The captain had forwarded Miles the details of the accreditation he wanted him to take, and Miles had been staring at the document on and off for hours.
> Spiral Standard Healer: 1st Tier
>
> The Tier 1 Healer candidate must show awareness of:
> 1. The five primary biochemistries of the spiral, the environmental needs of those biochemistries, and their chemical contraindications.
> 2. Universal health concerns, including weave corrosion.
> 3. The primary ten physical layouts, common organs, and their likely locations.
> 4. Simple life-saving measures for any three spiral species.
>
> In addition, the Tier 1 Healer must demonstrate the ability to:
> A. Diagnose a patient for category (P) threats to life.
> B. Treat a laceration, a deep-tissue puncture, a wide area abrasion, and a wide area temperature wound.
> C. Counteract a dangerous chemical contamination.
The requirements for the healer’s demonstrated abilities were simple, unambiguous, and Miles had no chance at all of passing them.
For the test part of the accreditation, he thought he was safe. He'd need a manual on spiral life forms, but it turned out that the information was pretty basic and widely circulated. A quick scan of the Exchange had shown him a book he could download that had the exact information he'd need for the qualification, and it was one of the few things on the network that he could afford. The overlap between what the book held and what the accreditation required was actually suspiciously exact, as if it had been written with Tier 1 healers in mind.
It was the practical side that was going to be a problem.
Miles had exactly two spells, only one of them would help him at all, and that would be limited to part B of the demonstration.
He had no way to treat a chemical contamination — poisoning? — and no way at all to diagnose a patient. With his current index, he wouldn't be able to tell a sick Orbellius from a healthy basketball.
Without upgrades to his index, he couldn't get accredited. Without the accreditation, he couldn't do the job the captain wanted him to do. Without the job, he couldn't afford to upgrade his index. Maybe he could ask for an advance on his salary, but he was only three Earth-standard days into a job that paid out every Spiral-standard month, and as far as he could tell, he hadn't even done any work yet.
He'd spent every day since the Kipper left Unsiel Station practicing his spells, exploring the quieter parts of the ship, and quietly feeling like a fraud. He'd spent more time browsing the Exchange than he had doing anything that felt productive, and he definitely hadn't done anything that warranted the captain's faith, trust, or financial investment.
He just didn't know what to do.
Maybe he could ask Trin for advice.
Miles' comm unit was a small device. It was narrower and lighter than a cellphone, but worked in a similar way, with an interactive screen. He’d been given it for free along with the other refugees back on Unsiel Station, so it had to be a very basic model, but it seemed perfectly functional to him.
Miles' unit had come with an in-built translator, which wasn't always as fast or as accurate as his Eyes of the Emigre weave, but it worked both ways when making calls and sending written messages.
He opened the message tool and started scrolling through his contact list. It was short. He had Captain Rhu-Orlen, Trin, Gart Illaw on Unsiel Station, a few humans from the station, and a few humans from back home.
After a second's hesitation, Miles selected Trin and tapped out a message.
> Miles > Trin
>
> I can't do it, Trin. I'm not going to pass this examination.
He waited half a minute before he saw the activity signifier, and a reply came back.
> Trin > Miles
>
> That's very sad.
Yes, Trin. Yes, it is.
> Miles > Trin
>
> Do you have any advice? I can't afford the index upgrades I need to pass this test. I don't know what to do.
> Trin > Miles
>
> I will not give you money.
> Trin > Miles
>
> But we are still friends.
> Miles > Trin
>
> I don’t want your money. I’m asking for advice.
> Trin > Miles
>
> Find someone give you money.
Miles dropped his comm unit on the bed.
He didn't know anyone else who might have any good ideas. None of the humans back on the station knew any more about spiral culture than he did, his case worker Gart was so overworked he might not respond to a message for days, and he hadn't even been in touch with anyone on Earth since he escaped.
Did the spiral have payday loan companies? Were there healer grants or bursaries he could apply for? Could he make contact with a loan shark? All were starting to look like appealing options, if he could find them.
On the bed, Miles’ comm unit suddenly started emitting a loud tone; not an incoming call, but a broadcast. It blared for a few seconds, then cut off. The captain's severe, monotone voice started speaking a moment later.
"Prepare to disembark. We will dock at Delatariel Station in one hour. "
As usual, the captain's statements were curt and lacked any useful context at all. Miles hadn't even known they were heading for a station. They were still traversing the central void. What kind of station could there possibly be out here?
Despite his reservations, Miles got to work, pulling a clean pair of cargo pants from his pack and the almost-empty bag of dry soap he could use to wash without access to a shower.
As was getting more and more common, he had questions, and no good place to get answers.
What are we doing on Delatariel Station?
* * *
The constant background whine of the ship’s shields had almost become imperceptible to Miles, until they were switched off, and then the absence was like being suddenly deaf.
The silence yawned, punctuated by the popping of the cooling hull and the groaning of something in the ship’s superstructure that really didn’t like coming to a stop.
The crew members that had assembled in the docking bay swayed together as the ship made contact with the station’s docking arm; a dull impact and a sudden lurch as the floor kicked beneath them. Even the captain seemed to drift briefly in the air as their levitation unit adjusted to the ship joining with the greater mass of the station.
Trin was standing next to Miles and grabbed onto his arm with a mid-paw to keep his balance. Brisk was closer to the hatch, holding onto a suspension strap to steady himself. The pilot Miles had first seen on the bridge was there, who he’d since found out was a woman called Sellen.
The pilot’s species was called the Welven, and despite being about as physically different from a human as Miles could imagine, they both shared a C-type biochemistry. Sellen was sitting on the floor as the Kipper made contact, raised up like a tent, two eye stalks extended and pointed at the hatch.
A vibration thrummed through the hull as the ship came to a complete stop relative to the station, and the hissing of air came from the hatch as the atmosphere equalized between the two habitats. The docking bay became full of the unfamiliar smells of a new environment; alien food, weird smoke and spices, the life functions of a dozen different species, and the hot metal odor of high-energy technology.
Miles had a few seconds to worry about whether the air would be compatible with his biology, or if his first experience of counteracting a dangerous chemical contamination would be trying to save his own life, then the hatch started groaning open and a gradually widening crescent of light appeared along its edge.
I’m fine. I’m fine.
The hatch opened on the much larger docking bay of an interstellar station.
The structure of it was superficially similar to the docking bay of Unsiel Station, which Miles was familiar with. A long cylindrical metal chamber about thirty feet across stretched out to the left and right, with viewports and access hatches dotted along its length.
The docking arm of Unsiel Station hadn’t been too different from airport flight gates Miles had seen on Earth, and Unsiel Administration had put about as much effort as the old airports into keeping the flight gates clean and secure.
Delatariel’s docking arm might have been similar structurally to Unsiel’s, but the structure was where the similarity began and ended. It didn’t seem like there was any kind of security at play in the Delatariel docking bay, and nobody was working to keep it clean.
The space was packed. There were sapients passing back and forth, possibly leaving or arriving from ships, but there were also sapients standing around, sitting along the edges of the passage, serving customers at market stalls, and in some cases apparently sleeping in whatever free space they could find.
There were food carts with sizzling hot plates that spattered oil and fluids into the air and over the floor, overloaded baggage carts listing sideways on straining levitation units, and even what might have been a hospital cart, complete with reclining patient and active medical devices, being rushed through the crowd by a pair of alien porters.
It was dirty, chaotic, and completely at odds with everything Miles thought he knew about spiral port facilities.
If a spiral public health inspector saw this they’d have the alien equivalent of an embolism.
Captain Rhu-Orlen drifted slowly in front of the group, positioning themself between the open hatch and the waiting crew. They were wearing a new piece of equipment that Miles hadn’t seen before. After a second of staring at it, Miles was shocked to realize it was some kind of weapon; a smooth short-barreled pistol, sized and shaped for a grasping hand a little larger than a human’s. It sat in a synthetic fabric holster clipped to the captain’s belt.
“These are our objectives,” the captain began, blandly. “I will recruit a sapient to fill our lancer role. Brisk Igris will obtain a signal mask generator. Trin El-el-forren will obtain a transcript of vessel movement logs for the Ialdis iteration. Miles Asher will undertake his Healer Tier-1 accreditation.”
Wait, what? I’m going to what?
“Sellen One-Fourteen will obtain iteration Ialdis navigational data,” the captain continued, never pausing and never elaborating. They finally finished, then floated there for a few seconds, seeming to regard the crew. “Is any clarification needed?”
Miles reflexively raised his hand, but he didn’t wait to be called.
“I don’t know where to go to get accredited.”
Despite being a featureless sphere, Miles couldn’t help but imagine that the captain was glaring at him.
“Review the station map. The spiral bureaucratic adjunct will be marked.”
Okay…
Miles swallowed loudly. This was the ‘I didn’t study for the test’ nightmare made real.
“I haven’t had a chance to review the material,” he added, then only hesitated for a second before confessing, “And I can’t afford the upgrades I need to pass the practical demonstration.”
There was a long silence in the ship’s docking bay. He felt not only the silent, awkward pressure from the captain, but from everyone else on the crew. Trin and Brisk, at least, came from cultures with social rules similar enough to his that Miles knew they were cringing on his behalf.
After a long silence that no one broke, the captain responded. “We will be docked for five hours. Five hundred seln will be credited to your comm from the ship’s account. Will that be sufficient?”
Will it? WILL IT?
Miles didn’t know. He needed delta to buy index upgrades, not seln, and he didn’t know the delta-seln conversion rate. He hoped it’d be enough. It would have to be.
“Yes,” Miles said, with a feeling like he was sealing his fate.
The captain touched a point on their belt, and Miles felt his comm buzz in his pocket. He was now worth 500 seln, apparently, about half his monthly salary.
“Are there further comments?” the captain asked the room.
There weren’t. The crew formed up, and everyone filed out.
* * *
“I’m in trouble,” Miles said.
“Hard to tell, with captain,” Trin replied.
“You have that problem too?” Miles asked. He’d been assuming that he was uniquely lost in exchanges with the ship’s skipper. “I never understand the silences.”
“Not an Orbellius thing,” Trin said. “Met an Orbellius shopkeeper once. They were very talkative.”
“Do they have any body language?”
The captain was completely expressionless, as far as Miles could tell. No features, no subtle non-intentional movements, no vocal cues.
“Smell changes,” Trin said, thoughtfully. “Not sure if it means anything.”
The two of them were walking through Delatarial Station’s central concourse. It was a huge open area, a column of air stretching from near the bottom of the station's central spindle up to a point close to the top. It was crisscrossed at hundreds of points by broad metal lattices forming the roads of the station interior, each bridge framed by structures of synthetics, metal, and glass that were home to the station’s businesses and organizations.
Looking up, the angle of the gangways rotated as they ascended, creating the effect that their ends followed a spiral curve around the walls of the station concourse; an aesthetic that mirrored the wider cosmos. The basic plan was identical to Unisel Station, and the layout of the bridges always reminded Miles of a DNA helix.
The gangway was less crowded than the docking arm that the Kipper had connected with. There was always some sapient within arm’s reach, individuals passing by in both directions or doing business with nearby stores and offices, but there wasn’t the same chaotic press of bodies.
It turned out that Miles and Trin were both going to the same place. The Spiral Adjunct Office was a large complex built into one wall of the station about halfway down its length, with the Accreditation Office and Records Office taking up neighboring units.
Getting there wasn’t the main problem. Miles was still completely unprepared.
He still had about four hours. In that time he needed to buy the material he needed to study for the test, study for the test, update his index for the test, and use the brand-new abilities of his upgraded index to pass the test. It was going to be the worst combination of cramming for an exam and preparing for a job interview he could imagine.
So far, all he’d done was try to ignore the looming threat of it for long enough to let the panic fade.
“Where do you think I can buy delta?” he asked Trin.
The captain had given him five-hundred seln. Seln was the primary currency of the inter-spiral culture, but it wouldn’t get him any upgrades to his index. The magic subcultures of the spiral, including the corporation that created the indexes, used a secondary currency, delta. Right then it seemed like an unnecessary complication to Miles, but one he’d still have to navigate in the next couple of hours.
Converting seln to delta would mean finding an in-person trader to make the exchange with. As far as he knew there was no way of doing it via the Exchange.
“A money changer?” Trin responded.
“Do you see any?”
“No.”
Great.
The gangway was lined with stores and offices, often with labels that Miles’ Eyes of the Emigre could translate into English after a couple of seconds of focused attention.
On this level, most of the stores offered spacer equipment of some kind or another, probably due to the proximity of the docking arm. There was a store selling weave suits, fitted for a huge variety of different body plans. There were ship hardware shops every hundred paces or so. Miles saw a personal weapons store, and further down, a clothing outfitter.
One of the shops seemed like a specialist personal sensor retailer, which Miles was tempted by. He paused outside the entrance, peering through transparent panels at the items arranged for display. One of them was labeled as a medical scanner, which was almost a perfect answer to Miles’ prayers, except that it was priced at over a thousand seln.
Focus on what I can accomplish right now.
“I need to stop for a minute,” he said to Trin.
Trin paused, looking around. His head appendages twitched and swayed on their own for a few seconds before he turned to point at a copper-colored girder resting at the edge of the bridge between a gap in the stores.
“We have time. Sit there.”
They made their way over and sat down.
Miles pulled out his comm unit and started looking for the information he needed to pass the knowledge part of the accreditation.
Like his index, Miles’ comm unit would only show him items from the Exchange that he had enough seln to buy right then. The last time he’d looked, his search results had been pitiful. He’d been getting more free samples and promotional material than he had actual products. With the extra five hundred seln that the captain had sent him from the ship’s account, the results were much different.
> Exchange Search: Medical textbook
>
> The Alfaen Guide to Trauma Care (§480)
>
> A guidebook for the trauma surgeon and experienced battlefield healer. A complete anatomical and biochemical reference for over 200 sapient species, with sensory simulations of over a thousand invasive and palliative procedures.
>
> Author Guive Eloroia
>
> The Complete Body (§473)
>
> Beneath the stars, in one-ness, regard the biological form. From highest sensonelle to lowest reproductova, examine in detail the exquisite function. Delight in the inner depths, you! The healer of the stars.
>
> Author Polyp-33220
>
> Orbellius In Depth (§472)
>
> Unfold the secrets of our enigmatic species. The Orbellius are one of the oldest of the middle-period civilizations, but one of the most under-served in the field of medicine. This exhaustive encyclopedia of Orbellian physiology will instantly propel you to mastery over the care and treatment of Orbellian maladies.
>
> The Subrach Corporation
With the way that Exchange searches worked, Miles’ new wealth was actually proving to be a disadvantage. The search results were tailored not just for what he was looking for, but also for what he could afford. He had five-hundred seln to spend, and the Exchange wanted him to spend it. All of these results went far beyond what he needed to keep his job over the next five hours.
Getting increasingly desperate, Miles changed his search terms.
> Exchange Search: Medical textbook healer accreditation tier 1 <§20
>
> System Standard Medical Database v2760 (§17)
>
> An illustrated list of spiral species, their biochemical categories, and their body plan classifications. Current to iteration 27,200.
>
> Spiral Origin Press
>
> So You Want to Be a Healer: A guide for lesser species (§16)
>
> Many in the spiral wish to attain the vaunted title of “healer”. Could it be that you are worthy, shameless curr? Perhaps not. But without this text, you stand no chance. Purchase it now, and subject yourself to the shame of failure.
>
> Author Zedine Ulchor
>
> Good Sapient Study Series: Healer Study Guide (§15)
>
> A study guide for hopeful students beginning their career as a healer, with notes on biochemistries, organs and organelles, body types, threats, and first-aid procedures for a representative sample of spiral species.
>
> Good Sapient Directory
Yes. A cliffs-notes.
The last entry seemed to be what he needed. It was the title he’d seen before, a data pack that seemed tailored for people who needed to take the tier 1 healer accreditation and didn’t have much time to study.
He hit the instruction to purchase it, and it had downloaded to his comm before a second had passed, along with a deduction to his balance.
Trin, watching over his shoulder, commented.
“Good Sapient is good series. I read from them when I was podding.”
Miles' translation magic supplemented the unfamiliar word with a mental image of five smaller versions of Trin nestled side-to-side in the skin pouch of a much larger furred creature.
He tried to push the image away. He didn’t need that right now.
“I still need to find somewhere to get delta,” Miles said, looking around. “Do you think we could ask someone?”
Trin immediately turned and put a mid-paw on a Hurc who was passing by them on the bridge.
He was large, muscular, with pink skin and a tuft of white hair growing out of the center of his otherwise bald head.
“Hello,” Trin said. “Do you know where there is delta?”
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
The stranger stopped, looking down at them with solid black eyes, which Miles hadn’t seen in a Hurc before. He made a low rumbling noise in his throat, pulling his arm free of Trin’s grasp. He left without answering, but also without smashing Trin into the ground, which Miles thought was the best outcome the Eppan could expect.
“Nobody knows,” Trin concluded.
They continued walking along the causeway. Miles was constantly staring at the stores they passed, waiting for his Eyes of the Emigre to translate each sign, before staring at the next. He didn’t expect to see a sign that said Magic Shop or anything obvious, but he hoped there might be an information station or business directory.
As they were reaching the end of the causeway, Miles felt a sudden kick in his gut, in the place where his magical core rested. It was as if a heart that had never moved before had taken a single beat.
He turned, following a line of instinct he didn't yet fully understand, and found a pair of eyes watching him from a stall on the far edge of the concourse.
The figure staring at him was robed in a long garment of tattered gray cloth. They were taller than Miles and seemed humanoid-adjacent, but all he could make out beneath the hood was a stretch of brown skin and the light reflecting in their eyes.
Trin realized Miles had stopped in the street and came back to stand next to him. He followed Miles' gaze to the stall.
"Your friend?" he asked.
"No. I don't know them," Miles said. "Trin, do you know anything about magical cores? The thing an index gives you."
"No. Only weird people have them."
The robed figure made the slightest movement, looking down and away, which could have been an invitation, or could have been them losing interest.
"Can we just go over here a minute?" Miles asked, already walking towards the store.
Trin followed him. "Yes. Five hours. Plenty of time for me. Not for you."
At the far end of the gangway, the bridge connected with a shelf that ran all the way around the open concourse. There were large doors that led to the structures built into the station wall, elevators and levitation tubes that moved people and goods between levels, and even more of the vendors, stalls, and stores that had cluttered the bridge. For a station that seemed so remote from any spiral world, there must have been a huge amount of trade happening here.
The figure caught sight of Miles and turned to watch him approach.
Closer up, Miles could make out more details of the sapient under the hood.
They were an unfamiliar species, with smooth, dusty brown skin and an almost featureless face, save for a ridge that ran down its center and a pair of small eyes positioned to the far left and right edges. They had no mouth, but as Miles reached their stall, he noticed that there were rows of gill-like openings running beneath their chin that flexed and shifted from moment to moment.
"Hi…" Miles said, feeling awkward and not even sure why he'd stopped.
"Hello, Traveler," the stranger said. They had a fluting, melodic voice, like air whistling through wind chimes.
Not sure where to take the conversation, Miles cast his gaze over the sapient's stall. It was an eclectic mix of items. There were metal blades with handles shaped for a variety of hand styles, bottles made of glass and plastic, unprofessionally labeled and filled with unfamiliar chemicals, piles of rags and garments that he'd need to physically dig through to even tell what was in there.
There were even books — actual books — printed on something analogous to paper, with symbols on their covers that didn't translate no matter how long Miles stared at them.
He looked back up at the sapient, who was regarding him without any obvious emotion.
"Uh, I felt something," Miles began, awkward, hesitating. "I think I felt you looking at me."
"I'm sorry,” the stranger said. Their gills fluttered as they spoke. “I didn't mean to pry. You are a mage. I was only curious about your tradition. You are a harmonizer, aren't you?"
"Yes." That was the tradition he'd chosen through his index. “Are you a mage?”
“Yes, a dabbler, with only a little skill.”
The sapient picked something out of the pile of debris on the stall. It looked like a folded sheet of paper. They held it up for Miles to look at.
“Would you find this interesting?” they asked. “A treatise on a lesser harmony, written by a harmonic mage. Ninety seln.”
“No, thank you,” Miles said.
He was almost bursting with questions, but this suddenly didn’t seem like the place to ask them. This clearly wasn’t a teacher. They were a peddler, and probably wouldn’t be interested in Miles if he wasn’t a potential customer.
“Can you sell me any delta?” he asked, instead.
The sapient’s gills flared, maybe in surprise, or annoyance, or maybe they were just choking.
“No,” they replied after a moment. There was no change in their voice. “But why do you need delta? There are things here to buy for seln.” They waved a hand across their stall. “A tool to protect yourself? Armor for your body? Chemicals to sharpen your mind?”
Miles shook his head, belatedly realizing that the gesture might not mean much to the merchant.
“I need spells. I’m taking the healer accreditation soon, and I need to be able to diagnose someone, treat poisoning, treat a burn…”
The sapient’s gills closed fully for a few seconds, then fluttered open.
“Simple healings. Perhaps I have something.”
The sapient reached into their robe, one of their spindly limbs sliding into one inner pocket then another. As they searched for something, Trin stepped up and spoke into Miles’ ear.
“He’s weird. Don’t give him money.”
Miles pushed Trin away. Trin pushed back with a mid-paw, and they jostled until Miles took a step away.
After a minute the merchant finally found what they were looking for, withdrawing it from a pocket of their robe. They held it out for Miles to see.
It was a small, irregular crystal, straight-edged with about two dozen facets, and a deep black crack along one side like the hole in a bad tooth. It was dull in the lights of the station, but somehow it seemed to sing to him.
“What is it?” Miles asked, staring down at the gem.
The shopkeeper’s gills fluttered, before they just answered, “Spells.”
Miles reached out, and the shopkeeper let him pick it out of their thin, three-fingered hand.
It was cool to Miles’ touch, like stone that had been out of the sun. It was lighter than stone, and clearer than unworked gemstone. The crack in the side gave Miles a sick feeling he didn’t like.
“Which spells?” he asked.
“You use an index?” the sapient asked.
“Yes.”
“Hold it, and look at your index. It will tell you what you hold.”
With the crystal clutched in one hand, Miles pulled his index out of the pocket of his cargo pants. The index followed the same aesthetic as his comm unit, a blocky metal pad with an interactive screen, and few other features. It was larger, and a little awkward to use one-handed.
He held it up and unlocked it, flipping the screen to show his index directory.
The display glitched a few times at first, and Miles spent a terrified second worrying that he’d hit the device somehow and damaged it, before the screen cleared and the normal display appeared. It was the same familiar page he was used to, but this time, it showed a couple of new additions.
Name: Miles Asher Traditions: Harmonizer Index Value: δ1,2#0##
Fundamental Properties:
Strength (0)
Durability (1)
Speed (0)
Reactions (0)
Will (0)
Authority (1)
Spells Close Wound (Tentative)
A weft of harmonizing energy brings together the free edges of a tear, sealing the join in materials which are co-bondable, such as cellular membranes, metal compounds, woven fabrics, and homogenous molecular surfaces.
Temporary Enhancement (Tentative)
A temporary matrix of harmonizing energy alters one of a being’s fundamental properties by an amount in accordance with the weaver’s authority.
Hasten Renewal (T##tt#avie)
A weft of harmonizing energy spreads from the weaver to their target, greatly speeding the being’s natural recovery by an amount multiplicative with the weaver’s authority.
Core Effects
Eyes of the Emigre
Embeds a matrix of harmonizing energy within the being’s mind which will reveal to them the meaning of any plain text or spoken language.
Eyes of the Altruist
Embeds a matrix of harmonizing energy within the being’s mind which reveal to them the health and ailments of a witnessed being.
Hasten Renewal and Eyes of the Altruist. They could solve at least two of Miles’ problems in the examination. The first could help him heal burns and abrasions, the second could help him with diagnosis.
He didn’t understand what the crystal was. He hadn’t even known spells could work like that. Magic had been introduced to him as something he could either learn manually through months or years of practice, or purchase ready-formed via his index. Nobody ever mentioned being able to get new spells from a stone, but his index was showing them in his directory, which seemed to rule out the possibility he was about to get scammed.
“You cannot use them yet, but your device can sense them,” the shopkeeper explained, watching as Miles reacted to the updates to his index. “To make them stick, you must take the item within yourself.”
He looked down at the crystal, wondering if he’d need to eat it.
“How do I do that?”
The sapient took a breath through their gills. “I think if you use a spell it contains while holding it, then it will be taken in.”
Already holding his index, Miles almost used the new spell right then. Instead, he looked up at the shopkeeper.
“How much is it?” he asked.
As Miles stared up at the sapient, he felt something. He knew the feeling when he cast his own spells; a spinning, and a warmth, deep in his gut. Now he felt something similar, but coming from the stranger. A spinning, a heat, but outside his body, positioned somewhere in the other sapient’s chest.
The feeling was only there for a second before it stopped.
The shopkeeper reached out to sweep a gesture at the gem. “Five hundred seln.”
Miles looked up. Somehow the merchant had given the exact amount that the captain had given him to spend. A coincidence? It was the most he could spend, and if he did, he wouldn’t have anything left for the rest of the trip.
He peered at the shopkeeper, suddenly suspicious.
“Did you just cast a spell?” he asked.
The merchant was silent, but their gills flared.
“Did you use magic on me?” Miles asked again.
The shopkeeper hesitated for a few seconds, then pulled a ball of fabric out of the pile of garments. “I will include this armor in the price.”
You did. You spelled me!
He didn’t know if the sapient had used thought-scanning magic, or precognition, or if they’d just looked in Miles’ pocket to read the screen of his comm unit, but the peddler had used magic to pick out Miles’ upper budget.
Miles had caught him out, but the peddler just thought they were haggling.
“It’s a good piece,” the shopkeeper reiterated, shaking out the garment to reveal a robe in rough off-white fabric. “It will stop blade, claw, and slow ballistics. Its normal price is forty seln.”
Miles sighed. He felt spent. He wasn’t up to battling with a merchant in such an unfamiliar environment, not over a few seln that the captain had given to him for this purpose anyway.
“Okay. Sure,” Miles said.
He reached into his pocket for his comm unit, and at the same time the sapient excitedly pulled out their own — a longer device with a different design. They tapped comms together, and Miles acceded to the prompt for payment that showed up on his screen. He almost felt the loss as the money drained out of his account.
Penniless again.
The shopkeeper handed over the coarse robe, and Miles already had the crystal.
“Do you think you got scammed?” Trin asked as they walked away.
Miles gripped his new gem with one hand as they moved, ignoring Trin. He didn’t even pause to find somewhere to sit before he activated the new spell, Hasten Renewal, using his index.
There was a stuttering as the magic started.
Instead of the smooth rotation of his core that he was used to, Miles felt a grinding sensation, cold and painful, but it only lasted a few seconds, then there was a flash of heat in his left hand, and when he looked down the gem was gone. His core was spinning normally. Faster than usual, if anything.
Instead of holding the gem, his fingers were now glowing with a faint, pale yellow light. The weave of harmonic energy, waiting for a target.
Miles brushed his fingers against his own chest, felt the golden threads of light take hold, and a warmth washed through him.
The spell only lasted while he maintained contact, and the strange feeling of being drained that accompanied the casting of a spell made him quickly break contact.
In that brief moment, the magic had erased all of the aches he’d built up walking through the station. Even the tiredness he’d been suffering from the perpetually disturbed sleep he was getting on his quarter’s narrow bunk felt a little better. If he could cast this on himself for longer, could he erase his tiredness completely?
The Eyes of the Altruist ability took longer to work out. It wasn’t a spell he could cast through his index. It was meant to be a permanent enhancement, always on, but Miles found that it conflicted with his Eyes of the Emigre.
The diagnostic magic didn’t kick in until he really concentrated on it and forced his mind to switch gears. When he did, phantom shapes sprung up over the sapients in the crowd around him.
He could see irregular blobs, coiling wires, wetly biological tubes, and pulsing sacs painted out in luminescent watercolors across the bodies of the various species they passed in the concourse. Miles was staring so much that Trin started giving him strange looks, and when Miles returned them, he saw the same kind of shapes drifting over Trin’s body.
He was seeing some kind of internality, Miles thought — the magical equivalent of a body scan. What he was looking at might be organs or other internal structures. He didn’t see how the magic would help him diagnose problems, but he imagined he needed more experience and knowledge for that. He just hoped he could get it in the next couple of hours.
* * *
The darkness around Miles was absolute. The space seemed to go on forever in every direction; a floor of black glass, and an infinite lightless expanse above. No ceiling, no stars. A true void.
He wasn’t sure what he'd expected when the assessor had asked him to sit down, then dropped a face-covering piece of technology over his head, but it hadn't been this.
It was some kind of simulation, he thought, a powerful, immersive form of NR, but he didn't understand how that could lead to a fair test.
They wanted to test his abilities, which presumably they would simulate, but if they only tested them in a neural simulation, wouldn't that only prove what he thought he could do, rather than what he could actually do?
He felt at his clothes, then at the shape of his index in his pants. He could feel its contours through the pocket. He still had all his equipment in this artificial reality.
He pulled out his index and tested that it still worked by casting the Temporary Enhancement spell, focusing on his speed.
Again, the magic seemed to push words through the arteries of his mind, a boiling truth he could feel in his blood.
In their self, they are complete. In a harmonious world, everything is, in itself, complete. It is that which it is.
He felt his core spin up, felt the energy leave his hand and lurch into his body. There was the inaudible hum of the spell's matrix as it settled in, and Miles could detect the minor change to the feeling of his body as he waved his hand around with more velocity than he was used to.
The screen of his index even registered the spell.
Name: Miles Asher Traditions: Harmonizer Index Value: δ1,2#0##
Fundamental Properties:
Strength (0)
Durability (1)
Speed (1/0)
Reactions (0)
Will (0)
Authority (1)
Spells Close Wound (Tentative)
A weft of harmonizing energy brings together the free edges of a tear, sealing the join in materials which are co-bondable, such as cellular membranes, metal compounds, woven fabrics, and homogenous molecular surfaces.
Temporary Enhancement (Tentative)
A temporary matrix of harmonizing energy alters one of a being’s fundamental properties by an amount in accordance with the weaver’s authority.
Hasten Renewal (Tentative)
A weft of harmonizing energy spreads from the weaver to their target, greatly speeding the being’s natural recovery by an amount multiplicative with the weaver’s authority.
Core Effects
Eyes of the Emigre
Embeds a matrix of harmonizing energy within the being’s mind which will reveal to them the meaning of any plain text or spoken language.
Eyes of the Altruist
Embeds a matrix of harmonizing energy within the being’s mind which reveal to them the health and ailments of a witnessed being.
Miles didn’t have too long to think about the nature of the simulated reality.
A sudden loud tone sounded out in the darkness, like drums and horns and an electric note all mixed together, and then the ground began to shift.
A shadowy figure flowed up from the black ground, quickly forming into a humanoid shape. At the last moment, the figure flickered, transforming from an indistinct shadow into the form of an old man.
It was human. Maybe in his seventies. Bald, with light brown skin. Not anyone Miles knew, but someone who wouldn’t have looked out of place on Earth.
Miles hadn’t seen another human since he’d left Unsiel Station, and he hadn’t seen another elderly human since he’d escaped Earth. The strangeness of it froze him for a second.
“Please, it hurts,” the old man said, touching his chest.
Miles balked at the reality of the simulation. There couldn’t be another human out here. This was purely a figment created for the practical part of his test.
They probably hadn’t intended to make Miles feel something.
“Please, it hurts,” the man repeated.
“Okay,” Miles said quickly, rushing to the man’s side. “Where does it hurt?”
“In the left ventricle of my human heart.”
“Right…”
Whoever had programmed this test had gone a little wrong, there, Miles thought. Maybe they didn’t know humans couldn’t usually place the source of pain with that much accuracy.
This is the diagnostic part of the test.
The knowledge part of the test had been done and behind him before he ever even sat down in the chair. He'd knocked it out on a station terminal after an hour of cramming. This was the part he was worried about, the practical.
“What kind of pain is it?” Miles asked.
“Pressure in my chest, that’s spreading to my jaw, neck, and left arm. Please, it hurts a lot.”
“Okay, any other symptoms?”
“I feel dizzy. I wish I could lie down.”
Miles had the self-awareness to be grateful they’d programmed the test with a human patient to start with. Even without any tools or magic, he was pretty sure he could diagnose a heart attack when the man was reciting off the textbook list of symptoms.
For completeness, Miles focused on his Eyes of the Altruist ability, disabling his translation magic in favor of the sensory enhancement.
The same faintly glowing shapes sprung up over the old man’s body, and seeing the magic working on a human recontextualized it for him in a useful way.
Through the magic, he could see what he recognized as the man’s internal organs. Heart, lungs, kidneys. He could see the brain, the spine, and the nerves, wrought in different colors. When he focused, he could make out the circulatory system.
None of it was particularly exact, it didn’t compare well with an MRI, or even an ultrasound, and he almost missed the thing he was meant to be looking for.
A heart attack didn’t show up on his new magical sense at all, but there was one oddity, a small fleck of black hovering in the midst of the glowing shape representing the man’s heart.
Contextually, Miles understood that it was meant to be a blockage in the blood vessel that was causing the heart attack, or maybe tissue that was starving due to lack of oxygen, but in any other species, or for almost any other medical condition, it wouldn’t have meant anything to him. The Eyes of the Altruist wasn’t an ability that would just hand him the answer in the way an advanced medical scanner might.
“You’re having a heart attack,” Miles said.
The old man vanished.
“Did I pass?” Miles asked.
Less than a handful of seconds went by before a new being appeared. This time, when the shadows flowed up from the ground, they coalesced into a sphere, then took the shape of an Orbellius, this one with only two spaghetti-like tendrils, and skin the color and texture of dark stone.
“Please, it hurts,” the Orbellius said, in a pained tone that Miles found a little disorienting.
The simulated Orbellius was visibly wounded. A pointed shard of metal about a foot long was sticking out of its side, the entry point smeared with a yellow fluid, and the low sound of hissing gas coming from the gaps around the wound.
The Orbellius were a Category B biochemistry species, and had an enclosed body plan — interior and exterior parts that weren't connected by any macroscopic openings. No integral appendages, and no rigid structures.
Looking at the simulated patient, Miles wasn't sure that knowledge would be necessary.
“Yeah? Where does it hurt?” Miles asked.
“In the side of my body. It’s a stabbing pain.”
“You don’t say.”
Miles checked the simulated patient over with his Eyes of the Altruist for completeness. The inside of the Orbellius was interesting, a large internal space with very few features, but with hundreds of small irregular ovals nestled around the outside. There were cords running through their body just below the skin, which Miles assumed were the source of the fluid running down from the injury.
“You’re suffering from a stab wound,” Miles concluded, boldly. “A piece of metal is piercing your—” Blood vessels? Do Orbellius have blood? “Your vessels. We should probably take it out and close the wound.”
The Orbellius vanished.
More patients appeared, complained, and then vanished. Miles diagnosed three of them with certainty. There was one that he wasn’t sure about, and one that he was positive he got wrong. He just hoped it was a best-of-five situation and not the kind of test where he needed a perfect result.
After the diagnosis portion, he was asked to treat the wounds of various simulated sapients.
His Close Wound spell worked for lacerations and abrasions, and his new Hasten Renewal spell significantly improved burns, blunt injuries, and the shattered carapace of an insectoid sapient, if not healing any of them completely.
He’d attempted to use Hasten Renewal to treat the poisoning cases he’d been presented with. It had seemed to work twice, but on the third and fourth patients, they’d died almost immediately. Miles assumed it meant that Hasten Renewal had an undocumented negative effect if the recipient wasn’t able to heal from what was hurting them naturally, or if the substance was something that turned their natural healing against itself. For the fifth poisoning patient, he just used Temporary Enhancement to bolster their durability and hoped it would count as a pass.
Eventually, the test wound up, and the black void disappeared as the wrinkled Eppan technician lifted the headset up out of his face.
“How did I do?” he asked.
“The system will process your results,” the technician said. “Would you like to receive an automated score, or do you want to be judged by a biological sapient?”
Miles couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to get their performance graded by a sapient if the automated system was perfect, so he answered, “A sapient.”
The technician clicked their teeth in acknowledgment and did something on their console. “Fine. Your result will be sent to your comm. Allow two hours for delivery.”
Oh.
He wouldn’t even find out if he’d passed until he was back on the ship.
“Can I change my mind and get automated marking?”
“No.”
Miles checked he still had all his equipment, and made his way out of the Accreditation Office and back onto the concourse.
* * *
Miles wasn’t the first back to the ship. Brisk, Trin, and Sellen the pilot were all on board by the time he got back, though Miles only knew because of the crew roster that the ship’s docking panel showed him when he checked back in.
He'd stayed out for as long as he could, hoping the result of his examination would come through before he had to face the captain, but the time limit they'd set for the ship being docked was coming to an end, and the message still hadn't come.
It had been a little over an hour since he'd finished the demonstration, so he didn't have a good reason to expect that he'd know the results before the captain asked about it.
Miles let himself into the ship, then closed the hatch behind him. He paced for a couple of minutes, decided to go back to his berth to wait for the captain, then immediately decided against it, thinking that waiting there would be even more unbearable than waiting at the hatch.
He spotted a footlocker resting at the edge of the docking bay and sat down on that instead, refreshing his comm’s messages every few seconds.
He had a few minutes to wait before the captain returned.
When the ship's hatch started to groan, Miles was on his feet before it had even started opening.
The door slowly rolled back, and the captain hovered in through it. They hadn't come back alone.
Scuttling in behind them was an enormous sapient whose body looked like the cross between a beetle and a near-humanoid crab. They had four sturdy main legs branching off from their bulbous body, four long arms that ended in pincer-like manipulators, and an insectile face that was overhung by the armor of their carapace, leaving them looking like they were wearing a cowl.
The captain paused in the docking bay, apparently noticing Miles.
"This is Torg. They will be our lancer."
Torg clicked, and Miles' Eyes of the Emigre translated the noise as 'Greet', but the sound didn't become an English-language version of Torg's voice like it would with most species. The click's meaning just remained a vague impression.
"Hi," Miles returned.
Miles turned to the captain and waited for them to ask him about his performance in the assessment, only they never did.
The captain called Brisk to show Torg to their berth, then just left, floating off towards the bridge.
Miles had a realization, then, about what kind of commander Rhu-Orlen was. When they gave an order, they assumed it would be obeyed perfectly, no matter how much work, or excellence, or resourcefulness doing so needed, even assuming that the person already had the resources they needed to succeed, unless they were told otherwise.
As Miles watched the captain go, he didn't feel the need to update them on the as-yet uncertain results of his assessment. It seemed like it would be a betrayal of the captain's implicit faith in his success.
Instead, he let the captain go and returned to his berth.
Miles got the message with his results an hour later.
> DSAO > Miles
>
> PASSED: Miles Asher SAP272001348 You recently undertook a Tier 1 Healer Accreditation at D— station. Your application was a success and you have been deemed competent as a Tier 1 Healer. Your transcript and accreditation certificate are attached. Please report to your closest Spiral Administration Adjunct Office to collect your authenticated identification.
It had been a long time since Miles had aced a test, and he quietly filed the message away for future re-reading.
The assessment hadn’t actually been that difficult, Miles mused, and he was starting to get the impression he’d only passed the interstellar version of a basic first aid course, but that didn’t mute the sense of satisfaction he felt from passing one of his new home’s tests, and from meeting the expectations of his new captain.