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    Tangled
Intersections

    Arrival
    Nidi Station
    Docking Bay
     
    The clang of the docking clamps rang
in Dr. Grison’s ears sounding a hell of a lot like freedom. Palms
sweaty with anticipation, he kept them firmly wrapped around the
shuttle seat armrest and resisted the urge to look behind him and
grin at the Vanaslovi guards’ captive. How he must hate being in
captivity. But the truth was he’d grown sloppy. They’d found him
passed out right above the recently deceased body wearing the
victim’s blood on his hands. As the prisoner’s psychiatric doctor,
Grison was charged to see to his treatment. Right now though, what
he wanted more than anything was out of the stupid shuttle. He grit
his teeth and forced himself to hold still a little
longer.
    Air hissed as the craft’s door opened,
allowing them into the small, pressurized primary bay. Barely
bigger than a storage closet, it allowed Nidi Station guards to
scan them for weapons and medical before authorizing admittance to
the main shuttle area. Their unit would be auto-parked by robot
attendants, filed according to size and anticipated need for
accessibility. Dr. Grison hoped they locked it away in the bowels
of the station and lost it. He didn’t ever want to see it
again.
    Once the scan completed, the
auto-messenger welcomed them in several languages at once:
Universal, Parsi Tongue and Earth Standard. He half-listened,
smiling at appropriate times into the one-way monitor, and nodding.
Yes, yes, he would be sure to pay attention to the red and blue
traffic lines in the major pedestrian hallways. Yes, he would
recognize and obey the floating security bots. No, he would not
seek access to restricted areas. He’d follow abort-ship protocols
to the letter.
    The guards behind him must have nodded
their assents as well, for the double doors suddenly whooshed open.
Dr. Grison stepped onto the main deck and took his first lungful of
musty station air with gratitude. Being locked on that shuttle with
those two goons and their maniacal captive Rister had almost killed
him. Almost, but not quite. He had far too much to live
for.
    “ Welcome to Nidi Station,”
two hoverbots droned. “Coordinates?”
    “ Security,” one of the
guards droned.
    “ Lodging,” he said into
the forest green refractive eye panel of the closest
bot.
    “ Extended stay?” it
warbled. The brightness of its visual matrix dimmed amidst a whir
of activity coming from its central processor. Apparently,
searching openings took up a lot of its battery power.
    “ Yes, I think so.” Rubbing
his hands together, he at last glanced at Rister. His last contact
with the man before they would drag him away out of his sight,
hopefully forever.
    Digging his feet into the station’s
no-slip matted surface, Rister sprang up repeatedly like a jack in
the box while the guards attempted to hold him in place. The crazed
look in his tearing eyes worried him, but it was the ongoing scream
echoing from under the face mask that made his skin shiver. Thank
stars the mask made verbal communication impossible. He recoiled
from the man, determined to get as far away from the psycho bastard
as he could manage in the last few minutes he’d ever spend in his
presence.
    At last the whirring stopped and the
unit dinged. “Payment method?”
    He flipped his attention
away from Rister and held out the gold platinum card with Dr. Maynard Grison holo-graphed across the front.
    A stubby mechanoid arm
snatched it and slid it into a tiny slot on the front of the unit’s
casing where it disappeared from view. “Thank you. Processing.”
Another ding, and his card ejected, airborne, flying toward him. He
managed to snatch it before it took off a slice of his nose.
“Payment allocation verified. We are happy to welcome you to Nidi
Station, Dr. Grison. Please follow me to your new luxury accommodations .
We hope you enjoy your stay.”
    Inside the mask, Rister’s shrill
throaty screech threw spittle out the front. It