Utrecht Visscher - 001

[frontier_doktor]

Public | Audio

[His message is quick, because he's nervous and new. Visscher came back for the project to rebuild, just in case more of the same misfortunes happened. He doesn't know if it's a good idea or not, but he might as well reintroduce myself.]

Most of the people I knew when I was first around seemed to have departed.

But I am Utrecht Visscher. I am a qualified physician in my universe, and a general practitioner by interstellar standards.

It's a pleasure and I will do my best to assist.

Comments

[truth_is_the_enemy]

Welcome back, Doc.

So, Utrecht is it? I never got your name last time.

[frontier_doktor]

Visscher. [Which sounds much like "Fisher".] And it is good to see you again, too.

[truth_is_the_enemy]

Visscher, then. Or can I call you Doc Visscher?

I've been following the health regime [aka drug rehab] program you recommended last time you were here and I feel healthier already. But I'd like to talk to you in person some time. I know you just got here and I wouldn't want to rush you, but when do you think you'll be ready to receive patients?

[frontier_doktor]

It is quicker than "Herr Doktor", so that is fine.

[Ah, yes, he remembers that.] I wouldn't be opposed. I'm still getting settled, so maybe tomorrow at the clinic. I usually get to work fast.

[He rarely spends much time in a place.]

[truth_is_the_enemy]

My German accent was always terrible anyway. I spent some time in old Germany after the war, and the locals were all very polite and never once mocked me for my mangling of their language, but I could tell in the way they often asked me to repeat myself or kindly told me that we could converse in English instead.

Well, Doc Visscher, I appreciate a person who can go into a job and hit the ground running. So I'll see you tomorrow.

[frontier_doktor]

We were very polite on my colony, but Germany, either young or old, was not a place I had the luxury of visiting in person.

I will be glad to see your progress. [Hopefully it's as he says it is.]

[truth_is_the_enemy]

It's a beautiful county. Central Europe largely escaped the ravages of the war and the terraforming. Berlin and Hamburg were hit pretty hard, but Stuttgart and Munchen [He fails to pronounce the umlaut that ought to be there.] were hardly touched at all. It was good to see all those old buildings still standing.

[frontier_doktor]

[Oh dear, he's trying. But Visscher reminds himself that he's actually perfect at English. His own "th"s lean towards "z" or "d" often, and he has to remember the sound for "j". It takes effort. So he just lets it slide for now. It seems impolite to correct people when first meeting them.]

I'm sorry to hear so much was destroyed.

[truth_is_the_enemy]

We'll rebuild. Europe always does.

Speaking of which, was your home colony all Germans in space, or were there other European nationals, Danes or English or Scots in space there as well?

[frontier_doktor]

A good thing, too.

Braunschweig was home to many Northern Europeans, but eastern and western districts were substantially smaller.

[truth_is_the_enemy]

That would sure solve a lot of problems back home, if we had the technology to go out, colonize other worlds. Hand the tech know-how to the Votans and tell them that they can go off and make themselves a new homeworld, one that isn't already occupied by an indigent species. Maybe if their ark ships had been delayed a couple of centuries things could have been very different. Too late now, I suppose. A lot of Votans have been born on Earth now and it's the only home they've known. I don't imagine they'd want to leave.

[frontier_doktor]

Most of the space stations I have worked on have been mixed.

[truth_is_the_enemy]

I think the idea of mixed species living together is fine in theory, and I've seen it work on a small scale, a town here a settlement there. But when the Votans came, Earth was reaching its limit in land and resources just to support the human population. Add the population of the multiple habitable planets of the Votanis System to that, and it was never going to work. Not without an enormous drop in population. Which, in the end, is what we got.

[frontier_doktor]

Which is unfortunate.

[He feels a clenching on his back, more along the thoughts of wasted resources, but he doesn't want to address it just yet.]

Especially as Earth was already reaching its limits.

[truth_is_the_enemy]

There's more tragedy than one can count. But it's done and gone now. Earth is a new world.

[frontier_doktor]

You sound as though you very much miss the old one.

[truth_is_the_enemy]

I do, but in the way that one misses an old beloved home town after they've been away for twenty years: through the golden haze of nostalgia and with the knowledge that if you went back, even if nothing there had changed at all, it wouldn't really be as you remembered it anyway.

But things were easier then. Civilization kept people safe, at least in my part of the world. No one had to be afraid of raiders or razor rain or hellbugs.

[frontier_doktor]

According to my parents, civilization wasn't very safe. They suffered greatly for the schisms in Europe. You must have lived on a better part of Earth.

[truth_is_the_enemy]

Britain was very safe before the Pale Wars. Oh, there was the occasional murder here and there, like in any society, but even that was uncommon. People mostly couldn't even own firearms and even the police walked around with just a stick for a weapon. People were a little bit afraid of terrorist attacks, but they rarely amounted to much from what I remember.

The last time there had been any really major number of civilian deaths on the island was probably...[He pauses and puffs out a breath as he does the calculation]...eighty years before the Pale War, the blitz during the Second World War. That's four generations of peace and relative safety.

[frontier_doktor]

My parents came from cold war Earth. The atmosphere was so tense and intolerable they chose to follow an alien into the future rather than remain there.

You were blessed with a very good location.

[truth_is_the_enemy]

[He takes many seconds to respond, distracted by flashes of memory. It had been good. Until it very much wasn't. When he replies, his tone is a bit lower, a bit more closed off.]

It was very good for a while.

[frontier_doktor]

When I was young my colony suffered a disaster. My parents were killed and I was separated from my sister.

[truth_is_the_enemy]

How old were you? What happened? An attack?

I'm sorry, you don't need to talk about it if you don't want to.

[frontier_doktor]

Just misfortune.

[He isn't honest there, but it seems wiser than admitting the truth. This man seems very bent against aliens, and in a mixed community such as this that might not bode well. He doesn't want to encourage it.]

I was ten. I was taken in by a disaster relief medical team and have been dedicated to the medical practice since.

[truth_is_the_enemy]

[He nods, although it can't be seen over the audio line.]

I was rescued by the Earth Military Alliance when I was fifteen, then joined up with them as soon as I was old enough.