Page 205 of Commander’s Mate

Chapter Thirty-Two

Harper

Halor gave us clothes, language implants, medical care, and choices.

The clothes were the easiest thing Halor gave us.

A body scanner measured each of us and produced four basic outfits that looked suspiciously like Farseek uniforms without the insignia. Scarlet approved immediately. Zoe called them “military chic.” Nora only cared that they included real shoes.

I cared about the shoes too.

After weeks barefoot or in ship slippers, ordinary footwear felt like wealth.

The language implant was harder.

The slavers’ translator chip let us understand speech, but it did not let us read Farseek writing or use the ship’s systems without help. The Haloran clinic could replace that limitation with a biological language implant tailored to our DNA. The technician assured me the process was routine.

Routine to her.

Alien technology being put into my brain was not routine to me.

Zared arrived before my turn.

“You are afraid,” he said.

“I am being rationally cautious.”

“You are gripping the chair hard enough to leave marks.”

I looked at my hands and released them. “I can be both.”

He held out his hand.

I took it.

The procedure barely hurt. A pressure block at my forehead, a scan, a momentary sensation behind my ear, and the technician was finished. Within minutes symbols that had been meaningless began resolving into patterns my brain almost recognized.

Scarlet watched my face. “Well?”

“I think I can read the exit sign.”

Zoe looked impressed. “That is one expensive literacy program.”

Nora was already asking the technician how the implant integrated with neural tissue.

Of course she was.

Halor had coffee.

Not Earth coffee.

That would have been too much to ask from the universe.

But the café near the medical district served something dark, hot, bitter, and caffeinated enough to make my hands feel like mine again.

I sat outside beneath a pale green awning and nearly cried into the cup.

Scarlet watched me.