|
Indigenous People Stand Out of Coruscant:
Argent's Story
Written by Sailor Hapes
The young silver-skinned woman groaned. Travel within the Hapes Cluster was easy; getting in and out was hard.
"Pass?" She handed it to the check point guard, who scanned it with the bordom of someone who has scanned millions of passes millions of times.
"Argent Panic, Journeyer Footscreen. Non-human. Twelve standard years old. Bound for Coruscant." He handed her back the pass, which contained her travel vouchers, legal travel papers and her identification, along with her Bank papers.
"Retina screen, hand print, over there."
After the embarrassing incident of the guard not seeing her, she skipped down the corridor. On her way, on her way, on her way! College on Coruscant!
The girl was ready to leave this stifling system and explore. Her intended major was banking systems, since her species was used by the Intergalactic Bank to run money. After all, it's hard to rob someone you can't see. Argent let her mind slip back into the "no-see-me" mode that most of her people lived in, and made them so useful to the bank.
The youngish looking man in cobalt blue spectacles checked a datapad and followed her closely and (unseen by the other passerby), bumped into her purposely.
"Argent Panic, aren't we forgetting something?"
The shoulders drooped, then straightened in indignation. "Argent hasn't forgotten anything! It is Gogh Ques who has forgotten!"
The man laughed, his voice like spiders along her skin.
"What are you doing? There is only supposed to be one of us on any transport. Lesson four, text five! Stop the laughing! Laughing brings attention! Lesson two, text one!"
"Relax, Argent. I'm not going anywhere. I'm supposed to give you these," he handed her a spacer's hide covered case, "because Ignition Gogh has decided you've Graduated from Lessons."
Argent fumbled the cumbersome, stiff titianum case latch open and pulled out a pair of heavy cobalt blue spectacles. "For Argent? Argent has Graduated?!" She squealed and hugged him, dropping her pass and carry-on knapsack.
"Oooph!! Yes, yes yes yes! A year before everyone else, might I add. Oh! And Fore Ven sends this as your final Gift." He dropped a titanium chain around her neck. From it depended a large pierced coin, gold within silver with tiny engraved glyphs on each side. It looked, he thought, rather like a medallion than a coin.
"A pierced coin? With words? Is she telling Argent that money is not indestructible?" Argent put on her spectacles to study the words, finding that the cobalt blue lenses made seeing so much easier, especially in the bright lights of the corridor.
The two weren't seen by any of the other passengers as Gogh Ques explained.
"You're supposed to find Those-Who-See and join them, while continuing your studies. If you fail in your studies, then the People will bring you back, regardless of what you are to them."
"Those-Who-See are myths! Do not attempt to fool Argent with silly tales! Tales will only haunt the carrier! Lesson one, Text four!" Argent was indignant again, but she began studying the coin again until her eyes crossed. "OW!"
"Hey, tell that to Ignition Gogh. He says find Those-Who-See."
Argent's violet eyes grew bigger, a sign that she was realizing something. "Argent Panic is no soldier! She is not One of Those-Who-See! Argent will not say Hapes Beauty of Money Magic!"
Before she'd even understood what she'd said (and if she had, she would have been utterly disgusted), showers of gold coins fell and she wailed. "Argent looks like a Carney Worker!" Her spectacles began slipping off of her nose, and she pushed them back up automatically.
"Ignition Gogh is never wrong, Argent." He laughed. "Get along now. You'll miss your transport. Then you'll really be in trouble."
The girl gave him a dirty look, then dropped her pass and spectacles case. When she bent down to get them, she rose in her regular clothes.
"Coruscant, be prepared for Argent Panic."
After the silver skinned girl was violently sick on take-off, the stewardesses avoided her and only came near to let her know that the Silver Bullet was about to commence landing and would she be so kind as to put on her safety restraints?
This, of course, was done from a safe distance of about ten feet.
After being shuffled from one office to another in the ancient building belonging to one of Coruscant's oldest financial universities, Argent was given her schedule by an ill-tempered secretary and firmly escorted out.
"You'll have to find your own sleeping and eating arrangments! If you can't pay, the college will make up your difference to be paid back with a fifteen percent interest!"
Argent rubbed her bum. "Argent wonders how such an ill-tempered woman became so highly placed!"
Growling about the idiots that ran the university, she rambled about the city-planet, trying to find somewhere to get something to drink.
Argent walked into a small-ish cantina. It was a large sized one for Coruscant, but for the Hapan raised alien, it was small. After all, everything was bigger in the Hapes Cluster.
She was in the no-see-me mode that her people lived in, and the tall blonde woman behind the bar didn't notice her.
Which was the point of that little evolutionary advantage.
Argent wandered around, being extremely quiet, but she brushed against a chair and rattled.
Carmelle looked up and directly where Argent was frozen like a very strange sculpture.
"Alright, Guild creature. Out with you or I throw," A vibroblade appeared in her hand. "Don't think that because I'm human I don't notice things."
Argent sighed and flickered into view. "How does the human woman know about the Guild creatures? Argent was taught that all creatures like Argent are secret!! Lesson one, text one!"
Carmelle smiled strangely.
"Because I know things like that." She reached under the counter and pulled out a silvery metal cup chased with odd designs.
Carmelle poured a generous dollop of the jewelly-blue-green-orange liquid that went with the distinctive cup.
"I really don't see what you all see in that stuff," she commented, watching Argent very slowly sipping the thick liquid. It had the consistancy of syrup and was both sickly sweet and gaggingly bitter, with side effects ranging from headaches to three day vomiting sprees in humans. Carmelle had tried it and ended up with a three day migrane and sensitivity to very bright lights for a week after the migrane.
"Because it is thick and smooth over the tongue, with bursts of super sweetness and kles over the taste centers. Going down it burns with growing intensity until Argent feels her head is about to explode then POP. Nothing but chill through the body." Argent licked off the mustache she'd gained. "Four year old schlochk, aged in..." She closed her eyes and took a sip, holding it over her tongue a second, a look of divine pleasure etched over her face.
The silver skinned girl swallowed.
"Aged in gold-plated silver titianum tanks." She grinned. "Argent knows schlochk. Ships for about..." She thought a second and ticked her fingers several times, then named a fairly high sum.
The blonde woman seemed thoughtful. "You at the University?"
Argent nodded, sipping from the cup again. "Argent needs a place to sleep."
"Can you pay?"
The strange girl looked absolutely indiginant. "Of course Argent can pay! All Guild creatures can pay for services rendered, either in the accepted currency of the region or in services equal to correct sum of payment!"
Carmelle held up her hands to try and placate the girl. "Fine fine. If you can pay, you can stay. I've got a storeroom with a cot."
With a grin, the silver skinned girl plopped a large leatherine bag on the bar. "Argent would like the bed now."
Half an hour later, she lay on the strangely comfortable cot and stared up at the stick on stars she'd put on the ceiling. "Good night, Those Who See. Argent Panic will find you."