Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital,
City of Landing,
Planet Manticore,
Manticore Binary System,
June 1853 PD.
“Dr. Benton-Ramirez y Chou! How nice to see you. Do you mind if I join you?”
Allison Harrington’s jaw clenched as the cheery voice cut through the hum of background conversation that filled the QEH physicians’ cafeteria.
Hard almond eyes, cored with fire, looked up from her minicomp at the fair-haired, slightly built physician standing behind the empty chair on the other side of her table. He was barely ten centimeters taller than she, with blue eyes, and she knew him entirely too well.
She thought very, very seriously about telling him that yes, she certainly would mind if he joined her. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the behavior expected of a staff physician, and so she showed her teeth in something a particularly charitable soul might have called a smile, instead.
“Of course not, Dr. Illescue,” she lied through those teeth.
“Thank you.”
Illescue settled into the no-longer-empty chair and tapped the tabletop to open the menu. He scanned it quickly, then looked up at Allison.
“How’s the hóngshāo niúpá?” He actually pronounced it properly, she noticed.
“It’s fine,” she replied.
“But not as good as back in Grendel, I’ll bet!” he said brightly, and she made herself smile again. Hóngshāo niúpá, flank steak braised in red wine with Highland mushrooms, onions, and peppers, was a Beowulfan specialty, and any truly snobbish gourmet knew, rightly or wrongly, that Beowulfers prepared it better than anyone else in the universe.
“Actually,” she told him, “allowing for the fact that this is a cafeteria, not a four- or five-star restaurant like Dempsey’s, it’s every bit as good as anything I ever had on Beowulf.”
“Really?” He chuckled. “Well, I guess you have to be polite about it.”
He clearly thought he was being witty, Allison reflected. It would have been nice if he’d been more than half right about that.
“I do try to be polite, but in this case, it’s nothing but the truth,” she said.
He gave her a knowing smile, but tapped the entrée on the menu, then selected an appetizer and beverage and closed the menu down.
“I was a little surprised to find you on the QEH staff,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “I would’ve expected to see a Benton-Ramirez y Chou in one of the major hospitals back in Beowulf. Wasn’t that what you’d planned to do?”
Allison contemplated homicide, and then put the temptation regretfully aside. She’d ended her brief relationship with Franz Illescue on Beowulf shortly after she set eyes on Alfred Harrington. Not because she’d immediately recognized him as her soulmate, but because of Illescue’s contempt for a military Neanderthal who could have qualified for admission to Ignaz Semmelweis only because it permanently reserved a small number of slots for the Manticoran Navy. She hadn’t realized until that moment just how shallow Illescue was, although “shallow” might not really be the correct word. She knew enough Beowulfers who felt only disdain for the uniformed men and women who kept them safe enough they could regard their protectors with contempt.
But it had still been an awakening. Illescue was a bright, occasionally charming conversationalist and above average lover, but Allison had known too many of those uniformed men and women. To his credit, she supposed, Illescue had taken her departure from his bed with at least outward grace.
“No,” she said now. “That wasn’t what I’d ‘planned’ to do. It might have been what happened, if I hadn’t met Alfred, but it wasn’t really what I wanted. For that matter, it’s not really what I want here in the Star Kingdom. Not permanently, at least. I love the staff and challenges here at Queen Elizabeth’s, but I plan on going into private practice once I’ve checked off all the boxes.”
“Oh! Hanging out your shingle here in Landing?”
“Possibly. Or on Sphinx.”
“Well, I hope your future patients are properly appreciative. It’s not often we see someone with your skills in the Star Kingdom. Especially not someone who’s also a Benton-Ramirez y Chou!”
“Personally,” she said a bit repressively, “I’m more impressed by someone’s competence than by her last name.”
“Oh, of course. Of course!”
He waved a hand in what might have been apology, then looked away as the server bot floated up with his drink order. He sipped appreciatively, then returned his attention to Allison.
“So, you’re in Genetics?” he asked, and Allison nodded. “Neonatal and Obstetrics for me,” he said. “Like you, it’s box-checking time.”
“I’m not surprised,” she replied. “And OB/GYN is really, really good. I’ve worked with a couple of the pediatric geneticists, and they’re top-notch.”
“So I hear. On the other hand, I probably got spoiled doing my residency back at Semmelweis.”
Allison wondered if he actually thought no one could overhear the conversation. Of course, knowing him, he wouldn’t have cared, anyway. She suspected he was going to prove less than popular with his fellow doctors.
“Well!” he took another sip. “I understand you went ahead and married Harrington and you’ve been stuck here in Manticore ever since, but would it happen you’ve heard what happened to Kleinman when he came home from Beowulf? I’ve only been back a few days myself, and I haven’t been able to find him.”
“George Kleinman?” Allison shrugged. “I understand he immigrated to Erewhon. He’s got family there, I think.”
“Really? I never knew that. What about Jeffers? I know she planned to go into private practice, and I was wondering—”
Allison had been looking forward to the cafeteria’s lemon torte. Now, regretfully, she decided that if skipping dessert was the price of escaping Franz Illescue as quickly as possible, she would pay it without a whimper.