Tamiyo observed the edge of Owangara from a distant treeline. The forest had been cut back about 500 yards away from the outer wall of the settlement. It was less of a settlement she was seeing, and appeared to have grown into a small village-city. She was staring at the exterior of the 40-foot-tall eastern metal wall, which appeared to run along until it intersected with a decent sized plateau growing up out of the ground which also served as the city's northern border. She couldn't see how far west the city expanded, but the southern edge ran into the coastline of one of the planet's small oceans.

  According to her ship's nav charts, Owangara had started out as a fishing village before growing into a spaceport. It appeared that a large amount of fishing activity still occurred, likely as a source of food for the city and possibly for export as well. As Tamiyo observed the tops of several larger buildings poking above the wall, a cargo freighter slightly larger than her own commandeered vessel rose up out of the city and departed into the sky.

  The eastern gate was large and open, so Tamiyo hoped that it wouldn't be overly difficult to enter the city. There were a few people coming and going through the gate, as well as someone posted that appeared to be either a guard or simply an attendant to assist with people who needed directions. She pulled the hood of her cloak up and began walking towards the gate.

  When Tamiyo was about 200 yards away from the guard, she realized that he was not human. He was a lazarco, one of the humanoid alien races that inhabited the galaxy. Lazarco walked on two legs like humans, but the lower half of their legs were bent in slightly different shapes than human legs. Tamiyo thought they somewhat resembled the shapes of canine legs, although much larger and more muscular. They also had four arms instead of two, were generally slightly taller than humans, and contained slightly more muscle mass on average. All lazarco had thick, tough, leathery skin with angles that made it look like they had scales, and none of them had any hair. This particular lazarco had a deep bluish-green tint to the hide on his scalp and face, and a nose much flatter and more angular than a human’s. He had four eyes total, two in the front of his skull and two others, slightly further back and higher up on his skull, which pointed 45 degrees to the sides, giving him a much wider field of view than a human would have. His mouth had a similar upper jaw structure to a human, but his lower jaw was made of two large mandibles, almost looking like a human's lower jaw that had been split down the middle underneath. The particular lazarco she was walking towards was dressed in light armor that looked like the uniform of a local security or militia, and he held a rifle in his upper pair of arms.

  Tamiyo had never met any aliens before leaving Batist, but about a week after her escape she had made a quick stop on a bustling space-station floating three star systems away from Batist named Garrick Station. She was visibly alarmed when she departed her ship because of the various non-humans walking about the station living their lives. They all seemed to have human features, but they didn't all have the same human features. And they all had vast differences as well.

  Tamiyo had been staring around observing the many different life-forms when a kind man had taken notice. At first she had mistaken the man for a human, but she quickly learned that he was actually a d’moria, a race that looked very similar to humans but usually didn’t grow much taller than five feet. All d’moria that Tamiyo had encountered thus far had been men with long hair, long beards, and dressed in rough outfits made of leather and linens. She also got the distinct impression that the d’moria were strong for their size.

  The man who had approached her on Garrick Station had worn a long leather coat that hung down to his knees, where he also wore knee-high leather boots on stocky legs. A crimson linen sash was tied around his waist, but any shirt he might have been wearing was hidden by the thick beard that hung down across his torso. He had another crimson cloth tied atop his head to keep his long dark-brown hair out of his face, and on his ears he wore several golden piercings. Although his large nose and scrunched face gave him a stern appearance, his eyes and voice were both warm and genial.

  He quickly determined that she was from a planet where non-humans were not allowed, and helped provide some insight into life outside of Batist. “Those SERCs are a buncha bastards if ya ask me,” he had told her in a thick drawl. She didn’t know who he was referring to until he explained that SERC was a common slang term, referring to those that lived under the Sovereign Earth Conservatory. “Sure, I like my own kind as much as anyone, but that don’t mean there’s something wrong with other races. Damn SERCs don’t wanna talk to anybody don’t look like they just stepped off of Earth.”

  He wasn’t wrong. With what she had already learned about everything in the galaxy, she was pretty sure that those in the Conservatory didn’t even want to acknowledge the existence of anyone but humans.

  After a brief conversation with the man, she thanked him and excused herself, not wanting to become too familiar with anyone as a newly made fugitive. She found a public internet cafe and rented a terminal where she spent several hours learning about some of the alien races she had seen around Garrick Station. From this, she learned that they all spoke either human dialects, or dialects derived from human speech, which she found curious.

  As Tamiyo approached the eastern gate of Owangara, she chose to ask for directions rather than attempt to sneak by and arouse suspicion. Walking up to the lazarco, she said, “Excuse me! Could you please help me out?”

  The lazarco turned to her and responded, “Hello young miss,” in a derivative dialect. Tamiyo may have been designed with antennae for ears, but the upside is they helped her understand most languages. “How can I help?” asked the lazarco.

  “I was hoping you could give me some directions,” Tamiyo spoke in Terr-English, which was an almost universal language across the galaxy. “Is there somewhere in town I would be able to acquire some basic medical scanners and equipment?”

  “Medical equipment? Hmm, medicine yes, there are several drug stores throughout town, but actual scanners and equipment you would need somewhere more specialized. Are you a nurse, or a doctor?”

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  Tamiyo let down her hood to reveal her antennae, “I'm a Custodial Care CIPHER, my master has been having some increased difficulty and I need to acquire some additional equipment to diagnose him”

  “Nurse droid, eh? That makes sense,” he placed his lower two arms onto his hips. “Head on in through the gate and follow the road in for about five blocks,” he gestured into the town with his upper right arm. “On your left-hand side you'll see Susie's Saloon, take a left on the street there and keep walking. After a couple more blocks you'll see a drug store come up on your right. They should be able to point you where you need to go.”

  “Left at Susie's, drug store on the right,” Tamiyo repeated. After a moment, she gave a slight bow, “thank you so much!” she said with a smile.

  “You're most welcome, and stop into Susie's if you need anything else, the staff there are very helpful.”

  Tamiyo was a little surprised by that suggestion, but she responded, “I will, thank you,” and stepped off into the town.

  This planet was becoming quite the learning experience for Tamiyo, and she found herself enjoying it. She had never before been invited to any sort of dining establishment or venue where alcohol was served, because CIPHERs were strictly forbidden from them on Batist. She had retrieved deliveries from grocery depots before, but those had service entrances that humans would never stoop to utilize. The deliveries she would pick up were always packaged and waiting for her, so she would not even be seen by anyone out in the general stores browsing.

  Noting that she had just passed her fourth block, Tamiyo looked over to the left side of the street. Up ahead, just above the second story windows of a corner building, a big sign read “SOOZY'S SALOON.”

  Tamiyo stared at it for a moment before saying aloud to herself, “I wish people had subtitles.”

  Staying on the right-hand side of the street, she crossed the intersecting street, then turned left and crossed to begin walking towards the drug store. She walked for several minutes, observing the pedestrians along her route. People came and went minding their own business, but they all maintained moderately genial demeanors and most of them offered her some form of polite greetings as she passed. She spied quite a few lazarco about, a similar number of humans, and a number of other quasi-human aliens going about their lives. She passed some small creatures she hadn’t encountered before, about three feet tall and furry, that appeared to be chittering to each other and laughing. She saw what she thought were several shorn, another humanoid race she had read about on Garrick Station. Shorn had a lot of sharp features that looked intimidating, and Tamiyo thought their claws looked dangerous. She also walked by a cute pair of d’moria that Tamiyo suspected may be fraternal twins.

  It was approaching mid-day as Tamiyo arrived at the drugstore. She entered inside and quickly looked around. The store was not overly large, it was a square room with walls about 50 feet long. Various rows of shelves were present with different medicines, and on her left was a counter with a human attendant. Tamiyo walked over to her, stating a friendly, “hello!” as she got closer.

  “Hello miss,” the lady responded, “what can I do for you today?”

  “I’m looking for several medications, nothing special so I’m hoping you should have them in stock, but I was also hoping you’d be able to point me in the direction of someone who may be able to supply me with some medical scanning equipment.”

  The woman pondered Tamiyo with a friendly curiosity, “what kind of medical equipment?”

  “Primarily, I need to be able to perform MRI, EEG, and MEG scans, but CT, PET, and NIRS couldn’t hurt as well. I care for an older gentleman and need to ensure I can stay as up-to-date as possible with his needs.”

  “Understandable, let me make a couple quick calls around town. Take a look around the store and see if you can find the medicine you need while you wait.”

  “Thank you so much!” Tamiyo replied. She wandered the aisles for several minutes, picking up several medications to help with nausea and fatigue, as well as mild painkillers. She also picked up some olfactory treatments to assist with reviving her ward in case no other methods proved fruitful.

  Tamiyo returned to the front counter when it appeared that the woman was done making calls. “Any luck?” she asked.

  “Yep, I don’t know if they’ll have everything you need, but there’s a supply depot over on Stratford Way that deals with acquisitions and distributions of medical equipment for the entire city. Have you been over to that part of town before?”

  “No ma’am, I’m not familiar with it I’m afraid,” Tamiyo didn’t want to state that she didn’t live in town if she could avoid it.

  “Ok no worries,” the woman said, “I can print out directions for you. Let me pull up a map on my terminal. Were you able to find all of the medicine you needed?”

  “Yes, I believe so,” Tamiyo replied. “It’s unrelated, but do you know anyone in town that knows much about Aether Dust? The man in my care enjoys studying it, so I promised I would inquire.”

  “Hmmm,” the woman thought for a moment. “I don’t know much about it myself, but the research station over in Altina may be able to assist.”

  “Altina?”

  “You’re not from around here, are you?” the woman said with a playful grin. Tamiyo had given herself away.

  “No ma’am, just visiting. My master is back on our ship, I’m running errands here in town before we head back off planet.”

  The woman slightly cocked her head to the side as she continued to observe Tamiyo. She had a kind face. “No worries,” she finally said, “Altina is about 100 miles west of here, a little bit north too. It has a spaceport, so if you came from off planet then you should have no problem finding it. The research station there handles a lot of scientific things that I don’t really understand, but they’ll be able to point you to someone that knows about Aether Dust better than I can. Most I know about it is it helps spaceships fly.”

  “I really appreciate the help ma’am,” Tamiyo told her.

  “You’re most welcome!” she spouted happily. “Let’s get you those directions.”