" She handed me a bottle of pills." She handed me a bottle of pills. "What're these?" "Take one every six hours, sleep or not. They're chemical balancers while the QBM disassembles itself and you basically piss it away." "Nyss? Does this mean I'm dangerous to someone else?" "Not at all. I just don't like the idea of my coimelin getting chromium poisoning." "Fair enough. Is it just me, or is it very red in here?" "We've got low red lights on. Red's the easiest color for the eye to adjust to. Whenever you're ready." "I'm ready now." I stood up and walked to the door. When it opened, I was blasted. "Yeow!" "Told you," she said. I waited, and my eyes adjusted. It resolved into sickbay. "I can see again," I repeated. "BOO!" "Ack!" I turned around to see my attacker and came face to face with Amanda. "You!... Hi! What are you doing here?" We were on the planet of Sendra, around the star of Sen. The natives are vaguely ursine, with wide-spaced eyes and vanilla-colored noses. Sendar is an economic power in this sector of the galaxy, and we were here to check on a claim by a Terran vessel that somewhere in the Sen system was a pirating consortium. I had trouble believing it; piracy is too expensive to be profitable. On the other hand, the captain of the Pegasus was considered trustworthy, so here we were. "Shopping, what else?" She smiled broadly. "No, no. I mean, out of the entire planet, why are you here?" "The Capital city seemed as good a choice as any. I see you can see now." "Yup. Are you, uhm... still interested in what we discussed earlier?" "You mean. |