The Studied Financier (1)

 1

Themisto Spacedock

It was 09:55 on a breezy Themistese morning, and we had just finished docking a couple hours ago. It was the first time I had ever been farther than the moons on my home planet of Majriti and to have arrived at the planet that held the government for the entire star system was exciting for me. Men and women, who had delayed until the last minute to end their vacation, moved their traveling trunks past my reception area down to the shipping clerk so they did not need to drag them home themselves. 

I was wearing a cream-colored, gauzy, zippered unitard with a full-length, form-fitting, silvery-aquamarine suit jacket. Since I knew I might have to stand to greet new guests for a bit when we started boarding, I had decided not to wear my matching 4” heel thigh-high boots but went with my silver ballet flats that had straps wrapped around my legs until half-way up the calf. These might not have been quite the style finishing footwear I preferred, but they were certainly sensible. Especially in my new line of work for the luxury cruiseshuttle as the reception manager.

“Vixie,” my father called to me from the “Employees Only” door of my reception office. My proper name was Elevixie, but Pops had called me Vixie for as long as I could remember, and it was much less of a mouthful. “Feliste is going to help me with this first major intake today. He said something about needing the check-in com-tabs?” 

My smile fell slightly. I had expected Pops would want to do the intake with me. My father was like a kid in a candy shop with this ship, but he also had absolutely no idea what to do. He made our wealth in mining. Thankfully, when the old maître d'hôtel was fired—I mean that practically was why my father bought this ship after all—Feliste, the former owner, eventually came around to asking for the job. He did not need the money after selling one of the most expensive assets in the universe to Pops, but he had a sentimentality for the ship and just could not find it in himself to retire. 

“Here you go,” I said, bringing back my smile as I handed two intake com-tabs to him. “Send the staff Feliste wishes to help at the other doors over to me. No one else has come to pick there’s up, yet.”

“I shall not fail you!” my father smiled. I rolled my eyes at him. After thinking on it a bit, I decided it was probably best that I stayed in the reception area, anyways. I had no idea what strange problems might arise, but I was certain I would be called away from the intake to deal with them. That could quickly become annoying.

Speaking of problems, I could tell one was already walking up to my service window. 

“Excuse me, ma’am, but there’s a dead body in my bathtub! I would like a different room, please!” she said in the exasperated way one might complain about a spot on the spoon a waiter just brought to replace a spoon with a spot on it.