Chapter Eight

I can do this. I can do this. Hope adjusted the neckline of her too-large blue dress, another hand-me-down from Prudence. She hoped Krogan didn't think she mocked him with the color choice. She didn't have a lot of options. Besides the blue frock, the only other clothing she had was the green dress she'd traveled in and the work dress she'd been wearing when she'd gotten fired and evicted. It fit better than the other two, but it was unsuitable for a wedding, even a bogus one.

I can do this. I can do this, she repeated as she left the apartment. She wasn't sure which she found more nerve-wracking—the prospect of getting married or using the vaporator by herself.

As she strode through the lobby with its gallery of sweet-smelling standing bouquets, she was struck by how perfect each floral bloom was. They could almost be artificial, spit out by a 3D printer, but she figured they had been genetically engineered and grown in a lab. Each flower of each variety was an exact replica of the others, each stem precisely arranged. It reminded her of his flawless penthouse apartment, not a single item out of place. He expects perfection . I'm far from that.

She faced the vaporator and rubbed her thumb over the nodule in her wrist. Besides enabling her to speak and understand the language, the implant opened doors and allowed her to use the transport. Before leaving that morning, Krogan had explained an electrical impulse from her brainwaves would get her where she needed to go. She only needed to think "Officiant's Office," and that's where she'd end up.

The vaporator opened. Taking a deep breath, she stepped inside. Déjà vu. She recalled yesterday's experience leaving the spaceport. That fizzy feeling came over her for a few seconds, and then the opening appeared. She stepped out.

This isn't right. She glanced around, recognizing the long corridor, the benches, the rack of accelerators. She was at the spaceport! This isn't where I need to be! The terminal was just as deserted today. She realized her mistake—she'd been thinking about the spaceport as she got on the transport. Operator error.

Let's try this again .

When she used to envision her wedding day, she'd always pictured herself with the love of her life, surrounded by friends and well-wishers in a small but elegant garden ceremony, not a solo event with a reluctant alien groom in some ugly utilitarian government office. She assumed the office would be ugly. Maybe it was nice.

She reentered a vaporator. Take me to the Officiant. Fizz. Fizz.

She stepped out of the tube into a large institutional-appearing corridor with worn floors, a musty smell, and pale-green walls, not unlike the village hall at Bloomhaven. Ugly and utilitarian. This is the place. She spied a door at the end of the hall. There it is. Through that portal lies my fate.

But, inside, she found herself in a large, manned computer center. Perhaps fifty people, mostly men, stared at computer screens. There were some women, but they were among the oldest people in the room.

This can't be right.

She crept up to the nearest terminal, one being used by a young man. His gaze shifted from the screen to her, as she drew near. His eyes widened with surprise .

"Excuse me. Can you tell me where I can find the officiant?"

"This is the office of efficiency," he said.

"No, no, officiant . Like marriage."

"Oh! That's across the city."

"How do I get there?"

He glanced at her wrist. "Take the vaporator down the hall."

"It brought me here."

He chuckled. "That happens sometimes if you don't get it exactly right. You just have to try again."

"All right. Thank you," she said, although he'd been of little help, other than to confirm she was in the wrong place.

Now she was late. It will only take a few seconds to vap over there, Krogan had said. For him, maybe. Despite his tardiness meeting her at the spaceport, she had planned to be on time for the wedding. For goodness' sake, don't think about the spaceport, she chided herself as she retraced her steps.

Her stomach fluttered with growing trepidation, and she mentally chanted officiant's office like a mantra as she reboarded the transport. In a fizz, she landed at another office building—another miss. She rubbed the nodule in her wrist, wondering if there wasn't a problem with her chip after all. But doors were opening. She'd gotten to the spaceport—she hadn't intended to go there, but it showed she could vap. Maybe I'm not saying/thinking the instructions correctly. It could be a pronunciation problem on her part. Krogan had warned she needed to be precise. However, she could only guess at the problem.

She wandered the building in search of somebody who could help her. After several unproductive attempts with other people, she gave up asking. Trying to find her way to the vaporator, she got lost. By the time she found the transport, tears of frustration blurred her vision.

How many offices am I going to visit? Will I ever get it right?

She heard a whirring noise and spun around.

A bot rolled across the floor, scrubbing and polishing. Offices had closed, and the janitorial unit was cleaning up. Her shoulders slumped with dejection. Would the officiant still be open? Would Krogan be there? Or had he gone home wondering what had happened to her?

Bullet-shaped, short and squat, the bot pivoted and started back for another sweep. Lights whirled on its dome top. She watched it scuttle along. More machine than robot, it didn't have the communication ability Don Juan did…

Maybe the service android could help! He'd prepared her meals and cleaned her travel dress and had explained some of the functions around the penthouse. Did he ever leave the apartment? Maybe he could take her to the officiant. At this point, somebody had to vap with her. She wasn't going to get it right on her own. And maybe Krogan himself was home.

"Krogan's penthouse," she said as she got into the tube for the umpteenth time. In her mind's eye, she pictured the flowers with their huge, sweet-smelling perfect heads.

The vaporator opened.

The noise hit her first. Squawking, chiming, clanging sounds assaulted her ears.

Then the smell. "Oh my god." She pinched her nose at the assault of sewage clashing with other noxious odors.

Colors had grayed, the entire area shadowed by the giant cloudtoppers, their lower levels blackened by alien graffiti.

The people seemed grayer, their skin less blue—but that could have been the grime. Smudging walkways, buildings, and faces, it covered everything except the expressions of despair and malice. Rough, scary huge alien men, their eyes either vacant or mean, ambled aimlessly over trash-covered, filthy walkways, as if they were lost. As one came abreast, he looked right at her and made a beeline straight for her.

Run. Run. Get out! Frozen with shock and fear, she couldn't mentally formulate a place to go, and he squeezed onto the vaporator, bringing with him an eye-burning unwashed odor. That galvanized her into action, and she jumped out before he could take her someplace worse.

Could there be a place worse than the surface of Caradonia? She realized that's where she was. Thoughts of penthouse and flowers somehow had landed her on the surface. I am clearly not doing this right.

She couldn't find her way to the officiant's office, and she couldn't get home either.