Lucas Tarsons’s three week long holiday was going well. Ok, admittedly it was a bit early to make that statement, considering he had only been here for a full day and a bit, but still.

It was the truth as it stood currently. Of course, it could change at a moments notice, but everyone was friendly, the landscape was even more beautiful than the pictures had suggested, and it was very interesting to see how the natives acted.

Which was nothing against the dishes. The local food culture was unique, which admittedly might have something to do with he small fact that a lot of dishes were poisonous to humans. And many plants and animals had develop just that bit differently, or were cultivated for different traits, if they existed in the UE in cultivated form at all. Not everyone liked trying to cultivate random grass number ten million something, after all.

Which meant, that in the last 5000 years or so, the basic crops did not change all that much. Yes, new varieties were created, but relatively few new ones were created. Well, few new ones that were widely known and used. Almost every earth had a few unique little crops, fruits, vegetables or even meats. Funnily enough, most of those were in turn produced locally and not on an agrarian earth, which, in the mind of a few who really do not understand what is going on and following an ideology that one upon a time was pretty great, meant that those crops were healthier or better in some way. Which was untrue, considering that it was near impossible to keep trace contaminate out of the air. Large scale contamination could be prevented, and was, but trace contamination could not be prevented.

Well, it could, but only if there was no true human settlement. As was the case on agricultural earths. Still, it was a tightrope, and not everyone was trying. But enough were, at cheap enough prizes, that the demand could easily be satisfied. And lawmakers were slowly making sure that everyone was following a certain, ever increasing standard.

But enough reminiscenting about unimportant things. Eating his breakfast was significantly more important.

After that vital task had been handled, he was moving into the old parts of the capital, Kad’Nagarth, or rather those parts of the old city in which visitors were allowed. Kad’Nagarth was an interesting city, whose growth into the capital of Kas’Aron had a sad history. It was the place were the McCreadie Mining Company had gathered all the slaves it had used. It originally was a gigantic concentration camp, which could be seen in its name. Kad, meaning prison, and Nagarth, meaning harm, death or similar words. It was generally translated to Prison of Tears, but that was because of an early mistranslation of cultural habits.

Even though the UE helped evacuating the concentration camp, it was well located, and helped stem the logistical nightmare, so, after discussing with the leaders of the Kar’Netra, which was the name the elves were using for themselves, tore down the camp and build a city in its place. This had the curious effect of more than ten percent of Kas’Arons population living in this city. A state that was only possible because of the logistical help the UE was freely giving.

Still, it was already better than what it was roughly 80 years ago when more than 90% of all Kar’Netra were living in the city. It was expected, that in roughly a hundred years approximately one percent would be living in the city, which would also be when the city would become sustainable by the natives without outside help. It was a beautiful city, but it Feld cramped in places, as if it was temporary. Which of course, a lot of the buildings here were. It might grow again to this size, but 30 to 40 thousand people would live here when the exodus was finally finished.

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Two days later, while walking along some streets, taking in the scenery, he was suddenly accosted by someone with a police uniform: “You are a member of the UE, right?”

“I am a citizen of the UE, and technically a member of it military, although I am on vacation. Did I do anything wrong, sir?”

“No, but there are reports of a strange illness in a nearby hospital. We have already send someone to the embassy, because it is nothing like anything we know. We fear it is something from you. Would you like to help? There is of course no obligation to do so, and I am certain your government will take care of everything.”

“I am no doctor, but in my watch is a basic medical scanner. Nothing against a real one of course, but it might help. And if it is something unknown, we need as much data as possible, regardless of the source, as long as we know the problems with that source, of course. I guess I can help for a bit, it is not like I have anything important to do currently. I am after all on vacation.”, Lucas smiled and gestured the police officer to lead him to the hospital.

It was, quite literally 50 meters away, which explained why the officer was send to ask him. He had just walked past the entrance, and maybe he could help, so relative little expenditure with a chance at high payoff.

After the paperwork required to allow him deeper into the hospital was finished, which took a minute or so, mostly because they asked for a number on his passport that was meant as an backup to help identify someones passport if everything else failed, which meant he needed to actually look it up physically, the horror, they went on their way.

They crossed multiple hallways, going farther and farther from the entrance, until they came to an isolation ward.

“Any dangerous symptoms?”

“No, none have been seen to date. Just some pigment discolouration. It is weird, extremely weird discolouration, which is the main reason why we even found out about it. We hope that is the end of it, but we cannot be certain just yet. It is one of the things we want to know from your government.”

“Ok, what are you using for hazmat gear, and do you have some that would fit me? I think we are different enough biologically that it is an none issue, but it would help with decontamination afterwards, and why take the risk when you do not need to?”

“Our thinking exactly. Also, everyone is forbidden from going into that room without a full body suit, so over there is the changing room. Let me help you.”

After a short embarrassing episode, because of the slight differences between the Kar’Netra and the human, he was finally clothed and as well secured as possible. He also had managed to get his watch around the arm of the hazmat suit, which was quite important, considering what the goal of this entire operation was.

When he was finally in the room, he sat down next to the first patient and used the first, and most basic medical scanner he had available on him. He had some more, but they would need extensive modification to give anything approaching reliable data, so that mostly useless piece was it. But to get anything truly useful he needed to run a full scan, which meant following instructions and holding out his arm for a bit more than five minutes. That was a bit annoying, and it would be smart to do it with all ten patients in this room. They were not even the only patients in the hospital, but currently he saw no need to volunteer further. He would of course send the raw scan data over, but it was his vacation, damnit.

Ah, first patient finished. Lets move on to the next and check the information - oh, that is not good.

“Hey, whatever infected them tripped multiple warnings. Nothing conclusive, and nothing certain, but suspected resistance against antibiotics? Danger of attacking the brain? Oh, and those pigment issues seem to be caused by a dangerous poison. Now, those warnings are meant for humans and might mean nothing in this case, but still. This does not look good. If you have it, give me the com-link of the main UE doctor here.”

“Ok, this does not sound good. And what is a com-link?”

“A com-link is a standard communication formula that tells my device enough to contact his device. I need to send him or her this data immediately, and it might be smart if the doctor advices me a bit of how I should act. This situation was, after all, not in my briefing of how to behave on this earth.”

“Ah, I understand. I can ask, but cannot promise anything. How would we ge the com-link to you?”

“A picture, a screen showing it, or scribbled on paper should be enough. Well, the last one is mostly a joke, the link is a relatively long string of somewhat random characters.”

Three minutes later, he was called by the doctor.