Eden’tza ran a scratching stylus over the papers in front of xem. Xyr colleagues gave up long ago on irritation or confusion with xyr preference for physical documents. No, there was nothing wrong with xyr lightbox; it functioned now as it always had. Not well, because it was government property, and nothing the government provided worked well, per se, but it functioned as intended, much like xyrself.
Xe found that xe caught things on paper that others missed in the endless digital scroll of the lightbox. Because xe was right and had the statistics to prove it, no one bothered xem about it anymore. Well, none except xyr younger sibling, but eir endless and adorable teasing hardly counted as derision at Eden’s quirks.
Eden would much rather be with xyr sibling than here, keeping xyr eyes from glazing over as xe went over immigration forms. Eden oversaw Hes’ger, the only haven city on Ab’ed. Immigrants and refugees and non-Y’tzur citizens of any kind could only travel within its tall, imposing walls. One wouldn’t think there would be a lot of immigration to a planet like Ab’ed, a planet still desperately tripping over itself to catch up with the Union and the rest of civilized space. A place where their safety was hard to guarantee, even for Eden, even boxed in between these tall walls meant to keep the dangers out. And yet they came. More of them every year, it felt, and it had been going on long enough that there were aliens who had been born on Ab’ed and known no other home than the spaces between Hes’ger’s four walls.
Hes’ger was not the nicest place on Ab’ed. And Eden didn’t just mean in terms of the fact it was, as the Humans called it, a ghetto, a place cordoned off with limited entry and no exit for anyone who wasn’t Y’tzur. Despite what the ruder members of Union species might say, Ab’ed was a developed planet; very developed. Land was at a premium, and when it came time to build an entire new hub to deal with planetary traffic, it had been done in a prairie that was snowed over about ten of the thirteen months of the year. It was simply where they’d had enough empty space. Eden had good reason to come here, and xe knew the immigrants did too, but xe often wondered at their misfortune that this had become their best option.
Xe worked hard to keep the criminals out. It was a losing battle, but xe fought valiantly nonetheless. The problem, if xe was speaking frankly, off-record, and away from any of xyr colleagues, was that the crime was coming from Y’tzur who lived outside of Hes’ger. As much as xyr colleagues protested the crime-ridden trash on the streets of xyr city, most of them weren’t criminals when they got here. They would never have been let in if they were. They became criminals after the fact, and the real leaky entrance to Hes’ger was not the spaceport.
This was only because Eden and xyr committee were careful. There was a lot of pressure on them all right now. Anti-Union politicians were always using Hes’ger as an example of the catastrophes possible if they opened their doors unambiguously to alien life. Total societal collapse, they said, and not just because of the crime. Eden, living, working, and managing here, did not particularly disagree. Aliens and Y’tzur did not mix well. Xe saw more than enough evidence of that every day. But xe was not sure closing themselves off entirely was a good or plausible idea. The Union had incredible technology; the medical tech of the Humans and Levir alone offered miracles. Hes’ger was not the worst compromise in the world. Although Eden would have worked here even if it was.
Xe was almost done for the cycle, just doing a final review of all approved immigration forms from this week. A mostly mindless task to unwind after xyr eternally stressful days, but an important one. All of xyr tasks were important, with tensions as high as they were lately. Xe couldn’t afford to slip. But still, xyr mind was on xyr younger sibling, and the dinner ey would have prepared for xem. Xe slipped a rare smile, alone in the privacy of xyr office, imagining eir happy smile and curious questions about the aliens at xyr work. If it was safe for o’millui to work here, xe would have gotten em a job by now, honestly. Ey’d be better at the diplomacy side of things than Eden, that was for sure.
Xe was distracted, but not so distracted that xe didn’t pause immediately upon flipping to the next approved form. It wasn’t that it was filled out incorrectly; it was as meticulous as if Eden had filled it out xemself. What had immediately caught xyr eye was the species. Levir? Levir visitors were a rarity, and surely xe would have heard about it if one was coming here. The paper must be a misfile, a diplomatic visit that had somehow gotten in with the immigration forms somehow. Unforgivably sloppy. But no, it was an emergency refugee form, with all the stamps and approvals. That was absurd. Levir weren’t refugees. Refugees from where, for pity’s sake? How would any single one of them have managed to lose access to every single Levir planet and station? The idea was laughable. Had the species been mislabeled somehow? Oh, yes, there was a code indicator that there was something peculiar about the species, an attached form. Xe shuffled through xyr papers and then, unable to find the physical copy—again, absurdly sloppy—xe woke up xyr lightbox to search for it.
There it was. Why this had been filed as a Levir, xe wasn’t sure; a mistake in the code somewhere, perhaps. Here, this was the file meant to be attached, with species information. The would-be Levir was really—
Okay. Well. This definitely was a mistake, because according to this, the Levir in question was a Drakai, and that would be laughable if it weren’t deeply concerning how this paperwork had gotten so far without someone else in the office realizing the error. Eden admittedly didn’t know a great deal about Levir beyond the basics for anyone in a diplomatic position, even a bureaucratic one like Eden’s. But everyone would know what a Drakai was; a sub-species of Levir born once in a rare double moon that served as emissaries and spiritual leaders. They didn’t even leave Levir space, let alone come to some backwater like Ab’ed. And there was only ever one of them at a time, if that, with their births a rare occurrence that the entirety of livable space would hear about whether they cared or not. There was a Drakai alive now, but he was…
Oh, Maker.
He was an exile.
The warmth drained from Eden’s face as xe went over the documents again, and then again. Teniel Cae. That had been his name, hadn’t it? But no, that was impossible. Even if they had gotten an application for refugee status from him, it would have been flagged immediately, for about a hundred different reasons. Teniel Cae was a religious and political exile from the Levir; the political implications were disastrous, and it wasn’t like the Y’tzur were on great terms with the Levir to begin with. Drakai also had the potential to be incredibly dangerous. Weapons were not allowed in Hes’ger, and a Drakai was nothing if not a biological weapon. There were a dozen reasons to deny entry and approximately zero to grant refugee status, as this form claimed they had. How had this been filed without xyr knowing?
Something very bad and potentially very illegal was happening here, and xe needed to get to the bottom of it fast, before any word of this could get anywhere outside of this office. Teniel Cae was a political terrorist who had led a cult that had threatened to destabilize the government of his home planet. He was a one-in-a-billion biological weapon with capabilities that stressed Levir science, let alone Y’tzur. He was a menace, and there was no way in the universe that he was coming here.