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Summerhall was exactly as promised: a tumbledown palace, complete with cobwebs and ghosts, surrounded by a hundred-acre wood straight out of a fable. Dark Fairytale was a good way to describe the building, both haunting and whimsical.
Lenore had tagged along as the ship’s doctor while Sarah and her prince cruised the stars in their spaceship, collecting wayward people and dropping them off at Summerhall when the ship got crowded.
Seriously, how was this her life?
Work kept Lenore busy, which suited her. She was happiest when busy. The ship came equipped with a small sickbay that mostly ran automatically for less serious injuries and had enough supplies to stabilize the more serious.
When it worked. Maybe bashing the auto-medic with a wrench would get it to work? There had been a printer at the hospital that only worked when threatened with bodily harm.
The sickbay did not come stocked with reference books. The only book she found buried in a cabinet was more of an owner’s manual than a first aid guide. Finding useful information about Arcosian anatomy and medicine proved difficult, but she was hired as a human doctor. Learning new medical techniques could wait. The humans they found ranged in condition from perfectly healthy to severely malnourished, with a smorgasbord of badly-healed broken bones, infections, and untreated chronic conditions. It sucked being a diabetic without access to medication for days, weeks, or even months.
No one really understood how the portal event happened. It just did. One minute, people are getting on with their day, and the next, their lives are upended. The lucky ended up in or near civilization. The unlucky had to make do like Lenore had been struggling to do.
Today was drop-off day, unloading Summerhall’s newest residents, and Lenore did check-ups on the residents as needed. Mostly, she did a quick exam and refilled medications. If a resident had a medical emergency, there were Arcosian doctors familiar enough with humans not to kill them accidentally. Probably. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but it worked until they could get home.
Home.
What was home even like now? Lenore had no illusion that her apartment and job were still waiting for her. She’d been gone for months now, and she wasn’t the only person to have vanished that day. The people left behind had to figure out what to do with suddenly vacant houses filled with spoiled food, bills that weren’t being paid, and empty jobs. Thank the heavens that Lenore didn’t leave behind a cat or dog. All those poor pets, abandoned through no one’s fault. Lenore’s chest ached at the thought.
Lenore counted to twenty while the auto-medic beeped and made waking-up noises. The high-tech toy was designed to handle routine problems from headaches to broken bones. Humans freaked it out, though. It would scan a person, and half the time, the readings would be accurate; the other half would be corrupted garbage, like an eldritch horror had infected the machine.
Why it couldn’t throw an error code or a blue screen of death but went straight for the eldritch horror, Lenore didn’t dare speculate.
This place was strange like that. At times, it was bleeding-edge, amazingly futuristic tech. Spaceships, space stations, flying cars, and language chips that implanted directly into the brain. Yet, that technology was extremely fragile and prone to malfunctions. How many times had the artificial gravity failed on the ship? Often enough that Lenore never left odds and ends out in her cabin. Everything had to be secured.
Assuming technology was present at all. The complete lack of modern comfort on some planets was startling. Like, no electricity, and people living in huts like some feudal time warp. The technology levels varied so drastically from planet to planet that it made her uneasy.
The temperamental auto-medic was just a symptom of the larger problems.
A throat cleared behind her. “What are you doing?”
“Questioning my life choices.” Lenore wiggled her way out from underneath the machine and sat up.
The king stood in the doorway, looking exactly as regal and handsome as a fairytale hero. The disapproving frown did nothing to detract from the handsome, which was, frankly, rude. She wondered briefly if he remembered her.
His dispassionate gaze swept over the room, taking in the tool kit and Lenore’s ruffled appearance.
“I trust that reading is no longer a barrier and you have consulted the manual,” he said, his voice cold enough that Lenore shivered from the rush of arctic wind as he spoke.
Yeah, he remembered her.
“For your information, I have,” she said, rising to her feet. She had the damn thing memorized. “I contacted the manufacturer about the warranty, but Prince Vekele is not the original owner, and we’re never in one place long enough to schedule a service visit. Basically, we’re out of luck.”
Baris inspected the equipment in sickbay while Lenore washed her hands.
“How can I help you, Your Majesty?” she asked.
“I came to see how you are spending my credits. Is this the expensive machine that dispenses pills?” He pointed to the compounding pharmacy instrument on the counter, his grubby finger dangerously close to her precious baby.
“It doesn’t dispense medication. It makes medication.” Lenore squeezed herself between Baris and the machine, blocking it with her body. The counter’s edge dug into her back. Fantastic. She protected the instrument from being poked and prodded by a looky-loo, but now she was about three inches away from the devastatingly good-looking jerk.
Baris did not step back. His lips twitched slightly, as if he enjoyed standing inappropriately close to her. He said, “The ship is well stocked with medication. Explain to me why that machine was necessary.”
Donors. They always wanted to know where their money went.
“We do stock a lot of supplies,” she said, plastering a fake smile on her face and speaking slowly, as if to a child. “But that’s medication designed for Arcosians. Humans need different medicines. This machine can make them.”
It was far more complicated than that. Lenore wasn’t a pharmacist or a chemist. She didn’t know the chemical formulas for medication. A lot of Arcosian drugs worked on humans, but not all. Finding out what worked involved a distressing amount of trial and error. The machine could compound any medication, even the obscure, in minutes. She never had to worry about not having the right thing in stock.
