’ dialects, especially if they came from outlying worlds.
“Carlos Obregon, Chief Medical Officer of the starship Brendan. Welcome to Euphoric Tours’ sightseeing trip around our lovely planet.”
Everyone glanced his way. They all knew he was out of place too, and, as often happened, he regretted how much technology encroached on people’s lives. The old woman even studied him, her wrinkled face becoming even more distorted by a frown. She was ahead of him, so he knew she was from one of those outlying worlds, a planet outside the Interstellar Trade Union of Independent Planets, aka ITUIP. When he found a seat inside the hovercraft, she chose the seat next to his, glared at him, and then proceeded to ignore him. Maybe she’s a member of some religious cult? The outer worlds in near-Earth space were full of them, their vary existence often making their joining ITUIP impossible.
***
The AI’s programming was good. It flew them over some atolls where strange fish soared out of the water to nab four-winged flying creatures; then over snow-covered peaks, some of them topped with craters with volcanic smoke reaching up into the cirulean sky; and down to a vast savannah where herds of ungulates fed on the tall and waving yellow-green grass, all the while being stalked by some fierce-looking but smart, stealthy carnivores.
The constant drone of the AI gave local names to all the sights they were seeing, but some had no real translation. The locals of Euphoria spoke an ancient Earth dialect called Yiddish, although Carlos recognized a few corruptions within it from ancient Chinese dialects. That wasn’t that uncommon. The Chinese had established the first colony on Mars millennia ago, its autocratic government there mimicking the homelands; it had failed, as had the Earth country, but the Chinese language continued to corrupt the language of the Spacers, which had evolved into Standard.
As the hovercraft flew around some jewel-like lakes, the old woman collapsed.
“A passenger is ill!” Obregon called out. “We need to either land or head back!” He was already leaning over the woman, pressing fingers to her carotid after noting the blue tinge to her wrinkled, pale skin and especially her lips.
“Please tighten your seat belts,” the AI announced. “The hovercraft will be landing—”
They were already losing altitude, but Carlos wondered if its software was failing. Is the AI dying as well? He normally wouldn’t worry about the announcement because he’d already suggested two possible courses of action, and the AI had chosen the easiest one at that moment. They’d come a long way. Moreover, he’d landed—crash-landed, to be precise—on a more than hostile planet and knew how to survive. But not with a bunch of tourists!
He was about to try CPR when he noted a peculiar odor. He’d grown up on New Haven and identified it as a strong poison used against local pests that lurked around the New Haven Humans’ dairy farms. Did the woman commit suicide?
“AI, this is passenger Obregon again. As soon as we’ve landed, the air onboard needs to be replaced with outside air as soon as possible!”
The AI didn’t reply, but the landing was a soft one and they all staggered out of the hovercraft feeling a bit dizzy.
***
“What’s wrong with that Human female?” said one of the Tali.
Carlos gently placed her body on the ground. “She’s dead. I believe she’s been poisoned. Anyone remember her name?”
“Alana Alger,” the Usk said.
“Why would she commit suicide?” the Tali said. “She was a tourist just like all of us. Her home planet is Verdant. I’d never heard of it.”
Now Carlos remembered reacting to the woman’s name and where she was from when the AI had announced her name and citizenry during check-in. He’d written it all off to coincidence. Decades ago, Brendan had made a port of call at that planet. A Human male had tried to kill Carlos; his name was Edo Alger, and Obregon’s testimony against him sealed his fate, a complete mindwipe, a gift considering the options the jury had to consider.
Apparently self-correcting code woke up the AI. It announced, “To all surviving hovercraft tourists, the dead woman has a will on file. I’ve been programmed to read it to you.”
Carlos didn’t like the sound of any of that. Who at Euphoric Tours had programmed the AI for this trip? Like everyone else, though, he listened.
The reading of Alana Alger’s last will and testament was brief. She left all her considerable fortune, millions of credits in a bank located on the planet Sanctuary—he had to smile at the woman’s use of irony in choosing that particular planet considering their current situation—to be shared equally with all the passengers onboard the hovercraft as long as Carlos Obregon, starship Brendan’s Chief Medical Officer, did not make it back alive to Euphoria’s capital city.
Everyone was stunned as much as Carlos was. One could see it on the Human’s faces, and, as a ship’s doctor who had to attend to many different types of ETs, he read that emotion in them as well. He decided to not attach any importance to the old woman’s will. She’d obviously been mentally ill, probably for a long time.
***
“Curious burial rites,” Orl the Usk said to Carlos as they all walked away from Alger’s grave. “Quite touching words too, considering that old Human wanted you dead, Carlos.”
Carlos glanced at the short ET who looked like a turtle from ancient Earth without his shell. Like the Tali, the Usks had been thwarted in their plans to conquer Earth centuries ago, their respective defeats also centuries apart. Also, like the Tali, they’d become well integrated into Earth society and ITUIP.
Carlos worked for the Union’s Space Exploration Bureau. Would that stop Orl or the others from trying to claim Alger’s millions? Most were ITUIP citizens. He still appreciated that the ETs seemed loathe to do the old woman’s bidding and had become even more friendly, though, while the Humans seemed a bit more ambivalent.
“Usks’ burial ceremonies are more like our ancient Vikings’,” Carlos said, returning to the Usk’s first comment. “Very similar, in fact. Many Humans also cremate their dead too, perhaps not so elaborately as you folk but the same idea. We just couldn’t leave her on the ground. We don’t want to attract carrion feeders or predatory animals. Our only choice was to bury her or cremate her. I chose the former for lack of material for a pyre.”
“That shovel and rake in that closet were a great find. Who are these Vikings?”
Carlos explained. He was a student of Earth’s history and customs, many variations of the latter also prevalent in near-Earth systems, especially in Human colonies outside ITUIP like Verdant. Some were like Euphoria, which seemed to have a cultural milieu dedicated to having a good time and tending to the tourist trade.
“I understand,” Orl said. “Those Vikings did have a culture that had a lot in common with our old traditions.”
Carlos could only nod, thinking that it was probably not the time to observe that those ancient Usks were even more vicious than the Vikings. One could find common characteristics for ancient Humans, Talis, and Usks. Only the Rangers had avoided those tendencies toward savagery. Having grown up on New Haven, a world shared by Humans and Rangers for millennia, Carlos knew the latter had had their disputes, but they’d been settled peacefully. Nevertheless, they’d become fearsome allies with the Humans in the battles against the Tali and Usk!
Will someone in this group of tourists attempt to kill me? His first suspects would be his fellow Humans, but he would carefully study all the tourists stranded with him. At the same time, he would try to help them get organized. They could be waiting for a search party to find them for a while.
The AI was now offline, and that meant the hovercraft’s communication with its base was no longer operational. In fact, the only AI function that seemed to be left was its translation subroutines that allowed everyone to communicate without knowing the others’ languages. That was done via their implants and most necessary for the Rangers because of their complicated buzzspeak, but Carlos’s knowledge of the Tali and Usk languages was minimal.
All that meant there was plenty of time for someone to organize an accident to befall him.
***
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The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection. In this ebook bundle of three complete novels, Survivors of the Chaos, Sing a Zamba Galactica, and Come Dance a Cumbia…with Stars in Your Hand, the reader can find much of ITUIP’s history that Carlos Obregon is referring to in the above story. These three hard sci-fi novels, all “evergreen books” because they’re as fresh as the day I finished their manuscripts, can be considered my Foundation trilogy. Unlike the famous Isaac Asimov, though, there are plenty of ETs, something that’s obvious even in this short story. The most unusual ones are the Rangers, the first ETs Humans encountered on Carlos Obregon’s home planet New Haven. For more Carlos Obregon tales, see “Dr. Carlos, Chief Medical Officer,” a free PDF download from the list on my “Free Stuff & Contests” web page.
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
