Logus noted Urle walking with his daughters back towards their ship. He had not had much interest in the tourist goods of the market, but rather in the people of the colony itself.
He had brought as his buddy a simple drone that followed him silently. Honestly, it was better than a living partner in most ways, as it could watch in all directions and feed that information directly into his system.
It did seem to make the locals cautious about speaking to him, though.
Don’t jump to conclusions, he told himself. Perhaps they believed he was more important than he was, given that he’d been in Captain Brooks’s entourage when he’d met the governor. Or they might have been nervous of outsiders.
But there were other, darker possibilities.
Seeing how the locals glared at Kell, he wondered what the Ambassador had done. Still, there didn’t seem to be any violence brewing. After observing a few more moments, he moved along the railings, deeper into the colony.
The areas that catered to outsiders soon gave way to service stations for the locals, and this was far more interesting to him.
Logus knew he stood out, but that did not concern him that much. There were a number of armed guards, and significantly more locals here. He wondered if they avoided the tourist area for the bad prices or if they were kept out.
People gave him looks, their eyes sunken and cheeks sallow. A number seemed to be waiting around a medical clinic.
Down from there he saw a comm center that advertised rates for faster-than-light messages off the colony. The price seemed exorbitant, and Logus didn’t even have half the number of credits needed for sending a message.
Something caught his eye. A man was staring at him.
He had an air of forced casualness about him, but his eyes were fixed upon Logus. The spot he was standing in was somewhat boxed in by metal tubing and steam venting from a floor grate. The guards nearby were not likely to see him.
Logus had seen people like this before – desperate people.
He made his way over, looking at the store fronts and signs. He walked past the man – he saw the man twitch, as if wanting to reach out and grab his arm, but an armed guard moved past and the man just as quickly went back to looking casual.
Logus stopped outside the message center at an information kiosk. Still paying some attention to the man, he began to scroll through the available local entertainment and news channels.
It was nearly all imported, much of it from deeper in the system. What was from outside was at least a decade old; he knew that often these colonies would buy tens of thousands of hours of old serials and sporting events in one block and that was the entirety of their entertainment.
Seeing the selection, Logus had the feeling that they’d gotten ripped off by some trader. Many of the shows were low in quality and were older than he was. There were none of the famous Dessei sitcoms or Qlerning dramas – but a lot of human sporting events. Everything seemed to be made with humans, but looked like the low-budget media that the Aeena studios were famous for.
That guard was still dawdling. He seemed at least somewhat suspicious of the desperate man, and so Logus resolutely kept from glancing at him, focusing on the various info channels.
He’d almost reached the end. He recognized a few shows, but realized that most non-humans in them had been edited out crudely. It seemed remarkably xenophobic.
The guard finally moved on, and the desperate looking man peeled away from his spot and drifted over.
“Need help finding anything, outlander?” he asked.
“I think I’m getting around all right,” Logus replied. “In a way, I envy you on the frontier. There must be so much excitement out expanding humanity’s presence in space.”
His words were jovial, but he kept his face serious. He hoped the man understood.
He clearly did. Something flickered in his eyes.
“I want to get out of here,” the man whispered. “Please. Take me out on your ship.”
Logus was surprised; the man was being much more forward than he’d expected. “Are you in trouble with the law here?” he asked.
“No, nonono,” the man said. He moved almost jerkily, like a man barely holding himself together. “I just can’t stay here anymore. I have to get out.”
“I’d like to know why,” Logus said earnestly.
“You can help me, then?” the man asked.
“I can’t promise anything, but I’m sympathetic,” Logus said. “I need to know more.”
The man was silent. His lower lip twitched, as if he wanted to speak, but he was struggling to find words – any words.
“I’ve lost too much,” the man finally said. A fire seemed to have entered his eyes, a silent warning.
Logus could tell he needed to back off. “I see. May I have your name?”
“No names,” the man said. “Not until I know where you stand.”
“I’ll have to talk to the Captain,” Logus said. “However, my recommendation to him will be to allow you to leave with us.”
The man nodded. “All right. All right, that’s . . . thank you.”
Logus nodded towards the message center. “Have you tried contacting anyone before now?”
“Oh no, nono,” the man said. “They monitor every message. They don’t want anyone to know. They have secrets here, outlander. Secrets that . . .”
His words trailed off, and he suddenly smiled. “You’re not bad for an outlander.” He gave a jaunty wave and moved away without another word.
Logus casually looked around and saw the guard. His gaze was on the retreating man, but did not linger as Logus waved to him.
The guard forced a smile and approached.
“You’ve wandered far, sir,” the guard said. “Are you lost?”
“Oh no,” Logus said. “I was just quite taken with your colony. I don’t suppose there’s any local music scene?”
The guard chuckled and waved him along. Logus noted that he lacked the same wasted look of many of the others. If anything, he seemed close to overweight.
He led Logus down the street, around a corner, and through a closed gate. For a moment Logus thought he was being led somewhere dangerous, but once the gate opened he realized it was something else entirely; a red light district.
“This might be more your speed,” the guard said. “Try the Roxy and ask for Saint Collette. Girl is creative as hell.”
Logus forced a smile to the man. His eyes travelled through the tunnel. It was narrow, scarcely with room for three men to walk side by side. The storefronts all offered something warm and human, or at least a close proximity. Outside of some, the ‘wares’ stood, in outfits that left nothing to the imagination. None of the girls looked healthy, but their health was largely hidden behind intricate, swirling tattoos that covered large portions of their bodies.
The guard had left already, and Logus considered for a moment talking to one of the girls. But behind them, lurking in shadows, he saw other men, with flinty eyes. They didn’t have uniforms or obvious weapons, but were all the more alarming for it.
Logus stepped back out through the gate.
Other Terrestrial 