The station’s morning came too early for Kerek. He quickly cleaned up and tossed on his clothing, fresh from the sanitizer. He was waiting in the center room, pretending he’d been there for ages, when the captain and engineer came out, just a few minutes later. Lairis had worn a large black loose-woven shawl over her cron issued flight suit, worn triangularly with the corner gathered at her hip. Thit’aak had the dark mask and broad-brimmed hat on, completing the much more typical cron garb. The only color was the bright embellishments in their large claws. The decorative carved patterns picked out in vibrant hues. Only Kerek hadn’t gotten the outfit memo, and was just wearing his mended trousers, shirt, vest, and mid-shin deck boots. His flight suit was on the ship still. The robot, wearing its little version of the classic cron outfit, translated the trill from the captain.
“Time to go, let’s get this meeting behind us and get on our way. My feet grow moss.”
They followed the cron’s dramatic exit with a quick look behind to make sure nothing had been forgotten. A small four-being lift nearby was utilized, and they zipped down quite a distance, then there was a brief moment when the lift paused before the doors opened. The area beyond was flooded with shifting color hues of blues and dark greens, the area beyond the doors little more than a large diameter tube through deep swirling water. The light was filtered through the water and its patterns and aqueous plants. Fish and other various small aquatic creatures darted around. In the darker reaches further back were large shadowy shapes, their outlines dim in the distance. Possibly sapiidans and others back there somewhere.
A large bioluminescent jellyfish the size of a table drifted past the tunnel as they hurried down the long cool hallway. At the end of the tube was another door that slid open with a slight hiss as they approached. This lift ride was much longer, and when the rear side of the lift opened, they saw a generic pale corridor with dark flooring and a side lit ceiling. Thit’aak led the way through several twists and turns and many side corridors and entryways with only room number markings. Kerek wasn’t sure how to read them yet, but they were clear to the others. As they proceeded, the temperature was steadily rising until it reached a point of discomfort for Kerek and he could see a faint sheen of sweat on Laris’s large skull.
Finally they reached a more populated zone after seemingly forever in the nearly empty and sparsely marked corridors. It was marked “Bart’s Bar” in thermopaen. As they entered, the heat was even higher than before, and there was a distinct smell of warm damp grasses and heavily brewed ales. Kerek should have expected there would be a therm bar here somewhere, since there were zones for everyone else. He’d spent more than a little time traveling with the therms. Largely vegan and with a taste for strong intoxicants, usually made from fermented grains, they were loud, friendly, and often forthright. He liked them, as a general rule. He’d seen several of the species of therms, and there were a few here. Mostly the vegans though, the ones with more varied diets probably avoided this bar the way Kerek generally avoided vegan bars regardless of the species running it.
The bart here, a giant model of AI in a suit more at home on a cargo deck than behind a bar, tended to the customers with the typical ease and efficiency of every bart in every Bart’s Bar in the galaxy. They were often a bit smaller though, wearing suits built along cereb or similar sizes. Kerek noticed Lairis was a bit unnerved, standing closer to him than he was used to. The small stature of a cereb was very obvious disadvantage in a therm-orientated place.
The captain looked around, tilting their head from side to side, until they suddenly caught sight of the contact. With a muffled squak they headed towards the side of the room lost in the warm, humid mist. Lairis and Kerek and the little robot followed along, and were soon seated at a table with an enormous therm.
With a deep gravel voice, the therm introduced themselves as Ters. They rapidly got to the point, highlighting details on their tablet with massive green and tan-scaled digits capped by long black claws as heavy as chisels. They had a large cargo unit stored in the cargo bay of the station. Ters placed the key fob for the unit on the table and then departed. The captain’s robot stowed the key, and they took their leave of the bar promptly.
Kerek opened his mouth to speak in the relative coolness of the corridor, and Thit’aak raised a wing to their beak in warning to silence. They departed by a different path than they arrived, but soon were on a sparsely populated people mover crossing the station module on the way to a tram.
The robot spoke quietly: “It’s best to not speak excessively of things best cloaked and hooded”. No more was said, and soon they were on a busy tram heading towards the central core of the station.
Still in silence, they disembarked from the tram, and took another people mover towards the core. When the people mover ended, they walked a bit, then reached a much more industrial looking section of the station. The polish of the rest of the station gave way to a utilitarian aesthetic and the flooring was scratched and marked up despite being a more rubberized material than the normal sections. When they entered yet another lift, there were thick blankets hanging up on the walls, and steel bumpers. They rode quietly for a little bit, then exited at the floor marked on the key fob.
Following the markings, the traversed nameless corridors filled with sliding steel doors. Storage units filled with who-knows-what from who-knows-where. Untold millions of credits in inventory, priceless items, all just a thin wall away from worthless hardcopy documentation, empty crates, and bulk bins of spare industrial parts. Kerek had never had a lot of exposure to storage units like this, but vaguely knew they existed on most stations somewhere. When they finally arrived, they double-checked the twelve digit alpha-numeric locator against the markings on the steel door. The robot handed the fob to the cereb, who reached up and tapped it against the battered old panel. A loud squeaky chain driven by a motor slowly hoisted the steel door and it rattled up out of the way of the entry.
The four meter wide by eight meter deep room was lit only by a flickery lamp almost four meters up. In this huge steel room was nothing but dust and a single spacer’s duffle. Kerek looked around, and saw nothing else. Dust motes floated in the weak air from the ventilator grates in the ceiling.
“Kerek, please carry that. And mind the…”, the robot translated, but the cron’s gesture towards the corner of the room where there was a tiny little hemisphere of smoked glass needed no translation. The cron wanted to be quiet because what might be overhearing was an AI. AIs never slept, never ate, never got bored, and could monitor millions of cameras and audio feeds at once. Kerek understood. Whatever this was it might not be illegal per se, but it was something that needed to not have a clear record.
Kerek nodded, retrieved the suprisingly heavy bag, and shouldered it. With his scruffy and mended spacer’s clothing and a big rough spacer’s duffle, he looked perfectly below notice. That wasn’t really his plan when he woke up this morning, but it was pretty clear why the captain had seemed approving when Kerek chosen not to wear the cron uniform. Kerek had barely even noticed.
They walked together back to the people mover, and then the captain made some quiet sounds to the robot, who translated. “Meet me back at the ship in three hours. I have business to attend to.” And then they departed onto a different mover.
Lairis and Kerek pretended to take little notice of it, and just headed back towards the module.
“Nothing to see here, just a spacer with fifteen credits to his name”, Kerek thought to himself. “and a cereb who probably hired him to do some menial job.”
They chatted sparingly until back on the flight deck, taking the little taxi out to their ship. “You ready to get underway?” Kerek asked, voice somewhat muffled by the small oxygen mask.
“Yes. Good stay, but time to kick the dust off”, Lairis replied.
They watched the delicate steps unfold, and then the engineer opened the hatch with her palm print as before. They climbed into the airlock, which rapidly cycled and allowed them aboard. The flight deck was roughly pressurized, though not really a breathable atmosphere as such. Just enough so that most beings didn’t require a space suit and bulky helmet to get to the station. They docked their small masks for recharging and then Kerek set the duffle at the door to the captain’s cabin. Not his bag, not his job to investigate it. He had a lifetime of learning not to be curious.
