Page 7 of Hooked on the Otter Doctor
“Oh, um…” My face heated.
“He was. I can hear you blushing.”
I laughed and covered my eyes even as my face got hotter. “Yes, fine, he was incredible. That Speedo was…full.”
Svein hummed happily. “That’s one thing I love about Norlons. I mean, there’s a lot to love about them, but I’m determined to find out if the rumor about the size of their cocks is true.”
“Oh, I don’t think it’s a rumor anymore.” Flames were going to erupt from my pores if I didn’t change the subject soon. I’d never been chill about discussing sex.
“Ha! Wonderful. Want to come out with me tonight and see if we can do some actual field research?”
Ordinarily, I might’ve said yes just to get out of the house and be with people who didn’t think about fish all day long. But with the catch, I had a feeling I should stick around home tonight. Andthere was also something wiggling at the back of my brain that had me wanting to search out my otter more than some random— Okay, hold on, he wasn’tmine. That was ridiculous.
“Um, I think I need to stick around here,” I told him. “Another time, though.”
We said our goodbyes, and I went back to trying to find the number for the language department at the college. But while doing that, I couldn’t help feeling like maybe something bigger than a catch had happened while we were out on the water today. Something very important.
CHAPTER 4
HALABY
Thank you for coming with me,” I said as I opened the college building’s door for Ghosha and myself. It was a lovely day with bright sunshine peeking through fast-moving clouds. A brisk breeze was coming up from the port, bringing with it a faint scent of sea and…something I couldn’t quite pinpoint. A good smell. Something wonderful, in fact.
“Of course,” Ghosha said as he walked beside me down the corridor. “I wouldn’t miss this.”
He had been full of cryptic statements like that ever since yesterday afternoon when he’d suggested this Icelandic language class to me. Several Norlons were going to be there, though I doubted I would know any by name. I really was quite isolated on the medical level of the ship. And I supposed my leave might be a good way to remedy that.
We found the room where our class was meant to be and discovered six Norlons—a Cero, two Khess, and three Yook—as well as two humans. Because the humans were sitting in chairs behind long tables, I assumed our instructor wasn’t there yet. Ghosha and I sat together in the back, near the door.
Ghosha seemed to know a few of the Norlons, and I kept to myself as he chatted with them. I’d brought my tablet with me, ofcourse, so called up a few patient records to see how they were doing to pass the time. Rampon’s arm had fully healed after his self-amputation a few weeks ago, but I had a new Cero patient suffering from burns. She’d been in engineering when a trajectory coil had exploded, burning her abdomen. My team was using a new procedure from a doctor on Nor who had seen success by removing a portion of the body around the burn damage. Basically, we were treating it much the same as we would a brush fire—if there was nothing to burn, the fire would put itself out. I was very hopeful it would work in this case.
I probably shouldn’t even be looking in on the cases I’d left behind to come down here. No doubt Captain Langarus would remove my access if he found out I was still monitoring any patient, let alone the one that had had him calling my mental health into question. I’d been obsessed about her care, stayed awake for three days watching over her, and erupted on the poor captain when he’d asked me to rest. After a week confined to my quarters with regular visits from a range of professionals assigned to watch over me, I was now here on Earth under orders to get myself right.
Or else go back to Nor.
I closed the patient information portal and sent a quick message to one of my admins, asking him to lock my direct access until further notice.
I didn’twantto be like this. I’d thought joining the delegation would be a quiet mission to bring solutions to a people who could benefit from them as we had. I would be educating and demonstrating our medical advancements. But I should’ve known better. I’d served on several ships during the war and knew that, even without a conflict, there were always risks. Potentially devastating risks. And here I was terrified of losing another member of the crew all over again, just like at the end of the war.
Well, I’d recovered then and I would do so again.
The door opened and a human man rushed in, bringing with him that intriguing scent I’d caught outside. I refocused myself on the present and the fact that I wanted to learn to speak the native tongue, but I had to wonder what that smell was. A food item? Like a nearby vendor trying to entice customers through the doors? I licked my lips and shifted in my seat.
“Something wrong?” Ghosha asked. I looked over to find him smiling.
“No, nothing’s wrong, but… Do you smell that?”
His grin grew wider. “Smell what exactly?”
Goddess, sometimes he was exhausting. I didn’t answer when the man who had come in stopped at the lectern at the front of the room. He spoke, but I couldn’t hear a word he said as I realized he was the man from the boat yesterday. The one who’d sung so mournfully, who I’d given a net full of fish to, and whose woman I’d knocked into the sea and only halfway rescued. He was to be our teacher?
“Halaby.”
I flinched and looked to Ghosha.
“Tobias asked us to introduce ourselves,” he said with a gesture toward our instructor.
“Oh.” I looked around and realized everyone was looking at me. “Oh! Um, I’m Doctor Halaby Revazi, head of the medical team with the delegation.”
