Page 4 of Star Bright
“He’s an alien, isn’t he?” Darcy angled her glare from him to her conscious companions.
The not-dog said nothing, and the robot made a whining sound. “You are a closed worlder without patron or staff identification, and as such are not privy to certain realities—”
“So yeah, an alien.” Darcy blew out her lips. “Okay, presumably Brin did not expect me to discover this, but she also put me in charge of this place while everyone else is away. So, how do we take care of this guy?”
The robot rolled slightly back and forward again, almost like it was thinking. “Most of the amenities here are currently locked for annual purging cycles, including the med bay. Since this is an emergency, you may review medical data for draklings. Disclaimer: Access to unauthorized data by closed worlders may result in additional memory wiping.”
Darcy hesitated. This was all too much. She was supposed to be pleasantly tipsy on a tropical beach, remember? “What is a drakling?” When Ug poked his snout into the alien man, she huffed. “Yeah, I got that part. Butwhatis he?”
“A drakling,” the robot explained, somehow dredging a note of annoyed impatience out of its digital voice.
She glared at the two of them. Abbott and Costello, were they?
Except she was part of the trio, which made them the Three Stooges.
But what was happening was no joke, no hoax, no dream. The alien man—a drakling?—currently lounging inherpillow fort was real.
The robot wheeled closer, its shiny dome flickering. “Here is the available medical data for draklings. Please hold while basic scans are completed.”
Ug sat like a good—if ugly—dog, so Darcy did the same, settling at the drakling man’s shoulder. His bare shoulder. His bare shoulder that felt like hot satin.
Anyway.
The drakling let out a low sound, not quite a moan, and his head rotated on the pillow. “Don’t leave… Alone…”
Thinking to hold him in place, she rested a soothing hand on his tunic. “We won’t leave you alone.”
His chest flexed hard, muscles ridging under her palm. Brow furrowing, his lashes fluttered, but his eyes never opened. With another breath, he slumped again.
“According to available scans,” the robot informed them, “the likeliest scenario for the drakling’s condition is a mild cranial contusion, moderate chemical poisoning—and some period of cryogenic preservation.”
Darcy frowned. “Cryo… You mean he was frozen, like in suspended animation?”
“All three diagnoses may be contributing to his mental confusion, physical incoordination, and current unconsciousness.”
Those all sounded bad. Trying to emulate the robot’s measured tone, Darcy asked, “Treatment and prognosis?”
“Treatment: fluids, rest, therapeutic massage, moderate exercise. Prognosis: guardedly good.”
Ug grunted, and the robot added, “Yes. Administration of some treatments will require a being with hands.” They both twisted to stare at Darcy.
Who’d been thinking that fluids, rest, and therapeutic massage would’ve been great on that Caribbean beach. And maybe a bit of moderate exercise with Christopher, which would now never happen again…
She stiffened. “Oh. You meanI’msupposed to be his nurse?”
So she found herself in the bar that serviced the lobby, gathering likely supplies. Brin had told her that the main kitchen was closed—although she hadn’t mentioned anything aboutpurging—but that everything Darcy might like for food and drink would be stocked in the bar. And so far that had been the case.
“Draklings cannot properly process caffeine,” the robot told her. “That is the substance lingering in his system. So no coffee or tea, although the hot cocoa mix here at the outpost has no measurable caffeination and would be fine, no Earther energy beverages, no supplemented pixberry—”
Since she had no idea what pixberry was, she found a water bottle with a lid and attached straw and mixed plain water with just a bit of soda water from the bar gun for the fizz, plus a squeeze of citrus and a sprinkling of sugar and salt for the electrolytes. “All this okay?”
“Add some chili powder. Draklings need hot.”
Shaking her head, she added a dash, glanced at the robot, then another dash and a third until the robot said, “That will suffice. Bring the bottle.”
Ug was keeping watch at the pillow fort, though the drakling man hadn’t moved.
Darcy knelt beside the alien. “How do we get him to drink?”
